WEBVTT - Michael Clayton Talks Royal Melbourne (Great Courses 4) 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.520 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.920 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:06.960 And when I find my ball in a bride Egg 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.559 Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg Egg, 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:12.959 Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:13.280 off of. 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:14.360 The course game. 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.320 Welcome to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:42.199 and today we're talking about Royal Melbourne with Michael Clayton. 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.480 This is the slightly delayed fourth episode of our Great 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:51.120 Courses series from this past December. These have basically been 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.200 deep dives into some of the world's best and most 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.440 influential golf courses. We started with Saint Andrews of course, 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.880 then went to National Golf, Finks and Sunningdale. And I 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:03.880 can't think of a better way to wrap up this 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.440 initial run of the Great Courses episodes than heading to 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.720 the Australian sand belt and talking about what Alistair McKenzie 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.640 accomplished there. The West Course at Royal Melbourne was really 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:21.319 McKenzie's first outrageously great design. He had not yet built 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:25.000 Cyprus Point or Augusta National. He had done some really 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:29.000 amazing stuff in Great Britain. I don't want to downplay that, 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.039 but the courses that you really know McKenzie for now 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.120 had not yet been produced when he got the Royal 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.040 Melbourne job. So Royal Melbourne was a big step forward 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.960 for McKenzie's career and it was also a big step 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.800 forward for Australian golf. It's tough to overstate the impact 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.640 that Royal Melbourne, both McKenzie's West Course and Alex Russell's 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.760 later East Course had on the game in Australia. And 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.080 there's no better person to talk about all of this 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.840 than Michael Clayton. Mike is a former tour pro, a 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.360 current golf architect and one of the leading voices in 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:10.000 the game, both in Australia and internationally. He's been on 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.320 our podcast several times before, and I'm super excited to 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.920 have him back to discuss a topic that is so 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.520 very much in his wheelhouse. Before we get to that, though, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.239 let's talk a little bit about our sponsor for this episode, 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.160 Club Champion. Club Champion helps golfers of any skill level 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.040 play better golf through custom fitted and custom built equipment. 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:35.000 They have extensively trained master fitters who provide an in depth, 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.920 data driven, tour level fitting process, and they have access 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.359 to fifty thousand hit able head and shaft combos as 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.600 well as sixty plus brands. This is truly a brand 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.519 agnostic fitting. There is no motive to promote one brand 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:54.360 over another. Master fitters at Club Champion simply fit you 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.520 into what works best for you. Club Champions fittings produce 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.360 real results for every player, including an average of twenty 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.080 two yard increases off the tee and an average of 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.880 ten yard improvements in dispersion. So I've gone through Club 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.359 Champion fittings myself and I've gotten equipment that really works 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.079 for me. And I've also gotten a lot of knowledge 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.160 from these fittings. Right, I think I went into my 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.480 Club Champion fittings with a certain idea of what I 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.240 should be playing from driver through putter, like what suited 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.800 me the best. But those senses were kind of based 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.560 on trial and error and just you know, unreliable experience. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.400 Once I went into Club Champion and actually saw the data, 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.520 I got a different idea about what kind of equipment 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.760 suited me best, and that has been enormously helpful ever 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.320 since my fitting. So for Frida Egg, listeners. This is 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.360 the deal that Club Champion is offering right now. You 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.360 can use the code fried Egg to get fifty percent 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.280 off the cost of your fitting with the purchase of 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.760 a club. Go to club champion dot com and book 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.800 your fitting today again, that's called Frida Egg all one word. 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.800 All right, let's get to me and Mike Clayton talking 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:21.440 about Royal Melbourne. Mike, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:21.960 being here. 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.240 Thank you. It will be fun down at Bamboogle, So 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.400 it's kind of a treat to be down here for 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:28.080 a couple of days. 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.760 This will be fun out in Tasmania, just having fun. 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.800 Yeah, just hanging out, playing golfing. And so I'm playing 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.320 down with Sue. We're down here. So we started off 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.080 the year. We played Royal Melbourne on Tuesday and then 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.760 lost Farm the next day, then bam Boogle yesterday. So 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:46.720 not the not the worst way to start the year off. 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:48.040 Three pretty nice courses. 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.839 There are versions of your life that definitely could have 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:51.320 gone worse. 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:52.200 Yep. 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.159 All right, so we're we're talking about Roll Melbourne today, 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.000 just kind of going in depth on that golf course, 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.200 which which you know so much about and have talked 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.440 about quite a bit before, and so we're really going 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.920 to dig into this specific course in its history. I'm curious, though, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.320 what was your first exposure to Royal Melbourne. When did 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:15.960 you first see the course and play the course. 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.559 I first saw it, I think at the World Cup 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.680 in nineteen seventy two, which is they had they hadn't 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:24.839 they hadn't had a tournament for a long time. They 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.000 didn't They played the Strain and Open on the East 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.240 Course in nineteen sixty three. Job As he didn't see 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.920 and then so and they didn't play another tournament until 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.320 the World Cup. So we went and watched that and 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:41.320 it was fearsomely for a Melbourne. It was famous hard 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.640 and fast in the scores. But they rained out the 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.040 first day fifty four holes i think, and the scoring 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.200 was really high. Tom Weiscoff I saw Tom Weiscoff years 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.000 later and he told me that he's at sixth green. 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:55.960 It was the only green I ever four patted and 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.520 tried on every part, So it was it was, you know, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.880 it was brutally hard and faster. Scores were high at 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.800 the time and these won. Shae Min Nan and mister 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.400 Lou won, which was surprising because Asians always sort of 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.040 struggling at wrong movie because it was so foreign. The 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:14.800 tope of golf there was so foreign to what they 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.160 were used to. The greens were so much harder and faster. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.719 So and then I first played it in nineteen seventy four. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.760 The big kind of inter club golf is called Pennant 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.320 Golf in Melbourne. Everyone grows up playing Pennit. They played 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.520 there in nine and seventy four, the first time I 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:31.920 played it. 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.880 And you know, when you were younger, aside from that 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.719 that World Cup, were there any other tournaments that you 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.479 saw there that were particularly memorable to you? 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:43.760 Well, I started playing a lot then after that they 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.760 played that. There was a thing called the christ The 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:52.080 Classic in nineteen seventy four, which Bob Sheer won by 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.719 seven shots. He won by shot sixty five the first day. 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.440 It was the past seventy one. Then they played the 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.640 fourth West is a part four off that what's now 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:02.640 the women's see well not the women's seed, but the 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.320 front fourteen. He won by he shot sixty five the 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.800 first day, shot one over for the weekend, won by seven. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.520 So you can imagine what the greens were like. That 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.640 That was back when the tour had no control over 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.240 how the golf course was set up. So the famous 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.000 toperintendent of the Claude Crawford, had never seen a green 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.800 that was too hard or too fast. So Trevino played 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.320 Torino shot sixty six in the third round and shot 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:32.240 two one or two ninety three, and he said famously, 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.080 take a picture of me going out the gate, because 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.200 you'll never see me coming back into this place. They can. 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.040 It was. It was crazy hard and fast. So they 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.720 and they had torments there for you know that. They 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.760 played there the next three years in that event. Then 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.800 they didn't play anything in seventy seven. Then they had 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.160 the PGA for five years, trained PGA which was a 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.280 great event at wrong Bombers seven he played every year 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.680 and it was and then they that sort of and 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.160 then they played a bunch of Australian opens there. We 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:01.680 played a lot there over the years. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.120 So you saw Sevi play Melbourne quite a bit. 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.280 I was I was going to caddy for him. I was, 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.800 I had a university exam on the Wednesday, so I 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.440 couldn't caddy, which was just I hated that, so I 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.600 finished up watching him play. It was a friend of 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.760 Michael Jimmy Carter was a really good He was a 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.160 good amateur player in Melbourne and he was Ed Barner's 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:25.880 agent in Australia and he'd organized want me to caddy 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.440 for him, So that was that was annoying because I 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:33.640 should have just skipped the examine. He finished third that week. 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:35.400 It was a perfect course for him because he had 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.320 space to play, the faireres were wide, and he hit 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.840 those beautiful high soft irons from the bad angles and 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.880 kind of stopped the ball and his short game was genius, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:45.839 and so it was a perfect course for him. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.960 Really, That's what I was thinking, that Roll Melbourne would 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.160 really bring out some of the aspects of Seve's game 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:53.040 that were unique. 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.000 Well, I was, Yeah, he was the only guy who 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.040 ever won at s Andrews and Augusta and Roll Melbourne. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.320 And Jack would have won Roal Melbourne if he'd played there, 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.480 and Tiger obviously would have wondered if he played there, 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.480 but Sebbie was the only going who did. And you 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.720 know Augusta was the same that he had space and 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.560 room to play, and he had the stuff around the 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.000 greens was genius, and it was that they were perfect 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:17.719 courses for him. 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.000 Really, maybe next time Roal Melbourne holds a big stroke 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:22.920 play tournament and I don't know if it plans to. 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.640 Maybe Zach Johnson should should go play, try to try 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:27.679 to get the trifector. 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:32.440 Yeah you should. Yeah, well yeah, it looks who knows 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.680 what the deal the Australian Open, the Golf Australians deal 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.480 with the Australian Open and New South Wales government finished 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.240 this year, government being sort of the major sponsor of 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.280 golf in Australia. So people are assuming it's going to 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:47.960 go back to Melbourne and it's really going to be 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.800 a thirty six avenue because it's it's a mixed event 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.280 with men and women, so they're only you can only 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.360 play it Royal Melbourne and Peninsula really in Melbourne, so 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.680 it'll be one of the other most likely, but who knows. 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.480 Really, well, let's hope that would be great. That tournament 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.480 has been in the Sydney area for a while, I believe, 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.600 and it would be cool to see it get back 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:14.800 to the sand Belt. So let's go back into a 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:21.679 little bit of deeper history. Before Alistair mackenzie arrived in 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.360 Australia and did what he did, you know, roll Melbourne 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.200 was the West Course was a big part of what 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.760 he did when he came and visited. But before that 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.520 visit in nineteen twenty six, could you just give me 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.640 a general picture of what Australian golf architecture was like. 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.920 Well, I assume it wasn't very good. It was all 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.680 the famous clubs on the sand Belt, except for Woodlands, 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:51.000 were somewhere else. They we're much closer to the city. 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.439 There's not much good land for golf in Melbourne outside 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.520 of the sand Belt. They're all much close to the 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:01.719 city and I assume pretty rude mentary courses. So Rural 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.600 Melbourne and Metropolitan were one club about two miles from Ore. 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.240 I lived, like you know, right in the middle of 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.680 not in the middle of the city, but not far out. 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.480 Half the half the membership went down to Sandringham, which 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.000 was at the time I guess a long way away. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.880 Mostly I asuson didn't have cars and it was so 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.439 all the sand belt clubs that moved moved, apart from Kingstainneath, 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.800 moved to bits of land near train stations so people 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.880 could get there. So half of them, half of the 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:33.920 club went to Roal Melbourne. The other half stayed behind 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:35.839 because it was too far to go and and then 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.040 a few years later went and started Metropolitan. So they 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.800 went down to Sandringham and did a golf course in 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.800 the teens probably you know, nineteen thirteen or something around then, 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.439 just just before the First World War, and it was 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.160 sort of known as the Sandringham Links and they so 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.440 it was part of the land they currently used, and 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.000 I think it went out further to the north and west, 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.880 which is where the sand Hum public courses now. So 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.160 that was what they had and when mackenzie came down 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:12.080 he completely reimagined the whole thing and basically built them 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:16.440 a new golf course. And you know, all the clubs 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.240 that make up what's down the sand belt sort of 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.400 followed that lead and moved. You know, they figured out 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:23.920 that well this is a great land for golf, so 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.720 they all moved down there and built their courses. And 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.920 Kenson Heath was already there, so McKenzie bunked that and 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.559 readed the fifteenth hole. But Dan Suda was was responsible 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.720 for the routing there. But so Mick Morgam was the 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.720 famous greenkeeper who built all the work, and Alec Russell 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.439 was there Mackenzie's Australian partner, so he did the East Course, 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.800 and so just over a period of you know, a 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.000 decade and a half of the whole thing just came 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.440 out of the ground and there were you know, six 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:54.640 or eight great courses there. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.120 Why was it that McKenzie went to Australia. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.360 Well, one of their course reader designed and they wanted 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.760 Harry Colt to do it. And Peter Thompson always said 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.760 that Rural Melbourne would have been much different if cold 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.840 had come out, because McKenzie built these big, flashy bunkers 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.480 that Thompson was never found of. Really he liked Colt 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:18.720 sort of smaller, perhaps more understated work. So Colt couldn't 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.319 come and suggested they hi mackenzie. So he came out 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.679 and Real Melbourne paid for it by hiring him out 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.280 to the other clubs. And so he was advising all 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.319 the other clubs, and he went around the country, went 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.200 to Royal Queens and he went to Adelaide. He went 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.000 to Sydney, to Royal Sydney in Australia and advised them 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.160 on their golf courses. And I think at Rural Sydney 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.199 filled in one hundred bunkers. But the way he thought 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:47.520 about golf was what really formed golf. Yet he'd written 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:52.720 a book six years earlier, probably nineteen twenty, so Russell 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:54.640 and Morgan had obviously read the book, and people were 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:59.120 reading his book, and so they understood he's basically philosophy 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.840 about the golf should be played the way he thought 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.640 it should be played. So they kind of grasped that 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:06.920 and listened to what he was saying and went and 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.240 built it. But he was only here for three months, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.000 so you know, it wasn't like he was on the 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.680 ground for a year building real Melbourne. He was. It'd 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.320 come and gone in no time, really, right. 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.760 Yeah. He arrived in October or something like that and 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.800 left around New Year's and so it was it was 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.600 a very productive whatever it was ten ten weeks or 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.440 so that he spent in Australia. The book you mentioned 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.040 was Golf Architecture, the short book that he published in 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.720 nineteen twenty, and then Spirit of Saint Andrews kind of 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.640 takes Golf Architecture and expands upon it. But that was 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.800 the book that he was distributing at the time. And 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.280 my understanding is that I heard this story from I 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:55.960 think Neil Krafter that when he came to Australia, he 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.320 hadn't built a lot of the courses that we now 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.040 associate with him, right, because he hadn't really been to 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.480 America that much yet. This was nineteen twenty six. He 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.720 designed Cypress Point, built Cyprus Point later, built Augusta National later. 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.760 So he had done most of his work in the UK. 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.720 But he had written this book, obviously, had a great pedigree, 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:22.040 had a relationship with the RNA, and so he came 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.000 to Australia and he was this authority on golf architecture. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.640 He had this book, they were publishing excerpts and newspapers 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.800 and he was shaping the discussion around golf architecture. And 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.480 that strikes me just as so gutsy on Mackenzie's part, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.160 that he really hadn't built his great courses yet. But 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.240 here he came to an entirely new continent and he 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.479 is the authority on golf architecture. 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.640 Well he was, But I was saying letters that back 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.840 when paper used to writing dignant letters to newspapers about golf, 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.080 I don't even wrote about golfing newspapers. I don't have 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.080 paper rote letters about golf. But members at roll adlaid 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.280 going crazy about this Scottish guy is destroying a golf 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.160 course and and so they didn't really he had a 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.960 plan for the last four holes that was never implemented. 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.240 He had a bunch of stuff that they just didn't 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:11.720 do it. All that laid. But of course the hole 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:13.520 he did, and one of the main holes he did 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.520 was the third hold, which is the best home of 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.560 the course. And you know, you know that's that they're 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.440 incredibly proud of the third hole that well that Lakers 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:23.840 you know, Ackenzie built it. But at the time they were, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.280 you know, the members were being typical members were going 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.320 nuts because this Scottish guy was digging up the golf course. 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.800 But yeah, Royal Melbourne gave him a free hit and 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.000 let him do what he wanted to do and he 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.720 did an amazing job. But you know, at the time, 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.480 I don't Yeah, it wasn't all roses from him, but 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.800 Rob was smart enough to give him his head and 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.800 let him do it. And you know, Tom Doug told 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.120 me once he said there weren'tly decent courses before he 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.800 got there, and there weren't too many built after he 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:55.840 left there were any good either, And it was kind 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.600 of true. Russell did ya and Lake caring up and 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.840 the depression game and then the war, so that sort 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:07.119 of stopped everything, and then that generation of architect was gone. Really. 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.440 Tom Simpson lived in the sixties, I think, but you 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.600 know they all died. So Trent Jones and Dick Wilson 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.320 took over American architecture. There was no one in australiaom 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.919 Vern Mick Morecamb's son did a bunch of courses in 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:28.000 the country of Victoria. Eric Appley did work in Sydney, 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.320 but you know, it was the fifties was a really 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.399 fifties and sixties were really stagnant period for golf in 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.040 Australia in terms of building golf courses, certainly any any 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:39.080 that were any good. 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.600 Well, the timeline in Australia for the what you might 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.480 call the Golden Age of golf architecture was really tight. 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:46.439 You know. 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.000 In Great Britain, you know, or at least in England, 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:55.200 the timeline was sort of like nineteen hundred to the 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.639 outbreak of World War One. In America the timeline was 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.240 kind of like national golf links to the Depression, so 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.439 about twenty years in Australia. McKenzie arrived in nineteen twenty 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.560 six and basically there weren't that many years left until 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:10.200 the depression. 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.920 Yeah, it seemed like everything got done in four or 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.119 five years. It was just this right colonwealth Yariyara was 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:23.600 early thirties. Metro Victoria Woodlands was nineteen thirteen. That was 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.720 that early. Actually Woodlands is really underrated, really good. Real 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:33.520 Melbourne Peninsula was that was much later. Hayndal was later. 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.080 I think that was in the forties or fifties, forties maybe, 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.320 But yeah, there was that mad Russia sort of three 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.640 or four or five years after McKenzie came to where 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:43.800 everything got done with it. 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:50.200 Yeah, his influence is the immediacy and the power of 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.000 his influence during this trip is really interesting to me. 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:55.920 I think it's one of the one of the most 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.920 interesting historical questions there is about golf architectures, how exactly 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.159 this was done. But to get more specific about Royal Melbourne, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.800 we've talked about what generally he did right Ural Melbourne 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.080 kind of like paid part of his fee and then 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.280 paid the rest of his fee by hiring him out 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.320 to these other clubs and in so doing like improved 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.760 an awful lot of golf in Australia. But of course 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.919 his main purpose for visiting was to lay out that 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.359 what we now know is the West Course at Royal Melbourne. 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:27.320 One of the big things he did, and you've you've 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.720 alluded to this a couple of times, was to assemble 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:32.280 a team or at least to recruit a couple of 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.000 like minded individuals who could carry out his vision. So 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.800 who were the key people involved in actually carrying out 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.320 McKenzie's design at Roll Melbourne and what were their roles? 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.280 Well, Mick Morcambe was the grainkeeper, so he built everything, 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.679 I assume you know. Orsi he was in charge of 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.119 the crew that was building the stuff for the horse 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.320 and scoop that were digging out the bunkers and making 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.280 the contos around the grains and building the grains. And 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:02.840 Alec Russell, who was the world the grazier, who was 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:08.000 an Australian Open Champion, great player, Robin member and he 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:12.000 he was Mackenzie's Australian partner really, so he he you 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.399 know McKenzie seemed to do when he went around the 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.800 Robert Hunter in California and different people who he partnered with. 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.359 So Russell was that guy in Australia. And after so 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:24.920 after he left Russell did Yara Yarra and Lake carn 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.359 Up and parap Ram in New Zealand, Riversdale here, so 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.520 he was a he was he was a great designer 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:32.160 in his own. 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.240 Right really and and the East Course at of. 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.359 Course and the East Course, yeah, so he was clearly 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:43.399 a really talented architect. But then the Depression came and 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:48.760 nothing happened. So architecture in Australia was a non existent 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.639 profession pretty much for a long time after that, until 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.919 really Peter Thompson took it up. Thompson teamed up with 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.480 Mike Woolbridge in the early seventies probably, and he was that. 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:01.280 He was the main guy here for a long time. 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:06.199 Now when it came to actually building Mackenzie's Course at 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.320 Royal Melbourne, how much of it did he actually see 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:13.320 get completed, given that he was off to New Zealand 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:15.679 and then the rest of the world pretty quickly. 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:19.280 Probably not a lot, I think. I think he built 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:21.800 the fifteenth hole at kicks and Heath while he was here. 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.160 That was built when he was here. That was a 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.560 fifteen at kicks and Heath. Was that the famous part three? 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:28.560 There was a short part four over the hill that 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.000 Dan Sudar had routed that he discribed as a blot 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.240 on the golf course. So he built the fifth, the 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.399 famous part three when he was there. But I mean, 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:42.080 Neil Kraft has got, you know, the extensive timeline of 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.320 what went on, But I mean, how much can you 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.560 do in three months? You can't do that much. So 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.800 with most of his courses, he didn't see much of 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.119 them when they were finished. When Augusta he died before 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.160 Augusta was barely open. And he certainly didn't never live 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.120 to see the Masters or and he and he went 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.440 to America. I think he was he going to Cyprus 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.720 Point or Crystal Down. It's probably Cyprus Point. After he 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:06.600 left Australia. 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.440 Yeah, he had I believe had the Cyprus Point connection 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.679 and at the very least the Meadow Club connection in California. 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:17.400 But yeah, he was he was off to California. 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:23.320 Yeah. So, and he went through Auckland and laid out Titterrangi, 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:25.600 which is a terrific course in Auckland. And he said, 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:27.719 from the photos they sent me it looked like it 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:35.560 turned out quite well. So clearly never he never saw it, 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:40.240 but he rounded it and the routing was genius. This 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:42.880 was not Melbourne sand this was clay in Auckland. 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.440 Yeah. I mean that's the thing that bears repeating, right, 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.240 is that he never went back. Yeah, this was his 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:51.040 only time, this was visiting there. 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:53.480 So it kind of sad in a way that he 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:58.119 never saw the golf course or never understood the adulation 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:02.280 that the esteem and the adulation that that people hold 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:06.600 it in and you know, that's such an important part 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:08.840 of golf in Australia. You never had any idea how 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.159 significant it was going to be. And I think he 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.520 wrote that he just assumed that the profession would get 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:17.760 better and better and you know, it would continue to 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:20.159 evolve and people would build better and better courses, and 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:24.720 as it turned out, that wasn't exactly what happened really well. 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:28.520 So when it comes to the question of credit, like 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:33.919 who is the architect of the West Course at Royal Melbourne, 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:37.200 there are some people who think that that Russell doesn't 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:40.400 get enough credit, that that Morecambe doesn't get mentioned enough. 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.280 And I feel that, you know, McKenzie was the designer, 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:48.639 but but he didn't really build it. How do you 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:51.680 think through that question of credit yourself? Do you think 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:54.040 it's is it proper to call it a McKenzie course 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:56.840 or or do we need to call it a McKenzie 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:57.600 and Russell course. 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:00.720 I don't know really. I mean, I think the concept 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.399 was all his, and the concept of the way he 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:06.440 you know, if he'd thought that golf should have been played, 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:08.399 you know, it was played down narrow fairways, brought it 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:10.560 by high grass, that's what it would have been. So, 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:13.359 but it wasn't so because he hated that sort of golf. 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:15.880 So the concept of the way, the way that golf 0:24:15.920 --> 0:24:20.159 would be there was I assume mostly his, so and 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:23.520 the routing was his or the rerouting. So if it's 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:25.560 your concept and your routing, then you get a lot 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:29.000 of the credit. But as Bilker always says, not just 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:31.320 one guy who ever builds a golf course, and there 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:33.680 are a team of people who are critical to what happens, 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:37.280 And without being there, it's hard to know. But you 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:39.440 were assumed that that that was obviously the case that 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:41.760 Roy Melbourne. They must have sat down at night and 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:43.919 had dinner together and discussed what they were doing. And 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:48.800 you know, clearly Morecambe, you know, he enjoyed the way 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:52.080 he wrote glowingly about morcam to tell that as a shaper, 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:55.640 so you know, he obviously was comfortable with him doing 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:57.199 it and gave him a free hand. And it was 0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:00.119 you were assumed that, like I said, you assumed they 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:02.160 sat down every night and spoke about what they were doing, 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:05.320 went for lunch breaks and had a sandwich. And when 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:06.840 you think about the seventeenth greene, well, I think it 0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:09.240 should be high here and lower there, and you know, 0:25:09.720 --> 0:25:11.280 do this with the bunker and make the shots and 0:25:11.320 --> 0:25:15.960 the right more difficult. So the concept was his, I think. 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:20.960 And it seems like one argument in favor of making 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:24.439 sure that Mackenzie gets a lot of credit for what 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:27.160 he did in Australia is that it seems like pretty 0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:30.439 much everything he touched turned a gold right, that a 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:32.320 lot of their great courses have one thing in common, 0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:36.240 and that is that Alistair Mackenzie had some role and 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:38.280 creating them. 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:40.760 Yeah, and it was again it was the concept in 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:43.520 the look. And I really know what happened to Victoria. 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:47.359 But you look at that golf course in the bunker 0:25:47.440 --> 0:25:49.600 and it's literally right across the street. You can hit 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:51.760 a wedge from the You hit a wedge from the 0:25:51.800 --> 0:25:54.800 second tea at Royal Melbourne over the road on the 0:25:54.840 --> 0:25:57.800 twelfth Grand in Victoria. It's so close they are, so 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:01.399 it's and the Bunkers looked saying the greens of similar 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:04.080 the concepts of saying that property is not quite as big, 0:26:04.119 --> 0:26:06.720 but so it's not quite as wide. But you know, 0:26:07.520 --> 0:26:11.199 the golf is obviously very related. So it's you know, 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:14.320 it's just that influence of the way he thought gold 0:26:14.359 --> 0:26:17.240 should be that was critical to golf in Australia. And yeah, 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:20.520 it's unfair really but and I've never played enough in 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:23.359 South Africa, but I suspect that if it wasn't for 0:26:23.440 --> 0:26:26.920 Mackenzie would have finished up with golf like South Africa perhaps, 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:29.560 which is nothing in the world top ten and nothing 0:26:29.600 --> 0:26:32.879 sort of super amazing. And that's what we would have 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:35.480 had if he hadn't come here, I think, I mean, 0:26:35.520 --> 0:26:38.440 you know, Russell might have had more of an influence. 0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:41.439 He probably would have, but but you know, I'm sure, 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:43.680 well I'm not sure. You can't even be sure about 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:47.879 this stuff. But if you like Russell now he would 0:26:48.040 --> 0:26:50.920 I assume say that what Mackenzie was a huge influence 0:26:50.920 --> 0:26:53.960 on the way he thought about golf, And I guess 0:26:54.000 --> 0:26:55.679 it went back to the book. He obviously read the 0:26:55.680 --> 0:26:58.399 book you know, golf architecture, and you know, you know 0:26:58.400 --> 0:27:01.760 from that he had gleaned what Mackenzie's ideas were about 0:27:01.760 --> 0:27:06.360 how goal should be played. You can't understate the influence 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:11.399 of just the concept of golf. He brought what I 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:15.040 think is that correct or you know, the concept of 0:27:15.119 --> 0:27:16.800 the best golf in the world. He bought it here 0:27:17.000 --> 0:27:18.520 and then he took it to Augusta and did the 0:27:18.520 --> 0:27:22.240 same thing, really and he got that from the Old 0:27:22.240 --> 0:27:24.240 Course because he understood the Old course. That was where 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:27.159 it all came from. He understood that, you know, shots 0:27:27.160 --> 0:27:29.520 from one part of the whole were completely different from 0:27:29.520 --> 0:27:31.119 shots from the other part of the whole, and that 0:27:31.200 --> 0:27:32.680 was an important part of golf. And if it was 0:27:32.840 --> 0:27:36.080 narrow you couldn't do that. You need it with to 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:39.800 create that. And the great part about playing roll Melbourne 0:27:39.880 --> 0:27:43.040 is you get much different shots depending on which part 0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:43.720 of the hole you're on. 0:27:44.359 --> 0:27:48.399 McKenzie had a way of activating people. It seems like, 0:27:49.680 --> 0:27:53.639 you know, he did this with Russell in Australia. An 0:27:53.800 --> 0:27:57.520 example I love is his relationship with Perry Maxwell, where 0:27:58.000 --> 0:28:02.240 Maxwell was a talented, yeah thoughtful golf architect. Before his 0:28:02.359 --> 0:28:07.560 relationship with Alistair McKenzie. But after he worked with mackenzie, 0:28:08.080 --> 0:28:12.200 Maxwell just reached an entirely different level and built courses 0:28:12.240 --> 0:28:15.879 that were truly world class. And so there's something about 0:28:16.000 --> 0:28:20.520 Mackenzie's influence as way of interacting with people and recruiting 0:28:20.560 --> 0:28:26.159 people and helping to educate them is probably not the 0:28:26.280 --> 0:28:30.720 right word, but something like that. And then afterwards they're 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:34.280 they're just completely different, and so it's a it's a 0:28:34.320 --> 0:28:35.000 remarkable thing. 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:37.480 Yeah. Well, you know, you don't know what. You don't 0:28:37.520 --> 0:28:41.520 know really until someone points it out. And I've plied 0:28:41.520 --> 0:28:43.880 Crystal downs. Well, I was gonna say this year last year, 0:28:43.880 --> 0:28:46.240 and that's an amazing course I did up in Michigan. 0:28:46.240 --> 0:28:47.800 It's a beautiful course. Yep. 0:28:48.000 --> 0:28:51.080 Yeah, Perry Maxwell built that course, right or yeah, it 0:28:51.200 --> 0:28:53.040 was heavily involved in the construction. 0:28:53.400 --> 0:28:57.960 Yeah, so yeah, you know, just and I think you 0:28:58.000 --> 0:29:00.760 could argue the same thing happened with Bill Core really, 0:29:00.800 --> 0:29:03.800 I mean Bill Core and Santels, was that it was 0:29:03.880 --> 0:29:08.480 the start of the this era, and of course, you know, 0:29:08.480 --> 0:29:10.479 we're living in it. So how do we really know 0:29:10.480 --> 0:29:12.240 how people are going to judge in one hundred years, 0:29:12.240 --> 0:29:16.040 But I think it'll be judged incredibly kindly I think, 0:29:16.560 --> 0:29:19.040 you know, I was. I played with Richard Sadley yesterday, 0:29:19.080 --> 0:29:21.160 the owner of Bamboogo. We played the little pat three 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:24.440 course that Bill designed, but of course it was COVID, 0:29:24.480 --> 0:29:27.560 so Bill never was here. I mean, he never came out. 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:29.840 You know. He was doing it on zoom with Michael 0:29:29.880 --> 0:29:32.680 John Hawker who was building it. So there's a classic 0:29:32.720 --> 0:29:38.400 example of the Bill Corp designed Google Runner Van Bogle 0:29:38.440 --> 0:29:41.240 the fourty and whole part three courts. He never saw it, Bill, 0:29:41.720 --> 0:29:44.200 but well he did. He saw it this year, well 0:29:44.280 --> 0:29:47.000 last year finished, but he was never here when it 0:29:47.080 --> 0:29:50.800 was being built. But you know, I think that Richard 0:29:50.840 --> 0:29:52.840 and I were talking about I think he'll go down 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:56.960 as being arguably the best and most important act it 0:29:57.040 --> 0:29:59.280 ever when people look back at one hundred years of 0:29:59.600 --> 0:30:02.520 the course, Bill and Benham done cause are incredibly right 0:30:02.560 --> 0:30:03.920 at what they did m hm. 0:30:04.360 --> 0:30:06.520 And and their tree is going to be really strong too, 0:30:06.680 --> 0:30:11.000 right that all the people they worked with influenced and activated, 0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:14.280 you know, in the way that Mackenzie activated people. Yeah, 0:30:14.320 --> 0:30:16.600 it is. It's a really good, good comparison, I think. 0:30:17.280 --> 0:30:19.480 All right, Well, let's get a little more specific about 0:30:19.520 --> 0:30:22.240 about the West Course at Roll Melbourne, itself. I also 0:30:22.240 --> 0:30:23.959 want to talk about the East Course too, because it 0:30:23.960 --> 0:30:27.240 gets it gets ignored to a degree, but the West 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:31.240 Course is obviously very spectacular when it comes to the 0:30:31.320 --> 0:30:35.240 land at Roll Melbourne. Now I've just I've have never 0:30:35.240 --> 0:30:38.080 been to Australia. I'll admit that I'm talking about all 0:30:38.080 --> 0:30:40.600 these courses of the series that I haven't been to, 0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:42.800 but which is why I want to find out more 0:30:42.800 --> 0:30:45.040 about them. But I've only seen it on TV right 0:30:45.080 --> 0:30:47.440 seeing it in the President's Cup and gotten a general 0:30:47.480 --> 0:30:50.160 feel for It's seen photographs of it, obviously read a 0:30:50.160 --> 0:30:52.120 lot about it. But one thing that you have a 0:30:52.160 --> 0:30:54.440 really hard time getting a sense of when you haven't 0:30:54.480 --> 0:30:57.040 been to a course is what the land is like? Right? 0:30:57.120 --> 0:30:59.440 What is special about the piece of land? And so 0:30:59.480 --> 0:31:01.920 when it when it comes to Royal Melbourne's land, what 0:31:02.080 --> 0:31:04.640 is that special thing that you can only see when 0:31:04.720 --> 0:31:05.240 you're there. 0:31:05.880 --> 0:31:10.160 It's all sand, which obviously helps, and it's the first 0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:14.760 hole is a flat, wide open Part four. Second holes 0:31:14.920 --> 0:31:18.400 quite flat wide open short Part five with a cool 0:31:18.400 --> 0:31:20.400 hollow and the gas out in front of the green 0:31:20.440 --> 0:31:23.320 to make the running shot into the green. Interstinct three 0:31:23.480 --> 0:31:27.160 goes up and over a little kind of rise, and 0:31:27.200 --> 0:31:28.720 then you get to the fourth t and there's a 0:31:28.760 --> 0:31:31.880 massive hill with a blind shot up over a big june. 0:31:32.280 --> 0:31:35.760 So it's the first bit of significant undulation you've come 0:31:35.800 --> 0:31:37.560 to on the golf course. And it's a massive gym 0:31:37.640 --> 0:31:39.320 that you drive with bunkers in the hill and you 0:31:39.400 --> 0:31:42.160 drive over that and it kind of goes down across 0:31:42.160 --> 0:31:43.960 the other side. The whole turns around to the right, 0:31:44.200 --> 0:31:47.360 goes down the hill as a spectacular hole. And then 0:31:48.200 --> 0:31:51.640 that kind of shot that that blind drive up and 0:31:51.640 --> 0:31:54.720 over the hill, which you know is not the ideal shot. 0:31:54.800 --> 0:31:56.440 You've you've got to hit a great drive, but it's 0:31:56.440 --> 0:32:01.719 an unusual shot opens up the amazing second shot. And 0:32:02.120 --> 0:32:04.880 what that broke the back of the routing was that 0:32:04.960 --> 0:32:06.920 got into the fifth and the sixth was the fifth 0:32:06.960 --> 0:32:09.720 is a beautiful path three across the valley. Then you 0:32:09.800 --> 0:32:11.840 go to a high tea and play way down into 0:32:11.880 --> 0:32:13.960 the right on the sixth hoop, which is a famous 0:32:14.200 --> 0:32:16.560 part four that was in the well. I was the 0:32:16.640 --> 0:32:20.160 golf best eighteen holes in the world, So you know 0:32:20.240 --> 0:32:22.880 that's the that's the big significant undulation on the whole 0:32:22.880 --> 0:32:25.720 golf course, and he used it amazingly and I opened 0:32:25.760 --> 0:32:28.560 it up by building this blind t shirt up over 0:32:28.560 --> 0:32:32.320 a big dune and then they abandoned the whole. He 0:32:32.440 --> 0:32:35.680 built the path three the seventh in the forties, I think, 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:38.840 and Iver Whitney was another Australian Open champion, built the 0:32:38.920 --> 0:32:42.120 What's down the seventh hole, which is cool uphill part three. 0:32:42.640 --> 0:32:44.440 Then there are two holes that aren't on the compass, 0:32:44.440 --> 0:32:48.280 of course they eight and nine sort of. Nine's a 0:32:48.280 --> 0:32:51.560 beautiful hole, you know, it's kind of a plunging drive 0:32:52.240 --> 0:32:53.840 down at the bottom of a valley, then back up 0:32:53.880 --> 0:32:56.520 to the green with a short iron. And then ten's 0:32:56.600 --> 0:33:00.680 the great short part four again you play across a deep, 0:33:00.720 --> 0:33:03.560 deep valley up under it, you know the june on 0:33:03.600 --> 0:33:05.360 the opposite side of the valley, and then pitch onto 0:33:05.360 --> 0:33:09.440 the green. Eleven goes down and up and around again 0:33:09.560 --> 0:33:13.360 great part four. So now there's every hole has got 0:33:13.360 --> 0:33:19.360 significant undulation on it. Twelve twelves a green. It's not 0:33:19.480 --> 0:33:21.760 as you know, it's a blind drive up and over 0:33:21.880 --> 0:33:24.720 hill again but not a big hill. And it's to 0:33:24.840 --> 0:33:29.520 a green that I think Crockford moved from Mackenzie's Green. 0:33:29.600 --> 0:33:34.800 Mackenzie's Green was further right and they moved it probably 0:33:35.280 --> 0:33:38.280 forty yards to the left and created this long second 0:33:38.280 --> 0:33:41.920 shot over a really cool heathland to the green, and 0:33:41.960 --> 0:33:45.959 then you go over the road you play thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, 0:33:46.000 --> 0:33:48.720 which aren't on the composite course, and that pretty much 0:33:48.760 --> 0:33:51.560 flat again. There's a really cool little short path. Three 0:33:51.640 --> 0:33:56.600 that's difficult because it's this roofed across the middle of 0:33:56.640 --> 0:33:58.840 the green, and the greens are so hard there if 0:33:58.880 --> 0:34:01.160 you land on that sort of this ridge in the 0:34:01.160 --> 0:34:03.120 middle of if you land on the downside, because the 0:34:03.120 --> 0:34:05.560 ball is always going to almost always goes over the 0:34:05.600 --> 0:34:08.480 back of the grain. It's just a really innocuous looking 0:34:08.520 --> 0:34:11.560 sort of one hundred and forty yard hold. It's actually 0:34:11.560 --> 0:34:14.719 really difficult. Fourteens are flat, sort of dog the right, 0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:19.360 good puff or fifteen's fifteen's got that cross hazard across 0:34:19.400 --> 0:34:23.360 the fairway at about four hundred and twenty yards off 0:34:23.400 --> 0:34:27.080 the tee. It was on the original course, and he said, 0:34:27.280 --> 0:34:31.680 Apocryphallly said, I'm going to leave this ridge across These 0:34:31.760 --> 0:34:34.280 ridges across the fairway is an example of how bad 0:34:34.320 --> 0:34:37.319 golf architecture used to be. So there's this thing just 0:34:37.560 --> 0:34:39.360 in a dead straight line right across the middle of 0:34:39.360 --> 0:34:41.840 the fairway. It's covered in kind of heathy raft. It 0:34:41.840 --> 0:34:44.680 looks actually pretty cool. But so the story is that 0:34:44.760 --> 0:34:46.840 you know he left it there as an example of, 0:34:47.080 --> 0:34:48.880 as I said, how bad architecture used to be. 0:34:49.280 --> 0:34:53.000 Right, it's sort of the Victorian style or whatever. But 0:34:53.160 --> 0:34:55.319 you think, but you think he probably didn't say that, right, 0:34:55.520 --> 0:34:58.920 you're saying, I think you probably, You think you probably did. Okay, 0:34:59.040 --> 0:35:01.719 probably did. He actually left a feature on the golf 0:35:01.760 --> 0:35:04.799 course that he didn't like as a Oh that kind 0:35:04.800 --> 0:35:08.080 of sounds like him. Actually, it's like that's Mackenzie in 0:35:08.120 --> 0:35:09.000 a nutshell right there. 0:35:09.080 --> 0:35:12.560 And then sixteen is the best long path. There aren't 0:35:12.600 --> 0:35:14.799 many long path threas in Australia. You know, most of 0:35:14.840 --> 0:35:17.720 the great ones, almost all the great ones are between 0:35:17.719 --> 0:35:21.480 one hundred and forty and one hundred and eighty yards 0:35:21.960 --> 0:35:24.920 because they're great because you know, they built these kind 0:35:24.920 --> 0:35:28.359 of famous sand belt bunkers and greens and they made 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:30.880 them tight so you couldn't really make them turn and 0:35:30.880 --> 0:35:33.120 twenty yards because they're going to be so difficult. It's 0:35:33.160 --> 0:35:35.480 different from the London heathlands and all the great path 0:35:35.520 --> 0:35:40.520 threes on the heathlands playing across amazingly interesting dramatic bits 0:35:40.520 --> 0:35:45.360 of land. But in Australia though were apart from parts 0:35:45.360 --> 0:35:48.160 of rom Melbourne and parts of Victoria's that's lastly flat. 0:35:48.400 --> 0:35:50.440 So they had to build these really, they built these 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:53.360 great holes on land that gave them nothing, really, and 0:35:53.400 --> 0:35:56.520 then you go so it's it's got a tiny gret. 0:35:56.520 --> 0:35:59.920 It's a really hard, difficult, hardhole, small green, really brilliantly by. 0:36:00.200 --> 0:36:04.120 It'll be a great short Part four the way the 0:36:04.200 --> 0:36:06.319 Boker works it, if they could ever put I keep 0:36:06.400 --> 0:36:08.200 saying you need to chop these trees down behind the 0:36:08.200 --> 0:36:10.440 tee and put a tea back up against the Sandringham 0:36:10.880 --> 0:36:14.080 Public Golf Course boundary fence and play it at two 0:36:14.120 --> 0:36:16.520 hundred and forty or fifty yards. It'll still be a 0:36:16.520 --> 0:36:18.359 Part three, but it'd be a great two shot hold 0:36:18.400 --> 0:36:22.000 for most people. And then then you go back across 0:36:22.040 --> 0:36:24.319 the road and set the seventeens, arguably the best hole 0:36:24.320 --> 0:36:27.600 on the course, so it's a flattish drive. And then 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:30.560 you go down down the hill and across the valley 0:36:30.560 --> 0:36:31.960 with a second shot back to a green on the 0:36:32.000 --> 0:36:35.560 opposite side of the valley. So there are lots of 0:36:35.600 --> 0:36:38.200 shots that go across these valleys. You know, you put 0:36:38.200 --> 0:36:40.080 the green on the opposite side of the valley and 0:36:40.120 --> 0:36:43.760 you play across them. And then eighteen is another blind 0:36:43.840 --> 0:36:47.040 driver up and over a hill into a big bunker 0:36:47.080 --> 0:36:49.759 that's not really in play but sort of embedded into 0:36:49.800 --> 0:36:51.719 the face of the hill. So you go up and 0:36:51.800 --> 0:36:53.879 over that and then it kind of sweeps down onto 0:36:53.880 --> 0:36:56.600 the left and you with a green on the far 0:36:56.760 --> 0:37:00.520 right corner of the hole. So we use the undulations brilliantly, 0:37:01.040 --> 0:37:03.760 but you know, it's big, bold, dramatic sort of golf. 0:37:03.800 --> 0:37:06.040 And the bunkers. Everyone's seeing the pictures of the bunkers 0:37:06.040 --> 0:37:09.840 always looked great and big greens and so you know. 0:37:10.520 --> 0:37:13.360 So it was a perfect piece of land for golf. 0:37:13.400 --> 0:37:15.880 And there was apart from the tee shirt up to 0:37:15.920 --> 0:37:18.480 fourth there was not what he would describe as hill climbing, 0:37:18.960 --> 0:37:22.200 you know. But he used the gerns and the natural 0:37:22.320 --> 0:37:25.879 undulations incredibly well. And you assume that they didn't move 0:37:25.960 --> 0:37:29.440 much dirt. It wasn't that they dramatically changed the land 0:37:29.760 --> 0:37:33.239 in any way. We're doing the course at seven Mile 0:37:33.320 --> 0:37:37.319 Beach now in Hobart, and when we took the trees off, 0:37:37.360 --> 0:37:39.560 the land was on a lot of holes was completely 0:37:39.640 --> 0:37:42.520 unplayable for golf. It's only that we've got the bulldozer 0:37:42.520 --> 0:37:45.719 and you can actually bulldozed into some sort of form 0:37:45.760 --> 0:37:48.080 where golf is playable. And the trick is to make 0:37:48.120 --> 0:37:50.640 it look like you haven't done that. But you assume 0:37:50.719 --> 0:37:54.680 that the land of rual Molde was completely playable once 0:37:54.760 --> 0:37:57.360 the vegetation had come off, and it was it was 0:37:58.960 --> 0:38:02.040 the property was owned by a guy who trained horses 0:38:02.080 --> 0:38:04.080 on it. It was a big color, so it was 0:38:04.600 --> 0:38:08.319 I don't think it was heavily treued. You there wasn't 0:38:08.400 --> 0:38:10.239 much clearing it went on. It was just covered in 0:38:10.280 --> 0:38:13.160 the you know, the natural heath land of the area. 0:38:13.480 --> 0:38:14.880 So it was you know, that was a matter of 0:38:14.960 --> 0:38:17.040 mowing that down and planting the grass, but it was 0:38:17.840 --> 0:38:19.920 so it was a perfect piece of land for golf. 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:22.319 And of course it didn't it was it was sand, 0:38:22.400 --> 0:38:26.719 so it didn't need extensive drainage, and they brilliantly used 0:38:26.719 --> 0:38:28.960 the service Draine to get the water off the greens 0:38:28.960 --> 0:38:31.560 and not having it, you know, ripping down into the 0:38:31.600 --> 0:38:33.960 bunkers and wrecking the bunkers and it's all that stuff 0:38:34.000 --> 0:38:36.480 they got right, and you know, so it was it 0:38:36.520 --> 0:38:41.720 was a dream side for golf much much probably probably 0:38:41.800 --> 0:38:45.400 much easier than Augusta, which was clay and much much much. 0:38:45.280 --> 0:38:50.239 Here and very yeah, extremely hilly, yeah yeah, intractable in 0:38:50.520 --> 0:38:52.520 some parts, but the routing kind of makes it makes 0:38:52.560 --> 0:38:52.919 it work. 0:38:53.880 --> 0:38:54.120 Yeah. 0:38:54.280 --> 0:38:56.640 Another thing, and something that strikes me about your description 0:38:56.760 --> 0:39:00.520 there of how the course unfolds over the land is 0:39:00.560 --> 0:39:06.160 that the pacing is just right with the flatter parts 0:39:06.160 --> 0:39:08.399 of the property as opposed to the more dramatic parts 0:39:08.400 --> 0:39:12.160 of the property. Right, you start on some subtler land 0:39:12.719 --> 0:39:14.480 and then in the middle of the back nine you 0:39:14.560 --> 0:39:18.879 get some subtler land, but there are these of course 0:39:19.280 --> 0:39:23.080 all around that. You have these holes going around big 0:39:23.160 --> 0:39:26.120 land forms, and so there's there's a pacing to it. 0:39:26.120 --> 0:39:29.839 It's not like one nine has all the cool landforms 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:31.239 and the other nine doesn't. 0:39:31.120 --> 0:39:33.040 Which is sort of what happens right across the straight 0:39:33.080 --> 0:39:37.480 of Victoria. The first sort of seven holes of Victoria 0:39:37.560 --> 0:39:41.560 are relatively flat, well, the first eight really, and nine's 0:39:41.600 --> 0:39:44.200 got some great undulation, and then the back nines all 0:39:44.239 --> 0:39:47.319 the great angelaces on the back nine, so you know, 0:39:47.360 --> 0:39:49.480 it's not like the front nine of Victorias. It's not 0:39:49.760 --> 0:39:53.520 in any way bad nine. You know, that's really good, 0:39:53.920 --> 0:39:56.839 but the back nines better because because it's got all 0:39:56.840 --> 0:39:59.640 the great undulation on it. Yeah, that's kind of cool. 0:40:00.160 --> 0:40:03.719 You get five or six or ten miles up the 0:40:03.760 --> 0:40:06.239 road at Metropolitan where I played, and Honeydale next door, 0:40:06.280 --> 0:40:09.600 and it's just dead flat and said, there's almost no 0:40:09.840 --> 0:40:12.000 Metro has got the six holes the only hole that 0:40:12.000 --> 0:40:16.319 has got any undulation on it at all. So it's 0:40:16.320 --> 0:40:19.880 not like the Sad belt Lands all great or all undulating, 0:40:19.960 --> 0:40:22.399 or you know, if you played Royal Melbourne and didn't 0:40:22.400 --> 0:40:25.319 play any of the sand Belt golf course, you would 0:40:25.600 --> 0:40:30.759 you wouldn't get an accurate representation of what it's all like. 0:40:32.480 --> 0:40:34.560 People think kens and he's flat and that kind of is. 0:40:34.560 --> 0:40:36.720 But they used what undulation there was there really well. 0:40:37.440 --> 0:40:40.120 But Royal Melburn had the pick of it and Peninsula 0:40:40.160 --> 0:40:44.319 really Peninsula's further down the road, but you know it's 0:40:44.320 --> 0:40:48.320 probably it's a twenty a half hour drive from Wrong Melbourne, 0:40:48.320 --> 0:40:51.160 but there's some great undulation on that property as well. 0:40:51.480 --> 0:40:54.520 Peninsula moved from the course that was close by they 0:40:54.600 --> 0:40:57.520 built their courses in the sixties and you know, but 0:40:57.840 --> 0:41:00.759 that was a great piece of syd belt land as well. 0:41:00.800 --> 0:41:03.760 I mean probably next to roll Melbourne. The next best 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:05.000 piece of land on the sand belt. 0:41:05.000 --> 0:41:08.040 Really yeah, I mean it's it's not all super dramatic, 0:41:08.200 --> 0:41:12.200 but but sandy is is kind of the common thread, 0:41:12.239 --> 0:41:15.480 I suppose. So what do you think is the best 0:41:15.520 --> 0:41:17.160 green on the West course? 0:41:18.080 --> 0:41:20.160 It's a well, the most famous green is the sixth 0:41:20.200 --> 0:41:22.000 hole because that was where all of us used to 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:24.400 go and congregate to watch pros up nightmare trying to 0:41:24.400 --> 0:41:28.000 put down the hill. So six is a great green, 0:41:28.080 --> 0:41:31.880 but there were so many amazing greens. The two is 0:41:31.920 --> 0:41:34.480 a beautiful green that the sort of a redwan is 0:41:34.520 --> 0:41:36.960 sort of sweeping from high on the right down to 0:41:37.000 --> 0:41:39.759 the left. So there was when it was a I 0:41:39.800 --> 0:41:41.840 mean when it was a I mean, now it's a 0:41:42.160 --> 0:41:44.440 driving a sevenine for pros, but when it was a 0:41:44.840 --> 0:41:46.959 it was a drive and a swooping kind of three 0:41:46.960 --> 0:41:50.000 water along line, it was a beautiful green. Three is 0:41:50.040 --> 0:41:53.640 a that's the only green that goes on the west coast. 0:41:53.680 --> 0:41:56.239 The fifth green on the East course does the same thing. 0:41:56.280 --> 0:41:58.839 It's high in the front and runs away to the back. 0:41:58.880 --> 0:42:02.319 And it's which is really difficult at Royal Melbourn because 0:42:02.320 --> 0:42:04.040 the greens are so hard. If the greens were just 0:42:04.120 --> 0:42:06.160 normal greens, you could stop the ball that any problem 0:42:06.160 --> 0:42:08.359 at all. But the greens are so hard that you've 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:10.920 got to hit a really good shot to otherwise everything 0:42:11.000 --> 0:42:13.400 just runs to the back. So three is a great green, 0:42:13.680 --> 0:42:15.640 but then you can't really run it up because there's 0:42:15.640 --> 0:42:17.720 a really cool dagon or color hollow at the front. 0:42:17.760 --> 0:42:19.759 So you never see anyone run the ball up one 0:42:19.840 --> 0:42:21.840 of that green because it just bounces all over the place. 0:42:22.400 --> 0:42:25.000 I mean, five is are beautiful green. Six is obviously great. 0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:32.120 There's nothing remotely close to a bad green there. You know. 0:42:32.160 --> 0:42:35.719 Seveneens are beautiful green eighteen So it's a great set 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:39.319 of greens. But the best green, and the first green 0:42:39.400 --> 0:42:42.120 is a beautiful green for an opening hole on a 0:42:42.120 --> 0:42:45.359 flat piece of ground. It's amazing how many times when 0:42:45.400 --> 0:42:48.520 you played a tournament you'd always you would somehow always, 0:42:48.560 --> 0:42:50.080 no matter what you did, finish up with a four 0:42:50.120 --> 0:42:53.160 foot or for a par. Now, it was just it 0:42:53.160 --> 0:42:54.920 was just because it was really hard to get the 0:42:54.920 --> 0:42:56.959 ball closed and you bought it. You'd be thirty foot 0:42:56.960 --> 0:42:58.480 away and you'd put it down and it would go 0:42:58.560 --> 0:43:01.279 three ft three or four feet past. I've had three 0:43:01.360 --> 0:43:03.840 good shots. I've got this smelly four foot across the 0:43:03.880 --> 0:43:08.680 aill for apart, but that almost always happened. So the 0:43:08.719 --> 0:43:11.399 six is the you know, the famous green, and it's 0:43:11.520 --> 0:43:14.200 brutaled apart in it, and it's it's dangerous to hit 0:43:14.239 --> 0:43:15.680 two and the pins on the left. If you go 0:43:15.719 --> 0:43:18.400 in the front barker, it's a horrendously difficult shot. And 0:43:18.440 --> 0:43:20.239 if you go on the back bunker, you can't really 0:43:20.280 --> 0:43:21.759 aim at the holes that goes back off the front 0:43:21.800 --> 0:43:23.720 of the green, so you got hit the sideways. And 0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:28.200 so it's when Tom Doe flattened a little shell part 0:43:28.239 --> 0:43:30.640 of you know, the back right corner. He touched it 0:43:30.680 --> 0:43:32.400 a little bit to make it a little more playable. 0:43:32.400 --> 0:43:36.520 But you know it's there aren't many places to put 0:43:36.520 --> 0:43:37.520 a pin on that sixth green. 0:43:37.920 --> 0:43:41.080 The greens are fast, I mean there's no doubt, especially 0:43:41.120 --> 0:43:44.479 when the tournament comes to Royal Melbourne, the greens are. 0:43:44.520 --> 0:43:47.120 The greens are humming, they're super fast. And you know 0:43:47.560 --> 0:43:50.280 we've all seen that. You know that list of green 0:43:50.360 --> 0:43:52.560 speeds in America and nine in seventy seven when the 0:43:52.560 --> 0:43:55.239 fastest green was an oak, mind was nine point eight. 0:43:55.960 --> 0:43:58.640 I promise you Cropford had greens running at fourteen and 0:43:58.719 --> 0:44:03.040 nine seventy two. Yeah, I mean they were unbelievably fast. 0:44:03.239 --> 0:44:06.240 It was funny. We like caddied for Lucas, Michelle and 0:44:05.960 --> 0:44:08.680 the in the in the Asian Amateur the Royal Melment 0:44:08.719 --> 0:44:11.600 of a few months ago, and there was a woman 0:44:11.640 --> 0:44:14.280 from the RNA who was starting us in the practice 0:44:14.320 --> 0:44:16.600 rounds and she said, make sure to fix your pitchmarks. 0:44:16.920 --> 0:44:19.640 And Lucas was like that, he said, there are no 0:44:19.719 --> 0:44:23.839 pitchmarks on this golf course. And you almost literally never 0:44:23.920 --> 0:44:26.840 fix a pitchmark. There are no pitchmarks in the greens, 0:44:26.880 --> 0:44:30.520 just there's that's how how they are. So you know 0:44:30.520 --> 0:44:33.520 the pitchmark repairs. There aren't too many real members who 0:44:33.600 --> 0:44:34.720 ran a pitchmark repairer. 0:44:35.680 --> 0:44:38.279 So, uh, the East Course I want to touch on 0:44:38.360 --> 0:44:41.480 at least briefly here it gets it gets overlooked a lot, 0:44:41.680 --> 0:44:44.960 but everyone I've talked to who has played it was 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:48.640 delighted by it, just thought it was wonderful. Yeah, what 0:44:48.680 --> 0:44:50.919 can you tell me about how the how the East 0:44:50.920 --> 0:44:53.400 course is similar to the West and how it's different. 0:44:53.960 --> 0:44:58.000 Well, it's the holes on the East Course that are 0:44:58.000 --> 0:45:00.239 on the composite course and better than the holes that 0:45:00.760 --> 0:45:01.400 they replace. 0:45:02.320 --> 0:45:05.600 So yeah, and The composite course that you're referring to, 0:45:06.040 --> 0:45:08.640 just in case people don't know, is the tournament course 0:45:08.680 --> 0:45:11.239 at Roll Melbourne. If you've seen a big tournament at 0:45:11.280 --> 0:45:15.319 Roll Melbourne, they play a composite of the East and 0:45:15.360 --> 0:45:18.080 West courses, where most of the holes around the west. 0:45:18.120 --> 0:45:20.960 I think there are a few different versions of of 0:45:21.000 --> 0:45:23.280 this course. There are a million versions of it, maybe, 0:45:23.800 --> 0:45:25.879 but most of the holes are usually on the west 0:45:25.920 --> 0:45:28.919 and along with a few or several from the east. 0:45:29.040 --> 0:45:30.680 Yeah, there are twelve on the west and sixth on 0:45:30.719 --> 0:45:35.600 the east. You play the first and second East. Well, 0:45:35.920 --> 0:45:40.360 you play one, two three four. Well they sorry, this 0:45:40.480 --> 0:45:44.239 comps of course is completed. The original compers of course. 0:45:44.280 --> 0:45:48.239 You play one, two three four seventeen eighteen and they've 0:45:48.320 --> 0:45:52.160 replaced the fourth hole with the sixteenth hole, the two 0:45:52.200 --> 0:45:54.840 part three's which I kind of a mistake, you know, 0:45:54.880 --> 0:45:57.080 I'd love. I think the fourth holes it's one of 0:45:57.080 --> 0:45:59.399 the great upfield path threes in the world. It doesn't 0:45:59.440 --> 0:46:02.840 look as drama sixteen, but it's an amazing hole. So 0:46:03.960 --> 0:46:06.880 you play one, two three four on the east on 0:46:06.920 --> 0:46:09.719 the and then you go over the road and you 0:46:09.800 --> 0:46:13.200 play five and six, and then you go over the 0:46:13.280 --> 0:46:17.120 road again and you play seven to fourteen and those 0:46:17.160 --> 0:46:20.399 holes out the back are quite flat, but really good. 0:46:20.400 --> 0:46:22.520 You know, it's really good flat golf for some angelets. 0:46:22.560 --> 0:46:25.759 Never none of the dramatic stuff, much closer to the clubhouse, 0:46:26.440 --> 0:46:29.880 but still fantastic golf. And you could easily make the 0:46:29.960 --> 0:46:32.520 argument that the second best course in Australia is of 0:46:32.520 --> 0:46:36.080 course at Roal Melbourne. Perhaps not after Barmberger and Kate 0:46:36.120 --> 0:46:39.399 Wakam were built, but you know, twenty years ago, before 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:41.640 the golf got built in Tasmania, you could easily make 0:46:41.680 --> 0:46:44.440 the argument that the best two courses in Australia with 0:46:44.920 --> 0:46:46.560 the West Coast and the East Course down and then 0:46:46.640 --> 0:46:52.680 probably Kankston Heath and the East courses for what they're worth, 0:46:52.719 --> 0:46:56.040 it's in the magazine rankings, it's around five, six or seven. 0:46:56.120 --> 0:46:58.520 It's still a top hundred course in the world. And 0:46:58.560 --> 0:47:00.120 if it was the only course at Royal Melbourn, it 0:47:00.160 --> 0:47:02.920 would it would it would get a lot more credit 0:47:02.960 --> 0:47:05.960 than it does. But because the East, because of the 0:47:06.040 --> 0:47:08.719 West Coast, and that's the course that people want to play. 0:47:08.719 --> 0:47:12.520 But the East Course is brilliant and it makes the 0:47:12.560 --> 0:47:15.239 composite course a better course than the West course. So 0:47:16.120 --> 0:47:18.800 you could make the argument Roal Melbourne should the rankings 0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:20.520 should be they should rank the East Course, the West 0:47:20.560 --> 0:47:22.960 Coast and probably the Composite course and the composite that 0:47:23.480 --> 0:47:25.600 you can make it pretty good argument. It's the best 0:47:25.600 --> 0:47:28.920 golf course in the world, perhaps not Pine Valley, but 0:47:29.000 --> 0:47:32.120 Pine Valley is not certainly not the ideal course. Mackenzie 0:47:32.160 --> 0:47:35.359 would say, well, yeah, it's great, but who can play it? 0:47:35.719 --> 0:47:38.120 And you know, the bulk with a membership a Royal 0:47:38.200 --> 0:47:41.480 Melbourne can handle the golf course, but Pine Valley is 0:47:41.480 --> 0:47:44.279 so difficult they couldn't play that. So it might be 0:47:44.320 --> 0:47:45.799 the best course in the world, but maybe it's the 0:47:45.840 --> 0:47:47.520 most ideal course in the world. 0:47:47.920 --> 0:47:50.880 So you're among those who thinks that the composite courses 0:47:51.000 --> 0:47:54.160 is a better course than the West Course flat out. 0:47:54.280 --> 0:47:57.080 Oh yeah, yeah, it's clearly better. But because because Russell's 0:47:57.080 --> 0:47:58.719 holds on the on the East Course that they play 0:47:58.760 --> 0:48:01.040 it better than the holes that you know they're better 0:48:01.080 --> 0:48:04.280 than did they replace eight nine and thirteen to sixteen 0:48:04.320 --> 0:48:05.879 on the West Course, which are all which are really 0:48:05.920 --> 0:48:08.960 good holes, but you know Russell's holes are brilliant holes. Yeah, 0:48:08.960 --> 0:48:13.800 they're great. So eighteen which eighteen East which comes around 0:48:13.800 --> 0:48:15.640 the other side of the In fact, it shares the 0:48:15.680 --> 0:48:17.680 faire with the first West course up by the green. 0:48:18.440 --> 0:48:20.560 It's a dead flat dog leg left with a clump 0:48:20.600 --> 0:48:22.920 of tee tree on the corner and a hundred yard 0:48:22.960 --> 0:48:24.880 wide fairway that goes all the way to the clubhouse 0:48:24.880 --> 0:48:28.000 and amazing green. It's one of the great holes at 0:48:28.040 --> 0:48:31.279 all Noboyne. It's a brilliant hole, you know, and it's 0:48:31.320 --> 0:48:35.040 dead flat. It's just back on the land around the clubhouse. 0:48:35.080 --> 0:48:38.239 But it's an amazing dogleg left par four where so 0:48:38.280 --> 0:48:41.200 many kind of that crazy finished to the Asian amateur 0:48:41.239 --> 0:48:43.840 when Penn in the front right. No one had burded 0:48:43.920 --> 0:48:45.799 it all day, and then the two kids in the 0:48:45.800 --> 0:48:47.960 playoff both burded in the first time of the playoff, 0:48:47.960 --> 0:48:52.479 which was completely mad. Yeah, but yeah, it's a great hole. 0:48:53.040 --> 0:48:56.520 So the East course obviously a Russell course. 0:48:56.480 --> 0:48:57.000 Yeah, you know. 0:48:57.040 --> 0:49:01.440 Can you can you see Russell making an effort to 0:49:02.360 --> 0:49:06.680 emulate the West course in this design and can you 0:49:06.760 --> 0:49:10.799 also see some places where he's trying to distinguish the 0:49:10.840 --> 0:49:12.960 East course from the West course, Because I mean, there 0:49:13.000 --> 0:49:16.240 are different schools of thought about how you go about 0:49:16.239 --> 0:49:20.040 designing the second eighteen of a thirty six hole facility. 0:49:20.080 --> 0:49:22.120 You can go the direction of saying we want something 0:49:22.560 --> 0:49:25.719 really different and really distinct and that has its own 0:49:25.960 --> 0:49:29.040 very clear identity, or you can say we want we 0:49:29.080 --> 0:49:32.640 want some kind of uh, you know, similarities. We want 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:35.839 we want a continuity is the word I'm looking for 0:49:35.920 --> 0:49:39.040 between the courses. What approach do you think Russell took 0:49:39.360 --> 0:49:40.400 here on the East course? 0:49:41.480 --> 0:49:45.200 Continuity? Yeah, you know it was the bonkers looked the 0:49:45.239 --> 0:49:48.720 sign the grains that perhaps there are some different grains 0:49:48.719 --> 0:49:51.680 out there, but that so you know, you don't walk 0:49:51.719 --> 0:49:53.960 on the eleventh grain of the east courses. This was 0:49:54.000 --> 0:49:56.600 clearly not a Mackenzie grain because it you know, the 0:49:56.680 --> 0:49:59.279 concepts with the sign and it was a really cool grain. 0:49:59.320 --> 0:50:02.480 But there's nothing on the West course. But it fits 0:50:02.480 --> 0:50:05.759 in beautifully and it's so you know, the bunkering style 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:10.160 is the same that you know he because the land 0:50:10.280 --> 0:50:13.000 is not as expansive, but you know, it's not quite 0:50:13.000 --> 0:50:15.400 as wide, and he had to you know, there's not 0:50:15.440 --> 0:50:17.520 as much room between the holes on the far paddock 0:50:17.600 --> 0:50:20.840 on the East course, but you know they're very similar courses. 0:50:20.960 --> 0:50:23.239 So the thirteenth on the East and the thirteenth on 0:50:23.280 --> 0:50:26.120 the west are both sort of short one hundred and 0:50:26.160 --> 0:50:29.400 thirty or forty yard past three that you can swap 0:50:29.440 --> 0:50:33.440 them over and you wouldn't neither would look out of 0:50:33.480 --> 0:50:35.880 place on the other golf course. And it kind of, 0:50:36.239 --> 0:50:39.520 you know in a way. I mean, the composite course 0:50:39.600 --> 0:50:43.920 wasn't built, wasn't arranged until the World Cup in it 0:50:44.000 --> 0:50:45.920 was a Canada Cup then in nineteen fifty nine. That 0:50:45.960 --> 0:50:49.319 was why they put it together. But you play the 0:50:49.360 --> 0:50:51.920 holes around the clubhouse on the East course or on 0:50:51.960 --> 0:50:54.560 the on the clubhouse paddic on the East course, and 0:50:54.600 --> 0:50:57.200 there you would never know you run a different golf course. 0:50:57.200 --> 0:50:59.480 You come off the the old composite course. She came 0:50:59.520 --> 0:51:02.760 off the fourth West and went to the third East, 0:51:03.120 --> 0:51:07.040 and you know, an anyone who played that composite course, 0:51:07.080 --> 0:51:09.400 you'd never been there before, wouldn't have any idea that 0:51:09.480 --> 0:51:11.680 was playing a different golf course. You know that it 0:51:11.840 --> 0:51:13.120 just looked exactly the same. 0:51:13.520 --> 0:51:18.160 Yeah, it's amazing that it flows so well, and you know, 0:51:18.239 --> 0:51:21.680 and then furthermore, a similar point is that, as you 0:51:21.760 --> 0:51:24.400 mentioned earlier, there are a couple of holes on the 0:51:24.400 --> 0:51:26.799 West course, and I'm sure on the East course as 0:51:26.840 --> 0:51:32.799 well that aren't original that were changed later greens were 0:51:32.840 --> 0:51:35.239 moved or you know, seventh on the West Course I 0:51:35.280 --> 0:51:39.640 know fits this description, and yet I don't know. I mean, 0:51:39.680 --> 0:51:42.080 I've I've looked at all the holes at Roll Melbourne 0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:45.520 through pictures and on TV a number of times. I 0:51:45.560 --> 0:51:48.080 think I know them fairly well. If you had asked 0:51:48.080 --> 0:51:50.560 me to pick out the hole that wasn't an original 0:51:51.040 --> 0:51:53.359 Mackenzie hole, I wouldn't be able to do it. 0:51:53.520 --> 0:51:53.719 All. 0:51:53.719 --> 0:51:56.279 It all fits in pretty well. The course is so 0:51:56.440 --> 0:52:01.720 well presented and so well stewarded that just it's all. 0:52:02.080 --> 0:52:03.480 You know, it's a complete thing. 0:52:03.800 --> 0:52:07.080 Yeah, yeah, you know Crockford moved that twelfth green and 0:52:07.120 --> 0:52:09.080 I assume, well, I think I went to a great hole, 0:52:09.160 --> 0:52:11.480 so I think he probably made it a better hole 0:52:11.520 --> 0:52:14.239 than it was. And you don't know, I mean, I 0:52:14.320 --> 0:52:16.879 assume Russell was around at the time, so obviously they 0:52:17.400 --> 0:52:19.680 assume they spoke about it, and you know, they probably 0:52:19.680 --> 0:52:21.879 had a committee meeting and said, I guess he said 0:52:21.960 --> 0:52:23.719 I want to move the twelfth green. That was what's 0:52:23.719 --> 0:52:26.440 a good idea, Okay, we'll do that, and so that happened. 0:52:26.480 --> 0:52:29.120 But you know that green's you don't you know, it's 0:52:29.239 --> 0:52:32.000 indistinguishable from you know, it's not like that green stands 0:52:32.000 --> 0:52:36.719 out as something different or something you know. Gil the 0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:39.800 first time Gil Hans came down to Australia. Funny story, 0:52:39.800 --> 0:52:42.719 he won the Olympic job. He ran me up and said, 0:52:42.960 --> 0:52:44.760 you know, I've got this job to build the Olympic 0:52:44.800 --> 0:52:47.560 course in Rea and and I've sold it to the 0:52:47.600 --> 0:52:50.560 whoever he was selling it to on the basis of 0:52:50.640 --> 0:52:52.799 Kenston Heath. He said, I suppose I should come down 0:52:52.880 --> 0:52:55.080 and see it. Because he'd never been to the sand belt. 0:52:55.800 --> 0:52:59.640 So we were talking about that, the twelfth Green of Victoria, 0:53:00.000 --> 0:53:04.040 which was he'd never never been to Australia. We started 0:53:04.080 --> 0:53:07.600 walking Victorious. We walked, We started on the tenth pole. 0:53:08.000 --> 0:53:10.600 It was late, it was six o'clock at night in 0:53:10.640 --> 0:53:13.879 the summer. We walked ten, walked eleven. So he's never 0:53:13.920 --> 0:53:15.759 been in Australia, never seen a sand belt course. He's 0:53:15.800 --> 0:53:19.000 seen two greens and he got one hundred yards from 0:53:19.080 --> 0:53:21.319 the twelfth green and said that green is not original green? 0:53:21.400 --> 0:53:24.680 Is it like? You can see that. I knew it 0:53:24.680 --> 0:53:27.839 wasn't original, but I thought it was amazing. He said. 0:53:27.840 --> 0:53:31.319 The hardest thing to do is built one green on 0:53:31.360 --> 0:53:34.400 a golf course and have it fit with the other seventeen. 0:53:34.920 --> 0:53:36.839 Which was the genius of the twelfth green in Royal 0:53:36.840 --> 0:53:38.440 Melbourne is no one would know that that's not an 0:53:38.480 --> 0:53:42.759 original green. So you know clearly once Mackenzie had gone, 0:53:44.360 --> 0:53:46.520 you know that there were people who were talented enough 0:53:46.560 --> 0:53:49.680 to change some of his work and have it fit 0:53:49.760 --> 0:53:51.719 in perfectly well, which is what the seventh pole does. 0:53:51.760 --> 0:53:54.440 The part three. It's a great path three and no 0:53:54.480 --> 0:53:56.239 one who went there would ever know that, you know, 0:53:56.320 --> 0:54:01.120 this wasn't Mackenzie never even saw this hole. So the 0:54:01.239 --> 0:54:04.600 changes have been small but really well done there. 0:54:05.360 --> 0:54:10.399 Yeah, and not many greenkeepers over the years either, right, 0:54:10.480 --> 0:54:15.759 the lineage of greenkeepers at Royal Melbourne. There were some 0:54:15.840 --> 0:54:19.520 really long tenured people who took care of the course 0:54:19.560 --> 0:54:21.960 and maybe that's part of it. Maybe that's part of 0:54:21.960 --> 0:54:24.440 the reason that it's been preserved so well, and that 0:54:24.480 --> 0:54:27.680 it that it still feels so complete. It's not like 0:54:27.719 --> 0:54:30.960 a hodgepodge. There weren't a bunch of different voices at 0:54:30.960 --> 0:54:34.480 different times coming in and making changes. There was again 0:54:34.520 --> 0:54:35.520 that word continuity. 0:54:36.239 --> 0:54:39.440 Morgan was there for until I think the thirties. I 0:54:39.440 --> 0:54:43.360 think Crockford for Crockford started there in the mid thirties, 0:54:43.400 --> 0:54:47.680 I think, and he was there, but I know it 0:54:47.760 --> 0:54:49.279 was around when I was around. You know, he was 0:54:49.280 --> 0:54:52.120 setting up torments and I was. I think he did 0:54:52.160 --> 0:54:55.399 a couple of Australiums and Pj's I played in, but yeah, 0:54:55.440 --> 0:54:57.400 in fact he did. So he was there until the 0:54:57.400 --> 0:55:01.160 mid eighties, and you know they've had a fuse since 0:55:01.200 --> 0:55:05.960 then and Richard Forsyth's Richard's been there fifteen years now, 0:55:06.000 --> 0:55:10.600 twelve fifteen years. But they've all been great at preserving, 0:55:11.440 --> 0:55:14.320 you know, the golf course. I mean, Peter Williams changed 0:55:14.360 --> 0:55:18.320 over the grass to Pencross in the late eighties, and 0:55:18.600 --> 0:55:20.799 Jim Porter came along after that and he said, as 0:55:20.800 --> 0:55:22.880 we were putting in the last Pencross green, we were 0:55:22.880 --> 0:55:25.520 trying to figure out what we were going to replace 0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:30.080 it with. So Richard eventually took her back to a 0:55:30.200 --> 0:55:33.319 grass that's much closer to the original grass. So that 0:55:33.440 --> 0:55:36.720 was probably a mistake changing the grass over on the greens, 0:55:37.239 --> 0:55:41.520 but they don't make too many changes mistakes. And Crockford 0:55:41.600 --> 0:55:45.719 was such a respected kind of greenkeeper that the committee, 0:55:45.880 --> 0:55:49.200 you assume, largely stayed out of his road. You know, 0:55:49.960 --> 0:55:52.160 they understood the course was great, and he looked after 0:55:52.200 --> 0:55:53.960 it well and it was why would you want to 0:55:54.000 --> 0:55:56.640 make interfere or change anything? And that was the way 0:55:56.680 --> 0:55:58.760 it rolled for a long time there and it still 0:55:58.760 --> 0:56:01.840 does really, I mean, don't still the consulting architects and 0:56:02.040 --> 0:56:04.840 you know he's you know, largely it's leave it alone 0:56:05.280 --> 0:56:08.759 because Martin Hartley made some change. He got the job 0:56:08.800 --> 0:56:12.360 there as the architect there and you know, maybe twenty 0:56:12.400 --> 0:56:15.040 years ago, and there were some boundary issues on the 0:56:15.040 --> 0:56:18.840 East course that he that he changes kind of solved 0:56:18.840 --> 0:56:22.440 in a way, you know, it dug up Russell's sixth 0:56:22.440 --> 0:56:25.640 hole on the East Course and changed it and don'k 0:56:25.760 --> 0:56:28.920 redid it and it's still kind of it's not as 0:56:28.920 --> 0:56:31.720 good as the old hole, but they solved the boundary 0:56:31.719 --> 0:56:34.319 problem at seven and seventeen. It's you know, the holes 0:56:34.440 --> 0:56:36.880 with roads on the right, which is one thing Russell did. 0:56:36.920 --> 0:56:41.200 It was funny Russell. Every course he did in Australia, 0:56:41.840 --> 0:56:43.920 the boundaries are all on the right. Whether it's a 0:56:43.920 --> 0:56:46.560 coincidence or whether he was a hooker who you know, 0:56:46.600 --> 0:56:50.200 I don't know or whatever, but all the boundary, all 0:56:50.200 --> 0:56:54.439 the boundary problems there are on Russell's courses and every 0:56:54.440 --> 0:56:56.759 course in this range has got boundary problems because they're 0:56:56.800 --> 0:57:00.040 all in the suburbs. Every boundary problem. Of course, the 0:57:00.080 --> 0:57:02.040 rest of it is it's always on the right. It's 0:57:02.080 --> 0:57:05.879 just kind of weird. Yeah, So Hartory challenged a few 0:57:05.920 --> 0:57:08.880 things around and that Doug Doug came back and kind of, 0:57:09.000 --> 0:57:11.399 for one of a better word, fixed what Hartrey had 0:57:11.400 --> 0:57:15.560 done and it'll you know, it all fits together pretty 0:57:15.600 --> 0:57:16.040 well ready. 0:57:16.680 --> 0:57:21.240 So I'm curious since you've seen so much golf at 0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:23.160 roll Melbourne. I mean you've played a lot of golf 0:57:23.160 --> 0:57:26.680 there out there as well, but but you've seen a 0:57:26.680 --> 0:57:31.920 lot of tournaments there, including fairly recently. Does a particular 0:57:32.120 --> 0:57:36.120 round come to mind as the best you've ever seen 0:57:36.240 --> 0:57:41.400 someone play at Roal Melbourne, somebody who just like unlocked 0:57:41.440 --> 0:57:45.680 the course and really for for eighteen holes, really had 0:57:46.000 --> 0:57:46.720 mastery of it. 0:57:47.280 --> 0:57:49.200 I played the day early shot sixty, So I guess 0:57:49.280 --> 0:57:50.040 that was pretty good. 0:57:52.640 --> 0:57:54.040 He was, he was pretty good at golf. 0:57:54.160 --> 0:57:57.960 Yeah, I mean watching Sevy, I've watched Sev play pretty 0:57:58.000 --> 0:58:01.120 much every hollow of the seventy eight page eight and 0:58:01.200 --> 0:58:06.040 that was beautiful to watch because that was McKenzie built 0:58:06.040 --> 0:58:09.840 that course for Mackenzie loved the way Hagen played golf, 0:58:10.480 --> 0:58:11.960 and that was the sort of you know, we wanted 0:58:11.960 --> 0:58:15.040 players to have room and space, didn't like the tight, 0:58:15.120 --> 0:58:17.200 constricted golf. And he then he loved Hagen, loved the 0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:20.520 way he played. So he was designing for Hagen in 0:58:20.560 --> 0:58:23.800 a way. And Sevie was Hagen. You know, he came, 0:58:23.960 --> 0:58:27.840 you know, forty fifty years later, he comes there. Here's 0:58:27.840 --> 0:58:30.800 a guy who needs some space to show how created 0:58:30.840 --> 0:58:33.880 if he isn't. But that was Sevie at his best. 0:58:33.880 --> 0:58:37.479 So watching Sevie player was amazing. And so I would 0:58:37.480 --> 0:58:40.760 say the best golf I've seen that was Sevi and 0:58:40.840 --> 0:58:44.200 Lydia Coe. Lydia co won the Women's Open there by 0:58:44.600 --> 0:58:47.760 I don't know seven shots, and it was just genius stuff. 0:58:47.800 --> 0:58:50.120 I mean, she took that place apart. It was amazing 0:58:50.160 --> 0:58:53.080 how well she played. She'd figured out the angles and 0:58:53.120 --> 0:58:55.840 people say angles don't matter, you know, Roal Melbourne. They't 0:58:55.840 --> 0:58:58.480 matter because the shot from one side of the fairway 0:58:58.520 --> 0:59:00.880 can be way easier than the shot on the other side. 0:59:01.240 --> 0:59:04.400 And she just it was genius. She played beautifully and 0:59:04.520 --> 0:59:07.320 just picked it apart. The third on the East Course, 0:59:07.360 --> 0:59:09.200 which is I don't know what number. It was because 0:59:09.200 --> 0:59:13.360 it was there been seventy ridiculous routings of the composite 0:59:13.360 --> 0:59:16.000 course people just lose track of. So so the third 0:59:16.000 --> 0:59:18.960 on thee she first day she had left off the 0:59:19.000 --> 0:59:20.680 tea a little bit was into the wind. I think 0:59:20.680 --> 0:59:23.640 it was unusually for that whole. She had quite a 0:59:23.640 --> 0:59:26.080 long second shot down the hill to her back right 0:59:26.160 --> 0:59:28.640 pen and she cut this hybrid thing into about six 0:59:28.760 --> 0:59:30.840 or eight feet And the next day she hold her 0:59:30.920 --> 0:59:32.680 nine nine on the same hole. It was like it 0:59:32.760 --> 0:59:35.160 was she just and she won by seven shots. It 0:59:35.200 --> 0:59:38.960 was just she made And Stacy Lewis was a famous 0:59:39.000 --> 0:59:41.040 not famous growth but she said, you know, ryal Welbom 0:59:41.080 --> 0:59:46.080 doesn't reward good shots, and she was right, it rewards 0:59:46.120 --> 0:59:48.840 great shots. And you know, whilst the rest of hil 0:59:48.880 --> 0:59:51.080 were complaining about how difficult the course was, Lydia was 0:59:51.120 --> 0:59:54.240 just putting a clinic on. So, you know, in terms 0:59:54.240 --> 0:59:59.680 of two not specific rounds, but two tournaments played, that 0:59:59.760 --> 1:00:03.440 was amazing. And I saw Halo and played the last 1:00:03.480 --> 1:00:07.600 six holes in nineteen seventy eight when he shot sixty four, 1:00:07.640 --> 1:00:10.880 and I think the first round and I you know, 1:00:10.880 --> 1:00:12.520 I watched him play from the top of the hill 1:00:12.520 --> 1:00:15.760 on the fourth west, which was the fourteenth top, and 1:00:15.800 --> 1:00:17.320 he just sit you know, he had a string of 1:00:17.920 --> 1:00:20.760 amazing shots from there to the finish, just like flushed it. 1:00:20.720 --> 1:00:23.120 It was. That was the first time I saw someone 1:00:23.160 --> 1:00:26.280 play golf. That was like, my god, that's that's I 1:00:26.280 --> 1:00:30.440 didn't know anyone could play golf that well, you know, ha, halo. 1:00:30.560 --> 1:00:33.280 It was. He just flushed it from the top of 1:00:33.280 --> 1:00:35.040 the hill. It was a two on and he had 1:00:35.040 --> 1:00:37.960 a beautifully a great shot into the whole the whole 1:00:37.960 --> 1:00:39.800 weather you hold the nine on that was the next hole. 1:00:40.280 --> 1:00:41.920 He had a beautiful seven one in there. Then the 1:00:41.920 --> 1:00:43.440 path three up the hill, the fourth he had a 1:00:43.440 --> 1:00:46.760 beautiful shot in there and just think he shot sixty four. 1:00:46.920 --> 1:00:49.120 It was obviously and he won the tournament. But yeah, 1:00:49.120 --> 1:00:50.720 that was that was kind of memorable. 1:00:51.320 --> 1:00:54.480 Yeah, the long clubs off the fairway, hail Irwin. Yeah, 1:00:54.520 --> 1:00:57.560 I mean, unbelievable. Yeah, he was too iron and a 1:00:57.640 --> 1:00:58.680 fairway would Yeah. 1:00:58.480 --> 1:01:00.640 He was. You could see him hit that well. I 1:01:00.720 --> 1:01:02.520 was four years earlier. We hit that two under the 1:01:02.600 --> 1:01:05.720 last hole at Wingfoot when he was open. You know, 1:01:05.880 --> 1:01:08.560 it was like you know, when when you see it 1:01:08.560 --> 1:01:10.560 in person, it's like, well, that guy can really hit it. 1:01:10.920 --> 1:01:13.320 And the other great The other great round, of course 1:01:13.440 --> 1:01:17.640 was I watched Tiger play Abraham Answer and the singles 1:01:17.640 --> 1:01:21.480 in the President's Cup and that was that was he 1:01:21.920 --> 1:01:24.000 was clearly the best player there that week. It was 1:01:24.000 --> 1:01:27.320 you know, twenty nineteen. It was just it was, you know, 1:01:27.360 --> 1:01:29.800 that's why you want That's why pro golf was better 1:01:29.840 --> 1:01:33.240 when it signed proper golf courses, because it brings out 1:01:33.280 --> 1:01:36.160 the genius and the best players. And that was you know, 1:01:36.160 --> 1:01:39.080 that was a again, it was it was Mackenzie designing 1:01:39.080 --> 1:01:41.400 for Tiger. It was a perfect golf course for Tiger. 1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:43.440 Was it was to think about where you were going 1:01:43.480 --> 1:01:44.400 to hit it, and you know, and you had to 1:01:44.440 --> 1:01:48.000 hit it there and you had to control the Elvis. 1:01:48.320 --> 1:01:51.200 You know, I cave Elvis Smiley in the New Zealand 1:01:51.240 --> 1:01:54.880 Open the start last year and we're out with Steve 1:01:54.920 --> 1:01:58.160 Williams the last day and Elvis ad Steve, you know 1:01:58.240 --> 1:02:01.360 what was your favorite Torment decade? He said, Augusta, Because 1:02:01.600 --> 1:02:04.520 you know, most courses you've got four or five yards 1:02:04.560 --> 1:02:07.680 to play with Augusta, you've got one yard. And that 1:02:07.760 --> 1:02:11.600 might have been an exaggeration, but not by much. And 1:02:12.280 --> 1:02:14.640 Roal Melbourne. You've got you know, some holes, you've got 1:02:14.640 --> 1:02:17.320 one or two yards to play with and you've got 1:02:17.320 --> 1:02:20.040 you know, and which goes back to the Stacey Lewis 1:02:20.040 --> 1:02:22.240 point was you know it doesn't reward good shots. No, 1:02:22.360 --> 1:02:23.920 you've got a yard to play with it. And if 1:02:23.960 --> 1:02:26.680 you missed that yard or two yards by three yards 1:02:26.760 --> 1:02:29.400 instead of being eight feet away, you can be forty 1:02:29.440 --> 1:02:31.480 feet away and you think you've hit a good shot 1:02:31.520 --> 1:02:33.440 and you're forty feet away, but no, you missed it 1:02:33.480 --> 1:02:36.320 by two yards. Not good enough, you know. Which is why, 1:02:36.480 --> 1:02:38.560 which is why it's such a genius golf course and 1:02:38.560 --> 1:02:41.320 why it still holds up in torments, and why there 1:02:41.360 --> 1:02:43.840 aren't so many crazy rounds because it's so difficult to 1:02:43.840 --> 1:02:47.120 get the ball near the whole, especially when it's windy, 1:02:47.320 --> 1:02:50.440 because the little undulations in the greens and you get 1:02:50.440 --> 1:02:52.080 the wrong you have the wrong shape and get the 1:02:52.120 --> 1:02:53.760 wrong bounds and get on the wrong side of the 1:02:53.800 --> 1:02:56.440 slope and a shot that on most courses in the 1:02:56.480 --> 1:02:58.520 world that would be fifteen or twenty feet away, So 1:02:58.600 --> 1:03:01.040 it's fifty feet away, and now you're going to three 1:03:01.080 --> 1:03:03.480 part or you're going to struggle the two part. So 1:03:03.560 --> 1:03:07.400 that's its genius really. So when you see someone like 1:03:07.480 --> 1:03:11.280 Tiger or sev or Lydia co play that Orhalo and 1:03:11.360 --> 1:03:15.800 play that course, well, it's brilliant to watch and it's memorable. 1:03:15.840 --> 1:03:19.120 I can still see those shots everyone hit and Sevy hit, 1:03:19.240 --> 1:03:23.320 and you can still see them why they were so. 1:03:23.440 --> 1:03:27.120 Lydia played the eighteenth on the West course with Charlie Hult. 1:03:27.800 --> 1:03:30.240 The Pember's in the front right corner dog legg right 1:03:30.800 --> 1:03:33.360 and she hit it down the tree line, over the 1:03:33.400 --> 1:03:36.160 bunker into the right half of the fairway, the right 1:03:36.200 --> 1:03:39.440 corner of the fairway, and Charlie hit a three wood 1:03:39.920 --> 1:03:42.360 into the middle of the fairway. But now she's back 1:03:42.360 --> 1:03:44.200 with a five one into the green off the right 1:03:44.240 --> 1:03:46.320 to left slope to a right pin with the wind 1:03:46.320 --> 1:03:49.520 off the right, and she hit it in a decent shot, 1:03:49.560 --> 1:03:52.360 but it was forty foot left of the hole. But 1:03:52.440 --> 1:03:55.120 Lydia was thirty yards closer down with a better angle 1:03:55.160 --> 1:03:57.000 and she hit it in under the hole with an 1:03:57.000 --> 1:04:01.120 eight I and sort of twelve fifteen feet away. Charlie 1:04:01.160 --> 1:04:02.880 putted it down six foot short because it was a 1:04:02.920 --> 1:04:05.880 really fast part Lydia miss, Charlie missed. Charlie made five, 1:04:05.920 --> 1:04:08.400 and I'm sure she walked off the green thinking but 1:04:08.520 --> 1:04:10.960 he did a bad shot there, and I made five. Well, 1:04:11.040 --> 1:04:12.920 you didn did a bad shop, but you didn't really 1:04:13.520 --> 1:04:15.760 ever have it in the same position DA had it in. 1:04:16.240 --> 1:04:19.280 And Lydia made a really easy four, and Charlie was 1:04:19.320 --> 1:04:21.400 middle of the fellow middle of the green, but walked 1:04:21.400 --> 1:04:24.320 off of the five kind of presumably like I didn't 1:04:24.360 --> 1:04:27.920 do much wrong there. But there aren't many holes in 1:04:27.960 --> 1:04:30.880 the world where she'd have made a bogie off the 1:04:30.920 --> 1:04:33.120 two shots she hit, but she did because neither of 1:04:33.160 --> 1:04:35.320 them were she didn't take on what Lydia took on. 1:04:36.120 --> 1:04:37.720 Was Lydia a teenager at the time. 1:04:38.200 --> 1:04:40.840 It was pre Leadbetter's a swing, which was why it 1:04:40.920 --> 1:04:45.120 was a why do you want to kick this? Why 1:04:45.120 --> 1:04:48.160 do you want to change this game? You're already the 1:04:48.160 --> 1:04:49.000 best man in the world. 1:04:49.600 --> 1:04:53.000 So the most beautiful player to watch. Yeah, when when 1:04:53.080 --> 1:04:56.520 she was a teenager, I mean it was just perfect. Yeah, 1:04:56.560 --> 1:04:59.600 and yeah, I mean you know, the size of the 1:04:59.640 --> 1:05:02.840 margin that you're talking about, the size of a margin 1:05:02.920 --> 1:05:06.920 between being screwed and being in a good position is 1:05:06.960 --> 1:05:12.040 often what people key in on when they talk about unfairness. Right, Yeah, 1:05:12.120 --> 1:05:14.040 if the margin is if the margin is too small 1:05:14.800 --> 1:05:18.960 between being okay and being screwed, then then people will 1:05:18.960 --> 1:05:21.840 say that's unfair. You can't possibly expect me to be 1:05:22.000 --> 1:05:25.280 that accurate. No one can be that accurate. But then 1:05:26.000 --> 1:05:29.440 you get players like Lydia Coo as a teenager, or 1:05:29.800 --> 1:05:34.640 Tiger Woods at the twenty nineteen President's Cup, or or 1:05:34.880 --> 1:05:40.520 Hailer when hitting a long iron. I mean that is 1:05:40.560 --> 1:05:43.480 the elite of the elite, and they can play with 1:05:43.520 --> 1:05:44.120 those margins. 1:05:44.200 --> 1:05:47.120 Yeah, which is what you know Tom Dunk told me about. 1:05:47.240 --> 1:05:50.000 He said, I don't want to distinguish your train a 1:05:50.040 --> 1:05:52.280 two handicapper and a scratch or a five handicapp and 1:05:52.280 --> 1:05:54.040 a scratch play. I want to distinguish to train a 1:05:54.160 --> 1:05:56.000 scratch plan the best player in the club and the 1:05:56.040 --> 1:05:58.400 best part on the world. And that's what mackenzie did. 1:05:58.480 --> 1:06:02.360 Start bringing Roal Melbolle. So Andrews does that, and he understood. 1:06:02.440 --> 1:06:04.080 And Andrews, you know, to hit a great shot into 1:06:04.120 --> 1:06:06.160 the road hole. You don't see many guys stepping it 1:06:06.200 --> 1:06:08.640 on the road hole, but you know if someone I 1:06:08.680 --> 1:06:11.200 remember David Graham had a great shot into the seventeenth 1:06:11.240 --> 1:06:14.280 oldt tonanres in a Dunhill Cup. He drew this five 1:06:14.360 --> 1:06:15.960 one around the back of the bunk it or about 1:06:16.080 --> 1:06:18.160 I don't know what three, I can't remember. Close, really close. 1:06:18.160 --> 1:06:21.320 It was an amazing shot. So you had to hit 1:06:21.480 --> 1:06:23.200 you know, you didn't you have nothing to play with 1:06:23.240 --> 1:06:25.640 and you had to hit the perfect shot. It wasn't like, 1:06:25.800 --> 1:06:29.120 you know, it wasn't a severe as fifteen AUGUSTA when 1:06:29.120 --> 1:06:31.000 you come back in the water if you're two yards down, 1:06:31.320 --> 1:06:34.640 but you can be fifty feet away off what you 1:06:34.680 --> 1:06:36.840 think is a good shot, Well, you know it was. 1:06:36.640 --> 1:06:39.800 It wasn't a bad job anyways, but it was wasn't perfect. 1:06:40.160 --> 1:06:42.280 But then you watch these people play it who play 1:06:42.320 --> 1:06:44.439 it perfectly, and you go, well, you can play it. 1:06:44.440 --> 1:06:48.120 It's playable, And one hundred years later it's still you know, 1:06:48.160 --> 1:06:50.960 it's genius still comes out because Tiger Woodsmen played the 1:06:50.960 --> 1:06:54.040 thing that Mackenzie built and still show off his jenius 1:06:54.040 --> 1:06:56.080 and still show off why he was the best player 1:06:56.120 --> 1:06:58.800 that week at the President's Cup when he wasn't if 1:06:58.800 --> 1:07:00.840 you played a regular tour event. Tiger was past his 1:07:01.000 --> 1:07:03.680 best by twenty nineteen. I mean one of the masters, 1:07:03.720 --> 1:07:06.000 but he was. He was ten years past his best. 1:07:06.000 --> 1:07:08.640 Golf probably, but you put him on Roll Melbourne. He's 1:07:08.680 --> 1:07:11.520 the best player here. And if Mackenzie had been there 1:07:11.520 --> 1:07:13.120 and seen that, he was a see I told you, 1:07:13.600 --> 1:07:15.880 you know that's what That's what the course I did 1:07:16.000 --> 1:07:17.400 was really good because I found out who the best 1:07:17.400 --> 1:07:19.520 player was undred years it was. 1:07:20.040 --> 1:07:23.960 Who the best mind was. Yeah, his Tiger's mind was 1:07:23.960 --> 1:07:26.400 that it's at its peak because his body may not 1:07:26.440 --> 1:07:29.520 have been at its peak, but you know, yeah, that 1:07:29.600 --> 1:07:32.720 is that is a true testament of a great course there. 1:07:32.960 --> 1:07:35.080 All right, Well, Mike, I've taken enough of your time. 1:07:35.120 --> 1:07:37.960 You need to go play some golf at Barn Google. 1:07:37.960 --> 1:07:40.000 That's far more important than talking to me. But thank 1:07:40.000 --> 1:07:42.760 you so much for spending some time with me. Yeah, 1:07:44.400 --> 1:07:45.160 it was, it was great. 1:07:45.240 --> 1:07:46.840 I was always fun to talk about Roll Melbourne and 1:07:46.960 --> 1:07:49.160 it's always when I played there on news day and 1:07:49.160 --> 1:07:51.520 it's like for me, it's as much fun playing there 1:07:51.560 --> 1:07:54.040 now as it was fifty years ago. How many courses 1:07:54.120 --> 1:07:54.439 like that? 1:07:54.960 --> 1:07:55.800 All right, thank you, Mike. 1:07:55.960 --> 1:08:05.080 Thanks mate. 1:08:05.760 --> 1:08:09.360 This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by 1:08:09.400 --> 1:08:12.920 Matt ruschis Thank you, Matt. One thing that I would 1:08:12.920 --> 1:08:15.440 recommend that you do if you enjoyed this episode, If 1:08:15.480 --> 1:08:18.519 you like these deep dives into golf architecture. I think 1:08:18.600 --> 1:08:22.360 you would love what we're doing in Club TFE. Club 1:08:22.400 --> 1:08:25.679 TFE is our membership. It costs one hundred and twenty 1:08:25.760 --> 1:08:28.320 dollars a year and there are a number of things 1:08:28.320 --> 1:08:32.240 that come with it, aside from golf architecture content, so 1:08:32.600 --> 1:08:35.120 you get an ongoing discount in the pro shop, you 1:08:35.200 --> 1:08:39.360 get early access to Friday golf events. We have all 1:08:39.360 --> 1:08:41.800 sorts of stuff going on, but one of the big 1:08:41.840 --> 1:08:47.519 things is weekly content on golf architecture. There's a design 1:08:47.600 --> 1:08:50.360 notebook series where we talk about what's going on right 1:08:50.439 --> 1:08:53.960 now in the world of golf architecture. And there are 1:08:54.080 --> 1:08:57.720 our weekly course profiles. We've got ones coming up on 1:08:58.000 --> 1:09:01.360 the Beverly Country Club in Chicago, Go as well as 1:09:01.360 --> 1:09:04.120 one that I will start writing as soon as I 1:09:04.240 --> 1:09:08.160 get off the mic here about bandoned trails. And these 1:09:08.200 --> 1:09:13.720 are in depth analyzes of golf courses with beautiful imagery 1:09:13.920 --> 1:09:16.960 photos that we've gotten at these courses, as well as 1:09:17.000 --> 1:09:20.880 illustrations by Cameron Hurtis and Matt Ruschis. We're really proud 1:09:20.880 --> 1:09:24.120 of what we're doing here and what we're providing our numbers, 1:09:24.160 --> 1:09:27.440 So if you're interested in that if you like this episode, 1:09:27.600 --> 1:09:31.320 you like golf architecture, this is a great experience for you. 1:09:31.520 --> 1:09:34.040 So that's Club TFE. Go to the Frida egg dot 1:09:34.120 --> 1:09:37.240 com slash membership to see what it's all about. Thank 1:09:37.280 --> 1:09:39.040 you for listening. We'll be back again soon