Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a brid egg.
Speaker 3: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, fridagg Egg,
Speaker 3: Frida egg bride egg.
Speaker 1: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today. I am very
Speaker 1: excited about this podcast. We have a comprehensive look at
Speaker 1: Oakmont Country Club. I was thrilled to be joined by
Speaker 1: their consulting golf architect who completed a historical renovation of Oakmont,
Speaker 1: Gil Hants. Gil joined for the first thirty minutes of
Speaker 1: this podcast to talk about the project and uh, kind
Speaker 1: of the new look Oakmon and what we can expect.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then on the on the the second guest is
Speaker 1: Oakmont's superintendent. They're head of agronomy, Mike McCormick. So quite
Speaker 1: the uh the crew. Mike talks about the golf course,
Speaker 1: the agronomy obviously that's going to be a big talking
Speaker 1: point as always with Oakmont, is the conditions, the world
Speaker 1: class maintenance, the you know, really they have an identity
Speaker 1: of being the toughest golf course in the world, and
Speaker 1: they do everything to to feed into that identity. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting aspect of Oakmont, right, is like when I
Speaker 1: talk to you like golf courses or greens committees, one
Speaker 1: of the things I always stress is like finding your
Speaker 1: identity so often in the country club or the golf
Speaker 1: really and across the play across the spectrum the golf
Speaker 1: course space. What happens is golf courses look at maybe
Speaker 1: the most most famous course in town, or you know,
Speaker 1: if it's in the public sphere, like the public course
Speaker 1: down the road, and they look at that golf course as, hey,
Speaker 1: let's base our let's try and do what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They try and mimic rather than finding their own core identity.
Speaker 1: One of the things I you know, I would say
Speaker 1: I was not like super excited to see Oakmont because
Speaker 1: of the identity of heart, but I really love the
Speaker 1: golf course. And one of the things I've thought about
Speaker 1: since seeing the golf course was, this is what the
Speaker 1: identity of the golf course was from the founding, and
Speaker 1: it's got one of the strongest identities in all of
Speaker 1: the world of golf like Oakmont knows, unapologetically knows who
Speaker 1: it is, and Oakmont does everything to amplify their individual identity,
Speaker 1: which is challenging, and I find that actually quite refreshing
Speaker 1: when you take a step back and think about it.
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's really hard to find people
Speaker 1: that dislike Oakmont, even though it is one of the
Speaker 1: hardest golf courses in the world, is because it is
Speaker 1: so true to itself. And I think that's like probably
Speaker 1: a you know, when you think about your favorite golf
Speaker 1: courses you've ever played, the likelihood of it being really clear,
Speaker 1: like intentional with its own identity as a course as
Speaker 1: a place is probably a correlation there. It's probably a
Speaker 1: strong correlation value. So anyways, this was a fun podcast
Speaker 1: to put together. I will be at Oakmont all week.
Speaker 1: This kind of kicks off our US Open coverage. We
Speaker 1: will have our preview podcasts. We'll probably talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the golf course there too. Obviously always a
Speaker 1: huge story with the US Open since they rotate courses
Speaker 1: and go to the greatest American venues. So we will
Speaker 1: have our preview episode which will drop on Sunday morning
Speaker 1: leading into the US Open week well of this one.
Speaker 1: Garrett Morrison on Designing Golf is also his podcast Designing
Speaker 1: Golf is also prepping a comprehensive podcast about Oakmont, so
Speaker 1: that will also be airing and worth your time. Anything
Speaker 1: Garrett does is always worth your time, So I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I haven't listened to that, but I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1: So if you listen to this and what's your appetite
Speaker 1: and you say I want more, I've got a couple
Speaker 1: of good options for you. Our Oakmont video on YouTube,
Speaker 1: which thank you to everybody who's gone watched that and
Speaker 1: shared it. We're really proud of our work putting that together.
Speaker 1: That was a lot of the work. It was done
Speaker 1: by a lot of people, but a lot of the
Speaker 1: work was done by Cameron Hurtis are great producer, and
Speaker 1: yeah we are. We are really excited for this major
Speaker 1: and and can't wait to get there. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing to check out is Garrett's Oakmont piece. He'll
Speaker 1: also have a written course profile on our website, Thefrida
Speaker 1: egg dot com to check out. That will be the
Speaker 1: back half of this week. So lots of stuff on
Speaker 1: Oakmont coming from us, and this will be kind of
Speaker 1: the the kickoff of that. But big thanks to Gil
Speaker 1: and Mike for for taking time out of their very
Speaker 1: busy schedules. Both of them are very busy right now. Also,
Speaker 1: before we get to Gil, a big thanks to our partner, Toro.
Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Toro, the only
Speaker 1: brand with a full line of equipment and irrigation products
Speaker 1: to keep your golf course in top condition. Toro is
Speaker 1: serious about research and develop and they're also out there
Speaker 1: listening to superintendents so they can develop products that help
Speaker 1: you solve your biggest challenges. And when it comes to
Speaker 1: local service and support, their distributor network is second to none.
Speaker 1: See how Toro is always solving problems and always evolving
Speaker 1: at Toro dot com. All right, let's get to Gil.
Speaker 1: All right, Gil, You've worked at a number of the
Speaker 1: world's best courses, a lot of what people would consider
Speaker 1: some of the best US open venues. What makes Oakmont unique?
Speaker 3: You know, I've said Oakmont was born and from day
Speaker 3: one has been unapologetically difficult. I mean they set out
Speaker 3: right from the get go. Henry Phone said we're going
Speaker 3: to build something that's going to be very, very challenging,
Speaker 3: and I think it's maintained that all the way through
Speaker 3: its existence, so it has been unapologet cleate challenging. And
Speaker 3: you know, they you know, the old mantra, they set
Speaker 3: it up less extreme for the US Open than they
Speaker 3: do for the membership is sometimes not that far off.
Speaker 3: But I think Oakmond has has always had that ability
Speaker 3: to set itself as one of the more difficult tests
Speaker 3: in golf.
Speaker 4: And I think that, you know, the US Open setups.
Speaker 3: Have evolved over a long period of time, but when
Speaker 3: the US Open setup was what we refer to as
Speaker 3: the old US Open setup, I think Oakmont was the
Speaker 3: perfect test.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that that old setup that you reference
Speaker 1: is if you look at kind of old photos of
Speaker 1: past US Opens at Oakmont, sayre pre ninety four, that
Speaker 1: really thick, rough and you know, kind of narrow fairways.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious after your work there. You know, there
Speaker 1: are obviously people can sit and it's hard to put
Speaker 1: every golf course in a box, but there are three
Speaker 1: schools of golf architecture penal, strategic, and heroic. Today as
Speaker 1: it stands, which school would you put Oakmon in?
Speaker 3: Well, Oakmon still has really thick, rough and really narrow fairways,
Speaker 3: even after we finished our work, but I think I
Speaker 3: think everybody would normally relate Oakmont to the penal school
Speaker 3: of architecture. You know, basically put up obstacles in front
Speaker 3: of you and you just need to overcome them. I
Speaker 3: think in our study of the history and the evolution
Speaker 3: of that golf course, it was significantly more strategic in
Speaker 3: its earlier days. And you know, there were certainly penal
Speaker 3: aspects to it, but there were certain holes that we've
Speaker 3: restored that had just amazing sort of choices to make
Speaker 3: off of the tea. And I also believe that one
Speaker 3: of the things that is really underreported and under discussed
Speaker 3: as it relates to Oakmon is the topography and the
Speaker 3: requirements to place your ball to a proper side of
Speaker 3: a fairway in order to keep your in the fairway
Speaker 3: and utilize the slopes, et cetera. So I think the
Speaker 3: phones has always use those slopes as a critical part
Speaker 3: of the design. And while it looked like it was
Speaker 3: bunker bunker bunker everywhere, and so that would make you
Speaker 3: think it was more penal, the strategy was actually more
Speaker 3: involved in Okay, how do you hit your ball in
Speaker 3: the fairway when you get it there? And where does
Speaker 3: it ultimately wind up in?
Speaker 4: What position does that put you in?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's shaped also with that topography, like being
Speaker 1: able to hit a ball that counters, you know, with spin,
Speaker 1: counter some of the slope because you know the gravity
Speaker 1: out there. You talked about the property being under talked
Speaker 1: about what stands out about the property and how the
Speaker 1: golf course uses the property.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know now that the trees are gone, and
Speaker 4: when you stand up there at the clubhouse and you
Speaker 4: look across, you realize what the scale of the landscape
Speaker 4: is massive, and the scale of the features are large, right,
Speaker 4: The greens are big, the fairways are numerous, so they sorry,
Speaker 4: the bunkers are numerous, so they're everywhere. The scale of
Speaker 4: the topography is pretty pretty bold as well. So now
Speaker 4: you've got this the ability to look across that landscape
Speaker 4: and see what they saw and how they took the
Speaker 4: scale of the features and the scale of the property
Speaker 4: and married it into ultimately what is a pretty strong landscape.
Speaker 4: I mean, you get the holes, the upper parts of
Speaker 4: one and nine and eleven and ten all sort of
Speaker 4: feel when you're in the clubhouse looking out, you feel
Speaker 4: sort of flatish and plateau up there. But you know
Speaker 4: as they drop away one as nine climbs, as ten drops,
Speaker 4: as eleven climbs, and certainly twelve. As it drops, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of topography going on. And then you look
Speaker 4: across the turnpike and you can see how tilted, you know,
Speaker 4: the elevation change from three green down to seven green
Speaker 4: is dramatic.
Speaker 1: It's funny. David. Before I played the golf course, we
Speaker 1: interviewed David Moore and this was my first visit, and
Speaker 1: he talked about how phones really wanted it to be
Speaker 1: a links course, and I was kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've never heard any reference to links course at Oakmont,
Speaker 1: and like, that's kind of crazy just because of the
Speaker 1: nat I think it's because of the nature of like
Speaker 1: how America describes Oakmont. But then you go out there,
Speaker 1: and I was also fresh off like ten days in Scotland,
Speaker 1: and you go out there and you look once you
Speaker 1: get out there and really look at the holes and
Speaker 1: the way they kind of drape over the land and
Speaker 1: the minimal you know, earth movement, but the way that
Speaker 1: I I was stunned at how naturally so many of
Speaker 1: the golf holes sit on that property, because you know,
Speaker 1: if you think about building it in the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really a time where you could alter land.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think the way they drape over the
Speaker 4: land escape is a great description.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: I mean that sounds perfect because it's absolutely true. And
Speaker 3: when you start to peel back some of the layers
Speaker 3: of the design, like the tenth hole. Obviously the green
Speaker 3: runs away and also runs hard to the left. In
Speaker 3: their design the opening to the front right of the green,
Speaker 3: you're supposed to land your ball short and let it
Speaker 3: feed on and in sub in various renovations, after the
Speaker 3: phones is left that was blocked off by some put
Speaker 3: a bunker in there, So we remove that now and
Speaker 3: slid that back over its original position. So now you
Speaker 3: can actually utilize the land You can use the landforms
Speaker 3: to feed balls in the same thing it happened on
Speaker 3: number one where a bunker had been drug across the approach.
Speaker 3: So they utilize the landscape and understood that frequently, especially
Speaker 3: before irrigation. And you've got that hard Pittsburgh dirt, you know,
Speaker 3: balls are going to have to bounce and run and
Speaker 3: then feed their ways into these greens. And now that
Speaker 3: linksy characteristic has been restored to the golf course.
Speaker 1: I think that's one one of the neat things. Obviously
Speaker 1: with ten and one, you know, it's you don't this
Speaker 1: is not something that normally is in play, but like
Speaker 1: US Open, you start on ten and one and both
Speaker 1: of those holes having that kind of welcome to Oakmont.
Speaker 1: I Jeff Ogilvie in our video that we did on
Speaker 1: Oakmont described it as like you're playing you're fighting against gravity,
Speaker 1: you know, and that that that one in ten, those
Speaker 1: second shots you know, are similar. They're obviously very spread out,
Speaker 1: but similar in the sense of like right out of
Speaker 1: the gate, your face with kind of gravity. And if anything,
Speaker 1: I think the second shot on ten might be harder
Speaker 1: than one because you're gonna be hitting from a downslope,
Speaker 1: you know, you're hitting from a severe lie, and on
Speaker 1: one you at least have the opportunity to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can stay up on top and have a flat
Speaker 1: lie into the screen that's screaming away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's interesting, you know, the word gravity. And
Speaker 4: one of my favorite descriptions of oak was, you know,
Speaker 4: the late great Jim Finnigan I think it was the
Speaker 4: eighty three wrote about the green speeds and we're at
Speaker 4: Oakmont where the laws of friction were held in temporary suspension.
Speaker 4: It was, you know, just that's a great way to describe,
Speaker 4: you know, the green speeds.
Speaker 3: And I think so you've got gravity and friction and
Speaker 3: everything sort of those surfaces being so slippery working against you.
Speaker 3: It's you're right, it's for the first time you step
Speaker 3: on that golf course and you look out over that
Speaker 3: landscape and then playing those you starting on one of
Speaker 3: those two holes, it's got to be a bit of
Speaker 3: a shock to the system.
Speaker 1: You talked a little bit earlier about you know, holes
Speaker 1: with great choices. Now with with some of the features
Speaker 1: you've put back, what's a what's a great example of
Speaker 1: one of those whole of a whole that presents a
Speaker 1: few different choices.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, I think number seven is the one that
Speaker 3: probably most people will will look at, and I think
Speaker 3: probably the one we're most proud of as a Really
Speaker 3: it's a significant sort of strategy changes from a T shot.
Speaker 3: So we've restored the cross bunker about anywhere from two
Speaker 3: ninety to three ten to carry it uphill and kid
Speaker 3: could be into the wind. So I mean it's a
Speaker 3: choice you have to make as a tour player to
Speaker 3: go over that, and then that gives you the opportunity
Speaker 3: to be up at the elevated portion of the fairway
Speaker 3: seeing the green complex, perfect angle in the way that
Speaker 3: green has set up, perfect angle into the green, probably
Speaker 3: with a shorter.
Speaker 2: Iron in your hand.
Speaker 3: Or then we restored you thirty five forty yards of
Speaker 3: fairway to the right side of that cross bunker, so
Speaker 3: now you can play out to the right. Now the
Speaker 3: ground is tilting and moving further to the right, so
Speaker 3: you've got to control your shape as we talked about.
Speaker 3: But when you're down there, you're at a lower elevation.
Speaker 3: The fairway bunkers make the second shot blind, and you've
Speaker 3: got that green side bunker which is in your way.
Speaker 3: So it's it'll be interesting. I think we worked hard
Speaker 3: to try and figure out with the club and with
Speaker 3: the usgas. So what's that carry number is? That doesn't
Speaker 3: make it? You know, Rory and Bryson are probably not
Speaker 3: going to think twice about it, but you know what
Speaker 3: is that the average guy out there, can they get
Speaker 3: up and over that? And so it'll be it'll be
Speaker 3: a challenge if the wind doesn't come up. I think
Speaker 3: most players will be able to do it. But it's
Speaker 3: I think it gives a lot of different choices and
Speaker 3: obviously the rewards are fairly significant.
Speaker 1: We talk obviously a ton about like when you talk
Speaker 1: about distance, the distance gap, and I hadn't thought about
Speaker 1: this until you just brought this up. The distance gap
Speaker 1: in like an average golfer to a high level golfer.
Speaker 1: When you talk about golf design, there actually is like
Speaker 1: a widening golf. It feels like in the pro game
Speaker 1: of carry gap, like where you know, a bunker you're
Speaker 1: talking about for Bryson or Rory is then becomes completely
Speaker 1: irrelevant for like a lot of the rest of the field.
Speaker 3: Right, It's very true. Yeah, you have to kind of balance.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to get into Frisco, but
Speaker 3: that was a lot of the conversation at Frisco. You know,
Speaker 3: setting up a building a modern golf course for major
Speaker 3: championship is how do you regulate between those guys and
Speaker 3: the rest of the field. And you're just not constantly
Speaker 3: hammering the rest of the fielding giving them a free pass.
Speaker 3: But then if you're constantly hammering those guys, then the
Speaker 3: rest of the field gets a free pass. So you've
Speaker 3: got to mix it up in certain areas, and I
Speaker 3: think we're hopeful we got the yardage just about right
Speaker 3: where it allows every player to have at least be
Speaker 3: able to think about that question.
Speaker 1: You guys, when you do restoration historical renovation work, I
Speaker 1: think that's your word, historical renovation work, you typically try
Speaker 1: and find an era or a year to go back to.
Speaker 1: At Oakmont, where did you, guys land with that? How
Speaker 1: was the exercise of figuring out what to put back
Speaker 1: and what to model the golf course after.
Speaker 3: So we looked at it and we tried to figure out, all, right,
Speaker 3: the period when the phoneses were involved, whether it's HC
Speaker 3: or William would go win from nineteen oh three to
Speaker 3: nineteen forty seven, so you had forty four years of
Speaker 3: basically constant change and evolution, but the family was involved
Speaker 3: in that. So we looked at nineteen oh three to
Speaker 3: nineteen forty seven and we started to think, well, there's
Speaker 3: just no way to pick like a certain timeframe, like
Speaker 3: if you're dealing with a wingfoot or you know, Tillinghast
Speaker 3: was there to start. He came back and made modifications
Speaker 3: for the twenty nine US Open, and then that was
Speaker 3: pretty much it. So you've got you know, narrow windows
Speaker 3: George Thomas at LCC, et cetera, et cetera. Here you
Speaker 3: got forty four years of history with the original architects
Speaker 3: being involved. Probably Piner's Number two would be the only
Speaker 3: place where you'd have something somewhat similar or maybe national
Speaker 3: with McDonald. But you get to a place where we
Speaker 3: started to go, listen, we it might be best for
Speaker 3: us to figure out an eclectic eighteen and look at
Speaker 3: the first hole and say, in our opinion from a
Speaker 3: membership standpoint and also from a US open standpoint, the
Speaker 3: best version of the first so I'm just going to
Speaker 3: make updates because I don't remember what version it was,
Speaker 3: but it comes from the nineteen thirty seven aerial photograph,
Speaker 3: and the best version of the second hole came from
Speaker 3: the nineteen twenty seven plan, and on and on and on.
Speaker 3: So now you basically have the greatest hits or an
Speaker 3: eclectic eighteen of Pokemon. But the constant is the Phones
Speaker 3: family's involvement. Anything after forty seven we really didn't consider.
Speaker 4: So we took that to the.
Speaker 3: Membership, which is kind of an out there concept, and
Speaker 3: they embraced it. They really liked it, and we'll see.
Speaker 3: I mean, hopefully we were able to select the greatest
Speaker 3: hits versions of each hole that will provide a very
Speaker 3: comprehensive test in two weeks.
Speaker 1: Do you remember, by chance, offhand what the earliest hole
Speaker 1: and the latest hole were.
Speaker 3: I don't, but I do remember that a lot of
Speaker 3: the imagery for the greens came from very early on,
Speaker 3: early beans. And when we looked at the way that
Speaker 3: the tabletop nature of the greens and the putting surfaces
Speaker 3: and what they had evolved into kind of curled up
Speaker 3: on the edges from bunker sand and top dressing the
Speaker 3: imagery and really the only two greens that moved in
Speaker 3: that forty four year period were eight and sixteen, so
Speaker 3: you had basically consistency across the property. The only real
Speaker 3: consistent factor was for the green locations and the green
Speaker 3: pads themselves. So you looked at how can we take
Speaker 3: those back? And so the earliest images showed us the
Speaker 3: green complexes in great detail. I think the latest would
Speaker 3: have been the late thirties.
Speaker 1: What we're on the greens now? What are the kind
Speaker 1: of the new dynamics people should expect from Oakmont's greens?
Speaker 1: This year, and you know kind of where where did
Speaker 1: your work center on the greens on the edges.
Speaker 3: We didn't rebuild the greens. We basically expanded green and
Speaker 3: try to push them out into areas where they originally
Speaker 3: the footprint originally was. And then we took down all
Speaker 3: of the evolution the sand build up around the bunker edges,
Speaker 3: and now the greens flow right into the bunkers. So
Speaker 3: if you used to be the only sort of respite
Speaker 3: as it related to the putting surfaces was around the
Speaker 3: edges because balls would feedback in, and now everything if
Speaker 3: the gravity and if the slope of the green is
Speaker 3: sloping towards the bunkers, the ball will go towards the bunkers.
Speaker 3: Whether it will get in or hang up in the fringe,
Speaker 3: I don't know. But now the edges are back in play.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of the same concept we talked about
Speaker 3: as Southern hills, where you had to start to really
Speaker 3: respect and almost fear of the edges of the greens,
Speaker 3: whereas before they were your comfort zone to play balls
Speaker 3: into it. So I think seeing the way the greens
Speaker 3: relate with the surrounds is very very different. And then
Speaker 3: also the expanded areas allowed us some opportunity to create
Speaker 3: new hole locations because by going into those areas, we
Speaker 3: weren't really touching areas where the Oakmont membership had ever
Speaker 3: putted before because it was rough or it was bunker edge,
Speaker 3: and so we could flatten those areas and get them
Speaker 3: to a place where and frequently they flattened out on
Speaker 3: their own because the tie in from the green slope
Speaker 3: into the bunker edge was And so we've now I
Speaker 3: think you're going to see some whole locations I would
Speaker 3: say on average, and I don't know where they are,
Speaker 3: but you know, a lot of the conversations with the USGA,
Speaker 3: I think probably two new whole locations per green for
Speaker 3: during the four championship rounds. So I think they're going
Speaker 3: to look at a lot of that new flexibility and
Speaker 3: use it.
Speaker 1: Are there a couple new sections of particular greens that
Speaker 1: you are most fond of?
Speaker 3: I think back left on two, I mean two was
Speaker 3: always the hardest to find whole locations. You know, if
Speaker 3: you looked at the pins sheets over the US opens,
Speaker 3: they were all clustered. You know, there was maybe one
Speaker 3: far back right and then three down on the sort
Speaker 3: of middle right and that was it, and now they've
Speaker 3: got the opportunity to get several up on the upper
Speaker 3: location if they want upper left and upper right, So
Speaker 3: I think that'll be Those will be great from a
Speaker 3: practical standpoint. Being a short part four, I think it'll
Speaker 3: be interesting to see how players approach some of those
Speaker 3: whole locations, whether they try and get it closer for
Speaker 3: some trying to stay back for others. I think that
Speaker 3: the most fearsome one would be front left on three.
Speaker 3: There used to be a bunker sort of holding up
Speaker 3: that whole edge, and now that bunker has been moved
Speaker 3: off to the side, and so there's basically a false
Speaker 3: front in front of that, and it's just there's nothing
Speaker 3: behind it because the elevation change in the skyline. So
Speaker 3: I think, you know, when I've been there and that
Speaker 3: whole location has been there, it's like WHOA, that's going
Speaker 3: to be really really interesting and challenging.
Speaker 4: And then the biggest change will be thirteen Green.
Speaker 3: All the different whole locations they're available there, and that
Speaker 3: really interesting kind of valley and two ridges that the
Speaker 3: phones is put in that green, So if you happen
Speaker 3: to get front right, you're putting to back right. You
Speaker 3: can actually use that to kind of kick and swing
Speaker 3: your ball up through there. I mean, if players of
Speaker 3: that class will probably not miss it that far. But
Speaker 3: I'm hoping they figure out how to use that versus
Speaker 3: thinking about chipping it back there, because it works, but
Speaker 3: it takes a lot of creativity. Somebody like Jeff Ogilby
Speaker 3: would figure it out and probably just absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they'll they'll have to utilize their their time in
Speaker 1: the practice rounds. You know, they gotta they gotta hit
Speaker 1: some big platsa around and swinging around there. With the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one USAM, one of the big stories was
Speaker 1: players playing down alternate fairways on a couple holes. I
Speaker 1: know this was not the impetus for the work, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure that it it became one of the one
Speaker 1: of the talking points. What what kind of changes and
Speaker 1: alterations did you guys make to turn that Besides just
Speaker 1: twenty five times has made people on property as the
Speaker 1: US maybe more than twenty five, twenty five might be
Speaker 1: small exactly.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that that's definitely a factor.
Speaker 3: I think there are two factors that can play into
Speaker 3: the psychology of the event. We'll talk about what we
Speaker 3: did on the golf course, but I think the amount
Speaker 3: of gallery and hitting balls over people's heads. But also
Speaker 3: I think tour players are a little bit more cognizant
Speaker 3: of hitting balls into adjoining fairies when they're gonna have
Speaker 3: to see the guy in the in the in the
Speaker 3: locker room afterwards if they happen to buz somebody's tower.
Speaker 3: I don't think the kids are that thoughtful about it.
Speaker 3: But I think the big things, I mean, the biggest
Speaker 3: thing architecturally or maintenance is the rough, right. I mean
Speaker 3: the rough for the US Amateur was like what they
Speaker 3: keep it for the members, like two and a quarter.
Speaker 3: So if the guys went for alternate fairways then they
Speaker 3: missed and they were in the rough, it didn't matter
Speaker 3: as much. I think the players with you know, four
Speaker 3: to five I venture rough are gonna think twice about
Speaker 3: their misses if they can't hould the fairway. So I
Speaker 3: think the rough will be a big factor as well.
Speaker 3: The one that seemed to be we could I mean,
Speaker 3: players played from one down nine and we couldn't quite
Speaker 3: figure out why they would even think about doing that.
Speaker 3: But I don't really think that's going to be an issue.
Speaker 3: The ones we're ten and eleven the way those two played,
Speaker 3: and so on players playing from ten down eleven. We
Speaker 3: shortened the start of the fairway on eleven, so you know,
Speaker 3: there's that big hill, so they'd be landing on that
Speaker 3: hill and there's no way, I mean asson, unless it's
Speaker 3: sopping wet, there's no way the ball will stop on
Speaker 3: that hill.
Speaker 4: It will run through into the rough.
Speaker 3: So I don't know why anybody would go that way now,
Speaker 3: because I don't see how they would stop it. And
Speaker 3: if they could try and hit the top of eleven fairway,
Speaker 3: then why wouldn't you try and hit ten fairway? And
Speaker 3: then going from eleven up ten, I think that we
Speaker 3: added a back tea so significantly further back for them
Speaker 3: to try and make that carry. It's like two hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty yards uphill to the actual tenth fairway. And
Speaker 3: then we expanded the fairway on eleven over and did
Speaker 3: some earthwork to kind of hold up that side so
Speaker 3: balls aren't feeding towards the ditch. So I think eleven fairway,
Speaker 3: while it's still challenging, is a little bit easier to hit.
Speaker 3: So from both of those perspectives, and you play eleven
Speaker 3: if you hit eleven fairway, you've got a wedge into
Speaker 3: the green. So we think combination of backtea, altering, grassing
Speaker 3: lines and then the rough will be the big factors.
Speaker 1: If you were a golf fan and you were out
Speaker 1: watching the US Open, what would be a couple holes
Speaker 1: that you'd post up on to watch and why?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think two just because of short part four.
Speaker 3: I think it's really interesting one to watch the players.
Speaker 3: We've created some different landing areas now, so there's a
Speaker 3: little bit more width for them to play into, and
Speaker 3: I think that green has got enough teeth that it's
Speaker 3: interesting all the way through through the putting. I'm going
Speaker 3: to be curious to watch seven t shop, but I
Speaker 3: don't know that that's a great vantage point for anybody
Speaker 3: to watch golf from. But I'll be curious to see
Speaker 3: how that plays out. I think thirteen is going to
Speaker 3: be phenomenal. I think watching them play, you know, it's
Speaker 3: always fun to watch a par three, and then I
Speaker 3: think up seventeen up around eighteen t where you can
Speaker 3: watch them play seventeen and then look down eighteen. I
Speaker 3: think would also be a really good vantage point to
Speaker 3: watch them all.
Speaker 1: Right, Gil, thank you for making a little bit of
Speaker 1: time during your busy schedule and congrats on another renovation
Speaker 1: project that will be in the spotlight. We look forward
Speaker 1: to catching up with you soon.
Speaker 4: Thanks and can I can I?
Speaker 3: Since this is mostly for golf architecture nerds, Kevin Murphy,
Speaker 3: who works in our office design partner did amazing work
Speaker 3: with us, and then Kai Golby and Matt Smallwood where
Speaker 3: our guys on site, and they were not only super
Speaker 3: talented but really really fun to work with. And so
Speaker 3: I think we had a great team out there. Jim
Speaker 3: and I both appreciate all that those guys contributed, and
Speaker 3: Mike McCormick and his team and totally you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: I get to do the interviews and talk, but I
Speaker 3: mean there was an amazing team to pull together and
Speaker 3: got this thing done.
Speaker 1: I think that might be one of the underappreciated aspects
Speaker 1: of all these projects is just how important all the
Speaker 1: team members are along along with you know, the superstars
Speaker 1: like yourself and Tom and Bill and Ben and you
Speaker 1: know David and all the teams are are integral.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was it was an interesting project because
Speaker 3: it was we had the front nine closed and we
Speaker 3: did the front nine greens in the in the spring,
Speaker 3: and then they opened the entire golf course for the
Speaker 3: summer and we worked on fairway, bunkers and teas while
Speaker 3: they were playing golf. And then they closed the back
Speaker 3: nine so we could do the back nine greens in
Speaker 3: the fall.
Speaker 4: So it was live fire going on out there while.
Speaker 3: You're working, and it was it was what worked for Oakmont,
Speaker 3: and it ultimately worked out great from a pacing standpoint
Speaker 3: and a timing standpoint, but it wasn't the easiest or
Speaker 3: almost the way you would normally move through a project.
Speaker 3: So those guys had to deal with, you know, some
Speaker 3: some hiccups, but they did great work. They really didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you're right. It's that's why I figured. I always
Speaker 3: think I'm gonna want weave them into the story, and
Speaker 3: then we get talking about other things, and then I
Speaker 3: forget and then so thank you for giving me the
Speaker 3: opportunity to take take what.
Speaker 4: Is now a few minutes.
Speaker 1: You piqued my interest. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: another question, because you guys did it in two phases.
Speaker 1: Was there anything that happened over the course of the
Speaker 1: year that that might have changed your thinking and led
Speaker 1: to a whole being tweaked a little bit in the
Speaker 1: time that you had, because I feel like whenever you
Speaker 1: I'm a big procrastinator, and if I pushed something off,
Speaker 1: it inevitably like changes it a little bit with the
Speaker 1: time because I just am thinking a little bit differently
Speaker 1: when I finally come to the point where I have
Speaker 1: to make a decision, I don't.
Speaker 3: Think so because you know, all the time in the
Speaker 3: master plan, you know that we we basically did all
Speaker 3: the research and all the time and implementation. I mean,
Speaker 3: were there little tweaks that happened here and there, or
Speaker 3: some things that we uncovered, like that we found it,
Speaker 3: we've a bunker line, you know, we found old sand
Speaker 3: and we just chased it. Yeah, stuff like that happened
Speaker 3: all the time. The club put together a really cool
Speaker 3: video of about the whole thing, and it's funny to
Speaker 3: watch the process. I mean literally like working with Frozen
Speaker 3: Sod in March, I had a full beard and we're
Speaker 3: like out there it's snowing and we're shoveling in the snow,
Speaker 3: and then you see the pictures from the summer where
Speaker 3: and then you know, wrapping up in the fall. It
Speaker 3: was It was a cool timeline because I generally stayed
Speaker 3: in one of the cottages up there by the clubhouse,
Speaker 3: and to mark a year. I know it wasn't a
Speaker 3: full calendar year. And this is going to sound I mean,
Speaker 3: you'll appreciate this. To mark almost a full year of
Speaker 3: literally waking up and walking out at Oakmand watching this
Speaker 3: unrise in certain places and watch the weather change, and
Speaker 3: then kind of wrapping it up right before Halloween and
Speaker 3: seeing the lead, you know, the very few leaves, the
Speaker 3: leaves around the around the clubhouse change. It was a
Speaker 3: cool way to market a year. I mean to just
Speaker 3: kind of see that golf course. If there was a
Speaker 3: time lapse, it would have been really neat, but it
Speaker 3: was a different It was a slow motion time lapse
Speaker 3: from season to season to season.
Speaker 1: It's funny when when I look back through like photos
Speaker 1: on my phone and yours is probably like way way
Speaker 1: crazier than mine. Like you just see like historical markers
Speaker 1: of time based around like golf courses. It's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like when I was there a couple times or there.
Speaker 3: You know, we just made a site visit to a
Speaker 3: really cool site that we're hopefully going to build a
Speaker 3: golf course on I think we will and Ben Hillard
Speaker 3: and I were looking at it was like when was
Speaker 3: the last time we're here? It was like, Okay, pull
Speaker 3: the phone out and find that it was like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, it was like eighteen months ago. It felt
Speaker 3: like it was six months ago. So yeah, it's definitely
Speaker 3: a way to mark time.
Speaker 1: All right, Gil, thank you again, and we'll look forward
Speaker 1: to this year's US Open and uh all of your
Speaker 1: new golf courses that are coming along online. Very cool
Speaker 1: time to get to see a lot of your new work.
Speaker 4: Thanks, come alive.
Speaker 1: So thanks Gil.
Speaker 3: Always good to be with you. Thanks cheers.
Speaker 1: All right, big thanks to Gil again. This This was
Speaker 1: recorded on a Sunday morning, so he made he made
Speaker 1: some time, uh to to get that done for us
Speaker 1: and uh and ahead of the US Open, so big
Speaker 1: thanks to him. He was he was on a dozer
Speaker 1: this morning. So Sunday morning morning dozer session that you
Speaker 1: know that might be some semblance of of of church
Speaker 1: for for a lot of people in the golf course
Speaker 1: architecture industry. Before we get to Mike here, this episode
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Toro. Big thanks to them.
Speaker 1: One of our longest running partners, and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: them renewing another Superintendent series. Mike is obviously a superstar Superintendent,
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Speaker 1: Mike McCormick. All right, So I was reading up on
Speaker 1: your life in UH I found it. I was obviously
Speaker 1: spent a lot, a lot of time on the grounds
Speaker 1: at Oakmont, But one of the things I love to
Speaker 1: see was that you're a You're an active musician, You've
Speaker 1: been in bands. Are you still playing music and and
Speaker 1: how does that work with your your your life at Oakmont?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yes, still play music. I started playing piano
Speaker 2: when I was six years old, so my parents kind
Speaker 2: of like brought me up on you know, the Beatles
Speaker 2: and Bruce Springsteen and stuff like that, and I took
Speaker 2: piano lessons from town. I was six all the way
Speaker 2: through high school, you know, up to I guess I
Speaker 2: was eighteen years old, and I just loved it. And
Speaker 2: the guy who taught me piano, I actually played in
Speaker 2: a piano bar behind Fenway Park on Lansdown Street. So
Speaker 2: I didn't learn like classical music. I learned like rock
Speaker 2: and roll, billy Joel Elton, John Beatles, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Growing up, and as soon as I got into college,
Speaker 2: I played in classic rock blues bands. When I graduated
Speaker 2: from UMass moved to Pittsburgh, I played in a full
Speaker 2: time blues band here for a while, and then the
Speaker 2: whole like playing gigs till two in the morning and work,
Speaker 2: waking up at you know, four in the morning two
Speaker 2: hours later. It was starting to catch up with me.
Speaker 2: So stop doing age.
Speaker 1: What age was that at.
Speaker 2: Like probably twenty two, give or take, and so kind
Speaker 2: of ever since, like I've always played music myself at home.
Speaker 2: I'll get home from work and it's it's my release,
Speaker 2: Like you know, I kind of like when I'm playing music,
Speaker 2: I played piano, I play guitar. I mess around on
Speaker 2: a few other instruments, but like when I'm doing that,
Speaker 2: like I'm not really thinking about any anything else. So
Speaker 2: it's a it's an incredible like mental thing for me.
Speaker 2: And to this day, I play at an open stage
Speaker 2: across the river every couple weeks in the off season,
Speaker 2: and it's with the same guys that have played in
Speaker 2: the full time band with, So we don't practice. We
Speaker 2: kind of just text each other, Hey, let's play this song,
Speaker 2: this song, this song, and we get up there and
Speaker 2: wing it and sometimes it's it's really good, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it's it's not so good, but it's certainly fun every time.
Speaker 1: What kind of music? What are this? What are the
Speaker 1: some of the favorites on the set list.
Speaker 2: I'm a big like Almond Brothers, Leonard Skinner type guy,
Speaker 2: Tom Petty, I mean goes list goes on and on,
Speaker 2: like I like everything from classic rock to The Grateful
Speaker 2: Dead to Fish to I could you know, like rap music.
Speaker 2: I mean I listen to everything. If you if you
Speaker 2: looked at by a Spotify playlist, you would probably say, like,
Speaker 2: you know, what's what's wrong with this guy? Well?
Speaker 1: You know I I I kind of agree. I like
Speaker 1: very music. Agnostic like I just I can hop from anything,
Speaker 1: like I can enjoy some country music, I can enjoy
Speaker 1: rap music. I listened to classic rock, I listened to
Speaker 1: alt rock, like you know, the main one that I've
Speaker 1: never gotten into is like heavy metal.
Speaker 2: But for the most would be the same.
Speaker 1: Like I generally go across genres a lot, and I
Speaker 1: think about it a lot. It's like, it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's a variety. Variety is the spice of life. I
Speaker 1: just saw that there's an article on Scratch about like
Speaker 1: how all part three should be short, and yeah, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: that wouldn't be very fun because be literally the same
Speaker 1: every everything would be the same. Like you know, you're
Speaker 1: constraining you know, the artist of work of what can
Speaker 1: be something, which I found that to be a humorous thing.
Speaker 1: I think about golf a lot when I think about
Speaker 1: business and making business decisions. Yeah, I'm wondering do you
Speaker 1: think about music at all with how it relates to
Speaker 1: your profession.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I think a lot of what
Speaker 2: we do is golf course superintendents. A lot of it is,
Speaker 2: you know, we develop a game plan, we try to
Speaker 2: stick to it. But there's all these uncontrollable variables, right,
Speaker 2: that pop up, mainly being the weather. Right, So especially
Speaker 2: a year like this, when we're approaching a championship, you
Speaker 2: put this game plan together and almost immediately like you
Speaker 2: have to throw that out the window. So I would
Speaker 2: I would think about it as like, you know, it's
Speaker 2: a lot like improvisation in music, right, where like you're
Speaker 2: playing in a blues band and you know different people
Speaker 2: who start doing different things. You have to adapt all
Speaker 2: the time, and you got to listen to what's going
Speaker 2: on and and like be really like cognizant of your surroundings.
Speaker 2: So I think in that way, it's, uh, it is
Speaker 2: certainly similar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the improvisation is an interesting topic because obviously,
Speaker 1: like great, so retain the core of the song yep, right,
Speaker 1: like there you it's not a full on departure from
Speaker 1: what you've been listening to for the last three minutes.
Speaker 1: It retains like the fundamental principles, but allows for adaptation
Speaker 1: of those ideas and right, I think, like with with turf, right,
Speaker 1: you have to be founded in certain principles. For you
Speaker 1: guys at Oakmont, what are kind of the guiding stars
Speaker 1: of your turf operation?
Speaker 2: So I know, but everything revolves around producing the firm
Speaker 2: as fastest, most penal conditions possible, right, Like they're like
Speaker 2: Gil Hands put it best, you know, when when he
Speaker 2: approaches a restoration project, you know, typically like his number
Speaker 2: one thing is to make it a more enjoyable golf experience,
Speaker 2: you know, and he's he's on record saying that. You know,
Speaker 2: his approach to it at Oakmont was probably a little
Speaker 2: bit different, where like, yeah, I want it to be
Speaker 2: an enjoyable golf experience, but at the same time, like
Speaker 2: it better not be easier than it was before. So
Speaker 2: everything we do revolves around that, and we're constantly trying
Speaker 2: to set the standard in the world of golf conditioning
Speaker 2: and playability. And you know, you can go back a
Speaker 2: long time, like back to the Henry Phones days, where
Speaker 2: you know it's well documented like he would drop a
Speaker 2: ball in back to the second green and if it
Speaker 2: didn't roll off the front back down in the fairway,
Speaker 2: the greens weren't fast enough, so they were cutting them
Speaker 2: again or rolling them again. And back in that day,
Speaker 2: they were probably rolling five or six on the Stimp meter.
Speaker 2: And you know, now our fairways roll probably faster than that,
Speaker 2: So We've always kind of evolved our operation from an
Speaker 2: agronomic standpoint to make sure that we were kind of
Speaker 2: leading the pack in that regard. And to do that,
Speaker 2: you know, you're constantly like reassessing the science behind what
Speaker 2: we do and then more importantly than that, the team
Speaker 2: that's doing it. You know, because it's not just me.
Speaker 2: We have a team of fifty guys sitting across the
Speaker 2: wall from me right now that they're the most passionate, dedicated,
Speaker 2: motivated guys you're ever going to see, and you know,
Speaker 2: the majority of them are aspiring to do this for
Speaker 2: their careers. So like it's way more than just a job.
Speaker 2: And you put all that passion and roll it up
Speaker 2: into a ball, and like that's what allows us to
Speaker 2: do what we do on the golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the passion and within an organization is
Speaker 1: always going to produce the greatest work. I think something
Speaker 1: I admire and I'm like not, I would say that
Speaker 1: I've been very on the record of not being a
Speaker 1: fan of the pursuit of hard I think so many
Speaker 1: clubs across the country get wrapped up and trying to
Speaker 1: be the biggest that we want to be, Like the
Speaker 1: championship course in town. You know, in Chicago for years
Speaker 1: that was Madonna or Butler National, right, Like, we want
Speaker 1: to be like them, and it's like, well, you're you're
Speaker 1: categorically not them, right, They aren't trying to be like
Speaker 1: you know they you know in a way, they're trying
Speaker 1: to be you Oakman of this city. But categorically you
Speaker 1: need to find your identity and and operate off that
Speaker 1: identity of could we be the most fun golf course
Speaker 1: in Chicago, because that's something that's attainable. Right, You're never
Speaker 1: going to be harder than them. But what I think
Speaker 1: is what I appreciate about Oakmon is like we are
Speaker 1: literally the hardest golf course and that is our guiding light. Right,
Speaker 1: there is a clear identity, and you operate around the
Speaker 1: identity and are maniacal about the identity of the golf course.
Speaker 1: And the version of hard is not gimmicky. I thought
Speaker 1: Jeff Ogilvy and our video kind of said it best,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the way I felt about playing there,
Speaker 1: is like, you know, every shot is very hard, but
Speaker 1: every shot is very attainable. And I think courses get
Speaker 1: in trouble when that when it becomes gimmicky with you know,
Speaker 1: the innovation and the idea of continuing to push. Yep,
Speaker 1: you've been working. You've worked at Oakmont for a very
Speaker 1: long time. You got your start, really is an intern
Speaker 1: at Oakmont. How would you what's like an example of
Speaker 1: a way that the turf program at Oakmont has innovated
Speaker 1: since your start as an intern to what it is today.
Speaker 1: What's it, you know, kind of something that you guys
Speaker 1: have changed that have improved your pursuit of being the
Speaker 1: toughest most penal golf course in the in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'll start with the team, Right, So our
Speaker 2: industry has changed a lot over the last college fifteen years. Right.
Speaker 2: I can remember a day when I started at Oakland
Speaker 2: as an intern, and you know, you'd see a jab
Speaker 2: posting and you'd send your resume in and we probably
Speaker 2: used to get thirty forty resumes a year for roughly
Speaker 2: ten twelve internship positions, so you'd be turning guys away.
Speaker 2: Where that's changed in a major way, Like when I
Speaker 2: graduated from UMass in twenty eleven, I think we had
Speaker 2: like some like thirty five people in our graduating class.
Speaker 2: I think the last couple of years it's been more
Speaker 2: like eight So there's just less people going into that,
Speaker 2: and that's a whole nother like podcast, like why is
Speaker 2: that the case? Right? But I think the reality of
Speaker 2: the fact is there's just not as many people signing
Speaker 2: up to work seven days a week, eighty hours a
Speaker 2: week year round, Like there's just not that many people
Speaker 2: anymore that are interested in doing that. So then becomes
Speaker 2: a question like how do you attract guys into your operation, right?
Speaker 2: And the only way to do it is build an
Speaker 2: educational program where they're learning both on and off the
Speaker 2: golf course, and then build an incredible culture. And we've
Speaker 2: done that here at Oakmont where we have initiatives from
Speaker 2: our intern of the Year we call our assistant and
Speaker 2: trainings agronomists. We have Agronomist of the Year. We pair
Speaker 2: agronomists with interns Big Brother Little Brother program and they
Speaker 2: work through a series of like a curriculum all year.
Speaker 2: They present to a mock grounds committee, they write mock
Speaker 2: Grounds Committee reports, We bring in guest speakers, we do
Speaker 2: a turf ball at the end of the year, there's
Speaker 2: a final exam to take notes. We evaluate those, so
Speaker 2: it's like a learning program they're learning on the course,
Speaker 2: they're learning off the course as well. So everything we
Speaker 2: do is about advancing their careers, getting them to that
Speaker 2: next step step. And we don't try to retain guys
Speaker 2: for fifteen years. We want guys to come in here,
Speaker 2: learn everything they need to know in a few years,
Speaker 2: and then you know, they're either moved moving into a
Speaker 2: management role within our own organization, or they're moving out
Speaker 2: of here and moving into a top assistant job at
Speaker 2: another top club in the country. So that's what it's
Speaker 2: all about. Like from an agronomic perspective, you know, there's
Speaker 2: all these sorts of technology coming into our industry. You
Speaker 2: hear about, you know, people using drones from a moisture
Speaker 2: management perspective, drones to spray. There's all this GPS technology,
Speaker 2: you know, there's all these like apparatus for collecting moisture
Speaker 2: data and firmness data and green speed data and all
Speaker 2: that's incredible. But I think what we do at Oakmant
Speaker 2: is we practice fundamentals and doing the fundamental stuff right
Speaker 2: because at the end of the day, our business really
Speaker 2: comes down to watering properly, mowing properly, making applications properly,
Speaker 2: and that's it. Like, when you can do those three
Speaker 2: things really well and not self induce injury, you're going
Speaker 2: to be in a great spot one hundred of the time.
Speaker 2: So you know, do we use some more modern technology here, Yes,
Speaker 2: but we also use greens bowers that haven't changed in
Speaker 2: the last thirty five years, so we're relatively old school.
Speaker 2: But we just practice the fundamentals.
Speaker 1: A couple thoughts off of that on both both ends.
Speaker 1: But the the idea of fundamentals, I think, like, I
Speaker 1: think that's like just an incredible it's it's it runs
Speaker 1: through any profession, and I think everybody is at this
Speaker 1: moment caught up in the greatness of sky Scheffler. But
Speaker 1: if you watch Scott A. Scheffler practice, what he's doing
Speaker 1: is he's practicing just the pure fundamentals of the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, grit check the script before every swing right.
Speaker 1: Like scrip set up, you know, stance like and then
Speaker 1: just the swing plane on the way back. And if
Speaker 1: you like, it's an incredible if you become a master
Speaker 1: of the fundamentals at any pursuit in life, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: only infinitely easier to layer stuff on top of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In terms of you guys, what are a couple of
Speaker 1: things that you've layered on top of those those core
Speaker 1: fundamentals that in particular in a US open year, I think.
Speaker 2: When you get the fundamentals right, the next thing is details, right,
Speaker 2: So like, and we do this every year, but especially
Speaker 2: this year. Like you start way back in February, right
Speaker 2: as you're coming out of the winner and myself, our assistance,
Speaker 2: we're walking the golf course every morning and we're just
Speaker 2: making lists like, hey, you know, this year needs to
Speaker 2: be addressed. This year needs to be addressed. And that
Speaker 2: list becomes like several hundred items long, and it starts
Speaker 2: down the middle of each golf hole. It works to
Speaker 2: the very perimeters of the property. I think it's all
Speaker 2: in the details, and then it's all about being as
Speaker 2: efficient and productive each and every day that we can.
Speaker 2: Like the weather we've had the spring is constant rain, right,
Speaker 2: so like there's there's been a lot of days where
Speaker 2: we'd have we've had to really pull back on mowing
Speaker 2: and rolling procedures. And you know, you take those days
Speaker 2: and you say like, okay, like what can we do
Speaker 2: today to stay ahead and be productive? And a lot
Speaker 2: of times it's those details things and then you get
Speaker 2: a good period of weather and you put the gas
Speaker 2: pedal right back down and get caught up, and you know,
Speaker 2: we're we're in a great spot right now, you know,
Speaker 2: less than two weeks out from the championship, but you know,
Speaker 2: now it's like we'll dial it in more and more
Speaker 2: and more, and then next week during the advanced week,
Speaker 2: we'll have fifty five volunteers, and then during the championship
Speaker 2: we'll have almost one hundred and ninety volunteers in to
Speaker 2: help us on top of our team of fifty guys.
Speaker 2: So that's when you know things really really get tuned up.
Speaker 1: You mentioned walking the golf course every day. I think
Speaker 1: this is this is not a common practice, you know
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, one of my one of
Speaker 1: my good friends, Brian Palmer, this was something he did
Speaker 1: every single day. I think he still does it every
Speaker 1: single day. What what are the things that you pick
Speaker 1: up walking a golf course versus riding around in a cart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, like, no matter how you slice it, when
Speaker 2: you're riding around a golf in a golf cart, you're
Speaker 2: you're not seeing everything. It's impossible right when you walk
Speaker 2: in the same path that all the golfers take and
Speaker 2: I try to split it up, like one day I'll
Speaker 2: walk from the champee straight down the middle of the
Speaker 2: fairways through the middle of the green, and then the
Speaker 2: next day, like you walk left side of holes and
Speaker 2: the right side of holes, and like that's the only
Speaker 2: way you see everything, and that's how you pick up
Speaker 2: pick up the most molecular details that need to be
Speaker 2: addressed as possible. But I don't I don't think there's
Speaker 2: another way to do it, you know. I it's like
Speaker 2: you go back to technology, right, Like there's technology now
Speaker 2: where you can fly a drone in the air and
Speaker 2: get real time infrared photos of your golf course. And
Speaker 2: that's again, that's a great tool, but that thing still
Speaker 2: to this point is not seeing things that we see
Speaker 2: with our own eyes. And the more and more you
Speaker 2: do that, like your list just starts getting shorter and
Speaker 2: shorter and shorter.
Speaker 1: What's the what's the balance between your teams feel about
Speaker 1: what the course needs versus what the technology is telling
Speaker 1: you the course needs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we do a lot of testing at oak Blunt, right,
Speaker 2: So we we test for you know, diseases, We check
Speaker 2: soil for fertility, tissue, fertility, We do full physical analysis
Speaker 2: tests every year that look at the particle size distribution
Speaker 2: of the soils and the infiltration rates and the organic
Speaker 2: matter levels and on and on and on right, so
Speaker 2: like we use that data as a baseline. But oak
Speaker 2: Wand is a really unique property in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: But from an agronomic standpoint, we don't have USGA spec greens.
Speaker 2: There are natives, heavily modified native soil greens that have
Speaker 2: been airified and top dressed for decades. And like each
Speaker 2: green is in its own micro environment, and then within
Speaker 2: each green, every area kind of acts differently. So the
Speaker 2: only way you like truly learn this golf course and
Speaker 2: all the different playing surfaces to the point where you
Speaker 2: know them like the back of your hand. It just
Speaker 2: takes time and repetition, right like when you're learning how
Speaker 2: to hand water here at Oakmont, Like I always tell guys,
Speaker 2: like you want to push things past limit a couple
Speaker 2: of times so you know where that line in the
Speaker 2: sand is. And you don't get really good at hant
Speaker 2: water and greens until you push the green too far
Speaker 2: from a moisture perspective, And you could say that for
Speaker 2: any other playing service on the property, it's like a
Speaker 2: you know, big music guy. I'm a big artist guy.
Speaker 2: It's like a canvas, right, And like you're constantly evaluating this,
Speaker 2: and the more time you spend on the property, you
Speaker 2: start seeing things and you're like, oh, like you know
Speaker 2: this area, this intermedia is yellowing out, Like I know,
Speaker 2: like this area, this area, and this area throughout the
Speaker 2: rest of the golf course is probably doing the same
Speaker 2: because you've seen the turf do that countless times before,
Speaker 2: and like it becomes like almost like you know your kid,
Speaker 2: Like it's acting a certain way. Here's how I fix it,
Speaker 2: Here's how I address it. And that's what makes our
Speaker 2: job so fun, is like you're just constantly adapting to
Speaker 2: all these different variables.
Speaker 1: With your greens. Specifically, I think like widely considered, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the best playing surfaces in the world of golf.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the contouring is incredible, some one of the best
Speaker 1: sets of green green complexes in the world. One of
Speaker 1: the big trends in golf architecture has been the rebuilding
Speaker 1: of greens. Can you talk us through kind of the
Speaker 1: decision to keep your one hundred plus year old greens,
Speaker 1: your one hundred plus year old greens rather than kind
Speaker 1: of going with the idea of rebuilding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the first consideration is, like to rebuild our
Speaker 2: greens here at Oakmont, we would have had to shut
Speaker 2: down the golf course probably for an entire season. So
Speaker 2: like that was dead from from from start, right, like,
Speaker 2: not even a consideration, not an option. At Oaklant, we
Speaker 2: don't have another eighteen holes that we could flip play onto.
Speaker 2: So really like that was a non starter. Secondly, you
Speaker 2: get into you know, you hit on it, like the
Speaker 2: undulations within these greens, they're iconic, right, Like people don't
Speaker 2: talk about this as often as they should. But like
Speaker 2: the way that Henry Phones laid out this golf course
Speaker 2: to surface strain one hundred and twenty years ago, like
Speaker 2: absolutely mind blowing, Like when we get three ages of
Speaker 2: rain here, like it goes from being like standing water
Speaker 2: everywhere to zero standing water insanely fast, right, and that's
Speaker 2: all eh Phones now, you know, And he built his
Speaker 2: golf course on native soil, so there was little to
Speaker 2: no internal drainage back then. You know, as mowing heights
Speaker 2: and standards have increased over the years, you have to
Speaker 2: have internal drainage, So there comes in the aerification and
Speaker 2: top dressing and organic matter management and on and on
Speaker 2: and on. Where now we have surface drainage and we
Speaker 2: have really good internal drainage as well, and that allows
Speaker 2: us to push you know, the plants really to the
Speaker 2: brink of death day in and day out. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think again, like just the fact that Henry Phones
Speaker 2: designed this property, laid out the golf holes the way
Speaker 2: he did, and the way that this can handle weather.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure there's there's much like it. But the
Speaker 2: last thing is, you.
Speaker 3: Know our.
Speaker 2: Poa on our greens, right, perennial poa. You know, I
Speaker 2: always like roll my eyes, like you watch these like
Speaker 2: golf broadcasts and people rip on poe but like all
Speaker 2: staying here till the end and say that good poa.
Speaker 2: There's no better putting surface on earth. And you know,
Speaker 2: the way our poa performs on these modified native soils,
Speaker 2: like probably wouldn't be the same if we rebuilt the greens.
Speaker 2: Then lastly, you know, just as much as green speed
Speaker 2: is a factor here, firmness, especially during a championship, is
Speaker 2: way more of a factor. Right, So when our greens
Speaker 2: are at their driest and at their best, probably firmer
Speaker 2: than you could ever get a USGA Spec green. Now,
Speaker 2: like on the flip side, when we get rain events,
Speaker 2: they're softer, they're not as consistent as a USJA Spec Green.
Speaker 2: But we really felt the right thing to do for
Speaker 2: Oakmon was to keep our native soil greens so that
Speaker 2: when we do get the right weather variables, the greens
Speaker 2: are like concrete.
Speaker 1: I think it's such a delicate situation with with old greens.
Speaker 1: And I think like one of the other things what
Speaker 1: you brought up about your grass is like simply retaining
Speaker 1: your old look and feel like that is something like
Speaker 1: the I think Bruce Heppner uses the word patina, that
Speaker 1: old patina like and I love that descriptor. And and
Speaker 1: like I think like one of the things that I
Speaker 1: don't love about some of the new restorations is you
Speaker 1: that come out and it's like, wait, is this one
Speaker 1: hundred years old or is it brand new?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Because and and when you lose those core grasses that
Speaker 1: you know, and you go to one of these newer,
Speaker 1: newer grasses or you have to do something with your
Speaker 1: existing grass, like you generally just lose something. I would
Speaker 1: I question about the greens. Yeah, I've heard of this
Speaker 1: is basically a proprietary strain. At this point the poem,
Speaker 1: why is it that? Why is it basically a proprietary strain?
Speaker 1: What makes it effectively not you know, replicable in the
Speaker 1: world of golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm not sure that's the greatest term for it.
Speaker 2: But so poa, any POA greens in the Pittsburgh region
Speaker 2: are going to be unique. Right. POA loves this like
Speaker 2: that environment that we have in the western PA like
Speaker 2: like tumidity valley, not much sunlight, like cool temps. So
Speaker 2: POA thrives in western Pennsylvania. Like I always say it,
Speaker 2: like it's a weed, right, Like you go out and
Speaker 2: dig a hole anywhere on this golf course or wait
Speaker 2: long enough, poa is going to grow out of the
Speaker 2: side of that hole, right, And like that's the greens
Speaker 2: I'm sure were originally seated to bend grass. You know,
Speaker 2: then poa is going to outcompete any other grass out
Speaker 2: here no matter what you do. So over time the
Speaker 2: greens transitioned to poe anua and then you start throwing
Speaker 2: like doctor Hoff out of penn State did this incredible
Speaker 2: research study really over like the last ten years, and
Speaker 2: you know he actually like put science behind it. That
Speaker 2: poa adapts to the way it's treated. Right, So like
Speaker 2: the more you cut it, the lower height of cut
Speaker 2: that you go out with, the more you roll it,
Speaker 2: it's going to start getting used to that. And that's
Speaker 2: what happened at Oakmark. So since the beginning of time,
Speaker 2: like people have been cutting grass too low at Oakmonth
Speaker 2: too many times, rolling too much, rolling with rollers that
Speaker 2: were really heavy, and through generations, our poa adapted to that.
Speaker 2: And what we have here on our greens is, you know,
Speaker 2: we have hundreds of different biotypes of Poe on our greens,
Speaker 2: but we probably have more of this perennial Poa annua
Speaker 2: that you really don't see many other places on larger
Speaker 2: percentages of our greens. And it's super tight. It doesn't
Speaker 2: grow hardly at all, and it doesn't seed head very
Speaker 2: much like there is like this poe. It's really cool.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it will encroach like into the intermediates around the
Speaker 2: greens that we cut with rotary mowers at one inch,
Speaker 2: and it like that grass literally never gets cut by
Speaker 2: a real mower or rotary mower and it will not
Speaker 2: grow above like a quarter inch won't do it. So
Speaker 2: I always think about that, like if we were to
Speaker 2: you know, God forbid, like something happens right in the
Speaker 2: world and like we can't mow the greens at Oakmont
Speaker 2: for three months straight as yeah, exactly right. So it's
Speaker 2: a really remarkable grass. And you know, we probably have
Speaker 2: a higher population of poa art the greens than probably
Speaker 2: most courses in the world, and that poet itself is
Speaker 2: very unique.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest differences in the golf course from
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen is going to be the greens and how
Speaker 1: much bigger they are. You did you recaptured a lot
Speaker 1: of different corners and nooks and crannies, pinnable areas, unpinnable
Speaker 1: areas on on your great greens. How did you go
Speaker 1: about the process of getting grass on those new areas
Speaker 1: with like what was the process of expanding those greens
Speaker 1: to match that same great grass that you had on
Speaker 1: the you know, existing smaller greens.
Speaker 2: Right, So that was that was a major question as
Speaker 2: we approached this restoration. Certainly can't go out and saw
Speaker 2: them with bent grass, right, you'd see it for the
Speaker 2: next thirty years unfortunately, Like that that does happen in
Speaker 2: the world of golf restoration. But here at oakwom What
Speaker 2: we did was we harvested all of our core aerification
Speaker 2: plugs and sent them out to a sod farm and
Speaker 2: way western Pennsylvania. Colin Boyd he grew in those aerification
Speaker 2: plugs and grew in about four acres of poasod with
Speaker 2: our our own POA that we were able to harvest,
Speaker 2: saw it, cut, bring back to Oakmont, and saw it
Speaker 2: all of our Green Approach fairaway expansions with so like
Speaker 2: we saw at those expansions with our own grass. So
Speaker 2: that was pretty pretty unique thing.
Speaker 1: Did you guys have a clause in the agreement that
Speaker 1: this guy could only harvest x amount because so he's
Speaker 1: not selling Oakmont Oakmont poe.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a funny thing, and this ties back to
Speaker 2: your earlier statement. So this guy has collected Colin Boyds
Speaker 2: collected verification plugs from Oakmont for decades, okay, and he
Speaker 2: certainly grew in a lot more of it for our
Speaker 2: restoration project. But he's collected it for decades and he
Speaker 2: does sell it all throughout the Northeast. And I would
Speaker 2: tell you that that Pittsburgh POA when you take it
Speaker 2: to like the met area or Long Island or wherever
Speaker 2: it might be, it does not perform the same way
Speaker 2: that it does in the Pittsburgh region.
Speaker 1: Wingfoot screens are poa too correct, right, I Mean you're
Speaker 1: talking about what I think probably widely considered two of
Speaker 1: the best putting surfaces in all of golf, no doubt.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, what Wingfoot did with their
Speaker 2: restoration was truly incredible, and they they really kind of
Speaker 2: set a new standard in like okay, like we have
Speaker 2: these super old school greens and you know, Bancraft certainly
Speaker 2: isn't the right thing for us, and they did, you know,
Speaker 2: rebuild those greens with new technology, new mix, laid the
Speaker 2: poa back down, obviously did the whole green scan thing,
Speaker 2: and they turned out unbelievably well. So yeah, like, but
Speaker 2: their poe is going to be a little different than
Speaker 2: the poe that grows in Pittsburgh. The poet Shinnecock can
Speaker 2: be a little different than the poet at Wingfoot, the
Speaker 2: poet at Pebble Beach, like on and on and on.
Speaker 2: So the same guy from Penn State eight, you know,
Speaker 2: has been working on this for thirty years, but like
Speaker 2: he went around the country and collected poa from all
Speaker 2: the best poe greens on Earth and basically like bread,
Speaker 2: those into this super poa and he's actually now producing
Speaker 2: poe a seed and he's the first guy to ever
Speaker 2: do it. And it's it in the preliminary phases. But
Speaker 2: you know, I've heard some rumors like guys might actually
Speaker 2: seed greens with his poa, which would be a really
Speaker 2: cool thing to see.
Speaker 1: Interesting, that's uh fat, it's you know, it's there's like
Speaker 1: because what you talked about with like the the if
Speaker 1: you dug a hole and this grass would just win out. Yeah, there,
Speaker 1: I imagine a lot of a lot of your job
Speaker 1: sometimes is just fighting what the environment wants to dictate
Speaker 1: versus like what you're trying to do. Sometimes those butt
Speaker 1: heads is there? What are the fights that are worthwhile
Speaker 1: versus the fights that you just eventually give up on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think, uh, Poe is a very temperamental grass, right,
Speaker 2: and it does really really well in the spring and fall.
Speaker 2: Here you get into July August, and you're you're always
Speaker 2: like fighting a losing battle to some degree, right, no
Speaker 2: matter what you do, that Poe is losing root depth
Speaker 2: density over the summer months. Like what I always like
Speaker 2: tell guys like if attempts over eighty five, POE is
Speaker 2: going backwards. Now, over years, we've developed erconomic programs that help,
Speaker 2: you know, prevent any turf health loss, and you know
Speaker 2: we're able to sustain our POA through the summer. Knock
Speaker 2: on wood, you know. But it's it's it's like I
Speaker 2: always love POE because it's it's more of like an art, right,
Speaker 2: it's an art and it's a science, but there's a
Speaker 2: lot of art to it, and you it's it's you know,
Speaker 2: you could push it. You have to know where that
Speaker 2: line in the sand is. But it's a really fun
Speaker 2: plan to babysit per se.
Speaker 1: You guys obviously did a renovation project with Gil Hants.
Speaker 1: What what was what was the process about? You know
Speaker 1: obviously you know you guys have this, You're you're hosting
Speaker 1: major championships, you're a anchor site of the USGA. What
Speaker 1: was the process and ideology around the project?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, you know, so I was here from two
Speaker 2: thousand and ten through twenty sixteen. Left right after the
Speaker 2: open sixteen, got my first superintendent job at the Apple
Speaker 2: Wallmas Club. One of my key mentors in life that
Speaker 2: Dave Delsandro took over like right after I left here.
Speaker 2: He was the superintendent here for six years, and he
Speaker 2: really like he did the bulk of the planning for
Speaker 2: this project, right, And then I came back in the
Speaker 2: fall of twenty two. Dave stayed on for a while,
Speaker 2: helped me through this project in twenty three. But what
Speaker 2: the impetus for the project was the bunkers. The bunkers
Speaker 2: hadn't been rebuilt since two thousand and five. They weren't
Speaker 2: performing well from a drainage perspective. They were very contaminated,
Speaker 2: very inconsistent, a lot of like the steep phones, bunker
Speaker 2: faces were starting to erode, the lips were deteriorating. So
Speaker 2: the club, the club knew that the bunkers had to
Speaker 2: be rebuilt prior to the twenty twenty five US Open.
Speaker 2: Then the club enlisted Gil Hands, Right. Gil Hans comes
Speaker 2: in and says, okay, well, like you know, there is
Speaker 2: an intimate relationship between every bunker on the golf course,
Speaker 2: every green side bunker and the putting surface, every fairway
Speaker 2: bunker in the fairway surface, and you know, then he
Speaker 2: started showing these pictures like, hey, look what this green
Speaker 2: used to look like one hundred years ago. Look how
Speaker 2: big it was. Look how many whole locations there were.
Speaker 2: Look at the elevation of the green. So then became
Speaker 2: like the concept of okay, like let's dig into these greens,
Speaker 2: return the perimeters to their original elevation, and that inherently
Speaker 2: is going to lead to whole locations that haven't existed
Speaker 2: in generations, maybe one hundred years. So that was the
Speaker 2: first step. The second step was, Okay, there's features out here,
Speaker 2: fairway bunkers, runoff areas that are not original to the
Speaker 2: phone's design, So let's remove those and then let's reintegrate
Speaker 2: some of the phone's features that had been taken out
Speaker 2: over the years. And then I think one thing that
Speaker 2: you know, guys like you would recognize, but a lot
Speaker 2: of people won't. Really, a lot of people who aren't
Speaker 2: intimately you know, involved with out wont won't realize this
Speaker 2: during the championship, But like Gil brought a lot of
Speaker 2: the strategy back in the golf course where the golf
Speaker 2: course had kind of become like you know, twenty five
Speaker 2: yard wide fairways to bunkers on each side, like straight
Speaker 2: up the middle, and there's holes out here that phones
Speaker 2: design that had a ton of strategy into them. Like
Speaker 2: number two is a great example where Gil actually widened
Speaker 2: the fairway in the landing zone where you know, now,
Speaker 2: like if the pins on that middle left of the green,
Speaker 2: like really the only way to attack that pin is
Speaker 2: to hit a drive down the right side of that
Speaker 2: fairway right. Number seven is a great example too, where
Speaker 2: he put the cross bunker back in and you can
Speaker 2: play it safe up the right side, but then you
Speaker 2: have a blind shot into the green over a pretty
Speaker 2: penal front right green bunker, or you can carry the
Speaker 2: cross bunker and have a clear view of the green
Speaker 2: and hit straight into the middle and you're not hitting
Speaker 2: over any trouble. So Gil brought a lot of that
Speaker 2: stratg back and that included widening and increasing some of
Speaker 2: the fairway areas back to what they were in the
Speaker 2: phone's era. Then lastly, Gil added about two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty yards of length to the golf course two to
Speaker 2: make sure that the Phone's features weren't play for the
Speaker 2: you know, the best players in the world as we
Speaker 2: host all these championships over the next three decades. So
Speaker 2: that was kind of the thinking behind the project. It
Speaker 2: was really the first time that the club had touched
Speaker 2: the greens to that scale. Some work had been done
Speaker 2: at two over the years, six over the years, but
Speaker 2: it's really the first time that all the greens were
Speaker 2: touched in a major way. So pretty incredible thing to
Speaker 2: be a part of.
Speaker 1: The combination of adding some width in places with the
Speaker 1: recapturing of the pockets in the corners of the greens.
Speaker 1: I think probably is the most exciting, you know, if
Speaker 1: you were going to say twenty sixteen open to now,
Speaker 1: Like why you should be really excited to see the
Speaker 1: new version of Oakmont is just the there's a little
Speaker 1: bit more maybe dynamics in the golf course, Like there's
Speaker 1: there's uh, you you have more a little more optionality.
Speaker 1: Was getting the fairways widened a a process?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Was was that a uh you know? And how did
Speaker 1: that go over with? Like the membership? Who you know,
Speaker 1: Oakmont membership is very proud about the difficulty. I was
Speaker 1: at media day your your president stood up, We're gonna
Speaker 1: overpar Yeah, you know, like, was that was that a difficult,
Speaker 1: uh hurdle to overcome? Was the adding of width?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So it's it's funny. I think I think you
Speaker 2: look at the Oakland membership and Honestly, I'm biased, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure you'll find a more passionate group of members.
Speaker 2: And that passion all comes down to how this golf
Speaker 2: course plays. They want it hard and it's never too fast,
Speaker 2: it's never too firm. Like that's what it's all about, right, Like,
Speaker 2: we have a member events here where our goal is
Speaker 2: to like we're going to go out and we're going
Speaker 2: to get the greens as fast as we could possibly
Speaker 2: get them. Sometimes that means like cutting them eight times,
Speaker 2: rolling them eight times in one morning, right, and that's fun.
Speaker 2: But you know that's how we get these like outrageous
Speaker 2: speeds at times. But you know, to answer your question,
Speaker 2: I think you know I said it in the piece
Speaker 2: we did with you guys last year, like this project
Speaker 2: was either going to be a massive success or a
Speaker 2: complete failure. And you know, Gil really like you look
Speaker 2: at the bunkering around the greens, right, like the depths,
Speaker 2: like the elevation of the green side bunkers really didn't change. However,
Speaker 2: he brought the elevation of the green surface around the
Speaker 2: perimeters down to what they originally were, so like it
Speaker 2: feels like some of the bunkers are shallower However, you
Speaker 2: don't have these backstops anymore, so like you're a lot
Speaker 2: more prone to hit a ball out of a greenside
Speaker 2: bunker and it rolls across the green into another bunker.
Speaker 2: I think the faraway bunkers, you know, generally speaking, they're
Speaker 2: probably not quite as deep as they were, but Gil
Speaker 2: returned like the true flat bottom nature to the fairway
Speaker 2: bunkers that was here during the phones era. So you
Speaker 2: can hit a ball in now and it's going to
Speaker 2: roll up pretty close to that face, and they might
Speaker 2: not be quite as deep, but they're just as penal,
Speaker 2: if not more penal. So I think, like you know,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of like kind of careful consideration
Speaker 2: as we work through this project that like a lot
Speaker 2: of things like the fairway wits and the bunker depths
Speaker 2: might have appeared easier at the get go. But I
Speaker 2: feel pretty comfortable saying that if you pulled the membership now,
Speaker 2: they would not tell you that the golf course got
Speaker 2: easier than it was.
Speaker 1: I think that's I love the Jeff o'gilly's line in
Speaker 1: our video about gravity and how that's like the thing
Speaker 1: that you fight at Oakmont, and I think, like just
Speaker 1: in general, the thing that the restoration has brought out
Speaker 1: is more opportunities for gravity to work against you, you know,
Speaker 1: And there's some some opportunities if you're in the right spot,
Speaker 1: for it to work in your advantage, but it's become
Speaker 1: much more of a thought provoking decision of being intensible
Speaker 1: about where you get to use the gravity in your advantage.
Speaker 1: Do you you know like this is just a hypothetical question,
Speaker 1: I you know, I think I think Wingfoot members after
Speaker 1: the after Bryson one, were you know, kind of shell
Speaker 1: shocked at what he would the modern golfer was able
Speaker 1: to do to their golf course. Do you think if,
Speaker 1: if you know, hypothetically, someone you know is able to
Speaker 1: play an extraordinary tournament and achieve a lower score than expected,
Speaker 1: is there going to be any kick like it will?
Speaker 2: Will?
Speaker 1: Then the question be what do we need to do
Speaker 1: to make it harder? Will that just immediately start after
Speaker 1: the championship?
Speaker 2: I think I think that's a great question, right, So
Speaker 2: I think ultimately the true judge of the restoration is
Speaker 2: going to be how it plays during the championship, because
Speaker 2: Oakmond's all about a championship legacy, and even more so
Speaker 2: the champions who have won at Oakland, right, I think
Speaker 2: it's pretty cool. I think eight of nine US Open
Speaker 2: winners at Oakmond have won at least two majors. So
Speaker 2: that's that's a pretty cool thing to say it. I
Speaker 2: really try to try to not get too locked up
Speaker 2: in you know what, what's the winning score going to be?
Speaker 2: I think the weather has a massive impact on that,
Speaker 2: you know. But I tell you, like, well, it's a
Speaker 2: unique course. There's there's certainly a plethora of birdie opportunities.
Speaker 2: But just as fast as you can make a birdie,
Speaker 2: you can make a double boatie too, right, So you know,
Speaker 2: my only goal through the US Open is to make
Speaker 2: the Oakwah membership proud and the Phone's family proud. You know.
Speaker 2: So time will tell what the score is. But you know,
Speaker 2: simply put, I don't think there's many members here at
Speaker 2: o't want that. I want to see a score too much.
Speaker 1: Under part, yeah, I think like it's it's just a
Speaker 1: nature of modern golf, right the game. The game has changed,
Speaker 1: and the marker of a great score has fundamentally changed.
Speaker 1: I was cus you guys lengthened the golf course. This
Speaker 1: is just like kind of an anecdotal question like is
Speaker 1: there more space or are you at now pretty much
Speaker 1: at your seams?
Speaker 2: I think I think there's there's probably at most without
Speaker 2: doing something like outrageous, probably like two or three holes
Speaker 2: that you could probably still add some length. But you know,
Speaker 2: to your point, it's it's a different game today. And
Speaker 2: you know, like our historian Dave Moore wrote this Parade
Speaker 2: article last year about Johnny Miller's round, you know, shooting
Speaker 2: is sixty three in seventy three, and he wrote in
Speaker 2: that article, like the irons that Johnny Miller hit into
Speaker 2: every hole and it was all like three four, five
Speaker 2: and six irons, not a single wedge, right Like now
Speaker 2: you look at today's game and guys are gonna be
Speaker 2: hitting wedges and short irons into most of the holes
Speaker 2: out here. So's it's it's definitely a different different world
Speaker 2: here today. But I think the golf course has routinely
Speaker 2: held its own through its history.
Speaker 1: I haven't done the math, but like if you were
Speaker 1: going to reenact the seventy three Open and had to
Speaker 1: make Oakmont play the distance that Miller sixty three was in,
Speaker 1: I have to imagine the yardage would be nine thousand
Speaker 1: plus yards, I.
Speaker 2: Think it would. I think it would, and like you know,
Speaker 2: we certainly don't have. Yeah, I don't think it's meant
Speaker 2: to be a you know, seventy eight hundred yard golf course,
Speaker 2: an eight thousand yard golf course. Like that's really when
Speaker 2: you start looking at like, Okay, I think you can,
Speaker 2: you can restore the golf course and keep the phones,
Speaker 2: feel and vision. You start pushing t's in stupid places,
Speaker 2: then it's probably not a great thing for the club.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So memberships, I think in general typically complain.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is like.
Speaker 1: I've done. I remember being in my twenties when I
Speaker 1: was a member at a club and playing regularly. I
Speaker 1: went to my our superintendent and said, like, what's up
Speaker 1: with that flag? You know, what's up with that whole location.
Speaker 1: So memberships generally complain about courses and setups are too hard.
Speaker 1: You guys have like the reverse culture, which we've touched on,
Speaker 1: where like, you know, it's like total acceptance. There's there's
Speaker 1: a sadistic enthusiasm among your memberships about a membership about
Speaker 1: how hard it is. Are there any holes or conditioning
Speaker 1: spots that even Oakmont members have come in and complained,
Speaker 1: saying it's too much, I.
Speaker 2: Would say it's it's extremely rare, like we have, you know,
Speaker 2: we have a spring swap party, a full swap party
Speaker 2: in you know, last year at closing day, the Greens
Speaker 2: are rolling eighteen right, and you might roll your eyes
Speaker 2: and say that's not possible. We have video footage like
Speaker 2: it was a really I.
Speaker 1: Can't imagine some of the shots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, but the memberships they're playing in eight
Speaker 2: somems that better ball eat thems, like you know, so
Speaker 2: one out of eight of those guys is going to
Speaker 2: get the ball in the hole. And to answer your question,
Speaker 2: like you know, when the Greens are thirteen thirteen and
Speaker 2: a half, I get questions like hey, like you know,
Speaker 2: how come you didn't mow a roll in this morning?
Speaker 2: Like that's you know, and it's unbelievable membership like couldn't
Speaker 2: be more supportive. But yeah, it's never Hey, that whole
Speaker 2: location was too hard or the Greens are too fast
Speaker 2: or too firm, like you do not hear that. I
Speaker 2: don't think the membership would want to play out of
Speaker 2: the like the rough that's out there in perpetuity, but
Speaker 2: like even that, like they're eating that up.
Speaker 1: I would love to talk a little bit about the rough.
Speaker 1: Phil famously alleged that it was unsafe in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. Ye do you guys maintain it in a
Speaker 1: certain way to get it to like stand up more?
Speaker 1: And there are some rumors about experimentation with different strains
Speaker 1: in the last year. Are those true?
Speaker 2: I would love to sit here and tell you that, Like,
Speaker 2: we have a plant breeding lab, and you know within
Speaker 2: our meeting special facility, we don't. I would tell you
Speaker 2: there's a ton of science that goes into getting the
Speaker 2: rough like it is right now from a fertility perspective,
Speaker 2: a mower set up perspective. So we've certainly done some
Speaker 2: things out there to the rough that you know we
Speaker 2: haven't done before. And but you know, did we invent
Speaker 2: a new cultivar of grass? No, certainly not. I would
Speaker 2: love to take credit for that, but no, it's uh.
Speaker 2: You know, we actually like typically present our rough for
Speaker 2: the membership. It's very fair. You know, we typically cut
Speaker 2: it at two and a quarter inches. It's typically pretty lean.
Speaker 2: And then you know, going into championships we flip that
Speaker 2: because it's it's part of the fabric of Oakmont. You know,
Speaker 2: that's a great like you want to talk about nasty rough,
Speaker 2: go back and look at the rough in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: three when Johnny Miller won, and it looks like our
Speaker 2: native areas, like like twelve inches tall. There's sheetheads on
Speaker 2: the blue grass. There's weeds growing everywhere, like that's that's
Speaker 2: what it was. Now is like a much more manicured
Speaker 2: fair version of that. But it's always been part of
Speaker 2: the championship legacy at Oaklood.
Speaker 1: What are you guys doing differently with the mowing and fertility?
Speaker 1: Mowing and fertility too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, really that program starts about a
Speaker 2: year in advance, so we we we start flipping it
Speaker 2: and you know, like last fall, we put out a
Speaker 2: controlled release fertility source that you know, really kind of
Speaker 2: loads up in the soil over the winter. As soon
Speaker 2: as you start coming out of dormancy that fertility is
Speaker 2: are releasing, we make another controlled release fertility application back
Speaker 2: in or February. Then as soon as we got into April,
Speaker 2: we're out there spoon feeding several different nutrients on a
Speaker 2: weekly basis, and we're constantly adjusting those rates. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of fun stuff you can do with
Speaker 2: fertility if you're trying to create penal rough and you know,
Speaker 2: starts with nitrogen to produce upright growth, and then you
Speaker 2: know your potassium silica sources. That's how you get the
Speaker 2: grass to spring back up and be upright, and you
Speaker 2: know that's how you build density and lea turgidity and
Speaker 2: things like that. So that's a really fun part of
Speaker 2: what we do because ultimately, like you know, the tight
Speaker 2: cut playing surfaces, we really don't do much different for
Speaker 2: a championship here. It's it's really the rough.
Speaker 1: So I think that's like one of the misconceptions is
Speaker 1: like when when people see the mowers come out like
Speaker 1: pre tournament, like the week of, everyone's like, what are
Speaker 1: they doing? What are they But like freshly cut grass
Speaker 1: stands up straight. Yes, and when it stands up straight,
Speaker 1: the ball goes to the bottom. And it's the hardest
Speaker 1: rough to play out of because of that versus if
Speaker 1: you don't cut it, then it's going to get trampled
Speaker 1: down and the lies are going to become a little
Speaker 1: bit easier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually, like you know, we we made some
Speaker 2: adjustments to our mowers, some custom some parts custom made,
Speaker 2: so like we can actually cut grass up to the
Speaker 2: height that we want for the championship for that exact reason.
Speaker 2: You know, if you just grow it up to whatever
Speaker 2: three inches and let it grow from there, it's going
Speaker 2: to start growing over itself and it's going to lay
Speaker 2: over then the ball sits on top. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of thought and science that goes into producing rough
Speaker 2: like we have right now.
Speaker 1: So the mower is custom so that you can mow
Speaker 1: with minimal cut but get the effects of the of
Speaker 1: the rough standing up.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that the I mean, when you buy a
Speaker 2: mower from whoever it is, Toro, John Deere, you name it,
Speaker 2: it maxes out right typically at like around three and
Speaker 2: a half inches. So we want to be mowing grass
Speaker 2: higher than that, I'll say. So we one of our
Speaker 2: members actually owns a metal shop, so you know, we
Speaker 2: we took the arms that come off the rotary decks
Speaker 2: on our rotary mowers and three D scanned them and
Speaker 2: had steel arms made that were longer, and had shrouds
Speaker 2: made to wrap around the rotary decks so we could
Speaker 2: maintain suction. So the rotary decks are actually standing the
Speaker 2: grass up as they're cutting it. So and that's not
Speaker 2: like revolutionary like thoughts it's it's just something we.
Speaker 1: So we might see mowers out like every night.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say every night, but you know, I think
Speaker 2: we'll certainly be mowing the rough relatively close to the championship.
Speaker 2: And then you know, depending on you know, is it dry,
Speaker 2: is it windy, is it not like scoring? I think
Speaker 2: a lot of factors come into play there on what
Speaker 2: happens through the championship.
Speaker 1: Kind of a last few questions, I want to get
Speaker 1: you out of here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but with.
Speaker 1: The new course that you worked the twenty sixteen championship,
Speaker 1: what do you think the biggest difference will be in
Speaker 1: this year with Oakmont versus twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Whole locations first and foremost, I think, Yeah, the way
Speaker 2: the greens were in sixteen, the majority of the whole
Speaker 2: locations were kind of on the interior of the greens
Speaker 2: because all the greens around the perimeters kind of flashed up.
Speaker 2: You have those backstops there. You didn't really have many
Speaker 2: whole locations around that three percent slope you could use
Speaker 2: at championship speeds, you know, and now we do. So
Speaker 2: I think the players the golf world, they're going to
Speaker 2: see a lot of whole locations that haven't been there
Speaker 2: here for one hundred years. And then you know there's
Speaker 2: some incredible features Gil brought back into play that again
Speaker 2: didn't exist. You know, the ditch across ten Fairway, the
Speaker 2: eleventh Fairway expansion, all the way down to the ditch
Speaker 2: on the right, Like there's several examples of that. So
Speaker 2: but I would say the greens will have whole locations
Speaker 2: on the greens will have the greatest impact.
Speaker 1: Do you have a couple of favorite new whole locations
Speaker 1: that you hope to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's some really cool whole locations on
Speaker 2: the thirteenth Green. I'm not going to name names, but
Speaker 2: I think you could have some fun ones on there.
Speaker 2: There's some great whole locations on number two, now number three,
Speaker 2: Like there's a front left hole location that if you
Speaker 2: look at aerials from sixteen, like that whole location would
Speaker 2: have been in a greenside bunker nine years ago. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's gonna be exciting to see what the USJ decided.
Speaker 3: To go with.
Speaker 1: I feel like Hole three is maybe the whole Like
Speaker 1: if you've never ever been on property, is like you
Speaker 1: get up to the top of that green. On media Day,
Speaker 1: we teed off four, So it was the last hole.
Speaker 1: You get up there and it's just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I cannot believe this green, this entire golf hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's ah, that's an incredible hole. And you know,
Speaker 2: like part of the challenge is you approach these championships
Speaker 2: is like slowing yourself down enough to actually like enjoy
Speaker 2: it and take it in right. So like almost every
Speaker 2: day I'll try to like, that's my spot. It's actually
Speaker 2: where I propose to my wife on the third green
Speaker 2: here at Aumont. So like you go up there during
Speaker 2: the Golden Hour, I'm not sure there's a better place
Speaker 2: on Earth, at least to me.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we don't get rain so that we don't see
Speaker 1: anybody playing the third hole at Golden Hour, you know,
Speaker 1: because that'd be really the only way we would get
Speaker 1: somebody playing the third green at Golden Hour. So hopefully
Speaker 1: none of the viewers see that. Maybe if you're out
Speaker 1: for a practice round, out for a tournament round, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a spot to go watch. Any other favorite
Speaker 1: viewing spots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know, eighteen t's incredible. Fourteen t's incredible.
Speaker 2: I think one of the coolest things about Oakmont and
Speaker 2: you know, I always stake back to this, like, you know,
Speaker 2: Henry Phones decides he wants to build a golf course,
Speaker 2: and you know, like I always think, like I'm sure
Speaker 2: he looked at other pieces of land, right, but the
Speaker 2: one he's settled on Oakmont. Like you talk about gravity,
Speaker 2: like everything goes slopes towards the turnpike, right, So it's
Speaker 2: a natural amphitheater. So you know, especially without trees out there,
Speaker 2: like there's really not like a spot on the golf
Speaker 2: course where you can't see at least several other golf holes.
Speaker 2: So I would say there's some incredible vantage points, but
Speaker 2: in reality, like you have great vantage points from the
Speaker 2: first t all the way through the eighteenth green.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I and you know this one of the one
Speaker 1: of the virtues of not having trees on the property. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it adds to the vantage points. This still seems to
Speaker 1: be a hot topic with the public. To be complete completely, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, anytime a championship comes to oak Wand, the
Speaker 2: trees always come up. And at oak Wand it's really
Speaker 2: simple like when Henry Phones built a golf course, it
Speaker 2: was a farm before that, it didn't have trees on it,
Speaker 2: and that's how he designed the golf course, right, So,
Speaker 2: like trees were never part of this strategy of the
Speaker 2: golf course here at oakwond there's certainly not today. Is
Speaker 2: that the right thing for every golf course on Earth?
Speaker 2: Definitely not, but it's certainly the right thing here at
Speaker 2: earth moment.
Speaker 1: All right, last question if your music guy, what's what's
Speaker 1: the song what's the song that you should listen to
Speaker 1: if you wanted to think about Oak while listening to
Speaker 1: music to really feel Oakmont.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'd really I'd really have to think about that one.
Speaker 2: But it's something it's something like sydnistic and I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't have a great answer for that
Speaker 2: right now. I wish I did. I really wish it.
Speaker 1: I should have sent that, uh that email email to
Speaker 1: you last night. I'll propose, uh can't stop by the
Speaker 1: Red Hot Chili Peppers. Like right from the start, it's
Speaker 1: just going and like you're you're gonna be like you
Speaker 1: It just gets your like heart pumping right.
Speaker 2: Away, something about like you know, going to battle right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like a song you would want to
Speaker 1: listen to before like you you got into like an
Speaker 1: alter case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: And then uh, yeah, what's the what's the what's the
Speaker 1: best time to get coffee at Speedway.
Speaker 2: Four point thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: Is that when a fresh pot comes?
Speaker 2: Oh it's you know, they get one of those machines
Speaker 2: where you walk in it grinds them for you right
Speaker 2: there and you press the button. It's great. Speedway coffee
Speaker 2: is great. Sheets coffee is very good too. When I
Speaker 2: used to come from the other direction, I stopped at
Speaker 2: Sheets every morning. Now I stop at Speedway every morning.
Speaker 1: But yeah, uh, they don't have a big jug that
Speaker 1: can bring to you one one day.
Speaker 2: No, no, they don't. But we'll have well, we'll have
Speaker 2: plenty of coffee and energy drinks kicking around the shop here, so.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll bring I'll bring some bags of of of
Speaker 1: our coffee for you.
Speaker 2: Oh, that'd be great, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 1: Good luck. I wish you well on your your week
Speaker 1: of sleep deprivation and yeah, and then then I also
Speaker 1: wish you well the following week when you're trying to
Speaker 1: catch up on it at home after being all gone
Speaker 1: for an entire week with young kids.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's awesome, you know. It's something I think everyone
Speaker 2: on our staff has worked their entire careers towards and
Speaker 2: you know, my wife is incredibly supportive, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's gonna be really cool to share share this experience
Speaker 2: with my wife, my kids. You know, the fact that
Speaker 2: it ends on Father's Day, that's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, it's amazing to have. So I'm praying
Speaker 1: for a home game US Open so I get a
Speaker 1: Father's Day you know, with the kiddos sometime in the future.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, have a have a great championship. We
Speaker 1: can't wait to see the the product on TV. And
Speaker 1: congrats on on all the work that went into this year.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Appreciate you guys having me.
Speaker 1: All right. Big thanks to Mike and Gil again and
Speaker 1: also to PJ Clark who edited this monster episode. This
Speaker 1: was a bigger episode, big lift for PJ. Big thanks
Speaker 1: to him for for being on the on the soundboard
Speaker 1: and putting this all together. We will be back, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the top on Friday or on Sunday
Speaker 1: for our preview podcasts about the US Open and look
Speaker 1: forward to rolling into US Open week. I hope this
Speaker 1: gets everybody excited about the upcoming major at Oakmont