WEBVTT - Final U.S. Open Thoughts and a New Alister MacKenzie Book 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.800 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:04.920 I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:05.960 And when I find my. 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.959 Ball in a bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:11.800 Frida Egg, Frida Egg, bride. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.120 Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.440 Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:44.280 Today's episode is with Josh Pettitt. Josh put together a 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.880 wonderful book called The Mackenzie Reader. He's also in golf architecture. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.880 He owns Pacific Golf Design, does a lot of golf 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.880 architecture work, so it was it was awesome to have 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:01.040 him on and talk about his book, The McKenzie Reader, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.080 that he released last year. Is a beautiful, beautiful book 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:09.039 and definitely one worth checking out. But we talk a 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.520 ton about the book and then also just Alistair McKenzie 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.920 in general, his favorite anecdotes. He's done a ton of 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.840 Alistair McKenzie research, so this was a really fun conversation. 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.840 I was planning on putting together a second conversation for this, 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.480 but I am traveling. Been kind of a hectic schedule 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.759 going from LACC to the East Coast has not been 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.360 friendly with the with the jet lag and the new 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.000 hours on the East Coast with some early mornings to shoot, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.120 but really really great seeing some new new golf courses 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:42.600 out here. 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.080 It was blown away by Hollywood the other day. 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.480 We had an event out there and what a cool place, 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:52.200 a Walter Travis design that you know, we will have 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.360 a write up in the future on Club TFE. If 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:58.400 you haven't signed up for Club tfy do so if 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.120 you want to you know more from We've been writing 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.200 basically daily articles Monday through Friday on there, and we 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.720 do in depth course profiles where we kind of break 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.760 down the architecture of different courses, a wide spectrum of them, 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.960 from private to public golf courses all over the country 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:18.000 and a. 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:18.960 Little bit in the UK. 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:24.239 So real quick, I wanted to do some closing thoughts 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.520 from LACC and the US Open. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.760 I was out there all week. I'm not gonna lie. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.160 I don't think the atmosphere was great, the fan experience 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.480 wasn't great. The you know, the whole ticket situation that 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.360 everybody's talking about, the limited number of tickets for the 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.440 US Open, that wasn't great. But what I can say 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.720 unequivocally having attended a lot of the recent US Opens, 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.760 this was the best US Open set up in a 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.800 long time. I think that John Bodenhammer and his team 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:00.680 deserve a ton of credit for the sensational set up. 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:06.239 In presentation of Los Angeles Country Club, I thought the test, 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:11.160 you know, everybody was talking about low scores, and I 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.280 think it was kind of a silly thing to think 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.040 about when you look at the When you look at 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.120 the front nine, the eighth hole is a five hundred 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.720 and ten yard par five. These guys were hitting five 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:28.080 wood and and then like six iron into it. The 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.240 reality of par is that the definition of par is 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.040 what an expert player, how many shots it takes them 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:36.960 to get to the green and then plus two putts 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.200 the first and the eighth hole. If the players, if 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:43.760 every player in the field hit the fairway, they were 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.360 going for that green and they were going to probably 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.840 reach it pretty easily. Those aren't par fives in the actuality. 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.480 I think it was great leaving the first hole a 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.840 par five to respect the way that George Thomas intended 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.840 golf courses to start like an opener, super easible, easy, 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:04.480 gettable hole in terms. 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.600 Of par a hard par four coming up after that. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.440 Now, if we just changed the par to sixty eight 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.720 like it was, that's what this golf court. It was 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:16.800 a par sixty eight for these guys. There was a 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.880 reachable par four and two reachable par five, two par 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:23.479 fives that are really par four's on the front nine. 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.400 If we change the par to sixty eight, all of 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.200 a sudden, the low score a window. Clark wins at 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.960 two under. Nobody's complaining about score to par. If he 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.200 wins it two under, this is silly, you know that way. 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:38.840 If you do it that way, two guys were under 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:43.159 par for this tournament. Anyways, let's just talk about scoring 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.880 a little bit more. Thursday, I think was the day 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.279 that everybody freaked out. Xander Schaffley and Ricky Fowler shoot 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:55.279 sixty twos. It was an ideal scoring day. Overcast, it 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.280 sprits a little early in the morning, and that overcast 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.800 and the in the air and on the ground just 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.520 allowed it to be soft. There was no wind. Add end, 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.560 the USGA is playing their first ever. 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.120 US Open at LACC. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.359 One of the big concerns heading into the week was 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.080 pace of play and also just you know, you want 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.480 to feel your way into that setup. So yes, it 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.120 was scorable, but you had to play great to score 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.279 That's the thing that's kind of lost on everybody. You 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.200 had to play awesome to score well. You had to 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.200 hit fairways. If you weren't in the fairway. It was 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.560 really hard golf course. And Ricky Fowler and Xander Schoffley 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:41.120 shoot these sixty twos. 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:42.159 It's not like these. 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.040 Guys ran away to twenty under. They were way over 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.240 par after that round. You know, if you look at 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.560 the rest of their tournament, they were over par. It 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.320 was a hard golf course, it was. It really did 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:58.000 a great job of separating the players that were playing well, 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.160 the players that were playing mediocre, the guys that were 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.880 playing bad. I mean, like Justin Thomas shoots eighty one, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.200 Like this was a golf course that really you knew 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.279 how somebody was playing based off of their scores. The 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.840 other thing, the golf course got tougher and tougher every day. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.680 That's what you want from a championship setup. You want 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.840 the golf course to peek on Sunday. You don't want 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.960 it to peak on Thursday or Friday or even Saturday Sunday. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.320 You want that to be the toughest day. If you 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.880 look at the final groups on Sunday, it was really hard. 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.799 Nobody broke par in the last three groups. Now, before 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.080 you say, well Tommy Fleetwood shot sixty three, had a 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.320 really good look at sixty two. Look at what happened 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.479 throughout the week, the low scores and everybody that knew, 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.279 everybody that was there knew this. The low scores were 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.760 available in the morning, That's when the course was more receptive. 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.920 That's when the wind was down. You know, on Sunday 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.000 the marine layer stayed in again, that moisture stayed in 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.760 the air. It clears up in the after it gets 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:06.479 brutally tough. And why this didn't matter, why it didn't 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:08.920 matter that Tommy fleet would shot sixty three was the 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.520 golf course had done its job. 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.000 There weren't forty guys. 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.520 Within six shots and Tommy Fleetwood sixty three could all 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.080 sudden win him the tournament. Tommy Fleetwood was so far 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.920 back because this golf course had identified that he was 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.840 not a contender. There were four guys that could win 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.720 this golf tournament on Sunday, and they were awesome players. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.400 You obviously had Wyndham Clark, Rory McElroy, Scotti, Scheffler, and 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.400 Ricky Fowler. Those were the only four guys who had 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:42.440 a chance to win on Sunday. I'm sorry if you 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:43.560 think somebody else did. 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:44.320 They didn't. 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.200 I think everybody in the field knew they didn't have 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.000 a shot. There was no way someone was coming from 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.480 six back on this golf course and leapfrogging those four 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.040 players in a late tea time. Sure Tommy Fleetwood could 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.160 shoot sixty three and surge up the leaderboard, but he 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.560 was too far back because he hadn't played well enough 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.360 at a golf course that identified he hadn't played well 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.360 enough early in the week. And that's the thing about 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.640 this golf course that I think needs to be remembered. 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.680 It gave people enough space to play and it really 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.160 identified who was playing best. I you know, I think 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:22.760 LACC has gotten a lot of flak for scoring. I 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:27.200 think that's unfounded and wrong. You know this is this 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:32.040 was a great tournament of really like wonderful competition from 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.640 a golf standpoint, where they do deserve some grief. And 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.480 the USDA shares of this probably is on the fan experience. 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.439 On the atmosphere. It lacked a lot of pop, not 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.400 having any fans around the and this is hard, the 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.400 hard situation. Some it was tight, but one of the 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.600 reasons that it was so tight is that all the 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:53.960 back teas they're using. You know, if they don't have 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.839 to use all these back tees, there's al sudden a 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.680 lot more space for grand stands, more tickets can be sold. 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.760 But also, you know, the corporate aspect of this, like 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.120 more than half. You can't have a tournament where more 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:09.560 than half the tickets go to corporate like that shouldn't happen. 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:14.200 And if you can contrast this with last year's US Open, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.960 last year's US Open was probably my favorite tournament of 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:17.240 the year. 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:17.760 I don't know. 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:24.679 The Open Championship was great too. Those were two sensational tournaments. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.400 But if I think about last year's US Open, which 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:34.960 was a sensational tournament, that atmosphere was unbelievable. I think 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.480 the competition and the way the golf course kind of 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.720 selected players was better this year. And I thought the 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.480 country Club was a great US Open venue, So I 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.280 think if you look at it from the way the 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.800 golf courses tested players, I think this year's US Open 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.920 was a little bit better. But then the atmosphere of 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.959 last year's US Open. It was electric on the weekend. 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:02.000 It was awesome that one would be just so exponentially 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:06.000 higher than LACC. I think they are both really good 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:11.120 US Opens, and I think, you know, the I'm excited 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.160 for when they go back to LACC in twenty odd years. 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.960 Obviously they're all booked up. We can talk about that 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.960 another time. But Riviera just got the twenty thirty one 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:26.880 US Open. That'll be interesting, you know, in eight years. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:28.920 We're talking about eight years, but it'll be interesting to 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.040 see how that one's set up. Given the complaints of LACC, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.840 it seems like that is an even smaller site. So 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.040 let's talk about the four guys that could win the 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.120 tournament on Sunday and kind of where they go from here. 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:49.280 The champion, Wyndham Clark. I can't believe the discourse on 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.720 Wyndam Clark about. I mean, this guy played great golf. 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.679 Look at who he beat. He beat Rory, he beat Scottie, 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.880 and he beat Ricky Fowler. He beat two players that 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.840 are often considered the best player in the game right now, 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.080 and Rory and Scottie, and then the other guy is 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.560 one of the best modern players without a major so 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.000 Wyndham Clark played great. He's on a meteoric rise. He's 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.839 up to thirteenth in the OWGR. I think what's being 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.720 a little bit overlooked and the disappointment that Rory didn't 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.880 win is who knows what Wyndham Clark could become. He's 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.640 got all the ingredients to be a very very very 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.680 good player on the PGA Tour and in the world 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.840 of golf. He's super long, he's got a great short game, 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:43.320 he's a great putter, and his approach place improving, Like 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.160 that's what you look for. He's a guy that can 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.320 do everything. So you start to think, like, and we 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.360 do this every major where we start to project out 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.280 what a player might end up with, you know, famously, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.880 like after Sergio won the Masters, it was like, is 0:11:57.920 --> 0:11:59.679 this going to open the floodgates? Are we going to 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:04.160 have these Sergio major wins? No? No, you know this. 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:08.600 We almost always air on the two high side. But 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.600 with Wyndham Clark, like, let's just say a low bar. 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.360 I probably think a low bar is five wins in 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.480 his career in a Ryder Cup. Just to give that 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:20.760 some context, Gary Woodland, this is not meant to be 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.120 a drive by Gary Woodland a US Open at Pebble 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:27.080 Beach that nobody really complained about. He's got four wins 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.160 in his career, so I don't think this is going 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.600 to be a disastrous US Open winner. 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:34.520 On the high end, I think a. 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.080 Skill set really translates well. He could be a top 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.000 twenty player for five six years maybe more. Maybe he's 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.200 kind of like an older Brooks Kopka where he wins, 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:46.760 he picks up not Brooks. 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:47.600 I mean he's not gonna win. 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:49.960 I don't think he's gonna win five majors, but maybe 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.120 he picks off another one. His game certainly fits a 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.600 lot of golf courses. So Wyndham Clark I think obviously 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.240 a huge winner from the week and somebody that people 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.120 should be excited about. I think he gave a really 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:07.120 good press conference where he talked a lot about his process, 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.440 what he's gone through, and I love his approach with 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.120 no coach of how he's just trying to get back 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:14.720 to neutral. 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:15.120 It was. 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:16.840 It was a. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.720 Phenomenal interview where he just talked about, hey, if I'm 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:21.679 drawing the ball, I'm trying to hit cuts to get 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.360 back to neutral. If I'm cutting the ball, I'm trying 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.680 to get hit draws to get back to neutral, and 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:27.800 I've never played better. 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:29.520 I mean, I think that's a. 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.480 Really interesting way and we need more of this in 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.160 the game of golf for the younger generation to see, Hey, 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.960 you don't need your swing micro analyzed after every single shot, 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.000 Like you don't need that, you know, speaking of that, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.080 Like what was interesting is like, you know, Wyndham Clark, 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.400 Rory didn't have a coach there, Scottie, Randy Smith wasn't there. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:55.800 I don't think on the weekend, you know, three of 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.080 those guys and I don't think Ricky had a coach there. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.120 The four guys that had a chance to win and 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.880 have coaches on the range with them this weekend, all right, 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:09.040 the gut wrenching second place. Rory McElroy. I think this one, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.640 this one was tough. He played well enough to win. 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:16.960 He certainly played well enough to win if he had 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:22.520 a good putting week, he wins. I think the my 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.680 criticism for Rory after the after oak Hill was that 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:30.360 he was too sloppy. He wasn't really sloppy, you know. 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:34.600 I think that when you watch Rory McElroy play Major 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.600 championship golf, You often get frustrated with the week bogies 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.680 the week, you know, just the giveaways, and seemingly there 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.360 is always one or two. 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.520 In every round. This week was a lot different. 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.200 I think there were really three giveaways, and I think 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.920 one of them is tough to point out as a giveaway. 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.360 He had two three putts. The one on eight on 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.280 Sunday was really bad. That needs to be a birdie, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:05.240 right there's in the playoff. I think the the fourteenth, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.280 the web shot on Sunday that everybody's going to focus on. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:10.960 That was that was not great. 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.400 I mean he was, he was a yard from it 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.440 being really great, really great shot, but he was you know, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.560 also had five yards of space beyond the flag where 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.200 that has to be the miss. Miss has to be 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.200 past the flag, you have to have a twenty footer, 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:29.080 and I think he gave. 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.120 Himself a lot of those types of looks on a very. 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:36.000 Hard golf course and in the nobody wants to hear this, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.840 but the simple fact of that tournament was Rory didn't 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:42.880 make anything on the weekend. 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:43.600 Nothing. 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.280 He made no putts, and sometimes that that's what golf 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.440 comes down to. One guy makes putts, the other guy 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.280 didn't and Rory didn't make putts. I think the the 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.880 one other place that you can look at and say, man, 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.960 that was a missed opportunity was Saturday. He three putts 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.720 on thirteen. That hole just kind of was a bugaboo. 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.680 I think for him in general, he bogeated two of 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.800 the four days. But you know, where does he go 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.080 from here? I think he's got to come away from 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:16.240 this feeling great about his game and future major championships. 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:17.360 I think he is. 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.120 I think he's cleaned up a lot of the things 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.880 that kind of made him struggle early in the year, 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.840 especially with majors. He's driving the ball great. I think 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.080 what I would like to see from him is a 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.880 real dedication to the wedge play. It's obviously been kind 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.040 of a thorn inside. We saw it running into the 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.200 tournament where the wedge play has been a struggle, and 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.680 we saw it pop up on fourteen. I think he 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:46.400 was pretty solid outside of that. Major championships are about 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.160 opportunities and being there, and I think like this is 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.240 going to parlay into Scotti, But Rory's now at the 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:55.840 point where he knows how hard these things are to win. 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.960 It makes it a little bit tougher, but he's getting himself. 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:03.240 And now this is two days, two years in a 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:08.480 row with Saint Andrews in here where he is on 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.480 the back nine and he just he needs a couple 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.840 putts to drop, and he just didn't have a couple 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:18.040 putts drop. And I think we can overanalyze everything, but 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:20.760 that's the really the basics. 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:24.679 Of this for him. Scotty Scheffler, what a player. 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.960 I mean, it is extraordinary what he's doing this season 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.000 in terms of consistency. He hasn't finished outside the top 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.960 twenty in forever. It's amazing to watch a guy. I 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.800 watched Scotty his entire round on Thursday, and then I 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.280 watched his entire round on Sunday, and I caught obviously 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.320 him intermittently throughout the rest of the tournament. A lot 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.280 of nights I was watching the telecast after the golf 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.240 was over. Scotty contended in this major when he didn't 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:57.720 really have it. He was really slow out of the 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.600 gates on Thursday. Sunday, he missed the bunch of short 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.119 putts and you start to add up the totals and 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.960 you're like, wow, he missed two or three short puts 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.320 on Sunday, and he finished three shots out of the lead, 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:15.199 out of being in a playoff factor in he opened 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:19.040 the tournament on the most ideal scoring conditions ever, he 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.240 was shot two over on the front nine. He has 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.040 to feel a little bit like, man, this is crazy 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:29.520 that I'm not winning, given how many how well I'm playing. 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.119 As a whole body of work. 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.680 He obviously won the Masters in twenty twenty one in 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:40.960 record setting fashion, not record setting, but like he was dominant. 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.640 It was a dominant, dominant win. He's been in contention 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.600 basically in every single major since. He wasn't really in 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:54.800 the open at St. Andrews, but really like he's been 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.520 a factor at all these majors and leading into that 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.080 Masters when he was a fact during a ton of 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.879 major championships. Like this guy is built for major championships. 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.800 That being said, what we just talked about with Rory, 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.720 the one worry I have about Scotty is like, is 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.560 he starting to learn how hard it is to win 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.159 these majors? You kind of and I think, like Colin 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.600 Morikawa is in this state right now, and I think 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.640 it's that's the tough thing. Like you want these young 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.560 players to keep picking them off, Brooks just dealt with 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.919 this where he had the injuries and everything, and all 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.600 of a sudden it went from making majors look easy 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.840 to they're really really hard and you get like kind 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.000 of a mental block. And I think with the putter, 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.760 that's that reappeared on Sunday. He was pretty solid throughout 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:51.000 the week. The putter'spent a problem, but winning major championships 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.879 is really hard, and when you know it's really hard, 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.080 it just makes it tougher. I think there's a naive 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.520 nature that some these young players now have to winning 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.200 majors and winning golf tournaments, and it's it's hard when 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:12.040 you lose that mindset. And Scotty I expect him to 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:16.280 contend at the Open, and I think he's probably by 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:18.560 far the best player in the world right now, just 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.440 based off everybody's looking to be consistent. He's the most 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:26.639 consistent player. Hopefully he's not developing any of the scar tissue, 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.520 because that's that's I think the one thing that could 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:31.880 slow him down in major championships. 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.879 All right. Ricky Fowler, he he had a great week. 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.360 I think he was obviously the story of the week 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.520 until Sunday, and uh, it was it was amazing to 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.000 feel the energy. You know, there wasn't a ton of 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.440 energy out at LACC, but where there was a lot 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.320 of energy was with Ricky Fowler. I followed him on 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.800 Saturday extensively, and you know, you could just feel the 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:01.640 graciousness of or Friday afternoon, the greciousness of the crowd. 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.919 You know, they just you could sense that everybody was 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.040 pulling for Rick. He's had an awesome year. If you 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.800 go back and look after last year's playoffs, he was 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.640 one hundred and sixty seventh in the world rankings. Right 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.439 now he's thirty fifth. He's on a meteoric rise. He 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.760 is playing some of the best golf we've seen him play. 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:24.600 I mean the best golf we've seen him play in 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:26.040 effectively five years. 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.080 I think the question about. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.399 Rick coming out of this is is he going to 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.080 have another shot at the Major? Was this his best shot? 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.360 I think he's got chances at the Open. I think 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.320 that's going to be his best chance moving forward. I 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:45.280 don't think the US Open is his best chance. I 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.200 don't think the Masters is his best chance. I think 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:52.000 the Open Championships moving forward a place where. 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.520 Distance isn't the end. 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.000 All be all at Open Championships experience I think matters 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.800 a lot. You have to hit shots in the wind, 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.400 and you know, I think that's where we're gonna see 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:10.040 Ricky potentially have chances to win majors. But this was 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:13.080 an awesome performance. I feel for the guy. I mean, 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.280 you could tell he just didn't have it on Sunday, 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.439 but this was a great tournament, and I you know, 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.040 it's amazing to have him back in the game. I 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:24.119 always like one of my favorite things about golf is 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.400 watching guys come out of the gutter. And I think 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.960 Ricky Fowler one of the most popular players, one of 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:34.920 the players of like the twenty tens. I think you'd 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.000 have him on the short list of the most memorable, 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.640 impactful players in a decade. 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:44.040 He got it going again. It was awesome to be 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:45.479 there and awesome to see it. 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.399 And I hope we get a little bit more Ricky. 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.280 I'm not sure how much more, but it looks like 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.040 the game is getting into a really, really good spot. 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.320 So without further ado, I just wanted to wrap up 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:03.080 the US Open. It was an awesome tournament. I you know, 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.159 it just makes it with everything going on in golf. 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.360 It just one of the things that's sad is when 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.800 major championship season it's coming to end, and we're getting 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:15.399 close to that with the Open next month. This was 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:17.680 a really fun tournament and it was great to have 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:20.560 the focus of the week beyond the golf and not 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:37.159 everything else that's going on in professional golf. Now for 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:42.520 a quick word from our sponsor, Echo. Echo makes the 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:46.000 most comfortable golf shoes in the world. They just want 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.840 to help their brand purposes. They just want to help 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:53.600 golfers simply enjoy their game. 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I think the 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:37.400 amazing stat is ninety percent of golfers who buy echoes 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:41.679 buy a second pair. That's the best selling point you 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:42.120 can make. 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:43.720 People that buy these buy more. 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:46.879 They've got a wide range of styles and if you're interested, 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:51.560 go to US dot Echo dot com. That's US dot 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:56.840 Ecco dot com slash TFE and you can check out 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:00.840 all their shoes there. Thanks, and now to Josh Pattitt. 0:25:04.000 --> 0:25:07.160 All right, tell me about your recent trip to Colorado. 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:14.880 Well, I unearthed a few interesting artifacts that were given 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:18.240 to me from the closest thing to a living heir 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:23.879 to doctor Alistair Mackenzie. It's from a woman named Joan Haddock, 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:29.800 who's the She's the widow of Mackenzie's step grandson, Ray Haddock, 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:33.399 and they were the ones that found the manuscript for 0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:38.119 the Spirit of Saint Andrews in nineteen ninety two and 0:25:38.200 --> 0:25:41.360 then it was published in I think ninety four ninety five. 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:46.760 She gave me Alistair Mackenzie's hickory clubs that their family 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:50.919 had kept all these years from Pasa Tiempa when he 0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:55.479 passed away, and it's a pretty good story. Those clubs 0:25:55.480 --> 0:25:59.280 have actually traveled all around the country in a caravan 0:26:00.040 --> 0:26:03.080 in the late thirties and up until about nineteen forty, 0:26:03.960 --> 0:26:09.840 their family basically we're living out of a motor home 0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:13.640 and traveling a lot, homeschooled their kids and kept all 0:26:13.680 --> 0:26:16.480 that stuff with them in this little like what would 0:26:16.520 --> 0:26:21.040 have been the equivalent of Winnebago in those days, and 0:26:21.080 --> 0:26:24.720 then eventually it made it out to the Denver area 0:26:24.960 --> 0:26:30.040 in Colorado, where it's been all their stuff for about yeah, 0:26:30.080 --> 0:26:32.879 forty years or so, no, maybe longer, like since about 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:39.600 nineteen seventy. So, yeah, I've got three sets of clubs, 0:26:40.760 --> 0:26:45.720 two golf bags, and it's pretty pretty cool, very special. 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:51.960 Some cool the clubs that were in famous pictures. And 0:26:52.000 --> 0:26:54.399 then another one that was the putter. 0:26:55.000 --> 0:26:55.240 Yeah. 0:26:55.359 --> 0:26:57.560 So there's a photo of Mackenzie standing on the fifteenth 0:26:57.640 --> 0:27:00.960 Green at Cyper's Point, pointing out out with this putter 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:04.399 to the Pacific Ocean, and that putter is one of 0:27:04.400 --> 0:27:04.880 the putters. 0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:05.119 You know. 0:27:05.160 --> 0:27:08.399 I have a high resolution version of that photo. I 0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:11.760 could zoom weighing on the putter head and it's very 0:27:11.840 --> 0:27:14.080 obvious that that's the same putter that was in one 0:27:14.119 --> 0:27:18.159 of the bags. And then there's another putter that the 0:27:18.240 --> 0:27:21.760 story is that Bobby Jones gave him probably nineteen thirty 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:23.960 one or thirty two when they were working on Augusta. 0:27:25.040 --> 0:27:29.480 That's a Calamity Jane replica that was made by Spaulding 0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:32.879 and he gave out a bunch of those to friends 0:27:32.880 --> 0:27:36.840 of his. So m Kenzie got one, and that's part 0:27:36.880 --> 0:27:37.760 of the set. 0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:42.919 How did you get so enamored with Alistair McKenzie. 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:47.320 Well, it was sort of a gradual process. I suppose 0:27:48.240 --> 0:27:50.919 started in two thousand and three, twenty years ago. 0:27:51.480 --> 0:27:52.520 I was hired. 0:27:53.720 --> 0:27:56.320 As a young lad on the construction crew at the 0:27:56.359 --> 0:27:59.760 Metal Club and they were in the process of doing 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:06.720 a restoration project with Mike Debris and I, you know, 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:09.719 it was just a grundone on the crew, you know, 0:28:09.760 --> 0:28:12.800 swinging a shovel and a pick and pushing a rake 0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:19.359 and uh, but I loved it. Nineteen I just turned nineteen, So, 0:28:19.480 --> 0:28:21.479 I mean I had started working at courses when I 0:28:21.520 --> 0:28:25.119 was fifteen in high school and worked at several courses 0:28:25.119 --> 0:28:28.800 at that point, but had never really been that engaged 0:28:28.920 --> 0:28:31.760 in golf architecture in any in any way. I had 0:28:31.800 --> 0:28:36.320 done some maintenance at a different course, but this was 0:28:36.400 --> 0:28:39.120 just such a unique process that we were sort of 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:42.800 trying to unearth. There was sort of an archaeological component 0:28:42.880 --> 0:28:45.240 to it, you know, unearthed this Mackenzie course that had 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:50.680 been sitting there and all those all those decades, and 0:28:50.800 --> 0:28:53.440 so under the supervision of Mike, just learned a lot 0:28:53.480 --> 0:28:57.000 about the process of trying to reclaim these old greens 0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:02.240 and these bunkers and you know, reclaiming the width and 0:29:02.280 --> 0:29:05.520 the fairways to you know, get back to the old 0:29:05.560 --> 0:29:08.880 strategy and providing the different shot and angles. So that 0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:12.240 that just, I don't know, that really fascinated me, and 0:29:13.680 --> 0:29:17.400 that that led me toward a couple of years later 0:29:18.200 --> 0:29:22.240 working at the Valley Club in Montecito where they were 0:29:22.280 --> 0:29:27.320 getting ready to do a restoration project and they basically 0:29:27.440 --> 0:29:34.120 let me spearhead the historical research component to that, and 0:29:34.200 --> 0:29:37.920 so started That's when I really started digging deep into 0:29:38.840 --> 0:29:42.560 research and really fell in love with that process, which 0:29:42.600 --> 0:29:45.680 is sort of different, quite a bit different than when 0:29:45.680 --> 0:29:49.360 I was doing a metal club. But you know, just 0:29:49.400 --> 0:29:51.920 in my spare time I was working on the crew there, 0:29:52.040 --> 0:29:55.320 but in the afternoons and evenings, I was just full 0:29:55.320 --> 0:29:59.360 time doing research and collecting stuff and digging through the 0:29:59.880 --> 0:30:04.560 art archives in the basement of the Valley Club and 0:30:04.640 --> 0:30:11.040 this process of researching and curating this horse historical content 0:30:11.280 --> 0:30:14.640 was it was kind of thrilling to me, and I 0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:17.239 sort of fell in love with that. And so then 0:30:17.320 --> 0:30:19.800 we did a restoration project at the Valley Club in 0:30:19.840 --> 0:30:25.960 two thousand and seven with Tom Doak, and but I 0:30:26.400 --> 0:30:31.160 had developed this love for research and just continued doing 0:30:31.240 --> 0:30:33.840 that in my spare time, you know, anytime I could 0:30:34.240 --> 0:30:38.120 go into libraries, going to archives. I started gradually building 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:43.680 a network of historians and archivists and researchers all around 0:30:43.720 --> 0:30:46.800 the world that we'd sort of help each other find 0:30:46.840 --> 0:30:49.600 different things. And so I've been doing it ever since, 0:30:49.920 --> 0:30:51.640 and you know, just kind of fell in love with that. 0:30:52.400 --> 0:30:54.640 I imagine it's kind of like pulling a thread. It's 0:30:54.680 --> 0:30:59.719 like a mystery rite where you're trying to solve for something, 0:30:59.800 --> 0:31:04.680 and in this case, if you're considering like McKenzie, it's 0:31:04.760 --> 0:31:07.200 just trying to find I mean, there's so much stuff 0:31:07.240 --> 0:31:08.680 that isn't around. 0:31:08.360 --> 0:31:11.360 Right, Yeah, that's exactly right. So it actually really started, 0:31:11.840 --> 0:31:15.560 you know, the impetus was this routing plan that I 0:31:15.600 --> 0:31:18.600 found that was in the original perspectus for the Valley Club. 0:31:19.120 --> 0:31:21.320 And it's different than the routing plan that you often 0:31:21.360 --> 0:31:23.680 see with the Valley Club. This was an earlier one 0:31:23.960 --> 0:31:28.200 from nineteen twenty eight, and that routing plan had a 0:31:28.240 --> 0:31:32.400 lot more detail and was just super interesting and there 0:31:32.440 --> 0:31:35.640 was a guy's name on it who drew it, and 0:31:37.280 --> 0:31:40.440 that was I started out by trying to find that 0:31:40.520 --> 0:31:44.280 guy and find any other material because in order to 0:31:44.360 --> 0:31:47.960 draw that map, he would have had, you know, my 0:31:48.360 --> 0:31:50.880 theory of the case is he would have had a 0:31:50.920 --> 0:31:54.120 lot of material from mackenzie and Hunter to be able 0:31:54.160 --> 0:31:56.680 to draw all that. You know, he was a draftsman, 0:31:56.720 --> 0:32:01.080 as it turns out, and so you know, really what 0:32:01.160 --> 0:32:07.160 I was after we're green sketches, notes, correspondence, photographs, anything 0:32:07.240 --> 0:32:11.520 like that from mckenzien, Hunter and so that that was 0:32:11.520 --> 0:32:14.360 sort of the impetus. And then you know, collecting that 0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:17.120 got me into collecting photos, you know, trying to identify 0:32:17.680 --> 0:32:21.479 features that have been lost. But yeah, it was like, 0:32:21.480 --> 0:32:24.160 like you said, you pull it a thread and then 0:32:24.880 --> 0:32:26.600 you know, it's like you go down that rabbit hole 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:28.520 and you just never stop. 0:32:29.440 --> 0:32:31.719 When you think back to that Metal club, is there 0:32:31.800 --> 0:32:35.000 a moment you obviously you know you're working, you're nineteen, 0:32:35.360 --> 0:32:36.480 You're like. 0:32:36.400 --> 0:32:37.040 This is cool. 0:32:37.120 --> 0:32:40.560 Is there like a specific moment of that project that 0:32:40.600 --> 0:32:43.440 you remember most vividly of like I love this. 0:32:45.680 --> 0:32:47.680 Well, there was a few moments, but one that comes 0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:51.120 to mind, I guess. We were working on the fourteenth Green, 0:32:51.160 --> 0:32:55.520 which is a part three and that was sort of 0:32:55.880 --> 0:33:01.480 McKenzie's take on a Verdan and we were floating the green. 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:04.920 I was pushing like the you know, with a rake, 0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:09.840 basically floating out the finished grade. And I just remember, 0:33:10.000 --> 0:33:12.880 you know, Mike was sort of supervising and showing me, 0:33:13.200 --> 0:33:16.000 you know, how to float this green out by hand, 0:33:16.760 --> 0:33:21.880 and just the detailed nature of finishing that was was 0:33:21.920 --> 0:33:27.560 so intricate, and for some reason, I just I realized then, 0:33:27.880 --> 0:33:30.320 like wow, I love this. This is this is such 0:33:30.360 --> 0:33:34.360 a cool process, Like, you know, the the detail required 0:33:34.400 --> 0:33:39.200 to do it just right and the craftsmanship was just 0:33:39.520 --> 0:33:43.960 something I really enjoyed. And that was that was just 0:33:44.040 --> 0:33:46.440 one moment that sticks out and and Mike, Mike said 0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:48.880 something to me at the time like wow, I've never 0:33:48.880 --> 0:33:53.080 seen anybody rake so precisely as you're raking right now, 0:33:53.240 --> 0:33:55.840 something like that, and I was like, wow, this is 0:33:55.920 --> 0:33:56.840 that's pretty cool man. 0:33:58.320 --> 0:34:02.200 So you got fascinated and the research and the life 0:34:02.240 --> 0:34:05.680 of Alice Firm McKenzie. And at what point do you 0:34:05.760 --> 0:34:08.240 decide that you want to put together a new book 0:34:08.280 --> 0:34:09.400 on McKenzie. 0:34:10.640 --> 0:34:18.000 Well, that started initially. I got the idea in I 0:34:18.000 --> 0:34:22.960 think it was two thousand and sixteen or seventeen, you know. 0:34:23.000 --> 0:34:26.520 In twenty seventeen, the La Times did a big feature 0:34:26.520 --> 0:34:29.439 on Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, celebrating his one hundred 0:34:29.480 --> 0:34:33.600 and fiftieth birthday. Franklood Wright was a contemporary of mackenzie, 0:34:33.680 --> 0:34:37.400 you know, was born in eighteen sixty seven, and the 0:34:37.440 --> 0:34:42.279 Frankloyd Right Foundation and some other people put together a 0:34:42.320 --> 0:34:45.759 big exhibition, and I thought, Wow, it'd be really cool 0:34:45.760 --> 0:34:48.880 to do something like that for Alistir McKenzie, And I 0:34:48.920 --> 0:34:52.240 was thinking toward the future. Mackenzie was born in eighteen seventy, 0:34:52.680 --> 0:34:55.839 so twenty twenty was McKenzie one hundred and fiftieth, and 0:34:55.960 --> 0:34:58.200 so I had a number of ideas floating around, where 0:34:58.239 --> 0:35:00.440 like how how I could sort of commend rate that. 0:35:02.719 --> 0:35:05.440 And even prior to that, I had been thinking about 0:35:05.560 --> 0:35:09.080 different concepts for a book just as a way of 0:35:10.600 --> 0:35:13.160 kind of showcasing all this material that I've collected over 0:35:13.160 --> 0:35:15.800 the years. I wanted to do something with it, you know, 0:35:15.880 --> 0:35:19.600 get down into the public. And so that was a 0:35:19.640 --> 0:35:21.640 process in and of itself, trying to figure out the 0:35:21.719 --> 0:35:26.200 right concept for the book. But that all kind of 0:35:26.239 --> 0:35:29.919 came together in this yeah, twenty seventeen ish, and then 0:35:30.560 --> 0:35:32.960 started working on it then, and you know, it took 0:35:33.480 --> 0:35:36.040 a three year project. 0:35:35.800 --> 0:35:37.759 With the book. I mean, I think, like the. 0:35:39.600 --> 0:35:44.000 I think there's something magical now about books, especially well 0:35:44.000 --> 0:35:48.200 put together books, because there they become like kind of 0:35:48.239 --> 0:35:52.120 like it becomes a piece of your house. Really when 0:35:52.160 --> 0:35:56.120 there's a certain in with your book, McKenzie reader, I 0:35:56.160 --> 0:35:59.560 feel like there it was a very very intentional style 0:36:00.320 --> 0:36:04.319 in which the book was created, from the typeface to 0:36:04.680 --> 0:36:08.839 the way the pages feel, to the cover. Can you 0:36:08.880 --> 0:36:11.719 walk us through just the little details of how you 0:36:11.800 --> 0:36:13.760 wanted this book to look and feel. 0:36:15.120 --> 0:36:19.960 Yeah, that's very insightful. You're right, yeah, you know, all 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:21.960 the details I thought had to be just right. And 0:36:22.000 --> 0:36:26.160 so the thinking was, I wanted to try to create 0:36:26.200 --> 0:36:29.319 a book that Mackenzie himself would be proud of or 0:36:29.680 --> 0:36:32.759 or put another way, if he were alive today and 0:36:32.800 --> 0:36:35.480 he was putting together a book, what might it look like? 0:36:35.800 --> 0:36:39.400 And that was kind of the driving force for what 0:36:40.120 --> 0:36:43.200 this book should look like. And so right off the bat, 0:36:43.640 --> 0:36:45.920 I made the decision. You know, I didn't want this 0:36:46.000 --> 0:36:48.920 to be a coffee table book. I wanted to be 0:36:49.040 --> 0:36:53.120 something that looked and felt like something that would have 0:36:53.160 --> 0:36:57.719 maybe been produced one hundred years ago. And at the 0:36:57.719 --> 0:37:01.280 same time, I wanted it to be in interactive because 0:37:01.840 --> 0:37:06.680 there's so much rich content in the book, photographs and sketches, 0:37:07.280 --> 0:37:10.279 routing plans, and I wanted that to be sort of 0:37:10.360 --> 0:37:13.560 like an interactive experience that the reader could enjoy. So 0:37:15.000 --> 0:37:17.920 trying to fit all that into a small, portable book 0:37:18.400 --> 0:37:21.000 that you could bring onto an airplane or carry around 0:37:22.480 --> 0:37:25.640 that took a lot of figuring out how to do that, 0:37:25.840 --> 0:37:29.680 and that's what that's what led me to doing this 0:37:29.880 --> 0:37:32.480 thing where there's these what are called gatefolds, you know, 0:37:32.520 --> 0:37:35.200 these big pages that fold out from the book that 0:37:35.239 --> 0:37:43.359 really showcase those those maps. But yeah, the the look 0:37:43.360 --> 0:37:46.400 and the feel is just was really important that all 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:51.840 the details were correct and people in the printing world, 0:37:52.520 --> 0:37:57.359 you know, reflect back on twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, 0:37:57.400 --> 0:38:01.759 really the last three years the paper industry has been 0:38:02.920 --> 0:38:06.360 just was really hit bad by COVID and supply chain issues, 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:10.680 and so getting paper is an absolute nightmare when I 0:38:10.680 --> 0:38:12.600 was doing this book. It's gotten a little better in 0:38:12.640 --> 0:38:18.520 the last year or so, but the struggle that I 0:38:18.560 --> 0:38:22.120 went through just to source the paper itself was it 0:38:22.239 --> 0:38:25.319 was quite a story, but I was just adamant that 0:38:25.320 --> 0:38:32.319 it was the story. Well, basically I worked with at 0:38:32.320 --> 0:38:34.160 the end of the day, it was five different printers, 0:38:34.760 --> 0:38:38.520 and you know, three of them essentially said we can't 0:38:38.520 --> 0:38:41.600 do this because we can't get paper, and so I 0:38:41.719 --> 0:38:44.480 sort of said, well, I'm going to get the paper 0:38:44.520 --> 0:38:48.319 myself from a paper company. So I learned how the 0:38:48.360 --> 0:38:54.200 paper industry operates, which is pretty interesting. It's all done 0:38:54.360 --> 0:38:58.640 on monthly quotas. So essentially there was paper that was 0:38:58.680 --> 0:39:02.120 actually identify that was sitting in a warehouse in LA 0:39:02.719 --> 0:39:05.680 that they couldn't sell me because they didn't have the 0:39:05.719 --> 0:39:10.400 allocation in their monthly budget to be able to allocate 0:39:10.440 --> 0:39:12.600 that paper for me, even though no one else is 0:39:12.640 --> 0:39:15.719 buying it. So what I ended up doing was going 0:39:15.760 --> 0:39:20.120 to like some executives at this paper company and saying, like, 0:39:20.719 --> 0:39:23.680 you've got six cartons of this paper that I need 0:39:23.719 --> 0:39:26.480 that's sitting in this warehouse, no one else is buying it, 0:39:26.520 --> 0:39:29.960 and I need you to increase your allocation so that 0:39:30.040 --> 0:39:32.880 my local paper distributor is allowed to sell it to me, 0:39:34.040 --> 0:39:37.279 and so that that whole process took several months, and 0:39:37.320 --> 0:39:40.120 I actually had to do it twice because we did 0:39:40.120 --> 0:39:40.880 a second printing. 0:39:41.880 --> 0:39:45.359 It's it's got that paper I I you know, I've 0:39:45.400 --> 0:39:48.279 really enjoyed the book. It's like, yeah, there's like a 0:39:48.280 --> 0:39:51.520 texture to it where you you know, it's not it's 0:39:51.600 --> 0:39:56.080 just like it's you feel there's it's weird to say this, 0:39:56.360 --> 0:39:58.400 and I don't want people to think I'm like a 0:39:58.400 --> 0:40:01.920 weird human being, but like there's a satisfaction to turning 0:40:01.960 --> 0:40:02.640 a page. 0:40:03.440 --> 0:40:06.600 Yeah, it's funny you say that because friends of mine 0:40:07.000 --> 0:40:09.279 have known for a long time before I ever did 0:40:09.320 --> 0:40:12.239 a book that I've had this weird paper fetish for 0:40:12.280 --> 0:40:16.160 a long time. I love really cool crafty paper. A 0:40:16.160 --> 0:40:19.160 lot of it is like European, French, Italian style papers. 0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:23.120 I don't know, I just have this kind of fascination 0:40:23.200 --> 0:40:25.920 with it. So that paper that you're talking about is 0:40:26.400 --> 0:40:30.000 referred to that there's all these different textures in paper 0:40:30.200 --> 0:40:34.640 lingo that's referred to as a vellum finish. But yeah, 0:40:34.680 --> 0:40:37.120 that's what I wanted, you know. It's like, that's if 0:40:37.160 --> 0:40:38.840 you had a book one hundred years ago. That's the 0:40:38.920 --> 0:40:42.239 kind of paper they were using. There wasn't this. They 0:40:42.239 --> 0:40:44.600 had some, but it was pretty rare, like the glossy, 0:40:44.719 --> 0:40:50.560 shiny kind of smooth paper. And so but then there's 0:40:50.560 --> 0:40:52.920 all these other components too, like the technology now that 0:40:53.680 --> 0:40:56.000 because this was a short run of books, it was 0:40:56.000 --> 0:40:58.520 printed on a digital press as opposed to an offset press, 0:40:59.080 --> 0:41:01.719 and so with a digital press you have to use 0:41:01.760 --> 0:41:05.319 a certain type of paper, so the inkdhres. So it's 0:41:05.360 --> 0:41:07.200 not like you can just use any paper, whereas with 0:41:07.239 --> 0:41:10.880 an offset press you could use any paper you want. 0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:14.479 So there's like this whole process of just narrowing down 0:41:14.520 --> 0:41:19.520 my options, finding it, getting the paper and then sort 0:41:19.640 --> 0:41:23.200 and then delivering it myself to a printer that could 0:41:23.239 --> 0:41:25.719 then take it and print the books for me. So 0:41:25.960 --> 0:41:27.680 I had to like facilitate all of that. 0:41:28.280 --> 0:41:30.239 That sounds like a fun process, but I think the 0:41:30.280 --> 0:41:34.320 final the final product shows. 0:41:33.920 --> 0:41:35.840 How much time and effort was into it. 0:41:36.239 --> 0:41:38.040 You know, I think anybody that picks up the book, 0:41:38.920 --> 0:41:41.640 what's in the book, how did you go about creating 0:41:41.760 --> 0:41:46.160 the concept. Obviously there's been much written about Alistair McKenzie. 0:41:46.200 --> 0:41:51.200 Alisair McKenzie wrote a bunch himself. How did you want 0:41:51.239 --> 0:41:55.160 to go about creating your own unique little space? And 0:41:55.239 --> 0:42:00.960 the Alistair McKenzie what you called discography of books? I 0:42:00.960 --> 0:42:03.400 guess what would portfolio of books? 0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:07.719 Yeah? Well, I purposally didn't want to do a biography. 0:42:08.040 --> 0:42:11.240 You know, that's that's been done, you know, Ray Haddock 0:42:11.280 --> 0:42:15.839 and Tom Doak, and they put together a biography that's 0:42:15.840 --> 0:42:18.680 a really nice book, and I didn't want to just 0:42:18.760 --> 0:42:21.640 kind of rehash that same concept. So I spent a 0:42:21.640 --> 0:42:26.880 lot of time thinking about the best way to curate 0:42:26.920 --> 0:42:29.279 all this material that I had and present it and 0:42:29.280 --> 0:42:33.279 what was the driving concept? And I got a great 0:42:33.320 --> 0:42:35.480 idea from a book. I was in a used bookstore 0:42:35.760 --> 0:42:39.520 in Pacific Grove and this must have been twenty sixteen 0:42:39.600 --> 0:42:42.480 or seventeen, and I picked up this book for like 0:42:42.480 --> 0:42:45.920 a dollar that was called The Lincoln Reader, and it 0:42:46.000 --> 0:42:48.360 was all about Abraham Lincoln. And it was like an 0:42:48.480 --> 0:42:53.200 Abraham Lincoln historian had curated all this material that were 0:42:53.440 --> 0:42:57.480 like speeches and writings that Lincoln had written. And then 0:42:57.640 --> 0:43:04.000 also he had contemporary people, other historians. You know, there's 0:43:04.000 --> 0:43:07.600 a whole network of Abraham Lincoln historians write their own 0:43:07.680 --> 0:43:11.120 little bits and he you know, he collated all that 0:43:11.160 --> 0:43:14.359 together into this book called The Lincoln Reader, and that 0:43:14.520 --> 0:43:16.759 was like an AHA moment for me, like, wow, this 0:43:16.840 --> 0:43:19.720 is a pretty cool concept. I could do something similar 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:22.960 with all this McKenzie material that I've collected, and it 0:43:23.040 --> 0:43:27.080 worked so well because I had had dozens literally dozens 0:43:27.120 --> 0:43:30.840 I've probably got it's not they're not all in the book, 0:43:31.400 --> 0:43:35.000 but I've got probably at least forty articles that mackenzie 0:43:35.040 --> 0:43:38.360 had written in all these different publications like Golf. 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:42.600 Dumb and yeah exactly American Golfer, different magazine. 0:43:42.360 --> 0:43:47.160 Illustrated and write all these and so I'd collected all 0:43:47.160 --> 0:43:50.160 these articles that were a lot of his writings, and 0:43:50.360 --> 0:43:54.799 some of those writings are sort of rehashed and kind 0:43:54.840 --> 0:43:59.360 of there's sort of reworked for parts of his book, 0:43:59.719 --> 0:44:01.480 you know, Spirit of Saint Andrews. And then there's some 0:44:01.520 --> 0:44:05.480 of it that's sort of kind of a little bit 0:44:05.520 --> 0:44:08.040 in his first book called Golf Architecture, So there's some 0:44:08.080 --> 0:44:11.600 redundancy to the writing, but but they are different articles. 0:44:11.640 --> 0:44:14.080 And so just collecting all this stuff, I thought, wow, 0:44:14.080 --> 0:44:16.600 you know a lot of this stuff that you know, 0:44:16.640 --> 0:44:19.360 people that are interested in Mackenzie that have written the 0:44:19.600 --> 0:44:21.560 you know, they've they've read those two books, The Spirit 0:44:21.560 --> 0:44:23.880 of Saint Andrews in Golf Architecture. You know, there's a 0:44:23.920 --> 0:44:25.920 lot more to it that he wrote that's not in 0:44:26.000 --> 0:44:30.480 those two books. And so the thinking was, okay, let's 0:44:31.200 --> 0:44:35.120 curate all these articles into a book. And you know, 0:44:35.200 --> 0:44:37.359 and with those articles, oftentimes we're a lot of these 0:44:37.400 --> 0:44:39.719 really cool photos. So most of those photos in the 0:44:39.719 --> 0:44:45.360 book are are sequenced pretty much as they were in 0:44:45.400 --> 0:44:48.839 the articles when they were published in those different publications. 0:44:49.520 --> 0:44:51.680 And then there's some other stuff I added in. But 0:44:53.440 --> 0:44:55.800 and then I also took this idea from the Lincoln 0:44:55.840 --> 0:45:00.640 Reader of having some other contemporary historians do a little 0:45:00.719 --> 0:45:05.680 short piece on, in this case, Mackenzie. And so that's 0:45:05.760 --> 0:45:08.040 why the back of the book there's a little section 0:45:08.880 --> 0:45:13.200 called some Thoughts on Mackenzie. And I had several people, 0:45:13.440 --> 0:45:18.320 you know, Jeff Shackelford and Mike Debrees and Mike Clayton, 0:45:18.680 --> 0:45:22.600 and you know Pedro Costio down in Argentina. All these guys, 0:45:22.719 --> 0:45:25.160 I asked them to contribute short little pieces, you know, 0:45:25.239 --> 0:45:29.320 from from their perspective as being kind of McKenzie historians 0:45:29.560 --> 0:45:32.080 in their own right. And and that was a way 0:45:32.120 --> 0:45:34.959 of showcasing a bunch of other content that didn't fit. 0:45:35.920 --> 0:45:38.440 And what's the majority of the book that are all 0:45:38.440 --> 0:45:39.440 those different articles? 0:45:40.440 --> 0:45:41.760 With those little articles? 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:44.440 Do you have do you have a favorite uh in 0:45:44.480 --> 0:45:48.000 there of the little articles that McKenzie wrote. 0:45:48.600 --> 0:45:53.400 Once that he wrote or ones of other people. I 0:45:53.440 --> 0:45:56.279 really liked the one, Yeah, there's a couple, but I 0:45:56.320 --> 0:45:59.560 really liked the one about Augusta called Plans for the 0:45:59.560 --> 0:46:03.680 Ideal Goal, of course, because conceptually it's it's pretty deep 0:46:03.840 --> 0:46:07.120 and really fascinating to me. And and he talks about, 0:46:07.400 --> 0:46:11.000 you know, hole by hole, what was the motivation, the 0:46:11.480 --> 0:46:14.279 motivating concept where they where they got the concepts for 0:46:14.320 --> 0:46:16.920 those holes? He and Bobby Jones a lot of them 0:46:16.920 --> 0:46:19.919 were from Saint Andrew's and other links courses that they 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:25.320 that they really admired, and so and he talks about 0:46:25.320 --> 0:46:29.040 how they weren't replicating those holes and how it would 0:46:29.040 --> 0:46:31.399 be a you know, it would be a fool's errand 0:46:31.440 --> 0:46:34.240 to try to copy any holes. But they were taking 0:46:34.280 --> 0:46:36.759 the concept of those holes and applying them to the 0:46:36.840 --> 0:46:40.239 landscape that they had in Augusta and doing their own 0:46:40.640 --> 0:46:45.120 rendition on them. And then he and he thought that 0:46:45.160 --> 0:46:48.239 he and Bobby Jones. They were really really proud of 0:46:48.280 --> 0:46:50.240 what they had come up with the collection of holes, 0:46:50.840 --> 0:46:54.640 and so much so that he talks about how he 0:46:54.680 --> 0:46:57.000 had hoped that one day somebody would look at all 0:46:57.040 --> 0:47:02.160 these holes at Augusta as not not templates, but as 0:47:02.840 --> 0:47:06.279 concepts in their own right, that people would then be 0:47:06.400 --> 0:47:10.600 inspired to sort of pay homage to a different golf courses. 0:47:11.200 --> 0:47:17.360 So that's just like sort of this lineage of golf design, 0:47:17.880 --> 0:47:20.600 of these different concepts that started in the British Isles 0:47:21.160 --> 0:47:24.280 and were you know, applied to this landscape in Augusta, 0:47:24.840 --> 0:47:27.280 and then Mackenzie hoped that other people would be inspired 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:31.239 by those and apply them to other developments in the 0:47:31.239 --> 0:47:33.600 States and around the world. And so I just love 0:47:33.680 --> 0:47:36.160 that that article plans for the ideal golf course and 0:47:36.200 --> 0:47:40.280 it just features just the beautiful watercolor routing map. 0:47:41.239 --> 0:47:41.560 Yeah. 0:47:41.680 --> 0:47:44.799 Yeah, I really enjoyed that section and it'll probably be 0:47:45.000 --> 0:47:50.359 something that I revisit every year before the Masters. I 0:47:50.360 --> 0:47:53.480 think one of the things, like one of the things 0:47:53.480 --> 0:47:57.280 similar that I really liked and got me thinking about 0:47:57.400 --> 0:48:02.799 architecture was like his deal short hole discussion. Yeah, and 0:48:02.840 --> 0:48:05.280 it was I mean, I feel like he was taking 0:48:05.320 --> 0:48:10.400 some shots too like, you know, like this idea of 0:48:10.440 --> 0:48:12.840 like a short hole that's just surrounded by a bunker, 0:48:13.440 --> 0:48:17.120 you know, yeah, versus a short hole that provides different 0:48:17.200 --> 0:48:20.400 routes of play. And if you think about McKenzie, And 0:48:20.440 --> 0:48:22.680 then I started to think about mackenzie short holes and 0:48:22.719 --> 0:48:26.000 how often so many of them have the ability to 0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:29.520 have a ball run up, and absolutely and you know 0:48:29.640 --> 0:48:33.440 he was, I mean, it was fascinating how obsessed he 0:48:33.719 --> 0:48:37.799 was with the and and with good reason, with the 0:48:37.840 --> 0:48:42.080 idea of alternate routes and the you know he you 0:48:42.400 --> 0:48:44.960 I feel like you can't read his writing without him 0:48:45.040 --> 0:48:47.600 mentioning the old course at least once in an article, 0:48:48.440 --> 0:48:51.759 and like the idea of like and it makes it 0:48:51.880 --> 0:48:55.080 like a short hole is so hard for a lower 0:48:55.120 --> 0:48:58.640 trajectory player, you know, if it's just surrounded by sand 0:48:58.680 --> 0:49:00.799 and there's no option for running it up. And one 0:49:00.840 --> 0:49:03.440 of the Holsey references was the sixth out Augusta. 0:49:04.160 --> 0:49:07.040 Especially in those days too, the equipment and you know, 0:49:07.120 --> 0:49:09.360 yeah it was it was much much more of a 0:49:09.400 --> 0:49:11.120 ground game still in those days. 0:49:11.800 --> 0:49:14.520 So it was I really enjoyed that. And then do 0:49:14.560 --> 0:49:18.239 you have a favorite guest Essay, I don't. I don't 0:49:18.239 --> 0:49:20.160 want to put you on the spot, but just maybe 0:49:20.200 --> 0:49:21.040 a favorite topic. 0:49:21.320 --> 0:49:24.480 Sure, no, no, I I could. I'd love to answer that. 0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:27.760 And the reason why is because of the guest essays, 0:49:28.000 --> 0:49:31.839 the other contributors. They were mostly contemporary people, but there 0:49:31.880 --> 0:49:35.760 was a few in there that weren't. You know, there's IRB. Graphis, 0:49:35.920 --> 0:49:40.000 who was a longtime editor of different golf publications. 0:49:39.840 --> 0:49:40.320 And. 0:49:41.600 --> 0:49:45.440 My favorite though of those was written by his sister, 0:49:45.520 --> 0:49:49.560 Marion Maryon Mackenzie, who was also a doctor, and I 0:49:49.600 --> 0:49:52.359 loved it so much. It's called a Sister's Tribute, and 0:49:52.440 --> 0:49:55.680 she wrote it as a response to an obituary that 0:49:55.719 --> 0:49:59.120 was published in the Yorkshire Evening Post right after he died, 0:50:00.040 --> 0:50:04.120 you know, January sixth of nineteen thirty four, and it 0:50:04.239 --> 0:50:06.520 was just a way, it was her way of saying, 0:50:07.320 --> 0:50:10.239 you know, you guys all know about Mackenzie because of 0:50:10.440 --> 0:50:13.360 his career in golf course architecture, but I want to 0:50:13.360 --> 0:50:15.160 give you a little bit more insight into him as 0:50:15.200 --> 0:50:20.320 a person and his other interests and from his sister's perspective. 0:50:20.880 --> 0:50:22.880 And so originally I had that in the back of 0:50:22.920 --> 0:50:25.359 the book with all the other guest essays, but I 0:50:25.440 --> 0:50:27.120 liked it so much that I moved to the front 0:50:27.120 --> 0:50:29.440 of the book, and it's kind of like a like 0:50:29.480 --> 0:50:33.120 a second forward. You know. Ben Crenshaw was nice enough 0:50:33.160 --> 0:50:35.480 to write the forward for the book, but I had 0:50:35.520 --> 0:50:37.239 to put that in there as well because I thought 0:50:37.239 --> 0:50:39.080 it just sets up the book so well. So that's 0:50:39.080 --> 0:50:41.160 my favorite of the Yeah, it's. 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:46.439 A great whole piece of writing. You know, one thing 0:50:46.480 --> 0:50:49.440 that people bring up all the time is is is 0:50:49.640 --> 0:50:55.400 Mackenzie's camouflage. Can you speak to how influential that idea 0:50:55.440 --> 0:50:57.640 has been in golf architecture. 0:50:57.480 --> 0:51:00.840 How influential it's been in golf architecture more or for 0:51:00.920 --> 0:51:02.360 him more broadly. 0:51:01.960 --> 0:51:05.360 Like from him to where you know what what that 0:51:05.520 --> 0:51:10.279 idea brought and you know the influence on him it had. 0:51:10.320 --> 0:51:14.480 But then more importantly, you know whereas take I feel like, 0:51:14.680 --> 0:51:19.200 you know, it is a forefront idea in golf architecture. 0:51:19.360 --> 0:51:24.359 You know, yeah, it was. You know, people often talk about, 0:51:24.400 --> 0:51:27.000 you know, Mackenzie he was had this, you know, these 0:51:27.000 --> 0:51:29.840 experiences in the military. You know, he was in the 0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:34.239 Boer War and that's where he first started observing the 0:51:34.280 --> 0:51:38.000 Boers and their use of camouflage and really admired it. 0:51:38.080 --> 0:51:41.680 And that's when he you know, so he's in you know, 0:51:41.680 --> 0:51:43.640 he's in he's in the Border War. He was a surgeon, 0:51:43.760 --> 0:51:45.560 and he's looking at this and he's thinking, Wow, these 0:51:45.600 --> 0:51:48.920 concepts could be applied to building golf courses. That's when 0:51:48.920 --> 0:51:52.600 he started thinking about that. And then again in World 0:51:52.640 --> 0:51:57.719 War One, he you know, he did a lot. You 0:51:57.719 --> 0:52:00.799 know what people don't know is that, yeah, he wrote 0:52:00.800 --> 0:52:03.080 a little bit about camouflage. There's a couple of articles 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:06.879 in my book that he wrote about camouflage. But his 0:52:07.360 --> 0:52:12.279 wealth of writings on the subject of camouflage actually is 0:52:12.280 --> 0:52:16.200 probably broader than his writings on golf. The stuff that 0:52:16.239 --> 0:52:18.480 I have, which I will be releasing at some point, 0:52:18.560 --> 0:52:20.800 I'm trying to figure out I'm probably actually going to 0:52:20.840 --> 0:52:24.239 do a whole second book that's just about camouflage because 0:52:24.239 --> 0:52:29.400 he wrote so much about camouflage. There's enough material for 0:52:29.440 --> 0:52:33.960 a full book, and that was really really influential to 0:52:34.920 --> 0:52:37.760 you know, yeah, to his philosophies when he started building 0:52:37.800 --> 0:52:41.400 these courses. I think I think the impetus was this 0:52:41.560 --> 0:52:46.080 idea that you know, the novel idea for him was 0:52:46.880 --> 0:52:50.600 I want to try to build really good link style 0:52:50.680 --> 0:52:55.399 golf on inland terrain that's not really conducive to golf, 0:52:55.480 --> 0:52:58.080 especially in those days. So in those days, all the 0:52:58.120 --> 0:53:01.480 best links, you know, were seaside courses built in the 0:53:01.480 --> 0:53:04.520 sand dunes and British Isles for the most part, and 0:53:04.560 --> 0:53:06.839 he thought, well, how can I take those ideas and 0:53:06.880 --> 0:53:11.560 build them on sort of flat, boring, heavy soils, you know, 0:53:11.600 --> 0:53:14.640 inland terrain. And you know, he started doing that at 0:53:14.640 --> 0:53:16.840 all would Lead in nineteen oh seven and then and 0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:20.760 then more Town right after it, and so his thinking 0:53:20.880 --> 0:53:24.279 was like, well, I've got to develop some interest and 0:53:24.680 --> 0:53:27.640 on these sort of what are sort of relatively boring 0:53:27.640 --> 0:53:32.080 pieces of land. And I think that's when he started 0:53:32.120 --> 0:53:35.640 testing his ideas of how can I build some of 0:53:35.640 --> 0:53:42.160 these landforms and you know, manipulate the landscape to provide 0:53:42.239 --> 0:53:48.160 strategic value and to There's another component too that he 0:53:48.280 --> 0:53:53.600 was trying to He was trying to subconsciously affect golfers. 0:53:54.280 --> 0:53:57.760 So you know, he was trying to make holes visually 0:53:57.800 --> 0:54:01.759 appear more difficult than they actually play. And so that 0:54:01.960 --> 0:54:04.239 was one of his like I think big tricks was 0:54:04.280 --> 0:54:06.520 like how do I trick the eye? How do I 0:54:06.600 --> 0:54:10.879 make this bunker complex that's maybe seventy eighty yards short 0:54:10.880 --> 0:54:14.000 of the green look like it's surrounding the green, so 0:54:14.040 --> 0:54:16.040 that when you're hitting an approach shot in from one 0:54:16.120 --> 0:54:19.080 hundred and sixty yards out, it feels way more daunting 0:54:19.120 --> 0:54:19.920 than it actually is. 0:54:20.640 --> 0:54:23.279 And I mean this is all over the place that 0:54:23.440 --> 0:54:25.360 some of this course is. Like one that jumps to 0:54:25.400 --> 0:54:28.520 mind is like the fourth hole at Pasta Tiempo. There's 0:54:28.560 --> 0:54:31.560 a bunker in the fairway on the left side that 0:54:31.680 --> 0:54:34.080 looks like it's pressed up against the green, but it's 0:54:34.120 --> 0:54:36.080 actually like eighty yards short. 0:54:36.120 --> 0:54:39.480 Right exactly. Yeah. Two at Metal Club is another good 0:54:39.480 --> 0:54:42.720 example of that. He did that all over the place. 0:54:43.120 --> 0:54:45.879 And because yeah, you know, he wasn't I think most 0:54:45.880 --> 0:54:48.680 people know he wasn't a great golfer. Yeah, so you know, 0:54:48.719 --> 0:54:50.520 some of these other guys in those days were actually 0:54:50.560 --> 0:54:53.160 really really good golfer. Donald Russ was a great golfer. 0:54:53.960 --> 0:54:55.200 My Tilling hasse. 0:54:56.800 --> 0:54:59.279 There's a great player, like you know most of them. 0:54:59.320 --> 0:55:04.719 I mean McDon old was competing for you know, national championships. 0:55:04.160 --> 0:55:06.680 Right, and he was always like a you know, a 0:55:06.719 --> 0:55:09.319 double digit handicap up until the last couple of years 0:55:09.360 --> 0:55:11.399 of his life. He was you know, maybe got down 0:55:11.440 --> 0:55:13.920 to like a seven or eight nine handicap at the best, 0:55:14.320 --> 0:55:16.640 but he was never a great golfer, and so I 0:55:16.719 --> 0:55:19.200 think that's actually one of the things that benefited him 0:55:19.239 --> 0:55:22.040 the most was, you know, is this idea that I 0:55:22.040 --> 0:55:24.680 want to build golf courses that are super fun and 0:55:24.840 --> 0:55:30.880 enjoyable and inspirational for me to play and for people 0:55:30.920 --> 0:55:34.080 that are like you know, not not great golfers, and 0:55:34.120 --> 0:55:36.839 for beginners, but then also at the same time try 0:55:36.880 --> 0:55:38.600 to make it as difficult as possible for like your 0:55:38.600 --> 0:55:42.160 scratch player. And that's what going back to your comment 0:55:42.160 --> 0:55:45.080 about having all these different alternate routes, you know, he 0:55:45.120 --> 0:55:48.479 wanted to have as many routes as possible to the whole. 0:55:49.040 --> 0:55:52.839 And you know, one of the great drawings that exemplifies 0:55:52.880 --> 0:55:54.600 that is the sketch he did for the Lido hole, 0:55:55.320 --> 0:55:59.600 you know, which is now now been recreated out and 0:56:00.280 --> 0:56:04.640 you know, Wisconsin. So yeah, the camera going back to 0:56:04.640 --> 0:56:08.520 the camouflage that was I think that was by far 0:56:08.560 --> 0:56:13.719 the most influential concept that that motivated his work that 0:56:13.760 --> 0:56:16.080 he did. And you see it and everywhere, you know, 0:56:17.320 --> 0:56:20.440 like from bunkers. From one angle, they're either in your 0:56:20.480 --> 0:56:22.760 face and then you go past them, you look backwards 0:56:22.760 --> 0:56:24.640 and you can't even see him they just blend in. 0:56:25.520 --> 0:56:27.640 And that's that's one of the tests with like if 0:56:27.680 --> 0:56:30.560 you're actually restoring some of these courses. And I often 0:56:30.600 --> 0:56:33.680 tell people, you know, the tie ins are so extremely 0:56:33.719 --> 0:56:36.680 important because if you go past the bunker and then 0:56:36.680 --> 0:56:38.920 you look backwards and you could still see the landform 0:56:38.960 --> 0:56:40.640 and it sticks out, well, then you didn't build it. 0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:42.600 Right with UH. 0:56:43.080 --> 0:56:47.120 With Mackenzie, I think something that always gets brought up 0:56:47.200 --> 0:56:51.960 is his associates. In America, it was Robert Hunter and 0:56:52.080 --> 0:56:57.640 Perry Maxwell, and UH in Australia is more comb Well, 0:56:57.640 --> 0:57:01.479 how did he go about cultivating the Alex Russell Alex 0:57:01.560 --> 0:57:04.200 Russell too, and then Marion Hollins too in the States. 0:57:05.000 --> 0:57:10.439 Yeah, and guys like Wendell Miller and Luther Koontz who 0:57:10.680 --> 0:57:13.320 was Wendell Miller's guy that he brought down to Argentina 0:57:13.880 --> 0:57:17.600 and built all the stuff and Luther ended up staying 0:57:17.640 --> 0:57:22.080 down there and lived there for the rest of his life. 0:57:22.280 --> 0:57:26.040 That this is an excellent point. This is like one 0:57:26.080 --> 0:57:30.360 of the knacks that Mackenzie had. I think that I 0:57:30.400 --> 0:57:32.600 can't explain how he did it, but he definitely had 0:57:32.600 --> 0:57:37.840 a knack for identifying like minded people that were talented 0:57:38.160 --> 0:57:41.680 that he could convey his concepts to what he was 0:57:41.720 --> 0:57:44.720 trying to build and then entrust them to build it 0:57:45.200 --> 0:57:47.080 and then also put their own flair on it too. 0:57:47.160 --> 0:57:50.960 He wasn't you know. He enjoyed having the input of 0:57:51.000 --> 0:57:56.080 these other guys like Robert Hunter, like Alex Russell, like 0:57:56.120 --> 0:57:59.960 Pray Maxwell, which is why you can identify, you know, 0:58:00.360 --> 0:58:04.680 stylistic differences of these different courses. You know, he liked 0:58:04.680 --> 0:58:05.520 that collaboration. 0:58:06.120 --> 0:58:11.000 Yeah, Like the style of Crystal Downs is drastically different 0:58:11.040 --> 0:58:13.080 from the style of passive tempo. 0:58:12.920 --> 0:58:16.360 Exactly right, and and then you go to like Royal 0:58:16.440 --> 0:58:18.920 Melbourne and it's a very very different style. And so 0:58:19.560 --> 0:58:22.440 he I think he really enjoyed that. He but he 0:58:22.480 --> 0:58:26.720 had this knack of finding really talented people that were 0:58:26.920 --> 0:58:30.920 like minded when it came to golf strategy, golf design, 0:58:31.600 --> 0:58:36.440 and we're talented and he entrusted them and that that's 0:58:36.480 --> 0:58:39.160 a skill set because you know, it's like you're only 0:58:39.160 --> 0:58:41.480 as good as the people you found yourself with. And 0:58:41.560 --> 0:58:44.760 he understood that really well. And and he was traveling 0:58:44.800 --> 0:58:46.840 a lot. You know, It's it's amazing if you look 0:58:46.880 --> 0:58:50.240 at a calendar, you look at the timeline of how 0:58:50.280 --> 0:58:53.680 he was traveling around the world. He was traveling a lot, 0:58:53.800 --> 0:58:56.280 and so some of these properties never got back to 0:58:56.920 --> 0:58:59.920 and he entrusted these guys to execute his vision. And 0:59:01.440 --> 0:59:05.280 in all cases he just had stellar talented people who 0:59:06.200 --> 0:59:08.240 could all be architects on their own right. And some 0:59:08.280 --> 0:59:09.560 of them, you know a lot of them did do 0:59:09.640 --> 0:59:14.240 stuff on their own, like Perry Maxwell obviously and uh 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:16.959 and so that was that was a very important skill 0:59:17.000 --> 0:59:19.800 that he had, was being able to identify those people. 0:59:21.560 --> 0:59:25.160 What would you say the influence of Harry Colt was 0:59:25.200 --> 0:59:28.240 on on Alistair McKenzie. Obviously, when he started his career, 0:59:28.240 --> 0:59:33.240 he was partnered with Harry Colet and and Alison at 0:59:33.240 --> 0:59:37.640 that time. What was what would you say would was 0:59:37.760 --> 0:59:40.080 Colt's roll in McKenzie's life. 0:59:40.560 --> 0:59:43.200 You know, I don't claim to be like that much 0:59:43.200 --> 0:59:44.960 of an expert on Colt, but what I do know 0:59:45.560 --> 0:59:49.520 is that when he was trying to build Awardly, the 0:59:49.840 --> 0:59:55.120 founding members, they wanted Colts sort of they wanted Colt 0:59:55.120 --> 0:59:58.880 to sign off on what mackenzie was doing. And so 0:59:59.000 --> 1:00:01.080 there was definitely a collabor of effort between him and 1:00:01.120 --> 1:00:03.960 Colt on Awwoodley and on more Town, and then they 1:00:04.080 --> 1:00:09.280 established a partnership, Like you said, after that, I think 1:00:09.760 --> 1:00:15.000 Mackenzie recognized that in those days in Europe, Colt was 1:00:15.040 --> 1:00:17.720 the only one who was building the type of golf 1:00:17.720 --> 1:00:21.160 that Mackenzie wanted to on these inland sites, on these 1:00:21.200 --> 1:00:26.400 heavy clay, these these heavy soil sites. And you know, 1:00:26.480 --> 1:00:28.800 I just look back when I'm looking at material that 1:00:28.840 --> 1:00:31.640 I'm researching, when I find old photos of Harry Colt, 1:00:31.720 --> 1:00:37.120 stuff from you know, from England or from mainland Europe, 1:00:37.520 --> 1:00:38.920 a lot of it is like I have to do 1:00:38.960 --> 1:00:41.440 a double take and oftentimes think, wow, is that what 1:00:41.520 --> 1:00:45.080 Mackenzie built, you know, And so it's it's just clear 1:00:45.080 --> 1:00:50.120 that stylistically they were on the same page, and and 1:00:50.160 --> 1:00:53.960 so they were, you know, naturally collaborated well together. And 1:00:54.120 --> 1:00:57.840 I think, you know, there had to be some influence 1:00:57.880 --> 1:01:02.200 for sure, and I think it was just my sense 1:01:02.240 --> 1:01:07.000 it was mostly just affirming. You know, Colt was kind 1:01:07.000 --> 1:01:10.440 of affirming a lot of McKenzie's ideas, Like Mackenzie kind 1:01:10.440 --> 1:01:12.640 of had these off the wall ideas that people thought 1:01:12.640 --> 1:01:16.360 were pretty crazy actually in those days, and I think 1:01:16.400 --> 1:01:18.760 Harry Colt was the guy that sort of affirmed them, like, no, 1:01:18.800 --> 1:01:22.040 you're onto something here, and this this can. 1:01:22.000 --> 1:01:28.600 Work, Yeah, with with the McKenzie designs, what do you 1:01:28.720 --> 1:01:31.440 have you Are there any designs that you're dying to 1:01:31.480 --> 1:01:35.160 see that you haven't seen? And and what of the 1:01:35.240 --> 1:01:37.640 lost designs do you most wish you could see? 1:01:38.080 --> 1:01:40.120 Yeah, the two I want to see the most that 1:01:40.160 --> 1:01:46.960 I haven't are one Augusta and two Royal Milbourne. So those, 1:01:47.200 --> 1:01:49.680 you know, those are definitely the top two in my 1:01:49.720 --> 1:01:55.600 list of the lost courses. There's there's a few. There's 1:01:55.640 --> 1:01:58.240 a few buckets. So okay, in one bucket, you got 1:01:58.280 --> 1:02:02.720 courses that he designed that I have plans for. Some 1:02:02.760 --> 1:02:05.880 of them are in this book that were never actually built, 1:02:06.600 --> 1:02:10.400 or they weren't the plan wasn't followed in some cases. 1:02:11.080 --> 1:02:15.080 And so to see those built or see those come 1:02:15.120 --> 1:02:17.640 to life, that would be a dream. That's something that 1:02:17.680 --> 1:02:20.600 I've I've been actively working on with different people. 1:02:21.720 --> 1:02:23.200 What would be an example of that. 1:02:24.080 --> 1:02:27.520 Well, a guy I don't know if you know, David 1:02:27.560 --> 1:02:31.280 y Dell Yes is h he's the guy that found 1:02:31.680 --> 1:02:35.000 the elbook Roun Plan in Argentina, and so he's been 1:02:35.000 --> 1:02:37.600 trying to build that. You know, I just met with 1:02:37.680 --> 1:02:40.640 him a couple of weeks ago out in Colorado. But 1:02:40.680 --> 1:02:43.040 he's been trying to build that book Roun course. 1:02:43.120 --> 1:02:43.240 You know. 1:02:43.280 --> 1:02:46.120 Initially he had a site north of Austin. 1:02:46.400 --> 1:02:48.280 Yeah, I remembered it being in Texas. 1:02:48.760 --> 1:02:54.800 Yeah, and that fell through. But that that's like right 1:02:54.840 --> 1:02:58.640 up there. And then there's another course that to me, 1:02:58.960 --> 1:03:02.760 the most incredible course that McKenzie ever designed, maybe the 1:03:02.760 --> 1:03:05.360 most incredible course ever designed that never got built, was 1:03:05.400 --> 1:03:10.360 a course called El Nadiko Sandy's he drou and would 1:03:10.360 --> 1:03:12.880 have been in Argentina, and the plan for that in 1:03:13.240 --> 1:03:18.920 this book. And that was an interesting project because that 1:03:19.160 --> 1:03:24.800 was McKenzie's. That was his opportunity to go full out, 1:03:25.000 --> 1:03:27.760 like if I have a blank canvas and can create 1:03:27.920 --> 1:03:29.680 all this from scratch, what would I do? 1:03:30.120 --> 1:03:33.000 It was right at the same time that right after 1:03:33.080 --> 1:03:36.080 the Leedo had been built, correct. 1:03:35.440 --> 1:03:36.840 It was, It was a little it was a little 1:03:36.880 --> 1:03:38.600 after that. So this was nineteen thirty one. 1:03:38.480 --> 1:03:41.840 Because he referenced that this is something like this had 1:03:41.880 --> 1:03:43.000 happened right right. 1:03:43.000 --> 1:03:45.800 Exactly, because the whole course would have been built by 1:03:45.880 --> 1:03:49.960 dredgings and so it had been a completely manufactured course 1:03:51.760 --> 1:03:55.880 like the Lido was originally, which would have been you know, really, 1:03:55.960 --> 1:04:00.320 especially in those days, a really impressive engineering feat. But 1:04:00.400 --> 1:04:03.560 that was mackenzie just saying like, if I have a 1:04:03.600 --> 1:04:07.320 blank canvas and I can literally manufacture an entire site 1:04:07.320 --> 1:04:10.320 from scratch, what would I do? And it's just an 1:04:10.840 --> 1:04:12.560 if you look at that routing plan, I mean, it's 1:04:12.600 --> 1:04:16.919 just a phenomenal course, and you know, it's a dream 1:04:16.920 --> 1:04:23.200 of mine to build that somewhere someday. Likewise, the Augusta 1:04:23.280 --> 1:04:25.880 National Part three course that McKenzie designed, what he called 1:04:25.920 --> 1:04:29.640 the Approach and Putt course that never got built, That 1:04:29.720 --> 1:04:32.080 never got built. You know, it was designed on the 1:04:32.120 --> 1:04:34.400 same piece of land where their current Part three courses 1:04:34.920 --> 1:04:38.960 twenty acre site, and well they just redid it, and 1:04:39.000 --> 1:04:42.920 they just redid it. Yeah, exactly when when I saw 1:04:42.960 --> 1:04:45.840 that they had, you know, one of those aerials that 1:04:45.880 --> 1:04:48.360 someone posted on Twitter of that site, it looked like 1:04:48.480 --> 1:04:51.280 they just dropped a bomb on it. I just thought, 1:04:51.320 --> 1:04:54.360 for a second, wait a minute, now, there's no way 1:04:54.400 --> 1:04:56.360 they're going to actually build the McKenzie. You know, I 1:04:56.440 --> 1:04:59.120 sent those guys, you know, I sent Augusta that that 1:04:59.160 --> 1:05:02.760 plan several years ago, and so they have it and 1:05:02.760 --> 1:05:04.800 they're aware of it, but that that would be a 1:05:04.840 --> 1:05:09.680 dream to build that somewhere someday, and and I've looked into. 1:05:09.680 --> 1:05:13.160 Maybe they could build it at the patch the public 1:05:13.200 --> 1:05:14.440 course that they're renovating. 1:05:15.000 --> 1:05:20.320 That'd be sweet. But then so those are courses that 1:05:20.320 --> 1:05:22.440 that he designed that never were built, so they've never 1:05:22.480 --> 1:05:25.160 come to fruition. And then of courses that he did 1:05:25.200 --> 1:05:29.360 build that are gone, there's one to me that's really 1:05:29.440 --> 1:05:32.600 really important and that I I actually worked with the 1:05:32.600 --> 1:05:34.840 developer a few years ago. We had a site in 1:05:34.880 --> 1:05:37.880 Florida where we were actually gonna build it. By the way, 1:05:38.040 --> 1:05:41.880 this was before the Kaiser family announced they were doing 1:05:41.920 --> 1:05:44.680 the Lido project, so this was not like trying to 1:05:44.760 --> 1:05:48.960 rip off that concept. But this plan was for a 1:05:49.000 --> 1:05:52.479 course called Bayside, which was on Long Island in New York. 1:05:53.120 --> 1:05:55.280 And there's a lot of really really interesting things about that. 1:05:55.320 --> 1:05:57.800 You wrote about that one a lot. Ye seemingly he 1:05:58.240 --> 1:06:00.160 reference in the greens right right. 1:06:00.960 --> 1:06:04.200 Well, he was building that, you know, at the same 1:06:04.240 --> 1:06:08.720 time he was building Augusta. And in those days, you know, 1:06:08.800 --> 1:06:11.680 this was nineteen thirty one, you know, so this is 1:06:11.720 --> 1:06:14.280 like the depression is full on at this point, and 1:06:14.840 --> 1:06:19.000 Mackenzie was thinking really a lot in this, you know, 1:06:19.160 --> 1:06:24.720 this idea of economization economization of design, economization of construction, 1:06:25.320 --> 1:06:28.480 and economization of maintenance, and so how can you do 1:06:29.720 --> 1:06:32.720 more with less essentially, And you see that at Augusta 1:06:32.920 --> 1:06:36.240 where Augusta when it was originally built, only had twenty 1:06:36.280 --> 1:06:39.120 two bunkers. And so it was just this idea of 1:06:39.240 --> 1:06:42.640 you know, economy and bunkering, which was in those days 1:06:42.720 --> 1:06:45.320 a very novel idea. And it was like, well, how 1:06:45.360 --> 1:06:49.640 do we create all the strategy with mostly landforms and 1:06:49.800 --> 1:06:52.959 other features but not bunkers because bunkers are expensive to build, 1:06:52.960 --> 1:06:57.400 they're expensive to maintain. And so he took that even 1:06:57.520 --> 1:07:01.080 further at Bayside. Bayside originally only had eighteen or maybe 1:07:01.160 --> 1:07:06.080 nineteen bunkers on it, and it was just a flat 1:07:06.280 --> 1:07:07.720 This is like one of the things that's interesting to 1:07:07.760 --> 1:07:09.600 me about this site. It was just a flat piece 1:07:09.640 --> 1:07:13.400 of land, no inherent interest. The site was just a 1:07:13.520 --> 1:07:16.720 rectangle and so it was basically like a blank canvas 1:07:17.000 --> 1:07:21.760 and and there was like old stone walls that zigzagged 1:07:21.760 --> 1:07:24.040 through the property that they had to bury. So it's 1:07:24.080 --> 1:07:27.960 like they buried these stone walls, created right milt mounds 1:07:28.000 --> 1:07:30.600 over them, and so it's like they they either got 1:07:30.640 --> 1:07:33.800 filled material or they cut, probably a combination of both. 1:07:33.840 --> 1:07:37.280 They definitely cut material in certain areas and filled and 1:07:37.440 --> 1:07:39.400 so he did this you know, cut and fill process 1:07:39.480 --> 1:07:42.560 to create all of these artificial landforms that didn't exist, 1:07:43.200 --> 1:07:47.080 and it was all it was just a very simplistic concept. 1:07:47.440 --> 1:07:47.560 You know. 1:07:47.560 --> 1:07:51.240 It was a good routing, not like the greatest golf 1:07:51.280 --> 1:07:53.480 course you're ever gonna play, But it was always from 1:07:53.520 --> 1:07:56.000 the get go it was always a public fee course. 1:07:56.200 --> 1:07:58.360 It was never a private course. And so the idea 1:07:58.560 --> 1:07:59.000 was it. 1:07:59.080 --> 1:08:00.560 Was affordable book golf. 1:08:00.680 --> 1:08:04.120 Was the exactly exactly, how do we build something that's economical, 1:08:04.480 --> 1:08:07.840 to build something is economical, to maintain something that will 1:08:07.880 --> 1:08:12.080 be you know, affordable public access golf. And so to me, 1:08:12.240 --> 1:08:14.640 that's a really really inspiring project and it's just a 1:08:14.720 --> 1:08:17.000 shame that that was. You know, that property was sold 1:08:17.040 --> 1:08:19.800 to a housing developer in the fifties and now it's 1:08:19.880 --> 1:08:22.680 just covered with houses. But that would be. 1:08:22.840 --> 1:08:25.360 Any of those if there are any green remnants or 1:08:25.400 --> 1:08:27.800 anything in in people's backyards. 1:08:27.920 --> 1:08:31.000 Probably from looking at that, I have not been actually 1:08:31.040 --> 1:08:35.680 to that site, but from looking I've studied at you know, 1:08:35.800 --> 1:08:37.519 I studied a lot and I haven't mapped out in 1:08:37.640 --> 1:08:40.880 cad I don't think so. I think it was just 1:08:40.960 --> 1:08:45.040 absolutely leveled. I mean it's just yeah, I'd be really 1:08:45.120 --> 1:08:46.960 surprised if that's the case. But I think they just 1:08:47.040 --> 1:08:50.960 wedged in a bunch of little lots and they probably 1:08:51.040 --> 1:08:52.040 just nuke the whole site. 1:08:53.080 --> 1:08:57.720 And what what's been what's been your favorite mackenzie uh, 1:08:58.080 --> 1:08:59.880 course that you've you've seen? 1:09:00.200 --> 1:09:04.200 And why my favorite McKenzie gorees that I've seen? I 1:09:04.320 --> 1:09:07.840 have to say Cyprus Point. You know, it's hard not to. 1:09:09.080 --> 1:09:11.679 I mean I've got other favorites for for different reasons, 1:09:12.000 --> 1:09:16.120 you know, sentimental reasons. Uh, Northwood Is is very near 1:09:16.160 --> 1:09:19.120 and dear to my heart. I just love that property 1:09:19.360 --> 1:09:23.080 and say something if it's got so much potential, I mean, 1:09:23.120 --> 1:09:25.400 as great as it is, but it's got Yeah, it's 1:09:25.439 --> 1:09:28.160 got an enormous amount of potential and you know, hopefully 1:09:28.200 --> 1:09:31.639 one day we could we could do something there. But yeah, 1:09:31.720 --> 1:09:33.640 it's hard not to say Cyprus. I mean, Cyprus is 1:09:33.720 --> 1:09:38.439 just is it's really awe inspiring that that site is 1:09:38.560 --> 1:09:41.599 just world class and you know, it's a world class 1:09:41.680 --> 1:09:45.840 routing and a world class set of greens on you know, 1:09:46.120 --> 1:09:50.960 just the most interesting geography looking out at the Pacific ocean. 1:09:51.160 --> 1:09:52.480 So it's just it's phenomenal. 1:09:53.120 --> 1:09:58.680 I feel like Mackenzie was was not one too like 1:09:59.640 --> 1:10:03.000 put that his work was you know, so so great, 1:10:03.320 --> 1:10:05.600 Like you know, he always held the Old Course in 1:10:05.680 --> 1:10:08.840 such high esteem. But that the writing that you have 1:10:09.000 --> 1:10:13.160 in your book about after he built Cyprus, where he 1:10:13.320 --> 1:10:14.840 was like, you know, I'm not I. 1:10:14.880 --> 1:10:17.920 Don't want to say, but this might be better than 1:10:18.000 --> 1:10:18.799 the Old Course. 1:10:18.960 --> 1:10:20.400 Yeah, that's a great article. 1:10:20.640 --> 1:10:22.439 Yeah, it's an incredible article. 1:10:23.080 --> 1:10:24.720 Like and you could tell like he you know, he 1:10:24.880 --> 1:10:27.280 held his work in high regard, but he wasn't ever 1:10:27.800 --> 1:10:29.600 like one to be like this is the great you know, 1:10:29.800 --> 1:10:32.640 like some architects, this is the greatest land I've ever like. 1:10:33.040 --> 1:10:35.640 Cyprus was the one where he was like, you know what, 1:10:36.439 --> 1:10:38.400 this one might be better than the old course. 1:10:39.640 --> 1:10:44.040 Well yeah, he had great, great admiration and just a 1:10:44.200 --> 1:10:47.240 true love for the Old Course. Yeah, and and so 1:10:47.439 --> 1:10:50.800 nothing could surpass that. And so and I think that 1:10:50.920 --> 1:10:53.240 was one of the big things that he and Bobby 1:10:53.320 --> 1:10:56.800 Jones bonded over so much, is they both had such 1:10:56.920 --> 1:11:01.200 mutual admiration and love for the Old Course. And so, yeah, 1:11:01.200 --> 1:11:03.640 you're right, you know, he would never you know, just 1:11:03.720 --> 1:11:06.160 come out and say, oh, you know, this is better 1:11:06.200 --> 1:11:08.439 than the old course. But he was very very careful 1:11:08.479 --> 1:11:11.960 in that article to say why he thought it was 1:11:12.680 --> 1:11:16.200 as good or maybe better. But you know, I thought 1:11:16.240 --> 1:11:17.919 he he paid deference. 1:11:18.080 --> 1:11:23.439 Well and all right, well I appreciate the time. Ever, 1:11:23.680 --> 1:11:25.439 how can people purchase your book? 1:11:26.040 --> 1:11:28.240 Yeah, we're in the middle having another printing. The third 1:11:28.280 --> 1:11:31.800 printing is in production and we'll be ready in a 1:11:31.840 --> 1:11:35.759 couple of weeks and you can go to the website's 1:11:35.760 --> 1:11:40.200 alistairmackenzie dot org is the Alistair McKenzie Institute and you 1:11:40.280 --> 1:11:41.920 can order it from the website there. 1:11:42.720 --> 1:11:44.720 Awesome. I recommend it. 1:11:45.000 --> 1:11:47.560 I mean, I guess when we released this, it'll be 1:11:47.640 --> 1:11:50.519 after Father's Day. But uh, you know it's a good 1:11:50.640 --> 1:11:52.000 it's a good gift for yourself. 1:11:53.000 --> 1:11:56.120 So thanks Josh. How can people find you? You're you're 1:11:56.200 --> 1:11:57.000 on Instagram. 1:11:57.760 --> 1:12:06.040 Yeah, Instagram is Mackenzie Institute. Twitter is doctor McKenzie spelled 1:12:06.040 --> 1:12:07.879 out D O C, T O R McKenzie. 1:12:09.240 --> 1:12:10.840 And then you've got your design business. 1:12:10.920 --> 1:12:13.799 Yeah, and then and then on Twitter, we should probably 1:12:13.840 --> 1:12:18.480 be more active. But on Twitter, I'm pack golf design. 1:12:19.680 --> 1:12:21.560 And that's it. 1:12:22.439 --> 1:12:22.880 Just Twitter. 1:12:23.160 --> 1:12:26.360 Sometimes we'll we'll talk architecture more but I wanted to 1:12:26.479 --> 1:12:29.200 just kind of profile McKenzie and and you're in the 1:12:29.280 --> 1:12:33.000 great book that you produce. So future podcasts to come. 1:12:33.240 --> 1:12:34.599 But thanks Josh so much. 1:12:34.560 --> 1:12:35.000 For the time. 1:12:35.560 --> 1:12:36.640 I really appreciate you having me on. 1:12:36.760 --> 1:12:49.880 Thanks Andy, thank you for listening to another edition of 1:12:50.040 --> 1:12:54.920 the Friday Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Matt Rushes. 1:12:55.240 --> 1:12:55.920 Thank you Matt. 1:12:56.960 --> 1:12:58.800 As a quick reminder, I mentioned it at the top. 1:12:59.520 --> 1:13:02.320 We are we have Club TF Hummon. It's our membership. 1:13:02.400 --> 1:13:05.599 It's a great way to support our company, what we're doing. 1:13:05.680 --> 1:13:07.960 If you like what we're doing. It is one hundred 1:13:07.960 --> 1:13:10.920 and twenty dollars for the year. You get loads of content. 1:13:11.000 --> 1:13:12.960 I've had a number of people come up to me 1:13:13.560 --> 1:13:16.040 at events at the US Open and tell me how 1:13:16.200 --> 1:13:19.320 good of a bargain this is because of everything that 1:13:19.439 --> 1:13:22.519 they're getting. There are tons of articles, there are tons 1:13:22.560 --> 1:13:25.240 of course reviews and write ups. You get the entire 1:13:25.320 --> 1:13:27.679 back catalog if you join. I've had a few people 1:13:27.800 --> 1:13:29.880 ask like, does it end to the end of the 1:13:29.960 --> 1:13:32.160 year you get it. It's a year from the day 1:13:32.240 --> 1:13:35.479 you join, So if you join today, your membership ends 1:13:35.600 --> 1:13:38.680 in the end of June, or a year from the 1:13:38.760 --> 1:13:42.200 day you sign up what we'll have coming up. We're 1:13:42.240 --> 1:13:46.200 on a big Northeast excursion here. We'll have some new 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:50.960 reviews from the met section, so we'll have some New 1:13:51.040 --> 1:13:54.960 York golf courses featured on the membership here shortly. 1:13:55.400 --> 1:13:59.559 So if you're looking to get more. 1:13:59.520 --> 1:14:01.920 From us, or if you're looking to support us Club 1:14:02.000 --> 1:14:04.200 TFP is one of the best ways to do it. 1:14:05.360 --> 1:14:09.439 Sign up at the Friday dot Com slash membership. You 1:14:09.520 --> 1:14:12.840 can see all the everything going on and what you 1:14:12.960 --> 1:14:17.000 get included in that membership there. So thank you so much, 1:14:17.240 --> 1:14:19.880 and we will be back on Tuesday with a new 1:14:20.080 --> 1:14:21.960 episode for you guys.