Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my.
Speaker 4: Ball in a brid egg Friday Egg, the gread, Frida Egg,
Speaker 4: Frida Egg, fridagg Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 4: run off the the.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg podcast
Speaker 5: and another edition of The Yoke with Doak. Tom Doak
Speaker 5: is back today, so it's uh, it's great to talk
Speaker 5: with Tom again. I think we both have had very
Speaker 5: busy travel schedules this summer, which has limited our ability
Speaker 5: to get on UH on Zoom and in talk or
Speaker 5: be in person together to record some some podcasts, but
Speaker 5: thankfully travel slowing down.
Speaker 2: For both of us.
Speaker 5: We got some episodes here and I think we'll get
Speaker 5: some more around the holidays.
Speaker 2: And there's lots to talk about.
Speaker 5: Tons of stuff going on with golf design, and it
Speaker 5: was excited to catch up with Tom about some of
Speaker 5: his current projects that he's been working on as well
Speaker 5: as some projects that are coming up. And then we
Speaker 5: did another part on a lot of listener Q and
Speaker 5: a a lot of ranging topics, lots of interesting conversation
Speaker 5: golf design so a quick revider.
Speaker 2: We are barreling.
Speaker 5: Down on the holiday season. We have the Friday pro
Speaker 5: Shop stocked up ready to go. We have a ton
Speaker 5: of print photography in there that you don't really have
Speaker 5: to worry about with running out, but you know other
Speaker 5: items we have. You know, I think we've got pretty
Speaker 5: much all of our holiday stuff up now if you
Speaker 5: really love something and want a specific piece, just to
Speaker 5: avoid not having a run out. We obviously have limited quantities.
Speaker 5: We can't you know, stock crazy amounts. We're still a
Speaker 5: small shop, but if you want something, you should go
Speaker 5: get it now before it potentially could be sold out quickly.
Speaker 2: So that's pro Shop dot the fridagg dot com.
Speaker 5: We will have a big sale this this coming Black Friday,
Speaker 5: Cyber Monday, whatever it is. Now, I feel like people
Speaker 5: are doing entire month sales. It's it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 5: So uh, Meg and Will from our team have worked
Speaker 5: really hard to get a large variety in there and
Speaker 5: some fun new items. So check it out pro Shop
Speaker 5: dot Thefrida Egg dot com. And now here is Tom
Speaker 5: do Tom welcome back. It's been a little while. What's
Speaker 5: uh you've been You've been all over the place, huh.
Speaker 3: I've traveled a lot this fall. Yeah, really the last year.
Speaker 1: You know, it was about Somber October last year that
Speaker 1: we that I started committing to new projects. And I
Speaker 1: didn't you know, I didn't anticipate that there was going
Speaker 1: to be a boom like there has been, or that
Speaker 1: some or that so much of it would would involve
Speaker 1: me in any way.
Speaker 3: That they call it.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm starting to get calls about the kind
Speaker 1: of projects that I didn't used to and that's partly
Speaker 1: that there's you know, there's a big void now in
Speaker 1: the business that you know, Pete Die and Jack Nicholas
Speaker 1: and Tom Fazio aren't really designing golf courses anymore, and
Speaker 1: so so all of the all of the kinds of
Speaker 1: projects that used to go to them, they're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out who to go to. And and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the people that's getting calls about you know,
Speaker 1: bigger projects, more corporate projects, just you know, in addition
Speaker 1: to my little niche that I've always had. And so
Speaker 1: I've wound up, you know, since since a year ago,
Speaker 1: I signed up.
Speaker 3: Seven or eight new jobs, which.
Speaker 1: I you know, I've never I've never been that busy before,
Speaker 1: and and you know, at the time, you know, once
Speaker 1: it started looking like, okay, there's a boom, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, people were also talking about, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a recession coming. So I'm like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: probably not all of these are going to happen, or
Speaker 1: at least not happen as fast as they say. But
Speaker 1: in fact, most of these clients, they have the money
Speaker 1: in the bank, they're not borrowing it from a bank.
Speaker 1: So it's not like two thousand and eight. These projects
Speaker 1: aren't just gonna all go away now. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: some of them got a little more complicated with permits,
Speaker 1: so they're taking a year long. You know, like the
Speaker 1: first two I signed up, I thought we would be
Speaker 1: starting them right now, and they're still knee deep in
Speaker 1: the permit battle and it'll be six months or a
Speaker 1: year before they can get going. So so then when
Speaker 1: somebody else called, I said, well, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: do it next next winter. That's I have all these
Speaker 1: things pushed back in the next winter. If you could
Speaker 1: actually do it this winter, we could do it. So
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of things like that that that
Speaker 1: you know, we kind of rushed through the permits, so
Speaker 1: we can get started on them. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I'm juggling a lot of balls right now, doing drawing
Speaker 1: plans for like four or five different places at the
Speaker 1: same time. You know, the the routings are all done,
Speaker 1: they have been for a while, but you know, all
Speaker 1: the documents that they need for the planning permission is
Speaker 1: what's eating me up right now.
Speaker 2: As you said, you're busier than ever.
Speaker 5: What what do you think your like capacity is on
Speaker 5: a on a like what's the ideal capacity and what's
Speaker 5: what's the maximum amount of work that you could do
Speaker 5: at once?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, back in the day, we never had
Speaker 1: more than three new projects going at the same time.
Speaker 1: That was sort of my comfort level based on the
Speaker 1: staff that you know, I have three main associates. It's
Speaker 1: like they could each be running one It's better if
Speaker 1: they're not all at running exactly the same time, so
Speaker 1: that you know, one of the you know, Eric can
Speaker 1: get away and come when I'm on Brian's project to
Speaker 1: help out a little bit, and then they'll do the
Speaker 1: same for each other.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Now it sounds like I'm gonna have five golf courses
Speaker 1: in some stage of construction in May, and of course
Speaker 1: I have, you know, Angela Moser and Clyde Johnson and
Speaker 1: Blake Kona, who have worked with us for years. You know,
Speaker 1: they're definitely to the point in their careers where they
Speaker 1: can run a job, and they've been they've been excited
Speaker 1: to have that chance. And one of the reasons I've
Speaker 1: committed to more things is because it's like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is their turn to run a job, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be pulled more ways than I've ever
Speaker 1: been pulled before, and that's going to be tricky. And
Speaker 1: then you know, you know, one of the reasons these
Speaker 1: last few courses have turned out so good is because
Speaker 1: one of those people were you know, they were number two.
Speaker 1: You know, like in New Zealand last winter, Brian Slnik
Speaker 1: was running the job and he had Clyde and the
Speaker 1: Angela there the pretty much the whole time shape and
Speaker 1: with him now they're all going to be on their
Speaker 1: own things and can't rely on each other so much.
Speaker 1: So in Wisconsin the last two years we've been like
Speaker 1: bringing some new interns through and seeing if we can
Speaker 1: train a couple of them up to be a real
Speaker 1: help shaping for the next year or two, because we're
Speaker 1: going to need the.
Speaker 5: Help with having you know, three very talented people like Clyde,
Speaker 5: Angela and Brian on a project. Is is there actually also,
Speaker 5: you know, advantage to only having one that's doing primarily
Speaker 5: all the shaping, because as opposed to three being spread out,
Speaker 5: if one, say, one person shapes all all eighteen greens,
Speaker 5: could it actually be a benefit to having a rhythm
Speaker 5: I you know, obviously I think it could. You could
Speaker 5: make cases either way, but there might be an advantage
Speaker 5: also to having one person and having a cognitive like
Speaker 5: a very singular focus, you know, focus on every single green.
Speaker 3: Sure we'll find out.
Speaker 1: You know, our answer to that up to now has
Speaker 1: always been no, we'd rather have some outside input. And
Speaker 1: you know, whoever is running the job, it's their call.
Speaker 1: You know, it's their call and my call at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. How much of that input from
Speaker 1: the others to take in? But you know, having three
Speaker 1: or four pairs of seasoned eyes on every feature is
Speaker 1: a great thing. And you know it's gonna be hard
Speaker 1: to give that up where we have to give it up.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe we're not giving it up totally. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like there aren't other talented people around,
Speaker 1: and good superintendents involved and all the rest. It's just,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't we don't have all the same
Speaker 1: people that we've been relying on for the feedback.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about one of the new projects.
Speaker 5: It's it's one that we've talked about probably almost more
Speaker 5: than any other project of yours on this podcast. It's
Speaker 5: your first project and it's coming back High Point. So
Speaker 5: I think you know this has been reported in the
Speaker 5: I think the Traverse City newspaper was the first one
Speaker 5: to report it. You've been on Golf Channel talking about it.
Speaker 5: High Point in Traverse City is making a comeback like
Speaker 5: something of my had.
Speaker 2: You know, all the years that we've done.
Speaker 5: This podcast, was always like I just don't know why
Speaker 5: Tom just doesn't buy it and rebuild it, because it
Speaker 5: seems like he wishes it was back. So Rod Trump,
Speaker 5: who who I have gotten to know over the years,
Speaker 5: is behind it. Tell us that process of getting this
Speaker 5: in when you actually truly believed that it was coming back.
Speaker 1: Well, Rod Trump, who's president of Pine Tree Golf Club
Speaker 1: right now and no relation to our ex president, called
Speaker 1: me about a year ago right now to ask me
Speaker 1: if I was interested in reviving High Point just completely
Speaker 1: out of blue. And you know, we've talked about it
Speaker 1: a lot. You and I have talked about it a
Speaker 1: lot over the years. You're not the only one I've
Speaker 1: talked to about it. So it was a shock to
Speaker 1: have somebody call and be discussing it seriously. He'd been
Speaker 1: trying to buy the Kingsley Club when it was up
Speaker 1: for sale. He didn't realize that he was bidden against
Speaker 1: four or five other groups, you know, and he thought
Speaker 1: he was going to get that job. He thought he
Speaker 1: was going to get that course, and then it sold
Speaker 1: to somebody else, and he was like, God, I really
Speaker 1: love Traverse City, and I thought I thought it was
Speaker 1: going to happen for me there. And a couple of
Speaker 1: local people that he knows pretty well, including Adam Schreiber,
Speaker 1: who was golf pro at high Point, at what point
Speaker 1: said you know, if you want to do a golf
Speaker 1: course in Traverse City, you should talk to Tom about
Speaker 1: High Point. You know everybody here knows he'd love to
Speaker 1: redo that if he could. So that's what prompted the
Speaker 1: call from Rot. And I was like, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if that land is for sale and it sounds like
Speaker 1: the Hops Farm isn't really you know, making tons of money,
Speaker 1: and they're not going to expand it. They might be
Speaker 1: interested in selling some of their ground and having a
Speaker 1: crack at it. So let's try to put this together.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, I've believed it's a serious
Speaker 1: thing now for almost a year, but I've been trying
Speaker 1: not to get my hopes up because I know the
Speaker 1: you know, the development process is complicated and it's going
Speaker 1: to cost a lot more than one point three million
Speaker 1: dollars to build a golf course there again, even though
Speaker 1: there was half a one still laying there. It's a
Speaker 1: little different project than the first time, you know, when
Speaker 1: I when I did High Point. The first time, the
Speaker 1: Hayden Z owned three hundred and twenty acres, and everybody
Speaker 1: used to comment on how different the two nines, where
Speaker 1: one nine was in like old orchard ground that mostly
Speaker 1: just kind of tilted to the north toward the road
Speaker 1: where you came in, and then the other nine was
Speaker 1: back in woodsier stuff with more dramatic elevation changes to it,
Speaker 1: and the Hops Farm covers most of the front nine
Speaker 1: and a little bit of the old sixteenth and seventeenth
Speaker 1: holds where they came out of the trees and for
Speaker 1: the Hops farm to sell us the ground that they
Speaker 1: weren't using for the farm. That's one thing. They're not
Speaker 1: really using it. So the land caught. You know, the
Speaker 1: land costs whatever the land value.
Speaker 3: Is up here now.
Speaker 1: But to actually restore the Front nine would have cost
Speaker 1: a lot more because you'd be paying not only for
Speaker 1: the land but for the crop that they have on it.
Speaker 1: They tore up that part of the golf course and
Speaker 1: kind of leveled everything out more in order to put
Speaker 1: up all the poles and have the hot FM, So
Speaker 1: you know, it would it would have been hard to
Speaker 1: reproduce all the greens complex if we built the first time.
Speaker 1: Even some of the topography has gone away. I've never
Speaker 1: really walked through there to see if I can't even
Speaker 1: recognize exactly what it was like anymore. And we do
Speaker 1: have interestingly enough, if we do have the lie doar
Speaker 1: stuff on that they shot it. The oldest lie doar
Speaker 1: stuff they shot in Traverse City was just before they
Speaker 1: tore up Highpoint. So Brian Zaeger assures me that someday
Speaker 1: the Pots farm goes away and we want to rebuild
Speaker 1: the Front nine, we can, but right now that doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense for Rod. He was just going to
Speaker 1: have to pay more for that land to do it.
Speaker 1: And the wild card that he didn't really know about
Speaker 1: but I did, was that right when we were building
Speaker 1: high Point, the Haydens bought another one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: acres to the east of the golf course and they,
Speaker 1: you know, in like nineteen eighty eight, they asked me
Speaker 1: to what if we did a third nine, that's what
Speaker 1: before the golf before the first eighteen holes even opened,
Speaker 1: And I did a layout for that and they never
Speaker 1: pursued it at all. But I knew that between that
Speaker 1: land and the back nine that there was, you know,
Speaker 1: there was the potential for an eighteen hole golf course
Speaker 1: that didn't get into the hops farm, and that would
Speaker 1: be a doable land deal, and low and behold, that's
Speaker 1: what we're going to build. So it's a new version
Speaker 1: of high Point and only like six or seven of
Speaker 1: the old holes will still be on the golf course,
Speaker 1: but they're that old stretch at the start of the
Speaker 1: back nine that's in my book is a sample of
Speaker 1: how to route golf courses. It was my favorite stretch
Speaker 1: of the golf course. It was everybody's favorite stretch of
Speaker 1: the golf course. You know, yes, there were some holes
Speaker 1: in the front nine that were really cool too, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's like we've got to crack it building
Speaker 1: a new golf course with some dramatic new land and
Speaker 1: kind of the best at the old hype, which I
Speaker 1: think is going to be a really fun thing to do.
Speaker 2: I probably should have prepared here.
Speaker 5: But is that video there's that great old video of
Speaker 5: you putting balls on a green? Is that one of
Speaker 5: the holes that will be back?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was the thirteenth I thought that was. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is That's definitely one of the holes that we're saving.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't go so far as to say I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done the project if that hole wasn't part of it,
Speaker 1: but that was always a favorite. That thing is it's
Speaker 1: just a wild green. And you know Ron Whitten from
Speaker 1: Golf Diye just to you know, he can't I'd met
Speaker 1: Ron before when I worked for the Dies, but he
Speaker 1: came up to visit, like when we were in the
Speaker 1: middle of construction at high Point in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: and he said to me, like several years after that,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, as soon as I saw the thirteenth green,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, he's doing different stuff than.
Speaker 3: Eight and they else I've seen.
Speaker 1: You know, that was the one thing that interested him
Speaker 1: the most, like, Okay, this is not what what most
Speaker 1: people are doing. This is going to be interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: High Point was fairly well ignored when it opened. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like a best new course or anything, because nobody
Speaker 1: knew who I was. You know, That's that's just the
Speaker 1: way those things are for a while. It's hard to
Speaker 1: get recognition, especially when you're you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: easier now because there's not much new stuff going on.
Speaker 1: But you know, back when Tom Fazio and Jack Nicholas
Speaker 1: are turning out ten new golf courses a year, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, what are the odds that you're going to
Speaker 1: be doing something that's as exciting as the best of
Speaker 1: their ten projects. It just wasn't happening. So you know,
Speaker 1: this time, this time, we're starting from a different place there.
Speaker 5: So there'll be six existing holes, twelve new holes, and
Speaker 5: so the majority of which will come from the the
Speaker 5: nine the nine additional nine holes that you routed and
Speaker 5: roughly like the nineteen eighty eight Okay, so have you
Speaker 5: gone back, like, you know, is it you're going back?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 5: I think about it as like when I reread an
Speaker 5: article I wrote sixty years yars ago, I just I'm like,
Speaker 5: I might need to start over.
Speaker 2: I might need to rewrite this.
Speaker 5: When he looked at the routing, I assume it was
Speaker 5: just filed away somewhere when he looked at the routing.
Speaker 5: You know what stood out to you about the routing
Speaker 5: and were there anythings that you tweaked?
Speaker 1: Well, luckily I did have a copy of the routing.
Speaker 1: You know some I mean for a while there. That
Speaker 1: was very early in my career. I still didn't I
Speaker 1: wasn't married, I didn't have a I didn't have a home,
Speaker 1: I didn't have an office. So like like, I had
Speaker 1: no plans for the Legends in Myrtle Beach. The superintendent
Speaker 1: there just just emailed me a picture of my grading
Speaker 1: plan for the Legends. They still had it in their files,
Speaker 1: so he's going to get a copy of it.
Speaker 3: But I didn't have that.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, the match for high Point I still hung onto,
Speaker 1: and somehow it included that third nine that I laid
Speaker 1: out well, you know which I remember I remembered pretty
Speaker 1: well how it fits. It's a hilly piece of ground
Speaker 1: like the back ninties, And I thought to myself, I
Speaker 1: could probably do a better version of that now that
Speaker 1: isn't quite as up and down, because you know, the
Speaker 1: first time I was twenty seven years old building high Point.
Speaker 1: Now I'm sixty two, sixty one. It's like, I still
Speaker 1: walk when I play golf, but I appreciate more that
Speaker 1: going up a forty foot hill to the tee is
Speaker 1: not so easy as it once was for me. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, you know, a couple of these elevated teas.
Speaker 1: I need to figure out if I can do something
Speaker 1: jetler than that. And I did another version of the routing,
Speaker 1: and then, let you know this, this spring, I went
Speaker 1: out and tried to walk my new version versus the
Speaker 1: old and it's like, nope, the.
Speaker 3: Old one's better. Really, yeah, the old one is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little more tough to walk, but but
Speaker 1: there's a couple of holes on it. They're just like,
Speaker 1: you still want to do that hole that way?
Speaker 3: So it is.
Speaker 1: So the only real new holes in the routing are
Speaker 1: there's a couple further south than the back nine. They
Speaker 1: they somehow acquired the forty acres there that that wasn't
Speaker 1: available to us originally, and some of it's a wetland,
Speaker 1: so there's only room for two holes there, but those
Speaker 1: will go out and back off the back nine. So
Speaker 1: so you know, the numbering's not all quite the same
Speaker 1: as before when you add in those two holes, and
Speaker 1: then the other change. You know, sixteen and seventeen go
Speaker 1: away because part of those holes are in the hoots,
Speaker 1: and then the eighteenth hole was everybody's least favorite hole.
Speaker 1: But I still got to use that land, and I
Speaker 1: still got to get back toward the clubhouse where the
Speaker 1: clubhouse won't be in the same place anymore, but you
Speaker 1: still got to get through that space to connect the route.
Speaker 1: So but now instead of starting the hole all the
Speaker 1: way back where it did, you're going to be coming
Speaker 1: off the fifteenth green, which was a part of three
Speaker 1: that came down to a bench. So we'll go down
Speaker 1: the hill from there and basically tee off from just
Speaker 1: above the landing area of the old eighteenth hole and
Speaker 1: drive it across the big pond and then go up
Speaker 1: the hill from there, and that you know, that'll that'll
Speaker 1: take out You know, you used to have a forced
Speaker 1: carry on the second shot, and the wetlands and stuff
Speaker 1: on the T shot made you kind of hedge away
Speaker 1: from the carry, and then it was a really difficult
Speaker 1: carry for people, you know, being able to navigate all
Speaker 1: that on the T shot. You know, it'll still be
Speaker 1: the only hole with water in play, but it won't
Speaker 1: be as frustrating as the original hole was.
Speaker 5: I think, if I remember correctly one time on this podcast,
Speaker 5: I we there's a question about what hole would you
Speaker 5: redesign or rework?
Speaker 2: And that was your answer? Is that the eighteenth at
Speaker 2: high Point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we wouldn't have kept that hole the way it was,
Speaker 1: and you know, I couldn't have looked Rod in the
Speaker 1: face and told him straight that, yeah, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a great golf course where with this hole A
Speaker 1: is the finish.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So when you were like when you sat down, how
Speaker 5: did you start the process of trying a new routing.
Speaker 5: Did you start with like a blank topo map?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still had I still had the original topo
Speaker 1: without a golf course on it. Of course, it's hard
Speaker 1: because you remember, you know, once you remember the old plan,
Speaker 1: and you know, I still remembered basically how it worked.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to make yourself go in different directions.
Speaker 1: There's just certain things about it, so that that piece
Speaker 1: of land runs more east and west from the old clubhouse,
Speaker 1: and it's only land up here is like forty acre.
Speaker 3: Blocks that you buy it in generally.
Speaker 1: And so the forty acres is like a quarter mile
Speaker 1: on each side, four hundred and forty yards. So so
Speaker 1: these blocks are all end to end, so it's four
Speaker 1: nuner and forty yards wide and it's a mile long.
Speaker 1: But the far end of it is too steep for golf.
Speaker 1: So we're coming in there and the clubhouse will be
Speaker 1: at the east end of what's usable, which is better
Speaker 1: because if we'd use the old clubhouse location, you would
Speaker 1: have played the first two holes straight east into the
Speaker 1: new ground. That wouldn't have been so great. Now the
Speaker 1: clubhouse is on the east end of everything and you're
Speaker 1: not playing into the sun. But we still had to
Speaker 1: sort out. You know, it's it's only four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty yards wide. We need four holes of width through that.
Speaker 1: There's some serious ups and downs, so you know it's
Speaker 1: hard to space out the holes exactly the way you want,
Speaker 1: and you know there's just not if you're going to
Speaker 1: put four holes back and forth in that space. There's
Speaker 1: not a lot of different solutions for how to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't really if you put a hole
Speaker 1: going north and south across it at any point you
Speaker 1: block everything off. You can't really afford to do that
Speaker 1: in the routing. So so there weren't like a million
Speaker 1: different solutions, but there was. There was a steep, narrow
Speaker 1: valley that you're just kind of hitting across on the
Speaker 1: old plan, and I tried to figure out playing a
Speaker 1: little short part four up into that valley, and it just,
Speaker 1: you know, I never got anything that I thought worked
Speaker 1: very well compared to the original hole on a high tee.
Speaker 1: Playing across that valley and down to the west that
Speaker 1: that that hole that I was trying to not build
Speaker 1: actually reminds me a little bit of the seventeenth Old
Speaker 1: Crystal Downs. It's severe, you know, it's a severe but
Speaker 1: very short Part four. That's like so you know, we
Speaker 1: can manipulate the landing area so it won't be like
Speaker 1: death to both sides. In fact, the problem with it,
Speaker 1: the other problem with it is if you fan a drive,
Speaker 1: you're going to be in the hole coming back.
Speaker 3: The other way. You know, it's not like the Downs
Speaker 3: where it's just in the woods to both sides and
Speaker 3: you lose the ball if you hit it either way.
Speaker 5: Is the land how would you compare it to you know,
Speaker 5: course of the Kingsley and Crystal Downs is probably two
Speaker 5: courses people have been to Belvidere's and other is it
Speaker 5: somewhere you know, how would you compare the topography in
Speaker 5: the in the natural you know features out there?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you know, anybody that ever saw high Point,
Speaker 1: the land is a lot like the back nine a
Speaker 1: high point was. You know, it's the same, the highs
Speaker 1: are the same elevation, and you've got you know, the
Speaker 1: difference between the highest point on the new Land and the.
Speaker 3: Lowest is probably eighty feet.
Speaker 1: So so you've got some serious you know, and you're
Speaker 1: going to cover that in a couple of holes. So
Speaker 1: there's there's some pretty big undulations in there and probably
Speaker 1: a couple of places where we're gonna you know, we'll
Speaker 1: move more dirt on that nine than we did when
Speaker 1: we built the original golf course. Not a ton, you know,
Speaker 1: not every hole or anything like that, but there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that because of where the tea is
Speaker 1: you know, to to to extend the first hole into
Speaker 1: a par five, you're going to drive it where you
Speaker 1: can't see the green on that hole. So we'll probably
Speaker 1: do some with work on that whole to.
Speaker 3: Make that work.
Speaker 5: One last question. You built all eighteen greens at the
Speaker 5: original high Point. Will you be building all the greens?
Speaker 3: No, I mean.
Speaker 1: I might do the I might do the first version
Speaker 1: of it, you know. I mean, I'm not the only
Speaker 1: one who lives in Traverse City. Brian Slanik lives in
Speaker 1: Traverse City. His wife is the most excited person about
Speaker 1: us doing this job. He'll be home for dinner.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: Don Placik lives in Travers City. Bruce Heppner, who lived
Speaker 1: here for you know, who worked for me for years,
Speaker 1: said yeah, he'd come build some buckers at high Point.
Speaker 3: That would be cool. So we you know, we we have.
Speaker 1: A largely local crew to build this thing, you know,
Speaker 1: and all of those guys have more time on a
Speaker 1: dozer lately than knee. So I'm probably not gonna shape
Speaker 1: all the greens myself. But you know, like we talked
Speaker 1: about a few months ago, one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: got back on a dozer in New Zealand was you know,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons was just to you know, get
Speaker 1: a little head start to make sure we finished on time.
Speaker 1: But the other was to see if I could do it,
Speaker 1: knowing that high point was a possibility. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I built, I shaped a couple of.
Speaker 3: Greens in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: So I'm probably gonna do some of the other ones,
Speaker 1: but I'm not putting the pressure on myself to do
Speaker 1: them all.
Speaker 5: Oh you got, I think you gotta do a couple
Speaker 5: just you know, to make sure that everything connects back,
Speaker 5: you know, as much as so.
Speaker 1: So you know, what we've got. What we've got is
Speaker 1: there's six holes that are pretty much done. You know,
Speaker 1: as soon as we start next spring, we can start
Speaker 1: putting irrigation in on those holes because there's nothing to
Speaker 1: shape or very you know, Well, we gotta we gotta
Speaker 1: dig trees out of the bunkers. Well, and we'll probably
Speaker 1: make the bunkers a little prettier, but that's not going
Speaker 1: to take very long. So the irrigation could get going
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. And while they're while they're doing that, I'll
Speaker 1: be over on some of the other stuff starting to
Speaker 1: play ound. And as long as I can stay ahead
Speaker 1: of them, maybe I'll get to shape more greens. But
Speaker 1: once the construction catches up to me, then you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to bring in the A.
Speaker 3: Team to get it finished on.
Speaker 1: Time, because we're trying to build the whole thing this summer,
Speaker 1: you know, And the only reason we can do that
Speaker 1: is because we have six souls of the head start.
Speaker 1: It's like they're you know, it's like we shape them
Speaker 1: this fall. It's if they shape them thirty five years ago.
Speaker 5: So so the plan would be for it to open
Speaker 5: in twenty four.
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I don't know what Rod is telling is respective members.
Speaker 1: You know, we just seated at green And in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: the first of September, and by the fourth of July
Speaker 1: next year, they'll be talking about preview play on that
Speaker 1: whole you know, is that really ready to open now?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: And plus so it'll be playable in the fall of
Speaker 1: twenty four, but I don't know if it'll be open.
Speaker 2: Now.
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Speaker 5: Now back to Tom dok, let's talk about Wisconsin Sedge Valley.
Speaker 5: I personally am kind of excited about this because it's
Speaker 5: a kind of a different type of new golf course
Speaker 5: that we've seen at resorts. Where are you guys at
Speaker 5: in the process there and would have been kind of
Speaker 5: the biggest takeaways from the summer.
Speaker 1: Well Sedge Valley is this fall exactly where Ledo was
Speaker 1: last fall.
Speaker 3: We got thirteen holes at Leedo built in twenty one.
Speaker 3: We only got twelve holes at Sedge Valley built in
Speaker 3: twenty two. But it's kind of the same. You know,
Speaker 3: next summer fall they'll be doing some preview play on
Speaker 3: ten or twelve holes of Sedge Valley, you know, and
Speaker 3: we'll have just finished the last six holes, will build
Speaker 3: in April, May, June, and by the you know, like
Speaker 3: this time next year, those will be pretty much grown in,
Speaker 3: but the greens on the newest holes won't be the
Speaker 3: same up to the standard of the greens we planted
Speaker 3: this year. I've been really you know, that's the concept
Speaker 3: of building a sixty two hundred yard golf course that
Speaker 3: I've wanted to do for a long time, and I'm
Speaker 3: thrilled that I got to do it for Michael. And
Speaker 3: I mean, the Leado has been a great thing, but
Speaker 3: a strange experience because it's not really my design. And
Speaker 3: you know, the one thing I said to Michael at
Speaker 3: the when he asked me about doing the Lido was well,
Speaker 3: I'll do it, but I don't want that to mean
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna wind up doing another golf course. So
Speaker 3: if that's actually my design, later on and he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: that's still you know we at the time we didn't
Speaker 3: think we would get to it this fast, but I'm
Speaker 3: thrilled that we did, and that I've got a new
Speaker 3: design of my own to compare the Liedo. In addition
Speaker 3: to the other golf courses there Sedge Valley.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about it, it's still a big piece
Speaker 1: of land, like maybe even more than the other golf
Speaker 1: courses there to some degree, it's it's really dramatic, but
Speaker 1: but it's a little like I don't want to I
Speaker 1: don't want to make that comparison, but generally you only
Speaker 1: see like a couple holes at a time. You're not
Speaker 1: like you're not looking at the whole thing at once.
Speaker 2: Just leaving us hanging with that.
Speaker 5: Uh, with that comparison, you know, we're gonna have to
Speaker 5: in our minds imagine that. I think a lot of
Speaker 5: people just you know, say, oh, sand Valley is a
Speaker 5: Mike Kaiser property, but you know, for the most part
Speaker 5: it's run by Michael and Chris. I'm curious, how is
Speaker 5: working with Michael different than working with his father Mike,
Speaker 5: And how is it similar?
Speaker 3: Uh? Well, first of all, it's not just run by
Speaker 3: Michael and his brother Chris. They own it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's you know, Mike. Mike was more involved
Speaker 1: in helping get it set up in the beginning and
Speaker 1: when the first golf when the first and second golf
Speaker 1: courses were happening, But it is his son's project, and
Speaker 1: they take that pretty seriously, and yeah, they want you know,
Speaker 1: Michael is he's different than his dad, and he you know,
Speaker 1: he wants to do great things of his own and
Speaker 1: you know, he's talking to a lot of people about
Speaker 1: a lot of different potential projects, and you know, he's
Speaker 1: got tremendous energy for it. He's only you know, he's
Speaker 1: he's barely forty years old, so he's you know, he's
Speaker 1: much more engaged than his dad is at this point generally.
Speaker 1: And then you know, he's just brimming with ideas. I mean,
Speaker 1: just like an unbelievable amount of ideas.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's it's been a really I've had a really fun
Speaker 1: time working for him, and so Eric and Brian Schneider
Speaker 1: who are running the two jobs for me, and I
Speaker 1: think we'll wind up doing a bunch more golf courses
Speaker 1: for Michael in the future, and some of those, you know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm already talking to Michael. At some point he's
Speaker 1: gonna boot me out because I'm you know, because because
Speaker 1: my name is too much out there.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: He wants to hire the Brian Schneiders and Eric's of
Speaker 1: the world to be the main person on his golf
Speaker 1: courses someday in the future like his dad did, instead
Speaker 1: of just going back to me and Bill and David,
Speaker 1: because we're the same choices his dad made, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's you know, at the same time, he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's going to be a hard call because you guys
Speaker 1: still do great work, you know, and that's what at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that's what it's about.
Speaker 3: We want that, but we want.
Speaker 1: To get new blood involved too and make some you know,
Speaker 1: and make somebody else's knee. So you know, that would
Speaker 1: be an interesting transition when it happens, and it may
Speaker 1: happens pretty.
Speaker 3: Soon, or it may not happen for a while. I
Speaker 3: don't know. What I do know is we've had fun
Speaker 3: doing that project. You know.
Speaker 1: Michael, he's very involved. He's he's out there with me
Speaker 1: a lot when I'm there. He's out there with Brian
Speaker 1: and Eric a fair amount, even when I'm not there.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're very customer conscious. They don't want it
Speaker 1: to be too severe, you know, they don't want the
Speaker 1: greens to be too severe.
Speaker 3: We've talked about that.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, and you know I always say
Speaker 1: to him, well, you know, I don't think the greens
Speaker 1: of Pacific Dunes are that severe, you know, but they've
Speaker 1: got character to him, They're not just flat, like you know.
Speaker 1: My only problem with him is he keeps saying the
Speaker 1: word flat, and it's like, no, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do flat. You know, there's a difference. There's a wide
Speaker 1: range between flat and too severe for anybody to have fun.
Speaker 1: And we've just got to find what edge he's comfortable
Speaker 1: with on that. But you know, the thing about said
Speaker 1: valley is partly because it's short. You know, there's five
Speaker 1: part three holes. There's a bunch of short part fours.
Speaker 1: I don't even I haven't tried to count how many
Speaker 1: par fours there are under four hundred yards, but it
Speaker 1: must be like half a dozen. And and so you know,
Speaker 1: with those holes that are like driver wedge for a
Speaker 1: good player. It's like we can make those green sites tough,
Speaker 1: not necessarily like wild, but narrow targets and you know,
Speaker 1: like you're you know, if you're going for a pin
Speaker 1: in the back of number six green, you're going to
Speaker 1: be squeezing it into a really tight area that if
Speaker 1: you miss, you could make double. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that they've been a little afraid
Speaker 1: to do on their other golf courses. But they're a
Speaker 1: little more open to because you know, in theory, you've
Speaker 1: got a wedge in your hands, and it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: you know, you should be able to get away with
Speaker 1: that more when people have a wedge in their hands.
Speaker 5: How has it been creating a variety when you have
Speaker 5: so many shorter holes? Is that has that been a
Speaker 5: challenge in If so, how have you gone about having
Speaker 5: variety with a lot of holes at a similar length?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm never too worried about variety in terms
Speaker 1: of like the scorecard and the idea that you're going
Speaker 1: to hit different clubs and for all the approaches. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like I want a variety of you know,
Speaker 1: skinny target, shallow target, open front where you actually might
Speaker 1: run it up, cross bunker where.
Speaker 3: You can't run it up.
Speaker 1: And yeah, again, when you build when you're building short holes,
Speaker 1: there's more leeway for that kind of different stuff. I've
Speaker 1: always felt like the short part fours are the coolest
Speaker 1: holes I design. It's like you can get away with
Speaker 1: more because they're short. So you know, having five or
Speaker 1: six short par fours on a golf course is not
Speaker 1: a bad thing at all.
Speaker 3: And you know, the old.
Speaker 1: Course has a bunch of short part fours and they're
Speaker 1: all really different, and I think the ones in Sam
Speaker 1: Valley are going to be all really different.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about a project that we haven't talked about
Speaker 5: on the podcast, Punta Brava. It will be a golf
Speaker 5: course in Mexico. Tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 5: site and what is what's going on there.
Speaker 1: The site's just south of Ensinnada, Mexico, which is only
Speaker 1: like an hour and a half drive south of Tijuana,
Speaker 1: where the border crossing is. And it's you know the
Speaker 1: first part of the name if you speak Spanish, Punta.
Speaker 1: It's on a point sitting out into the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: It's surrounded by water. I almost want to say on
Speaker 1: three sides. That's not quite right, but there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ocean frontage and then there's kind of a
Speaker 1: mountain on the inside of it that goes up like
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred feet and blocks it off from the rest
Speaker 1: of the mainland. So it's just really this this isolated
Speaker 1: property that you know, if you were hiking or trying
Speaker 1: to drive, you would never see.
Speaker 3: But it is.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't like doing the hyperbole thing. It's
Speaker 1: the most dramatic piece of land for a golf course
Speaker 1: that anybody's ever showed me. And I some great pieces
Speaker 1: of land for a golf course, you know, it's certainly
Speaker 1: not the easiest place to build a golf course. The
Speaker 1: closest analogy I could have for it, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you took Stone Eagle with the rock formations and
Speaker 1: all this stuff in the steep terrain that's there, and
Speaker 1: then you just put it right on the ocean on
Speaker 1: cliffs twenty to fifty feet above the ocean, like Cyprus Point.
Speaker 1: So it's a crazy dramatic piece of land just off
Speaker 1: the charts.
Speaker 3: It's all rock.
Speaker 1: It's going to be really hard to build a golf
Speaker 1: course there, but it has the potential to be something
Speaker 1: just really dramatic. And you know, I've worked on the
Speaker 1: ocean front a lot over the years, and yet even
Speaker 1: though everybody knows how much that adds to the golf.
Speaker 1: It's like I was trying to think the other day
Speaker 1: when I was down in Mexico, like, how many holes
Speaker 1: have I built where you would actually hit a ball
Speaker 1: into the Pacific Ocean? Even as steep down as that
Speaker 1: one hole is at Cape Kidnappers, it's probably not getting
Speaker 1: to the water because four hundred feet down, you know,
Speaker 1: even as steep as that is, goes out a ways
Speaker 1: and you know, bandon, you can hit it off the
Speaker 1: cliff onto the beach, be not really hitting it into
Speaker 1: the ocean.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Punta Brava has beat holes and like twelve shots thirteen
Speaker 1: shots that you could hit in the ocean.
Speaker 5: So it's more almost like a Caribbean course, like with
Speaker 5: the I don't know, I always think of those courses
Speaker 5: really a butt into the sea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean Kasey de Campo has a bunch
Speaker 1: of holes where you can hit it in the water. Yes,
Speaker 1: so yeah, similar to that in some ways, but you know,
Speaker 1: steeper and more dramatic on the inside.
Speaker 5: With it with it being rocky, rockier, you know, just
Speaker 5: in terms of your can instruction, what type of strain.
Speaker 5: Does that put on on the on your team's work there.
Speaker 5: You know, everybody always talks about how much harder it
Speaker 5: is to build there. What does that mean in terms of,
Speaker 5: you know, kind of time it takes to build holes,
Speaker 5: what goes into building a hole, and the you know,
Speaker 5: length of a project.
Speaker 1: It'll definitely go slower, you know, I mean you sort
Speaker 1: of assume in Mexico things are going to go a
Speaker 1: little slower anyway, just because you know, when the dozer,
Speaker 1: when the hydraulics blind busts in the dozer, or or
Speaker 1: some little thing that makes the blade move one direction
Speaker 1: gets bent by a rock or something, there's not a
Speaker 1: guy standing there with another part waiting for it.
Speaker 3: You've got to get it across the border. You know.
Speaker 1: Every time there's a slow down, the slowdown takes longer
Speaker 1: to fix. And then working in rock is just you know,
Speaker 1: it's just you grind and through it. And you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully with minimalism, we're not having to change, we're not
Speaker 1: having to reshape everything that much. But as steep as
Speaker 1: that site is, there's certainly going to be a bunch
Speaker 1: that we have to do something too. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not going to be a job that goes snap like
Speaker 1: that and happens really fast. You know, the best cases,
Speaker 1: it'll take us twelve months to build it. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if it takes longer than that. And as
Speaker 1: busy as we are right now, that's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't put Eric on that for twelve to eighteen
Speaker 1: months waiting for it to happen. So so we'll put
Speaker 1: somebody else on it who can be there that long,
Speaker 1: and then we'll come in and get three or four
Speaker 1: holes done in a stretch and then, you know, let
Speaker 1: the next part take a while before we get back
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 5: Probably you were in Scotland. You were in Ireland Scotland
Speaker 5: the summer. Obviously Saint Patrick's opening in Ireland, but then
Speaker 5: in Scotland you're you're working on the new courses Castle Stewart.
Speaker 5: What where are we at with that one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got to get used to the name of
Speaker 1: Cabot Highlands, which is what they've rebranded Castle Stewart, and
Speaker 1: I think they'll still call the Mike. I haven't asked
Speaker 1: Ben Kallander about it, but I'm assuming that the first
Speaker 1: golf course will stay Castle Stewart and the new course
Speaker 1: will be Cabot.
Speaker 2: Highlands, so Cabot Highlands Cabot Highlands.
Speaker 1: So you know Mark Parson and when he developed Castle
Speaker 1: Stewart originally always had a plan to do thirty six holes,
Speaker 1: you know, with the other course being to the I
Speaker 1: guess that's the west kind of the west, and a
Speaker 1: little to the north from the existing golf course. So
Speaker 1: when you when you play Castle Stewart, you play the
Speaker 1: first three holes on low ground, you get out to
Speaker 1: a little point low against the water, then you play
Speaker 1: the fourth hole back toward the castle, and then you
Speaker 1: work your way back in. So the new course will
Speaker 1: start up by the clubhouse where the range is now
Speaker 1: and play down through that space and play its right
Speaker 1: past the castle. We've got like a short part four
Speaker 1: like don't hook it into the castle please, and then
Speaker 1: you know, and then go out around that bay that
Speaker 1: the third hole sticks out and forms. So the land's
Speaker 1: got some drama to it, you know. The inland parts
Speaker 1: just like the original Castlestart course, they are more farm land
Speaker 1: and we're going to have to conjure those up and
Speaker 1: make them feel linksier than they do right now. But
Speaker 1: it's got a fair amount of water frontage to it.
Speaker 1: It's got you know, it's got the castle both as
Speaker 1: something that you play right by in this one hole,
Speaker 1: but is a focal point for two or three of
Speaker 1: the other holes on the golf course, and it's really
Speaker 1: an excellent piece of ground for golf. And then the
Speaker 1: thing about that one too. You know Clyde Johnson. You know,
Speaker 1: Clyde's worked for us for years and he started a
Speaker 1: Dismal River and he's worked on a ton of things
Speaker 1: include you know, he's British, so you know he's worked
Speaker 1: on all the things we've built outside the US. He
Speaker 1: worked on Tara Edie, he worked on the new course
Speaker 1: at taya I. You know, he worked on Saint Patrick's,
Speaker 1: and then he's helped out with a couple other projects
Speaker 1: in the States in between. But you know, he's been
Speaker 1: to the point in his career for a while that
Speaker 1: he's ready to run a job. And you know, he
Speaker 1: just he just got married a year and a half
Speaker 1: ago and they just had a baby, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, when Ben called me about the job for
Speaker 1: Cabot Highlands, it's like, yes, you know, because that's going
Speaker 1: to be a great job for Clyde to run. And
Speaker 1: really show what he can do. And you know, and
Speaker 1: I've said it to Ben, like, you know, I want
Speaker 1: Clyde to get credit for this. You know, I really
Speaker 1: want all of these associates to start getting more credit
Speaker 1: with me for what they're doing. But you know, this
Speaker 1: will be his chance to shine, and I'm excited to see.
Speaker 3: What he does.
Speaker 5: It's an interesting aspect of golf architecture because all the
Speaker 5: credit usually goes to the name brand designer, whether it's
Speaker 5: you or Bill Kore and Ben Crenshaw or Gil Hants
Speaker 5: or David Kidd. But in almost every situation, I think
Speaker 5: every situation, the people that are there day to day
Speaker 5: building most of the features are somebody else.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then you know the hard part about that is, you
Speaker 1: know it usually goes beyond that number two person too.
Speaker 1: You know, like sometimes the person that's doing the really
Speaker 1: cool creative stuff that you love at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, you know, they were the third or fourth
Speaker 1: person on the job. They're the one who had time
Speaker 1: to do all the cool stuff while the other guy
Speaker 1: is like trying to make sure the construction project keeps
Speaker 1: moving forward and halls are getting finished and grassed, and
Speaker 1: they don't, you know, sometimes the lead associate doesn't get
Speaker 1: as much creative time as they want. You know, that's
Speaker 1: really that's the hard thing when you are running a
Speaker 1: job is to manage your time well enough that you
Speaker 1: can be really involved in the creative part two. And
Speaker 1: obviously when you've got like you know, when you're not
Speaker 1: doing too many jobs and you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: other talented people around, you don't have to worry about.
Speaker 3: That quite so much.
Speaker 5: With your your staff, like you want them to flourish. Obviously,
Speaker 5: when they get more credit they obviously have, it makes
Speaker 5: you more difficult on you too, because then the more
Speaker 5: credit they get, they're probably gonna like Brian Schneider for example,
Speaker 5: obviously has been developing name, he's getting more and more
Speaker 5: consulting work, more and more new work, and he's less
Speaker 5: and less available.
Speaker 3: To you exactly.
Speaker 1: And you know, and certainly that was you know, ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen years ago, that would have been more of
Speaker 1: a problem.
Speaker 3: And you know, what what.
Speaker 1: Was happening to us even ten or fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: was that you know, certain associates like Jim Orbino when
Speaker 1: he worked for me, you know, people would know, you know,
Speaker 1: he ran Pacific Dune, so that's the guy we want.
Speaker 3: You know, No, we don't want Eric. You know, they
Speaker 3: didn't know who Eric was.
Speaker 1: They knew that Jim had run the job at Pacific Dune,
Speaker 1: so that's who they wanted. And it's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of talented people over here, and you've
Speaker 1: heard of one of them that it doesn't mean he's
Speaker 1: the best one or the only one, you know. So yes,
Speaker 1: it's a problem. It's and it's especially a problem when
Speaker 1: one or two people are getting the credit and the
Speaker 1: rest of the people aren't.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So I'm at you know, I'm sixty one now, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm doing this another ten years. Most of them will
Speaker 1: be doing it for longer than that, so they need
Speaker 1: to get more credit. And yeah, if Brian Schneider gets
Speaker 1: to the point where I can't put him on a
Speaker 1: new job because he's got all these things of his
Speaker 1: own going, you know, I'll really miss him, the same
Speaker 1: way I miss some of the people that used to
Speaker 1: work for me. But you know, we'll have to keep
Speaker 1: moving on. And you know, Brian's not you know, he
Speaker 1: still says he really wants to be involved. He's definitely
Speaker 1: gonna help, you know, he's gonna go help Shape on
Speaker 1: another project for part of the time while he's still
Speaker 1: working on Old Barnwell this year, which is great. He
Speaker 1: just said he just couldn't commit to actually running that
Speaker 1: job while he had one of his.
Speaker 5: Own with I guess you know that in mind, like, uh,
Speaker 5: do you go with with you know, with Brian, are
Speaker 5: you gonna go visit Old Barnwell and give him thoughts
Speaker 5: on that? I don't know if this would be common practice,
Speaker 5: but would be something and obviously he would have to
Speaker 5: ask you for your but but but is that something
Speaker 5: that you would you know, like, is that something you
Speaker 5: would like to establish with people that you know, move beyond.
Speaker 5: It's almost like you're creating like a coaching tree, like
Speaker 5: a like a college basketball coach you here with like
Speaker 5: coach K's coaching tree.
Speaker 1: Uh, well, you know, the politics of that are really
Speaker 1: tricky and I've been dealing that with that for years.
Speaker 1: You know, all Handsome Mike Debrives both worked for me
Speaker 1: back in the day. And it's like, do I go
Speaker 1: see their new course and you know, if I express
Speaker 1: an opinion on it or I write something about it,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if I love it, it's because
Speaker 1: they work for me. If I hate it, I must
Speaker 1: just like them, and it can't just be about the
Speaker 1: work and my honest impression of the work. So I'm
Speaker 1: always a little conflicted about going to see that. And
Speaker 1: it'll be the same for Brian and Eric and all
Speaker 1: these guys that have been working for me the last
Speaker 1: few years. It's like, you know, when when we were
Speaker 1: working on Leedo, Brian had he had the topo map
Speaker 1: for Old Barn. We were all staying in a rental house.
Speaker 1: He had the topo map for Old barnwell like out
Speaker 1: on the dining room table, which we never used, like
Speaker 1: for a month or two. And I made a couple
Speaker 1: of visits and I didn't say anything about it, and
Speaker 1: you know, at some point he finally was like, so,
Speaker 1: do you want to have a look at that? I
Speaker 1: was like, not unless you ask me. You know, if
Speaker 1: you want to just run with it on your own,
Speaker 1: that's what you should do. If you want my two
Speaker 1: cents worth, I'll look at it quick.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I don't mind doing that.
Speaker 1: And it's good, you know, so I did, and I
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, the things I question were like,
Speaker 1: that looks pretty severe. Are you sure you want to
Speaker 1: do it that severe or or are you gonna move
Speaker 1: more dirt to fix that? Or are you trying to
Speaker 1: build something really dramatic? Is that what your client wants?
Speaker 1: And you know it'll be the same whenever I go
Speaker 1: see the golf course, you know, Am I gonna do
Speaker 1: that this winter?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, not unless Brian asks. And if
Speaker 1: he does, yeah, I'll come out. And if he doesn't,
Speaker 1: I'll wait till the golf course is open and I
Speaker 1: just can go play it like everybody else. And yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I'll tell him what I think about it
Speaker 1: once it's an open golf course, but other than that,
Speaker 1: it's up to him.
Speaker 5: All Right, We're going to move on Part two of
Speaker 5: this podcast. We'll be back in a few episodes with
Speaker 5: Part two and we go through more question and answers
Speaker 5: from from listeners and kind of a free ranging topics.
Speaker 5: But Tom, thank you for your time and coming back
Speaker 5: on the pod to talk about some of your new projects.
Speaker 6: Thanks Andy, thank you for listening to another edition of
Speaker 6: the Frida Egg Podcast and the Yoke with Doak.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Tom.
Speaker 5: For setting aside some time to talk to us, and
Speaker 5: thank you to Meg Atkins for editing and producing this episode.
Speaker 5: As always, Meg does an awesome job with the team.
Speaker 5: A quick reminder reminder announcement. We've produced a large documentary
Speaker 5: project on YouTube called Teaching Turf in the sand Hills.
Speaker 5: This is all about a internship program at sand Hills
Speaker 5: and bally Neil. Thanks to Toro, we were able to
Speaker 5: produce this. This is a kind of a look behind
Speaker 5: the scenes at what makes sand Hills and bally Neil tick.
Speaker 5: Extensively features the golf courses, but what goes into maintaining
Speaker 5: them as well as this unique internship program that they
Speaker 5: have at these two courses where college interns will spend
Speaker 5: half the summer at sand Hills and half the summer
Speaker 5: at bally Neil. So it features superintendents Kyle Heglund and
Speaker 5: Jared Kalina and it's gotten a lot of positive feedback
Speaker 5: from whether you're super into turf grass management or you're just.
Speaker 2: Interested in golf alike.
Speaker 5: This project wouldn't have been able to be done without
Speaker 5: Garrett Morrison and Cameron Hurtis. Those two have been absolute
Speaker 5: superstars putting this series together and I'm really proud of
Speaker 5: their work and what has been You can check.
Speaker 2: That out on YouTube.
Speaker 5: It's called Teaching Turf in the sand Hills and if
Speaker 5: you go to our YouTube page, subscribe and watch it there.
Speaker 5: Those two have put, you know, months of work into
Speaker 5: this project and I'm really proud of it. So check
Speaker 5: it out there if you haven't yet, if you just
Speaker 5: listen to this podcast, you.
Speaker 2: Don't know about our YouTube page. We got a lot
Speaker 2: of cool stuff.
Speaker 5: I think personally I'm very biased, but I think it's
Speaker 5: really a lot of neat golf course stuff. And if
Speaker 5: you like this podcast, you probably like some of the
Speaker 5: stuff we have on our YouTube page. And this series
Speaker 5: is definitely, you know, probably the thing that I'm personally.
Speaker 2: Most proud of that we've done at the Frida Egg
Speaker 2: this year. So go check it out. It's Teaching Turf
Speaker 2: in the sand Hills on our YouTube page.
Speaker 5: Thanks, and we will be back next week with two
Speaker 5: episodes of the FRIDAYGG podcast. I'm super excited on Friday
Speaker 5: should be a really fun episode.
Speaker 2: I just finished recording it. As of recording this outro
Speaker 2: where we do look back at.
Speaker 5: Some of the iconic golf clubs of the nineties, two thousands,
Speaker 5: and eighties.
Speaker 2: That was really, really fun.
Speaker 5: I don't want to spoil it too much, but I
Speaker 5: can't think of a pod I've had much more fun
Speaker 5: recording in recent memory. So we will be back next
Speaker 5: week with two episodes, and everybody have a great Thanksgiving