Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Yoke with Doak.
Speaker 1: This time Tom and I are joined by longtime Renaissance
Speaker 1: golf associate Don Plasik. Don is a man of many talents,
Speaker 1: and beyond golf course architecture, he is also behind much
Speaker 1: of the Renaissance artwork, such as the routing maps and
Speaker 1: the yardage books. Here's the first part of a two
Speaker 1: part episode with Tom and Don about the soul of
Speaker 1: a golf course, the routing and joy.
Speaker 2: Tom Dolk is back and as usual he's not holding back.
Speaker 2: But don't toss the yolk, and the famously candid Oak
Speaker 2: doesn't pull any punches. How do I make natural looking? Contour?
Speaker 2: Hire the biggest pool in the village and told him
Speaker 2: to make it flat? First?
Speaker 1: Overrated, underrated, rough.
Speaker 2: Terribly overrated, over the earth. You know, I fell in
Speaker 2: love with Cyprus Point when I was a teenager, partly
Speaker 2: because that routing is so good. You know, you go through,
Speaker 2: You go from the clubhouse by the ocean, through some
Speaker 2: lynxy stuff, back into the trees, up into the dunes,
Speaker 2: back out of the dunes, into the trees, back through
Speaker 2: the lynxy stuff, and you wind up on the coast.
Speaker 2: I mean you see the whole property. You know, it's
Speaker 2: not just divided up into trees, lynks coast. You kind
Speaker 2: of move back and forth between them. So it's a
Speaker 2: spectacular way to see the property. It's like if you
Speaker 2: were going to walk the property, that's the way you'd
Speaker 2: walk it. Another one that I used as an example
Speaker 2: of that in my book years ago was Cruden Bay
Speaker 2: in Scotland. You know, you sort of start high up
Speaker 2: the clubhouse is up by the town overlooking the lynx.
Speaker 2: You play down into the lower land for two or
Speaker 2: three holes, not so spectacular. Then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: you're up right by the fourth tee is like right
Speaker 2: up by a little inlet across from the fishing village,
Speaker 2: So you play right along there for a hole, and
Speaker 2: then you get up and you're playing along the big
Speaker 2: dunes from like five to seven and eight. Then you
Speaker 2: have to wind your way up a hill and play
Speaker 2: across a field up at the top of it, and
Speaker 2: then plunge back down into the lynx and go around.
Speaker 2: So it's a big figure eight on a simple level,
Speaker 2: but again it's moving through different styles of land and
Speaker 2: it's probably exactly the way you'd walk the site if
Speaker 2: I wanted to show you what that site was like,
Speaker 2: and we were starting where the clubhouse was. We'd go
Speaker 2: down to the one end, we'd go look at the
Speaker 2: little village on the end, we'd walk back through the
Speaker 2: big dunes, we'd go up the big valley where eight is,
Speaker 2: and then we'd go over the field to get to
Speaker 2: the other side.
Speaker 1: Would would you prefer to have a course that's gotform
Speaker 1: a uniform look and feel to it, or a lot
Speaker 1: of different types of topography, whether it be an open
Speaker 1: section or then into the woods and then you know,
Speaker 1: maybe out into water, or have one landscape that's consistent throughout. Well.
Speaker 2: I think I probably gave that away with the answer
Speaker 2: to my last question. I'd prefer variety. I mean, ultimately,
Speaker 2: what you're trying to get by routing a golf course
Speaker 2: is variety. If you've got different looks to the terrain
Speaker 2: and different parts of it that you go to, that's
Speaker 2: a huge head start. Whereas if you've got you know,
Speaker 2: if you got a typical parkland site it's something like Inverness,
Speaker 2: then you've got to work a lot harder to make
Speaker 2: the holes either hit the topography in different ways. Creates
Speaker 2: the variety or change directions a lot, but that's hard
Speaker 2: to do. When you get to a smaller and smaller site,
Speaker 2: you wind up with more parallel holes. But in the end,
Speaker 2: you're going for variety. So if the property has variety
Speaker 2: to start with, that's a big head start.
Speaker 1: So Mitchell Driver asks a good question here, how do
Speaker 1: you know the routing you choose is the best for
Speaker 1: the property? And how do you choose what directions holes go?
Speaker 1: With over one thousand options.
Speaker 2: The truth is you never know. That's one of the
Speaker 2: most interesting things about it, you know. I compare it
Speaker 2: to like doing routings is like doing a puzzle, you know,
Speaker 2: like the first time you look at the Sunday New
Speaker 2: York Times crossword puzzle, you go, well, this is impossible.
Speaker 2: I could never finish this. And if you're persistent with it,
Speaker 2: you get better at it over time and you understand
Speaker 2: how things fit together better and it gets easier, and
Speaker 2: eventually you can do it if you're reasonably smart. Doing
Speaker 2: routings is the same. The only difference is they don't
Speaker 2: print the answers in the paper the next weekend, so
Speaker 2: you don't know whether the solution you've got that you
Speaker 2: really like is really the best one. First of all,
Speaker 2: it's all a matter of opinion. You know, different architects
Speaker 2: would pick different you know, if we if I laid
Speaker 2: out five different routings for a golf course, people would
Speaker 2: have different opinions on what was the best. And then
Speaker 2: besides that, it's like, okay, how much more how much
Speaker 2: more time do I need to give this to really
Speaker 2: be comfortable that's the best, And I and I don't
Speaker 2: figure out a better way to put it together, and
Speaker 2: I'll just you know, I could name a bunch of
Speaker 2: examples of where you know, pisif Dunes. I thought I
Speaker 2: had a pretty good routing, you know, first I went there. First,
Speaker 2: I had the maps, and I played around with the
Speaker 2: maps a little bit before I ever went there, and
Speaker 2: I had a routing before I went there. I didn't
Speaker 2: expect it to be the final routing. I hoped that
Speaker 2: maybe I found a few holes that would wind up
Speaker 2: in the final routing. So I took it out there
Speaker 2: with me, and I'm there for like an hour, and
Speaker 2: it's trash because, among other things, Bandon Dunes used three
Speaker 2: or put three or four holes up into the map
Speaker 2: that I was working off of, So that like completely
Speaker 2: messed up some of you know, not only not only
Speaker 2: did it take some holes out of what I wanted
Speaker 2: to do, but it took out how I was connecting
Speaker 2: holes together and where I was connecting holes together. So okay,
Speaker 2: so that's trash, and it's like, oh damn. Now you
Speaker 2: got to regroup and and try to look at this
Speaker 2: fresh and you know, what can I say from this
Speaker 2: first one, and how can I put that back together?
Speaker 2: And you know, which of these holes do I like?
Speaker 2: Off that first map that I did. There's three holes
Speaker 2: that are on the on the golf course today, the sixth,
Speaker 2: the short part four, the eleventh, the par three along
Speaker 2: the coast, and I think the other one is the sixteenth.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: it's the sixteenth. So so I did another routing that
Speaker 2: had those holes in it and a few, you know,
Speaker 2: quite a bit more of what's what's in the final
Speaker 2: routing now. But we couldn't walk all the sight because
Speaker 2: it was some of it was covered in gorse. Some
Speaker 2: of it you could walk, and some of it was
Speaker 2: just solid gorse and you couldn't really get through there.
Speaker 2: A lot of the holes that are kind of on
Speaker 2: that plane, the plane in the middle of the course,
Speaker 2: number four along the coast, and all the holes in
Speaker 2: and from that twelve and three that was just solid.
Speaker 2: Couldn't couldn't walk through there. You know, we knew it
Speaker 2: was pretty flat, but we couldn't see any features. And
Speaker 2: then we did get around to the far side and
Speaker 2: find where thirteen and fourteen were because you could walk
Speaker 2: in there from from the north end, kind of from
Speaker 2: where old McDonald is now. So you know, we had
Speaker 2: that piece and then but then, you know, it was
Speaker 2: still uncomfortable to mister Kaiser because we couldn't walk the
Speaker 2: whole thing in order at all. So I had a
Speaker 2: routing and over the you know, over the months while
Speaker 2: we were waiting for the next step, you know, I
Speaker 2: was I was convinced the routing was pretty good. There
Speaker 2: were all kinds of questions about it. Oh, you've got
Speaker 2: back to back part threes. I don't like the idea
Speaker 2: back to back part threes. Honestly, I didn't really like
Speaker 2: the idea of back to back part threes either. I'd
Speaker 2: when I'd come up up with ten and eleven on
Speaker 2: my very first plane before I saw the site. Ten
Speaker 2: was a short part four, but ten t was in
Speaker 2: the middle of one of david Kids fairways, so that
Speaker 2: wouldn't work. So like five minutes after I was there,
Speaker 2: I was like, well, either this is going to have
Speaker 2: back to back par threes, or I'm just gonna not
Speaker 2: use one of these great green sites because this is
Speaker 2: the only way they fit together at all. So anyway,
Speaker 2: you know, I had a routing that I liked, but
Speaker 2: there were questions about it like that, and like the
Speaker 2: other one was after number eleven on that previous routing,
Speaker 2: the next hole went north, not inland where twelve is,
Speaker 2: but along the coast where number four is, so it
Speaker 2: connected up, you know. I basically I had ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 2: number differently, all along the coast, all headed north. And
Speaker 2: one of mister Kaiser's pieces of feedback was, you know,
Speaker 2: can't we get a whole play to the south along
Speaker 2: the coast, not only because it's better for variety and
Speaker 2: having the water on the right once, but more importantly,
Speaker 2: you know, when people are there in the summer, the
Speaker 2: wind's blown out of the north, and so having three
Speaker 2: or four hole, say having all the most spectacular holes
Speaker 2: playing dead into that wind would have been tough, you know, so,
Speaker 2: And the only problem with trying to accommodate that request
Speaker 2: was ten and eleven were clearly better playing to the north,
Speaker 2: and thirteen was clearly better playing to the north. As
Speaker 2: it turned out, four was better playing to the south.
Speaker 2: But to make that work you have to get in
Speaker 2: there in the middle, cross over in the routing, play
Speaker 2: a hole south, then get back to the inland side,
Speaker 2: and then do it again when you come around, play eleven,
Speaker 2: cross away from the coast, have twelve cross again, and
Speaker 2: play thirteen. So making those connections without having really long
Speaker 2: walks from green to Tea was the toughest part of
Speaker 2: it to figure out in the end, you know. But
Speaker 2: we really didn't know that until they had a fire
Speaker 2: and the gorse burned, and then we could walk the
Speaker 2: whole thing in the order that we wanted to play it,
Speaker 2: and I could see that four would be better playing
Speaker 2: to the south. But then I had to figure out
Speaker 2: you know, that wound up changing about six or seven
Speaker 2: holes of the golf course to make the connections work
Speaker 2: right to have that one hole play south. So you know,
Speaker 2: I'd thought six months before that I had a really
Speaker 2: good routing and it would be a great golf course.
Speaker 2: And then six months later it turned out, no, this
Speaker 2: routing is a lot better. You know, I just needed
Speaker 2: out much more time to come up with it. Part
Speaker 2: of it was not being able to walk it. But
Speaker 2: you know what that taught me was you have to
Speaker 2: take a step back. You know, no matter how good
Speaker 2: you think the routing is, you probably need to like
Speaker 2: go away for at least a couple of months and
Speaker 2: just let it all soak in and then come back
Speaker 2: and try to look at it with fresh eyes and
Speaker 2: don't be so defensive that you've got it right the
Speaker 2: first time you were there. It's a hard thing to do,
Speaker 2: and at the end of the day you still never know, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is the right thing to do. I'm positive of it.
Speaker 2: You know somebody else could, you know, don could look
Speaker 2: at it and go like you did for something we're
Speaker 2: just working on now, why don't you switch the nines?
Speaker 2: You know? And normally that's you get that conversation a
Speaker 2: lot when you when you come back to the clubhouse
Speaker 2: at nine, it's like, Okay, why why is this the
Speaker 2: front nine? And why is this the back? I guarantee
Speaker 2: you if you ask ten people, there's at least one
Speaker 2: of them is going to think it's better the other
Speaker 2: way around, and you also leave your self open to
Speaker 2: the client deciding that it should be the other way around,
Speaker 2: or changing it after the fact. I mean we both
Speaker 2: know courses that they've changed at some point in their lives.
Speaker 2: Augusta changed, you know, most of the time, changing ten
Speaker 2: or ten years into the game or twenty years into
Speaker 2: the game. That's like the kiss of death because now
Speaker 2: nobody can even remember what hole is what anymore. So
Speaker 2: that's something you really want to get right at the
Speaker 2: beginning and not change your mind on. You know, at
Speaker 2: the stage we're at with this project, we still haven't
Speaker 2: really shown anything to the client yet, so we're grinding
Speaker 2: hard on which way is better because because we want
Speaker 2: that to be the way we show it to the client,
Speaker 2: because we don't want them to change it.
Speaker 1: As the course I grew up of UNI playing change
Speaker 1: their routing. They flipped it, and I like still describe
Speaker 1: the holes in the old order because that's what I've
Speaker 1: played the course the most with. So it's like I'm
Speaker 1: talking to something. I'm like, oh ten, and they're like no,
Speaker 1: what what? It's all different order. It's confusing don being
Speaker 1: the artist that draws up plans. B Niblic had a
Speaker 1: question about the property and a course's character and is
Speaker 1: that determined by just sheerly the property, the routing or
Speaker 1: is it the building process that you see it or
Speaker 1: is it your drawings.
Speaker 3: I would say it's not the drawings. I just have
Speaker 3: the enviable job of being able to work on them.
Speaker 3: That's one of my favorite things to do. But you
Speaker 3: know that to try and answer that question is is difficult.
Speaker 3: But I think that, you know, that's the craft of
Speaker 3: the process, and that's what I've learned from Tom. You know,
Speaker 3: every property is different. You can have a property that
Speaker 3: is flat and constrained and really on first glance, doesn't
Speaker 3: lend itself to golf. You know, the two I've had
Speaker 3: the luxury of listening to Tom answer the questions and
Speaker 3: sort of formulate some basic ideas. And you know, the
Speaker 3: first thing that popped into my head was Garden City
Speaker 3: and Marion. You know, those by definition don't lend themselves
Speaker 3: to be great golf courses. They're odd, oddly shaped, there's
Speaker 3: roads crossing everywhere, There's there's some sort of structure and
Speaker 3: and things going on on all sides. There doesn't appear
Speaker 3: to be much great golf in there, but that's when
Speaker 3: you know, figuring out where the holes go to really
Speaker 3: get the most out of the property, whatever the property
Speaker 3: has to offer, that's where the real value and the
Speaker 3: real architecture is. And then if you're able to take
Speaker 3: the way the holes are configured and really make them
Speaker 3: interesting tea to green in the in the third dimension,
Speaker 3: greens and bunkers and contours and all of that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff, then you really have something. But because every
Speaker 3: property is different, we have the very good fortune of
Speaker 3: working with Tom. He has people that really have a
Speaker 3: lovely piece of ground, like the property in Bandon at
Speaker 3: Pacific Dunes. And Tom has a reputation of really being
Speaker 3: the guy to talk to open a dialogue with him
Speaker 3: if the land is great, because he knows how to
Speaker 3: find the most potential in the property. But you know,
Speaker 3: some of the things I've had the luxury and enjoyment
Speaker 3: of working on with Tom or properties that when you
Speaker 3: first look at him, don't offer much. Texas Tech University
Speaker 3: in Lubbock was on a rectangular piece of ground that
Speaker 3: had three feet of fall. I mean there was nothing there.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, a blank canvas can be exciting,
Speaker 3: but it can be daunting too. So you know, from
Speaker 3: that all the way to Pacific Dunes, ta Eedy Cape, Kidnappers,
Speaker 3: where you have these just epic pieces of property that
Speaker 3: offer oceans of options. You know, to get that right,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of pressure, but there's also a lot
Speaker 3: of work involved in getting something really good out of
Speaker 3: something that doesn't have any of those advantages. And and
Speaker 3: like Tom was talking about earlier, you know, just the
Speaker 3: idea of returning nines, that's a constraint in the equation
Speaker 3: that limits you in what you can do, how far
Speaker 3: you can get away from the clubhouse before you have
Speaker 3: to turn around and come back. And listening to Tom
Speaker 3: talk about Pacific Dunes, you know, bally Neil and Eastern
Speaker 3: Colorado some of the best stuff that we've had a
Speaker 3: chance to work on. Tom went off the map to
Speaker 3: go get those extra holes, and that happened at Pacific Dunes,
Speaker 3: it happened at bally Neil, and you know, he has
Speaker 3: the ability to help a client understand that it's worth
Speaker 3: going and getting those holes so that they can be
Speaker 3: a part of the solution. I think one of the
Speaker 3: really cool things Tom mentioned about the crossword puzzle that
Speaker 3: popped into my head is Tom's right. The answers aren't
Speaker 3: posted in the paper the next day. And I kind
Speaker 3: of think of it as a Rubik's cube. You know,
Speaker 3: when you get a jumbled Rubik's cube, there is a solution,
Speaker 3: and there's an agreed upon solution, and you know, the
Speaker 3: question is how fast can you get there? But when
Speaker 3: you're out in golf holes, the solution is, like Tom said,
Speaker 3: a complete matter of opinion. You know, you don't have
Speaker 3: the red and the green and the white and the
Speaker 3: blue all figured out. Yay, you did it.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't work that way. And the other thing
Speaker 2: is it's it's free form. I mean a crossword puzzle.
Speaker 2: Somebody's determined the answers for you, and you don't go
Speaker 2: out of the box, and you don't go off the page.
Speaker 2: And with a golf course outing you can I mean
Speaker 2: ninety nine point nine percent of people, except that it's
Speaker 2: got to be eighteen holes. That would be a pretty
Speaker 2: tough convention to fight, although there's a couple of people
Speaker 2: trying to fight that convention now. But beyond that, there's
Speaker 2: not really any rules or limits to it. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the first one's boundaries we pushed against.
Speaker 2: Black Forest is the first one where I went off
Speaker 2: the page to find a couple holes. And that was
Speaker 2: when I worked for Pete Dye. He told me at
Speaker 2: the golf club in Columbus that he had like four
Speaker 2: hundred acre farm to work with, and he went back
Speaker 2: to the client and said, I got a really good routing,
Speaker 2: except I need the two acres over there off the
Speaker 2: property for one of the green sites. You know, you
Speaker 2: got to buy that other two acres. Is four hundred
Speaker 2: acres isn't enough, and you know, to be able to
Speaker 2: look outside, you know, I have the freedom to do it.
Speaker 2: Some clients would give you the big middle finger if
Speaker 2: you all them. You know they're four hundred acres isn't enough.
Speaker 2: But if you're trying to find the best solutions, sometimes
Speaker 2: that's what it takes. So when we were working on
Speaker 2: Black Forest a long time ago, I actually, you know,
Speaker 2: it was the client owned seven thousand acres of woods.
Speaker 2: So it gave me a topa map and there were
Speaker 2: no property lines or anything on it, and I did
Speaker 2: a routing and you know, you couldn't. You kind of
Speaker 2: had to do the routing mostly off the topo there.
Speaker 2: Because the woods were so thick you couldn't tell very
Speaker 2: much when you were walking through about house this hole
Speaker 2: going to look. I mean you really, you really had
Speaker 2: to kind of understand the map and just take a
Speaker 2: leap of faith. Okay, I know what this hole's doing,
Speaker 2: so when it gets cleared out, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 2: So i'd done a routing and they were starting to
Speaker 2: cut center lines of the holes so we could walk it.
Speaker 2: And the survey air comes by and I think Gil
Speaker 2: Hanson and I were out there. The surveyor comes by
Speaker 2: and goes, I think that sixth hole is is going
Speaker 2: across into the state property, going over the property line.
Speaker 2: And I said, what property line? You know, because there
Speaker 2: was nothing on my map that showed a property line.
Speaker 2: And I figured, well, the guy owns seven thousand acres,
Speaker 2: so he's given me something in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: But no, you know, there was there was a property line,
Speaker 2: it wasn't showing on the map. And sure enough I'd
Speaker 2: put one hole, you know, one hole going over by
Speaker 2: one hundred yards, and another hole with the tea on
Speaker 2: the state land coming back, and then another hole down
Speaker 2: at the bottom that was really close like really close
Speaker 2: to the property line. You know, the it was it
Speaker 2: was state forest and it wasn't marked, and it wasn't fenced.
Speaker 2: It was just out there in the middle of the woods.
Speaker 2: So we had to like change a couple holes on
Speaker 2: the fly, you know. We had to take the sixth
Speaker 2: and the seventh holes and like angle them, you know,
Speaker 2: like route them on more of a diagonal so you
Speaker 2: could fit them in and be sure of the where
Speaker 2: the property line was. And then the thirteenth hole, I
Speaker 2: had the surveyor come out and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't want you to mark this thing and put
Speaker 2: a bunch of flags or anything. I just want you
Speaker 2: to show me this. You know, I got a tee
Speaker 2: over here somewhere. I just want you to show me
Speaker 2: where the line is so I don't go over it.
Speaker 2: And he showed me and that the back of that
Speaker 2: tea is about two feet on our property. But you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to
Speaker 2: build a fence and give it all away. I just
Speaker 2: wanted to work as close as I could to the
Speaker 2: edge without drawing any attention to it.
Speaker 1: So when you've got this property, you win a job
Speaker 1: or you're fighting for a job and you're you know,
Speaker 1: presenting a plan, like where how do you start the
Speaker 1: whole process of routing it?
Speaker 2: Off? Course, First of all, I hate that. I hate
Speaker 2: those jobs where they want four different architects to present
Speaker 2: a plan because this is the most important part of
Speaker 2: the job and the most time consuming part of it,
Speaker 2: or should be one of the most time consuming parts
Speaker 2: of it, and asking everybody to do it for free
Speaker 2: as kind of not right on top of that, you know,
Speaker 2: the people that are the people that are looking at
Speaker 2: the maps, a lot of them don't know what they're
Speaker 2: looking at. You know, if you walk them through the
Speaker 2: golf course that you've routed, okay, they might have a
Speaker 2: decent understanding of that, but just to look at the
Speaker 2: map and say, oh, I really like this one, you know,
Speaker 2: then they are responding to the artwork or they're responding
Speaker 2: to oh, that looks like a cool hole, but they
Speaker 2: can't see it in three D. They don't really know
Speaker 2: how it's fit in the ground. Years ago, I sent
Speaker 2: I sent like my first preliminary routing for Rock Creek
Speaker 2: to our client, Bill Foley, and he called me. He's like, Oh,
Speaker 2: this is really cool. I really love this fourth hole,
Speaker 2: like playing through that valley up the hill and then
Speaker 2: then the way you get that next hole over the
Speaker 2: side hills and stuff. I'm like, hold on, you can
Speaker 2: read a topo map. He's like yeah, I said, where
Speaker 2: do you learn to do that? He said, west Point?
Speaker 2: He went to school at West Point. And you know,
Speaker 2: everybody in military officers they have to learn how to
Speaker 2: read a topo map so they know where they're going.
Speaker 2: He's the only client I've ever had that can really
Speaker 2: read a topo map and see what the hell is
Speaker 2: going on. So so start, you know, trying to sell something,
Speaker 2: sell your ideas based on a drawing and a topo
Speaker 2: map is really hard because the clients don't understand that well.
Speaker 2: As for where you start, it's different for different projects.
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, for me at this point, it's just
Speaker 2: like my eye is drawn to something on a topo map.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, if if you got really flat ground,
Speaker 2: then you're looking for, okay, where is there a feature
Speaker 2: that looks interesting because you're just desperate for something to
Speaker 2: go go work off of. If you've got a really
Speaker 2: steep site like rock Creek, it's like, okay, where is
Speaker 2: where is. You know, we want variety, but we want
Speaker 2: something that's that's got enough land that's flat enough that
Speaker 2: we can build a golf course here, because a lot
Speaker 2: of that site would have been way too steep. So
Speaker 2: you know, we you know, we looked along the creek
Speaker 2: and then we looked, like, that looks too steep. You know,
Speaker 2: if we come down here, Okay, now there's some flat
Speaker 2: land here, and then well there's a little canyon here,
Speaker 2: and I don't know how we get through that and
Speaker 2: come out the other side. So you know, that's kind
Speaker 2: of you know, okay, let's get a bigger map of
Speaker 2: this section and start working with it. But but then,
Speaker 2: you know, and sometimes it starts with a clubhouse site
Speaker 2: because they tell you where it is. I don't really
Speaker 2: like starting that way because it limits your options. Like
Speaker 2: Don was saying, you know, okay, if you're starting here,
Speaker 2: then you've kind of got to start with the holes
Speaker 2: around the clubhouse and make sure you've got you can
Speaker 2: get out and get back. You know, you don't. We've
Speaker 2: only done a couple that there was a building that
Speaker 2: was going to be the clubhouse Stonewall. Both courses actually
Speaker 2: had an existing building that they were going to use
Speaker 2: for the clubhouse, so everything revolved around that in terms
Speaker 2: of the design. And then there's ones like you know,
Speaker 2: if you're working on a modest project public course or something,
Speaker 2: you know the clubhouse is going to be like as
Speaker 2: close to the where your access point is off the
Speaker 2: road as possible, because you don't want to build a
Speaker 2: half a million dollars worth of driveway to get back
Speaker 2: in there. So you know, something like bally Neo, which
Speaker 2: is built for not a lot of money, you know
Speaker 2: that the clubhouse and the lodge and everything is like
Speaker 2: the first good place coming in from the road that
Speaker 2: you know you've got kind of a decent vantage point,
Speaker 2: and the property spreads out enough that you could you
Speaker 2: know that you could have four holes in and out
Speaker 2: of there reasonably well, you know, you're you kind of
Speaker 2: come over a couple of hills and then you park
Speaker 2: in the lot in a little valley just before it.
Speaker 2: But all those buildings sit up on a little ridge
Speaker 2: that overlooks a bunch of stuff, and you know it
Speaker 2: could have been anywhere on there. You know, sometimes when
Speaker 2: you've got one thousand acres of sand dunes, it actually
Speaker 2: helps you to say, okay, this reasonably this has to
Speaker 2: start here, otherwise you could be looking around forever, you know,
Speaker 2: find finding the one hundred and eighteen holes they found
Speaker 2: at sand Hills. You know, that was kind of the
Speaker 2: tough thing for Bill and Bennett. Sand Hills was the
Speaker 2: lodge and everything was going to be down by the creek,
Speaker 2: so they didn't have a place to start or finish.
Speaker 1: So don in your opinion, what was what's been the
Speaker 1: most difficult whole or aspect of a project to route
Speaker 1: that you guys have had to find, you know, or
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, the most difficult puzzle that you've
Speaker 1: had to work around.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a that's a really great question. I think
Speaker 3: the knee jerk reaction is to kind of think about
Speaker 3: what have been some of the most challenging sites. I
Speaker 3: think Stone Eagle definitely comes to mind. You know, that
Speaker 3: was a that was a lunar property. I mean you
Speaker 3: could you could spend three hours with the right equipment
Speaker 3: trying to walk where a tee on a par four
Speaker 3: was going to be and get yourself to the green
Speaker 3: before anything started out there. And I remember the routing
Speaker 3: that I think it was Tom Fazzio had for that
Speaker 3: problem before we started looking at it, and what we
Speaker 3: came up with could not have been more different for
Speaker 3: many reasons. But you know, I think Tom's right. I
Speaker 3: think one of the things he mentions about, you know,
Speaker 3: a competitive routing process is there's so much value and
Speaker 3: so much architecture in figuring out where the holes ought
Speaker 3: to go. It seems it's difficult to sort of relinquish
Speaker 3: that so early in the process on a project that
Speaker 3: you might even not even get to do. And if
Speaker 3: you put your best foot forward and really work at it,
Speaker 3: to say that's not an integral part of making a
Speaker 3: golf course great would be you know, that's a crazy understatement.
Speaker 2: So I think it's like, you know, when you have
Speaker 2: a contest route to design a golf course, that ignores
Speaker 2: the fact that there's going to be all those iterations
Speaker 2: between this one and the one that you wind up
Speaker 2: up with.
Speaker 1: It's like what we talked about in this stream Song
Speaker 1: podcast was how much of your job is done in
Speaker 1: the third dimension, and it's sculpture. So it's when you're
Speaker 1: out constructing and there's so many changes that happened.
Speaker 2: But even the routing process, you know, the routing process
Speaker 2: is usually between ten and twenty days on site before
Speaker 2: you're really you know, and you could, it could, it
Speaker 2: can get broken up a whole bunch of different ways.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'll go for four or five days
Speaker 2: and play around with things, and then go away for
Speaker 2: a while and then come back and do it again.
Speaker 2: Maybe I've got it right by the second time, and
Speaker 2: maybe I get to come back the third time, and
Speaker 2: you know, maybe you know, you've got thing like the
Speaker 2: thing that we're working on in California. Now you have
Speaker 2: a routing that you like, but there are some wetlands conflicts,
Speaker 2: so that you go back and talk to the engineers
Speaker 2: and it's like, oh, we better not do that, or
Speaker 2: it'll take two more years to get permits to build
Speaker 2: this thing. So let's see if we can work around
Speaker 2: these little things and change a couple more holes for that.
Speaker 2: So it's just a lot of time input, you know,
Speaker 2: before you get to the sculptural part. It's it's a
Speaker 2: big part of what I do. And I would say
Speaker 2: that you know roughly how important it is to the outcome.
Speaker 2: You know, you start with a piece of land and
Speaker 2: that's kind of you know, that limits what you're gonna do.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna build a ten on the Doke scale
Speaker 2: on a lot of pieces of ground. It takes a
Speaker 2: special piece of ground. But then you know, you're not
Speaker 2: gonna build a ten if you don't get the routing
Speaker 2: really right. And then you're still not going to build
Speaker 2: a ten even if you've got the routing right, unless
Speaker 2: you do a great job shaping what you need to shape.
Speaker 2: And you know the point of the routing is to
Speaker 2: try to make it so you don't have to shape
Speaker 2: so much, you know, so you don't have to rely
Speaker 2: on that part so much. But but still it gets
Speaker 2: something that's a nine or ten. All three of those
Speaker 2: things have to come together. And you know, the last
Speaker 2: two are the parts that we spend our time on,
Speaker 2: and I'd say they're about equal and importance. You know,
Speaker 2: I spend about as much time figuring out where the
Speaker 2: holes go in the beginning as I do working on
Speaker 2: shaping greens and stuff when we're out there. Obviously it
Speaker 2: takes more time for the guys that work for me
Speaker 2: to shape the greens, but my time working on it
Speaker 2: with them is about the same.
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the most interesting things that
Speaker 3: in this dialogue is is what Tom was talking about.
Speaker 3: To have the opportunity to have iterations, you know, because
Speaker 3: if you do, if you have that autonomy and you
Speaker 3: have a client that's willing to allow you to make
Speaker 3: changes and adjustments as you go. Even if you are
Speaker 3: rock solid on what you think the configuration of the
Speaker 3: holes ought to be and you've done your best work,
Speaker 3: there's still so many opportunities that happen during construction that
Speaker 3: could be missed or not even pursued if you're you know,
Speaker 3: white knuckled to what's drawn on a piece of paper.
Speaker 3: And that's something we get a lot of fun out of.
Speaker 3: Is you know what's behind a green site. You know,
Speaker 3: if that green site moves fifteen yards any direction, what
Speaker 3: you see beyond the putting surface is incredibly special and
Speaker 3: before you didn't even know, you know, whatever. You know,
Speaker 3: it could be a building, it could be a landscape feature,
Speaker 3: a view, you know, a long range view, a piece
Speaker 3: of vegetation that's just absolutely exquisite that didn't even show
Speaker 3: up on the map, and you didn't even know it
Speaker 3: was there until you spent some time walking around. And
Speaker 3: it just not take advantage of that because you know,
Speaker 3: the agreed upon routing is on the paper and we're
Speaker 3: not going to deviate that. You know, I've seen watched
Speaker 3: Tom work really hard to help clients understand that we're
Speaker 3: only improving what we have. But you don't always have
Speaker 3: someone that allows you to be for it to be
Speaker 3: a fluid process during construction, and that's critical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you look at you know, if you looked
Speaker 2: at the final map that we drew of our final
Speaker 2: routing plan before we start a project and then an
Speaker 2: ass built, there will be a probably a couple holes
Speaker 2: where the green is moved or something. You know, we
Speaker 2: just we just find something that you know, even as
Speaker 2: much time as we spend on the routing process, we're
Speaker 2: out there and we get everything cleared and we're trying
Speaker 2: to shape things. You know, sometimes it's not me. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it's one of the guys that worked for me. It
Speaker 2: was like, what if we moved it over there? And
Speaker 2: it helps to be open to that, and it helps
Speaker 2: when clients are comfortable with that, you know, that's what
Speaker 2: we try to feel them out at the beginning. You
Speaker 2: can be comfortable with us tinkering around and this. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not going to work out to exactly seven and
Speaker 2: eleven yards like it says right here, you know, we're
Speaker 2: not going to change everything, but it's a process, so
Speaker 2: it won't be exactly like this.
Speaker 1: I think if you think about the way Pine Valley
Speaker 1: was built, that routing had to have gone through hundreds
Speaker 1: of iterations with all of the feedback that Crump got
Speaker 1: from different architects, and then Colt came in and tweaked
Speaker 1: some stuff like and that's a perfect example of you know,
Speaker 1: a golf course. Then it wasn't as time sensitive as
Speaker 1: now where you got to kind of you get a project,
Speaker 1: you want to get it done on a timeline.
Speaker 2: That one was.
Speaker 1: Built over a long period of time, but that the
Speaker 1: routing had to have changed.
Speaker 2: Right and the you know, the interesting thing about the
Speaker 2: timeline that you talked about is the usually in the
Speaker 2: routing phase, clients are not in a hurry. They own
Speaker 2: the land or they've got an option on the land
Speaker 2: or whatever, but you know, they're not really spending much
Speaker 2: money on it until the next phase. You know, once
Speaker 2: construction starts, they wanted to be done and they wanted
Speaker 2: to be open because they've spent all this money. But
Speaker 2: but in the routing phase, you still kind of you
Speaker 2: got time to tink around and try to figure something out.
Speaker 2: And you know, I can't remember very many projects we've
Speaker 2: done where they were in such a hurry to build
Speaker 2: a golf course that you know, that were like rushing
Speaker 2: through the routing and not sure that we've got the
Speaker 2: best thing. There might be one or two that just
Speaker 2: you know, well Stonewall, you know, Tom Fazio had already
Speaker 2: done a routing and they had permits for that. So
Speaker 2: they asked me. They told me I could change it
Speaker 2: a little bit, but without changing you know, it had
Speaker 2: to be changes I could make without changing all the
Speaker 2: like erosion control work that they had permits for that
Speaker 2: was that sort of tied back to where the routing is.
Speaker 2: So there wasn't there weren't you know. We didn't start
Speaker 2: over on that routing. We started with what they had
Speaker 2: and figured out how we could tweak it to make
Speaker 2: it better.
Speaker 1: So we got a lot of questions from young architects
Speaker 1: and architects and general about your routing.
Speaker 2: So well, I mean, it's you know, it's such a
Speaker 2: hard thing to learn. I mean, I only in the
Speaker 2: time I spent with Pete die He gave me like
Speaker 2: three hours one day on a plan for the Honors
Speaker 2: course that he was working on when I was working
Speaker 2: at Long Cove, just showed me kind of what he'd done,
Speaker 2: and he, you know, he made it look like he'd
Speaker 2: done it all that morning, but I'm sure he hadn't.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he had taken a while, but that that
Speaker 2: was really the only time he ever spent with me
Speaker 2: talking about routings. I mean, it's not a well documented process.
Speaker 2: So everybody in the business is like, Jesus, how do
Speaker 2: you do this? How can I figure out how to
Speaker 2: do this better? And really being better as a matter
Speaker 2: of practice, And the hard thing for a young person
Speaker 2: is getting practice. You don't get in on the ground
Speaker 2: floor very often to see what happens. You know, you
Speaker 2: get there when you're starting to build a golf course.
Speaker 1: Riley John's wants to know about your philosophy regards or
Speaker 1: regarding routing and the ebbs and flows of a golf round,
Speaker 1: and is there a type of balance or rhythm that
Speaker 1: you try and achieve, and if so, how.
Speaker 2: I think that's I think getting a having a rhythm
Speaker 2: to the golf chorus that has some character to it
Speaker 2: is important. I don't think you can start with one
Speaker 2: in mind, you know, like I don't think people write
Speaker 2: songs thinking about the whole flow of them. They get
Speaker 2: a couple of little pieces that they like, and then
Speaker 2: they try to figure out how to put those pieces
Speaker 2: together in a beautiful way. It's very similar to that.
Speaker 2: You have to start with a few holes and once
Speaker 2: you've got that part, then you're like, Okay, now do
Speaker 2: I want to start there or do I want to
Speaker 2: start over here? And you know, and then you know,
Speaker 2: what do I need in between these things to make
Speaker 2: it all fit together? You know, both fit together physically
Speaker 2: and that experience fit together. But you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: great golf course is very different from one or another
Speaker 2: one to another, like I guess, but Saint Andrews and
Speaker 2: Marian are both they're very different pieces of the property,
Speaker 2: but they're both kind of the same. It's kind of
Speaker 2: hard at the beginning, easy in the middle, and then
Speaker 2: it gets hard at the end. Again. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 2: not that's not it's it's very atypical for a championship
Speaker 2: golf course to have a stretch like the loop at
Speaker 2: Saint Andrews or those middle holes at Marion where you've
Speaker 2: got all the short part fours in a row that
Speaker 2: that it goes that short for that long most architects thing. No,
Speaker 2: I don't want to do that, you know, I want
Speaker 2: it to keep mixing back and forth on a more
Speaker 2: regular kind of wave. You know. I've heard people say, well,
Speaker 2: the cool thing about Augusta is that you you don't
Speaker 2: play part fours in a row until you get to
Speaker 2: like nine and ten. You know, it goes four or
Speaker 2: five four three four, three four or five. Personally, I
Speaker 2: don't think that's important at all, And I almost believe
Speaker 2: the opposite, Like some of my favorite stretches of my
Speaker 2: own courses are three or four good par fours in
Speaker 2: a row. You know, that's almost maybe you're going out
Speaker 2: on a limb a little more, But you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's important from the rhythm of like, you know,
Speaker 2: getting people hitting driver on a bunch of holes in
Speaker 2: a row and getting in a rhythm for doing it.
Speaker 2: You know, Like I don't like a routing. I've built
Speaker 2: courses with five par threes, but I don't like it
Speaker 2: when they come like every other hole, because you really
Speaker 2: get out of a rhythm for a hitting driver. It's
Speaker 2: just like, oh, another par three, and so you know,
Speaker 2: going back to basics, I don't think you can I
Speaker 2: don't think you pre plan what that flow is, but
Speaker 2: I do think it's important.
Speaker 3: I think what Tom mentioned about music too. Invariably, when
Speaker 3: we have any of these kinds of dialogues, music kind
Speaker 3: of creeps in and it's Music's a part of the
Speaker 3: artistic process, and it's a big part of on site
Speaker 3: work too for all of us. And I think there's
Speaker 3: a you know that you talk about if you're trying
Speaker 3: for flow and what kind of flow and what's good
Speaker 3: and what's not. There's a cadence. There are opening holes
Speaker 3: that just really perform well as opening holes because they
Speaker 3: make you interested and comfortable at the beginning. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's all kinds of philosophies about how you know how
Speaker 3: to ease into around and save the best for last,
Speaker 3: and you spend some of that in the middle and
Speaker 3: all of that, and that's where the expertise and the
Speaker 3: experience comes from on deciding how much weight those things carry.
Speaker 3: And I think if you take that music analogy and
Speaker 3: just take it to the next step. You know, you
Speaker 3: start with a a rhythm and a melody that you like,
Speaker 3: and you have some lyric that you're trying to work
Speaker 3: in there. But I think One of the cool things
Speaker 3: that I've learned working for Tom is the bridge in
Speaker 3: the song, and the bridge is that hole, or maybe
Speaker 3: a couple of holes that allow you to build the
Speaker 3: really natural stuff on a site. But you have to
Speaker 3: connect them somehow. And when there's not a natural connection
Speaker 3: with another hole that's just laying there, sometimes you got
Speaker 3: to take a big leap of faith and move the
Speaker 3: big furniture in the room to get it all to work,
Speaker 3: and then try as to your best to cover your
Speaker 3: tracks at the end. I mean, I'm looking at just
Speaker 3: the pictures on the wall here. The sixth that Stone Eagles,
Speaker 3: a short par four that's uphill and was not a
Speaker 3: golf hole in its native state by any stretch. The
Speaker 3: fourth at a par five at Suncadia at Tumble Creek
Speaker 3: in Washington was a hugely of faith, but it allowed
Speaker 3: a connection between holes that were really very very natural.
Speaker 3: And then you spend a lot of your time and
Speaker 3: effort and your resources getting that hole to look and
Speaker 3: play and feel commensurate with all the other natural stuff.
Speaker 3: And you know, often that's how you get the best
Speaker 3: out of a property is build a hole that's not
Speaker 3: really there so that you can max out on the
Speaker 3: stuff that's really good naturally.
Speaker 2: Instead of having to do a little work to a
Speaker 2: bunch of holes, having a bunch of holes that are
Speaker 2: there and just having to do a lot of work
Speaker 2: to one hole. Sometimes that's a better alternative. It's funny
Speaker 2: to me that we're talking about music, because I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, I would finish in last place on the
Speaker 2: music Apptitude test in any group, not just among my guys,
Speaker 2: you know. And yet you know Brian Solanik, who works
Speaker 2: for me, plays in a band a little bit on this,
Speaker 2: Jeff Bradley, who builds bunkers for Bill and Benn as
Speaker 2: a drummer. Eric Iverson who works for me, his dad
Speaker 2: was a jazz musician. So and and my favorite one,
Speaker 2: Kay Golby, whose dad was not a musician. Kai Kai
Speaker 2: did an interview with some many years ago and they
Speaker 2: asked him what is the best technical innovation that you
Speaker 2: have seen since you started in the business thirty years ago,
Speaker 2: and he said the iPod, because instead of sitting in
Speaker 2: a bulldozer all day, stuck with your thoughts or the
Speaker 2: bad local radio station, you can listen to whatever you
Speaker 2: want while you're out there, and it's the work turns
Speaker 2: out a lot better.
Speaker 1: Is a state of mind. They're and there, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's an artistics And I was.
Speaker 2: Never you know, the little bit of time that I
Speaker 2: that I did shaping for the dies and at like
Speaker 2: a high point where I shaped the greens myself. I
Speaker 2: never thought about music when I was out there. I
Speaker 2: was always thinking about Fortunately, I was thinking about all
Speaker 2: these places that i'd been in the UK relatively recently,
Speaker 2: And you know, I'd be working along thinking about one place,
Speaker 2: and then after a while I get half done with him,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is starting to remind me of
Speaker 2: something else. But I had so many of those experiences
Speaker 2: so fresh in my mind from like the last two
Speaker 2: or three years before that, it was really easy to
Speaker 2: have the free flow and change your mind on the flot.
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the great things of being
Speaker 3: around Tom and the other fellas. From the very start.
Speaker 3: Tom has always encouraged us when we were working somewhere
Speaker 3: to go see what else there is to see, And boy,
Speaker 3: when you do that in the UK, there's just there's countless, countless,
Speaker 3: infinite number of precedent studies for how do you handle
Speaker 3: this tight corner of the property. How do you get
Speaker 3: in and out of there in a safe way that's
Speaker 3: good for golf, that's interesting and memorable and not too awkward.
Speaker 3: And there are precedents for nearly every solution if you
Speaker 3: look hard enough for them, and then you know, the
Speaker 3: challenge is to decide is that an appropriate solution here too?
Speaker 3: Can you take the spirit of how it works in
Speaker 3: the British Isles and bring it to wherever you are
Speaker 3: and get it to work as effectively because the little
Speaker 3: nuances about why it works are not realized in plan view.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of in the third dimension that's going
Speaker 3: on there, the timing of the hole, the distance of
Speaker 3: the shot into a tight corner, and you know, people
Speaker 3: waiting as a group to play back out of that
Speaker 3: space for example. All of that's really got to be
Speaker 3: working well in order for you to take that idea
Speaker 3: and make an iteration of that somewhere else. But you
Speaker 3: have to have a pretty solid understanding of why it
Speaker 3: works well before you can pull it off somewhere else.
Speaker 2: And it's an example of that. I mean, if you
Speaker 2: look at the Irish courses, nearly all the famous Irish courses,
Speaker 2: there's one hole where you step off a green back
Speaker 2: onto a tee and then hit the t shot across
Speaker 2: that the green that you just played, perfect example, and
Speaker 2: you're like, how the hell does that work? You know
Speaker 2: it's bally Bunyon. You played down to the third green
Speaker 2: and then I think originally the fourth hole was shorter there,
Speaker 2: but they, you know, they they figured out, hey, we
Speaker 2: could put a tee the other side of this green
Speaker 2: and just hit over the green after people play number
Speaker 2: three and it works just fine. And with Hinch has one,
Speaker 2: I think dude, Beeg has two or three. Nearly all
Speaker 2: those courses have something like that, and and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: how the hell does that work? And people not sneak up.
Speaker 2: And you know why it works is because it's because
Speaker 2: the hole you've put, the first hole that you played,
Speaker 2: is nearly always a par three. So when you get off,
Speaker 2: when you walk off the green of the next tee,
Speaker 2: the other guys are still two hundred yards away and
Speaker 2: they're not going to be right up on you. If
Speaker 2: it was the other way around, if you played a
Speaker 2: part five and then you wanted to go back and
Speaker 2: play to a part three where you might have to wait,
Speaker 2: that wouldn't work at all.
Speaker 1: That's That's what I was like thinking in my head
Speaker 1: is like, well you'd have you couldn't have something that
Speaker 1: you regularly wait on. I bet doing it. Like if
Speaker 1: you have a short par five that a lot of
Speaker 1: people are waiting to get home into that you that
Speaker 1: would be another good one to have play over a green.
Speaker 2: Yes and no, Yes and no, because you also get
Speaker 2: groups where they're like fifty yards away ready to chip
Speaker 2: onto the green when you're when you're done. So so
Speaker 2: you know, the only really, the only way where the
Speaker 2: dance worked really well is when it's a part three.
Speaker 2: Then you can then you can put the tea anywhere
Speaker 2: you want around.
Speaker 1: The green or somebody's backyard course.
Speaker 2: Or somebody that yeah, or a place like Terry Edy
Speaker 2: that gets twenty rounds a day. You can do whatever.
Speaker 2: Stone Eagle, we've got one of those that they don't
Speaker 2: use the tea much. It's only a back tee. But
Speaker 2: you know, after eight you can go up to the
Speaker 2: right and number nine or for number ninety and hit
Speaker 2: diagonally back over eat green. That's a better angle for
Speaker 2: that hole. But you can't have everybody on it because
Speaker 2: you can't make the traffic flow work.
Speaker 1: J Blosi wants to know if you could describe a
Speaker 1: instance where you gave up on like a great hole
Speaker 1: in order to make a better course.
Speaker 2: I try to forget about those things after and on
Speaker 2: top of that, you know, you don't when I give
Speaker 2: one away, it's like then then there's a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of people that are like, oh, you made the wrong decision.
Speaker 2: You should have kept that hole. So it's like when
Speaker 2: you you know, when you talk about it, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like the kiss of death for the
Speaker 2: golf course. So there's one that I'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: It only it changed one hole, but it changed the
Speaker 2: character of the golf course a lot. Originally at Cape Kidnappers,
Speaker 2: after the twelfth green, you know, now there's a little
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty yard part three with the tee
Speaker 2: right behind twelve green, and you play this little short
Speaker 2: part three which just feels like the cliff edge off
Speaker 2: the world. Just to the left of the green, there's
Speaker 2: like a bunker that's about five feet wide, and then
Speaker 2: it's gone. And then fourteenth hole is a short part four.
Speaker 2: And our original green site for that part three was
Speaker 2: one hundred feet below where the green is now on
Speaker 2: this little piece of land that was like hanging off
Speaker 2: the cliffs, but there was enough room down there for
Speaker 2: a green, and it would have been the most spectacular
Speaker 2: hole on the golf course. It would have been one
Speaker 2: of the most spectacular holes in the world. It would
Speaker 2: have been one of the most scary holes in the
Speaker 2: world to play because we had to push the tee
Speaker 2: even closer to the cliff edge and you could barely see,
Speaker 2: you know, where the where the little shoulder is going
Speaker 2: up to the present green. You could barely see around
Speaker 2: the corner of that to see down to where this
Speaker 2: green was, so you know, to you know, scary, to
Speaker 2: scary to just stand literally stand on the tee would
Speaker 2: have been scary, scary to build, uh, And then the
Speaker 2: kicker was really tough to get down there and back.
Speaker 2: I mean, most of the rest of Cape Kidnappers is
Speaker 2: pretty easily walkable. There's a couple of ravines, but there's
Speaker 2: bridges across them, so you never have a really downhill
Speaker 2: or uphill walk on the whole golf course. And that
Speaker 2: would have been a huge break. You know, just hiking
Speaker 2: one hundred feedback up the hill would have been tough.
Speaker 2: And then you'd been kind of out of breath, and
Speaker 2: it would have taken five minutes, you know, so it
Speaker 2: would have it would have been a big break in
Speaker 2: the routing as opposed to the way it is now.
Speaker 2: We play thirteen, you're done, you walk right onto fourteen,
Speaker 2: t you keep going seamless. So we debated that hole
Speaker 2: for a long time. We didn't really have the thirteenth
Speaker 2: all the way it is now. We hadn't really figured
Speaker 2: that out as an option. We were going to go
Speaker 2: down below, and the more we looked at it, the more,
Speaker 2: you know, we were like, could you build a little
Speaker 2: like tram to get down there and back up so
Speaker 2: people don't have to walk uphill on our feet because
Speaker 2: there's no way to get a car path down there.
Speaker 2: It was just you know, a steep and then it
Speaker 2: was too small down there. And then the final nail
Speaker 2: in the coffin of going down there was there were
Speaker 2: a couple where the little Green site was. There were
Speaker 2: a couple of moundy rolls down there, and we looked
Speaker 2: at those and we were like, that could be an
Speaker 2: archaeology site. That's the kind of place that the Maoris
Speaker 2: might have had a little you know, very defensible, you know,
Speaker 2: that could be an archaeoligical site. And if that's an
Speaker 2: archaeological site and we get into it, this whole project
Speaker 2: is gonna get delayed for quite a while, plus bad karma.
Speaker 2: So so that was the final straw that Okay, we're
Speaker 2: not going down there. Let's figure out some other way
Speaker 2: to get it to have another hole in here so
Speaker 2: we can make this work. But it was a spectacular hole,
Speaker 2: and it's hard to even show people because you have
Speaker 2: to even to show. So I tried to show somebody
Speaker 2: the last time I was there where that hole was,
Speaker 2: and just even walking close enough to the cliff that
Speaker 2: you could see it was uncomfortable for me. So I'm like,
Speaker 2: good thing I didn't build that. It would have you know,
Speaker 2: it would have sucked all the air out of all
Speaker 2: the other holes.
Speaker 1: When is a long walk from like a green to tea, okay, like.
Speaker 2: When it's beautiful number one and you know, like you know,
Speaker 2: if you're a long walk from green to tea is
Speaker 2: like across a development street, that's bad. You know. I'd
Speaker 2: rather set it up so you can hit across the
Speaker 2: streets so you don't think about the walk so much.
Speaker 2: You know, every time you've got a break between green
Speaker 2: and tea. That's lengthy. You know, I'm trying to avoid
Speaker 2: those as much as possible in normal circumstances, because you
Speaker 2: get distracted, you look at your damn cell phone, you
Speaker 2: get out of the flow of playing golf. So if
Speaker 2: you can avoid that, that's the ideal. If you can't
Speaker 2: avoid it, but you're on the path from the fourth
Speaker 2: green to the fifty at Barn Google, where you're right
Speaker 2: on top of the dunes looking at the ocean for
Speaker 2: the first time you get a pass. Nobody looks at
Speaker 2: their cell phone there, except maybe to grab it and
Speaker 2: take a picture of a wallaby. Keep kidnappers. Going from
Speaker 2: fifteen green along the edge out to that sixteenth tee
Speaker 2: to play back. That's spectacular. We didn't plan that originally,
Speaker 2: you know. We were going to have the fifteenth green
Speaker 2: a little shorter and the sixteenth was going to be
Speaker 2: a short part four. And then client was worried about
Speaker 2: making the golf course longer, and I looked for I
Speaker 2: was looking for a place where I could get one
Speaker 2: hundred yards just like that, and I found that tea
Speaker 2: and said, oh okay, we could put a back tea there.
Speaker 2: It was just going to be a back tea. And
Speaker 2: then I went away and mister Robertson came back and
Speaker 2: he brought his wife and they both walked out to
Speaker 2: see where that tea was. And she walked out there
Speaker 2: and took one look at it and said, everybody should
Speaker 2: come back here, this most beautiful place on the golf course,
Speaker 2: and this walk is spectacular, so everybody, you know, let's
Speaker 2: try to make that. So it went from a short
Speaker 2: part four with a silly long back tea to a
Speaker 2: short part five where everybody was on that tee. But
Speaker 2: to do it, you know, we had to do a
Speaker 2: lot more work in the fairway to make the whole
Speaker 2: work because now you know, now we had to worry
Speaker 2: about somebody who could only get one hundred years from
Speaker 2: that tee, and it was really the land that you
Speaker 2: would have hit into was really steep. So we had
Speaker 2: to do a lot of work on sixteen to make
Speaker 2: it work. But clearly, when you know when you've got
Speaker 2: something that's going to keep the golfer's attention because it's beautiful,
Speaker 2: a long walk is no big deal. Where you don't
Speaker 2: have that, I would I would rather now have a
Speaker 2: blind te shot that you play right away and then
Speaker 2: walk up and get get the view on your way
Speaker 2: to your ball, instead of walking one hundred yards to
Speaker 2: have the view from the tee. The sixth hole of
Speaker 2: bally Neal is like that. We were originally going to
Speaker 2: put the tea up on the dune and then I
Speaker 2: just we had too many. We had too many elevated
Speaker 2: tea shots. You know, it's a windy place. There was
Speaker 2: only the back. It was only going to be the
Speaker 2: back tee that was up there. So eventually I just went,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not even let's just let's just make
Speaker 2: the t shot blind. Everybody's going to see the hole
Speaker 2: soon enough. Anyway, it's not the prettiest of you on
Speaker 2: the golf course. We're not giving up anything by not
Speaker 2: having that tea.
Speaker 3: I think that the concept of walking and walkability is
Speaker 3: an integral part of all of it. I think everyone
Speaker 3: in Tom's camp is, you know, there's little there's little
Speaker 3: voices that you're listening to while you're trying to figure
Speaker 3: out where the holes go, and one of them invariably
Speaker 3: is is how how can we get this to be
Speaker 3: as walkable as possible? And you know that the connection
Speaker 3: that Tom mentioned of getting to highs and lows and
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. It seems like if you can
Speaker 3: sell it, if it's worth it when you get there,
Speaker 3: you know, if you have to work at it a
Speaker 3: little bit. Most of most sites that are flat are
Speaker 3: walkable by virtue of the fact that they're flat. But
Speaker 3: the more interesting sites often have a couple of climbs
Speaker 3: and things like that. So you have to figure out
Speaker 3: you climbing while you're playing golf, are you climbing in
Speaker 3: between playing golf? And when you can get those climbs
Speaker 3: like Tom's talking about while you're playing golf, it's better
Speaker 3: because you don't notice it as much. You're still doing
Speaker 3: as much physical effort as you need to to get
Speaker 3: from point A to point B, but your ball's in
Speaker 3: play and that presents differently to a golfer than it
Speaker 3: does when it's in your pocket and you're on your
Speaker 3: way to the next tee. And I think that's one
Speaker 3: of the high level things that we have learned from
Speaker 3: Tom and work really hard on. Is it isn't routing.
Speaker 3: Isn't just the tee, the landing area and the green.
Speaker 3: It's how the holes relate to each other, the proximity
Speaker 3: of the green to the next tee, to the back
Speaker 3: t to the forwardeen, you know, trying to get them
Speaker 3: to fit together so they're intimate and close but in
Speaker 3: a way that's safe and interesting at the same time.
Speaker 3: And that it's a lot of work too, you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's and you figure that out during construction where
Speaker 3: Tom spends so much time in walking and looking around
Speaker 3: and getting all those things as intimate as possible, but
Speaker 3: doing it in a safe and thoughtful way. And that's
Speaker 3: there's a lot of artwork there too.
Speaker 2: Don't you think, Hey, well, there's there's two things in
Speaker 2: modern golf that have that have made that a lot
Speaker 2: harder for most architects on most courses. One is if
Speaker 2: you're trying to get to seventy two hundred yards of
Speaker 2: the back or seventy five hundred or whatever. And you know,
Speaker 2: I mean we're still building most courses for you know,
Speaker 2: the white teas are sixty five hundred yards plus or
Speaker 2: minds sixty two hundred, sixty five hundred. You know, the
Speaker 2: further from the from that tee to the back tee,
Speaker 2: the harder it is to get both of them close
Speaker 2: to the last screen. It just doesn't work. So you know,
Speaker 2: if you're thinking about the back tea first, which a
Speaker 2: lot of good players who are designers do, then every
Speaker 2: hole is an eighty or one hundred yard walk from
Speaker 2: the green to the middle tee where most people are playing.
Speaker 2: And if you're thinking about the middle tea and getting
Speaker 2: that close, then the further you have to go back,
Speaker 2: the harder it is to find an angle where it's safe.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't, you can't do what Saint Andrews
Speaker 2: does and just go back right alongside the previous fairway.
Speaker 2: You know that if people were playing there on a
Speaker 2: busy every busy day from the Open Championship tease, people
Speaker 2: would get killed every day because the back teas are
Speaker 2: like fifty sixty eighty yards short of the green on
Speaker 2: the right, the whole way around, right where every average
Speaker 2: player loses their second shot to the green. So you know,
Speaker 2: the longer you try to make the golf course from
Speaker 2: the back tees, the harder it is to get the
Speaker 2: intimacy right. And then and then the other one is
Speaker 2: cart passed. You know, once you assume that people are
Speaker 2: going to be in cart then you really don't care
Speaker 2: whether they're close together or not. It doesn't make you
Speaker 2: put them far apart, but when you stop paying attention
Speaker 2: to whether they're close together or not, you lose the
Speaker 2: thread entirely.
Speaker 1: I imagine. Maintenance is another thing that goes into it
Speaker 1: a little bit, in the sense of if the greens
Speaker 1: are close by, it's it's less gas, easier, faster to maintain,
Speaker 1: easier to mow greens, or you know, does it does
Speaker 1: that play a role in routing at all?
Speaker 2: A little Maybe not as much as you're thinking there,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean, you know, for maintenance, the old
Speaker 2: style courses were you know, you've got a bunch of
Speaker 2: parallel holes and you can mow green you don't necessarily
Speaker 2: mow all the greens in order, because it's because it's
Speaker 2: it's much faster to hop from this green across the
Speaker 2: next tee to the green that's coming back the other
Speaker 2: way two holes later, and you just there's a you know,
Speaker 2: you can get around much quicker. Where As you know,
Speaker 2: the modern courses that are all stretched out and every
Speaker 2: hole is a beautiful view. You pretty much have to
Speaker 2: maintain the golf course in the order that you play it,
Speaker 2: and so the mainest guys are going all the way
Speaker 2: around the golf course every day to get it done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about Mackenzie and how he'd have
Speaker 1: like five greens all within like sure if he drew
Speaker 1: a four hundred yard circle, there'd be.
Speaker 2: I was just I was just at the Valley Club
Speaker 2: the other day. You know, they had a flood event.
Speaker 2: They're a month ago, and they were trying to put
Speaker 2: the pieces back together. That five feet of mud come
Speaker 2: across one of the greens. But that course, there's a
Speaker 2: couple of little hills that he just maxed out as
Speaker 2: many holes as you could possibly get around him. So
Speaker 2: this there's this one hill in the middle of the
Speaker 2: property that the third green sits right into the foot
Speaker 2: of it. The fourth t is elevated, play on off it,
Speaker 2: fifth hole plays past it, seventh hole comes back to
Speaker 2: the foot of it, the eighth tea is on it,
Speaker 2: the tenth green comes up to the foot of it,
Speaker 2: and the eleventh tea is on it. So three of
Speaker 2: the four Part three is the tea is on that hill.
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