Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: I am joined by Casey Crombull, one of David McLay
Speaker 1: kids lead associates. If you haven't yet, please rate and
Speaker 1: review the podcast in iTunes and without further ado, here's Casey.
Speaker 1: I miss the green for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball in a brid Egg
Speaker 3: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 3: Bride Egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off the
Speaker 3: golf course.
Speaker 2: What do you think the biggest smith in golf architecture is?
Speaker 3: I would say that, you know, our predecessors were somehow
Speaker 3: much more talented than the current group of architects.
Speaker 2: And by predecessors you made which any architects choose them
Speaker 2: the Golden Age architects.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a myth that they were so incredibly
Speaker 3: amazing that we should go back and do everything that
Speaker 3: they were doing. And I stin't think that's true. Most
Speaker 3: industries evolve. But do you think that the best courses
Speaker 3: in the world are the old courses? Like the say
Speaker 3: some rankings which shall I would say, for the most part,
Speaker 3: because they got the very best sites and they had
Speaker 3: no constraints. They had no environmental constraints, they had no
Speaker 3: no one over their shoulder, they had no housing projects.
Speaker 3: So they got the very best sites of the world,
Speaker 3: like Cypher's Point for example, and that's you know that
Speaker 3: it shows because they're some of the greatest golf courses.
Speaker 3: But if you gave you know, any I would say,
Speaker 3: you know, any of my the group of architects in
Speaker 3: our group, I would say, David Kidd, Tom Doak Gill
Speaker 3: hands you give any of these guys that site, I
Speaker 3: would argue that they would do a better dough.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because a lot of times people will say, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'd come up with this, but
Speaker 2: not necessarily they wouldn't come up with that, but they
Speaker 2: would come up with me something differently.
Speaker 3: And I agree they'd come up with a better eighteenth
Speaker 3: toll for Cyprist point. They come up with a better
Speaker 3: first toal for Cyclist Point.
Speaker 2: I think the eighteenth hole at a golf course is overrated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's certainly a lot of golf courses, especially in
Speaker 3: the British Isles, where you're playing back Inland from the
Speaker 3: eighteenth hole, and it's sort of the crescendo of the
Speaker 3: of the tale that you you know, you just it
Speaker 3: kind of lets you down and gets you back home.
Speaker 3: And you know, I would say that, you know, cru
Speaker 3: eighteen is certainly a letdown.
Speaker 2: I think about the great I think great golf courses
Speaker 2: mirror great songs, and I don't know any great song
Speaker 2: that ends with the loudest part of the song. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I think where that crescendo is, like it is
Speaker 2: hidden fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, maybe even seventeen, but then eighteen,
Speaker 2: and I think that's it. But different styles, it's so key.
Speaker 3: Variety, Yeah, I mean, I built a golf course in
Speaker 3: Nicaragua in the eighteenth hole was a par three right
Speaker 3: out on the beach, and it's fantastic, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't I don't know that that's so it would have
Speaker 3: been better if it was the seventeenth hole, you know, particularly,
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, variety is probably the biggest
Speaker 3: and most important game that not won shoe fits every
Speaker 3: but you know, there's every golf course is different, and
Speaker 3: the good ones are amazing for their own merits and
Speaker 3: they're being you know, very different merits for each each
Speaker 3: amazing course that you loved.
Speaker 2: How'd you get into golf course architecture?
Speaker 3: I was in college and just started.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 3: Started working on a local golf course construction project because
Speaker 3: I wanted to stay in northern Arizona, which is where
Speaker 3: I went to school for the summer. So my friend was,
Speaker 3: you know, helping build a golf course down the street
Speaker 3: called Forest Highlands and for Tom Wishoff, and and you know,
Speaker 3: I went out, there's a laborer with a shovel in
Speaker 3: my hand, and I putted that for probably five months maybe,
Speaker 3: and then went away to Mexico for after I graduated
Speaker 3: to do some some studying in Spanish and spend a
Speaker 3: year there going to school, and came back and didn't
Speaker 3: really have a plan, so I you know, went back
Speaker 3: to this construction company. I was like, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: that was pretty fun. Let's you know, I'll call them
Speaker 3: and see if I can get a job with them.
Speaker 3: So that was a company called Wadsworth, and they put
Speaker 3: me to work right away. They were busy, as you know,
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety nine, things were cranking, so I spent
Speaker 3: I wasn't a real you know, enthusiast about architecture at
Speaker 3: that time. I just liked being out in the woods
Speaker 3: and you know, being out on construction projects. And so
Speaker 3: quickly with Wadsworth, within a couple of years, I was
Speaker 3: a project manager, running you know, big projects for some
Speaker 3: of the best architects in the world. So I was
Speaker 3: working with Fazzio and Nicholas and you know, all these guys.
Speaker 3: And I slowly got more and more into architecture and
Speaker 3: spent more and more time with these architects as I
Speaker 3: kind of got more and more and more into the
Speaker 3: high profile, you know projects, and I really started falling
Speaker 3: in love with the process. And I didn't know anything
Speaker 3: about the golden Age of architecture. I didn't know anything
Speaker 3: about you know, these old golf courses that were built
Speaker 3: in the twenties. But I loved being part of the
Speaker 3: the you know, the process of taking bare land and
Speaker 3: creating these amazing things. I felt. What I kept finding
Speaker 3: out was that these architects just weren't there. They weren't
Speaker 3: present the draw seat of plans and give them to
Speaker 3: the contractor we you know, do our best to build
Speaker 3: what they drew, not what fit in the land, not
Speaker 3: what you know, not what should have been built, not
Speaker 3: something amazing, something that was on a piece of paper,
Speaker 3: and I really found it kind of boring.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I tried to improvise as much as I could in
Speaker 3: building what these architects had drawn, but then they'd come
Speaker 3: out and they'd you know, hey, this was you know,
Speaker 3: this bump was supposed to be two inches higher. You know,
Speaker 3: there was always they were always kind of trying to
Speaker 3: stifle the imagination of me and the team I was
Speaker 3: working with. So eventually I met David on when we
Speaker 3: were building Tethero. I went to Oregon to build it
Speaker 3: as the contractor and he was the architect. So David
Speaker 3: was the first guy I met that was an improviser.
Speaker 3: You know, the plans we basically threw out the window,
Speaker 3: they didn't mean anything. You know, we had a rough routing,
Speaker 3: We stuck to that routing, and basically him and I,
Speaker 3: he didn't have an associate or anybody involved. He moved
Speaker 3: to bed and suddenly I realized that there's a guy that,
Speaker 3: you know, an architect that's so willing to spend his
Speaker 3: time on the site that it you know, it made
Speaker 3: everybody on the whole project much more enthused, and he
Speaker 3: wanted us to use our imagination and builds. I'll try it,
Speaker 3: build it, you know, build whatever you want. Let's I'll
Speaker 3: come back and look at it, and then we tweak it,
Speaker 3: you know. So he kind of took me under his
Speaker 3: wing and really started to kind of hone my craft
Speaker 3: of architecture. And I worked for you know, I worked
Speaker 3: for probably twenty different architects as a contractor, so I
Speaker 3: saw all different manners and ways. But what I never
Speaker 3: saw was someone that was on site all the time.
Speaker 3: And he was there all the time. He moved to org.
Speaker 2: Outside of just the imagination and being able to improvise.
Speaker 2: What was the kind of the biggest aha moment that
Speaker 2: you had early on with David?
Speaker 3: But I think it was just, you know, when he
Speaker 3: it was very simple. It was just what I said
Speaker 3: when he said to me, yeah, I just moved here
Speaker 3: with my family and it was day one of the
Speaker 3: project and rented the house and moved there. And I
Speaker 3: was like, what do you mean. He's like, well, I
Speaker 3: just moved here. We're going to fill this together. I
Speaker 3: was like, no, no, no, I'm the contractor. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 3: and I'm the architect and I'm going to be here
Speaker 3: more or less every day, and he was there a lot.
Speaker 3: You know, he still was he had another project in
Speaker 3: the UK, so he was going back and forth from
Speaker 3: the UK quite a bit. But him and I, you know,
Speaker 3: that was the first aha moment, and then from then
Speaker 3: on it was just you know, it was fun, it
Speaker 3: was exciting. It was you know, it was very different
Speaker 3: from what I had seen in the past, the ten
Speaker 3: years previous to that.
Speaker 2: They say, it's so much more inclusive as opposed to
Speaker 2: like you probably felt like almost detached.
Speaker 3: Absolutely they were you know, when I was the contractor,
Speaker 3: the architect was almost sort of the enemy, like you
Speaker 3: were waiting for them to show up because they're just
Speaker 3: going to change everything that you already did, or you know,
Speaker 3: they're going to blow in, give a bunch of comments
Speaker 3: and blow out of town and that's it. And it was,
Speaker 3: you know, it was everyone got inspired by David being
Speaker 3: on site. My whole team, guys I worked with, you
Speaker 3: know for ten years that had never seen that kind
Speaker 3: of thing, and suddenly we were, you know, having beers
Speaker 3: after work and with the architect and he's sitting on
Speaker 3: the tailgate with us, and you know, it was really
Speaker 3: really inspiring, and it really that That moment was when
Speaker 3: I said, this is awesome. I've never wanted to be
Speaker 3: a golf course architect until I met David. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: that's what I want to do. I want to I
Speaker 3: want to build a golf course, but I also want
Speaker 3: to design it. You know. That's where I am today.
Speaker 2: That's it's interesting because you were a golf course builder.
Speaker 2: You know, you built golf courses, but becoming you know,
Speaker 2: part of the team that designed it. That's a seismic shift.
Speaker 2: And I think it's will contractors, you know, the design
Speaker 2: contract model. Do you think do you foresee that being
Speaker 2: a relevant model ten years from now?
Speaker 3: Only for some I don't think that most people in
Speaker 3: our industry are willing to sacrifice their lifestyle to be
Speaker 3: on a golf course all the time. I mean our team,
Speaker 3: I was here at sand Valley virtually every day of construction.
Speaker 3: David was here in probably half the time. Nick, our
Speaker 3: other associate, he moved to la to build a golf
Speaker 3: course rolling Hills. He spent two years there away from
Speaker 3: his family. You know, I've moved around with my family
Speaker 3: a lot. It takes a lot of you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of time and energy to really do the design, build,
Speaker 3: you know thing, and so you know, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't force see that it's going to be a huge
Speaker 3: thing for our industry because I don't. I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't know that people are as committed as they should
Speaker 3: as they need to be for that model. Right.
Speaker 2: I was down at Trinity Forests and all these volunteers
Speaker 2: were and I'd walk and they need stop and talk,
Speaker 2: and then what do you think about the golf course?
Speaker 2: I'd be like, Oh, it's great. I'd be really, you know,
Speaker 2: like this state of shock because it's so much different
Speaker 2: than everything else in Dallas. And the analogy I started
Speaker 2: to use was like, well, like most of your courses
Speaker 2: around here are you know, the architect grew up plans,
Speaker 2: hand them over to contractor who built them out, Like
Speaker 2: they're kind of like a like a subdivision house, and
Speaker 2: this is like a hand crafted house. You know that
Speaker 2: somebody was here, that architect was on site all a
Speaker 2: lot of the time, but everything, every little detail was
Speaker 2: thought out. And I felt like that kind of analogy
Speaker 2: clicked with them, like the handcrafted model, like it takes
Speaker 2: way more time, way more effort, but the end result
Speaker 2: is all the details are right and.
Speaker 3: You know, that's why the best golf courses, modern day
Speaker 3: golf courses are being built by the guys that spend
Speaker 3: the most time on site. You know Tom Doak, you
Speaker 3: know Brian Swanik, his guy moves to tar moves to
Speaker 3: New Zealand to Bill Tari and Brian's been all over
Speaker 3: the place. You know. Bill Cohorr was up here at
Speaker 3: sand Valley. You know, he basically came up here with
Speaker 3: his wife and camped out in one of the houses
Speaker 3: and you know, sat on the sand throw every day.
Speaker 3: It's it's you know, Gil Hants is on the bulldozer,
Speaker 3: you know, moves to Brazil. I mean, the the guys
Speaker 3: that are in our group are on site.
Speaker 2: It's that funny because Donald Ross, like some of his
Speaker 2: best screens are the ones that are closest to his
Speaker 2: house at Pinehurst and closest to his house at Essex.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know that shows a lot, you know,
Speaker 3: because there's plenty of other ones that were mailed in. Right,
Speaker 3: There's plenty of golf courses that where the architect is
Speaker 3: detached from the construction process. And when that happens, then
Speaker 3: the motives are totally different for the people building it.
Speaker 3: When I was a contractor, I had very different motives
Speaker 3: than I do as an architect. And my motives weren't
Speaker 3: always you know, to spend to reshape a green twelve
Speaker 3: times because you can't get it right. And that happens
Speaker 3: all the time now, you know, Yeah, we're reshaping and
Speaker 3: tweaking all the time until the very last minute, until
Speaker 3: the seed goes down. And it just wasn't the same
Speaker 3: as a contractor. So there's plenty of great contractors out there,
Speaker 3: and they build good golf courses, and there's plenty of
Speaker 3: great architects. You know, that model isn't producing a lot
Speaker 3: of top one hundred in the world golf courses.
Speaker 2: So of the architects you worked with with a contractor, like,
Speaker 2: I'm hard on a lot of architects and from that
Speaker 2: general era, like, what are some things that I might
Speaker 2: be overlooking as to what they did well?
Speaker 4: I think the probably the group that gets the least
Speaker 4: love in them, you know, in the.
Speaker 3: Golf architecture world is Tom Bosio. And what you know
Speaker 3: what Tom produced and reproduced over and over on a
Speaker 3: lot a lot of golf courses, and the biggest thing
Speaker 3: is playability. He produced or designed really playable golf courses
Speaker 3: all over the country. You didn't do a lot around
Speaker 3: the world because we didn't really want to work, didn't
Speaker 3: need to work outside the US. But you know, the
Speaker 3: Fasio guys in that era were probably as committed as
Speaker 3: anyone today. I worked on project in Mexico and they
Speaker 3: had two full time you know, design associates there all
Speaker 3: the time, and they were they were committed. The problem
Speaker 3: that they always had was that there was too many
Speaker 3: tears that you know, they had of Austin and they
Speaker 3: had of Boston, and Tom was there, you know, he
Speaker 3: wasn't there enough and he would come in and make
Speaker 3: pretty large decisions. But they were very committed, and I
Speaker 3: think they they built a lot of really playable golf courses.
Speaker 3: And you know that's obviously something that David and I
Speaker 3: are are trying to push and you know his core
Speaker 3: in our design ethos is is playability.
Speaker 2: That's the thing with Fasio courses. There's always like big
Speaker 2: corridor space I think where he'd messed so, like just
Speaker 2: make a fair way, like it just was so much
Speaker 2: long rough. Yeah, and like if you just you look
Speaker 2: at these places, like you never go there. Most Fasio
Speaker 2: courses are never like offensive.
Speaker 3: Ever, they're never. I mean there's some really good ones
Speaker 3: that you know, they're they're good, they're really really solid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they never they never inspire you. Like I
Speaker 2: think something I look at it with golf, like at
Speaker 2: a very core level, like the really great golf courses,
Speaker 2: like you start to get sad at the end of
Speaker 2: the round because you know it's coming to the end
Speaker 2: for sure, And I think that that's where you're having
Speaker 2: so much fun, you know, and golf is supposed to
Speaker 2: be fun. It's tell me about David. You guys have
Speaker 2: undergone kind of almost like a retransformation back to you know,
Speaker 2: the fun principles. Tell me about the journey and kind
Speaker 2: of the change in the ethos over the last five
Speaker 2: six years, you know.
Speaker 3: My So, you know, that's a great question because I
Speaker 3: don't think it was. It was like a blink of
Speaker 3: time when there was particularly two courses, Tetheroe and the
Speaker 3: Castle Course that were being built kind of simultaneously. And
Speaker 3: when I met David, he said, hey, I got to
Speaker 3: take you over to Scotland right at the beginning of
Speaker 3: construction at Tetherow and he's like, let's go. We're going
Speaker 3: to Scotland. So we flew over to Scotland. He showed
Speaker 3: the castle course. It was there was a few holes
Speaker 3: that had been grassed, I think, and and he he
Speaker 3: you know, he showed it, showed me how awesome. Well
Speaker 3: I loved it. I walked it, you know, went to
Speaker 3: the old course. We spent some time in St Andrews
Speaker 3: and I really got to kind of see what he
Speaker 3: was doing at the castle. And so when I went
Speaker 3: back to Tetheroe, we kind of tried to emulate that.
Speaker 3: And one of the shapers actually from the castle Cose
Speaker 3: Mick mcchaine, he came to Tetheroe as well, and yeah,
Speaker 3: Mick McShane amazing at, amazing at And so Tetherowe and
Speaker 3: the Castle course are like twin brothers almost. There. There's
Speaker 3: you know, there's the there's you know, fringy areas in
Speaker 3: the middle of fairways and there's you know, wild greens,
Speaker 3: and you know, neither of the golf courses were on sand,
Speaker 3: so they were very similar. You know, they're twin brothers,
Speaker 3: and that's I was almost trying to build what I
Speaker 3: thought David wanted. And really it's those two courses that
Speaker 3: sort of you know, got us David maybe a reputation
Speaker 3: of building these things that are maybe a little too difficult.
Speaker 3: I think they're both fantastic courses, and if they were
Speaker 3: one hundred years old, I think both of the courses
Speaker 3: would be highly revered. You know, new courses that are bold,
Speaker 3: you know, don't don't usually.
Speaker 2: So I haven't played either. But one of the things
Speaker 2: I think is that different isn't always bad. Like I think,
Speaker 2: especially with today's like era of social media, there's like
Speaker 2: a there's a potential for everything to become the same
Speaker 2: because of you know, like, hey, this works here, so
Speaker 2: let's keep doing it here and here and here, and
Speaker 2: you know, you went over to the castle course inside
Speaker 2: and that's your first job with your new boss, and
Speaker 2: you come back it's like this must have How hard
Speaker 2: is it to build new stuff like and new ideas
Speaker 2: and constantly come up with new ideas.
Speaker 3: It's hard, I mean, and it's it's you know, I
Speaker 3: think with Taylor on the castle, you know he was
Speaker 3: trying to build David was trying to build both of
Speaker 3: them at the same time. He had me building Taylor,
Speaker 3: and he had another guy named Paul Kimber building the castle,
Speaker 3: and what neither of us did was show restraint, you know,
Speaker 3: neither of us. I was pushing the gas pedal as
Speaker 3: hard as I could, and you know Paul was doing
Speaker 3: the same in Scotland, and I think, you know, we
Speaker 3: were trying to do something super different. I had no
Speaker 3: one telling me no, everyone was you know, it was yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3: And David, you know, for whatever, I think for a
Speaker 3: blink of time he maybe just lost a little bit
Speaker 3: of focus on on both of those projects and let
Speaker 3: me and Paul sort of, you know, really really be
Speaker 3: and the shapers too, they were pushing the limits, you know.
Speaker 3: Mick McShane was, he was He wanted to create the wildest,
Speaker 3: crazy screens of all time. And I think it's easy
Speaker 3: to do something different, but it's really hard to then
Speaker 3: make it playable. We have to show some restraint. If
Speaker 3: I could do tether over again, a little bit of
Speaker 3: restraint around the greens, a few things to change, and
Speaker 3: it's a top you know, fifty in the world golf
Speaker 3: course because I think it's amazing and it's on a
Speaker 3: great site. Same with the Castle course.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So I think it's easy to do something different, but
Speaker 3: how will it be viewed long term? Is it a
Speaker 3: good golf course. You know, that's really the balance as
Speaker 3: you try to do something that hasn't been done before.
Speaker 3: But you know, if you don't show any restraint and
Speaker 3: then then probably gonna playability will suffer.
Speaker 2: You think about Sagrass. When Sagrass first opened, everybody hated it.
Speaker 2: I mean, like the players called it like you know,
Speaker 2: goofy golf, and you read the quotes from that first players.
Speaker 2: But once people get used to it different, it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily always that bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, And like I said, I think long
Speaker 3: term the cast course in tether will be seen as
Speaker 3: you know, amazing golf courses because I think they're they're
Speaker 3: both they're both really amazing sites.
Speaker 2: Since you're think that the greatest sites were the Golden
Speaker 2: Age architects and today's architect would have, you know, built
Speaker 2: a better course in your opinion, what's the greatest course
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 3: Probably Pine Valley. Yeah, I mean I think Pine Valley
Speaker 3: is sort of you know, it's it's everything that I
Speaker 3: think great golf is. I think it's the greens are
Speaker 3: you know, amazing. I think it's it's nice. I feel
Speaker 3: like it's fairly wide and and you know, pretty generous
Speaker 3: off the tee, which is great. I didn't lose the ball,
Speaker 3: you know, either time I played it, and very challenging
Speaker 3: into the green. So you know the challenge is there.
Speaker 3: You've got to be on it. You have to be
Speaker 3: you know, you have to be playing good golf and
Speaker 3: the setting is fantastic.
Speaker 2: It's that's a that's a good sight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is an amazing thing. You can you know,
Speaker 3: you can see what great architects today like Tom Doe
Speaker 3: Guitar ev what guys like us can do with amazing sights. Right,
Speaker 3: it's it's you know, it is uh. I think both
Speaker 3: these courses sand Ally and Mammothoons are the same. We
Speaker 3: get great sites with no constraints, and we can and
Speaker 3: the Kaisers have let us, you know, let us come
Speaker 3: out here and lay off wherever we want, make everything
Speaker 3: else secondary. And you know that's what those Golden Age
Speaker 3: architects did. They didn't have someone telling them where the
Speaker 3: clubhouse needed to be and you know, telling them about
Speaker 3: a green tree frog that you know had to we
Speaker 3: had to keep all these trees for environmental reasons. I mean,
Speaker 3: none of that stuff has happening back then.
Speaker 2: So what's the biggest challenge when you get a world
Speaker 2: class site like mammothin's.
Speaker 3: Not disappointing people. That's the biggest challenge. I mean, if
Speaker 3: you don't nail it, you know, there's no excuse, right.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of excuses on other projects where
Speaker 3: it's other people are or other you know, circumstances are
Speaker 3: constraining our our creativity. But someone like man students, there
Speaker 3: is no constraints. There's no one to blame. If it's
Speaker 3: not great, it's David Nieball.
Speaker 2: So I think one of the most unique things here
Speaker 2: is the routing and how it's you know, you've worked
Speaker 2: over tough ground that other architects passed on, you know,
Speaker 2: like from your standpoint, how the process of coming up
Speaker 2: with this routing with David and Nick. How difficult was that.
Speaker 3: No, I wasn't very involved in the routing because I
Speaker 3: was working on other stuff. I think I was in
Speaker 3: England at the time, so Nick and David were over
Speaker 3: here together. But you know Nick, who's our other partner.
Speaker 3: He has a really strong background in landscape architecture and
Speaker 3: I know it's a dirty word these days, but in
Speaker 3: AutoCAD and you know, using using the tools that modern
Speaker 3: architects have on their finger tips to model the ground,
Speaker 3: and you know a lot of other architects looked at
Speaker 3: our site and no one, no one could really figure
Speaker 3: it out. Then, you know, Nick did some amazing stuff
Speaker 3: with AutoCAD and modeled the the landscape and we figured
Speaker 3: out that there was this big giant V ridge running
Speaker 3: through this site. And it was if we modeled the
Speaker 3: entire holding landholding, which was like a couple of thousand acres,
Speaker 3: and that ridge completely stood out. You can you can
Speaker 3: use AutoCAD to create you know, different colors for different elevations.
Speaker 3: So instantly we had this big giant map with two
Speaker 3: thousand acres on it and there's just a giant V ridge.
Speaker 3: You know, that was the most prominent feature by far
Speaker 3: on the whole landscape, and instantly David and Nick gravitated
Speaker 3: towards it. So, you know, we were looking for a
Speaker 3: dramatic site and we had to find a way through it.
Speaker 3: And those guys with the you know, with the AutoCAD
Speaker 3: work that they did, they found a way to get
Speaker 3: over the ridge and different places and sort of set
Speaker 3: up the whole routing. You know, there was only one
Speaker 3: way to really cross on the north end on the
Speaker 3: south end and sort of laid itself out from there.
Speaker 2: What's the one thing that you think you wish that
Speaker 2: you know, the regular golfer wouldn't know before playing mammothon.
Speaker 3: I don't think I want him to know anything. I
Speaker 3: want them to just come out and, you know, experience
Speaker 3: that walk through the breezeway of the clubhouse out onto
Speaker 3: that awesome hutting green and see, you know, the landscape
Speaker 3: before them. And my hope is they think, like you know,
Speaker 3: they feel that it was always a sand baron, that
Speaker 3: it never was a pine forest, and that you know,
Speaker 3: it always sort of looked like that and we just
Speaker 3: laid golf over it. But you know, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't feel that you need to explain it to anybody.
Speaker 3: You don't need to tell them anything. You just let
Speaker 3: them show up and experience it.
Speaker 2: What about your job?
Speaker 3: What about my job?
Speaker 2: What would you want somebody to understand more about your job?
Speaker 3: I guess you know probably what every other you know,
Speaker 3: associate designer would want. And a little recognition you know
Speaker 3: that that David didn't design it all by himself. You
Speaker 3: know there was a team of guys in granted he's
Speaker 3: the inspiration and he's the whole reason we're here. And
Speaker 3: you know he he taught me everything I know about
Speaker 3: golf course design. But you know, we also have I'm
Speaker 3: a big part of this, you know, I was here
Speaker 3: every day and my shape, you know, the shapers that
Speaker 3: work for us, Bernie Poul Verrari and Luis Barrella. We're
Speaker 3: out here every day and you know this place is
Speaker 3: you know, I wish the average person knew that it
Speaker 3: was more of a team effort, you know, But that's you.
Speaker 2: Know, I think that goes with everything. It's I think
Speaker 2: it's almost it's almost a media's fault because it's way
Speaker 2: easier to like gravitate towards one person than tell a
Speaker 2: story of a team.
Speaker 3: You know, absolutely there's there's a leader in every team,
Speaker 3: and you know, and and David deserves it, you know,
Speaker 3: but and I don't. It doesn't really bother me that much.
Speaker 3: But it's uh, and David's really well, really good at
Speaker 3: trying to, you know, say it as in the media
Speaker 3: that it's always a team effort. You know that it's
Speaker 3: him and I and Nick and are shapers and the
Speaker 3: rest of the guys on the group.
Speaker 2: But so if you could build, you know, one kind
Speaker 2: of different style of golf, you know, whether it be
Speaker 2: a different concept with the number of holes or par
Speaker 2: or what.
Speaker 3: Would it be. You know, obviously, I think the biggest
Speaker 3: thing is just time, right that that none of us
Speaker 3: is as fathers and generally have as much time as
Speaker 3: as you know, as our parents did. My dad can
Speaker 3: go out and golf all day on Saturday and you know,
Speaker 3: no big deal. But you know, as we as we
Speaker 3: involved as parents, I can't go on a Saturday morning
Speaker 3: and play golf every week, you know, and I don't
Speaker 3: want to. I'd rather spend the time with my kids.
Speaker 3: So it would really be about trying to do things quicker.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it's more of a style
Speaker 3: of design, you know, that that promotes a faster pace
Speaker 3: of play. The pace of play is a is at
Speaker 3: playing slow golf. I hate it, and if I'm behind
Speaker 3: a group and it's slow, I almost just want to
Speaker 3: walk off no matter where I'm playing.
Speaker 2: That's what I was playing Whistling Straight a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago. Took us five and a half hours to play,
Speaker 2: and we waited on every tea box. It was maddening.
Speaker 2: Made me want to walk off the golf course.
Speaker 3: You know, I think I think the and obviously you know,
Speaker 3: the private club you know, ideas probably the only place
Speaker 3: where this really works. But the ahoopie match play thing,
Speaker 3: I've heard you talking about that, and I think I
Speaker 3: heard Gil talking about it on your podcast. But the
Speaker 3: idea of match play, you know, in the US is
Speaker 3: something that isn't fully embraced, and in the UK it is.
Speaker 3: And I spent a couple of years living in London
Speaker 3: and playing golf all around in the UK and golf
Speaker 3: over there is much more about a match, you know,
Speaker 3: a competition between friends. Rarely do you see a guy
Speaker 3: just go out and golf by himself, you know, it
Speaker 3: just doesn't happen. It's, hey, let's get a game together,
Speaker 3: you know, let's get a couple of guys and we'll
Speaker 3: go play and we'll play match and it's it promotes
Speaker 3: fast play, right because you just pick up and people
Speaker 3: in the US, you know, the US golfer and I
Speaker 3: think a lot of it has to do with a
Speaker 3: handicap system doesn't fully understand that. So if we could,
Speaker 3: you know, if we could, and maybe it's just a model,
Speaker 3: maybe it's not as much about architecture, but trying to
Speaker 3: do things that promote more match play. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: play quicker, enjoy the compent a little bit.
Speaker 2: She played a lot of alternative shot over there.
Speaker 3: I didn't. I mean, I knew a lot of guys
Speaker 3: that did, and I played on several occasions. But and
Speaker 3: I played a couple you know events at my club
Speaker 3: that are alternate shot and I love it, and I
Speaker 3: think it's amazing.
Speaker 2: That's like one way to really speed up the game
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 3: Somehow, in the US we are fixated on playing our
Speaker 3: own ball the whole time, all the way to the
Speaker 3: hole and putting it in and posting a score on
Speaker 3: our you know, gin handicap and it causes five and
Speaker 3: a half hour rounds.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's because of the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's the tour. But in the
Speaker 3: UK the handicap system is much different. Right, You play
Speaker 3: three competitive matches, I think, and you get a handicap
Speaker 3: from your club and that's it. That's your index, that's
Speaker 3: your that's your you know, and then so for the
Speaker 3: rest of the year doesn't You don't post scores, So
Speaker 3: if you're playing a match, you just pick up the ball.
Speaker 3: You know, if the guy gets three and you're sitting
Speaker 3: there in four, pick your ball. And you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's the PGA Tour or I guess
Speaker 3: more of the USGA, but the way that we the
Speaker 3: American system of posting the scores for handicap and constantly
Speaker 3: posting every single one, it's counterproductive.
Speaker 2: The handicap system drives me nuts because like it's posting
Speaker 2: a score from one day to the next, Like I
Speaker 2: think it's just stupid because the golf course could be
Speaker 2: completely different in the conditions, Like if you play in
Speaker 2: really tough conditions, like you shoot seventy sixty, play really
Speaker 2: well and you could shoot seventy two the next day,
Speaker 2: and really easy conditions that's not necessarily Like it's so
Speaker 2: skew flawed in so many ways, the handicap system. It's
Speaker 2: one of my I think that is a big problem
Speaker 2: in the game of golf, like one of one of
Speaker 2: like it like you alluded to pace a play, but
Speaker 2: also like the concept of like why you're out there
Speaker 2: playing is.
Speaker 3: Too yeah, And I think that's why we have eighteen
Speaker 3: hundred eighteen hole seventy two hundred dark golf courses. You know,
Speaker 3: on all of our projects, we know that's what our
Speaker 3: client expects, that's what the golfer expects because that's what
Speaker 3: you know, they measured their self against. So you know,
Speaker 3: there's a real I think it's a real lack of
Speaker 3: you know, understanding about the game and the competition side
Speaker 3: of it, about playing a game between you know, two
Speaker 3: four guys or two guys. And you know, if we
Speaker 3: played a competition on a thirteen hole you know, forty
Speaker 3: two hundred dard golf course, we have a great time.
Speaker 3: But if you're out there by yourself and you're trying
Speaker 3: to test your game against you know, what you perceive
Speaker 3: as a modern you know, modern sized golf course and
Speaker 3: you got to post your score, all those things are
Speaker 3: sort of tiling up against know, pay some play and
Speaker 3: match play and competition and all the things that I
Speaker 3: that in the UK you know, really encourages golf. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a it really opened my eyes living in the
Speaker 3: UK to see how the culture of golf is so
Speaker 3: different over there, and uh, you know it, I wish
Speaker 3: we could do more ohopie match plays, you know, match
Speaker 3: clubs and really focus on that style of play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, Like, I just like talking about this
Speaker 2: like makes me want to play alternate shot the next
Speaker 2: time I play, like in a match, you know, play.
Speaker 2: I think the idea of four people playing two balls,
Speaker 2: you know, is so much faster. It's like you could
Speaker 2: get around and you know, and I know there's some
Speaker 2: clubs over there that are are strictly for uh four
Speaker 2: ball clubs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot and a lot of them. Or
Speaker 3: they'll do it on you know, Saturdays, or you know,
Speaker 3: always before noon or you know, so they'll they'll I'll
Speaker 3: put they'll have very you know, a lot of clubs
Speaker 3: have pretty strict rules about who plays win. So if
Speaker 3: you're going to play, you know, four Americans playing their
Speaker 3: own ball, then you can only play after two on
Speaker 3: a Tuesday, you know. But if you're you know, two
Speaker 3: old boys from down the street, you know, you can
Speaker 3: play in two hours on a Saturday morning.
Speaker 2: It's amazing because it's like they're just like, these guys
Speaker 2: get it.
Speaker 5: They can play, I want to.
Speaker 3: And they're going to look for their ball for twenty
Speaker 3: minutes if they hit it into the gorse.
Speaker 2: What were your favorite courses over there?
Speaker 3: You know, I spent most of my time I lived
Speaker 3: in Surrey, so I played, you know, I really played
Speaker 3: the sunny Sunningdale and you know Walton Heath and Saint
Speaker 3: George's Hills. Saint Georgie's Hill is one of my favorites.
Speaker 3: I really I love playing. I played there a lot.
Speaker 3: The client I worked for lived at Saint George's Hills,
Speaker 3: so he had me up there quite a bit to
Speaker 3: play swim Ley Forth, all of those courses. Swinley Force
Speaker 3: is absolutely amazing. New Zealand has one that you know,
Speaker 3: not a lot of people know about that's really good.
Speaker 3: And then I played a lot of the English links too,
Speaker 3: which are you know, Royal Saint George's is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Saw.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much time you spent down there,
Speaker 3: but you know, there's a lot of really good courses
Speaker 3: around London an hour drive from London, whether it's you know,
Speaker 3: the Surrey courses are out to the coast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's Michael Clayton said that he evolved golf around
Speaker 2: the world. He thinks he'd pick if he had to
Speaker 2: pick one, it would be like.
Speaker 5: The London area and there's just so much good golf
Speaker 5: right around there and the heathlands, and I.
Speaker 2: Mean, you talk about important golf, Like I think the
Speaker 2: Heathland courses are probably the most important of all the
Speaker 2: golf courses ever built, because they were the first that
Speaker 2: weren't said that said, golf is okay if it's not
Speaker 2: on the ocean.
Speaker 3: Sure, and you know, and it brought golf to the masses,
Speaker 3: right to a large population center. So suddenly there's like
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty two golf courses in the county
Speaker 3: sty alone, you know, So it's sort of it brought
Speaker 3: golf closer to the golfer, so you weren't driving out
Speaker 3: to the you know, to the links, and you know,
Speaker 3: so it was and some of those golf courses are
Speaker 3: just amazing.
Speaker 2: If you were designing a municipal course, would anything change
Speaker 2: in what you did do there versus say, a golf
Speaker 2: course like Mammoth Doomed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that there's you know, there's
Speaker 3: a time and a place that you can build mammoth dunes,
Speaker 3: and it's on a site like this where we have
Speaker 3: plenty of water, and we have plenty of labor to
Speaker 3: mow the big fairways, and you know, we've we've got
Speaker 3: the perfect scenario to build a really big golf course,
Speaker 3: and you know most municipal courses. Obviously, I don't like that.
Speaker 3: I think given that circumstance, I wouldn't be looking to
Speaker 3: build one hundred dark fairways. You know, I think tight
Speaker 3: and small is okay build a par sixty seven, you know,
Speaker 3: a five thousand yard golf course on a cool piece
Speaker 3: of land and you know wherever in la or something,
Speaker 3: you know, And I think, I think short and fast quick,
Speaker 3: you know, things that move fast, And I would and
Speaker 3: I would do walking only, you know, because I think
Speaker 3: golf carts cause a lot of a lot of issues
Speaker 3: with pace and play as well.
Speaker 2: He makes your job a lot tougher, too much more difficult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you're trying to build a course that's walking only,
Speaker 3: like here, for example, you could put it, you know,
Speaker 3: in the back to right next to the green, right
Speaker 3: or or behind it, or you know somewhere where you're
Speaker 3: walking off the green and you are walking right onto
Speaker 3: the next t box and off you go. So pace
Speaker 3: and play is really quick. The second you have cart paths,
Speaker 3: suddenly the cart path needs to be you know, you
Speaker 3: don't want it too close to the green right because
Speaker 3: then your ball might hit it, and so you're moving
Speaker 3: the cart path far away from the green, and then
Speaker 3: you got to know you cross the cart path. So
Speaker 3: if you're walking, suddenly the next tee you know pretty
Speaker 3: much fifty sixty seventy yards away the car. That's caused
Speaker 3: a ton of problems with pace of play. People always say, wow,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go play in a car. I'll play
Speaker 3: super fast. It's like I've played just as fast as you.
Speaker 3: I just won't sit and wait as long as you.
Speaker 3: I'll hit my ball and walk to it. I think
Speaker 3: walking municipal golf courses should try harder to have walking,
Speaker 3: you know, walking only.
Speaker 2: What's crazy is a lot of them don't even have.
Speaker 3: A walking right, Yeah, here you go. You get a
Speaker 3: cart with your pizzaimal, I don't want a car.
Speaker 2: I rolled up to Southern Pines in the Pinehurst area.
Speaker 2: It's a cool little core. I talk about a good
Speaker 2: piece of crap. That's a really good piece of ground.
Speaker 2: And there's nobody there because it's bad weather, and except
Speaker 2: that one old lady working in the shop. And I
Speaker 2: walked in and she's like, oh, that'll be fifty six
Speaker 2: dollars or something like that. And she's like, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if I have a cart tea And I
Speaker 2: was like, well, I don't want a cart, I want
Speaker 2: to walk, and she goes well, and she like looked
Speaker 2: at me perplexed because like all of a sudden, like
Speaker 2: it was like she didn't even have like she didn't
Speaker 2: know what the walking right was. And that to me
Speaker 2: was like it almost offended me because it was a
Speaker 2: it's an old school golf course where it's a beautiful
Speaker 2: walk because the tea is right, like just like you
Speaker 2: talked about green tea, green tea, green tea, like, and
Speaker 2: it's a hilly course.
Speaker 3: But so it was.
Speaker 2: It was a tough walk, but you know, very very walkable.
Speaker 3: I think so many courses. A tough walk to me
Speaker 3: is whence between the green and the tea are far apart,
Speaker 3: because I get disengaged. Yeah, I'm instantly thinking about something else.
Speaker 3: Or if I'm walking a hilly golf course, but the
Speaker 3: hilly part is between the tea and the green. It's funny.
Speaker 3: I rarely, rarely, you know, do you feel disengaged. I
Speaker 3: feel a little tired, but you're anxious to get to
Speaker 3: your ball because you're in the game, right and the
Speaker 3: second you put out you want to get back in
Speaker 3: the game as quick as you can.
Speaker 2: I think that's what you hit on. It is like
Speaker 2: they anticipate walking up the hill. When you're walking up
Speaker 2: to see what your next shot is, what your lie is,
Speaker 2: you know, what how close you are to flag, like,
Speaker 2: what your pot looks like. That all of a sudden
Speaker 2: takes the hill out of the equation because you're working
Speaker 2: off of excitement and adrenaline. And I think that's one
Speaker 2: of the beauties of golf, is that anticipation. I think
Speaker 2: carts take away from that too.
Speaker 3: Completely, because suddenly you're driving over to the you know,
Speaker 3: you miss half the golf courses. You're on the car
Speaker 3: back the whole time, and then you're you know, circling
Speaker 3: around the back of the green, and then you know
Speaker 3: it's it's yeah that you know. It certainly makes our
Speaker 3: job much more difficult.
Speaker 2: M So, if you could get get rid of any
Speaker 2: American uh golf habit outside we'll say, outside of carts,
Speaker 2: what would it be.
Speaker 3: It would be not playing match plate. You know, we'd
Speaker 3: be playing stroke play, everyone putting out their own ball.
Speaker 3: That's the biggest that's the worst habit I think we have,
Speaker 3: and it causes all kinds of problems. It's a domino effect,
Speaker 3: so you know, definitely pace and plays obviously, the pace
Speaker 3: of play is the biggest thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's it's pretty sound like a
Speaker 2: broken record, as I sounded, to start to feel like
Speaker 2: I'm a broken record when I do these over and
Speaker 2: over again. So let's let's get into overrated underrated. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, template hole highly overrated? What about template holes
Speaker 2: within your own architecture group?
Speaker 3: Oh, we don't, I don't have them. We don't, We don't.
Speaker 3: You know, we've I know of you know, a Burritz
Speaker 3: and we built some, but I don't even know if
Speaker 3: we call them that when we're building you maybe we
Speaker 3: call them that after, but we don't have holes. Hey
Speaker 3: remember the third hole you know on that course, let's
Speaker 3: build that again. That never happens because the land is
Speaker 3: so different than you know, you really we really tried
Speaker 3: to respond to the land. And if you're always if
Speaker 3: you have a good site and you don't let the
Speaker 3: land do the talking, then you know you don't need
Speaker 3: a template hole. Right, you're letting the greens there, well,
Speaker 3: there's never been a green built there before like that,
Speaker 3: where it's the site so we maybe and maybe that's
Speaker 3: a you know, maybe that's a scenario where template holes
Speaker 3: are have some merit is on a weak.
Speaker 2: Safe yeah, like a flat site. They're tried and true.
Speaker 2: I think yeah, I mean, I think the core principles
Speaker 2: of golf architecture are exceptionally simple, you know, like what
Speaker 2: builds a good golf course? And I think the temple
Speaker 2: holes were great. I think people have the wrong theory
Speaker 2: on the temple holes, is like they were just principles
Speaker 2: like not this just because one burritz could be completely
Speaker 2: different than another, and one road hole can be completely
Speaker 2: different than another road hole. But the theory is a
Speaker 2: very simple and very strong you know, hey, play close
Speaker 2: to this hazard, gain the advantage, play safe, and you know,
Speaker 2: in essence, a lot of holes are just a copy
Speaker 2: of that strategy.
Speaker 3: Sure, and I get it, but I've also been around
Speaker 3: other architects who cannot think about anything. But you know,
Speaker 3: this is going to be my aupsehole, and then this
Speaker 3: is going to be, you know, the fourth at Pine Valley,
Speaker 3: and then this one is going to be like the
Speaker 3: fifth hole at you know, and and that's all. They
Speaker 3: only refer to a golf hole that they're going to
Speaker 3: build referring to some other course, you know, and and
Speaker 3: it's almost like they're, you know, they're a cover band,
Speaker 3: like you know, no original work, like you know. And
Speaker 3: that's how I feel about temple holes is there's someone
Speaker 3: else's idea on a certain site. And yeah, they were
Speaker 3: repeated maybe by you know, C V McDonald and then
Speaker 3: other people, but it's it's someone else's ideas. It's like
Speaker 3: a cover band, you.
Speaker 2: Know, or a wedding band or a wedding band, wedding bands.
Speaker 3: I went and uh.
Speaker 2: So when we got when my wife and I got married,
Speaker 2: we went and you know, saw the wedding bands at
Speaker 2: wedding and so I got the pleasure of going to
Speaker 2: a wedding and I was like sober. I never had
Speaker 2: realized how bad wedding bands are until.
Speaker 5: That moment, but then I realized. I thought about It's like, well,
Speaker 5: if they're really good, they wouldn't be a wedding man,
Speaker 5: they'd be a real band.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I think there's merit. I think there's
Speaker 2: there's merit to certain people doing the template. Like Bill
Speaker 2: Core came on the podcast and talked about how Pete
Speaker 2: Dye changed golf architecture twice, and after Harbortown everybody copied
Speaker 2: that and it was never the same. And after Sawgrass,
Speaker 2: everybody copied that, but they were missing the die sauce
Speaker 2: behind it.
Speaker 3: And I think that he was on site. Yeah, he
Speaker 3: has the same he had. He was the original guy
Speaker 3: with the sauce being on site.
Speaker 2: I think there could be an argument made that Pete
Speaker 2: Dye is like the most important architect and golf history
Speaker 2: outside of maybe like old Tom Morris.
Speaker 3: It's you know, his his focus. And you know, I
Speaker 3: haven't been around him, so I'm only speaking from the
Speaker 3: stories I've heard from other guys. But he was on
Speaker 3: site all the time. He wasn't afraid to spend hundreds
Speaker 3: of days during construction on a project and get his
Speaker 3: hands dirty in that, you know, that is I think,
Speaker 3: you know, there's so many architects who are as talented
Speaker 3: as you know, the group I've spoken about over and over,
Speaker 3: but they just don't They just they for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: they just aren't prepared to be there as much as
Speaker 3: they should be, and their products kind of suffers from that.
Speaker 2: And then I mean the idea of not being on
Speaker 2: site a lot is like yeah, I mean like it's
Speaker 2: kind of crazy that it even was like a.
Speaker 3: Real thing like that, and it still isn't it probably
Speaker 3: will be for a long time where you know, there's
Speaker 3: still gonna be a lot of guys drawing grading plans
Speaker 3: on in their you know, in their office and handing
Speaker 3: them off to contractors.
Speaker 2: Well, it goes against like running a business because like
Speaker 2: when you're trying to run a business, you're always trying
Speaker 2: to scale, like how can we do things more efficiently,
Speaker 2: faster and take on more clients. But I think with architecture,
Speaker 2: you're in an industry where it's more art base like
Speaker 2: where you have to like you have to do the
Speaker 2: world like you can't look at it as like we're
Speaker 2: going to get as efficient so we can take on
Speaker 2: as many jobs as possible. Like there's I think a
Speaker 2: clear I just don't think it's a You can't have
Speaker 2: a McDonald's version of golf course architects.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely not, not not successfully, you know, not maybe
Speaker 3: in two thousand and five when they were building five
Speaker 3: hundred golf courses the year in the US, you know
Speaker 3: that that model might have worked at least from a
Speaker 3: business model, but it wasn't producing top one hundred golf
Speaker 3: courses in the world.
Speaker 2: You know, so you've mentioned the rankings a number of times,
Speaker 2: like do you feel as an as you know, an architect,
Speaker 2: that that is how your work, like how you judge
Speaker 2: your work to looking back, No.
Speaker 3: I guess you know, when I say top one hundred,
Speaker 3: I mean probably my own top one hundred. I don't
Speaker 3: necessarily mean Joe pass Off's top one hundred, you know,
Speaker 3: Golf magazine or you know, Golf Digests or anyone else's.
Speaker 3: It does make you feel good when you look at
Speaker 3: you know, when you build something like amil Sands and
Speaker 3: it you know it's super high in the rankings, right
Speaker 3: when that makes you feel good, of course, And when
Speaker 3: they're not. Yeah, And that's the funny thing. I think
Speaker 3: we all love them when we're in them. But the
Speaker 3: second you build a golf course like Taylor is a
Speaker 3: good example, I think it's amazing, but it's not in there,
Speaker 3: so then it pass me off. So you know, you're
Speaker 3: you're the rankings are by nature, you know, they're it's
Speaker 3: completely subjective, right, like sure, there's you could probably name
Speaker 3: you know, you could probably pick fifty golf courses that
Speaker 3: are amazing and not even rank them one or two,
Speaker 3: you know, top my top fifty and just here's my
Speaker 3: fifty top golf courses. And I think that would probably
Speaker 3: be a much better way to do it, you know,
Speaker 3: in groupings rather than one two, you know, because it's
Speaker 3: so easy to look at seventy three and say seventy
Speaker 3: three is way better than fifty two. You know, the
Speaker 3: fifty two ranked one.
Speaker 2: Well that's it. I'm in the same about like the
Speaker 2: idea of putting a number next, Like there's like a
Speaker 2: clear tiers, you know, and it's like would you rather play? Like?
Speaker 2: And then I start to think about it. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know what's better this golf course or this golf course.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, they're both great, and it's like I,
Speaker 2: you know, like which one would I rather play on
Speaker 2: a date? Well, I don't know, it depends on what
Speaker 2: I'm looking for.
Speaker 3: Imagine if someone did that, someone else did that with
Speaker 3: a different form of art, like what are your top
Speaker 3: what's the number one sculpture in the world. I mean,
Speaker 3: that makes no sense, right, It's it's our it's it's
Speaker 3: from your point of view. It's how you played that day,
Speaker 3: it's how the weather was, it's how nice the kid
Speaker 3: at the golf shop. Was it's how good your caddy was?
Speaker 3: You know, So ranking a golf course, I would say,
Speaker 3: is like ranking sculptures. It's it's you know, it doesn't
Speaker 3: it doesn't really mean that much, unless, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: one of our courses is ranked highly, and then it's
Speaker 3: super important.
Speaker 5: If you're the number one sculptor, then of course I
Speaker 5: want to rank. It's uh, what would you what do
Speaker 5: you think should.
Speaker 2: Go into evaluating a golf course?
Speaker 3: You know, what should go or what does go? What
Speaker 3: should go? You know, as you should be able to
Speaker 3: show up and as if you're gonna if you're if
Speaker 3: you are going to do you know, be a rank
Speaker 3: or if you're saying, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna rank
Speaker 3: the golf course architecturally, and then you need to do
Speaker 3: it in a bubble. You know, you need to not
Speaker 3: think about the guy at the pro shop or the
Speaker 3: traffic on the way there, or you know, the fact
Speaker 3: that it was cold that day, or that your caddy
Speaker 3: was the you know, not the best.
Speaker 2: Because the look drives them up. Notts is how you played, how.
Speaker 3: You play it. If I played good, it's great, of course,
Speaker 3: is awesome. If I can't make a pass. You know,
Speaker 3: it's no where the greens are horrible, and it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's subjective, you know, and I don't think that you
Speaker 3: can a lot of people and aren't in in the
Speaker 3: you know, modern day architects. You know, I'd walked it.
Speaker 3: I love to walk the golf course, and you know,
Speaker 3: I really got a feel for it. I never played it,
Speaker 3: but I walked it. That always sort of I always
Speaker 3: think that's a cop out. You know, you didn't play it,
Speaker 3: but you're going to evaluate it. Even though you never
Speaker 3: swung a golf club on it. You walked around it.
Speaker 3: You didn't fully understand the golf course, but you're going
Speaker 3: to tell me that you have an opinion on it
Speaker 3: because you walked around. I find that really difficult, and
Speaker 3: that's a that's a big thing in today's you know,
Speaker 3: young kids. Well I went out and walked it. Okay,
Speaker 3: maybe that's great if you couldn't play it, but played
Speaker 3: the golf course and evaluate it.
Speaker 2: I think I understand the golf course more when I
Speaker 2: walk it than when I play it.
Speaker 3: Might can you give an opinion on, you know, architecturally,
Speaker 3: how it played.
Speaker 2: I like to so I walk with like a wedge,
Speaker 2: a seven iron, a putter.
Speaker 3: So you're playing the all. I don't think you have
Speaker 3: to play it for a score. I think you have
Speaker 3: to hit shots on it, and you have to you know,
Speaker 3: feel the grass and you have to you know, see
Speaker 3: what happens when it balls back towards the green.
Speaker 2: I think, like around the greens is where hitting shots
Speaker 2: and and but like from tee to green, I pretty
Speaker 2: much know where I'm going to hit it. And I
Speaker 2: can stand on a team look at this and look
Speaker 2: at a shot and be like, oh this is this
Speaker 2: is a good shot, you know. But I think, like
Speaker 2: to your point, like to fully grasp it, you need
Speaker 2: to play. I also don't really think you can judge
Speaker 2: a golf course one time around.
Speaker 3: I agree, like, I know if it's bad, I know
Speaker 3: if I play it once and I end up saying,
Speaker 3: you know, like I can usually say, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 3: ever coming back here. If it's you know, a good
Speaker 3: golf course, like something like Fine Valley, you know, you're
Speaker 3: in awe of it the first time you play it,
Speaker 3: you know, and you need to play it again. Cypru's
Speaker 3: kind of the same thing. The old course sort of
Speaker 3: the same thing. You know, sometimes when when the personality
Speaker 3: of the golf course is so big, I really think
Speaker 3: you kind of jaded, you know, and you have to
Speaker 3: almost play it again to really understand it.
Speaker 2: It's funny because like Mammoth is a good example of
Speaker 2: like I've played it now three times, but I've walked
Speaker 2: it probably five or six other times, and I've understood
Speaker 2: it more and more and I've appreciated aspects of it
Speaker 2: more and more every time I played it. And like,
Speaker 2: so it's funny because like my opinion after one round
Speaker 2: would have been completely different it is now after playing
Speaker 2: a bunch of times, Like I just understand the golf
Speaker 2: course more, like you know, like it's a weird golf
Speaker 2: course in the sense like every hole I feel like
Speaker 2: out there, every hole I should be like pushing the
Speaker 2: envelope trying to make a verdict versus so many holes.
Speaker 2: I've been conditioned in my life to like, you know,
Speaker 2: like play conservative, like play and like don't just go
Speaker 2: after it all round long, like which is I But
Speaker 2: there are shots out there where like today I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: I really got to be careful here. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, it's a different challenge in the sense of
Speaker 2: like prs are always very attainable for a good player.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, like you can if you try
Speaker 2: and make a par, you're never going to get yourself
Speaker 2: really like you can make eighteen pars. It's where you
Speaker 2: get in troubles when you push for the birdie.
Speaker 3: And that's what David and I's real philosophy was here.
Speaker 3: Let's forget about defend par. Let's forget about let's let's
Speaker 3: give par away. Let's defend birdie. You know, let's really
Speaker 3: try to defend a good player from getting a birdie,
Speaker 3: because that's really what we want. If you try to
Speaker 3: defend par, then the average guy he's getting bowe. You're
Speaker 3: a double boge, right.
Speaker 2: And that's like why I think the brilliant, like I
Speaker 2: honestly think that like and at like a fifteen handicaps
Speaker 2: are universally going to just like absolutely love this place
Speaker 2: because it's going to be the first golf course that
Speaker 2: just doesn't beat them over their head all around long, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and a lot like gamble sands, I think the
Speaker 3: good players, like you said, a good player is going
Speaker 3: to think that they can, you know, score their very
Speaker 3: best score they've ever scored at mammothudes because they they
Speaker 3: see that I attainable. Yeah, But once you start pressing
Speaker 3: on the gas and you start thinking, okay, I'm going
Speaker 3: to get you know, I got a birdie there, and
Speaker 3: then I can get another brand, and then you know,
Speaker 3: you if it's not, you know, no one's going to
Speaker 3: go out there and get ten birdies. Right.
Speaker 2: Making birdies is hard any golf course anywhere.
Speaker 3: Right, if it was a flat field three hundred yards long,
Speaker 3: birdies are still hard. They still up.
Speaker 2: It's like you still have to hit exceptional shots. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like I tried to drive the tenth green a short
Speaker 2: part four today and I like lost ball. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that was like the killer on my route. It's like
Speaker 2: I would have shot a really good score if I
Speaker 2: had lost ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's like that's where I pushed the gas.
Speaker 3: There's some punishment, there's some edges. And I think that
Speaker 3: is if I if I could bottle up architecture, and
Speaker 3: you know what I think really good architecture is. I
Speaker 3: think it's bringing the good player, the high handicap or
Speaker 3: the low handicap player and the high handicap player together
Speaker 3: as close as you can get them. So, you know,
Speaker 3: trying to make it as easy again. The handicap system
Speaker 3: is set up for the good player in the US
Speaker 3: right because it's all about your potential, and my potential
Speaker 3: as an eight handicap is probably you know, an eighty.
Speaker 3: My potential is that and I you know, whereas normally
Speaker 3: I'll probably get a ninety and a good player. If
Speaker 3: you're a single digit handicap, a one handicap, you're gonna
Speaker 3: shoot around par most of the time.
Speaker 2: Well, so this is the interesting thing. It's like for
Speaker 2: the American system of stroke play, it's very advantageous if
Speaker 2: you're playing net stroke play. I think it's very advantageous
Speaker 2: to be a low handicap. But if you take the
Speaker 2: system and we play match play, the real low handicaps
Speaker 2: had a huge disadvantage because like their propeessie to not
Speaker 2: make big numbers is that's like your advantage is like
Speaker 2: you know, like fifteen is going to make a seven
Speaker 2: or an eight, But in nash play.
Speaker 3: You only lose one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why match play is a better system. It is.
Speaker 3: I agree hundred percent. I'm I'm a you know, I'm
Speaker 3: a I think I'm an eight handicap right now, but
Speaker 3: I could get you know, a snowman or a verdie
Speaker 3: on any single hole, right, and you're probably you're you're
Speaker 3: never gonna get a snowman. But it's just as hard
Speaker 3: for you to verty it as for me. So match
Speaker 3: play is way better and stroke play you'll probably beat
Speaker 3: me every time, even net, because there's gonna be two
Speaker 3: or three snowman. You know, if I played to my
Speaker 3: very best potential, then we're even mm hm, because you're
Speaker 3: gonna pay your potential almost every day. This is it's
Speaker 3: a you know, it's flawed for the stroke play. So
Speaker 3: any type of architecture that can bring those two players
Speaker 3: together more so that it's more evenly matched. I think
Speaker 3: it's you know, I think that's a winner.
Speaker 2: That's that's a great architecture. And match play. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that's the recipe, because match play brings people closer. It's
Speaker 2: a it's funny, it's it's the archite actually bringing the
Speaker 2: thing of bringing everybody closer, I think is like the
Speaker 2: nail on the head. Yeah, because like it you don't
Speaker 2: like That's the way I feel when I play some
Speaker 2: of these golf courses that I like to rip on
Speaker 2: is like it's so boring for me and like you
Speaker 2: watch a tour like it's just thoughtless, and then you like,
Speaker 2: my dad's a seventeen handicap and he played. It's just
Speaker 2: it's miserable for me to play with him because of
Speaker 2: how hard it is for him. And I'm spending my
Speaker 2: whole day looking for golf balls or watching him drop
Speaker 2: golf balls, like and that is I mean, so is
Speaker 2: it possible to build a really good golf course without width?
Speaker 3: I think the strategy becomes much more subtle. Right, the
Speaker 3: greens are smaller, so that the strategy is much subtler.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, the narrower it gets, the
Speaker 3: the more the strategy is apparent to a really good golfer,
Speaker 3: but maybe less apparent to you know, a higher handicap golfer,
Speaker 3: because they're just trying to hit the fair way. They're
Speaker 3: not picking you know, which side, or I need to
Speaker 3: come in from here. Well, the fairy is only you know,
Speaker 3: eighteen hours wide. I'm just trying to not just trying
Speaker 3: to make the grass, you know. So I think they can,
Speaker 3: it can be a really great golf course, but the strategy,
Speaker 3: you know, the strategy is much more so so, so
Speaker 3: I don't think everyone gets to enjoy a high handicapper
Speaker 3: rarely gets to enjoy the the you know, the strategy
Speaker 3: of a narrow golf course.
Speaker 2: All right, Casey, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure, Yeah, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Andy. Yeah, it would be excited to see you guys
Speaker 2: next work. I know you got a couple overseas projects,
Speaker 2: but hopefully sooner. In the America is another one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and hopefully they're all in sand Yeah.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: We've been listening to the fried Egg podcast.
Speaker 3: We do the digging for you.