Speaker 1: I miss a green for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a frid Egg Friday.
Speaker 2: Egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg
Speaker 2: bride Egg.
Speaker 3: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 4: Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name
Speaker 4: is Garrett Morrison and I'm here today with Andy Johnson.
Speaker 1: How you doing, Andy, Garrett, I'm doing wonderful. I'm ready.
Speaker 3: Uh, by the time everybody will be listening to this
Speaker 3: will be past Christmas, but you know, just the holiday season.
Speaker 3: Ready for a laid back week next week. And yeah,
Speaker 3: excited to talk about events. That's a big thing for
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, it was a big part of our
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one. And also excited to talk about a
Speaker 3: couple of courses today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we are devoting this episode to events. If you
Speaker 4: have no interest whatsoever in Frida Egg events, maybe this
Speaker 4: isn't the episode for you.
Speaker 3: But we are talking about lossonia, so we are learning
Speaker 3: course to talk about los Sonia.
Speaker 1: You know, we are doing that so that you know,
Speaker 1: may just fast forward.
Speaker 4: There's some extra content. I'll put some timestamps in this description,
Speaker 4: but I think a lot of people would be interested
Speaker 4: in Frida Egg events. I mean they're they're really fun.
Speaker 4: But just telling you that that is the subject of
Speaker 4: our discussion for the next I don't know, twenty minutes
Speaker 4: or so, and then we're going to have some clips
Speaker 4: from past episodes about courses and you and I are
Speaker 4: also going to discuss loss Sonia, which actually we haven't
Speaker 4: done on the podcast before, even though it's a very
Speaker 4: important course to you and to the Friday Egg and.
Speaker 1: The og Frida Egg event course.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, the Steam Shovel. But first of all, the
Speaker 4: reason we're doing this episode now is that sign ups
Speaker 4: are opening for the first batch of Friday events on Monday,
Speaker 4: January third. The events that are going to be available
Speaker 4: to sign up for are the King Tide at Charleston
Speaker 4: Muni in Charleston, South Carolina. That's on April second. There's
Speaker 4: sign ups for the Boomerang at Seoul Park in Ohi, California,
Speaker 4: that's going to be on April twenty third, The Steam
Speaker 4: Shovel at Lasonia Links in Wisconsin that is going to
Speaker 4: be May fourteenth, The Coup de Gras at the Dunes
Speaker 4: Club in Michigan. That'll be May twenty sixth.
Speaker 3: We also have an add on for that the day
Speaker 3: before for anybody that's playing in it at lost In
Speaker 3: You know, if you can play Tom Doaks Course the
Speaker 3: day before and then also play Dunes Club the next day.
Speaker 4: This is great, that's news to me. And then we
Speaker 4: will also have a sign up for the Banker at
Speaker 4: Dornick Hills in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that one's going on.
Speaker 4: Is that one not going on?
Speaker 3: I don't think that one's going up. I thought I
Speaker 3: thought you were going to. I think that one's in
Speaker 3: the next batch.
Speaker 1: So but I excited about.
Speaker 4: That that one is going to be coming up at
Speaker 4: some point. We'll we'll figure it. We'll figure it out everybody.
Speaker 4: In any case, there's going to be around of sign
Speaker 4: ups for Frida Egg events. And where can people sign
Speaker 4: up for an event or check out information for an
Speaker 4: event if they're interested in it, Andy.
Speaker 3: It's on our website, which you know, I think is
Speaker 3: something that we're we're looking at overhauling in the next year.
Speaker 1: But you have to go.
Speaker 3: If you go to the fridagg dot com, there's a
Speaker 3: little sidebar that says browse topics, click there, and there's
Speaker 3: an event tab, so it's all under the Frida Egg events.
Speaker 3: I'm sure if you google the Frida Egg event it
Speaker 3: would just pull up that seems to be like how.
Speaker 1: People do things now, which is easy enough.
Speaker 3: So there you'll see the full calendar that's been announced
Speaker 3: to date. We have a few extras that are going
Speaker 3: to come in. I think we will be in Philadelphia
Speaker 3: in late August, and then you know, we have a
Speaker 3: couple other events that should pop up in the back
Speaker 3: half of the year, so expect to see some more
Speaker 3: events on there. And yeah, it's we're really excited about these.
Speaker 3: We were really thrilled with how they've gone over time.
Speaker 3: Obviously COVID was a challenging situation, but you know, we
Speaker 3: last year they went swimmingly and we've had extremely good
Speaker 3: luck with weather, so it's been it's been really fun.
Speaker 1: It's been great to get out and meet people.
Speaker 3: And you know, one of the things that when we
Speaker 3: started these back in twenty nineteen, it would have been
Speaker 3: you know, we didn't really know what to expect. It
Speaker 3: had been something I'd been you know, ruminating on and
Speaker 3: you know for a couple of years and had been
Speaker 3: a part of Zach Blair's events that he was the
Speaker 3: ringer that he had done. And you know, I think
Speaker 3: from our standpoint, we really love our community of people
Speaker 3: and you the listeners, readers, and this this is a
Speaker 3: what we kind of view this as as an excellent
Speaker 3: opportunity for people with that share real common interest in
Speaker 3: in our complete golf nuts like golf tragics, love seeing
Speaker 3: new and different and interesting golf courses a way for
Speaker 3: them to get together, you know, full disclosure, we could
Speaker 3: be doing things that would be better for our bottom
Speaker 3: line than these. They take a lot of time and energy,
Speaker 3: and what we want to do is provide them at
Speaker 3: the lowest possible costs we can so that they are
Speaker 3: achievable and accessible for all types of golfers. So you
Speaker 3: can look at it and say, hey, I can go
Speaker 3: see a really neat course that I wouldn't be able
Speaker 3: to otherwise with the frieda Egg or you know.
Speaker 1: And then also on the public side, you.
Speaker 3: Know, uh, in the first three events of the year
Speaker 3: at public courses, we we want to celebrate and really
Speaker 3: give these public courses that provide unbelievable architecture at you know,
Speaker 3: affordable rates a lot of publicity and host these events
Speaker 3: and you know, host them. In the case of Lastonia,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have that one every year and and likely
Speaker 3: we'll have the sole park event every year. And we're
Speaker 3: really excited about the Charleston event. I mean early April,
Speaker 3: and Charleston's about the best time of year to be there,
Speaker 3: and and you know, these these facilities that have that
Speaker 3: do such a are such wonderful stewards of both architecture
Speaker 3: and affordable golf. We want to celebrate those with with
Speaker 3: our events out there. So that's kind of like why
Speaker 3: we started doing Frida Egg events, and you know, it's
Speaker 3: something that we will continue to do. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: our aim is to be around twelve events. Obviously, we
Speaker 3: have a lot of other editorial things between the Shotguns
Speaker 3: start three times a week, the Friday podcast, written articles
Speaker 3: in major championship weeks, with daily newsletters and such like
Speaker 3: that that we you know, it's going to prohibit us
Speaker 3: from ever doing fifty events or whatever.
Speaker 4: We are not an events company. Yeah really this is
Speaker 4: this is one of the things we do.
Speaker 3: But you know what we what we want to do,
Speaker 3: and one of the neatest things that I've seen and
Speaker 3: experience with the events is you see these like complete
Speaker 3: strangers and you know, they meet at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the day and you come back in from eighteen holes
Speaker 3: and it's lunch and you see these people. You walk
Speaker 3: in the room and it's like everybody's best been best
Speaker 3: friends for years. And that's I think kind of the
Speaker 3: when we did the first steam shovel, I walked away
Speaker 3: like I saw people, you know, exchanging numbers, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, these new friends were made new golf friends.
Speaker 3: And you know, these are people that I've seen some
Speaker 3: that play together in events the next year. And that's
Speaker 3: been one of the most rewarding things that these events
Speaker 3: have really brought out, is that you know, people are
Speaker 3: becoming good golf buddies from the events, and I think
Speaker 3: it's cool. You can come obviously with friends, but you
Speaker 3: can also come solo.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing.
Speaker 3: You're going to get paired up with somebody that loves golf,
Speaker 3: probably as much, if not more than you.
Speaker 4: All Right, so you've given a good sense of why
Speaker 4: we hold the events, how they started all that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff, just to give people an idea of where
Speaker 4: we're going with this episode one, we wanted to let
Speaker 4: you know about some of the events that we're holding
Speaker 4: and the courses that we're holding them at. And so
Speaker 4: later in the episode we'll talk about law Sonia and
Speaker 4: we'll play some clips from episodes that we've done on
Speaker 4: Charleston Muni, on Soul Park, maybe on Dorni Hills, and
Speaker 4: so that's where we're ultimately going with the episode. But
Speaker 4: first we wanted to talk about frequently ask questions about
Speaker 4: the events, because we get a lot of the same
Speaker 4: questions over and over again, understandable questions about Frida Egg events,
Speaker 4: and so one fundamental question is what's the basic format
Speaker 4: of a Friday event? What does the day look like?
Speaker 3: Absolutely so all of our events to date are thirty
Speaker 3: six holes. The idea behind that is that we I
Speaker 3: always like playing a course and then I like seeing
Speaker 3: it again because you play it and you sometimes figure
Speaker 3: something out and you say, God, I wish I'd got
Speaker 3: a chance to play it again. But thirty six holes
Speaker 3: of your own ball is pretty taxing. So what we
Speaker 3: do is it's it's like a Mirfield day, So it
Speaker 3: is eighteen holes of best ball with your partner. In
Speaker 3: the morning, we have a gross and a handicapped division.
Speaker 3: You're automatically entered into both. So it starts at around
Speaker 3: eight o'clock, depending on daylight, maintenance crews, how you know
Speaker 3: what time we want to get going, But it starts
Speaker 3: around eight o'clock eighteen holes the best ball. In the morning,
Speaker 3: we have breakfast set up, you know, just grab and
Speaker 3: go breakfast sandwiches and you get your t gift then
Speaker 3: and then we come back in after eighteen holes the
Speaker 3: best ball with a it's a shotgun start, and everybody
Speaker 3: has lunch, and then we go back out in the
Speaker 3: afternoon for eighteen holes of alternate shot.
Speaker 1: This is really fun.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we do that I think
Speaker 3: is unique is that everybody plays in eight sums and
Speaker 3: ten sums, so there's four or five balls, and it's
Speaker 3: just a great way to meet a lot of people.
Speaker 3: And I think alternate shot is a daunting format if
Speaker 3: you've never played it, but the more you play it,
Speaker 3: you realize it is probably the most fun and the
Speaker 3: most team format of golf.
Speaker 1: You know, it really makes you work with your partner.
Speaker 3: And I think, like I always say this before events,
Speaker 3: like the best thing that you know, the best moment
Speaker 3: in your alternate shot life is when you start to realize,
Speaker 3: like I should I like you. Your mentality shifts away
Speaker 3: from being sorry for your partner and it shifts to like, oh,
Speaker 3: thank god, I just don't have to hit that next one,
Speaker 3: you know, like you just like.
Speaker 4: Saying to your partner at the beginning of it, let's
Speaker 4: not apologize to each other, yeah, about the positions that
Speaker 4: we're going to put each other in, because it's going
Speaker 4: to come back around at some point. This is just golf.
Speaker 4: It's what happens. Don't feel sorry.
Speaker 3: I think like that's like one of the funny things
Speaker 3: is like people always apologize for golf shots, Like like
Speaker 3: why are you apologizing if you try? Like the only
Speaker 3: time that anybody could ever be mad if you like
Speaker 3: just got up and just don't try. But everybody always
Speaker 3: is trying, so so anyways, then it's that after the
Speaker 3: alternate shot, we have or dervs, you know, typically we
Speaker 3: buy a round or two of drinks for the group
Speaker 3: and then everything else is kind of on your own,
Speaker 3: and then we have a shootout and who gets into
Speaker 3: the shootout are net winners of the alternate shot and
Speaker 3: the and the best ball, and then low gross winners
Speaker 3: of the alternate shot and the best ball, and then
Speaker 3: some wildcard teams which are basically the you know, total
Speaker 3: based off of totals, so low gross, low net totals
Speaker 3: the next three group, and it's usually about eight to
Speaker 3: ten teams, and we go out and do a four
Speaker 3: hole shootout. Typically, depending on light, it might be a
Speaker 3: you know, a single elimination, so it's kind of a
Speaker 3: flexible thing based off of a you know, the light
Speaker 3: and the constraints of the day. So the shootout's really fun. Usually,
Speaker 3: you know, most people stick around and come out and watch,
Speaker 3: and that's an alternate shot format.
Speaker 1: And then the winners get you know, we do prizes.
Speaker 3: Typically, we've done golf Bay and custom betan Ardi putters,
Speaker 3: which are kind of one of two putters. They're really
Speaker 3: deap they have the event logos on them, and we
Speaker 3: have heavier derves and and people stick around so for
Speaker 3: a little while. Monday's Monday events that at Private club's
Speaker 3: a little bit shorter of a hang than the Saturday events.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there's usually a really fun little scene afterwards
Speaker 4: where people get to talk and circulate and make some
Speaker 4: new friends. And that's always been my favorite part of
Speaker 4: the day, you know, after the golf is done and
Speaker 4: people are just relaxing and having a few drinks. So
Speaker 4: all right, so when somebody goes to a Friday event,
Speaker 4: they get the golf, they get thirty six holes of golf,
Speaker 4: they get this shootout.
Speaker 3: They get a tea gift, they get a t gift,
Speaker 3: and that ranges from you know, be dready polos to pullovers.
Speaker 1: Some events we do, you know ZR stuff. It's something
Speaker 1: different every time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's all events specific. But you know, we
Speaker 3: name all the events. I think that's one thing that
Speaker 3: you know in all the names are based off of
Speaker 3: like something that either happened to the course, something like local.
Speaker 3: So for example, like the King Tide was a you know,
Speaker 3: king tides used to wreck Charleston Beauni. It would cause
Speaker 3: the place to flood, and it's a it's a you know,
Speaker 3: aspect of the low country, and every time there was
Speaker 3: a King tide, the course would flood. So we're you know,
Speaker 3: that doesn't happen anymore, so that we're calling the event
Speaker 3: the King Tide. The steam shovel, for example at at
Speaker 3: at Lassnia, is based on the tool the equipment that
Speaker 3: was used to build the course in nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1: This this course is just you.
Speaker 3: Know, out of this world bold, huge hazards and green
Speaker 3: complexes that were built with this steam shovel. That is
Speaker 3: pretty remarkable given the year that it was built. And
Speaker 3: for the boomerang, for example, that's the there's a boomerang
Speaker 3: green at at.
Speaker 1: Soul Park.
Speaker 3: And then the banker is called the banker because Perry Maxwell,
Speaker 3: when he built that golf course, was a banker in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
Speaker 4: Obvious enough. Yeah, all right, so you addressed this briefly earlier,
Speaker 4: but I want to reinforce it because it is a
Speaker 4: really common question that we get. Can I come as
Speaker 4: a single? And also sometimes what's behind that question is
Speaker 4: would it be weird if I come as a single?
Speaker 4: Will I feel out of place? And will it just
Speaker 4: be kind of an odd day socially if I come
Speaker 4: as a single? And I think the obvious answer to
Speaker 4: that question having been to these events is no. But
Speaker 4: maybe you can talk about that a little bit. What's
Speaker 4: it like to come as a solo person to these events?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think this is I highly encourage it. I think
Speaker 3: this is a great way to do it. I obviously
Speaker 3: you know, playing with your friends is great too, but
Speaker 3: I always think that the singles get the most out
Speaker 3: of it because they meet the most people, right, you know,
Speaker 3: and and you know, you meet all these people that
Speaker 3: you might not know that lived in your golf city
Speaker 3: or near abouts, that that share this common interest. So
Speaker 3: I highly encourage singles. Also, a big question that I
Speaker 3: get is about skill level, Like I'm a fifteen, I'm
Speaker 3: a twenty two. Is that going to ruin the day?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not, Like this is like we're very you know,
Speaker 3: I think the competition's been described the best as like
Speaker 3: you know, everybody cares just about just enough and nobody
Speaker 3: cares too much. And that's like the balance we go
Speaker 3: for and I think we've achieved is where you have
Speaker 3: these people where you know, people are trying, they're trying
Speaker 3: their hardest, but nobody's like throwing clubs over shots.
Speaker 4: You shouldn't be really grinding. Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's not
Speaker 4: that serious. I mean, yeah, people, as you say, people
Speaker 4: try their best. You're trying to hit good golf shots,
Speaker 4: but you're not beating yourself up if you're not well.
Speaker 4: I mean, listen, like in our company, Andy is a
Speaker 4: really good player, Will is a really good player. These
Speaker 4: are low handicap scratch or better players. I am more
Speaker 4: like a ten handicap. I've gone to several of these events.
Speaker 4: I've never felt like I'm uncomfortable with being there. I've
Speaker 4: played with people who are more like twenty to twenty
Speaker 4: five handicaps at these events. Again, we use a handicap system,
Speaker 4: so it kind of evens out. This is the magic
Speaker 4: of golf and its handicap system that you can play
Speaker 4: on an even playing field with people of different skill levels.
Speaker 4: But in terms of just the competitive atmosphere, if you're
Speaker 4: not a competitive golfer, this is not an uncomfortable environment. Yes, absolutely, Okay,
Speaker 4: I think that's pretty much all of the questions that
Speaker 4: we wanted to address. I mean, are there any other faqsh?
Speaker 1: That's it?
Speaker 3: You know, at some of these, you know, depending on
Speaker 3: our time constrictions and what's going on beforehand, a lot
Speaker 3: of them will do, you know, get together the night before,
Speaker 3: and some of these will, well, this year we'll have
Speaker 3: some golf before or after and we'll kind of do
Speaker 3: that as a depending on how many spots we have
Speaker 3: at different places in the area, it will be kind
Speaker 3: of a lottery system based off of people that are
Speaker 3: attending the event.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and one thing that we haven't really mentioned specifically
Speaker 4: so far is the criteria that we use to choose courses.
Speaker 1: That's good call.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So why do we choose the courses that we
Speaker 4: choose for these events?
Speaker 3: These are places that I go see. They are not
Speaker 3: based off of a list. They are not based off
Speaker 3: of where we think we'll get the most people to
Speaker 3: sign up. These are places that we go to that
Speaker 3: I find to be extraordinarily fun golf courses to play.
Speaker 3: They are the courses you know that aren't the high
Speaker 3: They don't have to be. Some are very high in rankings,
Speaker 3: but there are places that we feel like our very
Speaker 3: unique golf courses that expose you to some sort of
Speaker 3: architecture that you need to see and provide a different
Speaker 3: experience than your status quo golf club. So, you know,
Speaker 3: if you look down our list of courses, you know,
Speaker 3: Charleston Muni gives you a great example of template hole golf.
Speaker 3: You know, for people that haven't played a Rainer or McDonald,
Speaker 3: this is a golf course you can go and see
Speaker 3: how some of these templates work. You know, the boomerang
Speaker 3: at Soul Park is a great you know, Gilhans golf
Speaker 3: course that's in a idealic setting. It's just a wonderful
Speaker 3: place that you want to spend time at. Like I
Speaker 3: just can't think of many courses that I just when
Speaker 3: I'm out there in the afternoon, I just I just
Speaker 3: look in basket and like you're sitting in this little
Speaker 3: mountain canyon playing just this this beauty in this beautiful
Speaker 3: setting on a really fun golf course. You know the
Speaker 3: steam shovel, that's that architecture you have to see to believe,
Speaker 3: Like you know, photos don't do justice. Like until you
Speaker 3: see that first grain and the cliff off the left
Speaker 3: of it that's like twenty five feet that was man made,
Speaker 3: You're just like, wow, unbelievable. Obviously, the Dunes Club that's
Speaker 3: where the Kaiser, you know, the whole idea of Bandon
Speaker 3: Dune started. And with the law students add on, you
Speaker 3: have a Tom Doak design that's that's really neat Dordic Hills,
Speaker 3: where Perry Maxwell's career started. A really important golf course
Speaker 3: in golf course history and like golf course architecture history,
Speaker 3: and a very very good and very unique piece of
Speaker 3: ground like something that you wouldn't expect in.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma, freshly restored fresh yeah.
Speaker 3: And and freshly restored like one of the biggest I
Speaker 3: think like one of the most important restorations you know
Speaker 3: that has happened in recent years is that golf course
Speaker 3: getting it back from you know where it was a
Speaker 3: far far cry from what its original design was. Obviously Yale.
Speaker 3: We have those two days set out. I don't think
Speaker 3: we need to talk that much about it. This is
Speaker 3: a seth rain or Cebe McDonald design was one of
Speaker 3: the great golf courses, is one of the great golf
Speaker 3: courses of the world, and it's a great chance to
Speaker 3: see it before the restoration goes. It happens, and then
Speaker 3: you'll have a frame of reference of where it was
Speaker 3: and what it became with the gil Hans working there.
Speaker 3: Meadow Brook, that is one of the most fun golf course.
Speaker 3: This is a repeat from last year. We're going back
Speaker 3: there just because the golf course is so fun. Andy
Speaker 3: Staples renovated this what was a Willie Park and had
Speaker 3: a lot of like a long history of design changes,
Speaker 3: but renovated it in Willie Park's kind of style. And
Speaker 3: this golf course, I mean there's so many fun shots
Speaker 3: out there, so many bowls and neat greens, and that
Speaker 3: is that's one of the most fun places.
Speaker 1: To play golf in America.
Speaker 4: Totally delightful. Yeah. I mean, as you're saying, even if
Speaker 4: you haven't heard of a course that we're holding an
Speaker 4: event at, check it out a little bit, look into
Speaker 4: its architectural history and you'll find something special about it.
Speaker 4: We're not just holding these events at places where we
Speaker 4: think we're gonna make a lot of money. We're not
Speaker 4: just going for name recognition. These are special places with
Speaker 4: designs that are worthy of attention and worthy of some study.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And like the final two that we have on the
Speaker 3: calendar right now, Essex County Club is the first of
Speaker 3: the sixth member of the USGA, the first outside of
Speaker 3: the five founding members. Huge tons of history. Also a
Speaker 3: place that Donald Ross lived. Really incredible golf course.
Speaker 4: This is one of those courses that Ross really worked
Speaker 4: on a lot. You know, Pinehurst Number two gets a
Speaker 4: lot of attention for how much Ross was there and
Speaker 4: made changes and made that course kind of his baby.
Speaker 4: Essex County is the other course that's like that.
Speaker 3: And I think like the most well known ross courses
Speaker 3: are the championship courses in seminole right. This is I
Speaker 3: would say probably the most fun Donald Ross course that
Speaker 3: I've played.
Speaker 1: Wow, the and that Prairie Dunes.
Speaker 3: Which I think you know is a place that I've
Speaker 3: gone back to every single year that I've been running
Speaker 3: this business since I went to it, which was I
Speaker 3: think the first year I was there was twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: or twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: Okay, why don't we talk about Lassnia now?
Speaker 3: Well, one other thing we you know, we do have
Speaker 3: another event that's gonna come up. It will be announced,
Speaker 3: may be announced by the time this podcast comes out
Speaker 3: shortly after. We are doing a collaborative event with no
Speaker 3: laying up and that will be in at a golf
Speaker 3: course that was recently on their Tourist Sauce, which is
Speaker 3: their YouTube travel series in Michigan. So that it will
Speaker 3: be a Saturday event and I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 3: That should be a really fun one also and that
Speaker 3: that will be in early June.
Speaker 4: And speaking of collaborations, we I don't think we mentioned
Speaker 4: the Ladies teaming up with for the Ladies at Charleston, Muni.
Speaker 4: This was a recent development that we decided to partner
Speaker 4: with for the ladies. Abby Libenthal's organization that's doing great
Speaker 4: work getting women involved in golf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a they have a great organization
Speaker 3: and I think we were we really respect and you know,
Speaker 3: just I think what they do and with with getting
Speaker 3: women into golf, and also I think they have also
Speaker 3: have a you know, a lot of women that are
Speaker 3: super into golf, that play and uh, and we're excited
Speaker 3: to partner up with them.
Speaker 4: There, all right, las Sonia. Maybe we should start by
Speaker 4: talking about Langford and Moreau, the designers, the original designers
Speaker 4: of Lasnia Links. Not everybody knows about Langford and Moreau.
Speaker 4: Certainly they've become more visible among Golden Age architects over
Speaker 4: the past few years because of the work that you've
Speaker 4: done in large part, I think.
Speaker 1: A lot of other people too, of course.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you've been researching Langford and Morew and thinking
Speaker 4: about Langford and Morew for a few years now. Give
Speaker 4: people the rundown of who these architects are and what
Speaker 4: their style was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they worked mostly in the Midwest.
Speaker 3: They kind of came to the height of their powers
Speaker 3: and you'd really wonder what would have happened if the
Speaker 3: Great Depression didn't happen, because when they were hitting their
Speaker 3: stride was really the late Golden Age, and they're an
Speaker 3: evolution of like, you know, the gold This is one
Speaker 3: of the things that was the saddest thing with you know,
Speaker 3: what happened to golf architecture is you had the Great
Speaker 3: Depression in the World War Two, which kind of halted
Speaker 3: the evolution of architecture in America and for golf and
Speaker 3: probably building architecture as well. But these architects are I
Speaker 3: think if you put them on a tree, they kind
Speaker 3: of evolved from Rainer and McDonald's. You know. If I've
Speaker 3: seen some Langford stuff before he worked with Moreau and
Speaker 3: it's pretty subdued, and then the pair when they got together,
Speaker 3: I think, I I you know, and I'm not a historian,
Speaker 3: so I'm not always the best with little details. But
Speaker 3: Moreau was the guy that built the really wild stuff,
Speaker 3: and lows Sonia is I would say probably the best kept.
Speaker 3: That and Culver are the two best kept length for
Speaker 3: Moreaus in terms of like if you want to go
Speaker 3: see what their architecture was about, that's where you go see.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna see really big, bold features they they
Speaker 3: worked on a lot of great land. Lawsonia is a
Speaker 3: terrific piece of ground. But what they did was they built,
Speaker 3: which is different than say a Perry Maxwell. And they
Speaker 3: might have had beef. I kind of think that Perry
Speaker 3: Maxwell and Length for Moreau.
Speaker 4: Perry Maxwell might have sub tweeted them a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Oh totally did.
Speaker 3: It's actually on is like the statue that leads up
Speaker 3: to his gravesite at Dornic Hills is like the quote
Speaker 3: that he's subtweeting Lank for Moreau. And this is not
Speaker 3: this is not your Alistair Mackenzie Maxwell, like find it
Speaker 3: in the ground. This was Golden Age maximalism. And I
Speaker 3: think Golden Age maximalism is kind of what the architecture
Speaker 3: we have today, where they let the natural land provide
Speaker 3: most of the theatrics, but then they built features at
Speaker 3: the green and at bunkers, and these are big, big features,
Speaker 3: like these are features that like you just are like wow,
Speaker 3: I can't believe they built that in nineteen thirty. For example,
Speaker 3: the seventh hole is this famous part three at Lawsonia.
Speaker 3: It's called the box car hole. It is a you know,
Speaker 3: hit it or else type par three it's about a
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty yard shot and the green is
Speaker 3: built allegedly on top of a box car that you
Speaker 3: would see like a freight train car. And it's just
Speaker 3: like a vertical wall in front of the green that's
Speaker 3: about twenty feet up, you know, just to give you
Speaker 3: an idea, and it's kind of banked into this slope.
Speaker 3: So it's just lows Sonia is an amazing place. It
Speaker 3: is a It's an important place for me. It's one
Speaker 3: of the you know, if you said in the Midwest,
Speaker 3: like best value in terms of what you get architecturally
Speaker 3: and for the cost, lows Sonia is at the top
Speaker 3: of any place in probably the entire country. I think
Speaker 3: it is a you could make a very good argument
Speaker 3: that it's the best golf course in all of Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: And before somebody says, oh, well, what about Milwaukee Country Club,
Speaker 3: Sand Valley or Whistling Straits, Like I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's very clearly on the same tier.
Speaker 1: I would put it above Whistling Streets.
Speaker 3: It's not on the ocean, but in terms of just golf,
Speaker 3: it is spectacular in a place that you need to see.
Speaker 3: So Lasnia, you know, one of the things. That's a
Speaker 3: shame with lang for Moreau is a lot of their
Speaker 3: designs haven't been well kept. You know, a lot of
Speaker 3: them were destroyed. A lot of them, you know, they're
Speaker 3: really they aren't the easiest to maintain.
Speaker 4: So in the there's a lot of local courses that
Speaker 4: Langford Moureau did too, right. They were you know, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of similarities with what Perry Maxwell did in
Speaker 4: his region. Langford and Moreau did some similar stuff in
Speaker 4: the Midwest where they were kind of going around in
Speaker 4: the thirties in the depression building these small courses for towns,
Speaker 4: and a lot of those maybe haven't been super well maintained.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But like one of the cool things is like
Speaker 3: you can go see some of these courses that and
Speaker 3: they're just like sitting there. They haven't been messed with
Speaker 3: because they're a small town in Indiana or a small
Speaker 3: town in Wisconsin, and the you know, the golf course
Speaker 3: has never had money to mess it up, so you
Speaker 3: know they' there's small greens and you know, the bunkers
Speaker 3: aren't you know, filled in. But like you can go
Speaker 3: see these places. We talked about Kanka Key Elks on
Speaker 3: the Restoration podcast, like I think, like the thing anybody
Speaker 3: that goes and sees Los Sonia, you you realize, God,
Speaker 3: these guys were extraordinarily great, you know, at at what
Speaker 3: they did. And you know, I think the thing that
Speaker 3: I take away is like you play, you see Las Sonia,
Speaker 3: which you know, I think we need to say is
Speaker 3: like it's one of the best cup but it's still
Speaker 3: got probably about thirty percent of the way to go
Speaker 3: to where it would be fully maxed out in terms
Speaker 3: of what it is. That's how how good it is
Speaker 3: for you know, being kind of not fully restored, but
Speaker 3: it's a you play it for less than one hundred
Speaker 3: bucks and it's uh really busy, so it's hard to
Speaker 3: do restoration work in Craig Haultam and his team has
Speaker 3: been doing some small stuff every year and it keeps
Speaker 3: getting better. So you know, that's that's that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Like you can there's a length from a road trail
Speaker 3: and what I've I've got all the footage.
Speaker 1: We've wanted to do a video about it.
Speaker 4: We've been talking about this for three years.
Speaker 3: And so you know, you could play five or six
Speaker 3: length from a rose from Indiana up through Illinois up
Speaker 3: through Wisconsin. You know, for about two hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: five bucks. Now, like law Sonia is gonna be the
Speaker 3: crown jewel of that. So laws Sonia, you know, one
Speaker 3: of the things. The ground's really great. The back nine
Speaker 3: is what kind of makes everybody's jaw drop. You turn
Speaker 3: the corner on the tenth hole. The tenth hole is
Speaker 3: this long part three and you when you turn the corner,
Speaker 3: you just it opens up to this kind of like
Speaker 3: golf land. It's just a wide open scape. It's got
Speaker 3: a big roll through it, but there's just golf holes everywhere.
Speaker 3: It's one of the neatest kind of low key reveals
Speaker 3: that doesn't include an ocean in the world of golf.
Speaker 3: The back nine spectacular, but as good as it is,
Speaker 3: the front nine might be better. It kind of weaves around
Speaker 3: a different side of the property and it has just
Speaker 3: incredible holes too. So I it is a in terms
Speaker 3: of public golf. I think it's it's one of the
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen best public golf courses in America.
Speaker 4: So the word that everybody uses when they go to
Speaker 4: Las Sonia is bold boldness. It's become kind of a catchphrase.
Speaker 4: And so I wonder if there's anything else that you
Speaker 4: could say about loss Sonia that you think makes it
Speaker 4: special beyond just the boldness of the shaping. You know,
Speaker 4: that's something that anybody would notice. So what else about
Speaker 4: the course is great?
Speaker 3: I think the thing when you really look at lang
Speaker 3: from a Rose, greens like they're the bold, the big like.
Speaker 3: So when people are saying bold, it's the big features.
Speaker 3: So you just see these greens that are pushed up.
Speaker 4: It's like the external shaping on the greens offense. Yeah, like.
Speaker 1: These bunkers, Yeah, they're huge.
Speaker 3: But what makes Lang from a roaw greens are the
Speaker 3: internal contours, the elegance of these beautiful greens that they
Speaker 3: build that have these little waves and different slopes inside.
Speaker 3: One of the things we do that I didn't mention
Speaker 3: at the start is we cut different cups for morning
Speaker 3: and afternoon. And it's really fun at Lawsonia to set cups,
Speaker 3: so we do that. It's very intentional. We put pins
Speaker 3: in places that we want to so you really understand
Speaker 3: the green because you see at one spot in the morning,
Speaker 3: you see it in a different spot in the afternoon.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be wildly different and you're gonna play different
Speaker 3: teas too. So the golf course is really going to
Speaker 3: play completely different. But at Lastonia, like you know, there
Speaker 3: are perfect examples, like the leveth hole, which is a
Speaker 3: great part five. You know, if that pins over on
Speaker 3: the right, you have this really bold, huge contour that
Speaker 3: you have to You don't want to go right of it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a huge slope and you're dead if
Speaker 3: you're right of it. But if the pin's over on
Speaker 3: the left, you think, oh, this is so much easier.
Speaker 3: But anything right like, it's so hard to keep it on.
Speaker 3: And there's just like little knobs and on the left
Speaker 3: side of the green that kind of like make these
Speaker 3: putts a little bit more challenging just than just your
Speaker 3: standard downhiller.
Speaker 4: So how did you come upon Lawsonia Because for a
Speaker 4: while it was like a pretty well kept secret that
Speaker 4: this was a great course. I mean, I think it
Speaker 4: was twenty fourteen when Ron Force and Jim Nagel came
Speaker 4: in and did some work on the course and maybe
Speaker 4: you know, pushed it forward quite a bit from what
Speaker 4: it was. But did you see the course before that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a course I had played as a kid,
Speaker 3: you know, being in the Midwest, Like I had gone
Speaker 3: up there with a buddy one time, like it was
Speaker 3: on just like a Wisconsin you know, we just went
Speaker 3: up there and played I'd seen That's how I had
Speaker 3: seen Eagle Springs that way too, which is another really
Speaker 3: neat course that's like an hour and a half away.
Speaker 3: This a nine holeer And it.
Speaker 4: Was about that one on our website and also done
Speaker 4: a podcast episode about it.
Speaker 3: And when we when we started, you know, when I
Speaker 3: started the fried Egg, it was just a place that
Speaker 3: I knew I needed to get to and do something.
Speaker 3: And you know, it was something somewhere that hadn't nobody
Speaker 3: ever shot it with a drone, which I think like
Speaker 3: shows some of the magnificence of it. And that's I
Speaker 3: think where like the the widespread, like you show pictures
Speaker 3: of the place and it's just you people look at it.
Speaker 1: It's like I had need to go see that place.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, it was just a place.
Speaker 3: That I had seen as a kid and knew I
Speaker 3: needed to get back and do something on it. And uh,
Speaker 3: and the same goes for like Eagle Springs too.
Speaker 4: Do you remember being stunned by it when you saw it?
Speaker 4: You know through your you know, adult eyes, you've seen
Speaker 4: it as a kid.
Speaker 1: Do you ever go That was.
Speaker 3: Before the they had taken down all the trees on
Speaker 3: the back nine, and you know the front nine Spectacus.
Speaker 3: I think the more I play it, the more I
Speaker 3: like the front nine. But the back nine it's just
Speaker 3: it's just such an unbelievable It's really one of my
Speaker 3: favorite parts of the event is when I make the
Speaker 3: turn back there and you see all the people out there,
Speaker 3: because it's just you see, it's like a very we
Speaker 3: talk about like expansive properties that are very intimate, and
Speaker 3: that's what that is. Like You're always close to people,
Speaker 3: you see people, you can talk to them and everything,
Speaker 3: and there's just greens gathered close to it, like you know,
Speaker 3: you have the tenth Green, the thirteenth Green, and the
Speaker 3: fourteenth Green also really close proximity on this ridge, but
Speaker 3: then also you have the eleventh and fifteenth tee there
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: It's just it's a really special place.
Speaker 3: And I think on the you know, we had done
Speaker 3: a trip to Sam Valley and we've hit it on
Speaker 3: the way back from Sand Valley and it was a
Speaker 3: immediately I do I need to host people? That was
Speaker 3: like that's always the place that I take people do
Speaker 3: if they if they're come if they're in Chicago and
Speaker 3: have a day and they say, I've got a day
Speaker 3: to go play golf, Like that's the place I take too,
Speaker 3: And it's a three hour drive, but it's so worth it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a reliable one where people play it for
Speaker 4: the first time and they're like, wow, you know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you got to see Lasonia like whether like
Speaker 3: whether you're a public golfer or private golfer, Like Lasnia
Speaker 3: if it was in Chicago would be right there with
Speaker 3: Chicago golf shoretakers and Old Elm as the best course
Speaker 3: in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I always dream about like this is
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, this is where affordable public golf like is
Speaker 3: a It's just a really interesting question is like would
Speaker 3: it be better if it was fully restored and two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty dollars a person or is it better
Speaker 3: seventy percent of what it could be and one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars per person?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I guess the idealist in me says
Speaker 4: that you don't have to necessarily have that trade off,
Speaker 4: right you could, Yeah, you could have the fully restored thing.
Speaker 3: Hard, it's hard because like you have to kind of
Speaker 3: shut down and yeah, it's like you don't have dues,
Speaker 3: you don't have the dues paying.
Speaker 1: It's just it's hard.
Speaker 3: It's a harder proposition, and then you could do it
Speaker 3: the way they've been doing it is just small little
Speaker 3: things every year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think that that's the thing to highlight though,
Speaker 4: is that they have done work on the course to
Speaker 4: make it better and have made it substantially better and
Speaker 4: have still maintained in a pretty affordable rate. I mean
Speaker 4: for a getaway place where you can where you can
Speaker 4: kind of get away from the city go play a
Speaker 4: day of golf, this is an affordable option for that area,
Speaker 4: and they've made the course better in the past ten years.
Speaker 4: You know, we run into these discussions all the time.
Speaker 4: That recently we had a discussion with some folks from
Speaker 4: Cleveland about Sleepy Hollow and Manikiki there. These are really
Speaker 4: really good municipal courses that could be a lot better
Speaker 4: if they just did a little bit. And the concern
Speaker 4: that we heard, well, first of all, a lot of
Speaker 4: Clevelanders were saying, yeah, these courses could use some work.
Speaker 4: There were though, who were saying, we can't do this
Speaker 4: you know, we've got to maintain affordability at these facilities.
Speaker 4: They're really good, right now, let's just leave them alone. No,
Speaker 4: you can do little things each year that make the
Speaker 4: golf course better. You don't have to shut down necessarily,
Speaker 4: you don't have to spend millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker 4: But there are some simple things that just make all
Speaker 4: the difference in the world. And I think that Lawsnia
Speaker 4: is an example of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's wonderful. Every year they do a
Speaker 3: little extra, a little something new, and it's, you know,
Speaker 3: one of my favorite places to go every year.
Speaker 4: All right, So let's get to some discussions of the
Speaker 4: other courses where sign ups are opening. So I've actually
Speaker 4: checked in with Will Knights. We should give a shout
Speaker 4: out to Will Knights because he is a major force
Speaker 4: behind making these events run smoothly. He does a ton
Speaker 4: of work behind the scenes, and so thank you Will.
Speaker 4: I just asked him on like, when are we opening
Speaker 4: sign ups for Dornic Hills and he says February seventh,
Speaker 4: so that one is not among the sign ups that
Speaker 4: are opening on January third. So coming up here for
Speaker 4: the rest of the episode, we have a clip of
Speaker 4: Troy Miller talking about Charleston Muni and Troy Miller is
Speaker 4: the Charleston based architect who did the recent work on
Speaker 4: Charleston Muni kind of Rayner inspired shaping and whole concepts,
Speaker 4: and he tells the story of that, and then we
Speaker 4: have a clip of me and you Andy talking about
Speaker 4: Soul Park. These were both episodes that we released earlier
Speaker 4: this year. You might might have caught them at the time,
Speaker 4: and so that's what's coming up for the rest of
Speaker 4: this episode.
Speaker 2: And so really the idea Charleston Municipal was being a
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty nine golf course being built at the same
Speaker 2: time as Jamen's Hall and the country club, and being
Speaker 2: able to see if you squint it a little bit,
Speaker 2: you could see some of those classic features of a
Speaker 2: rain Or design. And so it really kind of fell
Speaker 2: to the bottom line of saying, let's really enhance this
Speaker 2: and give an experience that the general public just doesn't
Speaker 2: have otherwise when it comes to this style of architecture.
Speaker 2: And so it was something that I felt like if
Speaker 2: we did and we did it right, and we really
Speaker 2: enhance the features that you would see on a rain
Speaker 2: Or McDonald golf course, it would bring people that were
Speaker 2: visiting the city to experience golf in the city. And
Speaker 2: we're talking five minutes from downtown Charleston, and so this
Speaker 2: does really open up that opportunity. And what that does
Speaker 2: even more so is it allows the general public of
Speaker 2: the locals to continue to have a municipal golf course
Speaker 2: that they can be very proud of that they can
Speaker 2: play for a very low rate and be subsidized by
Speaker 2: guest play at a slightly higher rate, which is still
Speaker 2: below market for a public daily fee in Charleston. And
Speaker 2: that substance, he should allow the golf course to stay
Speaker 2: in the kind of shape it needs to stay in
Speaker 2: and should allow for it to continue to really get enhanced.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with your project, I think obviously so many people
Speaker 3: go to their local muni whether you know, there's so
Speaker 3: many in urban areas, and they dream about the ability
Speaker 3: to be able to reimagine the golf course and update
Speaker 3: it and give it, put a little you know, TLC
Speaker 3: into it. Talk about the process of going through that
Speaker 3: and getting it through the city. Where did it start,
Speaker 3: how did it come about, and how did it get
Speaker 3: to where it is today with the finished product?
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, so one of the things that it definitely
Speaker 2: takes is is a lot of passion from the people involved,
Speaker 2: from the people in leadership, And dating back to really
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, was the first conversation that I had with
Speaker 2: the mayor who basically said, hey, I want to do
Speaker 2: something about Charleston Muni. And I said, okay, well, let
Speaker 2: me take a look at this. And I went at
Speaker 2: that point and started drawing conceptual plans and came back
Speaker 2: not only with a conceptual plan but also a pro
Speaker 2: forma as to why it made sense for the city
Speaker 2: and how it was going to create a return for
Speaker 2: the city. And so at that point we came back
Speaker 2: and decided to go ahead and put together a five
Speaker 2: ZHO one C three of the friends of the Muni
Speaker 2: that would be part of that charitable arm that would
Speaker 2: gain us some of that fundraising arm. So the way
Speaker 2: that the project was originally intended was to basically have
Speaker 2: two thirds of the money come from the city and
Speaker 2: a third of the money come privately raised, and we've
Speaker 2: pretty much achieved that throughout the course of the last
Speaker 2: few years. The funding mechanism took several years because it
Speaker 2: had to go through a bond referendum, that was part
Speaker 2: of another recreation bond. And then the process itself is
Speaker 2: heavily scrutinized because it's a city project that has to
Speaker 2: go through city capital projects, and so the process is
Speaker 2: not that of a typical private development, and so it
Speaker 2: does take some effort and it takes some time. But
Speaker 2: I think if you get the right people involved, and
Speaker 2: really it's about the passion. And there were so many
Speaker 2: people in Charleston that just loved that place. And my
Speaker 2: family history dates back to the thirties there. My grandfather
Speaker 2: caddied there, My father's first jobbing golf was there in
Speaker 2: the late sixties, his first job as a professional, and
Speaker 2: so there were so many people along the way that
Speaker 2: just said, we care deeply about it, how can we help,
Speaker 2: how can we make this happen. Then it wasn't just monetarily,
Speaker 2: but it was also some political pressure that really got
Speaker 2: the project going.
Speaker 3: With regards to the pro forma creating, you know, showing
Speaker 3: the value, because I think this is where so many
Speaker 3: people like, how did you go about presenting the case
Speaker 3: that hey, if we do this, you know, this is
Speaker 3: going to go from something that loses money for the
Speaker 3: city to something that's going to be something that brings
Speaker 3: in revenue for the city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the biggest thing there is really looking at
Speaker 2: what is the market rate for a non resident to
Speaker 2: come play golf, and at the top top end of that,
Speaker 2: when it comes to municipal golf courses, you've got place
Speaker 2: like Tory Pines and Bethpage Black And while we're never
Speaker 2: trying to achieve those levels, what it showed us was, hey,
Speaker 2: we've got market rate to come play golf as a
Speaker 2: visitor to Charleston. We've got a lot of room for
Speaker 2: growth there. And so that was really the biggest change
Speaker 2: in the revenue line of being able to say, hey,
Speaker 2: we can go achieve ten thousand rounds. We do sixty
Speaker 2: thousand rounds a year on MUNI and so if ten
Speaker 2: thousand of those were out of town play at a
Speaker 2: slightly higher rate, all of a sudden, that's going to
Speaker 2: subsidize this thing, allow us to spend the money we
Speaker 2: need to from a maintenance perspective to keep it up
Speaker 2: and not create any kind of problems in terms of
Speaker 2: accessibility for all of the local residents.
Speaker 3: And I think this is where this project's a little
Speaker 3: bit different than a lot of product you see munis
Speaker 3: go down this road where they put money into their
Speaker 3: golf course, but oftentimes it's money where they're putting a
Speaker 3: lot of money in, but they aren't getting a drastically
Speaker 3: different product from what they had. How did you play
Speaker 3: the architecture into this? And I imagine, you know, just
Speaker 3: thinking common sensely that had a lot to do to say,
Speaker 3: this is how we attract money. Yes, you know, how
Speaker 3: we attract out of town money is with this right.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, I think that the whole idea, and we've
Speaker 2: taught a lot. Charleston is a very historic town and
Speaker 2: we've got a role to play in the history of
Speaker 2: the history of America and the history of golf and
Speaker 2: the history of the Golden Age and Rayner McDonald's style architecture.
Speaker 2: What Rainer did in this town, you know, is such
Speaker 2: a great, great example of his work and exactly how
Speaker 2: and it's why it fits so well in the low country,
Speaker 2: the ability to really enhance the features of the golf
Speaker 2: course on relatively flat property. And so the idea when
Speaker 2: it was pitched was really about listen, we're a historic town,
Speaker 2: We're a sophisticated town. We deserve a historic, sophisticated golf
Speaker 2: course to call our own. And so when we really
Speaker 2: dug down into it and started talking about the history
Speaker 2: of Rayner and the experience in the low Country, it
Speaker 2: was an easy pitch to get people behind the idea
Speaker 2: of bringing these template holes to the table and really
Speaker 2: trying to create that experiences for the public daily fee player.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think obviously they're getting a drastically different
Speaker 3: experience than what they had. Talk about how much of
Speaker 3: the how much new stuff is out there, what are
Speaker 3: the biggest, let's say, defining characteristics of beauty today versus
Speaker 3: what was Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure, So the Greens themselves were all completely rebuilt and
Speaker 2: are roughly about fifty percent bigger, fifty to sixty percent
Speaker 2: bigger than they were before, much bolder contouring and essentially,
Speaker 2: and like I said, because that golf course was built
Speaker 2: in the twenties and we had that, you know, we
Speaker 2: had that influence. It wasn't a rainer, as many people
Speaker 2: might have said over the course of the years. But
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty nine, a lot of the same laborers
Speaker 2: that built the country Club and built Yaman's Hall were
Speaker 2: going there. And these were the only two examples of
Speaker 2: golf in Charleston. So you know, they'd go across town,
Speaker 2: take a look and say, okay, let's go build that.
Speaker 2: And it was a bad game of telephone is what
Speaker 2: it became. But you still got a lot of the
Speaker 2: same features. And so there was a lot of those
Speaker 2: big rectangular pads that were there that we were able
Speaker 2: to take these you know, satellite dish greens that had
Speaker 2: just atrophied over the years and expand them back out
Speaker 2: into those corners and then accelerate just by sharpening the
Speaker 2: edges a little bit, elevating really no more than six
Speaker 2: inches to a foot in most green complexes, but creating
Speaker 2: some bolder contours. And one of the great things about
Speaker 2: working on a municipal golf course where you know that
Speaker 2: the limits are never going to be pushed from terms
Speaker 2: of green speed, was the freedom of being able to
Speaker 2: create some bold contouring in the greens. I can tell you,
Speaker 2: you know, opening day, those greens were running nine and
Speaker 2: a half and I was listening to people walk off
Speaker 2: that golf course saying, they can't keep these greens at
Speaker 2: twelve like this, it's just going to be too much.
Speaker 2: And so it's really good to create some perceived green
Speaker 2: speed rather than actual green speed. Because it takes a
Speaker 2: lot of pressure off of your maintenance, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of the architecture. And I lost my train of thought. Andy,
Speaker 2: tell me what was your question?
Speaker 1: Can't remember either.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't even remember, but you know what
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: So let's you talked about the defining features.
Speaker 2: They're defining features. So let me say first, so there's
Speaker 2: there's twelve template holes out there. There's eleven at the
Speaker 2: Country Club of Charleston, and then there's thirteen at Yamon's Hall.
Speaker 2: And of those templates, I think the ones that will
Speaker 2: stand out the most of people, and where the biggest
Speaker 2: physical change to the property came was the corner of
Speaker 2: the golf course. That's eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen. At
Speaker 2: that point you kind of leave kind of the parkland
Speaker 2: style of the golf course, crossed the road and head
Speaker 2: down towards the river into something that feels much more lynxy,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, now you've got your playing
Speaker 2: redan cape, road and short in that order. And so
Speaker 2: I think having that corner of the golf course with
Speaker 2: those very recognizable template holes and the views that were
Speaker 2: created simply by we we eliminated about two and a
Speaker 2: half acres of new growth forests that was kind of
Speaker 2: blocking the view of the river, and in its place
Speaker 2: we dug a rether large lake that's in between golf holes,
Speaker 2: primarily for storm water and also to create generate the
Speaker 2: material to elevate some of these holes that were sitting
Speaker 2: in the floodplain. So there was a lot of functionality
Speaker 2: to what we did, and then the architecture just became
Speaker 2: the fun part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and obviously talk about the functionality. I think I
Speaker 3: visited it was probably a perfect day to visit because
Speaker 3: I saw, you know, all of all of the existing
Speaker 3: courses and original courses issues, and I think that's beyond
Speaker 3: you know, the increase in design. Talk about just the
Speaker 3: functional design things that you did to make it a
Speaker 3: better golf course day and day.
Speaker 2: Sure, so drainage obviously being in a low country and
Speaker 2: being at a very low elevation as Immuni is, you know,
Speaker 2: the biggest thing that we did was create better drainage
Speaker 2: and elevated some of those holes that were along the
Speaker 2: flood in the floodplain along the river. Some holes were
Speaker 2: elevated as much as five to seven feet from where
Speaker 2: they were before, others just six to twelve inches is
Speaker 2: all it really took. But you mentioned, you know, you
Speaker 2: came on a day when we had a king tide,
Speaker 2: which is basically a seven and a half or eight
Speaker 2: foot tide, And I can remember being out there days
Speaker 2: and watching the tide come in across the fifteenth fairway
Speaker 2: and literally reach the far end of the fairway and
Speaker 2: just thinking, my god, how are we going to do this?
Speaker 2: And the way we were able to do it was
Speaker 2: actually by creating digging out a pond, creating a better
Speaker 2: dyke system that had been there, and just elevating that
Speaker 2: to kind of combat what is these rising tide levels
Speaker 2: that we're seeing in the low country and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, now what we have as a firm and
Speaker 2: fast golf course that should stay that way, that's got
Speaker 2: the appropriate drainage. And a big thing in Charleston too,
Speaker 2: is we talk about living with water because you ain't
Speaker 2: gonna get rid of it. We're we're at sea level
Speaker 2: and it's not going anywhere. And so the biggest part
Speaker 2: of it was moving the water out of the areas
Speaker 2: of play, getting it off to the edges, into ditches,
Speaker 2: into new ponds, things that didn't come into play and
Speaker 2: didn't become more penal in terms of the design and
Speaker 2: the way the golf course plays, but functionality wise, provide
Speaker 2: a place for the water to get off to so
Speaker 2: that you can keep those fairways in those center lines firm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think anybody that's worked or has intimate knowledge about,
Speaker 1: you know, working in a municipal project or just any
Speaker 1: project in general, worst of the biggest challenges of the
Speaker 1: project over the course of the of the year and
Speaker 1: a half.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think that certainly working in a municipal setting, in
Speaker 2: a government setting, there there's always there's always a maybe
Speaker 2: not the sense of urgency that you know that you
Speaker 2: need to have as a golf course builder and as
Speaker 2: a golf course architect, knowing, hey that the clock's ticking,
Speaker 2: we got to grow in to hit. I can't wait
Speaker 2: for your seventh person to sign off on this so
Speaker 2: that I can get pipe in the ground, so that
Speaker 2: I can plant grass. Trying to educate people on that
Speaker 2: perspective and kind of with that that mentality is a
Speaker 2: tough thing, and so I think that's part of the
Speaker 2: reason why a lot of these municipal projects don't get
Speaker 2: done in this kind of unique manner where true was
Speaker 2: a city led project. I think the vast majority of
Speaker 2: what we've seen with these municipal projects around the country
Speaker 2: recently have been the takeovers where you get a foundation
Speaker 2: that comes in and says, hey, we're going to take it.
Speaker 2: We're just gonna lease it from you. You guys are
Speaker 2: completely hands off. And honestly, I'm kind of proud of
Speaker 2: the fact that that's not one of these. I think
Speaker 2: that the fact that the city is going to still
Speaker 2: run it, that it is still the city is wholly in,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent, and it's something for them to be
Speaker 2: proud of. We have got a great park system in
Speaker 2: the city of Charleston, and this should be the crowning
Speaker 2: jewel of that. And so, you know, I'm actually quite
Speaker 2: pleased that we didn't have to go to the level
Speaker 2: of privatizing to get action.
Speaker 3: Do you think also with that there's an enhanced sense
Speaker 3: of pride, not just with you know, the city as
Speaker 3: a whole, all the way down through the maintenance steam
Speaker 3: that worked on the project, Like, do you think that
Speaker 3: is going to lead to where we maybe see less
Speaker 3: atrophy you know on the golf course in the future.
Speaker 3: You know what that sad tale that so many municipalities
Speaker 3: see is where green shrink fairway shrink. Do you think
Speaker 3: because you know the city went through it with you
Speaker 3: and your team, that you'll see a longer lasting product
Speaker 3: than typically.
Speaker 2: I sure hope. So I think that there's so many
Speaker 2: people who care deeply about it, and a lot of
Speaker 2: those people are the people who are working there and
Speaker 2: that have been there for decades in some cases, And
Speaker 2: so I really do think that'll be the case in
Speaker 2: the community involvement on this project as well. I mean,
Speaker 2: we had volunteer days, We had volunteers planting the landscaping
Speaker 2: on that on a beautiful November day, And to hear
Speaker 2: guys now going out there and playing and say, hey,
Speaker 2: I planted that dogwood. You know, I think that there
Speaker 2: is a sense of pride that comes with it that
Speaker 2: I hope will translate into better course care, that will
Speaker 2: translate into long term conditioning and a sense of pride
Speaker 2: that I hope everybody in Charleston can happen.
Speaker 4: And I guess you know, the way we should start
Speaker 4: is is just at the beginning with the boomerang with
Speaker 4: soul Park golf course. We haven't talked about soul Park
Speaker 4: on the podcast yet I don't.
Speaker 3: Think right, it's such a wonderful place. I yeah, I
Speaker 3: had like all this anxiety. You know, you see a
Speaker 3: place one time and you've been there so many times,
Speaker 3: you grew up playing there, but you see a place
Speaker 3: and I had the same feeling about Losnia, you know,
Speaker 3: before we hosted the steam shovel its like you get
Speaker 3: this anxiety. It's like, well, I really love the place,
Speaker 3: but like, is everybody else really going to love the place?
Speaker 3: You know when you're when you hosted an event and
Speaker 3: you get I got back there immediately, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this place is so good. It is such a fun place.
Speaker 3: It's just unbelievable setting there in Ojai, California and the mountains.
Speaker 3: I don't want to tell too many people about Hi
Speaker 3: because you know, I want to be a future resident
Speaker 3: of Ohi, so I don't need everybody driving up real
Speaker 3: estate prices there.
Speaker 4: But I'm pretty sure the real estate prices have already
Speaker 4: gotten out of control there.
Speaker 1: But Soul Park is so cool.
Speaker 3: You have much more experience with it the v you
Speaker 3: grew up in the general area. You've played the golf
Speaker 3: course before Gilhan's renovated it in the early two thousands.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about the transformation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, So Soul Park was built in nineteen sixty
Speaker 4: two by William F.
Speaker 1: Bell.
Speaker 4: Right, so you know Southern California golf course architecture one
Speaker 4: oh one is distinguishing between the two Bells.
Speaker 1: Yeah what F stand for? Do you know what the
Speaker 1: F stand?
Speaker 4: I don't actually even know. Maybe Francis, probably Francis. I
Speaker 4: really have no idea. Maybe Frederick. But William F. Bell
Speaker 4: is the son of William P.
Speaker 1: Bell.
Speaker 4: William P. Bell is often referred to as Billy Bell
Speaker 4: Senior and Billy Bell Senior worked with George Thomas on
Speaker 4: a number of really well known Southern California golf courses.
Speaker 4: In fact, the George Thomas Southern California golf courses that
Speaker 4: you've heard of, Riviera, lacc North, Billy Bell William P.
Speaker 4: Bell worked on those as well and was kind of
Speaker 4: the master bunker shaper.
Speaker 3: I also believe that Billy Bell William P. Bell was
Speaker 3: an integral in aw tilling House design of San Francisco
Speaker 3: Golf Club. So another place with that is lauded for
Speaker 3: their bunkers.
Speaker 4: And if you have experience at Billy Bell designs in
Speaker 4: southern California. You go to San Francisco and you're like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: these don't look like tilling House bunkers. These look like,
Speaker 4: you know, sort of classic California Billy Bell bunkers. In
Speaker 4: any case, you know, Billy Bell's a really well regarded
Speaker 4: regional architect. William F. Bell is his son. And you know,
Speaker 4: to be honest, you know, I've played a lot of
Speaker 4: William F. Bell courses. They're all over southern California. Not
Speaker 4: all of them are super remarked. I think he was
Speaker 4: a good router of golf courses, but I'm not going
Speaker 4: to make any great claims about his abilities as a
Speaker 4: strategic architect. But in any case, he designed Soul Park
Speaker 4: Golf Course as a municipal course for Vintura County in Ohi,
Speaker 4: California in nineteen sixty two, and that was the first
Speaker 4: version of the course that I played. I played it
Speaker 4: for the first time in the nineties. My dad and
Speaker 4: I played it a bunch. Even then, I thought this
Speaker 4: was a pretty special place just because of its location,
Speaker 4: a beautiful valley in Ohi, and in the mornings and
Speaker 4: evenings there's just really an indescribable kind of peaceful loveliness
Speaker 4: to being in that valley. Well. In any case, soul
Speaker 4: Park got ravaged by a flood in two thousand and five.
Speaker 4: Like much of the Central Coast, it really got nailed
Speaker 4: by this flood. Significant parts of the golf course were destroyed.
Speaker 4: It was in limbo for a little bit. There was
Speaker 4: some doubt as to whether the course would serve. But
Speaker 4: the right kind of manager of a renovation came along
Speaker 4: and Craig Price, who had.
Speaker 1: Been also Rustic Canyon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know, he decided to sort of take
Speaker 4: over the lease for a time and he headed up
Speaker 4: the renovation. And who did he call but Gil Hanson
Speaker 4: Jim Wagner who had designed Rustic Canyon alongside Jeff Shackelford
Speaker 4: a few years before. And Gil Hanson Jim Wagner were
Speaker 4: well known as good architects at the time, but they
Speaker 4: didn't have nearly the stature that they have now. Right
Speaker 4: this is pre Olympic Course, pre a.
Speaker 3: Lot of the big name restoration work that you know
Speaker 3: now they're known for as much, if not more than
Speaker 3: their original designs, which they have a number of outstanding
Speaker 3: riginal designs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So they came in and they did a renovation
Speaker 4: of Seul Park really more or less kept the same routing,
Speaker 4: but in every other sense transformed the course. And they
Speaker 4: did their work for about three point two million dollars.
Speaker 3: So that's an important number to keep in mind for
Speaker 3: discussion later in this podcast about.
Speaker 4: We're going to quote some higher numbers for Tory Pines.
Speaker 4: But you know, even after that renovation, it struggled for
Speaker 4: a while. You know, it had a series of managers
Speaker 4: who maybe didn't prioritize the golf course. But in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 4: Keith Brown came in took over the lease of the
Speaker 4: golf course, and really ever since then, Saul Park has
Speaker 4: been ascending and visiting the course now during our event
Speaker 4: and seeing the club, the members of the club, many
Speaker 4: of whom were at our event, how much they love
Speaker 4: the place, how good of a time they have there.
Speaker 4: The culture of that course is so lively now and
Speaker 4: it's just wonderful to see.
Speaker 3: I think it starts with the staff too, and I
Speaker 3: think that's one of the things, is like it's such
Speaker 3: a welcoming, open place where you know, they have all
Speaker 3: types of golfers. You can bring your dog out there.
Speaker 3: Their dog friendly and really it's such a diversion from
Speaker 3: what I guess you could kind of put this in
Speaker 3: the municipal golf buckets, but it's a lease. Keith Brown
Speaker 3: manages it on a lease from the city, from the county,
Speaker 3: from the county, so it's you know, quasi municipal golf.
Speaker 3: But like it's such a diversion from what you see
Speaker 3: at so many other municipal facilities that are very unwelcoming,
Speaker 3: like you try and bring your dog out there, or
Speaker 3: you try, and you know, they just look for ways
Speaker 3: to turn golfers away almost and you know that's really
Speaker 3: most of the municipal golf around me is that way.
Speaker 3: It's just unbelievable how hard some places make it for
Speaker 3: you to go out and enjoy the day and enjoy
Speaker 3: the golf course. And I think that's the thing that
Speaker 3: they've done so well, is they make it so easy
Speaker 3: for people to enjoy their time there, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's something that's been very intentional on the
Speaker 4: part of Keith Brown. When he came in there, the
Speaker 4: vibe of the course was more like, here are a
Speaker 4: set of rules. Make sure you follow these rules. There
Speaker 4: are signs up everywhere that said, you know, youve got
Speaker 4: address a certain way. Don't go here, don't go there.
Speaker 4: And Keith was really you know, he knew what he
Speaker 4: was doing in stripping a lot of that away, and
Speaker 4: he says like, I don't care if you come out
Speaker 4: and play in flip flops. I don't care.
Speaker 3: Well, the biggest, the biggest evidence is how the people
Speaker 3: that play the golf course has changed and how Yeah,
Speaker 3: they have a large contingent of people that drive an
Speaker 3: hour and a half from Los Angeles up there to
Speaker 3: play golf.
Speaker 4: Like it's a younger crowd too, yeah, right that for
Speaker 4: decades that course has been dominated by the Senior Men's
Speaker 4: Club and you know, no shade on the Senior Men's Club,
Speaker 4: but that has been shaken up recently and there is
Speaker 4: a younger crowd out there right now.
Speaker 3: And I think this is it's just a beyond just
Speaker 3: the golf course, like, and we haven't even talked about
Speaker 3: the design of the course and what that's done. This
Speaker 3: is just strictly a culture thing in a attitude towards
Speaker 3: providing a welcoming atmosphere that's done so much of the
Speaker 3: legwork on this and that's where you know, so many
Speaker 3: facilities need to look at themselves in the mirror and say,
Speaker 3: is golf the issue or are we the issue? And
Speaker 3: I think this is a facility that proves like there's
Speaker 3: plenty of golfers in you know, they're drawing from an
Speaker 3: hour and a half away. You know, there's plenty of
Speaker 3: golfers within your most cases metro area that you can
Speaker 3: make this work if you provide a great place to
Speaker 3: hang out. That's really what it is. Is like, if
Speaker 3: I'm going to spend five hours somewhere, there aren't many
Speaker 3: places public or private that I'd rather spend five hours
Speaker 3: at than Seoul Park with those mountains and just the
Speaker 3: general attitude at the golf course of being so laid
Speaker 3: back and welcoming.
Speaker 4: And the food and the drink and the way the
Speaker 4: manner in which it's provided. You know, you mentioned the
Speaker 4: staff earlier. Keith has really hired some great people and
Speaker 4: they contribute to the culture of the place as well.
Speaker 4: But there is a reason that people are driving an
Speaker 4: hour and a half to come up to this golf course.
Speaker 4: And it's not just because there's a cool social vibe there.
Speaker 4: It is because this is a fantastic golf course. What
Speaker 4: were the things that kind of struck you on the
Speaker 4: second visit to the course that maybe you didn't notice
Speaker 4: the first time through the thing.
Speaker 3: The greens are just so fantastic the property in general,
Speaker 3: Like what's amazing about is the setting around the mountains.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's too much you know, movement. There's
Speaker 3: no wild movement like you might see it, say, Lawsonia's
Speaker 3: got some great movement and great greens, but this place
Speaker 3: just has some really creative greens. And just how how
Speaker 3: dynamic the holes are in the in the case of
Speaker 3: when you change the pin, how much the ideal place
Speaker 3: is to be shift. You know, you're able to put
Speaker 3: it over a bunker with a with a hard slope
Speaker 3: away and you know, I myself hit it into a
Speaker 3: place where you know I'm looking at It was the
Speaker 3: second hole we had the pin kind of up front left.
Speaker 3: It's over a bunker with a very severe slope on
Speaker 3: the back side of the bunker and everything in the
Speaker 3: green running way. Of course, I hit it just into
Speaker 3: the left rough off the tee, and I remembered I
Speaker 3: was sitting there with a wedge thinking to myself, God,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can get this close. I
Speaker 3: hit a great great shot, and I ended up like
Speaker 3: eighteen feet away, yeah, and I was like that that's
Speaker 3: about as probably close as I could get. But if
Speaker 3: I had taken on the bunkers gone up the right,
Speaker 3: I would have had a chance to hit it really
Speaker 3: close because everything would have been working for me. And
Speaker 3: I think that's the probably the most memorable aspect of
Speaker 3: Seoul Park is just how the greens allow it to
Speaker 3: be so dynamic day to day.
Speaker 4: You almost can't believe how wild some of these greens are.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you just almost can't believe that these existed
Speaker 4: a municipal course, and just the fact that they've survived
Speaker 4: since two thousand and five, when there have been members
Speaker 4: of that course who have objected to certain elements of
Speaker 4: Hansen Wagner's renovation. You know, I'm just really grateful that
Speaker 4: those greens are still there.
Speaker 3: You can set that golf course up so tough because
Speaker 3: of the greens, and then you can also because of
Speaker 3: the greens, you can set it up so easy. There's
Speaker 3: great repelling pins and gathering pins on almost every green exactly.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's that's Soule Park. I would say that, like,
Speaker 4: the Soul Park story is not over yet. You know,
Speaker 4: I would like to see not too many changes to
Speaker 4: that golf course. I'd like to see some of the
Speaker 4: elements that were there in two thousand and five when
Speaker 4: Hanson Wagner redid the course to be brought back. And
Speaker 4: you know, there are just a few subtleties that have
Speaker 4: been lost since then, nothing major, And I'd really like
Speaker 4: to see not too many more trees add it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we did see some new tree plantings out there, and
Speaker 4: I have to just say that my opinion is that
Speaker 4: it's fine in terms of trees as it is. There
Speaker 4: are some beautiful specimen trees out there, some beautiful, you know,
Speaker 4: distinctive Southern California species. The holes don't need to be
Speaker 4: framed anymore than they currently are. There doesn't need to
Speaker 4: be much tree removal. But by the same token, I
Speaker 4: don't think there needs to be any more tree addition.
Speaker 4: You know, there's much better views across the golf course
Speaker 4: now than there were in the nineteen nineties, and that's
Speaker 4: one of the great things about the current version of
Speaker 4: the courses that you can really see across several holes
Speaker 4: at a time, and that's part of what makes being
Speaker 4: in that valley so inspiring. More trees would limit that
Speaker 4: visibility across the whole corridors, and I really hope that
Speaker 4: we don't see too many more trees.
Speaker 1: At it there.
Speaker 3: The mountains are the start. You want to do everything
Speaker 3: to showcase the tupe of mountains. It's such an unbelievable
Speaker 3: setting for a golf course.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, So we had a great event there. It
Speaker 4: was really fun.
Speaker 3: Talking about next year already there'll be a second boomerang.
Speaker 3: So yes, it was awesome, thanks to everybody that came out,
Speaker 3: and uh it was.
Speaker 1: It was such a fun time.