Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today I am joined by golf course architect Gil Hans.
Speaker 1: This is another two part podcast. Part two will be
Speaker 1: available on Tuesday night without further ado. Here's Gil Hans.
Speaker 2: I miss a green for example, I'm already upset when
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a brid egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, Fridagg, Fridagg, bride egg, Lie.
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering noted dead Head house music had a impact
Speaker 1: on your career.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think. I mean, when you're in a machine,
Speaker 2: you're basically focusing on what you're building, and I'm I've
Speaker 2: always loved music of My first Dead show was at
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden in nineteen seventy nine. I was fifteen
Speaker 2: years old, So it was one of those things you
Speaker 2: know when you kind of get turned onto that scene
Speaker 2: and that vibe and that music, and it just I've
Speaker 2: always enjoyed it. I don't have a musical bone in
Speaker 2: my body. I couldn't play an instrument or carry a
Speaker 2: tune to save my life. But I just have always
Speaker 2: enjoyed music, and I think that that sort of jam band.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love Dave Matthews. I never got into Fish.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, being a deadhead. It was just
Speaker 2: that was sort of I don't know, you look at
Speaker 2: it as a younger version of what we were going through.
Speaker 2: So but I think that that improvisation and just that
Speaker 2: kind of one guy riffing off the next guy and
Speaker 2: another guy picks it up and they go and it's
Speaker 2: just the music, the creativity, the just the sort of
Speaker 2: how it all comes together when it's not scripted. I
Speaker 2: really enjoy that. And I think that that's somewhat of
Speaker 2: a metaphor for how we work. I mean a lot
Speaker 2: all of our guys, we just spend time editing and
Speaker 2: refining each other's work and trying to make things better.
Speaker 2: And so there's a contribution that, you know, I generally
Speaker 2: set sort of the bigger scale in the stage for
Speaker 2: depth and scale of bunkers and greens. And then Jim
Speaker 2: will come along, Jim Wagner, my partner, and he'll start
Speaker 2: monkeying with an excavator or it's one of our other
Speaker 2: one of the cave men will get involved and then
Speaker 2: it we call it the theory of ever decreasing implements,
Speaker 2: where we start off big scale, go to a mini x,
Speaker 2: and then eventually wind up with rakes and shovels. And
Speaker 2: so I think that they're you know, just that feeling
Speaker 2: of creativity that just sort of you know, things that
Speaker 2: the flow out of the moment. That's that's part of
Speaker 2: what I love about that kind of music, and it's
Speaker 2: also something I think that corresponds with our work.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the big stuff is the common
Speaker 1: theme that run through a song, and then it's all
Speaker 1: the little iterations and the layers and like I think
Speaker 1: about like you know, like Stairway to Heaven, Like how
Speaker 1: they starts with that one, you know, yeah, everybody I knows,
Speaker 1: and then it just like through the song keeps building
Speaker 1: on and then you get to the crescendo and it's
Speaker 1: got every little piece of it.
Speaker 2: It does, and it's you know, and like a band,
Speaker 2: there's you know, lead singer, lead guitarist, and so I
Speaker 2: get a ton of the credit for the stuff, but
Speaker 2: it trusts me. I mean, it is a team effort.
Speaker 2: It's all of our guys pitching in and it's it's
Speaker 2: the different you know, we're all different sort of levels
Speaker 2: of players, and we're all come to the game in
Speaker 2: different ways, and there's just everybody adds every step along
Speaker 2: the way, and so it's one of those things that
Speaker 2: from a collaborative standpoint, I've always found myself to be
Speaker 2: a very collaborative person, and I don't feel like I
Speaker 2: have all the best ideas. I think that you know,
Speaker 2: there are concepts and ideas and thoughts and principles that
Speaker 2: I think are flow throughout our work. But it's that
Speaker 2: sort of spontaneous nature of what happens in the field.
Speaker 2: And that's something I learned from Tom Doak working for him,
Speaker 2: and that's something he learned from Pete Dye and obviously
Speaker 2: Bill and Ben they work in a similar fashion. But
Speaker 2: it's that spontaneity. It's that field decisions. It's the reaction
Speaker 2: to where the sunsets, how the wind blows, what a
Speaker 2: tree looks like, what the background is, and just sort
Speaker 2: of knowing and feeling and being on site that ultimately
Speaker 2: lends itself provides those intricacies like you talked about, that
Speaker 2: that ultimately gives the work its own special feel and
Speaker 2: which would give music or a song its own special feel.
Speaker 2: But it gets back to that, you know, there's always
Speaker 2: the bass and the drums lay and the groundwork for it,
Speaker 2: and we always feel like we have that groundwork flows
Speaker 2: consistently from one project to the other. But it's you know,
Speaker 2: those those solos that Jerry Garcia used to take off
Speaker 2: and go wherever and hopefully great places. That's that's what
Speaker 2: we feel like each individual project gets. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: you know, it takes a special owner to trust you
Speaker 2: to do that because you know, it could be described
Speaker 2: as you're winging it or you're just making it up
Speaker 2: as you go, and yes, there's an element to that.
Speaker 2: And so you know, as you build your career, you
Speaker 2: get to a point where you get more and more
Speaker 2: trust and you earn more and more trust and respect.
Speaker 2: And we're fortunately now at that point where we get
Speaker 2: a lot of owners who are excited about what we're
Speaker 2: doing and they trust and they've seen you know, there's
Speaker 2: there's there's a track record for what we've been able
Speaker 2: to accomplish. And I think you know Bill and Benner
Speaker 2: at the peak of that, I mean this what they
Speaker 2: come up with time in and time out. They've built
Speaker 2: that trust. In that respect, Tom Doak has done the
Speaker 2: same thing, and you know, we're excited. We kind of
Speaker 2: feel like we've gotten to that point where where we're
Speaker 2: allowed to take chances when we're out in the field,
Speaker 2: and hopefully the chances that we take, you know, generally
Speaker 2: are well received.
Speaker 3: So when you're out working, do you listen to music?
Speaker 2: I do, definitely, it would be boring otherwise. You know,
Speaker 2: some of our guys listen to podcasts and they listen
Speaker 2: to conversations or that you know, they're always talking about Well,
Speaker 2: I was listening to this, you know, economist from Prague
Speaker 2: and he was saying, why this, And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: that's great. I appreciate that you're educated and smarter on
Speaker 2: things like that than I am. But I just can't.
Speaker 2: I can't focus and listen to something like that and
Speaker 2: also feel like I'm being as creative and focused on
Speaker 2: what I'm actually building. I'm not saying it can't be done.
Speaker 2: It certainly can be. But I've just always felt like
Speaker 2: music sets that tone for me. It's kind of background.
Speaker 2: It can inspire what I'm doing, and certainly, like if
Speaker 2: I'm listening to Rage against the Machine, it's probably going
Speaker 2: to be a little bit heavier duties, or if I'm
Speaker 2: listening to James Taylor, it might be a little bit
Speaker 2: more mellow. But there's just that I think as a
Speaker 2: backdrop for what I'm doing, I just find that music
Speaker 2: is the best. Now. When the Eagles were making the
Speaker 2: Super Bowl run, I was listening to the Philadelphia sports
Speaker 2: talk radio, which is pretty much mindless when you listen
Speaker 2: to sports talk radio, but it's fun, so it's not
Speaker 2: something I have to really focus on. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it's it's been something that, you know, when I
Speaker 2: look back at the sort of the implements that we
Speaker 2: used and going from a walkman to you know, with
Speaker 2: the big bulky earphones that don't really fit over your ears,
Speaker 2: and then eventually, you know, you get to an iPad,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh my god, I can choose my own music.
Speaker 2: Or you listen to the radio, and now you get
Speaker 2: to the point with with Pandora and Spotify and you
Speaker 2: know your own playlists or own music. Oh there's a
Speaker 2: great if you're a Dead fan, there's a great app
Speaker 2: called re Listen and it's got all shows on it,
Speaker 2: and it's got Fish shows and Dead and company. So
Speaker 2: there's so many options out there now to listen to
Speaker 2: music that I certainly take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the on demand nature, it's fine. I I can't
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts and write at the same time, Like
Speaker 1: I just don't listen to the podcast. I'll none of
Speaker 1: the But you know, if I listen to music, I
Speaker 1: don't think I'll have to see if a different music
Speaker 1: does different stuff.
Speaker 3: But so I look at your schedule and I.
Speaker 1: Think he might be the busiest man in golf.
Speaker 3: What's what's it like?
Speaker 2: It's busy, It's you know, I just came back from
Speaker 2: an eleven day trip to Australia and Bangkok and then Tokyo,
Speaker 2: so three different projects at different stages. Royal Sydney were
Speaker 2: still in the planning and trying to put together a
Speaker 2: master plan to take to the membership, hopefully for a
Speaker 2: significant overhaul of the course. Bangkok. We're building a brand
Speaker 2: new golf course that's inspired by the Lido. It's not
Speaker 2: an a perfect replica of it, but the sequence of
Speaker 2: holes the same and we're excited. I've I've always loved,
Speaker 2: you know, the restoration work we've done for McDonald and Rainer.
Speaker 2: So this is kind of a fun project on a
Speaker 2: not very fun site, really heavy soil and very flat.
Speaker 2: But I've got some guys over there we're not getting
Speaker 2: into shape, which is pretty cool. And then Tokyo Golf Club,
Speaker 2: which is a renovation slash restoration of an existing golf course.
Speaker 2: We you know, not a lot of people know, but
Speaker 2: Japan traditionally had two sets of greens per whole, and
Speaker 2: long time ago, it was all for agonomic reasons. It
Speaker 2: was ben grass for the winter and permuda grass for
Speaker 2: the summer, but that fell by the way side of
Speaker 2: Tokyo Golf Club has retained both greens, so we rebuilt
Speaker 2: one set of greens eight or nine years ago. Now
Speaker 2: we're redoing the second set of greens, and we're redoing
Speaker 2: fairway bunkers starting this summer. So it's basically a complete
Speaker 2: overhaul of Tokyo Golf Club, principally a restoration, but since
Speaker 2: it wasn't originally built with two greens, it's not quite
Speaker 2: a purest. So yeah, you get that sort of travel,
Speaker 2: then you get to come home to Pinehurst and work
Speaker 2: on this. So we're you know, I just look at
Speaker 2: it as we're really fortunate. We're getting to go to
Speaker 2: great places and be involved in great stuff, and so
Speaker 2: there's no I would never think to complain about being
Speaker 2: as busy as we are. I think, you know, with
Speaker 2: Jim Wagner and my partner, we just keep our heads
Speaker 2: down and try and keep focused and kind of keep
Speaker 2: moving forward.
Speaker 3: The two green thing.
Speaker 1: You did the double green at stream Song Black, and
Speaker 1: I read after that that double greens are used to
Speaker 1: be like a real thing, and you know, when you're
Speaker 1: talking about variety for a whole and how you could
Speaker 1: completely shake it up, like you know, one thing could
Speaker 1: be moving a pin from one side of a green
Speaker 1: to the next, but like a whole different ballgame when
Speaker 1: you got two greens.
Speaker 2: It is and it's pretty cool because now that we've
Speaker 2: been able to touch all thirty six greens, we were challenged.
Speaker 2: And I'll just be honest about that. It's hard to
Speaker 2: come up with thirty six general ideas with fairly small
Speaker 2: greens because they can't be huge because of the amount
Speaker 2: of space that they have. But I think Neil Cameron
Speaker 2: from Barra, Scotland is our associate living and working over there,
Speaker 2: and I think between Neil and I were able to
Speaker 2: come up with some pretty good ideas and you're right
Speaker 2: now you correspond that to the strategies in different ways
Speaker 2: to play it. And one of the cooler aspects is
Speaker 2: that the par threes all have not only two greens
Speaker 2: per whole, but two t's, so they crisscross, so you'd
Speaker 2: play one green from one angle and one from the other,
Speaker 2: so they're basically brand completely, you know, all new holes
Speaker 2: from T two green. So as a member, I think
Speaker 2: it would be pretty neat to be able to show
Speaker 2: up and just be able to play. You know, you're
Speaker 2: never not sure which course you're going to be playing
Speaker 2: on or which combination of greens, and I think that
Speaker 2: that would would hold a lot of interest.
Speaker 1: Is there like an innovative design that you'd want to do,
Speaker 1: like a new design that would be different than the
Speaker 1: standard eighteen holes.
Speaker 2: I was reading an article I think in Golfer's Journal
Speaker 2: about Schiskin over in Scotland and about the twelve hole
Speaker 2: golf course and I think, you know, the just kind
Speaker 2: of how it came back to the clubhouse after twelve
Speaker 2: and I think that would be cool to to work
Speaker 2: on a twelve hole course just fro from a timing perspective,
Speaker 2: because you know, we've all taught, we've all heard the
Speaker 2: stories about why golf is either not growing or has
Speaker 2: failed doomed to fail in the future. And you know
Speaker 2: the time it takes to play. So I think twelve
Speaker 2: hole golf course would be you can find an owner
Speaker 2: who would back that, that'd be pretty cool.
Speaker 3: It would be cool.
Speaker 1: I always say that in like I live in the
Speaker 1: city of Chicago. Like if I go leave the city,
Speaker 1: it takes forever, and then obviously you have no land
Speaker 1: in the city.
Speaker 3: But if somebody built like a four hole course that you.
Speaker 1: That you could play four holes in an hour and
Speaker 1: instead of going to the gym, he played four holes,
Speaker 1: that would be that would probably work. But you have
Speaker 1: to I mean, time is is a it seems like
Speaker 1: it's getting less and less with technology now. So when
Speaker 1: did you kind of figure out that you wanted to
Speaker 1: be an architect.
Speaker 2: I was late in coming to the party. It was
Speaker 2: really just sort of I mean, a lot of luck
Speaker 2: and just I don't know, sometimes you believe in fate.
Speaker 2: If you do, this was probably just meant to be.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: I was introduced to the game by my grandfather, loved
Speaker 2: him dearly, and he I mean, I idolized him. And
Speaker 2: so from a standpoint of him putting a golf club
Speaker 2: in my hands, the time I got to spend with
Speaker 2: him on a golf course was always just wonderful. And
Speaker 2: so I don't know if there was something magical about
Speaker 2: that environment or the golf course was an old Tillinghass
Speaker 2: golf course on Long Island called Southward Hoe, so it
Speaker 2: was well designed and a really neat but short track,
Speaker 2: and so then I started doodling golf holes. But he
Speaker 2: was a politician. So I then went to the University
Speaker 2: of Denver and study political science and history, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, one of these great things, which I'm interested
Speaker 2: in both of them. But now what do you do?
Speaker 2: And so I didn't have a job offer out of school,
Speaker 2: so I went to grad school. So you either go
Speaker 2: to grad school or law school if you're a POLYPSI
Speaker 2: history major. So grad school at Cornell, studying city and
Speaker 2: regional planning, still doodling golf holes. And my first semester
Speaker 2: at Cornell I took a landscape architecture class and I
Speaker 2: met a gentleman who was taking it, whose name was
Speaker 2: Tom Griswold. He was studying to be a golf course
Speaker 2: architect and I was like what, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: we can do this here and the faculty is supportive
Speaker 2: of it and the whole deal. And he subsequently went
Speaker 2: on to work for Tom Fazio for twenty plus years.
Speaker 2: And I went home that night and I just said
Speaker 2: to Tracy, I said, this is it. Actually you can
Speaker 2: do this, and I want to switch into landscape architecture.
Speaker 2: Switched over. First summer worked maintenance in the country coll
Speaker 2: of Itthica. Second summer worked at high Point for Tom
Speaker 2: Doak on his construction crew, picking rocks and digging ditches
Speaker 2: and doing anything I possibly could, and eventually, by the
Speaker 2: end of the summer he threw me on a bulldozer
Speaker 2: for two days, which was awesome and really just kind
Speaker 2: of kept the bug going. And then I won a
Speaker 2: scholarship to spend a year in Great Britain, the Drear Award,
Speaker 2: which Tom had won previous to me at Cornell, and
Speaker 2: came back and finished up and went to work for Tom.
Speaker 2: So it was this circuitous path to get there. I'm
Speaker 2: delighted I did. But oddly enough, when I was a
Speaker 2: senior at DU I interned for a congressman and he
Speaker 2: didn't have a position for me. So first semester at
Speaker 2: Cornell just flipped the switch, made the decision to go
Speaker 2: into become a golf course our study to be a
Speaker 2: golf course architect. Within a week he calls me and
Speaker 2: he says, I've got a job for you in Washington
Speaker 2: if you want it. And thank god, I said no.
Speaker 2: I mean, who knows where I'd be right now. But
Speaker 2: it was, you know, it was just one of those
Speaker 2: decisions in life. Now you look back and you say,
Speaker 2: thank God, you know I made the right one.
Speaker 1: It's funny how life works out that that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that happens all the time. Yeah, I mean it tested,
Speaker 1: it made you really decide and jump all I mean
Speaker 1: jump all in. There's no in or out. Probably the
Speaker 1: Drear Award you get to spend three months in a.
Speaker 3: Year in Great Britain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So which courses had the most influenced?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we we did it a little bit different
Speaker 2: because so Tracy was with me and we were we
Speaker 2: spent six months outside of Saint Andrew's rented a house
Speaker 2: and then used as home base to move around Scotland,
Speaker 2: and then six months in Woodstock outside of Oxford. Because
Speaker 2: I interned for Hawtry and Son and helped mister Hawtrey
Speaker 2: do the research for his book Colton Company, which allowed
Speaker 2: me to see a bunch of Harry Colt courses, which
Speaker 2: was great. So from that standpoint, it was just looking,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of day trips in and out in
Speaker 2: a few longer excursions. But I think the the courses
Speaker 2: that influenced me the most were the ones that were
Speaker 2: the quirkiest, you know, the North Barracks, the Cruden Bays,
Speaker 2: the Prestwicks, because they showed me sort of the boundaries
Speaker 2: of where golf architecture could go, how far you could
Speaker 2: stretch it, that yes, it was acceptable to build a
Speaker 2: green with a wall running directly in front of it
Speaker 2: that you had to play over the top of that,
Speaker 2: you know, blind holes were okay, and that you know,
Speaker 2: trying to utilize and route a golf course through the
Speaker 2: most wonderful golfing terrain is an exercise not only in
Speaker 2: finding the best golf holes, but finding the best pattern
Speaker 2: and not using up all the best ground at a
Speaker 2: certain point and going you know, back and forth to
Speaker 2: the sea, et cetera. So I think that those golf
Speaker 2: courses in particular provided that that type of window into
Speaker 2: you know, ultimately what we talked about earlier, the spontaneity,
Speaker 2: the creativity of where you might ultimately go with golf
Speaker 2: course architecture. And Tom Doak was a great proponent of that,
Speaker 2: of seeing those golf courses, and you know, he gave
Speaker 2: me a great list of courses to go and look
Speaker 2: out that were sort of off the beaten paths, the
Speaker 2: boats of garden, you know, the broras, et cetera. And
Speaker 2: I think that while you take a ton away from
Speaker 2: all the usual suspects and you know, appropriately, so it
Speaker 2: was these ones that you know, you maybe you'd only
Speaker 2: see one really distinguishing design characteristic, but it would be
Speaker 2: something that would always lock away in your mind for
Speaker 2: future reference or for it's some level you know, saying, hey,
Speaker 2: it's okay to try and push that button and try
Speaker 2: and stretch the boundaries a little bit, as long as
Speaker 2: as long as it feels like it fits into the
Speaker 2: context of the landscape you're working with. So those were
Speaker 2: I think some of the best lessons.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that, like how much do you feel your
Speaker 1: extensive restoration work helps your new builds?
Speaker 2: I think it helps us a ton because it's it's
Speaker 2: an opportunity for us to really study what Tilling has
Speaker 2: did it at Wingfoot, what Thomas did at La North,
Speaker 2: what you know Ross did at Plainfield or on the mank.
Speaker 2: It gives us the opportunity to really dive into their
Speaker 2: thought process. And I say that in a specific you know,
Speaker 2: you mentioned specific golf courses, because I think that's the
Speaker 2: only way you can do it. I've never been a
Speaker 2: fan of the use of the word typical as it
Speaker 2: relates to golf course architects as well. Ross typically built
Speaker 2: greens like Pinehurst Number two. Well no he didn't. Actually,
Speaker 2: well Ross typically built grass faced bunkers. Well that's not
Speaker 2: necessarily true. Or Tilling has did this or that, And
Speaker 2: I think it's you need to find out specifically what
Speaker 2: did they do at that golf course that you're you're restoring.
Speaker 2: And you know I mentioned history being one of my majors.
Speaker 2: Well that you know that research and the interest and
Speaker 2: the thought of being involved and really dredging up and
Speaker 2: trying to find that information has always been a fascinat
Speaker 2: part of what we do. So armed with that knowledge,
Speaker 2: we can then go and hopefully do the right thing.
Speaker 2: By that golf course by the way it looks and
Speaker 2: the way it fits, and put it back to their
Speaker 2: original design. But then we can also borrow or steal
Speaker 2: ideas that we liked and then throw away things that
Speaker 2: we didn't like. I think it's it always is helpful
Speaker 2: from a learning perspective to be exposed to other people's
Speaker 2: thoughts and principles. You can ultimately choose to accept or
Speaker 2: reject those, but to not necessarily think about them, whether
Speaker 2: that's politics, life anything. I just think that would be
Speaker 2: a bad way to go through through life. And so
Speaker 2: we've We've always thought if we can work on a design,
Speaker 2: it will help us to be a work on somebody
Speaker 2: else's design, will help us to be a better golf
Speaker 2: course architect. I know that personally. Will work that we
Speaker 2: did at Los Angeles Country Club on the North Course,
Speaker 2: working with f Shackelford and Jim and I has had
Speaker 2: a profound impact on me as a golf course architect.
Speaker 2: I'm a much much better golf course architect by being
Speaker 2: able to study what George Thomas did. I mean that
Speaker 2: guy was a genius, what he was thinking about back
Speaker 2: then and how he applied it to LACC I mean
Speaker 2: talk about a mad scientist and having sort of a
Speaker 2: great laboratory for an experiment. But everything he tried was brilliant,
Speaker 2: it was audacious, it was exciting. And to look at
Speaker 2: that and then go from there right to Rio to
Speaker 2: the Olympic Course and just chock full of courses within
Speaker 2: a course and different angles and different thoughts and set
Speaker 2: up and the utilization of natural features as hazards. I mean,
Speaker 2: that was really very impactful on what we do. So
Speaker 2: I think we're hopeful that every time we approach one
Speaker 2: of these projects, we do so with a mindset of listen,
Speaker 2: it's not our work, it's their work. Let's make sure
Speaker 2: we work hard to get the details right, because I
Speaker 2: think that's one of the things that can be missing
Speaker 2: in this day and age as it relates to restoration
Speaker 2: of golf courses, is that remember, they worked with shovels
Speaker 2: and rakes and mules and scrapers, and we try to
Speaker 2: do everything now with bigger pieces of equipment, and we
Speaker 2: can't ever lose sight of the fact that we've got
Speaker 2: to finish all of their work by hand. We can't
Speaker 2: finish it with machines. And I think that getting those
Speaker 2: details right is just as important as finding an old
Speaker 2: bunker on an aerial photograph and making sure we put
Speaker 2: it back in the right scale, right size. But how
Speaker 2: we finish it is just as important, if not more
Speaker 2: important than getting it in the right place.
Speaker 1: Restorations like a big buzzword right now. When is it
Speaker 1: right to restore versus renovate?
Speaker 2: We've always looked at it as restoration is when the
Speaker 2: project is principally based on the design of an original
Speaker 2: architect and the goal is to keep the focus and
Speaker 2: the philosophy on that. Renovation is when we feel like
Speaker 2: we can put our fingers on it and kind of
Speaker 2: make manipulate, make changes, or the golf course has been
Speaker 2: changed so significantly from the original design that and if
Speaker 2: you can't put it back, then you feel like it's
Speaker 2: more of a renovation. I'm generally a proponent of any
Speaker 2: time a golf course is was designed and built by
Speaker 2: one of the recognized great golf course architects, that should
Speaker 2: always be first and foremost a restoration. I just think that,
Speaker 2: you know, we value the works of like a Frank
Speaker 2: Lloyd Wright or the Corbusier, or you know, all these
Speaker 2: greats of design. Why shouldn't we pay the same attention
Speaker 2: to an Alistair mackenzie or Charles Bay MacDonald. Why shouldn't
Speaker 2: I think it's it's really ballsy and arrogant for any
Speaker 2: current modern golf course architect to feel like they can
Speaker 2: improve on that. Why would you even need to? I mean,
Speaker 2: that's what our own work is for, is try and
Speaker 2: go out and prove that we can build something comparable compatible.
Speaker 2: But to feel like we should put our fingerprints all
Speaker 2: over something that was done by one of the best
Speaker 2: who ever practiced, and then to remove that from the
Speaker 2: face of the earth in theory forever. I just don't
Speaker 2: understand how anybody could walk into a project and just
Speaker 2: feel comfortable doing that. It just it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: Now they could be you know, people could say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm being somewhat qualitative. Is who am I to decide
Speaker 2: whether you know, a seth rain or course is more
Speaker 2: important than a course designed by you know, some no
Speaker 2: name architect or some guy you know who built one
Speaker 2: or two golf courses, And you know that there's an
Speaker 2: argument that can be made for that. We we just
Speaker 2: look at it and we're fortunate enough now to be
Speaker 2: working on courses that were just by these top guys.
Speaker 2: Is that it's really really important for us to focus
Speaker 2: first and foremost on what they did. And you know,
Speaker 2: where you go off script a little bit is if
Speaker 2: you can figure out that, okay, they're the thought process
Speaker 2: for the golf hole was this, and there's a bunker
Speaker 2: they placed one hundred and eighty yards and it just
Speaker 2: doesn't work for the modern game anymore. So do you
Speaker 2: leave that in place and then add a second one
Speaker 2: further down, you know, so that it challenges the current
Speaker 2: player that that bunker was intended? Or do you take
Speaker 2: it out and then add the other one in the
Speaker 2: same shape or form as long as the topography will
Speaker 2: support putting it in a new location. Those are the
Speaker 2: difficult questions. I think that, and I don't feel like
Speaker 2: that's bastardizing or destroying or taking away the work of
Speaker 2: somebody else, as long as we're careful again and getting
Speaker 2: the details right and making it look and feel as
Speaker 2: if it could have been there forever. So it's not
Speaker 2: as simple is always saying well, here's the aerial photograph
Speaker 2: and here's the topo map, or here's the plan of
Speaker 2: such and such, and let's put it back exactly the
Speaker 2: same because you you maintain golf courses differently from when
Speaker 2: they were when that guy designed it, and you play
Speaker 2: the golf course differently. So I think it's important to
Speaker 2: factor all of those things into the evolution of the course,
Speaker 2: yet still stay as true as possible to that original design.
Speaker 2: So it's it's not maybe not as cut and dried
Speaker 2: as I'd like for it to be. And I would say,
Speaker 2: if you're going to air on one side, you always
Speaker 2: err on the side of protecting and preserving what that
Speaker 2: what that person built.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's tough because the courses were designed for
Speaker 1: like the high level player back then, and the bunker.
Speaker 1: A lot of the bunkers are and now it's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting how it's changed to where those places are
Speaker 1: where like the regularly eye hits.
Speaker 3: It now a lot of times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very true. I mean, it was intended to
Speaker 2: be for the longer guys. So we talk an awful
Speaker 2: lot about Okay, let's not clutter up the lane escape,
Speaker 2: let's not you know, let's not take leave the bunker
Speaker 2: at two twenty and then add another one at three hundred,
Speaker 2: or add another one at two sixty and then another
Speaker 2: one at three hundred. I just don't think that that
Speaker 2: sort of multiplication works. It just doesn't feel right in
Speaker 2: the landscape. So you're really focused on which if you're
Speaker 2: going to add, let's just add one. Let's not really
Speaker 2: try and overdo or overpower the landscape.
Speaker 1: Now that we're talking about Golden Age, great, who's your
Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore of golf course architecture?
Speaker 2: Wow, I would say it's McKenzie certainly, tilling Hast, McDonald
Speaker 2: and Rayner count as one or they they two? I
Speaker 2: don't even okay put them together, the two headed monster.
Speaker 2: And then George Thomas. Yeah, I think that those guys
Speaker 2: all they ran the gamut for They were creative, they
Speaker 2: were innovative, There were geniuses.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: McDonald Rayner obviously had the same template over and over again.
Speaker 2: But the way they discovered those golf holes in different landscapes,
Speaker 2: in different settings, I think qualified them to be geniuses
Speaker 2: as far as you know, even though they're replicating it
Speaker 2: was somewhat formulaic. That formula I think has proven to
Speaker 2: be a of high quality and be of incredible fun.
Speaker 2: You know, to play that you never get I never
Speaker 2: heard a single person in my life say, oh, I
Speaker 2: played a Rainer course or a McDonald course, and I
Speaker 2: had a bad time.
Speaker 1: The other thing is like a lot of the a
Speaker 1: lot of great holes on Rainer and McDonald courses aren't
Speaker 1: template holes where they allowed the land to just do
Speaker 1: his thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah. I mean then that showed some of their
Speaker 2: creativity and their their flexibility and finding not only finding
Speaker 2: the right places for the templates, but finding good golf
Speaker 2: as well. Mackenzie, I think was probably the first architect
Speaker 2: to really get the whole His combination of strategy with
Speaker 2: beauty in the landscape I think was far superior to
Speaker 2: anybody else who practiced in his time frame. He really
Speaker 2: got the whole package. He built interesting, strategic, creative holes
Speaker 2: to play, but they were just amazing to look at
Speaker 2: as well, and he just plugged them into the landscape
Speaker 2: better than anybody in tilling Has I think was really,
Speaker 2: you know, just a chameleon almost. I mean his courses changed,
Speaker 2: you know, the looks and the presentations and the way
Speaker 2: he set things up, but they were always just really
Speaker 2: stout good golf courses. And Thomas, as I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: I just it's a shame he didn't do more golf
Speaker 2: courses because that guy was a g I mean, he
Speaker 2: was really freaking brilliant.
Speaker 1: It's amazing the Philadelphia school of Archel Texture, you know,
Speaker 1: Thomas and tilling Hast came from that, and how they
Speaker 1: have shaped championship golf in America. Like if you look
Speaker 1: down George Thomas's courses, like you know, some of the
Speaker 1: best championship court and then tilling Hast, I mean, resume,
Speaker 1: William Flynn, resume, it's in. I mean, you've spent a
Speaker 1: ton of time in Philadelphia. It's got to be you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exciting because I mean, yeah, I grew up
Speaker 2: in New York, but we've lived in Philadelphia for longer
Speaker 2: than Emmy. We've been there for twenty five years, so
Speaker 2: that's been home. All three kids have been raised there.
Speaker 2: We feel like we're Philadelphians, and so we're proud of that.
Speaker 2: But the interesting thing is you look any of you
Speaker 2: throw a stone anywhere in Philadelphia and going to hit
Speaker 2: a really good golf course. I mean, like the seventh
Speaker 2: or eighth best golf course in Philadelphia would be one
Speaker 2: of the top golf courses in almost any other city
Speaker 2: in the country. And you know, while in New York,
Speaker 2: the met area claims you're probably the best from a rankings. Man,
Speaker 2: they throw a very wide blanket over a bit. You've
Speaker 2: got Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey, Connecticut. But Philly, you know,
Speaker 2: we've got a ton of good courses. And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of that is a testament to the guys
Speaker 2: that you talked about. I mean they were locals, they
Speaker 2: practiced in that area. I mean, William Flynn has got
Speaker 2: six or seven phenomenal golf courses in and around Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Tilly has to a few. Obviously, George Crump and you
Speaker 2: Wilson to one hit wonders. But man, how good are you?
Speaker 2: How good are those two courses?
Speaker 1: You talked about collaboration too, and those are two of
Speaker 1: the biggest collaborations. And I mean Pine Valley was all
Speaker 1: those guys bouncing ideas off of it, with Crump deciding
Speaker 1: which ones he liked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, you ultimately need to have that
Speaker 2: final editor. I mean the arbiter of who's going to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what's going to hit the ground. And you
Speaker 2: know Crump was obviously brilliant at that. He had the
Speaker 2: respect of his friends who came out to help him,
Speaker 2: and then he had the respect of the professionals who
Speaker 2: came bease as they realized they looked at Pine Valley
Speaker 2: and realized the brilliance of what he was building and
Speaker 2: the the opportunity that that canvas presented. So they all
Speaker 2: wanted to chime in and be part of it. So
Speaker 2: when you have a circle of friends that are really
Speaker 2: astute at it, and then you can also bring in
Speaker 2: you know, the Travises and the Rosses and colt et cetera,
Speaker 2: that's a pretty good lineup to draw from. And he,
Speaker 2: you know, he was great at figuring out what made
Speaker 2: the most sense.
Speaker 1: Do you feel I'll say, you said, George Thomas, it
Speaker 1: might be a little underappreciated, but any other architect that
Speaker 1: stands out is like most underappreciated by the general public.
Speaker 2: You know, boy, that's a good I mean, probably William Flynn.
Speaker 2: I mean, he did such a great amount of work
Speaker 2: in and around our area, so he's really well known
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia. But you know, outside of that, obviously, Shinnecockle,
Speaker 2: he'll get a lot of exposure this year, Cherry Hills,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But I think he was he was really good,
Speaker 2: And you know, some people might be surprised that I
Speaker 2: didn't put Ross on my Mount Rushmore, especially since we're
Speaker 2: sitting in his house so might get a visitation tonight
Speaker 2: from from Donald. You know, I think that his golf
Speaker 2: courses that he spent time on are brilliant. I mean
Speaker 2: course number two, seminole around, I mean the ones that
Speaker 2: you can you know, Vanessa mean, he's got a ton
Speaker 2: of great, great golf courses, but there's always look at
Speaker 2: him as is always solid, seldom brilliant, you know that,
Speaker 2: And that I think is is that sort of workload
Speaker 2: that you know, you can't physically be, especially in his
Speaker 2: day and age, you just couldn't. I don't know how
Speaker 2: four hundred or five hundred plus courses, whatever the number is,
Speaker 2: how how you could spend any a ton of time
Speaker 2: on them. But he was so good at just figuring
Speaker 2: out the best way to route a golf course on
Speaker 2: the property that that's why they're always I've never seen
Speaker 2: a bad Donald Ross golf course. But I think if
Speaker 2: you look at the sort of stacking, if you compare
Speaker 2: the best of Mackenzie to the best of Ross, the
Speaker 2: best of tilling As to the best of Ross, I
Speaker 2: think that's that's where you probably start to see that
Speaker 2: those guys maybe were because they limited the amount of
Speaker 2: work that they took on and they spent more time
Speaker 2: on their projects being h you know, probably being a
Speaker 2: little bit above and not why Ross doesn't make my
Speaker 2: rush more.
Speaker 3: You spoke at workload.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I find absolutely fascinating about
Speaker 1: your profession is that you go from a young architect
Speaker 1: that struggling to find work, trying to get jobs, scraping
Speaker 1: for jobs, and then there's always a moment that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, then you become a popular name and
Speaker 1: then you almost have too much work? How hard is
Speaker 1: that moment to deal with?
Speaker 2: So I'll never forget it was. I'm gonna forget the date.
Speaker 2: It was the Open Championship at Royal Lithm. I want
Speaker 2: to say it was either eighty eight or any and
Speaker 2: I think it was eighty eight. It was the first
Speaker 2: time I ever met Ben Crenshaw and he was just
Speaker 2: getting going with Bill Corr and he was discussing that
Speaker 2: he felt like the most difficult thing about becoming a
Speaker 2: golf course architect was staying small. He said, that's always
Speaker 2: that's the hardest part because in this in this business
Speaker 2: at that time, I was just in college. I had
Speaker 2: no idea what this business was. He says, you've got
Speaker 2: to say yes to like four or five things in
Speaker 2: order for one or two of them to come true.
Speaker 2: And he said, what happens if all five of them
Speaker 2: come through? Or what happens if none of them come through?
Speaker 2: So it's learning how to balance that sort of understanding
Speaker 2: of what's potentially a real project versus what's probably likely
Speaker 2: not going to happen, and how you come to terms
Speaker 2: with that. So I think, you know, people have asked
Speaker 2: me about that sort of assent that we've had, and
Speaker 2: you know, it was a twenty year overnights. I mean,
Speaker 2: Jim and I have worked really hard over a long
Speaker 2: period of time, and I think within the golfing circles,
Speaker 2: people knew who we were and people understood that we
Speaker 2: did quality work and we may not be getting the
Speaker 2: sort of marquee jobs, et cetera, but that every job
Speaker 2: we did there was a level of quality attached to
Speaker 2: that that showed that we knew what we were doing.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, Boston Golf Club has probably
Speaker 2: been the most important project us ever because we had
Speaker 2: two great owners who gave us a really good piece
Speaker 2: of land to work with. It's you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know the rankings. Is it our highest ranked course maybe
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe not in some other rankings, but
Speaker 2: it put us in a place where we could be
Speaker 2: you know, we spent time with Brad Faxon, we spent
Speaker 2: time with Seth Wah from Deutsche Bank. We started to
Speaker 2: sort of rub shoulders with people who were decision makers
Speaker 2: in the game and got to know some people who
Speaker 2: in so Boston Golf Club was well received and recognized,
Speaker 2: and then that got us TPC Boston and then the
Speaker 2: renovation of TPC Boston, working with Brad and actually getting
Speaker 2: one of our golf courses on TV and that was
Speaker 2: well received and then that was a stepping stone to
Speaker 2: Castle Stewart. And then Castle Stewart was, you know, in
Speaker 2: our second golf course in Scotland, and you know, then
Speaker 2: it became a tournament course and on and on and
Speaker 2: on and blah blah blah until we got to the
Speaker 2: point where we got the Olympic course. And then that
Speaker 2: was when sort of everything broke open. But it was
Speaker 2: a slow and steady climb. It wasn't a meteoric rise.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like we were given, you know, the opportunity
Speaker 2: to build a top two golf course or five golf
Speaker 2: course in the world with our second or third project.
Speaker 2: That just didn't happen. But it was I think a
Speaker 2: testament more to to our belief system, our belief and
Speaker 2: just kind of keeping our heads down and trying to
Speaker 2: do good work and eventually somebody would notice. And then,
Speaker 2: you know, with the Olympic Course, people noticed in a
Speaker 2: big way. And then that was right around the same
Speaker 2: time we got Dural and obviously there was a gentleman
Speaker 2: involved there who was not shy about promoting things. So
Speaker 2: we were you know, so we heard an awful we
Speaker 2: all of a sudden just turned into this sort of
Speaker 2: bigger name than although that my kids always give me
Speaker 2: a hard time, and my wife Tracy, they make sure
Speaker 2: I stay in line. They always when we went to
Speaker 2: the pitch for the Olympic course, when we did our
Speaker 2: full presentation, we had little name tags in front of us,
Speaker 2: and so Amy Alcott was helping us, and oh and
Speaker 2: Larkin was our environmental consultant, and we get up to
Speaker 2: give our talk and look down and they've got the
Speaker 2: name cards in front of us. And mine, says Gil Hansen,
Speaker 2: and then it's underneath it, it's this hands golf design
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh my god. They didn't even know
Speaker 2: who my what my name is. And I'm here, you know,
Speaker 2: going up against Jack Nicholas and Tom Doak and Greg
Speaker 2: Norman and all these top guys and they don't spell
Speaker 2: my name right. So I didn't say anything because I
Speaker 2: was afraid somebody might get fired or somebody get yelled at.
Speaker 2: But after we gave our presentation, I just quietly slipped
Speaker 2: that piece of paper out and stuck it in my notebook.
Speaker 2: And so my kids, Chelsea Tyler and Kayley and Tracy
Speaker 2: had it framed and it's hanging in my office. And
Speaker 2: they said, have you ever your head ever gets too big? Remember,
Speaker 2: they didn't even know what your name was when you
Speaker 2: when you went up for the biggest job of your life.
Speaker 1: I heard that you almost didn't even get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was another story that with the passport thing,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I lost my passport. I went but did
Speaker 2: all this work and I'm getting ready to leave and
Speaker 2: I've got a flight on. I don't know whatever it
Speaker 2: was with the presentation was on Tuesday morning, and I
Speaker 2: was flying on Sunday night and I couldn't find a passport.
Speaker 2: Turn everything upside down. I'm like in the fetal position,
Speaker 2: crying in the office thing, and this is just there's
Speaker 2: this can't really be happening. And so Tracy, as you
Speaker 2: know women do, goes into problem solving mode right away,
Speaker 2: and before I know it, he's got an expedi or
Speaker 2: for a passport on the phone saying, well, you need
Speaker 2: to get to New York first thing in the morning.
Speaker 2: Long story short, I go to New York Monday morning.
Speaker 2: I cancel my flight. I get to get my passport.
Speaker 2: By ten am, my assistant Andrea Lynch is in the
Speaker 2: line of the Brazilian consulate trying to get so I
Speaker 2: can run up town, get in line, get a visa
Speaker 2: because you need a visa to go to Brazil. That
Speaker 2: gets done. So now it's like one o'clock in my hands.
Speaker 2: My fate's in the hands of American Airlines. So I
Speaker 2: get literally land, get there at eleven thirty for a
Speaker 2: one o'clock presentation, have a coke and choke down a sandwich,
Speaker 2: and go in to do the presentation. And I mean
Speaker 2: it turned out to be the best thing ever because
Speaker 2: I had no time to be nervous or I could
Speaker 2: barely even think about what the priest was. Just getting
Speaker 2: there was the biggest accomplishment, and so I was kind
Speaker 2: of relaxed, honestly when I finally came time to do it,
Speaker 2: and I thought that the three of us did as
Speaker 2: good as we could. It's one of those things where
Speaker 2: you walk out and go, listen, I could. We couldn't
Speaker 2: have done any better, so you know, you don't. We
Speaker 2: weren't kicking ourselves going oh, we forgot to say that
Speaker 2: or we forgot to do this. It was like, hey,
Speaker 2: that's as good as we can do. If that's good enough,
Speaker 2: then great. If it's not, well, we gave it our
Speaker 2: best shot. But it was. Yeah, it was a harrowing experience.
Speaker 2: And then come to find out I had been in
Speaker 2: Korea at the end of in December, and I had
Speaker 2: this really nice overcoat that I never wear. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe I'd go out to dinner once or twice, but
Speaker 2: I took a degree of for these meetings because it
Speaker 2: was cold. My passport was in the pocket. So a
Speaker 2: year and a half later, it's Christmas time and we're
Speaker 2: going out to dinner and I put this jacket and
Speaker 2: I haven't worn it in that period of time. I
Speaker 2: reached in the pocket and I was like, you gotta
Speaker 2: be kidding me.
Speaker 3: There it was, I lose stuff all the time like that.
Speaker 1: It's it's awful, Yeah, and then I find it. And
Speaker 1: what working for the IOC and in Brazil, how is that?
Speaker 1: How was that different than working for a country club
Speaker 1: membership versus like a resort.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it was an interesting process that when
Speaker 2: the eight of us competed for it, I think we
Speaker 2: were all under the standing, understanding that we would be
Speaker 2: working for See, I thought the IOC was also in
Speaker 2: charge of that. But basically the IOC just they picked
Speaker 2: the city and then they show up. During the Olympics,
Speaker 2: each sports, a governing body is responsible for the playing
Speaker 2: field of that sport. So now the Olympic Organizing Committee,
Speaker 2: the host city Rio, they're the ones who have to
Speaker 2: build the stadiums. But basically FIFA approves the soccer field,
Speaker 2: FIBA approves the basketball stadium. IGF the International Golf Federation,
Speaker 2: which is the ruling body of golf in the Olympics,
Speaker 2: they would approve the golf course. So we thought, all right,
Speaker 2: we're working for the IGF and their technical arm was
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour Design Services, guys that I know very well,
Speaker 2: who are great at what they do and very competent.
Speaker 2: And then the REO Organizing Committee, well, it turns out
Speaker 2: that we actually wound up. It was the only public
Speaker 2: private partnership of the Olympic venues, so there was a
Speaker 2: landowner who had the land, so we wound up working
Speaker 2: for them. They knew nothing about golf, really could care
Speaker 2: less about the golf course. It was sort of a
Speaker 2: development strategy for them. And so it got to the
Speaker 2: point where you know, it's been well chronicled. We basically
Speaker 2: spent nine months to close to a year spinning our
Speaker 2: wheels down there, literally getting trucks stuck and not having
Speaker 2: the appropriate equipment, and it just wasn't going well. And
Speaker 2: then finally I think the REO Organizing Committee got the
Speaker 2: word from the IOC Listen, you're in jeopardy of losing
Speaker 2: the entire games. And from that moment forward, I think
Speaker 2: some pressure was applied to the developer and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, we had the resources, we had everything in place,
Speaker 2: and it became like a normal golf course project and
Speaker 2: we knocked it out and you know, six or seven months.
Speaker 2: So you know, the guys who were down there, Neil Cameron,
Speaker 2: Ben Hillard, Kyle Franz, and Ben Warren. Ben Warren came
Speaker 2: later on. So those other three guys were there from
Speaker 2: day one and just I mean, I can never thank
Speaker 2: them enough for the work that they did and all
Speaker 2: the highs and lows that they went through. It was
Speaker 2: an amazing, amazing project. And you know, there were times
Speaker 2: where it was really like we were going to pull
Speaker 2: we just how can we keep going? But we all did.
Speaker 2: We all just kind of kept pushing in the right direction.
Speaker 2: We all had a commitment to building the best possible
Speaker 2: golf course that we could and trying to do the
Speaker 2: best we could for the game, you know, to give
Speaker 2: a credible venue for golf coming back into the Olympics.
Speaker 2: And so we kind of felt like there was a
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to be sanctimonious or you know, get
Speaker 2: pats on the back. We just felt like there was
Speaker 2: a higher purpose to do this, and we we just
Speaker 2: toughed it out. And so, like I said, those three
Speaker 2: guys in particular, and yeah, it was it was a
Speaker 2: tough one to get done, but at the end, of
Speaker 2: the day. We're extremely proud of what we built and
Speaker 2: we're really really happy with the way that the tournaments
Speaker 2: turned out.
Speaker 1: The other aspect of that is that is first public
Speaker 1: golf course, and you know, there's very few public golf
Speaker 1: courses in South America. It has the ability to shape
Speaker 1: golf design in an area that public doesn't really get
Speaker 1: to see versus you know, you look at the well
Speaker 1: chronicled troubles of some designs in Southeast Asia, where like
Speaker 1: they got off and when they started getting into golf
Speaker 1: was at what I would consider a dark period of
Speaker 1: golf design, and sure enough those golf a lot of
Speaker 1: those golf courses over there mimic that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And one of the nice things about it. And I
Speaker 2: can't tell you, Andy, how many times people come up
Speaker 2: to me and go, oh, I'm sorry to hear about
Speaker 2: the Olympic course that it's closed, or oh it's you
Speaker 2: know apart. I'm like, no, it's not, it's actually I mean,
Speaker 2: Kyle Friends was down there, Ben Hillard was down there
Speaker 2: over the winter. They all played the golf course. He
Speaker 2: said it was playing great, that it's maintained well, that
Speaker 2: they're you know, slowly but surely figuring out how to
Speaker 2: manage the golf operation. I mean, the maintenance has been terrific,
Speaker 2: but how do you run a pro shop? How do
Speaker 2: you set up programs? There was a time Kyle was
Speaker 2: telling me that he played golf down there recently and
Speaker 2: there was a junior clinic going on and there were
Speaker 2: tons of kids running around and playing. So it's it's
Speaker 2: been actually a pretty significant success story down there. It's
Speaker 2: I think it's the only Olympic venue still operating and
Speaker 2: still functional, and that just kind of gets lost in
Speaker 2: the shuffle and well, okay, we've moved on from Rio.
Speaker 2: But you're right, I'm we've always felt that if the
Speaker 2: legacy of that golf course is not so much about
Speaker 2: you know, who won the medals or or that competition,
Speaker 2: but it's about, hey, actually, you know what, the game
Speaker 2: of golf grew from Brazil. There's maybe a player twenty
Speaker 2: years from now, ten years from now whose first introduction
Speaker 2: of the game came from there. And hopefully that public
Speaker 2: aspect and getting people to play golf in in Brazil
Speaker 2: will be a better story and a better legacy for
Speaker 2: that golf course. But I'm I'm happy to say that
Speaker 2: the reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated, and
Speaker 2: the course is really really moving along nicely.
Speaker 1: What have been some of the growing pains associated with
Speaker 1: becoming small to trying to stay small?
Speaker 2: You know, we still are small. I mean we still
Speaker 2: someone's asking me the other day how we operate, and
Speaker 2: we all still operate out of our homes. I mean,
Speaker 2: we have an office in Paoli, Pennsylvania where Mary and
Speaker 2: Paconi runs sort of the day to day operations of
Speaker 2: Hans golf course design. And I'm embarrassed but also slightly
Speaker 2: proud to say I've never stepped foot in that and
Speaker 2: that office because when I'm home, I want to be home,
Speaker 2: and I've got a very nice office in the house
Speaker 2: with everything that I need there, and she comes over
Speaker 2: to the house if we've got to go through some things.
Speaker 2: And Jim Wagner works out of his home in West
Speaker 2: Palm Beach, and Kevin Murphy works out of his apartment
Speaker 2: in a story at Queen's and Ben Hillard works out
Speaker 2: of his apartment in Sunnyside, Queen. So I mean we're
Speaker 2: still a very small firm, and and you know we
Speaker 2: have like you said, there's five of us in it
Speaker 2: and you know, we all just pitch in and do
Speaker 2: what we can. And that's something that I don't think
Speaker 2: will ever change, at least I don't ever want it to.
Speaker 2: And that may be a turn off to some people,
Speaker 2: and it certainly was, you know, as part of the
Speaker 2: growing pains of you know, how big a staff do
Speaker 2: you have, how professional an appearance do you want to have?
Speaker 2: You know, if somebody wanted to come to our office,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, well maybe we should go. Let's
Speaker 2: go meet at Applebrook. It's of course we designed it's
Speaker 2: five minutes from our house and we can have a
Speaker 2: meeting there, as opposed to you know, well we don't
Speaker 2: really have an office, or do you want to come
Speaker 2: to my house. So that's been it's been part of
Speaker 2: I think part of the success. I mean, Jim and
Speaker 2: I talking awful lot about how it's very relaxed. It's
Speaker 2: a it's a very fluid thing. It's sort of we
Speaker 2: talk once a week if we don't see each other,
Speaker 2: and you know, we're like ships passing at a night.
Speaker 2: If there's two projects on the go, He's at one
Speaker 2: and I'm you know, we just kind of bump into
Speaker 2: each other occasionally. But that's been the chemistry for twenty
Speaker 2: five years. That's worked for us, and so we're not
Speaker 2: ever trying to impose we don't do AutoCAD. You know,
Speaker 2: I didn't learn I was, I was. I'm too old
Speaker 2: for that and they weren't teaching out a Cornell when
Speaker 2: I was there. Ben and Kevin know how to do it,
Speaker 2: but it's just not a serve. If a client feels
Speaker 2: that's important, then we you know, we asked we get
Speaker 2: an engineer to do it. So I think we recognize
Speaker 2: what we're not and we're honest about it, and we
Speaker 2: basically say, listen, we're just a bunch of guys that
Speaker 2: like to go out and run bulldozers and create and
Speaker 2: work in the dirt. And if we're not polished, we're not.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't have a lot of fancy brochures
Speaker 2: in office space, et cetera. But we're honest and what
Speaker 2: we produce and that's ultimately what we try to do.
Speaker 3: So you know, that's been.
Speaker 2: Philosophy from day one and we've been fortunate. You know,
Speaker 2: I had another golf course architect who's a friend who says,
Speaker 2: you know, you've part of what's great about this is
Speaker 2: that you've been able to do it on your terms,
Speaker 2: and you know that's I never thought of it that way,
Speaker 2: but it is kind of cool that we've been able
Speaker 2: to just build this thing slowly over a period of
Speaker 2: time and not have to change who we are. And
Speaker 2: I think that that was, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: overriding things that Jim and I talked about is we
Speaker 2: got our presentation ready for for Rio is let's not
Speaker 2: change who we are. Let's, you know, whatever level of
Speaker 2: success we've achieved that's allowed us to be part of
Speaker 2: this competition. That's what we've got to focus on. We
Speaker 2: can't just try and all of a sudden change and
Speaker 2: do bells and whistles and do something different. If it's
Speaker 2: not good enough, if what we believe isn't good enough,
Speaker 2: then we shouldn't build a golf course. We shouldn't try
Speaker 2: to compromise or just curry favor. It's like, let's just
Speaker 2: go in say this is who we are, this is
Speaker 2: how we work, and hopefully you'll like what we have
Speaker 2: to say. And I thought it was an interesting opportunity
Speaker 2: for us to kind of get on a stage where
Speaker 2: we could say this is what we believe golf architecture
Speaker 2: is and and you know, it's thoughtful, it's hopefully asks
Speaker 2: a lot of Mike Clayton, who's a great friend, who's
Speaker 2: a fantastic golf course architect. He always talks about golf
Speaker 2: courses that ask tough questions, but the answers are simple,
Speaker 2: you know, and that I think is a great way
Speaker 2: to describe what we believe in golf. And we're not
Speaker 2: the only ones who think that way, but that's been
Speaker 2: part of that presentation. And you know what we've tried
Speaker 2: to do over these twenty five years of building golf courses.
Speaker 2: So you know, you juggle your time. You know, you
Speaker 2: you as you get busier and as you there are
Speaker 2: so many more demands on your time and you just
Speaker 2: have to be as as gracious as you can in
Speaker 2: saying no. But you have to learn how to say no.
Speaker 2: And that's a difficult thing. At least it is for
Speaker 2: me and I think for Jim as well. But you so,
Speaker 2: I think that's probably the biggest growing pain is figuring
Speaker 2: out how to manage the the request for your time,
Speaker 2: and you're you need to sort of make sure you
Speaker 2: stay focused on what ultimately is the most important thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, most most architects, they as they get bigger, they
Speaker 1: do less and less of the shaping work. But you know,
Speaker 1: you still do considerable work on every project. Is you
Speaker 1: think that's the core of your design.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's the core of what we enjoy
Speaker 2: about what we do. I'll I'll often say in board
Speaker 2: meetings or committee meetings at clubs or with owners, say, listen,
Speaker 2: I come to these meetings in order to support my
Speaker 2: bulldozer habit. And that's really what I think about it is.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to do these things, and I
Speaker 2: don't mind doing them. I understand it's part of what
Speaker 2: we do in order to get to the point where
Speaker 2: you can actually be in the field and be on
Speaker 2: a machine. And you know, as long as my back
Speaker 2: holds up and my health is good, I want to
Speaker 2: continue doing this as long as I can. And Jim
Speaker 2: and I have said, you know, if if we get
Speaker 2: to a point where we can't get on the machinery
Speaker 2: because we're pulled in too many directions, then we've lost
Speaker 2: the battle. Then we've we've sold out. You know, we've
Speaker 2: gotten to the point where we've valued other things above
Speaker 2: the work. And you know, we built a hoopy match
Speaker 2: Club and I was on site for ninety plus days.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be on site here at Pinhurst on
Speaker 2: the course number four for close to fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: five days and same extreams on Black Was, you know,
Speaker 2: seventy eighty days. So I mean we're we're still putting
Speaker 2: the time in on our projects.
Speaker 3: And you know.
Speaker 2: So we haven't lost the code. As our good friend
Speaker 2: Mark Parson and who was cod designer at Castle Stewart,
Speaker 2: he would always say, we can't lose the code. We
Speaker 2: can't lose the code. And so I don't think we've
Speaker 2: lost the code yet.
Speaker 1: Why do golf course architects never retire.
Speaker 2: Hopefully because they love what they do. I mean I
Speaker 2: was talking to Tracy when I was over in Thailand
Speaker 2: and I said, yeah, this is the most difficult site
Speaker 2: we've ever been on, but I can't help but be
Speaker 2: excited about it. It's like, I love what I do.
Speaker 2: I can't think of wanting to do anything else. And
Speaker 2: people ask me, and it's probably said commentary on my life,
Speaker 2: but you know, aside from my family, which is obviously
Speaker 2: the most important thing to me, you know, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: what else do you do?
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 2: For hobbies, and I'm like, well, I play golf. Well yeah,
Speaker 2: well what else I work? I really like working. I mean,
Speaker 2: my work is fun. It's something that you know, I
Speaker 2: look forward to every day. When I get up, it's like,
Speaker 2: all right, what can we do today? You know, we
Speaker 2: were talking yesterday out on of course number four about
Speaker 2: sort of a bunker sequence on a fairway, and I
Speaker 2: came I was sitting up last night thinking about it.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I got an idea. The first
Speaker 2: thing in the morning, Ben and Seamus and I are
Speaker 2: out there with Brandon, We're walking around, We're like, well
Speaker 2: what about this?
Speaker 3: Here's this.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this last night. Oh yeah, great?
Speaker 2: And then well what if we twist and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, there's just this. The juices are flowing, and
Speaker 2: you know, we're barely one cup of coffee into the day,
Speaker 2: and it's just that's what you live for, that's what
Speaker 2: you live to do. And so I hope other golf
Speaker 2: course architects feel the same way that I do, and
Speaker 2: I think that that's probably why why they rarely retire.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast.
Speaker 2: We do the digging for you