Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my.
Speaker 2: Ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, Frida egg Egg Frida egg bride egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome to
Speaker 2: the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison and it
Speaker 2: is Canada Week for us. The President's Cup at Royal
Speaker 2: Montreal Golf Club is underway. Look, is this the most
Speaker 2: interesting golf course in the world. No, but it does
Speaker 2: give us an excuse to talk about Canadian golf architecture,
Speaker 2: and specifically about the greatest Canadian golf architect, Stanley Thompson.
Speaker 2: I've wanted to discuss Thompson on the pod for a
Speaker 2: long time. Such a fascinating figure and an enormous talent.
Speaker 2: To dig into Thompson's life and work, I'm bringing on
Speaker 2: Ian Andrew. Ian Andrew is a practicing Toronto based golf
Speaker 2: architect who has focused on restorations and renovations, but has
Speaker 2: also done some original work. He's a great thinker and
Speaker 2: writer about golf course design and one of the world's
Speaker 2: leading experts on Stanley Thompson, so I'm very excited to
Speaker 2: speak with Ian. First though, a word about Club TFE,
Speaker 2: which is Frida Egg Golf's membership. You can find out
Speaker 2: all the information about CLUBTFE at the Frida Egg dot
Speaker 2: com slash membership. It's a broad offering. We have exclusive
Speaker 2: content for members, including weekly course profiles and design notebook
Speaker 2: feature where we keep track of what's going on in
Speaker 2: the golf architecture world. But one thing that I think
Speaker 2: people would be interesting it in when it comes to
Speaker 2: Club TFE is the access you get to a variety
Speaker 2: of wonderful golf courses. First of all, you get early
Speaker 2: access to Frida Egg Golf events, which is a big deal.
Speaker 2: We hold these at some wonderful golf courses across the
Speaker 2: country and elsewhere. And we're also starting to offer some
Speaker 2: international trips as well as individual days at certain golf
Speaker 2: courses where we just you know, offer around offer tea
Speaker 2: times just to our members. So if you want to
Speaker 2: find out more about that stuff, if you want to
Speaker 2: take part in that, CLUBTFE is a great place to go.
Speaker 2: Again the Frida Egg dot com slash membership. Check it out.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to Ian Andrew and talk about
Speaker 2: Canadian golf architecture and Stanley Thompson. I am here with
Speaker 2: Ian Andrew, the golf architect. Ian, thank you for joining
Speaker 2: me today. How are you doing?
Speaker 3: Excellent?
Speaker 2: That that pretty much sums it up right there, one word.
Speaker 2: So we have got the President's Cup at Royal Montreal
Speaker 2: Golf Club coming up. We are here to talk about
Speaker 2: Canadian golf architecture in general, Stanley Thompson specifically, but I
Speaker 2: thought we'd touch quickly on this course that people are
Speaker 2: going to see on TV this week. Do you have
Speaker 2: any thoughts about the Blue Course there?
Speaker 3: So? I think the Blue Course is a.
Speaker 1: Golf course that really benefits the long driver of the ball,
Speaker 1: and with all the compartments that Reese put in the
Speaker 1: greens when he redid the greens, being able to get
Speaker 1: to shorter irons definitely will open up the ability to
Speaker 1: score and open up the possibility for a lot of birdies.
Speaker 1: And I really honestly think it's going to be a
Speaker 1: huge benefit for the American team. I think it's a
Speaker 1: golf course that really will suit their game.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that that is sort of a prediction about
Speaker 2: the about the way the course is going to affect
Speaker 2: the competition. It's not surprising that that a design with
Speaker 2: influences from Rhys Jones might might favor the American team.
Speaker 2: We've we've seen this dynamic before at past President's Cup courses.
Speaker 2: Originally this course was if I'm not mistaken at Dick
Speaker 2: Wilson design. Do you find anything interesting about about Dick Wilson.
Speaker 2: You know, he's he strikes me as an interesting figure
Speaker 2: given that he was working at the same time as
Speaker 2: Robert Trent Jones and picked up a lot of the
Speaker 2: jobs that Jones didn't want, and he did slightly different
Speaker 2: work than Jones, did, I suppose he did.
Speaker 1: You've got to think that his main influence has to
Speaker 1: be sorry, the architect he worked for the Chinacock Hills,
Speaker 1: Flynn Flynn, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yes, William Flynnlyn Dick Wilson did. That's something that people
Speaker 2: often forget about Dick Wilson is that he did train
Speaker 2: with a Golden Age architect, much as Robert Trent Jones
Speaker 2: in fact trained with Stanley Thompson in a sense. But
Speaker 2: Flynn was Flinn and Toomey was kind of Dick Wilson's
Speaker 2: entry into the industry, I suppose.
Speaker 1: And you look at some of the ideas the angles
Speaker 1: playing for a position, a lot of the architecture the
Speaker 1: strategies are very similar. When you look at a lot
Speaker 1: of Flynn's work, and when you look at a lot
Speaker 1: of Wilson's work, you see a lot of the same
Speaker 1: use of those carry angles or angles or angled greens,
Speaker 1: looking at things sort of being bookended a little bit
Speaker 1: by bunkers as well, where you've got to try to
Speaker 1: maybe you're trying to hit a drawer or fade with
Speaker 1: fronting bunkers and you've got a back bunker as well
Speaker 1: that's sort of containing you. And I just find you
Speaker 1: can see the influences from his work that just really
Speaker 1: come through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the tie ins with the Golden Age and Wilson's
Speaker 2: work seem to be a little clearer than the tie
Speaker 2: ins from say Robert Trent Jones's work or other post
Speaker 2: World War Two architects. It seems like Wilson kind of
Speaker 2: carry forward a little bit more of what he experienced
Speaker 2: earlier in his career than other architects, I think.
Speaker 1: With Robert Trent Jones. So I work with Midvale in Rochester,
Speaker 1: which is Trent's first work, and he did it with
Speaker 1: Stanley Thompson. And the interesting thing about it is it's
Speaker 1: not like the work that came a lot later. I
Speaker 1: find the pre war work was a lot more elaborate,
Speaker 1: the greens were a lot smaller, and a lot more
Speaker 1: intimately contoured, a lot more interior contouring. I happen to
Speaker 1: think Midvale is a really stunning piece of architecture. It's
Speaker 1: well worth going to play. I think that sort of
Speaker 1: as the war came, we saw mechanization. I think Trent
Speaker 1: adapted to sort of where golf was going, which was
Speaker 1: to be a lot more efficient. And even that efficiency
Speaker 1: goes right through to strategies and architecture as well as
Speaker 1: the construction and everything else. And I think that I
Speaker 1: think post war everybody was looking for new rather than
Speaker 1: looking for the past. I think they were trying to
Speaker 1: shed the impact of the war. And I think the architecture,
Speaker 1: the building style, and even the expression of architecture all
Speaker 1: represented trying to do something different.
Speaker 2: And you even see that gradually emerging after the war,
Speaker 2: because Jones's work right after World War two again looks
Speaker 2: a little different than the stuff he might have done
Speaker 2: in the late fifties and early sixties. Peachtree in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: for instance, is of course he designed soon after the war,
Speaker 2: and certainly that style evolved. So that's a very good
Speaker 2: note and an interesting thing to remember about Trent Jones.
Speaker 1: I think what happened was, over time, architects got the
Speaker 1: ability to move more and more of the site. They
Speaker 1: had a bigger budget, they had had better equipment. The
Speaker 1: initial equipment they had, the initial machinery was rudimentary and
Speaker 1: had some limitations. And as the equipment got better, whether
Speaker 1: it's bulldozer's excavators or anything else, as it got bigger,
Speaker 1: better and they were able to do more with it,
Speaker 1: I think they started to believe that they should change
Speaker 1: more of the site because they had the technology to
Speaker 1: do it. And instead of accepting the things that I
Speaker 1: think make places like Peachtree or Midville really spectacular, because
Speaker 1: the contour still dominates the initial land, you started to
Speaker 1: see changes, and probably two aggressive changes where they he
Speaker 1: wanted to try to settle a lot more into bulls
Speaker 1: that weren't there. And once you start moving things around,
Speaker 1: you start to lose flow and you start to lose feel.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if maybe architects in that post war
Speaker 2: period also started to design a bit more for maintenance
Speaker 2: and modern maintenance equipment, and that's a big reason why
Speaker 2: we see the shaping stuffile shift.
Speaker 1: Well, even the bunkering kind of got muted, and a
Speaker 1: lot of that had to do with well, if I
Speaker 1: do this, I can get a gang more in between.
Speaker 1: Now that would be more of his peers. But still
Speaker 1: you saw that even with Trent's work that they started
Speaker 1: to if they shaped it just slightly differently, now you
Speaker 1: can all of a sudden use a large piece of equipment.
Speaker 1: And again this came back to that whole notion of efficiency,
Speaker 1: the efficiency in how the architecture was expressed right through
Speaker 1: to how the property was maintained. And I think we
Speaker 1: just went through more and more efficiency, and then finally
Speaker 1: we sort of started to finally get small reactions and
Speaker 1: then with Pete a huge reaction to it.
Speaker 2: Well, this was sort of a digression, but a very
Speaker 2: interesting digression. We started with observing that Dick Wilson was
Speaker 2: the original architect at Royal Montreal Golf clubber the most
Speaker 2: decisive architect I suppose in that course's the Blue Course's history,
Speaker 2: and perhaps you see some indications of his hand in
Speaker 2: the course still, but a lot of it is quite
Speaker 2: Reese Jonesy so fairly near Royal Montreal is a course
Speaker 2: that you designed alongside Mike Weir, who is of course
Speaker 2: the captain of the international team this year at the
Speaker 2: President's Cup. This is the Blue Course at Laval sirl Locke.
Speaker 2: What was it like working with we're on this project.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that people really know that he has
Speaker 2: experience or interest in golf architecture, but certainly he was
Speaker 2: involved in this project.
Speaker 1: So fun Mike's One of the interesting things about Mike
Speaker 1: is we spent a data gusta, not a master's data augusta,
Speaker 1: but actually a data gusta going around the golf course
Speaker 1: and he talked about what he liked about the golf
Speaker 1: course and the fun about it was he was playing
Speaker 1: and he was also explaining why he was playing strategically
Speaker 1: the way he was playing.
Speaker 3: We also did that at Riviera.
Speaker 1: We both have common experiences at Royal Melbourne and we
Speaker 1: actually talked through the holes at Royal Melbourne that we like,
Speaker 1: and shinnikok Kills ended up coming up because we like
Speaker 1: the way the edges run off the greens and one
Speaker 1: of the fun things about Mike is he's very aware
Speaker 1: of Golden Age architecture because of you know, he wasn't
Speaker 1: a bomber or a big hitter. He always had to
Speaker 1: think about the golf course strategically. And the really interesting
Speaker 1: one for me, because I'm a huge fan of Riviera,
Speaker 1: is he talked about how he was able to play
Speaker 1: really effectively at Riviera by picking his spots. So I
Speaker 1: remember before I played, one of the things he'd explained
Speaker 1: to me was do not hit a driver on ten,
Speaker 1: and you're actually not trying to hit the fairway either,
Speaker 1: And it worked and mid handicapped me and my by
Speaker 1: playing left. And then the funniest part was the next
Speaker 1: I can't remember what the event was called at that time.
Speaker 1: I mean he was still the La Open. But the
Speaker 1: next one he played and he hit driver because that's
Speaker 1: where he started.
Speaker 3: Made six.
Speaker 1: So and he had told me never hit a driver,
Speaker 1: and he and when he won the both times he
Speaker 1: had he had laid up. But we talked about the
Speaker 1: use of trees, how they impinge without taking away the
Speaker 1: ability to play, and we both like that. We talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the use of side slopes rather than
Speaker 1: fairway bunkering that how effective that is for play, and
Speaker 1: then obviously the beautiful change of angles that happens quite often,
Speaker 1: and both of us have sort of Obviously, he's won
Speaker 1: there a couple of times, so he's got an extra
Speaker 1: love for it. But I really do have a love
Speaker 1: affair for Revere. I think it's one of the finest
Speaker 1: designs in all of golf, and even as much as
Speaker 1: they tinker with it, the bones underneath it are spectacular.
Speaker 2: Something that's so great about Riviera is the use of
Speaker 2: contour in the landing zones. In fairways. You mentioned the
Speaker 2: use of side slopes as opposed to five bunkers fifth hole. Wow, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: I mean the way that kind of rises up and
Speaker 2: gives you a reward for hitting a great drive, but
Speaker 2: also kind of holds you up if you don't hit
Speaker 2: a great drive. So, okay, I wonder if you could
Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about that, whether you know,
Speaker 2: in some cases fairway bunkers can be excluded in favor
Speaker 2: of some of these slopes, and how do you use
Speaker 2: those slopes.
Speaker 3: So we started doing Lavelle. I'm going to use that
Speaker 3: and explain.
Speaker 1: Sort of the thought process because I think it'll provide
Speaker 1: a window into mic So we started looking at the
Speaker 1: design itself, and the fun part about it was when
Speaker 1: we were going through and picking the corridors that we
Speaker 1: were going to use as oppose to the corridors we weren't
Speaker 1: going to use. Because it was two nine holes by
Speaker 1: two different architects, we ended up with a very little
Speaker 1: fairway bunkering. There's very little bunkering actually in the golf course.
Speaker 1: It's all largely elevated greens with runoffs. We both love
Speaker 1: all the golf around Melbourne, so that was the prime influence.
Speaker 3: But we took.
Speaker 1: From Riviera the idea of if we've got I will
Speaker 1: come back to Roal Montreal for this. If we have
Speaker 1: slow moving dog legs like bananas that don't turn but
Speaker 1: actually just keep drifting and drifting and drifting, say it's
Speaker 1: from right to left and they keep drifting around and
Speaker 1: there's trees on that corner. There's some really good examples
Speaker 1: of Revere where you've really got to think out how
Speaker 1: you're going to try to fit the ball in, and
Speaker 1: we designed a number of the tea shots where there
Speaker 1: are no fairway bunkers at all. But the clearing that
Speaker 1: we did was using those corridors. And it was actually
Speaker 1: my favorite thing about Royal Melbourne when I roll Melbourne
Speaker 1: Roal Montreal when I first played. It was the reason
Speaker 1: that Tiger played there in his prime and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember if you made the cut, but he really
Speaker 1: struggled there. And what it was was the longer players
Speaker 1: didn't play well that week, and it was because at
Speaker 1: that time it was a very very difficult driving golf course.
Speaker 1: And it was actually one of my favorite driving golf
Speaker 1: courses in the country because.
Speaker 3: It had all these slow moving dog legs, But.
Speaker 1: When they lengthened it and move some tea's around, they
Speaker 1: kind of straightened out some of that where it plays
Speaker 1: a little bit more typical where it's out and then in.
Speaker 1: But we talked about that when we were working on
Speaker 1: Laval about we want to get everything grassing lines, bunkering,
Speaker 1: tree lines, corridors. We want them to move slowly so
Speaker 1: that if somebody can work the ball, they're they're going
Speaker 1: to score really well. But if they can only drive
Speaker 1: it really far but not really with much ability to
Speaker 1: move it one way or the other, there may be
Speaker 1: a direction it works fine for them because they play
Speaker 1: a fade but if the hole is calling for a
Speaker 1: draw in the next we were really careful to try
Speaker 1: and balance out. They would really struggle to deal with
Speaker 1: those holes. And so there's not a lot of fairway bunkers.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's hardly any fairway bunkers. And we did
Speaker 1: actually lean into the idea of the slow moving tree lines, right,
Speaker 1: and that's enough.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: That's a conversation we had, But that was something that
Speaker 1: Mike really leaned in on. He really loved the idea,
Speaker 1: but it's it wasn't something where I said we should
Speaker 1: do this. Mike was actually, what do you think about this?
Speaker 2: One of the most interesting things that you can ask
Speaker 2: high level PGA tour golfer is what scares them, what
Speaker 2: really frightens them off the tee or on an approach
Speaker 2: or anything. And it's funny how fairway bunkers often don't
Speaker 2: really scare them unless they're super punitive. But a slow
Speaker 2: moving fairway line, a constantly moving fairway line that just
Speaker 2: keeps kind of working away from you and working away
Speaker 2: from you, that can be a little bit scary because
Speaker 2: you have to be precise in where you're placing your drive.
Speaker 2: You can't just kind of aim down the middle and
Speaker 2: not worry about how far it goes, because as long
Speaker 2: as you hit it straight, it'll be there. With a
Speaker 2: constantly moving fairway, you have to marry line and distance,
Speaker 2: and I wonder if that's where that observation from mine
Speaker 2: came from.
Speaker 1: And the other end of it is if you don't
Speaker 1: have bunkers, or you don't have something in the distance
Speaker 1: that's a target, particularly, I happen to hate the idea
Speaker 1: of directional bunkers. I think that they're sort of the
Speaker 1: bastardization of really good golf architecture. If you don't have
Speaker 1: those reference points, then and you're working with a slowly
Speaker 1: moving fairway, you're actually never quite certain on what your
Speaker 1: target is. So unless you can pick up maybe you've
Speaker 1: got a birch tree amongst a bunch of maples, and
Speaker 1: that makes it really easy. But if it's kind of
Speaker 1: a mixture of trees, usually you've kind of got to
Speaker 1: figure out what canopy, what am I even at the
Speaker 1: little bit of yellow in that one, it's not as it's.
Speaker 3: Not quite as certain.
Speaker 1: And the other end of it, as you said, it's
Speaker 1: the miss through, it's the I'm meant to cut it
Speaker 1: a little bit, and it just stayed dead straight and
Speaker 1: it runs through into the rough and now they've got
Speaker 1: to deal with that job. Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's that's that's very interesting. I wonder if
Speaker 2: there's something about a player like Mike Weir that that
Speaker 2: sort of disposes him to be smart about golf architecture
Speaker 2: in a way that a lot of elite players aren't. Necessarily,
Speaker 2: he was a different kind of player. You know, he
Speaker 2: didn't hit it as far as Tiger Woods did, but
Speaker 2: he managed to score anyway. He was, you know, as
Speaker 2: far as top players were concerned, a little bit unusual
Speaker 2: in his playing style. And I wonder if it is
Speaker 2: those kind of eccentrics, I guess, in terms of playing style,
Speaker 2: who are a little more inclined to think about golf
Speaker 2: architecture in at least interesting ways.
Speaker 3: I think when you take somebody like Mike or Funny enough,
Speaker 3: I walked Revere with.
Speaker 1: Zach or Zak Johnson. Yeah, Zak Johnson, thanks, I'm just
Speaker 1: for me. It's it's names, it's agent names.
Speaker 2: Well, Zak Johnson immediately came to mind for me because
Speaker 2: if you're talking about genres of players, Mike, he Or
Speaker 2: and Zach Johnson are not that descent, so.
Speaker 3: I got to walk.
Speaker 1: Rivere was Zac Johnson as well, so it was set
Speaker 1: up while I was there. I actually had gone to
Speaker 1: see the work at La Country Club with Gil and
Speaker 1: then i'd gone back to Rivier and got introduced to
Speaker 1: different people and they sent me out with a foursome
Speaker 1: to walk inside the Ropes, which is on Tuesday, which
Speaker 1: was awesome, and he was one of the four and
Speaker 1: he was the most talkative. I think the players who
Speaker 1: don't have the distance, it's really important to them to tack.
Speaker 1: I don't don't know what better. This sort of more
Speaker 1: of a sailing term, but if they tacked to position,
Speaker 1: then because they're hitting longer clubs, they can still end
Speaker 1: up finding place, finding ways or finding moments to be
Speaker 1: aggressive or to to you know, to to chase because
Speaker 1: you've you've still got to make some birdies. And I
Speaker 1: think it's what happens is they think a little bit
Speaker 1: more about the strategy because it's sort of self preservation.
Speaker 1: They need to be in good places to score. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things sort of frustrating about watching
Speaker 1: golf in more recent times is the players who hit
Speaker 1: it so far it didn't actually matter where they were
Speaker 1: because they had also honed. To their credit, they developed
Speaker 1: the skill in their wedge game, but they didn't need
Speaker 1: to play positionally as much. And I got admit that's
Speaker 1: when golf kind of lost my obsessive viewership and I
Speaker 1: became more of a part time of the game. It
Speaker 1: had a huge impact on me because I found I
Speaker 1: couldn't get much out of it architecturally. It was better
Speaker 1: to actually think about the average player. At least we're
Speaker 1: back to the sort of attacking and the strategies, and
Speaker 1: rather than being sort of overcome by either brute strength
Speaker 1: or today's day and age, they actually get their roots
Speaker 1: planned for them with percentage golf, so they sort of
Speaker 1: this is the most effective way to play this golf course,
Speaker 1: and they're given that as a roadmap that they'll deviate from,
Speaker 1: but they'll use it a lot. I kind of wish
Speaker 1: we weren't in that era. I'd rather watch a Nick
Speaker 1: Price show up and turnaball right, turnaball left, needs to spin,
Speaker 1: it needs to hit it low. I loved watching him play.
Speaker 1: I followed him a wack of times when I was younger,
Speaker 1: and he was a joy. But he also seemed to
Speaker 1: be making it up in the fly when he was
Speaker 1: playing really well because he could.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he came up with those ideas. And yes,
Speaker 2: it's inevitable that the game, the professional game, has gone
Speaker 2: where it's gone with the assurances of a team of
Speaker 2: experts helping you figure out what the optimal strategy for
Speaker 2: playing a golf course would be. But it does take
Speaker 2: some individuality out of it, and we've seen that across
Speaker 2: many sports. It's happened profoundly in baseball in America. That's
Speaker 2: been maybe the most affected sport, but golf is not
Speaker 2: far behind, and you're certainly not alone in feeling less
Speaker 2: of an interest about it. What's so interesting about players
Speaker 2: like Mike Weir and Zach Johnson in fact, and why
Speaker 2: they might play well at an Augusta National, is that
Speaker 2: they became very good at figuring out when to be aggressive.
Speaker 2: They picked their moments. They couldn't always be aggressive. What
Speaker 2: you see from some players now is that they can
Speaker 2: be aggressive all the time time because they hit it
Speaker 2: so far. If there's a hole where the design is
Speaker 2: resisting aggression, they almost don't care because they can be
Speaker 2: aggressive with it anyway. So they're not choosing their moments,
Speaker 2: they're not pushing and backing off. They're just full throttle,
Speaker 2: going for it all the time. And there's something that
Speaker 2: is a little bit deadening about that repetition.
Speaker 3: Agreed.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the joys of watching a Nick
Speaker 1: Faldo play was his ability to understand when not to.
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to express that, but he
Speaker 1: not only could he hit great shots under pressure, it
Speaker 1: seemed like the more pressure the better he was anyway, period,
Speaker 1: but his ability to understand that in tournament golf, find
Speaker 1: the fair way, find the green, find the par there
Speaker 1: was not that that's more compelling. I think we all
Speaker 1: enjoyed birdies. And I think when Tiger had that amazing
Speaker 1: round of Pebble Beach, there wasn't anybody who didn't enjoy that.
Speaker 1: How could you not enjoy that? That was just I mean,
Speaker 1: even from an arctech's point of view, it was sad
Speaker 1: to watch Pebble take apart, but boy, it was fun
Speaker 1: to watch him do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: We like, we like birdies, and sometimes there has been
Speaker 1: some events where it's too many pars or just some
Speaker 1: of the US Open setups are questionable. But yeah, when
Speaker 1: when even a US Open doesn't seem to.
Speaker 3: They're just there.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a tack mode. I appreciate the fact
Speaker 1: that they've got a the the fortitude to do it
Speaker 1: and be the skills to actually just drive the ball
Speaker 1: much straight and and hit great webshots, but it's not
Speaker 1: as watchable.
Speaker 2: It is interesting to speak with you about this because
Speaker 2: you have prepared courses for the Canadian Open, and you've
Speaker 2: thought about the relationship between golf architecture and and modern
Speaker 2: professional play and uh, and so that's uh, that's again
Speaker 2: a bit of a digression, but but a fascinating one.
Speaker 2: I think it's time now to get into to Stanley Thompson.
Speaker 2: We've drifted for a bit, but let's talk about I
Speaker 2: think the greatest Canadian golf architect by by you know,
Speaker 2: pretty wide consensus. Let's start with Stanley Thompson's early life.
Speaker 2: We can just touch on this briefly, but but where
Speaker 2: did he come from and and what were some of
Speaker 2: those early experiences that that ended up being important for him.
Speaker 1: He was one of five brothers and they were known
Speaker 1: as the golfing Thompson's. Uh. Some great players amongst them
Speaker 1: the first pro of Hamilton, which was this year's Canadian
Speaker 1: Open was Nicol Thompson, his oldest brother, and probably.
Speaker 3: Could be argued that he.
Speaker 1: Was the first architect that either he or George Cumming
Speaker 1: who was at Toronto Golf. Stanley caddied at Toronto Golf
Speaker 1: and George Cumming was actually his early mentor.
Speaker 3: So that's why.
Speaker 1: Thompson coming in Thompson, which is Nicol Thompson, George Cumming
Speaker 1: and Stanley Thompson when he eventually went into architecture as
Speaker 1: the third member of that group that was his foundation.
Speaker 1: Stam was a great player. I think he got to
Speaker 1: a semi final if I remember correctly in the Canadian Amateur.
Speaker 1: He was a scratch player early on, served in World
Speaker 1: War One and came back and then he started working
Speaker 1: for his brother and George in architecture and then eventually
Speaker 1: became a partner and they faced a decision in twenty
Speaker 1: one on.
Speaker 3: This all happened super fast for him.
Speaker 1: He was working on stuff like Branford on site doing
Speaker 1: construction and then Nicol and George sort of had to
Speaker 1: make the decision with where they're going to sell golf
Speaker 1: clubs and be golf pros. So they're going to be architects,
Speaker 1: and they both told they were at the top clubs
Speaker 1: in the country other than rural Montreal. Roal Montreal obviously
Speaker 1: is if not the top club, it's one of the
Speaker 1: elite clubs in the country, still is. And they decided
Speaker 1: on the safety because they weren't sure how things were
Speaker 1: going to work out, and all of a sudden, Stanley
Speaker 1: ended up with the business and in twenty two. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember how he did, but I do know.
Speaker 1: I think it was twenty two. He did eight courses.
Speaker 1: He did now it's twenty three that he did eight
Speaker 1: golf courses, but he did forty golf courses before he
Speaker 1: got to Jasper Park. Jasper Park is twenty five. Wow
Speaker 1: or sorry, Bam Springs wrong one Bamp Springs, which is
Speaker 1: twenty seven. So he did half of his entire catalog
Speaker 1: by the time he got to Bamp Springs, and so
Speaker 1: he was doing sort of a round eight golf courses
Speaker 1: a year. At one point he had TransCanada Construction was
Speaker 1: his construction business, and there was a point where they
Speaker 1: talked about that there were two thousand men on the
Speaker 1: payroll and at that point, essentially he was initially building
Speaker 1: greens bunkers, teas and then just grassing properties and obviously
Speaker 1: felling trees as well, and everything was pretty rudimentary early on,
Speaker 1: but he did have some experienced people, so Colt was
Speaker 1: a huge influence.
Speaker 3: Colt did Toronto Golf in fourteen.
Speaker 1: It's funny I'd expressed the idea of there was a
Speaker 1: chance he would have seen it in construction, and then
Speaker 1: it's funny that got quoted in like five different books afterwards,
Speaker 1: and all I was saying was he was sixteen seventeen
Speaker 1: years old and working at Toronto Golf in the one
Speaker 1: that was on the east side of the city, and
Speaker 1: I just wondered if he would have gone over to
Speaker 1: have a look at it. So that's always been misconstrued.
Speaker 1: I do know they corresponded, because Jeff Cornish was able
Speaker 1: to confirm that for me. I thought I understood they corresponded,
Speaker 1: and he said no, they corresponded.
Speaker 3: All the way through.
Speaker 1: And he was good friends with Charles Allison as well,
Speaker 1: who do work in Toronto. So Thompson got to see
Speaker 1: Toronto Golf, which was a landmark golf course for US,
Speaker 1: most important golf course that was ever built.
Speaker 2: Harry Colt designed as Harry.
Speaker 1: Colet designed it and Harry Colt was on site for it,
Speaker 1: and then he did Ancaster and he was on site
Speaker 1: a little bit for it, and Sutherland, who did the
Speaker 1: construction forum, ended up actually doing construction work with Stanley afterwards.
Speaker 1: And then you had some of the people that were
Speaker 1: on his early construction teams actually came out of the
Speaker 1: early construction that took place at Summit and Scarborough and
Speaker 1: places like that. Some of the early rudimentary courses often
Speaker 1: done by coming and then Stanley ended up with all
Speaker 1: these experienced people. So I think some of the work
Speaker 1: has some of those experiences of what he saw and
Speaker 1: some of those experiences of the people he worked for.
Speaker 1: And then slowly over time leading into Jasper and then
Speaker 1: finally into Banf. His design ideas were evolving and pretty rapidly.
Speaker 1: When you start to think about twenty two to twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and twenty seven is my allows wear on this sure,
Speaker 1: twenty seven is where I think he went. He went
Speaker 1: from being Stanley Thompson to as I like to say
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine when we're playing Stanley fucking Thompson.
Speaker 1: And at Banff he kind of showed I can do
Speaker 1: anything and everything I'm as good as anybody practicing. There's
Speaker 1: nobody I'm not as good as. And the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is bamp what an expression. One hundred and forty bunkers,
Speaker 1: very dramatic, very elaborate, And then he never did anything
Speaker 1: as elaborate as that. Afterwards it was like it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've done it. I've showed you, showed you every trick
Speaker 1: I have, and now I'm just going to go back
Speaker 1: to building better golf courses. Not that BAMFF isn't a
Speaker 1: better golf course. It's one of the five most important
Speaker 1: things he ever did. BAMF is the most flamboyant expression
Speaker 1: of anything he ever did, and there's sort of a
Speaker 1: long journey towards it. And then after he sort of
Speaker 1: took it back a notch and realized that some gaps,
Speaker 1: some bunkerless holes, you know, expressing yourself and then actually
Speaker 1: sort of slowing things down visually and architecturally and then
Speaker 1: expressing yourself again actually has a bigger impact than just
Speaker 1: expressing yourself for eighteen holes that if you have a
Speaker 1: bit of a roller coaster of and what you're seeing,
Speaker 1: and they're sort of highs and lows. The one thing
Speaker 1: that the Golden Age people did so well is the
Speaker 1: breather hole. They use the breather hole to take the
Speaker 1: severity of what they were presenting down or set you
Speaker 1: up for something that's going to be visually spectacular, so
Speaker 1: you kind of they relax you, they slow the heart
Speaker 1: rate down, and then boom something super visual or something
Speaker 1: really hard, and it just it expresses that sort of
Speaker 1: a like one and a half times, because it's a comparison,
Speaker 1: right when we go from a narrow channel to a
Speaker 1: wide open space, the wide open space seems bigger. Frank
Speaker 1: Lloyd Wright called that compression and release. Use it in
Speaker 1: his houses. But it's the same with architecture. If you
Speaker 1: make something hard and then make something easy and make
Speaker 1: something hard hard to easy, the easy feels easier and
Speaker 1: the easy to heart the heart feels harder. But if
Speaker 1: it was hard hard heart, it would just feel exactly
Speaker 1: the same. So it's just something that he did really well,
Speaker 1: that he pace things out after Baan springs a little
Speaker 1: bit more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would say that the arc you're
Speaker 2: describing in Thompson's career could stand in for the arc
Speaker 2: of the Golden Age in general. This kind of push
Speaker 2: toward the Baroque, and then a slight backing off of
Speaker 2: that in the late twenties and early thirties as the
Speaker 2: depression descended. But then, of course that trend got cut
Speaker 2: short because they weren't building any more golf courses after
Speaker 2: about nineteen thirty two or thirty three. Though Thompson did
Speaker 2: keep working through the depression and into the forties, unlike
Speaker 2: many many architects of the period. But I want to
Speaker 2: go back to his beginnings, his initial influences. Toronto just
Speaker 2: seems like such an engaging place in the nineteen tens
Speaker 2: and twenties for someone who's interested in golf and golf
Speaker 2: architecture to be because all of these huge figures came
Speaker 2: to town to build golf course verses. We talk about
Speaker 2: London as being a hotbed of golf architecture and golf
Speaker 2: architecture discussion, the kind of intellectual ferment of the early
Speaker 2: nineteen hundreds where golf architecture was really reinvented. We talked
Speaker 2: about the Philadelphia School of golf Architecture. We talk about
Speaker 2: Los Angeles with George Thomas and others, being such a
Speaker 2: concentration of very talented artists. Toronto seems to be in
Speaker 2: there as a hotbed of golf architecture, and Thompson seems
Speaker 2: to have come out of that. So what were some
Speaker 2: of the influences that you think he absorbed there as
Speaker 2: a kid? And then when he came back after World
Speaker 2: War One, as he said, things started moving very quickly.
Speaker 2: He came back in nineteen nineteen. I believe it would
Speaker 2: have been because that's when the war ended, and then
Speaker 2: by a few years later he was deep into many
Speaker 2: many projects as a golf architect. What would he have
Speaker 2: been influenced by in Toronto to at that time when
Speaker 2: it comes to golf course design?
Speaker 1: So I'll step back slightly. I do know he saw
Speaker 1: Lynks courses when he was serving during the war, So.
Speaker 2: Was he in did he go to England or was
Speaker 2: he saying links courses in the seaside in France and
Speaker 2: Netherlands or something.
Speaker 1: I no, it'd be in England, Okay, So I would
Speaker 1: have to I know. And I also know he got
Speaker 1: up to Scotland because I know he talked about Glenn
Speaker 1: Eagles in particular when he was doing Jasper. He had
Speaker 1: a couple of interesting reference points. Sorry, I'm just not
Speaker 1: pulling the courses in particular, but I think during the
Speaker 1: war it was England, and I think at some point
Speaker 1: he got to Scotland because he did talk about Saint Andrew's.
Speaker 1: He also went early on in his career. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of now jumping ahead on you. I apologize for this.
Speaker 1: I do know in the leading into Jasper he went
Speaker 1: to see a number of courses around the New York
Speaker 1: area because all of his meetings were in New York,
Speaker 1: for he had meeting Winnie de Capellana. He was in
Speaker 1: New York all the time, but he was also in
Speaker 1: New York as well for for other things. And obviously
Speaker 1: he was working in the States as well. So I
Speaker 1: mean in the early twenties he was he did a
Speaker 1: bunch of work in Cleveland. But you've got Flynn courses
Speaker 1: in Cleveland, You've got Ross courses in Cleveland.
Speaker 3: You've got I mean, you've.
Speaker 1: Got great Flynn and Ross was there Cleveland, Cleveland Rocks.
Speaker 2: Baby and architecture restorations and renovations that are being done
Speaker 2: there are are quite good. And I think that those
Speaker 2: those courses are going to re emerge in the coming
Speaker 2: years as as important as they are.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I talked about Colt he had. He had
Speaker 1: both Hamilton and Toronto golf built. There. There are some
Speaker 1: early golf courses that were pretty good. Coming did the
Speaker 1: original Summit. The original nine holes at Summit was very good.
Speaker 3: But you had Willie Park.
Speaker 1: So Willie Park did Weston Park did a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in Montreal.
Speaker 3: Put it this way. His work on the original Dixie Course.
Speaker 1: By the way, one of the great losses in all
Speaker 1: of Canadian golf is the Dixie Course, which is underneath
Speaker 1: the Montreal Airport. It was so good that Colt suggested
Speaker 1: that they don't move and just keep that facility. So
Speaker 1: Colt thought enough of and that was Willy Park's work,
Speaker 1: and he did Mount Bruno as well. Parker initially started
Speaker 1: in Toronto and ended up living in Montreal, so you
Speaker 1: had that influence you had. Tillinghass came up to do
Speaker 1: the major renovation of Scarborough. I will say Cornish told
Speaker 1: me that a very Cornish is full of great stories
Speaker 1: when you get him talking about things. But he said
Speaker 1: Tillinghass was the only one he really didn't like, and
Speaker 1: it was because he lost the Scarborough job to him.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, it wasn't just because he didn't like telling
Speaker 2: Hause personality. There are there are those who don't. You
Speaker 2: didn't like telling Hause personality. When you hear that somebody
Speaker 2: didn't like aw Telling House, it's not necessarily a surprise.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's funny. Yeah that's true, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Well? I think I think he had his hits and
Speaker 1: his missus at that time. So you had Charles Allison
Speaker 1: came through and did York Downs and I think that's
Speaker 1: twenty one or twenty two, and that was a dandy
Speaker 1: golf course. We've sort of been. You can actually go
Speaker 1: walk part of it. It's part of a park, but
Speaker 1: it was a really really good golf course and a
Speaker 1: really tight layer, very clever routing, and so you had
Speaker 1: some great early work taking place with some really important architects.
Speaker 1: You also had he built a course for Devreau Emmett
Speaker 1: down in Windsor his construction company. He built York Downs
Speaker 1: actually for Charles Allison, so he was interacting with these people.
Speaker 1: Even built the Tillinghouse course at Niagara Falls, which I've
Speaker 1: never quite been able to put two and two together
Speaker 1: because that doesn't actually make sense to me in some ways.
Speaker 1: But I mean that's way earlier than the Scarborough Scarborough's
Speaker 1: twenty six, that course would be twenty two. I think
Speaker 1: Niagara Falls Country Club. So he'd be seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of things. And then all you've got to do is
Speaker 1: cross borders. Like I mean, Buffalo is very close by us,
Speaker 1: and to go to Buffalo, you would have a country
Speaker 1: club at Buffalo, which is an unbelievably good ross course.
Speaker 1: You also have Allison's Park country Club. These are all
Speaker 1: just barely across the border and really excellent examples of architecture.
Speaker 1: So I think all of that had some influence. And
Speaker 1: I think as he started to move into the Clevelands,
Speaker 1: or started to go out west or started to go
Speaker 1: at east, you start to run into more and more architecture.
Speaker 1: And Jeff Cornish said he paid attention to what everybody
Speaker 1: did and if it was really good, it actually gave
Speaker 1: him a little bit of depression. But if it gave
Speaker 1: him a little bit of depression, it also gave him
Speaker 1: a little bit of incentive. Stanley had actually had depression issues,
Speaker 1: but it gave him a little incentive to sort of
Speaker 1: up his game. And I think part of what made
Speaker 1: him great over time a wasn't afraid to try different things.
Speaker 3: He kept trying.
Speaker 1: To evolve, and b was he was competitive enough to
Speaker 1: try and be better than he was last time, or
Speaker 1: try to be better than tilling Hast, or be better
Speaker 1: than other architects. He wanted to be Stanley f and Thompson, right,
Speaker 1: So he wanted to be sort of at the same
Speaker 1: level of his peers. He was very conscious of them.
Speaker 2: If you were to compare and I want to get
Speaker 2: into this evolution of his style, and maybe we could
Speaker 2: do it by use saying a couple of golf courses
Speaker 2: as examples. If you were to compare his work at
Speaker 2: Jasper Park to his work at Banff Springs, where would
Speaker 2: you start in comparing and contrasting those two courses both
Speaker 2: mountain courses, right, and so in some ways they must
Speaker 2: be similar, but the outcome, the product is very different.
Speaker 2: The two of those Oh they were built just a
Speaker 2: few years apart, and so what's the comparison and contrast
Speaker 2: between those two projects.
Speaker 1: So the interesting thing with Jasper is just to sort
Speaker 1: of step one step back. He was starting to clear
Speaker 1: a little wider before this, but not much. And then
Speaker 1: when he got to Jasper, Jasper set in a massive,
Speaker 1: massive bowl between multiple mountain ranges and the thing he
Speaker 1: did there was he actually cleared not double what he
Speaker 1: normally did, but at least one and a half, if
Speaker 1: not one in three quarters than you have cleared before
Speaker 1: in the past.
Speaker 3: And part of that was borrowed scenery.
Speaker 1: He, by the way, super well read guy, and he
Speaker 1: was familiar with who capability Brown was in the idea
Speaker 1: of borrowed scenery and landscape.
Speaker 2: So he cleared more you're saying more trees.
Speaker 1: Oh, he cleared it about one and a half to
Speaker 1: one and three quarters. With of a normal clearing he
Speaker 1: would have done only a year or two before that.
Speaker 1: And he did the whole golf course that way. And
Speaker 1: the idea was when you're walking down the fairways, if
Speaker 1: you clear the trees further, you get a wider vista.
Speaker 1: And the other interesting thing that it's either urban legend
Speaker 1: or it is truly the masterpiece of masterpieces. All eighteen
Speaker 1: holes actually pointed a different mountain. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: go with he's that brilliant. I don't know if it's happened.
Speaker 2: Of mountains around, there's lots of peaks to work with.
Speaker 1: The One argument is you could say a couple of
Speaker 1: them actually all line mid mountain and it's the sub
Speaker 1: the sub peaks or don't count.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I like the argument for genius though, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll go.
Speaker 3: With that anyway.
Speaker 1: So, and what he did was he also built greens
Speaker 1: to a larger scale, but I would say only sort
Speaker 1: of one and a quarter one and a half times
Speaker 1: normal pretty big greens, like almost Trent jonesish in size
Speaker 1: for people if they want sort of perspective. Later Trent Jonesish,
Speaker 1: not the ten thousand that he was doing in the sixties,
Speaker 1: but sort of the six, seven, even eight occasionally. And
Speaker 1: then he built really really massive bunkers and really large fairways,
Speaker 1: and he swung the fairways back and forth around the bunkers.
Speaker 1: The bunkers were I was able to obtain a complete
Speaker 1: set of photos of opening day, and the one thing
Speaker 1: that kind of struck me was the bunkers are actually simple.
Speaker 1: There were really almost no noses and capes. So if
Speaker 1: you think about Jasper now or you think about Banf,
Speaker 1: it's like what it was actually kind of simple, and
Speaker 1: so everything worked on scale. But the one thing is
Speaker 1: when you see people in those old photos, they're dwarfed,
Speaker 1: and what it lacked was a bit of human scale.
Speaker 1: So he was hired to go renovate the and I
Speaker 1: know everybody says that the course after the initial course.
Speaker 1: The initial course was by a different Thompson and William Thompson,
Speaker 1: and then the new one was by Ross. But Ross
Speaker 1: laid it out and then they built it with labor
Speaker 1: from the war. It wasn't much. I have photos of that.
Speaker 1: It was very rudimentary. Lay of the land looked like nothing.
Speaker 3: Put it this way.
Speaker 1: Ross wouldn't have been proud of what the end result
Speaker 1: was anyways, So Thompson went and rebuilt that and the
Speaker 1: first two holes, the last two holes if you're taking
Speaker 1: the original routing one two seventeen eighteen, they used to
Speaker 1: campground site and that linked it to the hotel which
Speaker 1: was there, not quite as big as it is now.
Speaker 1: And then he put a rooting together and then out
Speaker 1: walking he had discovered the cauldron. So that's seven eighty nine.
Speaker 1: That wasn't on the property he was supposed to use.
Speaker 1: They actually had to change their lease agreement and then
Speaker 1: so he had his routing. But as he was working
Speaker 1: he instead of building, he cleared the same with but
Speaker 1: this time he rather than using a single bunker, used
Speaker 1: clusters of bunkers. And then rather than having smooth, simple edges,
Speaker 1: he started to put fingers. And the instruction that he
Speaker 1: used was he asked the men when they were building
Speaker 1: the mounds to look at particular peaks and they were
Speaker 1: to emulate the ridge lines on those peaks. So they
Speaker 1: would build a rough version of that using horse drawn scrapers,
Speaker 1: and then they would rake it out. And he wasn't
Speaker 1: worried about duplicating it. There's some good absolute duplication out
Speaker 1: at Cape Breton, the Highlands that's remarkable. First hole in
Speaker 1: Ben Frannian behind is mind blowing. The backbridge is a duplicate.
Speaker 1: And there are some duplicates, but they're not a lot
Speaker 1: of them. You've really got to look for them. But
Speaker 1: he did this. But the other thing was he then
Speaker 1: made very elaborate shapes on the interiors. They're very edgy,
Speaker 1: and they're much more elaborate than they even are now.
Speaker 1: And one of the stories that Corners talked about was
Speaker 1: they were on a train coming back from Capilano and
Speaker 1: ended up talking about baff and he said that he
Speaker 1: would tell the men to look at how the ice
Speaker 1: pack was up in the mountains and emulate that, and
Speaker 1: emulate that and emulate that in that face, and that's
Speaker 1: how they got the edges, and that's why it was actually.
Speaker 3: A pretty almost ripped torn edge what we.
Speaker 1: Would call it today, that sort of that super loose
Speaker 1: or mackenzieish edge. If you look at the old photos
Speaker 1: of the fifth hole at Cypress Point, where they're supposed
Speaker 1: to emulate the tops of the trees, that's what all
Speaker 1: the bunkers look like at Bamf. Originally they were elaborate
Speaker 1: and the idea of that is if you put all
Speaker 1: the small flourishes and you break the bunkers up, you
Speaker 1: now put the golfer in human scale, so the golfer
Speaker 1: can now relate to where they are. The strategies and
Speaker 1: the wits and the carry angles and the back and
Speaker 1: forth and the views are the same, but it's much
Speaker 1: more relatable and it worked way better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a very interesting point that you make about
Speaker 2: scale and bunkers, because there's kind of a combination of
Speaker 2: scales that happens when you design the edges the way
Speaker 2: that Thompson did at Banff, where the whole bunker is
Speaker 2: big enough scaled up enough to compete with the land, right,
Speaker 2: it can't be so small that it seems dinky in
Speaker 2: comparison to the surrounding landforms, so it has to be
Speaker 2: scaled up. But if it's just scaled up and plane,
Speaker 2: then you lose the human perspective and the part of
Speaker 2: it that helps humans access it right visually, I guess,
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what maybe the bunkers that at
Speaker 2: Jasper Park lacked before, was that combination of the scale
Speaker 2: that's big enough for the entire bunker to live up
Speaker 2: to the surroundings. Jasper had that, but then also the
Speaker 2: details that allow the human scale to be part of
Speaker 2: the picture as well.
Speaker 1: It's really, really, really hard to do grand scale. I
Speaker 1: would say there's only been a handful of architects in
Speaker 1: history that can actually work in grand scale. Anytime you
Speaker 1: see anything in grand scale that works, it shows that
Speaker 1: they are from a peers perspective, they are better than
Speaker 1: we are good at what they do. Because I've watched
Speaker 1: a whole series of architects, I've even tried to do
Speaker 1: some stuff myself by circumstances, and it's really hard not to.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of pressure at a grand scale to
Speaker 1: get every detail right, whereas if you're in a small
Speaker 1: scale it's got enough sort of nooks and crannies and
Speaker 1: intimate things going on anyway that on a small scale
Speaker 1: you can get away with a lot more mistakes or
Speaker 1: underperformance or lack of flourish because actually scale, the smaller
Speaker 1: scale in itself provides some intimacy, and the intimacy becomes relatable,
Speaker 1: and so it always small scale is easier to do.
Speaker 1: Grand scale, it's very easy to sort of lose the
Speaker 1: composition to the scale. Sure, And that's why you look
Speaker 1: at Yale. I assume you've been to Yale. Yale is
Speaker 1: just it anybody who says Rainer or Banks, but more
Speaker 1: so Rainer that anybody sort of underplays his skill set.
Speaker 3: First of all, look at all those rootings.
Speaker 1: But they don't they don't understand that that scale. And
Speaker 1: so he's working with telate templates. But it always fits.
Speaker 1: And it's fucking hard to get something that grand and
Speaker 1: bold to fit without it just being grand and bold
Speaker 1: and crap.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's at yeah, it is. I mean that
Speaker 2: the proportions of that course are pretty much flawless. He
Speaker 2: was great at it. Obviously. Thompson demonstrated that that he
Speaker 2: could do it at Banff. I would say probably Alistair
Speaker 2: Mackenzie worked well on a grand scale as well, was
Speaker 2: able to build landforms, artificial landforms that didn't feel outrageous
Speaker 2: but felt grand enough to live up to a property
Speaker 2: like pasitim those Are there other architects that you think
Speaker 2: are good examples of this?
Speaker 1: I think sometimes they've done it, so, you know, I
Speaker 1: think Ross's work at Oakland Hills, Yes, you know. I
Speaker 1: like a place like Salem for the smallness and sharpness.
Speaker 1: But I look at Oakland Hills and go, this is
Speaker 1: the same guy, like you are just you are so good,
Speaker 1: and then you do pineher Well. I know everybody talks
Speaker 1: about Pinehursts. Number two is sort of a what is original?
Speaker 1: What is not? So why don't I go to Essex?
Speaker 1: But Essex is so different than Salem, which is around
Speaker 1: the corner, which are both so different than Oakland Hills.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh my god, is he? And then Seminole
Speaker 1: is a whole other visual feast that's on another different,
Speaker 1: diferent level.
Speaker 3: Like Ross just mixed it. That's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1: I think Ross mixed it up so well, and I
Speaker 1: think if we're really poor it explaining one thing. As
Speaker 1: historians are interested in architecture. I don't think we ever
Speaker 1: give Ross the full credit for that unbelievably wide palette
Speaker 1: that he could paint in. He could do it in
Speaker 1: four or five ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, the pieces of land are so different.
Speaker 2: Pinehurst number two you'd also have to throw into that
Speaker 2: mix as a place where he just again took a
Speaker 2: different approach. And it's funny how different restoration architects seemed
Speaker 2: to be well suited to different types of Ross. Where
Speaker 2: you know, at Pinehurst number two, maybe no one but
Speaker 2: Corn Crenshaw could have done that restoration as well, and
Speaker 2: maybe the same could be said of Seminole at Oakland Hills.
Speaker 2: I'm very glad that Hans's team handled that work there
Speaker 2: because yes, those bunkers on the par three ninth hole,
Speaker 2: on the par three seventeenth hole, which are set into
Speaker 2: such massive landforms, seem perfectly in proportion and the picture
Speaker 2: is in balance.
Speaker 1: And I know there's going to be four or five
Speaker 1: different architects because I know all the bigger player as well,
Speaker 1: who would be pissed off me for saying that, But
Speaker 1: only Gil could do that particular job. I actually think
Speaker 1: Gil's one of the few that can really get out
Speaker 1: there with scale and get away with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gil and of course his design partner Jim Wagner
Speaker 2: combined in wonderful ways to pull off those visuals and
Speaker 2: make it truly look and feel like, you know, the
Speaker 2: historical photos that you're looking at, which is not an
Speaker 2: easy thing to do, but well.
Speaker 3: You're right there.
Speaker 1: I think that's an important thing that's kind of lost
Speaker 1: an arch check. I'm just going to go sideways for
Speaker 1: a quick side. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I always loved Bill Core's comment about Pacific Dunes of
Speaker 1: only Tom could have built Pacific Dunes, and that's said
Speaker 1: is a high compliment, And I do think you're right.
Speaker 1: I do think there are horses for courses, and whether
Speaker 1: it's restoration or even whether it's original, I just think
Speaker 1: that there are there are moments where they're the right person.
Speaker 1: I think the melding of Bill and Ben at sand
Speaker 1: Hills Perry Maxwell. One of my ultimate favorite golf courses
Speaker 1: in the entire world is Perry Dunes. A I have
Speaker 1: a warm If you asked me for what is the
Speaker 1: quintessential American course, it's actually what I would choose because
Speaker 1: it expresses that site better than any other piece of
Speaker 1: architecture I can think of. It is absolutely about that site.
Speaker 1: But again, Perry Maxwell, God, I wish he had more
Speaker 1: opportunity than he did. I think we would have appreciated
Speaker 1: him like an Alistair Mackenzie. And I do think Alistair
Speaker 1: is sitting on our Mount Rushmore. I think every architect
Speaker 1: has to start with him and Colt there and then
Speaker 1: it's just a question of where you go from there.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So all the branches kind of go out
Speaker 2: from there, and and certainly Perry Maxwell's is part of
Speaker 2: that Mackenzie tree. You can see the influence that working
Speaker 2: with Mackenzie had on him, Uh, you know, from Crystal Downs,
Speaker 2: then to his work at Prairie Dunes on the original
Speaker 2: nine hole course, which is maybe the best set of
Speaker 2: golf holes ever put in the ground in America, and
Speaker 2: then Old Town, one of the best design courses anywhere. There's, uh,
Speaker 2: there's these these influences, and then Perry Maxwell jumps over
Speaker 2: time to Core and Crenshaw and that that line of
Speaker 2: influence firmly intersects with with them. We have we we've
Speaker 2: certainly gone sideways, as you say, but I love going Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's well, it's maybe I shouldn't be resisting
Speaker 2: it as much as I am. I do want to
Speaker 2: eventually get lead us back to Stanley Thompson and uh
Speaker 2: in some way. There are other courses to talk about,
Speaker 2: and indeed courses where you have worked and done restorings
Speaker 2: and renovations. And I want to make sure to mention
Speaker 2: that it's news to me. I mean, you're currently working
Speaker 2: on projects at a few different interesting Stanley Thompson golf courses.
Speaker 2: I want to mention quickly Sleepy Hollow golf Course in Cleveland.
Speaker 2: Have I heard that you're involved in something there?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: I know it's a long term thing because you're working
Speaker 2: with Cleveland metro Parks and these things take time, but
Speaker 2: what's the nature of what you're trying to do there?
Speaker 1: So essentially to be very frank to get them to
Speaker 1: the next stage. So I've given them a master plan
Speaker 1: which does include even some restoration work for bunkers, but
Speaker 1: I will not be the one doing it. They've probably
Speaker 1: got ten years of clearing to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I see on your master plan is
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of trees that need to.
Speaker 1: They have a time to do. And it was golf
Speaker 1: course built on an enormous scale. Historically, you could argue
Speaker 1: it's not eighteen holes of Stanley. There is sort of
Speaker 1: a history, so you're kind of nine and nine. But
Speaker 1: he he did do work on the other nine. There's
Speaker 1: definitely nine holes of his. There is one of the
Speaker 1: all time great One of the things Stanley was great
Speaker 1: at was super long part threes. There is one of
Speaker 1: the all time greatest long part threes he ever did.
Speaker 1: Currently played as eleven. I can't even imagine playing that
Speaker 1: as too. So the idea is we're going to open
Speaker 1: up so you'll see more of the land. We've started
Speaker 1: to open up the canyon hole. They've actually got a
Speaker 1: canyon with a waterfall that the waterfalls now exposed. But
Speaker 1: the epic second shot on that hole will be spectacular
Speaker 1: when it's finally opened up. So they're going to clear
Speaker 1: trees there and then, as I said, I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be in house, So I think going to
Speaker 1: take them about ten years to get there. I'll just
Speaker 1: be super frank. I won't be working at that point,
Speaker 1: so which is fine. When we put everything together, I
Speaker 1: was I'm not sure if I said that to them,
Speaker 1: but I think I did say that to them. Essentially
Speaker 1: just clear they know, clear trees until you're done, and
Speaker 1: then and then at that point you can they do it.
Speaker 1: They should rebuild one of the greens in particular, and
Speaker 1: not because it's too steep or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: one of thos been altered too much, and then it
Speaker 1: could use a bunker job. And then I think it's
Speaker 1: one of the best public golf courses you'll find anywhere.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would be a good example of his work.
Speaker 1: The scale is Jasper Bamp. It's overwhelming. The land is
Speaker 1: spectacularly rolling. It's got to be two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: acres that side.
Speaker 3: It might be more.
Speaker 2: It'll probably be a good example of how trees shut
Speaker 2: down scale or high it, you know, and as you
Speaker 2: start to expose that property it becomes very big. That's
Speaker 2: something for people to keep an eye on. I think
Speaker 2: Sleepy Hollow is already a pleasure to play, a great
Speaker 2: municipal golf course designed by Stanley Thompson right there in Cleveland,
Speaker 2: available to all, and hopefully they take that master plan
Speaker 2: that you drew up seriously and gradually implement it as
Speaker 2: they're as they're able. At Bamp Springs, my understanding is
Speaker 2: that there's some work potentially happening there as well. What
Speaker 2: can you tell me about that?
Speaker 1: So at the moment, I can give you a visual
Speaker 1: Oh look.
Speaker 2: At this, So for for audio only listeners, was showing
Speaker 2: me a plan. You're you're you're you're an artist in
Speaker 2: addition to a golf architect, by the way, and so
Speaker 2: that the plans you draw on your paintings are are
Speaker 2: all visually striking.
Speaker 1: But that's which is which is awesome in radio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we've started to post these podcasts on YouTube
Speaker 2: as well, so as maybe people can see it there.
Speaker 1: Anyways, they hired me this year to help them restore bunkers.
Speaker 1: So they had started to do some work in house,
Speaker 1: and I think they faced some minor criticism about some
Speaker 1: of the work or had some questions about some of
Speaker 1: the work, and so they hired me to come out.
Speaker 1: And I've got a tremendous amount of archival information about
Speaker 1: the golf course, and so I spent six days going
Speaker 1: over the golf course and going over bunker by bunker
Speaker 1: what should be done in every individual bunker so they
Speaker 1: can they can restore it. So they've done some and
Speaker 1: then in the process I just sort of I've given
Speaker 1: them a grassing The grassing lines have kind of come
Speaker 1: in a bit, and particularly in some spots badly, and
Speaker 1: so the idea is to push the grassing lines back out.
Speaker 1: They're really receptive to going at that right away. And
Speaker 1: then the other thing is some tree removal where trees
Speaker 1: are starting to impinge on corridors there, impinge upon the
Speaker 1: quality of the bunkering or even turf health. That's actually
Speaker 1: a little harder because it's Parks Canada. It's a Parks property.
Speaker 1: Most of it's okay, but anytime we run into Douglas firs,
Speaker 1: the Parks Canada is really reluctant to take a Douglas fern.
Speaker 1: And the Seventh Green not any original writing. The current
Speaker 1: seventh Green on the Thompson eighteen. It's all Douglas Firs
Speaker 1: around that green site. And it's actually the biggest problem
Speaker 1: we've got for turf health and bunker health. So we'll
Speaker 1: see how we do on that. I have an alternative
Speaker 1: for how to deal with that. But essentially that's the
Speaker 1: plan is just so they can go ahead. Some of
Speaker 1: the things that have been put in by other architects.
Speaker 1: We're going to get rid of a few things. The
Speaker 1: greens are renovated, so I'm trying to deal with the
Speaker 1: fact that when they renovate them, they actually built on
Speaker 1: top of them. So some of the depths are wrong.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're just going to leave that alone. Other times
Speaker 1: we're going to fix that because the relationship doesn't work
Speaker 1: and the banks don't work anymore, so we'll just fix
Speaker 1: that all up. Also trying to get them to expose
Speaker 1: some of the river views that they're losing or have lost.
Speaker 1: We've just got to make sure that we're not overstepping
Speaker 1: our bounds with them on that one, because the Bow
Speaker 1: River is super important. It's a very healthy river with
Speaker 1: trout and really a wonderful river, so it's really important.
Speaker 1: But just going through a process on that where they're
Speaker 1: comfortable with what we're doing.
Speaker 3: So that's just started off.
Speaker 1: I'll finish off the planning part of it probably this winter.
Speaker 3: That was kind of our arrangement.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, I was in the middle of the
Speaker 1: fairway of the one day on one of the wholes,
Speaker 1: and all I could think of was it was what
Speaker 1: I always wanted to do, was to work at bamf Springs.
Speaker 1: And I got a little emotional at the time and
Speaker 1: just thought, I can't I can't believe I'm I get
Speaker 1: the privilege to do this. So there are little moments,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny as an architect sometimes you can
Speaker 1: we're really bad sometimes at lamenting the things we don't
Speaker 1: get to do. But I mean, God, the chance to
Speaker 1: work at BAMF Springs and then we'll probably end up
Speaker 1: talking about cap Breton Highlands. I got a chance to
Speaker 1: restore that. I mean, if you ask me when I
Speaker 1: was young what I hope to do, we're touching on it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, those are the two courses. I mean, there's,
Speaker 2: at least from my perspective as an American, there's no
Speaker 2: more iconic golf course than BAMF Springs. But it has
Speaker 2: been known for a while that it's in need of
Speaker 2: some nips and tucks, some TLC, some return to the past,
Speaker 2: and so let's hope that they're able to get there
Speaker 2: while keeping in balance their relationship with the surrounding environment,
Speaker 2: which is obviously very important as well, but obviously one
Speaker 2: of the most gorgeous golf courses in the world, and
Speaker 2: so let's hope that they can improve the bed.
Speaker 1: So BAMF is the highest expression of his bunkering, there
Speaker 1: is no I mean, unfortunately, I work with Saint George's,
Speaker 1: which is a really good one too, and Caps incredible,
Speaker 1: but BAMF Springs is sort of that watershed moment where
Speaker 1: he expressed himself as flamboyantly as he possibly could. And
Speaker 1: I just I think when we've got things like that,
Speaker 1: you really want to present it. You know, he's better
Speaker 1: than most of us, so shouldn't his architecture be completely expressed.
Speaker 1: And then that's a great example for other architects to
Speaker 1: go and see, our players, to go and enjoy, just
Speaker 1: to get a real true feel of how good he was.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I think the restoration of Vams
Speaker 1: critical for Canadian golf.
Speaker 2: Well Ian, let's wrap up here with some discussion of
Speaker 2: late career Thompson or later career Stanley Thompson. Two courses.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get to where Capilano and Cape Breton
Speaker 2: Highland's links, both of which you're very familiar with. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's a way to discuss these
Speaker 2: courses together, but as a way of setting this up,
Speaker 2: we've touched on this earlier, but there's a way that
Speaker 2: Stanley Thompson's career kind of tracks the arcs of golf
Speaker 2: architecture in the Golden Age and after he became increasingly bold, flamboyant, baroque,
Speaker 2: even toward the late twenties as he was unleashed and
Speaker 2: exposed to different and exciting forms of golf architecture, and
Speaker 2: perhaps Bamf Springs Saint George's which you mentioned, represent that
Speaker 2: period in Thompson's career and that period in Golden Age architecture.
Speaker 2: We see Alistair Mackenzie moving in much the same direction
Speaker 2: in California around the same time, getting to the point
Speaker 2: at Pasatiempo where the visuals are quite over the top
Speaker 2: even in places. But then as the depression was approaching,
Speaker 2: there was some pullback, maybe some return to more minimal approaches.
Speaker 2: Augusta National famously didn't have many bunkers when it opened,
Speaker 2: so those bunkers were very bold and the greens were
Speaker 2: very bold, but there was less aggression, I guess, in
Speaker 2: the style of that course than what you see in Pasatiempo.
Speaker 2: And so Stanley Thompson we can follow through the thirties
Speaker 2: because he kept doing work. He kept doing important projects
Speaker 2: during that period, so he's one of the few architects
Speaker 2: we can talk about as kind of continuing some threads
Speaker 2: from the Golden Age and exploring where that was going
Speaker 2: to go next. Perry Maxwell, same deal, continued to work
Speaker 2: in the thirties. We saw what his work was like
Speaker 2: Langford and Moreau to an extent the same thing. Stanley
Speaker 2: Thompson is one of those interesting architects where we can
Speaker 2: see the evolution of his style continue even after the depression,
Speaker 2: and we can't say that about many golf architects of
Speaker 2: his period. So when you look at Capitalano and you
Speaker 2: look at Cape Britton, Hiland's links, what do you see?
Speaker 2: How do you place those courses in the evolution of
Speaker 2: his career and style.
Speaker 1: So there were five courses that sort of came one
Speaker 1: after the other, and that was Jasper Led to bam
Speaker 1: Fled to Saint George's and then interestingly enough, right when
Speaker 1: he finished Saint George's he got hired to do Caplano.
Speaker 1: Cap Plano actually took a long time, took a lot
Speaker 1: longer because it's a six thousand acre development as well,
Speaker 1: and it was owned by the Guinness family. So the
Speaker 1: one reason he had money and the ability to build
Speaker 1: Capilano and had the financial wherewithal was the fact that
Speaker 1: the Guinness family was actually the financial backstop to that project.
Speaker 1: So when he was building Cap Cap Capilano, he got
Speaker 1: to pick the routing. So he picked the property off
Speaker 1: of six thousand acres and the rooting actually drops three
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty feet, so it drops through the first
Speaker 1: six holes and then it sort of benches its way
Speaker 1: back up and then you finished the final holes at
Speaker 1: the bowl above. The interesting I'm going to go slightly
Speaker 1: sideways on it. The interesting thing about Cap is he
Speaker 1: didn't walk you straight down six holes. He walked you
Speaker 1: down then walked you across. And the reason is is
Speaker 1: your legs would wear out if you walk six holes
Speaker 1: straight down, and just like your legs would wear out
Speaker 1: if you walk six straight holes. And the brilliance in
Speaker 1: that rooting is that actually works its way down by
Speaker 1: going sidehill for a while and then drops, and then
Speaker 1: when it goes up, it goes up, and then side
Speaker 1: hill and goes up, and then goes side hill and
Speaker 1: goes up.
Speaker 2: And like the hiking path, sorry, it's like a hiking path,
Speaker 2: like a good hiking path, or is.
Speaker 1: Bill Corraways like to say, if you ever want to
Speaker 1: know how to get up a hill, look for the
Speaker 1: cattle trail. It's usually diagonally across the hill. The and
Speaker 1: the one of the interesting decisions he made about the
Speaker 1: golf course was rather than building an enormous amount of bunkering,
Speaker 1: you know, you get to the second green site, there's
Speaker 1: no bunkers. And he mixed it up. He had a
Speaker 1: bit of bunkering on the first, not too much on two,
Speaker 1: a lot on three. Four was a part three there
Speaker 1: was a lot more, and he just kind of flexed
Speaker 1: back and he just didn't really turn to bunkering as much.
Speaker 1: And because it was a really interesting piece of land,
Speaker 1: because it was severe, he often just kind of leaned
Speaker 1: into the landforms or the way the holes benched in,
Speaker 1: and so there was much less use of bunkering, and
Speaker 1: he allowed sort of the whole larger setting to take
Speaker 1: a larger role in the architecture. So you know, he
Speaker 1: would choose a plateau green site and then rather than
Speaker 1: bunkering living daylights out of it, it would be a
Speaker 1: plateau green site. And what was fascinating is when he
Speaker 1: got to Caperton Highlands, it was the same thing. He
Speaker 1: was actually chasing topsoil. In the routing. There are five
Speaker 1: holes without any bunkers at all, which sounds like a lot,
Speaker 1: but you don't notice it when you play it.
Speaker 3: You have to be told that to notice it.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing about that was he took an
Speaker 1: even greater step back from the land and he let
Speaker 1: the land dictate the strategies and play, and then he
Speaker 1: bunkered to reinforce. That felt like being elaborate. So some
Speaker 1: of the green sites, like fifteen, there's an enormous round
Speaker 1: of bunkers. On other holes, like the thirteenth hole, which
Speaker 1: just happens to be my favorite, there's a big knoll
Speaker 1: in the middle of the fairway and the green sits
Speaker 1: behind it, and the knoll is you have to figure out,
Speaker 1: am I going to hit the top of the knoll?
Speaker 1: Am I going to try to play right of it?
Speaker 1: Left of it? What am I going to do? But
Speaker 1: the shot in is not in the air, it's on
Speaker 1: the ground. You've got to either play really left off
Speaker 1: the tee and try to play up the valley, or
Speaker 1: try to use the feeder or try to bounce it.
Speaker 1: I'd like to try to bounce it off the top
Speaker 1: because if you can hit the crown of it. It
Speaker 1: actually always feeds dead center of the green. But there
Speaker 1: are so many holes where there may be bunkering on
Speaker 1: the holes, but the bunkering is a framework, and it's
Speaker 1: a visual framework. But what matters is the steep slope,
Speaker 1: and often those are cut short.
Speaker 3: And everything there was cut short. He was like a gusty.
Speaker 1: He mowed out to the forest lines and it was
Speaker 1: just a uniform cut. It was greens, a uniform cut
Speaker 1: and teas, And even then I would argue that when
Speaker 1: I played it in eighty one, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I would argue that teas were the same height as
Speaker 1: the fairways, that it was a uniform cut until you
Speaker 1: got to the greens. But he allowed the land to
Speaker 1: He didn't need to impose himself in the architecture. As
Speaker 1: time went on, he took he had a lighter and
Speaker 1: lighter hand, He took a less aggressive approach, and in
Speaker 1: many ways, Cape Breton Highlands is my favorite because it's
Speaker 1: just a really interesting mix of whole types and architecture.
Speaker 1: And Saint George's is harder, but it was meant for
Speaker 1: a Canadian open At Highlands, there are easy holes. There's
Speaker 1: lots of drivable stuff. There's he kind of backed off.
Speaker 1: He kind of said, you got to see this proper,
Speaker 1: and God, you're going to have fun seeing this property.
Speaker 1: And the super cool thing about the rooting at Highlands
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite things in all of his work.
Speaker 1: Is you play along the headlands and you end up
Speaker 1: down at the ocean, so you slowly make your way
Speaker 1: to the ocean. You actually play ocean side holes, and
Speaker 1: then there's an enormous walk and you find yourself in
Speaker 1: this massive mountain valley and you play over the kind
Speaker 1: of over the pass, and then you've got this long walk,
Speaker 1: and then you play into the Clybourne Brook, this beautiful
Speaker 1: pastoral valley, and then you've got probably the greatest walk
Speaker 1: in golf that's not a golf hole is from twelve
Speaker 1: to thirteen, you actually walk up the brook on a
Speaker 1: it's cliff on the right of you, it's rushing river
Speaker 1: on the left of you, and you're literally you feel
Speaker 1: like you're hanging in the balance half the time. And
Speaker 1: then you play over this rumply crazy land for the
Speaker 1: next set, and then you get to the church on fifteen.
Speaker 1: Most people usually stop. I always like to stop it's
Speaker 1: a Catholic church. I'm not Catholic, and I'm not that
Speaker 1: religious either, but it's a charming thing to just look
Speaker 1: in smile. I always find there's something. I'd get out
Speaker 1: of that and then walk to the next tee. But again,
Speaker 1: and now you're back in the uplands where you started
Speaker 1: the first couple of holes, or the headlands. But it
Speaker 1: reads like a book, and the interesting thing is it
Speaker 1: shows you actually every landscape that's in Cape Bretton Island,
Speaker 1: but in a golf course, in a series of chapters,
Speaker 1: and it I don't know if he meant to do
Speaker 1: it or again, if it's happenstance. Let's choose to say
Speaker 1: that he was a genius if he could. If he
Speaker 1: actually figured that out, then he is on an elite
Speaker 1: level genius for choosing to actually space things out.
Speaker 3: I kind of know that he was chasing.
Speaker 1: Topsail, so I think it was actually there was a
Speaker 1: long walk between the next section of topsail, because he
Speaker 1: was going from sort of old farmstead to old farmstead
Speaker 1: up at the Headlands was land. The interesting thing was
Speaker 1: where the park who hired him to do the he
Speaker 1: talked to the Canadian government into funding it and believe
Speaker 1: it or not, had a one almed moment the Prime
Speaker 1: Minister of the.
Speaker 3: Day and got it approved.
Speaker 1: And so it tells you he was a larger in
Speaker 1: life character. He was supposed to actually do the whole
Speaker 1: golf course on the headland, and he figured out he
Speaker 1: couldn't do it with the money he had because there
Speaker 1: was no soil.
Speaker 3: And he turned around.
Speaker 1: And the sad note that goes with this is they
Speaker 1: actually expropriated twenty seven families for their land to build
Speaker 1: the best course. So I got admit, But when I
Speaker 1: started to learn the whole history of it and understood
Speaker 1: it well. And the interesting thing is when I'm working
Speaker 1: on the renovation for the people on the crew, their
Speaker 1: families were expropriated. Wow. So I actually had a with
Speaker 1: Parks Canada. They had me actually talk about the importance
Speaker 1: and I did choose to address the expropriation and how
Speaker 1: inappropriate it was and how it's actually something while it
Speaker 1: the golf course is important to the town that it
Speaker 1: was inappropriate. And I'm actually semi disappointed right that that
Speaker 1: took place. I felt that they deserved an apology because
Speaker 1: it never should have happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, I mean, it's one of those things
Speaker 2: where you need to talk about both. You can talk
Speaker 2: about the genius of the design of the course, but
Speaker 2: you must also talk about the human cost if there
Speaker 2: is a human cost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's one of those rare moments where there
Speaker 1: was a human cost for the golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a shame. Well, I mean to take it
Speaker 2: back to a philosophical question about about golf architecture. Often
Speaker 2: it is said that long green to tea walks are
Speaker 2: not ideal for a golf course, and that the architect
Speaker 2: should endeavor to bring the greens and teas closer together
Speaker 2: on a walking course especially. But from what I've heard
Speaker 2: of Highland's Links, and it's not a course I've been to,
Speaker 2: I'd very much like to go there. It's on It's
Speaker 2: near the top of my bucket list. In fact, from
Speaker 2: what I've heard, the walks are part of the round
Speaker 2: and that's what makes them work. And I think it's
Speaker 2: the same deal at Bandoned Trails, Corn Crenshaw's first bandoned course,
Speaker 2: where there are some long walks between greens and teas.
Speaker 2: But the walks themselves are so inherently beautiful. First of all,
Speaker 2: they're great little hikes, and also they're well timed in
Speaker 2: the round, where they represent some kind of interlude or
Speaker 2: breakage between narrative components of the routing different pieces of land,
Speaker 2: and so the round gets broken into these phases. And
Speaker 2: this is you we're using the metaphor of a novel.
Speaker 2: This is where it starts to feel like that, where
Speaker 2: there's a kind of pacing, there's an individual chapter, and
Speaker 2: then you put the bookmark in for a bit and
Speaker 2: go off somewhere else, and then you return and there's
Speaker 2: something different, but it's still part of the same story.
Speaker 2: It works that way abandoned trails, and I wouldn't want
Speaker 2: to get rid of those walks. I think Highland's length
Speaker 2: sounds like there is a similar dynamic, and there has
Speaker 2: to be at least some intention behind that. It can't
Speaker 2: just be accidental.
Speaker 1: I'd like to believe it's not, but put it this way,
Speaker 1: it does actually seem to break it up into logical sections,
Speaker 1: and I do think it becomes part of the experience.
Speaker 1: The only thing I wish is I got to walk
Speaker 1: over the old swinging bridge that went from the Tenth
Speaker 1: Green to the eleventh Tea, and that was part of
Speaker 1: the experience. Too, and I kind of I rwe the
Speaker 1: loss of that for what it meant because there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a walk there. But the swinging bridge,
Speaker 1: I got my dad actually yelling at me that I
Speaker 1: got it bouncing so high. It was part of the
Speaker 1: joy of the whole place because he had built barbecue pit.
Speaker 1: He had built all these wooden structures as part of
Speaker 1: the project, and so they're there. They did the same
Speaker 1: at Jasper, and Jasper obviously had the fire recently, and
Speaker 1: I'm really sad to say that all the structures are
Speaker 1: actually burnt, so that kind of that was trying to see.
Speaker 3: So golf course will be back.
Speaker 1: It'll take time, but it's a shame, although I think
Speaker 1: you can. All you need is good photos and a
Speaker 1: good carpenter. Put it this way, if I retire that
Speaker 1: actually I'm handy, so that would be something i'd love
Speaker 1: to do. If that's the case, maybe.
Speaker 2: You build some houses and some shops and.
Speaker 3: I don't need to rebuilt houses. I don't need to
Speaker 3: ever do that again.
Speaker 1: But I did that with friends when I was in
Speaker 1: my early twenties. But I would, Yeah, building building those
Speaker 1: structures would actually be kind of fun. I think I
Speaker 1: could enjoy that. I could. I love Jasper Town.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If people don't know, they suffered a terrifying wildfire
Speaker 2: earlier earlier this year, and it was very threatening to
Speaker 2: the golf course. But it seems as though the town
Speaker 2: suffered more than the golf course. But the hope is
Speaker 2: eventually both will bounce back.
Speaker 3: Both will, no question about that. They're already.
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to fast track all the construction
Speaker 1: for the town. The golf course is going to take
Speaker 1: a bit of work to get it back up and going.
Speaker 1: They everything that's stand, all the ground features, there's nothing
Speaker 1: affected whatsoever. There's a lot of tree loss, and they'll
Speaker 1: have to address that. Actually they've started to address that.
Speaker 1: I exchanged emails with the the the assistant super just today.
Speaker 1: But they've got a lot of work to sort of
Speaker 1: get up and going. The fire affected their irrigation system,
Speaker 1: so they've got a lot to deal with.
Speaker 2: Are you working with them or just kind of casually
Speaker 2: advising them.
Speaker 1: I am casually advising them. If they would like something formal,
Speaker 1: then I would work with them and then donate my
Speaker 1: time back to the town. My wife and I the
Speaker 1: first day we were married was we were in Jasper
Speaker 1: So just a special place to you, Jasper holds and
Speaker 1: it's I've always said, if I had one round to play,
Speaker 1: I've said this five or six different times in different
Speaker 1: media places. If I had won round to play, I'd
Speaker 1: actually choose Jasper Park, even though I've had the glorious
Speaker 1: opportunity to play some courses that I think other people
Speaker 1: would choose wish to play. It is the place that
Speaker 1: moves me the most. And part of it is just
Speaker 1: I actually like the valley, Jasper Valley. So to go
Speaker 1: there and see that the valley is, you know, there's
Speaker 1: thirty or forty thousand square miles of burnt forest. It's
Speaker 1: quite something to see, considering I had only been hiking
Speaker 1: there the previous fall with my wife, and i'd actually
Speaker 1: played golf there a month before it happened.
Speaker 2: Right, So a sad trend in many wild places these days. Well,
Speaker 2: dealing with fires.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember the golf course just outside of
Speaker 1: La done by Jeff Shackelford and Gil.
Speaker 2: Rest of Kenna.
Speaker 1: Thank you Rest of Cannon. As I said, I'm terrible
Speaker 1: at names.
Speaker 2: You remember the architects though, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well it's funny. I can always gravitate to something. But
Speaker 1: it's like the yeah, the whole William Flynn thing and
Speaker 1: Dick Wilson.
Speaker 3: But I remember seeing it.
Speaker 1: I saw it after it got burned, and I saw
Speaker 1: it in more recent times and it's amazing what a
Speaker 1: recovery nature will do given it.
Speaker 2: So you can barely tell yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's remarkable.
Speaker 1: By the way, super cool place. If anybody's is amazing,
Speaker 1: find themselves near La looking for a round of golf.
Speaker 1: That is a must play, absolutely must play.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite public golf courses. We've talked about
Speaker 2: it a good bit on the podcast before, and I
Speaker 2: grew up about an hour and a half away, so
Speaker 2: at a special course. But for sure, you know, subject
Speaker 2: to the wildfires that many Californian courses are. So to
Speaker 2: wrap up here, Ian, you've mentioned a couple of times
Speaker 2: your your plans for your retirement. Another thing that you
Speaker 2: mentioned off off the podcast that you might tackle during
Speaker 2: your retirement is your book about Stanley Thompson, which you've
Speaker 2: written quite a bit of to the point where you
Speaker 2: were able to distribute a few copies of it earlier
Speaker 2: this year on a limited basis. But what are your
Speaker 2: plans for that book, and what will it eventually look like.
Speaker 1: Actually, at the moment there are no plans.
Speaker 2: You're pretty busy with golfers.
Speaker 3: But it should be.
Speaker 1: Said, it's written, it could use it could use a
Speaker 1: professional editor, it could look it could use somebody. Looking
Speaker 1: at the collection of photos I've got in there, I
Speaker 1: think stand on their own. They're they're terrific. So I
Speaker 1: think what you'd like to see visually? I could use
Speaker 1: some advice, probably from a couple of writers on whether
Speaker 1: the narrative that I'm sharing is interesting or whether I
Speaker 1: need to actually go somewhere else with it. I've done
Speaker 1: one of the paintings for it. I was going to
Speaker 1: do a watercolor of all five courses. I have a
Speaker 1: great one of Saint George's that I'm really proud of.
Speaker 1: It's probably the best golf course painting I've ever done.
Speaker 1: That one I'll use. I've tried to do a couple
Speaker 1: of the others, but without success. But my skills are improving,
Speaker 1: so I'll get back to that. As weird as it sounds,
Speaker 1: I'm way better at cats than birds. So I took
Speaker 1: lessons in twenty twenty with a wildlife artist and I'm
Speaker 1: very comfortable with birds. Golf is hard comparatively because it's
Speaker 1: tones right, But yeah, I probably will finish it. My
Speaker 1: son's in the middle of writing a novel and we
Speaker 1: were talking about his and he's going to put his online.
Speaker 3: And it's shockingly.
Speaker 1: Good too, So I really I use halfway through, and
Speaker 1: I'm actually frustrated that I can't read the remainder. And
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to sell sort of my son or
Speaker 1: give you the father thing. I'm actually surprised at how
Speaker 1: good it is. And he was talking about putting it online.
Speaker 1: And I actually think nowadays, rather than publishing it, I
Speaker 1: think I would digitally publish it and just make it available.
Speaker 1: And I think what I would probably do if I
Speaker 1: get interested, so I may pivot.
Speaker 3: Every winter.
Speaker 1: I've got lots of time. I could put it online
Speaker 1: and then just link it to PayPal for donations. If
Speaker 1: I got so incentivized to actually do something this fall.
Speaker 1: If that was what sort of all of a sudden
Speaker 1: caught me, because I kind of every winner, I kind
Speaker 1: of go in a direction. And if I did that,
Speaker 1: then I could actually do something where you could donate
Speaker 1: to something like food Bank or Jasper if they need
Speaker 1: something to sort of get them going. Or we have
Speaker 1: six nations beside us here that would be a good
Speaker 1: place to donate as well. There's programs that they could
Speaker 1: use it.
Speaker 2: All right, well, Ian, we have a lot more to
Speaker 2: talk about, certainly, and I'd love to have you back
Speaker 2: sometime to explore more. But let's wrap up there. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for coming on the podcast and talking
Speaker 2: about Stanley Thompson as well as other subjects.
Speaker 1: Apologizing for all the sideways diversions, but I really appreciate
Speaker 1: the opportunity to talk with you, and I hope some
Speaker 1: people get more interested in playing his work. I would
Speaker 1: encourage anybody loves golf to go and play Stanley's work.
Speaker 2: This episode of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast was produced
Speaker 2: by PJ Clark. Thank you PJ again. If you'd like
Speaker 2: to check out Club TFE, the url is the Frida
Speaker 2: Egg dot com slash membership. We're really excited about what's
Speaker 2: going on in there, so come join us. Thank you
Speaker 2: for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode.