Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: In Part two of our conversation with Andrew Green, we
Speaker 1: discussed as restoration work at Inverness and Oak Hill, a
Speaker 1: bunker less course he's building, and much more. If you
Speaker 1: miss part one, be sure to check it out. And
Speaker 1: here's Andrew Green.
Speaker 2: The fried egg requires a different technique.
Speaker 3: What you need to do is actually square the face
Speaker 3: so it'll dig down underneath that bad lie and propel
Speaker 3: that ball right out onto the green.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Playing out of a buried lion a
Speaker 1: bunker is completely different than playing out of a nice
Speaker 1: clean lion a greenside bunker. You need to be aggressive
Speaker 1: on any shop, whether it's sitting cleanly for its Frida Egg. Well,
Speaker 1: we've all faced it.
Speaker 2: The dreaded Friday eggs not to be feared, though it's
Speaker 2: actually a pretty easy shot to hit.
Speaker 1: There's very few places that have just like been content
Speaker 1: with doing nothing well, and some of the best spots
Speaker 1: end up being the ones that were broke for a
Speaker 1: really long time because they didn't have any money to
Speaker 1: do anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Philmont in Philadelphia had struggled for a while trying to
Speaker 2: figure out how to keep going and they're kind of
Speaker 2: still working through some of the management stuff. But that
Speaker 2: golf course, there was some debate whether it was Flynn
Speaker 2: or who designed it the north especially there, and we
Speaker 2: kind of uncovered it was Willie Park Junior.
Speaker 3: But because they didn't do.
Speaker 2: A lot along the way, it's so well preserved. You're
Speaker 2: exactly right, it's it's pretty amazing times.
Speaker 1: The best thing is when they're broke.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 3: And look.
Speaker 2: And then you get in circumstances like at oak Hill.
Speaker 2: The West course wasn't the championship course, right, so not
Speaker 2: a lot got done to it, and those greens are spectacular,
Speaker 2: and I mean, I think the kind of the joke
Speaker 2: there is, you know if the West course greens are
Speaker 2: on the East course, I mean, wow, right, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's hopefully you know at some point what we're
Speaker 2: going to get to do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's got to help that you have like
Speaker 1: that course sitting next to the other one and for
Speaker 1: people so you're working at oak Hill, yeah, because you
Speaker 1: can draw off a lot of stuff they did there,
Speaker 1: and I imagine there's a lot of common themes on
Speaker 1: the same property.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think we've done that.
Speaker 3: We took.
Speaker 2: It was a good educational tool, right because the members
Speaker 2: innately knew that they liked the West Course and the things.
Speaker 2: They couldn't necessarily identify it, but you could walk out
Speaker 2: and you could start talking them through. Okay, well this
Speaker 2: why you probably like this is because of this. You know,
Speaker 2: that's what that hole over there really needs is a
Speaker 2: little bit of this flavor. Yeah, it's certainly helped. The
Speaker 2: big thing on the West Course is most of the
Speaker 2: fairway bunkers got taken out, but the shapes and the
Speaker 2: landforms are still there. But the other cool thing there
Speaker 2: is when you look at Ross's notes, the notes he
Speaker 2: made on the West Course are different from the notes
Speaker 2: he made on the East.
Speaker 3: Brilliant.
Speaker 2: You know that he was looking at kind of some
Speaker 2: differentiated styling between the two courses.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. That was a course that he spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time at, right, How can you tell when
Speaker 1: it's a course that Ross spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: at versus like I know Inverness is one that he
Speaker 1: spent a ton of time at, versus one that one
Speaker 1: of his associates did.
Speaker 3: Though, So.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a couple of things he obviously did a
Speaker 2: bunch of work right, and he did some whistle stop
Speaker 2: things that seems like maybe just drove a stake in
Speaker 2: the ground and tea here green there, we'll see you
Speaker 2: later kind of thing. Certainly it seems there was some
Speaker 2: of that. I think his early work is very interesting.
Speaker 2: It's not standardized in any form. And playing Royal Dornick
Speaker 2: opened my eyes to seeing how he probably saw how
Speaker 2: creative golf holes could be, because that piece of property
Speaker 2: at Dornick is amazing. But the things that I could
Speaker 2: see his early work obviously were pretty much all him.
Speaker 2: The one interesting thing is you don't find a lot
Speaker 2: of early drawings that were totally done by him. There's
Speaker 2: like most times it's some kind of as built, or
Speaker 2: a club member or an engineer or somebody did a
Speaker 2: representation of what got built. So even here at Inverness,
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineteen drawing that I pretty much call an
Speaker 2: as built, we can't find solid evidence that it was
Speaker 2: him or his associate that drew it. It seems to
Speaker 2: be somebody here locally that created that plan. Working at
Speaker 2: Keep Your Country Club in Wilmington, North Carolina. He did
Speaker 2: two versions. One was way early and that drawing that
Speaker 2: they have is kind of an as built crazy. Some
Speaker 2: of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life
Speaker 2: on a golf course were part of that drawing. And
Speaker 2: then he's got one from maybe just a little after
Speaker 2: forty with McGovern and it's more of the standardized drawing
Speaker 2: that you would see out of his offices. The coolest stuff,
Speaker 2: the stuff I love spending time on are his handwritten
Speaker 2: notes when he made psyche visits after he had associates,
Speaker 2: because it blows my mind how quickly it appears. And
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly how long he was, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't have great records of he arrived on Saturday
Speaker 2: and left on the following Sunday or what, but to
Speaker 2: see how he took those field notes, Like at Oakhill
Speaker 2: there's field notes and the envelope from where he stayed
Speaker 2: in the hotel that he put it all together, and
Speaker 2: then he sent it to his office, and the office
Speaker 2: created construction drawings that pretty much followed his notes. There
Speaker 2: were maybe a few little tweaks, but man, those handwritten
Speaker 2: notes are spectacular and his hand, his touch with the pencil.
Speaker 2: They're not the most artistic things in the world. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like have you studied some of Mackenzie's drawings, Right,
Speaker 2: They're not the most artistic things in the world, but
Speaker 2: they really help tell the story of what he was
Speaker 2: trying to create. You know, Yeah, they're so cool, They're awesome.
Speaker 2: I could get lost in that stuff.
Speaker 1: Past the Tempo's got the best menu in golf because
Speaker 1: they put all of his little little catches in the menu.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, they've asked me here at Eenverness for
Speaker 2: some of mine from construction, and look, I'm probably a
Speaker 2: little embarrassed by how rough some of them are, because
Speaker 2: it's you know, I really like to provide field direction
Speaker 2: and help get the guys headed in the right direction
Speaker 2: of what I'm looking for before we even you'll get
Speaker 2: on site to work work on the things in the dirt.
Speaker 2: I kind of I call them tpee sketches to try
Speaker 2: to lighten the load that they're not supposed to be
Speaker 2: this incredible artistic thing. They're supposed to provide direction and
Speaker 2: show which way water's supposed to move and where the
Speaker 2: high point is. And you know, but I actually I
Speaker 2: had somebody draw sketch something up and they send it
Speaker 2: to me, and I was kind of laughing about it,
Speaker 2: and they were like, well, you don't like it, and
Speaker 2: I sent them up one of mackenzie sketches from Augusta
Speaker 2: and I was like, no, I was saying, it looks
Speaker 2: a lot like this. I was like, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: That stuff's great. I mean, because you just think about
Speaker 2: the day, the limited tools the guys had, you know,
Speaker 2: they're really just soaking it all in and creating these
Speaker 2: amazing things without you know, the bulldozer, and uh, it's
Speaker 2: just it's really cool at the craft. You know, it
Speaker 2: was a craft, and that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes I get stuck in technology and in
Speaker 2: the business of it, but man, it was it was
Speaker 2: such a craft to those guys, and even Ross that
Speaker 2: that that worked a lot and traveled a lot. And
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how he did all the courses or
Speaker 2: obviously if he did all the courses that are assigned
Speaker 2: to him, but the guy was brilliant.
Speaker 1: With with Inverness, and you know, you it was a
Speaker 1: course that was, you know, brilliant ross design. Obviously, tons
Speaker 1: of history, six major championships, some senior opens, you know,
Speaker 1: just rich history. One of the most historic clubs in
Speaker 1: the Midwest. But it was a course that kind of
Speaker 1: was like a squirrel that you described earlier. So when
Speaker 1: you came here, you know, what were what were kind
Speaker 1: of the biggest challenges with this project? And do you
Speaker 1: feel more pressure when you come to course like Okill
Speaker 1: or here like Inverness where you have all that history.
Speaker 1: That was like four questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no, I'll start with the pressure part.
Speaker 2: I mean I feel pressure at every place I'm working.
Speaker 2: I love the idea that when I'm done, there's a
Speaker 2: sense that it's hard to tell what I've done. I
Speaker 2: think that's a success, you know, if I can check
Speaker 2: that off the list. And you know, sometimes I'm probably
Speaker 2: more successful than others. I'm probably my harshest critic. One
Speaker 2: thing I love about like Pinehurst and thinking about the
Speaker 2: way Ross worked there as he was constantly tweaking his stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, to have that freedom is great because you
Speaker 2: always are seeing something that you know, maybe I could
Speaker 2: tweak here. There the pressure here, at Inverness and at Okill,
Speaker 2: it's just that for me, it's the pressure of and
Speaker 2: it's every club, but it's you know, I want to
Speaker 2: do what's right for the club, and it's it's not
Speaker 2: just the members of the club. Obviously I want to
Speaker 2: do it's right for them, but I want to do
Speaker 2: what's right for all of that history. And it's so
Speaker 2: hard because the game changes so much. Like, how do
Speaker 2: you know this whole idea of restoration is restoration exactly
Speaker 2: the way it was? Well, that's all finding good. But
Speaker 2: I can almost show you countless examples of where something
Speaker 2: that was built or drawn one day was changed within
Speaker 2: a number of years, something that changed, you know, like
Speaker 2: you said, the sand lines you know, you said, you
Speaker 2: know they evolve over time. Yeah, absolutely, you know, the
Speaker 2: greens get sand splash out of bunkers and the top
Speaker 2: lines change all the time. You know, the guy on
Speaker 2: the mower has a rough night and the skipson area
Speaker 2: now the green starts to get you know, rounded or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, things are constantly changing. So trying to trying
Speaker 2: to respect the history of these clubs, trying to draw.
Speaker 2: I love doing the research. I love finding old stuff.
Speaker 2: I found both of these clubs at Inverness and Okill.
Speaker 2: I've found documents that the club didn't even have, people
Speaker 2: didn't even know was out there. You know, using that
Speaker 2: as inspiration is exciting, it's not you know, I don't
Speaker 2: ever feel like I'm selling myself short when I can
Speaker 2: find a historical document and I can draw something off
Speaker 2: of it to put it back in the ground that
Speaker 2: fits the modern game. You know, it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be Andrew's design. It can be Andrew's respect of what
Speaker 2: was there. And look, you open yourself up for criticism.
Speaker 2: And everybody's a golf course architect, and everybody has an opinion,
Speaker 2: and I certainly understand that, and I listen hopefully maybe
Speaker 2: more or at least on the better than average side
Speaker 2: of most guys that do this. But it's the first
Speaker 2: day we drove a stake at Inverness on the new
Speaker 2: third Green, I was nervous. It's not doing a bunker
Speaker 2: line or you know, a couple bunkers on a golf course.
Speaker 2: That's one thing, creating golf holes that hopefully more history
Speaker 2: will be built on. It's very humbling and nerve wracking
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: So and this, of course Invernessa got worked on by
Speaker 1: Tom Fazio in the seventies late seventies and kind of altered.
Speaker 1: And so you built three new golf holes essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, three new golf holes, and then we adjusted a
Speaker 2: couple of others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that, I mean, how do you approach building
Speaker 1: new golf holes on a historic course.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a crazy story in that I showed
Speaker 2: up here the first time and I think it was
Speaker 2: August of sixteen, walked the golf course and I was
Speaker 2: I mean, when I got out of the car, I
Speaker 2: was blown away by the property. And it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of like some of these golf courses that maybe you
Speaker 2: respect a little bit more the more you're on them.
Speaker 2: But the way Ross put the golf holes, his holes
Speaker 2: on the property, he just did little things that made
Speaker 2: them different. I mean, you could criticize them that there
Speaker 2: were a lot of repetitive things or things that were
Speaker 2: a little similar, but when you really studied it, you
Speaker 2: see how you know, like the first greens up in
Speaker 2: the air, the tenth greens down in the air, even
Speaker 2: though they play parallel in at somewhat the same distance.
Speaker 3: You know, those things blew me away.
Speaker 2: And as I was walking the outer part of the property,
Speaker 2: I crossed through the fence line out into the farm
Speaker 2: field and saw basically high points and things that I thought, well,
Speaker 2: based on what I've seen and how Ross put golf
Speaker 2: holes on the ground, and identified good tea and green
Speaker 2: locations and kind of connected the dots.
Speaker 3: I was like, well that works there.
Speaker 2: And for the new part three third hole, that's a
Speaker 2: long par three.
Speaker 3: Its idea.
Speaker 2: My idea for it was to replicate the original eighth hole,
Speaker 2: which was two hundred and nine yards in the nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty US opened up a pretty good golf hole for then, right,
Speaker 2: like a yeah, right, So all of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 2: standing on one high point and I'm taking my rangefinder
Speaker 2: and shooting the next high point and it's two fifty
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, well that works pretty well. And
Speaker 2: then walk out and see how with a little bit
Speaker 2: of work and keeping the soil all there, I can
Speaker 2: replicate a lot of what was on original eight, even
Speaker 2: though original eight was on a pretty flat piece of ground.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: I walked out behind that green location out in this
Speaker 2: farm field, and you know, it was another high point
Speaker 2: and you could kind of see looking back how a
Speaker 2: golf hole could fit that would come to be the
Speaker 2: new four And walked through the tree line and kind
Speaker 2: of saw how the golf hole would fit the ground
Speaker 2: really well. Right, without doing a lot of work, it
Speaker 2: just would fit. And so when I did my interview
Speaker 2: in November. I showed them how I thought that could work.
Speaker 2: I showed the committee here, and originally I had the
Speaker 2: fourth hole as potentially a par five because looking at
Speaker 2: just the way the yardage is set up and with
Speaker 2: you know, the two par fives, and you know, did
Speaker 2: that make any sense? I showed that as a potential option.
Speaker 2: As we worked through the process, it became clear and
Speaker 2: clearer that we could represent the original seventh hole, which
Speaker 2: was a hard dog leg left that was somewhat short,
Speaker 2: but we could I could build that as that new
Speaker 2: fourth hole, and then everything fell onto the line, the
Speaker 2: green site location, the forward T. You can play the
Speaker 2: forward T and it could you could hit driver try
Speaker 2: to get it on the green almost like Ted Ray
Speaker 2: did on the original seventh and twenty. You could go
Speaker 2: way back and have this amazing, really hard golfl you know,
Speaker 2: it just it really it just fell into place. It
Speaker 2: was like it was meant to be.
Speaker 1: It's fine. I Uh. There's a course in Chicago, oak
Speaker 1: Park Country Club, and in the way the creek works
Speaker 1: on that on the fifth hole there, there's really similar
Speaker 1: to the way it works on that hole where you've
Speaker 1: got like you kind of hit into like a low
Speaker 1: with a creek running along the left that cuts across
Speaker 1: the fairway, and you have to kind of make a
Speaker 1: decision like it's depending on what tea you play. If
Speaker 1: you play back, it's just hit driver as good as
Speaker 1: you can hit it. But if you play up, it's like,
Speaker 1: do I try and fly over the creek? Do I
Speaker 1: try to lay it short? Do I play it right?
Speaker 1: Do I play it left? Like And it's it's so
Speaker 1: interesting because it like when I stepped on that, I
Speaker 1: was like, God, this really reminds me of this hole. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like that's a Ross course and it just
Speaker 1: kind of it does just fit. And that's like my
Speaker 1: favorit whole out there, it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: cool hole. Yeah, greens out of this world.
Speaker 2: And it you know, it was like it was it
Speaker 2: was like Ross would have doing his little sketches and
Speaker 2: stuff walking the property. He would have identified kind of
Speaker 2: similar things. And it hopefully people will and it certainly
Speaker 2: appears that way that people will feel like those holes
Speaker 2: fit the property better than the old holes you know
Speaker 2: from the seventies. In that we tried to draw on
Speaker 2: all the things that was that were done on the
Speaker 2: original holes and tried to just pull that into what
Speaker 2: we did on the new.
Speaker 1: UH with with you. So you've got Now you've got Coioto,
Speaker 1: uh Siota, ok Hill Andverness championship golf courses with championship pedigree.
Speaker 1: I mean, how does that compare to when you're doing
Speaker 1: a project for just like a membership play? Do you
Speaker 1: is there anything different that goes, you know, with what
Speaker 1: you're doing?
Speaker 2: There really isn't other than I'll draw extra center. I'm
Speaker 2: a big believer in drawing center lines from every te
Speaker 2: and evaluating my design for every player. If you read
Speaker 2: all the great guys, almost every single one of them,
Speaker 2: and you know Thomas McKenzie, Flynn Ross, they all talked
Speaker 2: about the best golf courses are capable of. I think
Speaker 2: Ross says it's the first class golfer in the everyday player.
Speaker 2: They all talk about it and that, you know, that's
Speaker 2: so important. So I'll draw a center line from every
Speaker 2: t on these championship courses. I'll draw one at three
Speaker 2: twenty five. The others I'm not, you know, three hundreds plenty.
Speaker 2: You know, guys can hit it farther obviously, and even
Speaker 2: guys can hit it more than three to twenty five
Speaker 2: on some of these championships. That's probably the biggest difference
Speaker 2: just from my process. Otherwise, it's trying to make things
Speaker 2: work and fit on the ground, what's best for the
Speaker 2: golf course, and then you know, extreme yardages unfortunately, I
Speaker 2: guess it's good for business, but you know, maybe bad
Speaker 2: for the game.
Speaker 3: With the golf ball.
Speaker 2: But the biggest difference I guess maybe between Okill and
Speaker 2: Inverness and Siota is.
Speaker 3: At Okill, the.
Speaker 2: East course is the course that's the championship and the
Speaker 2: members are playing that every day to have fun, you know,
Speaker 2: they're playing it with their guests and to get a
Speaker 2: kind of a change of pace. But if they're out
Speaker 2: to just really enjoy, they're probably playing the West. So
Speaker 2: that's quite a bit of different dynamic than here at Inverness,
Speaker 2: where people are playing multiple times a week to enjoy
Speaker 2: the game and have fun, you know. So there's maybe
Speaker 2: a little more balance that we really tried to work
Speaker 2: on here and Siota versus you know, Okill, where it's
Speaker 2: a little more that's kind of the championship course.
Speaker 3: But that's also the luxury.
Speaker 2: They have of having the two courses We're still trying
Speaker 2: to make that course more enjoyable for the everyday player,
Speaker 2: building forward, t's widening, short landing zones, doing some of
Speaker 2: those things, but as far as like bunker depth than things,
Speaker 2: it's a little more extreme.
Speaker 1: There between the three of them, say East Course, Iota
Speaker 1: and Inverness, Like if you could take one thing that
Speaker 1: each of them do the best and make like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you were just making a figurative super course, if
Speaker 1: you could take one aspect of each's design, which would
Speaker 1: what would be?
Speaker 2: I think what we're seeing at Toyota is some of
Speaker 2: the most unique elements of any golf course I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: When you look at the original construction pictures and you
Speaker 2: look at the Dodo bird from the twenty six open,
Speaker 2: there are things on that drawing and things that are
Speaker 2: represented in the pictures we have that I've never seen anywhere. Now,
Speaker 2: they might be other places and maybe I just haven't
Speaker 2: seen them or experienced it, and that's fine, but there
Speaker 2: are elements there that are incredibly unique.
Speaker 3: So I would definitely draw that piece from there. O kill.
Speaker 3: It's got to be all the trees, I got it. No,
Speaker 3: I'm kidding. Uh No.
Speaker 2: The property at oak Kill is spectacular. The it's the
Speaker 2: golf holes change directions so gracefully, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's not like a forced switch. It's like they just
Speaker 2: flow from one to the next. And I think that's
Speaker 2: something that I really love about the East Course and
Speaker 2: the way the property is utilized. We're working on the trees,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to get to a balance there. They're
Speaker 2: gonna be trees at Okill, there's no doubt.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be Oakmont, not even close. But we're
Speaker 2: trying to get the best trees there and at Everness.
Speaker 2: You know, I think some of the greens are pretty
Speaker 2: cool in a.
Speaker 3: Sneaky way, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: There there's a lot of variety to them, and yeah,
Speaker 1: just got neat little corners and yeah, I mean like
Speaker 1: even that second green, how it's got it's kind of
Speaker 1: got like depressions on It's like a it's almost like
Speaker 1: a lego, a square lego with like two depressions on
Speaker 1: the corner and two of the corners and the other
Speaker 1: corners are raised up a little.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're they're really cool.
Speaker 1: It's uh yeah, that greens here are sweet. I think
Speaker 1: that's That's something I got I came away with is
Speaker 1: like they've got really cool green complexes and now it's
Speaker 1: got like the yardage. It's like that's I think. I
Speaker 1: think what you can take away from Shinnakok especially is
Speaker 1: like yardage isn't the chief defense. It's important for with
Speaker 1: with these with the modern golfer, but green complexes are
Speaker 1: by far the most important thing.
Speaker 3: No doubt.
Speaker 2: And I think that good greens give you the opportunity
Speaker 2: to set up as hard as you want or is
Speaker 2: potentially quote unquote as easy as you want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a variety.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and you can have middle pins that aren't
Speaker 1: easy exactly and at first, but but you got to
Speaker 1: be on the right side of them.
Speaker 2: And in some of those interior contours were talked about
Speaker 2: that yesterday I think really helped define that.
Speaker 1: So we we've talked a lot about Roth. Who who
Speaker 1: do you think is the most underappreciated architect?
Speaker 2: Well you're gonna love this, I guess, But Flynn has
Speaker 2: got to be right.
Speaker 3: He's gotta be wild Bill. Yeah, gosh, he was. He
Speaker 3: was so ahead of his time.
Speaker 2: I'd ask anybody to go find find the the original
Speaker 2: documents not not reproductions, but go find the scans of
Speaker 2: his his his essays that he wrote in twenty seven.
Speaker 2: You could read every essay he wrote and know more
Speaker 2: in an evening reading those than than spending weeks studying
Speaker 2: other other golf books or what have you. He understood
Speaker 2: the game from so many different perspectives. It's something I'm
Speaker 2: striving to understand and work towards. I actually have a
Speaker 2: quote on the back of my business card about the
Speaker 2: best way to whet the appetite of a player is
Speaker 2: to offer an incentive and provide a reward. And that
Speaker 2: is such a beautiful statement of it's not and he
Speaker 2: goes on to say, and it's not requiring you to
Speaker 2: hit this amazing golf shot, but it's basically hit the
Speaker 2: best golf shot you can make. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 2: what golf's all about, you know. I think I used
Speaker 2: to use the swing of Ernie L's and a swing
Speaker 2: of Charles Barkley back to back. Okay, there could be
Speaker 2: two more different golf swings ever. Okay, but it really
Speaker 2: shows you that each golf swing is different, right, So
Speaker 2: each golf game is different. So why do we design
Speaker 2: golf courses to only be played one way makes no sense.
Speaker 2: I should be able to play it using my best skill.
Speaker 2: And if I chicken out, then give me a place
Speaker 2: to chicken out, and then I'll pay the consequence on
Speaker 2: the next shot. But if I want to hit the
Speaker 2: best shot I can hit, give me a place to
Speaker 2: hit that shot, and then hopefully my next SHOT's easier
Speaker 2: or somehow more advantageous unless I make a bad swing.
Speaker 2: I mean that that's what it's That is what it's
Speaker 2: all about. And then you read I love to think
Speaker 2: about the guys in Philly, that they're all drinking buddies, right,
Speaker 2: that's like, and that they hung out and there was
Speaker 2: a brotherhood and they talked about how to make the
Speaker 2: game better and more interesting. And if you read every
Speaker 2: single person that went through Philadelphia at some point they
Speaker 2: all say the same thing. Mackenzie, Thomas, h Tilling, hass Flynn.
Speaker 2: They all talked about that dynamic of you know, providing
Speaker 2: options the proper side and the wrong side of a
Speaker 2: fair way, you know, allowing people to experience the game
Speaker 2: the way they're best suited. I love Mackenzie wrote about
Speaker 2: the fourteenth hole at Saint Andrews, and he talked about
Speaker 2: watching a foursome play and that three out of the
Speaker 2: four probably played it the right way, but they all
Speaker 2: you know, he shows the drawing and the lines are
Speaker 2: all over the place round hell and stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like, yeah, that's awesome. So and I think
Speaker 2: that's where we got off the rails in the late
Speaker 2: nineties and two thousands where everything had to be longer
Speaker 2: and harder and more narrow and trees and weal trees
Speaker 2: maybe before, but you know that misses the boat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that. I think we've seen it with
Speaker 1: the last two US Opens, where like Kopka's won them
Speaker 1: and but like it didn't predetermine the winner, like you
Speaker 1: had guys with different skills. I mean, Brian Gay was
Speaker 1: in contention on Sunday, like he's the shortest hitter out there,
Speaker 1: but like the golf course allowed him to succeed. And
Speaker 1: we saw the same thing at Aaron Hills, Like you know,
Speaker 1: Brian Harmon's not short, he's not long though, and he
Speaker 1: was in everybody, Oh it's Bomber's parent. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like he could play because he could hit
Speaker 1: every fairway, you know, and he could you know, a
Speaker 1: golf course that allows you to play to your strength.
Speaker 1: Is like, that's the best. Is like where any type
Speaker 1: of player can win because and they because they are
Speaker 1: allowed to do what they do and play their game
Speaker 1: versus predetermining what your game needs to be at.
Speaker 3: A golf course exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's I mean, that's what's the great thing about
Speaker 1: that Inverness. I was talking to to Zach Boer about
Speaker 1: it is like, I don't feel like it's a course.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a championship course that I wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: playing every day, and so many championship golf courses, I
Speaker 1: feel like I just get my ass kicked. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if I want to go
Speaker 1: back and play that, like you know a lot, like
Speaker 1: you know, and you think about like how you'd split rounds,
Speaker 1: but like this is a place that you can play.
Speaker 1: And I think Ross, because I think about Pinehurst number
Speaker 1: two is kind of that way. Seminals that way, Seminal
Speaker 1: absolutely hard, but it's it's still like you can play it.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's one of the brilliant things
Speaker 1: about Ross that goes underrated is that his really hard
Speaker 1: courses were still really playable.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, It's.
Speaker 2: It just shows again that kind of craft thing that
Speaker 2: there's a little more thought put into it than just
Speaker 2: I need eighteen holes, I need par seventy two, I
Speaker 2: need seven thousand yards. You know, it's not good golf
Speaker 2: doesn't fit a recipe like that. You know, It's how
Speaker 2: cool can I get from the starting point to the
Speaker 2: endpoint and present problems to the player and provide lots
Speaker 2: of options? I mean, when I'm designing for the everyday player,
Speaker 2: when I'm designing for the average player, I'm really trying
Speaker 2: to think about how many different options can I give
Speaker 2: give the guys.
Speaker 3: To play?
Speaker 1: Who'd be your mount Rushmore of golf.
Speaker 2: Architecture, Man, I've got to go Ross and Flynn right
Speaker 2: right off the top. I'm doing a lot of Ross work,
Speaker 2: and I've really grown a greater appreciation for everything he's done.
Speaker 2: I love George Thomas.
Speaker 3: He might be.
Speaker 2: The greatest listener of any golf architect ever. And I'd
Speaker 2: love to meet him because I'd love to know. You know,
Speaker 2: if you look at his life and how kind of.
Speaker 3: Privileged I guess it was, was he arrogant?
Speaker 2: It certainly doesn't appear to be right I mean he
Speaker 2: he If you read his forward in Golf Architecture in America,
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I've made a list. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think maybe Shackelford picked it up a riv this
Speaker 2: year or whatever. I made a list of all the
Speaker 2: people he thanked. In all of those people, you could
Speaker 2: see almost a heartfelt appreciation that they helped him understand
Speaker 2: the game better.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: He was the greatest listener, I think, and because he listened,
Speaker 2: it made him.
Speaker 3: A better architect.
Speaker 2: So there's three, So what one more? It's got to
Speaker 2: be Mackenzie then Mac, doctor Mac.
Speaker 1: I feel like he's on everybody I know.
Speaker 2: And maybe I'm cliche because those are my four guys.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Thomas and Flynn don't get on money.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know, fair, fair enough, regular question all.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean mackenzie. Anybody that has like, arguably
Speaker 1: the greatest golf course on four continentss it's pretty good,
Speaker 1: not bad? Right, Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 2: He was a good listener too. I think he was
Speaker 2: an educated guy that.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: If you read Spirit of Saint Andrew's right, he talks
Speaker 2: about how he even related a lot of what he
Speaker 2: learned and golf to medicine and the camouflage and all
Speaker 2: of those different lives that he that he lived. And
Speaker 2: maybe that goes back to my thing of I'm trying
Speaker 2: to appreciate more outside of my little channel to make
Speaker 2: me a better architect.
Speaker 1: So something I always am fascinated by is like, even
Speaker 1: on places with spectacular ground but have like flat areas
Speaker 1: or just flat courses. Do you ever think to really
Speaker 1: appreciate architect you have to see their work on like
Speaker 1: their horse sight.
Speaker 2: It certainly adds an element, right, yeah, how do you
Speaker 2: how do you mess up pebble Beach?
Speaker 3: Right? It was Jack's first first course, Jack Neville.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Some might say, well, yeah, right, right, right, whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But that's where people ask about Seminole, whether it's overrated, underrated,
Speaker 2: you know kind of thing, right you.
Speaker 3: Kind of what's your thought?
Speaker 2: I haven't listened this year with you're do you have
Speaker 2: you ever shared that perspective?
Speaker 1: So a lot of people say it's under overrated.
Speaker 2: Okay, and I I'm falling on the other side, but
Speaker 2: I'll let you go.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people say it's overrated, right
Speaker 1: generally At that point I kind of stopped listening because,
Speaker 1: like The thing about seminole is like if you don't
Speaker 1: know how to play golf, like it will expose the
Speaker 1: crap out of you. Like you have to play proper
Speaker 1: golf and like it. I mean there's so many ways,
Speaker 1: but like when you get in a bad position like issue,
Speaker 1: and I think this is like something that's happened with
Speaker 1: golf is like people are pre determined feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: like I hit a shot into a bad spot, I
Speaker 1: should still be able to hit it at a flag.
Speaker 1: And like at seminole, if you're in a bad spot,
Speaker 1: you need to get it back into a good spot.
Speaker 1: Like it could be chipping it just short of the green.
Speaker 1: It could be like it could be hitting it to
Speaker 1: like just somewhere on the green that you're not that
Speaker 1: you're putting up hill like but like it's sneaky, right,
Speaker 1: you have to play. And I think this is what
Speaker 1: happens in USGA events, And I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the issues that they have with like players with
Speaker 1: fair and not fair is like if you're not in
Speaker 1: the right position, you you can't hit at flags at
Speaker 1: really good spots like right, like and that's like what
Speaker 1: was driving me nuts. These people are like, well, like,
Speaker 1: you know, that was really unfair. It's like, well, like
Speaker 1: he was shortsighted in a bunker to a green that
Speaker 1: runs away like that was. If that was water, he'd
Speaker 1: be out.
Speaker 2: Well, So I can't I think it's Flynn that wrote No,
Speaker 2: it's Thomas. I think he wrote in that section on
Speaker 2: strategy talks about if a player tries and more than
Speaker 2: him lies and fails under the test, you know, he's
Speaker 2: worse off than the guy that knows he can't hit
Speaker 2: that shot and lays back.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know that's golf, right, you know, you take
Speaker 2: the challenge. If you miss it, then you got to
Speaker 2: pay the penalty, whether that's short siding yourself in a
Speaker 2: bad spot in a bunker, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1: That where you have no chance really of getting up
Speaker 1: and down, but you have a chance to make it.
Speaker 1: You have a chance to hit an unbelievable shot and
Speaker 1: make three. Still sure and water you're hitting four.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Water is an awful hazard.
Speaker 1: Unless I mean with variety. I really like like meandering creeks.
Speaker 3: Oh way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I say water way different from a creak
Speaker 2: than a pond. And the only time a pond is
Speaker 2: is even remotely a decent hazard I think is on
Speaker 2: more of like a k pole or something where you
Speaker 2: can kind of bite off as much as you want
Speaker 2: to chew. It's still not great.
Speaker 1: But the penalty for a pond is too much. That's
Speaker 1: that's the problem is, Like you know, no matter what
Speaker 1: it takes away, I feel like a pond takes away
Speaker 1: the heroic play recovery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, golf is a game of recovery.
Speaker 1: That's where all the fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely use your skill to get out of trouble. And
Speaker 2: that's what we were talking yesterday about trees. Right, It's
Speaker 2: a totally different mindset if you're hitting a punch out
Speaker 2: of a tree, even though I did that a couple
Speaker 2: of times yesterday with poor success, but versus having maybe
Speaker 2: a difficult lie that I think I can get it
Speaker 2: all the way to the green. But taking that risk
Speaker 2: and I don't execute, I'm probably going to be in
Speaker 2: more trouble than if I just punched it out in
Speaker 2: the fair way and paid the penalty.
Speaker 1: I hit it pretty good yesterday, and all my problems
Speaker 1: came from just being in the rough with no trees
Speaker 1: in my way. And I think the two times I
Speaker 1: was in the trees, I got I made par because
Speaker 1: I just hit it to the front part of the green,
Speaker 1: so it came out of sin and yeah and got away.
Speaker 1: It like had like pretty simple up and downs. But
Speaker 1: the two the couple times I got in trouble were
Speaker 1: when I was like in thick rough and I tried
Speaker 1: to hit like on one par five, I tried to
Speaker 1: hit three iron and it just like hooded it over
Speaker 1: and I, you know, hit into a creek. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, like that, but that doesn't happen if there's
Speaker 1: a tree in my way and I'm just punching it
Speaker 1: out right.
Speaker 2: And then you know the water, Yeah, you don't have
Speaker 2: any of that opportunity.
Speaker 3: Right none.
Speaker 1: What happens is they just play away from it.
Speaker 2: Well, and then that plays into the golfer IQ. Most
Speaker 2: of the holes I am replacing at Inverness and Oakhill
Speaker 2: are holes that have a pond, because if you didn't know,
Speaker 2: to have a great championship par three, you have to
Speaker 2: have water a pond. Did you know that was in
Speaker 2: the rules of architecture. I'm kidding, I mean you got
Speaker 2: to have a signature hole.
Speaker 3: A signature hole. They're all signature holes.
Speaker 1: I was watching a new course flyover and they had
Speaker 1: something about a signature hole and that's when I when
Speaker 1: I closed the window.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, I mean the golfer IQ thing again.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they should they should all be good.
Speaker 1: It's I think, like so like when I think about Inverness,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could pick out like one
Speaker 1: hole that's a standout hole. And I think with like
Speaker 1: mass public perception of golf courses like that, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of golf courses like that. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the things is like when there's not one hole
Speaker 1: everybody can always go back to they have a problem.
Speaker 1: But like the greatness of Inverness is the sum of
Speaker 1: all its part?
Speaker 3: Yeah, not. I watch.
Speaker 2: I'll watch how other golf courses are represented. And it's
Speaker 2: amazing to me sometimes that you'll see only pictures of
Speaker 2: one golf hole from that course. Right, it's like the
Speaker 2: money shot.
Speaker 1: But it's like the Instagram what like you know what
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter and like the photo the camera phone.
Speaker 2: Right, everybody that goes to that golf course, they only
Speaker 2: take a picture of one hole. Yeah you know, yeah
Speaker 2: that that does kind of tell you. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: Inverness the star, you know, the greens complexes and how
Speaker 2: that those greens set on the property give it that
Speaker 2: opportunity to have a lot of different different kinds of
Speaker 2: golf shots.
Speaker 1: One thing when I go to classic courses that I
Speaker 1: like just nerd out about and people like I'll play
Speaker 1: with people and they're like, I'll point something out and
Speaker 1: talk to them about, like like how greens like stack
Speaker 1: on each other at so many really good old school courses,
Speaker 1: Like that's something I nerd out about and people will
Speaker 1: look at me like, God, this guy's your front hinge, right,
Speaker 1: So what's what's the thing that you that you really
Speaker 1: nerd out about?
Speaker 2: I think you know this is coming. But the hummock
Speaker 2: is my thing, man, I love it. So you know,
Speaker 2: chocolate drops, dragons, teeth mounds, whatever.
Speaker 3: You want to call them.
Speaker 2: The creative ways that the old guys use the extra
Speaker 2: dirt that they couldn't afford to haul away, like just
Speaker 2: those little grading things. And even if it's not just
Speaker 2: a hummock, but the grass face where you saw they
Speaker 2: kind of just stopped cutting because they needed they had
Speaker 2: enough dirt. You know those things. I mean they're very simple,
Speaker 2: but they're so cool and they show the golf course
Speaker 2: has some aging character and I love I love the
Speaker 2: way that presents a hazard to the player, and it
Speaker 2: really speaks to this idea of using your talent to recover.
Speaker 2: And you know, the better player can get really upset
Speaker 2: that they just missed the shot and now the balls
Speaker 2: way below the feet or above their feet or you
Speaker 2: know downhill a pill lie, right, it really messes with
Speaker 2: their mind. But the higher handicapped player would much rather
Speaker 2: be in a difficult lie than in a bunker.
Speaker 3: So it's just it's it's so cool.
Speaker 2: And and you're going to see if you look at
Speaker 2: my work anywhere that I could find.
Speaker 3: A sense that they were there. You're going to find
Speaker 3: a couple. You know.
Speaker 2: I try not to overdo it, and I really do
Speaker 2: try not to have the same solution to every problem
Speaker 2: no matter where the course is. You know, I always
Speaker 2: want it to be different. But boy, if I can
Speaker 2: find some cool grading like that that's just off the
Speaker 2: beaten path, or you know old bunker faces that are
Speaker 2: hidden under trees or something, I really nerd out on
Speaker 2: that stuff.
Speaker 1: You're building a bunker list course.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So for an Arundo County and Maryland, Eisenhower Golf Course
Speaker 2: plays a bunch of golf. A lot of older guys
Speaker 2: play it. When we started talking about it, it was
Speaker 2: it needs a lot of TLC. It's kind of in
Speaker 2: this model of you know, the course that was built
Speaker 2: kind of in the heyday and now it's kind of
Speaker 2: lived its life and it needs reinvigorated. And the concern was, Okay,
Speaker 2: we do something like a bunkerless golf course, is that
Speaker 2: going to turn away the public? Are we going to
Speaker 2: break what's not really broken?
Speaker 3: The place?
Speaker 2: Tons of people play it. And the thing that drove
Speaker 2: me to doing it was that for those older guys
Speaker 2: and ladies, bunkers are they're just they're like, you know,
Speaker 2: they're infuriating sometimes. You know, it's not that hard of
Speaker 2: a golf shop, but it is for a lot of
Speaker 2: those players. And then you got to build them, and
Speaker 2: you got to maintain them. And if you build bunkers,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be replacing them every let's say, fifteen years.
Speaker 2: If you're going to just keep up, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to do major reconstruction just because that's the life they live, right,
Speaker 2: You can, they can last longer, but they really decline.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna save potential money up front we're gonna
Speaker 2: save maintenance dollars.
Speaker 3: You know, sand.
Speaker 2: It's been proven that bunker maintenance dollar for dollar, square
Speaker 2: foot for square foot is more money spent on bunkers
Speaker 2: than greens. That's crazy, you know. And again, golfer IQ,
Speaker 2: what our clients request of you know, they want a
Speaker 2: perfect lie in bunkers. It's just reality. It's bunkers are hazard,
Speaker 2: no doubt. But in the United States, most of our
Speaker 2: clients have been conditioned to having at least somewhat of
Speaker 2: a consistent set of bunkers.
Speaker 3: That's what they're striving for.
Speaker 2: Okay, And look, that's good for business for me, okay,
Speaker 2: but they are hazard. But when you add all those
Speaker 2: things up, when you take that element out, how can
Speaker 2: you create exciting golf and fund golf and not dumbing
Speaker 2: something down, not making it boring, but do without bunkers
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 1: Could almost get more bold without bunkers than with bunkers.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because look, now you don't have to worry about
Speaker 2: draining water into sand that would wash out and destroy
Speaker 2: a bunker, which in the UK that's not really an
Speaker 2: issue because of the way they're designing the sand. You know,
Speaker 2: that's not an issue. The United States, especially the East Coast,
Speaker 2: huge issue. Some are thunderstorm white sand destroyed. If water
Speaker 2: is running into a bunker, well, now I don't have
Speaker 2: to worry about that. So now greens that maybe would
Speaker 2: only fall back to front can fall three hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty degrees because there's no water running off that putting
Speaker 2: surface into sand or something we're trying to protect from
Speaker 2: a maintenance standpoint. So the property at Eisenhower is spectacular.
Speaker 2: It might be one of the best pieces of golfing
Speaker 2: ground in that little piece. And the routing we're going
Speaker 2: to leave some pretty well intact, is good. There's variety,
Speaker 2: the wholes change direction. But because the greens sit on
Speaker 2: good spots and the tea set and good spots, we
Speaker 2: left most of the routing intact. And we're gonna use
Speaker 2: short grass, we're gonna use hummocks, and there's gonna be
Speaker 2: different questions and solutions for each hole. But without sand,
Speaker 2: I think the critical thing is can we get enough
Speaker 2: definition and enough whole presentation to make the golfer excited
Speaker 2: Because sand we kind of eat with our eyes. When
Speaker 2: you play golf and sand, it's such a stark contrast
Speaker 2: that it's it's the eye candy, but you know, there's
Speaker 2: other ways to do it. And I've said a couple
Speaker 2: of times, you know, maybe it's my ego that I
Speaker 2: think I can.
Speaker 3: Do this really well.
Speaker 2: That's probably the case, but I also think it's a
Speaker 2: great way to have another different golf experience. Again, why
Speaker 2: does everything have to be the same.
Speaker 1: It's there's this. I've talked to you a lot about
Speaker 1: this the last few days. It's my current like obsession
Speaker 1: is Langford Moreau and this golf course there's in Kanka Key.
Speaker 1: It's like an hour and twenty minutes from me, but
Speaker 1: like I go play there like a lot now because
Speaker 1: it's cheap and it's unbelievable and it's just like super overgrown.
Speaker 1: The greens are like there's one hole that got change,
Speaker 1: but then there's like it's bunkerless except for like three
Speaker 1: bunkers that were built probably in nineteen seventy. Right, maybe
Speaker 1: one of the worst bunkers I've ever seen in my
Speaker 1: life is one of them. Like it's just like just
Speaker 1: like scraped it and put sand on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's so bold.
Speaker 1: The greens are like unbelievable, and it's all grass hollows,
Speaker 1: and it's I mean, if you get in one of them,
Speaker 1: it's it's way worse than being in the sand, right,
Speaker 1: and it's still super cool.
Speaker 2: Well that's you know, think about the best bunkerless golf
Speaker 2: holes you played. Most of them are pretty interesting. They
Speaker 2: aren't boring unless it's, you know, something that's been dumbed
Speaker 2: down or lost to time because of maintenance or neglect.
Speaker 2: Most bunkerless golf holes that were designed in that for
Speaker 2: that purpose are pretty interesting.
Speaker 3: They're pretty good.
Speaker 4: So we'll see fourteen and Augusta doesn't stink. No eat
Speaker 4: green at Augusta, Yeah, doesn't stink. You know, there is
Speaker 4: the fair we bunker on eat but yeah, that.
Speaker 1: That green's really cool. There's a lot of cool bunker
Speaker 1: less holes around golf. When you when you start developing
Speaker 1: a master plan, how how much research do you do before?
Speaker 1: Like if you if you had to put an estimate.
Speaker 3: On ours every hour? I can. I can do it.
Speaker 2: Uh, I get sucked in, you know, I'll find myself.
Speaker 2: My wife and I we kind of joke around. It
Speaker 2: used to infuriate her that I'd be working or doing
Speaker 2: research while we're supposed to be spending time together. Even
Speaker 2: though she might be cross stitching, or you know, maybe
Speaker 2: texting a friend or whatever. You know, I will spend
Speaker 2: a lot of my quote unquote free time doing research
Speaker 2: when I'm when I'm beginning a master plan. I know
Speaker 2: there are a lot of guys that do great work
Speaker 2: and finding documents and have tremendous tools, and maybe I
Speaker 2: should utilize some of those guys more. But I feel
Speaker 2: a real sense of pride and I like finding information,
Speaker 2: even on a golf course that doesn't have a tremendous
Speaker 2: amount of history but has some history. I love being
Speaker 2: able to draw my own conclusions, like sometimes when you
Speaker 2: read books that have been put together by historians and
Speaker 2: they're trying to draw conclusions. You know, we were talking
Speaker 2: yesterday about caddies reading your putts, right, he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all feel it's like that in research. I feel
Speaker 2: the same way. It's like there's such a pride factor
Speaker 2: in doing the research, finding the documents, connecting the dots yourself.
Speaker 1: Like, but you learn so much too along the way,
Speaker 1: exactly like, and it might not help you write that moment,
Speaker 1: but like at some point five years from then, you.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you how many pictures I cut and
Speaker 2: paste or screen grabs of something I find that really
Speaker 2: wasn't what I was looking for, but I want to
Speaker 2: make sure I have it for something down the road.
Speaker 1: So do you like label it to have like a yeah.
Speaker 3: Probably could be more organized. Maybe I need somebody that
Speaker 3: would help me organize.
Speaker 1: But I know my desktop is just all screen grab.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's you know, it's so good. You know
Speaker 2: I have one. I think I shared some pictures on Twitter,
Speaker 2: like Augusta. Anytime I come across something cool there, I clip.
Speaker 2: It's just because it's been my experience, like an Augusta.
Speaker 2: It's a really good place to speak to the public
Speaker 2: about golf IQ because they all almost everybody can picture
Speaker 2: a golf hole right, they've seen eighteen they know it right,
Speaker 2: and whether there's I mean, we could get in. We
Speaker 2: could spend a whole podcast talking about the changes and
Speaker 2: what's good and bad and all that stuff. But when
Speaker 2: you're starting to talk to a group of people that
Speaker 2: really only know the course they play, having that ability
Speaker 2: to go to something that they understand outside of their
Speaker 2: little window really helps.
Speaker 3: So I'll do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's ridiculous the amount of space I have between
Speaker 2: my computer, my tablet, dropbox, external hard drives of stuff
Speaker 2: I've just clipped from years of just looking at stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the old stuff is so cool. It's
Speaker 1: i mean, just it and it's got to be so
Speaker 1: helpful when you come to a project like Oak Hill
Speaker 1: or Inverness where you've had like a rich championship history,
Speaker 1: you know, like where you've got all these old photos.
Speaker 2: It makes a huge difference. I mean here at Inverness,
Speaker 2: S P. Jermaine wrote a book before the thirty one
Speaker 2: open and did hand sketches of every hole and put
Speaker 2: pictures and descriptions and the golf course that evolved, you know,
Speaker 2: since we're all first put it on the ground to
Speaker 2: that point. But it was a great way to understand
Speaker 2: how the golf course was playing, how the golf course
Speaker 2: had evolved, the tweaks they needed to make to make
Speaker 2: it better. And there's great pictures from twenty even ads.
Speaker 2: This is maybe a secret, don't tell anybody.
Speaker 3: You're telling everybody.
Speaker 2: Is ads are the greatest place to find hidden documentation.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're on the journey looking through this
Speaker 2: old stuff, pay attention to the ads. An amazing story
Speaker 2: at Siota started the project, had a wonderful dinner with
Speaker 2: the board, and it's really right now, it's really is
Speaker 2: a research project at the moment. There's no set that deadlines,
Speaker 2: scope anything. It's really a research project right at this moment.
Speaker 2: But we were hanging out in the lobby and there's
Speaker 2: a trophy cabinet and there was a program from the
Speaker 2: thirty one Ryder Cup and I was like, oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that. I didn't see it in any
Speaker 2: of their documentation. Ornything in the club historian, who's a
Speaker 2: great guy and a wonderful searcher of documentation, he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's nothing really in there. It's like, let's take a look.
Speaker 2: So they go get the key and we take it
Speaker 2: out and start to flip through. Well in hidden in
Speaker 2: the ad space was a picture of every Green's complex
Speaker 2: and they didn't know it was there, you know. So
Speaker 2: it's it's the places you least expect to find that
Speaker 2: information is sometimes where you find the best stuff. So
Speaker 2: sorry if I've given away one of my secrets.
Speaker 1: Old ads are cool. I feel like advertising it might
Speaker 1: be making a renaissance, but the old ads are so
Speaker 1: much better than like the I mean, I think nothing
Speaker 1: really good happened from like nineteen seventy to nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: From a creative sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: We technology is a wonderful thing, but when you use
Speaker 2: it as a crutch to eliminate the creativity or the craft,
Speaker 2: I think that's where it gets dangerous. And I think
Speaker 2: that's really where you see the golf architects that are
Speaker 2: popular now and do good work, not just popular, but
Speaker 2: doing good work.
Speaker 3: You know, they have.
Speaker 2: More of that respect of the craft, and they're not
Speaker 2: relying on, you know, every modern convenience to create golf.
Speaker 3: If you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You know what you're saying, You're ready for overrated, underrated.
Speaker 3: We'll give it a go.
Speaker 1: Long par threes.
Speaker 2: They're underrated in the fact that there should be more
Speaker 2: of them, but they're really hard to create for the
Speaker 2: tour pro right. We spoke about that a little bit yesterday.
Speaker 2: You know what's the greatest long part three that they
Speaker 2: play on somewhat of a regular basis, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: eight at Oakmont? Is that a great hole?
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so my theory is that the short
Speaker 1: part four is now the long part three.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the cool thing about a part three is that
Speaker 2: at least at that upper echelon from a long distance,
Speaker 2: is you feel compelled to hit the longest club even
Speaker 2: though it might not be the best play, you know,
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 1: Because it's because of par. It's the one thing what
Speaker 1: par does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a mind kind of a mind screw, right,
Speaker 2: And I think on on short short four's the the
Speaker 2: guy that is trying to overpower it. Will you know,
Speaker 2: always pull the big club and go for the heroic shot.
Speaker 2: And there's a cool risk reward to that, and there's
Speaker 2: course management of laying back. But when you have the
Speaker 2: par three, everybody's pulling a club to try to get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's always the front, always open.
Speaker 3: So co that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean long par threes are so there's like
Speaker 1: eight at Olympia Fields North like two eighty. But it's
Speaker 1: it almost people like it goes back to like this
Speaker 1: fair and unfair. People think it's like unfair. It's like
Speaker 1: what what what is fair and unfair? Because so pointless
Speaker 1: like so what it's like it's a really hardhole. If
Speaker 1: you make a three, you pick up some shots on people. Right,
Speaker 1: par is really good in a long par three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think putting the ball in the peg.
Speaker 2: From a par three standpoint, I really would love for
Speaker 2: you to play really a good short, a good long
Speaker 2: in two in the middle. I mean ideally, sometimes the
Speaker 2: property gives you what it gives you.
Speaker 1: I think that's what's the brilliance of the McDonald and
Speaker 1: Rainer template par three is is each of them were
Speaker 1: like uniquely different, especially like it's too bad, like the
Speaker 1: Barritz hole doesn't play like it should with modern technology,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, if you had a Burritz at
Speaker 1: two eighty, a ri Dan at two thirty and Eden
Speaker 1: at one ninety, and a short at one fifty.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, that's a pretty good mix, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that tests every single type of shot. You got
Speaker 1: to hit your you got to hit a wedge, you
Speaker 1: got to hit a mid iron, you got to hit
Speaker 1: a long iron, and you got to hit like a
Speaker 1: driver three would yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the things you know I was trying
Speaker 2: to do here at Inverness was to replicate the shots
Speaker 2: that were hitting the twenty open. So we made the
Speaker 2: long part three at like two seventy nine. It's long,
Speaker 2: and you know, I've gotten some feedback of you know
Speaker 2: that that's that's maybe not the direction the game should
Speaker 2: be going. But listen, I just move up a right
Speaker 2: for sure, that's awesome. Yeah right, but you know, I
Speaker 2: the game of golf, the history of golf, has been
Speaker 2: that on those holes, the problem involves swinging a long club.
Speaker 3: In making a golf shot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's a shame that the golf ball
Speaker 2: and technology and how the great skill level of these
Speaker 2: guys has made that long three tough tough to find
Speaker 2: the best way to do it.
Speaker 1: And I feel like the par fives are like that
Speaker 1: in some sense. But with a par five people feel
Speaker 1: like they can miss a long shot, more so because
Speaker 1: you can still get up and down.
Speaker 2: For Berdie, I think one of the things you see
Speaker 2: in post war designs, the par fives, which should have
Speaker 2: the most strategy, probably have the least, you know, especially
Speaker 2: some of the there is a lot of and maybe
Speaker 2: it's not some of the best architects of that era,
Speaker 2: but a lot of golf you see, it's like mindless
Speaker 2: par fives. Right, you hit as far as you can.
Speaker 1: The layup, that's where there's no thought, right none. That
Speaker 1: is My next overrated underrated was long par fives.
Speaker 2: Okay, again, I think it encourages you to play different shots.
Speaker 2: So being able to hit whatever you want off the
Speaker 2: t if you don't feel comfortable hitting driver that day,
Speaker 2: you can throttle back and hit three wood or whatever
Speaker 2: or hybrid. Now on a long five, you got to
Speaker 2: make a decision. You can't continue to let off. You
Speaker 2: got to either go again with the same stick or
Speaker 2: you know, really have three demanding shots. It makes you
Speaker 2: make a choice, which makes it interesting, makes you think.
Speaker 2: So I guess I'm underrated there too.
Speaker 1: I think TV people hate long par fives. They think
Speaker 1: they it's boring, but it's like, yeah, that's what like
Speaker 1: every par five was was like you have to hit
Speaker 1: three really good shots. And that's why it's always the
Speaker 1: number one handicap hole is because like for a higher
Speaker 1: handicap hitting three really good shots it's like really hard
Speaker 1: to do, and for a good player it's pretty.
Speaker 3: Simple, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, it's I would I would say it's
Speaker 2: probably only boring for the guy not standing over the ball, right,
Speaker 2: you got to make exactly good decisions, good swings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's I.
Speaker 1: Was thinking about. TV kind of hurts a lot of
Speaker 1: things with golf. It hurts conditioning with the brown. It
Speaker 1: hurts like design in a sense because you know, like
Speaker 1: a long part five, really good long, really good long
Speaker 1: part fives are almost like like they aren't given the
Speaker 1: amount of praise they should be, because it's almost the
Speaker 1: hardshold of design it is.
Speaker 2: And and then it goes back to what's a long
Speaker 2: five for which player?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And trying to make it a long five for everybody?
Speaker 2: It can be tough.
Speaker 1: That's last overrated, underrated A W.
Speaker 3: Tilling? Hast you set me up.
Speaker 2: So I'll go underrated again? I guess because I think
Speaker 2: he's a smart man.
Speaker 3: I think he gets it, gives you more leoy, Is
Speaker 3: that right? All right?
Speaker 2: I think why that is is I think from a
Speaker 2: human perspective, we always want to package things. We always
Speaker 2: want to put neat bows, you know, like Donald Ross.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times you think these flat
Speaker 2: bottom bunkers with grass faces and they look like bathtubs.
Speaker 2: But when you study his work, there was way more
Speaker 2: to it than that. I think Tilling has you. The
Speaker 2: same can be said that, you know, you might want
Speaker 2: to find two or three things that really were his
Speaker 2: calling cards, but when you look at the number of
Speaker 2: courses he did, and and some of the things he
Speaker 2: did very creative, and I think he's probably one step
Speaker 2: behind Thomas in in listening and learning from what he
Speaker 2: saw and experienced, and especially in Philadelphia. And I think
Speaker 2: he gets an incredibly bad rep by some people about
Speaker 2: his later life and.
Speaker 3: Some of his struggles.
Speaker 2: And we talked a little bit about his time with
Speaker 2: the PGA, some of the things he wrote about out.
Speaker 2: I think some of the things he wrote about are
Speaker 2: incredibly brilliant, look like everything you could find fault maybe
Speaker 2: with with a statement or two anywhere.
Speaker 3: But I think.
Speaker 2: He may have done a disservice to some clubs at
Speaker 2: that time in eliminating hard to maintain features. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if I only use dumbing down, but you know,
Speaker 2: maybe changing the fabric of some of the courses in
Speaker 2: some of those recommendations. But look, he was really trying
Speaker 2: to make the game survive and make good decisions and
Speaker 2: make uh, make golf as good as it could be
Speaker 2: during a very challenging time.
Speaker 3: And we talked a little yesterday.
Speaker 2: I think some historians or golfers would say his article
Speaker 2: that he wrote about early American golf versus what he
Speaker 2: considered modern golf or and I kind of put in
Speaker 2: the Philadelphia school where he talked about, you know, the
Speaker 2: duffer zone that he had to you had to carry
Speaker 2: bunkers off the tee, and then you had to maybe
Speaker 2: carry another set of bunkers, and then the greens heavily guarded,
Speaker 2: and you know that versus having a good fairway bunker,
Speaker 2: a good green side bunker, an angled approach and hitting
Speaker 2: good golf shots but leaving space for the higher handicap
Speaker 2: golfer to play. I think it's brilliant and often I
Speaker 2: use that. I'll show those that article to a group
Speaker 2: and I'll say, look at how okay, this is just
Speaker 2: a very simple way to explain strategy visually. And then
Speaker 2: I'll show the first hole at Shannakok that maybe is
Speaker 2: the most underrated hole on the golf course, but it
Speaker 2: might express that strategy more than anything. Because the more
Speaker 2: you risk you take off the tee, the more right
Speaker 2: you aim, or the more you challenge that fairway bunker,
Speaker 2: the better your angle is into the green, and the
Speaker 2: more you play away from that bunker. Now you got
Speaker 2: to carry the left green side boker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and long, it's just dead and it usually plays
Speaker 1: down wind and it's like a really really hard little
Speaker 1: web shot.
Speaker 3: I mean I birdied the hole.
Speaker 1: Okay, just saying Tiger made a triple Yeah right, I'm
Speaker 1: probably better than Tiger right now.
Speaker 3: You could be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah that that hole is awesome and there's
Speaker 1: so much space.
Speaker 2: Right and there's probably more. There was more, you know,
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks for coming on, thanks for having
Speaker 1: me find you on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah green g C a green GCA.
Speaker 1: That's me, not really super active.
Speaker 3: But well, look important. Thanks.
Speaker 1: You know, good stuff when you put it.
Speaker 2: Well, I try to you know, quality over quantity maybe,
Speaker 2: and I got a lot going on, so you know, it's.
Speaker 1: A good it's a good problem to have when you're busy.
Speaker 3: It is very blessed.
Speaker 1: I think people can probably figure out when I'm busy
Speaker 1: and when I'm home.
Speaker 3: I think you can probably see that for me too.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're excited to uh see you. Keep
Speaker 1: going and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Thanks Cindy, you've been listening to the fried Egg podcast.
Speaker 3: We do the digging for you.