Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a fried egg,
Speaker 1: Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida eg, fridagg bride
Speaker 1: egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hum.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is with James Duncan. James Duncan is a
Speaker 1: longtime associate for Coren Crenshaw. He has also worked with
Speaker 1: Tom Doak. He is a great golf mind and I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed speaking with him. He's been a fundamental driving
Speaker 1: force behind the new Corn Crenshaw golf course in north
Speaker 1: of Napa called Brambles, which is being grassed right now,
Speaker 1: so it's getting close to having golf holes open and
Speaker 1: ready to play. I think they're targeting next year for
Speaker 1: a full opening. But it was great to talk to James.
Speaker 1: He's a wealth of knowledge and just very thoughtful person. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is our episode with James Duncan.
Speaker 1: With it, can you explain that internship that you signed
Speaker 1: up for so you're in college? Like just the backstory,
Speaker 1: a little bit on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, I'm in Copenhagen as a civil
Speaker 2: engineering student and there's no such thing as a golf program,
Speaker 2: so you had to kind of fake it. You had
Speaker 2: to make it sound like engineering, like.
Speaker 1: A program to be a golf architect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was none of that, so you had to
Speaker 2: go to golfing to do it. I think that my
Speaker 2: sister someone had given me Tom Doak's book The Anatomy
Speaker 2: of a Golf Course. It had just come out, and
Speaker 2: he describes his journey, and of course I knew about
Speaker 2: Robert Trent Jones and the Cornell thing and all that,
Speaker 2: but this was a way to again use my whatever
Speaker 2: credits I had to take in Copenhagen as a way
Speaker 2: to get my toe in the water on the golf side.
Speaker 2: I knew I had to go to Scotland to do it.
Speaker 2: My sister lived there, had just moved a couple of
Speaker 2: years earlier. All my father's family was from there. We
Speaker 2: always used to visit as kids. We would go up
Speaker 2: to the Highlands a little bit more than so of
Speaker 2: s Andrews. We'd go to Edinburgh, we'd go to North
Speaker 2: Berwick and we'd go up to the Highlands. But it
Speaker 2: was always a place. It was a place I was
Speaker 2: familiar with, and I just felt like, you know, here's
Speaker 2: this is this is where you should go if you're
Speaker 2: trying to get into this golf golf thing.
Speaker 1: So so you then applied for this internship that you
Speaker 1: went to the dean of dean of the school or
Speaker 1: was something to get the internship, and they you.
Speaker 2: Know what I did, and I went to visit my sister,
Speaker 2: which is always an excuse to play a lot of golf.
Speaker 2: And then I set up a meeting with the Scottish
Speaker 2: Golf Union and it was through that group that they
Speaker 2: recommended some companies. I then set up meetings to go
Speaker 2: and visit these companies talk to the people involved. The
Speaker 2: one I was originally was going to do didn't work out.
Speaker 2: It was up in Sterling, didn't work out, and I
Speaker 2: had all but sort of given up on it and
Speaker 2: i'd actually gone back to Copenhagen. Then I got a
Speaker 2: phone call. I think this is sort of pre email.
Speaker 2: I got a phone call or somehow this other company,
Speaker 2: the one that I wound up going to, reached out
Speaker 2: and said, look, we've heard about what you're doing. Sorry
Speaker 2: it's taken us so long. To respond to your correspondence.
Speaker 2: And then this guy Morris, his name was Maurice Gray.
Speaker 2: Marris said, I'm going to be in Copenhagen next week
Speaker 2: by coincidence. Can we meet up and just talk about
Speaker 2: what you want to do? And and I met and
Speaker 2: it was just one of those where seems legitimate, let's
Speaker 2: let's do it, let's go and then off I went
Speaker 2: often to Aberdeen, which we were just talking about previously.
Speaker 1: So you get this internship. Your job is to travel
Speaker 1: around Scotland and talk to superintendents all over the country. Yep,
Speaker 1: I mean I imagine that probably couldn't be a better
Speaker 1: learning experience for somebody trying to learn the intricacies of
Speaker 1: a golf course.
Speaker 2: It was a total manna from the heavens. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is just so lucky that that's what they wanted
Speaker 2: me to do. We talked about in generality is what
Speaker 2: they did and what they were trying to do. But
Speaker 2: for them to give me that brief, here's the car,
Speaker 2: go and see as much golf as you can, meet
Speaker 2: as many people as you can talk to them, it
Speaker 2: was just fantastic. I'll do two or three a day.
Speaker 1: Is there a situation like a course and a superintendent
Speaker 1: that stand out that you still think about like today
Speaker 1: from that trip.
Speaker 2: Hands down, George Brown at Turnbury, George who since passed away,
Speaker 2: was just a you can just tell this guy is
Speaker 2: a lovely human being. And he was just so generous
Speaker 2: with his time. He'd hosted open championships. He was like
Speaker 2: a big deal, here comes this pimple faith faced, you know,
Speaker 2: engineering student from Denmark. The fact that he even met
Speaker 2: with me, but he took time and he said, let's go.
Speaker 2: He had a little cottage on the golf course. My
Speaker 2: wife has prepared lunch for us, Let's go and sit down,
Speaker 2: have lunch. And he basically took half a day to
Speaker 2: tour him around and talk about golf. And I mean,
Speaker 2: just a wonderful, wonderful man. I would say he stands
Speaker 2: out as someone I just remember so vividly to this day.
Speaker 1: That would be crazy. I mean, so, how many courses
Speaker 1: did you see over how deed, over how long of
Speaker 1: a time.
Speaker 2: I think it was about one hundred, one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty somewhere in that range, all the way from the
Speaker 2: turn Breeze and the Old Courses and the Breastwick's two
Speaker 2: places you've never heard of, but it's interesting the ones
Speaker 2: you've never heard of. People I now meet will say
Speaker 2: and we'll say, have you been to this place? And
Speaker 2: sure enough a Boat of Garden is another one. Boat
Speaker 2: of Garden I remember going to and just being just
Speaker 2: it's just a fascinating place because it's you probably wouldn't
Speaker 2: pick it as a place to play golf except it
Speaker 2: was in this town. It's very sporting property up over
Speaker 2: this hill, down this hollow and over and cross and
Speaker 2: heather hills and just very very interesting golf course. But
Speaker 2: now I think now that people are more conscious about
Speaker 2: Scottish golf, the diversity of Scottish golf, the interesting ways
Speaker 2: in which well why can't that be a golf course
Speaker 2: as opposed to just sort of what stereotypically it is
Speaker 2: thought of as a golf course. That's now, now that
Speaker 2: there's more awareness about golf and golf course design and
Speaker 2: golf history, those places are increasingly sort of cropping back
Speaker 2: up as oh, yeah, I remember when we're going to
Speaker 2: Boat of Goden.
Speaker 1: That's like, I mean, that's the best way to see
Speaker 1: you know at that age too is when you confusibly
Speaker 1: do it is before you have family, before you have
Speaker 1: anything holding you back from you can just go see
Speaker 1: as many golf courses as you possibly can. Because you're
Speaker 1: a college student. This is what you want to do, right.
Speaker 2: You have to remember at that time any ideas I
Speaker 2: might have had about golf course design and strategy or
Speaker 2: whatever very very early. So I was just taking in
Speaker 2: just the diversity of the courses. You got to place
Speaker 2: like Ollapool way up northwest where it could have been.
Speaker 2: It's just a wonderful place to play golf. So I
Speaker 2: think I filed that away too, that let's not get
Speaker 2: too Yes there's strategy, Yes there's design and organizing things
Speaker 2: in a certain way, but a big part of it
Speaker 2: is also just sort of capturing where you are while
Speaker 2: you're playing and just having that be an essential part
Speaker 2: of the of the golf experience. And I think that's
Speaker 2: what the Scots. They was probably too cheap to do
Speaker 2: too much, so they would just kind of play the
Speaker 2: courses as they were, which resulted in you just playing
Speaker 2: the natural ground and the natural conditions, do as little
Speaker 2: to it as you can. Those things have stayed with
Speaker 2: me to this day. When I think about design, I
Speaker 2: really try and think about how do you how do
Speaker 2: you capture the essence of where you are while you're playing.
Speaker 1: I mean one of the things that recently was like
Speaker 1: the US Open at the country Club that I think
Speaker 1: people were I think it captivated people both on the
Speaker 1: television people there. But what you just hit on, I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that I think that the
Speaker 1: country Club did so well was it exuded like that
Speaker 1: sense of place that you're talking about, Like you knew
Speaker 1: when you were watching on TV that this tournament was
Speaker 1: in Boston because of the landscape and the colors and
Speaker 1: the textures that were presented at that golf course. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that often goes
Speaker 1: a little bit overlooked with golf, like great golf courses
Speaker 1: or they usually give you like you know where you
Speaker 1: are when you're there. It's not you know. And obviously
Speaker 1: there are certain courses that pull this off, but it's
Speaker 1: not a course trying to be something that it doesn't.
Speaker 1: The landscape doesn't want it to be. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it starts off with you as a
Speaker 2: club or as a developer or as an operator that
Speaker 2: you want to do you value that. It has to
Speaker 2: stop that if you start off saying I want to
Speaker 2: be like take a pick of a famous course and
Speaker 2: you just work towards that. You're never going to have
Speaker 2: what we're talking about. But if you value the natural
Speaker 2: characteristics of your property and the setting and the context,
Speaker 2: then it takes you in a different direction. That is
Speaker 2: exactly what you're describing with Brookline.
Speaker 1: I feel like that is like I say, and I
Speaker 1: don't use this from lightly, but that's like a disease
Speaker 1: that runs through America. Is the idea in American golf
Speaker 1: is like, we need to be like this, And for
Speaker 1: years it was Augusta for you know, and then or
Speaker 1: you know, for local clubs, it's we need to be
Speaker 1: this prominent club down the street, versus like the idea
Speaker 1: of just being yourself right eighteen holes.
Speaker 2: I mean why now, recently, in the last ten fifteen years,
Speaker 2: twelve holes, thirteen six. It's something that has gained awareness
Speaker 2: and people are doing in great fashion. But until that,
Speaker 2: it was all, well, you've got to have eighteen you've
Speaker 2: got to have past seventy two, you've got to have
Speaker 2: you know, four fives and four three's, and it's got
Speaker 2: to be a certain distance. I'm old enough to remember
Speaker 2: the when in the nineties when all the development was happening,
Speaker 2: you had to have had to be hard, It had
Speaker 2: to be difficult. Fun was not really in the equation
Speaker 2: because it's all about the rankings, and you only got
Speaker 2: ranked if you were difficult, and this was more difficult
Speaker 2: than that. It was an insane way of thinking about golf,
Speaker 2: at least from my point of view, when the essence
Speaker 2: of the game is to have fun.
Speaker 1: So what was your first, like construction job that you
Speaker 1: were on a crew?
Speaker 2: So the company that I went to the internship with
Speaker 2: they were also doing a nine hole renovation at Kilmarnarch,
Speaker 2: which is up by Glasgow on the West coast. I
Speaker 2: can't say I was involved in any meaningful degree other
Speaker 2: than I was on a construction site. There's all this
Speaker 2: stuff happening. This is really cool and I want to
Speaker 2: keep moving towards this, but I didn't. I didn't have time.
Speaker 2: It was there was an academic component. Had to do
Speaker 2: the coursework and prepare for that. Then I went back
Speaker 2: to Copenhagen and finished finished my studies. But then at
Speaker 2: the end of it had to write a thesis and
Speaker 2: that's what took me to the States. Same process, write
Speaker 2: send off letters. This time to the USGA and ask
Speaker 2: them for recommendations on where to go to further pursue
Speaker 2: what I was interested in, and they very kindly. Jim
Speaker 2: Snow and Kimberly Rusher wrote me a letter back and said,
Speaker 2: these are the universities we would recommend, with the usual suspects,
Speaker 2: including Cornell. And that's how I wound up at Cornell.
Speaker 2: And as some of your listeners may know, they met
Speaker 2: all the usual suspects, met Tom Doak and Gil Hanson,
Speaker 2: Jim Bina, and that was my real entry to what
Speaker 2: was going on at that time in the US. These
Speaker 2: guys with these young mavericks just doing all this interesting
Speaker 2: fun stuff, and I somehow got a tone the door
Speaker 2: and here we are.
Speaker 1: That had to be an interesting experience going from I imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, you're in Copenhagen where nobody's doing any of this,
Speaker 1: and then you move, you know, across to the United
Speaker 1: States and you meet these other young guys that are
Speaker 1: all doing like It had to be kind of like
Speaker 1: a real I don't know what the right word is,
Speaker 1: but like when you're you know, young, and you you know,
Speaker 1: like had to be just a neat experience to like
Speaker 1: get and be with other people where you can discuss
Speaker 1: this stuff, right.
Speaker 2: And I think as one of those, you don't appreciate
Speaker 2: how lucky you were I was at that time until now.
Speaker 2: I mean I look back on now, it's say, what
Speaker 2: an incredible stroke of luck those guys at that time
Speaker 2: ninety three ninety four, somewhere there where we're building three
Speaker 2: hundred golf courses a year in the country. There's just
Speaker 2: nothing but opportunities, interesting thoughts, things happening. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: was a perfect time in a perfect place.
Speaker 1: What did you notice different from what they were doing
Speaker 1: from what everybody else was doing.
Speaker 2: Well, again, I didn't know enough to really know the
Speaker 2: difference at the time. I just knew that these guys
Speaker 2: were doing some interesting stuff. We went down the Stonewall
Speaker 2: had just been built. This is right when Gil had
Speaker 2: left Tom and they were all sort of pursuing very
Speaker 2: interesting things. But I can't really say I had a
Speaker 2: frame of reference other than I went to Gusta, saw
Speaker 2: the tournament and just you'd never seen I mean, you
Speaker 2: guess have been. I mean, it's just unbelievable when you
Speaker 2: actually see it. Went to Marion, went to National, I
Speaker 2: means just had a chance to see all these special
Speaker 2: places and was blown away by all of it, and mercifully,
Speaker 2: I mean, worked with guys who knew what they were
Speaker 2: doing and had a chance to learn from them. But
Speaker 2: back then I was a glorified ditch digger. I mean
Speaker 2: it was just out there. Just tell me what to
Speaker 2: do and I'll try and do it.
Speaker 1: Maybe man good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you on?
Speaker 1: Did you link up with Bill and Ben? How did
Speaker 1: that happen?
Speaker 2: I had met obviously knew them by reputation. I had
Speaker 2: met Ben. I'd met over at National. He was practicing
Speaker 2: for the ninety five years Open at Shinnacock went that's
Speaker 2: right before Forward there you go. He was practicing over there,
Speaker 2: and of course I was just awestrock and he said National,
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, he loves the place and he's
Speaker 2: over like radiant beaming. He's playing. Well, you know, he
Speaker 2: just won the Masters. I mean, it's been crunch. He
Speaker 2: just won the Masters and he's at National. So I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm just you know, completely all strock. And then Bill
Speaker 2: I met I think at one of Tom's events he
Speaker 2: had the Renaissance Cup. I think just met him briefly,
Speaker 2: But I do remember at that time thinking if I
Speaker 2: ever have a chance to work with those guys, I'd
Speaker 2: love to pursue it. And Tom very generously at that time.
Speaker 2: Wasn't this is before Bandon Dunes and we had a
Speaker 2: few things going on, but it wasn't like he was
Speaker 2: had way too much work to handle. So he very
Speaker 2: generously I think he called Bill and said, look, I
Speaker 2: have this guy. He's doing some things with us, but
Speaker 2: he has expressed an interest in working with you. And
Speaker 2: I have to tell this story because it just again
Speaker 2: just illustrates the sort of person that Bill is. And
Speaker 2: Ben also that I had to go back to Denmark.
Speaker 2: There was some family my father was very ill at
Speaker 2: the time. I had to go back to Denmark, and
Speaker 2: I had left Bill a voicemail before leaving, and I
Speaker 2: obviously didn't expect anything at all. Bill calls me back
Speaker 2: in Denmark on the landline in my parents' house, apologizing
Speaker 2: profusely for not having called me back four days after. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, someone who does that for you, and and
Speaker 2: so I just immediately felt like, man, this this, this
Speaker 2: is this is special. And I knew they were going
Speaker 2: to do a project out in east Hampton Eastampton Golf Club,
Speaker 2: and I said, Bill I'll do anything you want me to.
Speaker 2: I'll it could be for a week, it could be
Speaker 2: for a month, it could be for the whole project.
Speaker 2: I'll I'll drive a water truck, I'll rake bunkers. I'll
Speaker 2: do whatever you want me to. And you can tell
Speaker 2: you like you say, you're serious. So yeah, let me
Speaker 2: when I when I come back, let me just I
Speaker 2: was in Ithaca at the time. Let me just come
Speaker 2: out and meet with you. If that's okay, We'll just
Speaker 2: we'll just meet up.
Speaker 1: Sounds it sounds similar to when he met Pete Dye.
Speaker 2: Probably, which of course I didn't know at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I drove out there in my Volve, my Ithaca
Speaker 2: Volvo station wagon, right, horn, rimmed glasses, tall, lanky, Danish
Speaker 2: guy or theory, no experience. Who is this guy? Right?
Speaker 2: And I'm out there with the guys who've actually built
Speaker 2: the stuff, the Dave axelent that those guys Jim Craig,
Speaker 2: and they took one look at me, like, really, this
Speaker 2: guy is going to work out. So I think, almost
Speaker 2: like as a joke, it was almost like, all right,
Speaker 2: let's see if he actually will drive a water truck.
Speaker 2: And I did, and we had a great summer. We
Speaker 2: had like five or six of us working together, Jeff Bradley,
Speaker 2: with all the usual suspects, and we had a great summer.
Speaker 2: And then I think my stroke of fortune was that
Speaker 2: this thing in California was going to go dos Puebos
Speaker 2: in Santa Barbara was coming online and it fit my
Speaker 2: skills to a t reams of plans, permit conditions, grading,
Speaker 2: erosion control, kind of a proper engineering project. And they
Speaker 2: looked around the room, like, who can we send out there?
Speaker 2: There's our guy. So Bill asked me would like to
Speaker 2: go to California and be part of the dos Perblos thing?
Speaker 2: And I went out and it didn't happen, which was
Speaker 2: a whole nother story. But then while I was out
Speaker 2: there for a while, Ben and some of his friends
Speaker 2: had bought this property in Austin and they were going
Speaker 2: to build the Austin Golf Club. And they said, well,
Speaker 2: if those Piblos isn't gonna happen, why don't you come
Speaker 2: to Austin and help us build Austin Golf Club.
Speaker 1: That's that does playblis project that sounded like a spectacular
Speaker 1: place could have been.
Speaker 2: I just drove by it just the other day. The
Speaker 2: PBC post are still out there marking the t's and
Speaker 2: the turning points in the greens.
Speaker 1: That was a chevron was was it chevron.
Speaker 2: Or acco arco site? It was a you know, they
Speaker 2: would come in with the tankers off coast and then
Speaker 2: they would pipe it from the tankers up onto the
Speaker 2: property in these big holding tanks, and then they would
Speaker 2: do the refinery or refinement or whatever it's called, the
Speaker 2: processing of the crude on that property and then truck
Speaker 2: it to wherever it was needed. So it had been
Speaker 2: decommissioned as a oil refinery side and they were going
Speaker 2: to convert it into a public golf course forty dollar golf,
Speaker 2: public access with pedestrian trails and questrian trails and you know,
Speaker 2: bike trails and proper access to the beach. And my
Speaker 2: sense was in the local community there was nothing but
Speaker 2: support for it, but sort of in the special interests
Speaker 2: groups they afforded tooth and nail. Water. I think water
Speaker 2: was an issue, a big issue. Having enough water out
Speaker 2: there and be able to justify using it for golf
Speaker 2: was a big issue, and probably legitimately so some of
Speaker 2: the other things were a little bit more marginal, like seals.
Speaker 2: You know, the errant golf balls were going to impact
Speaker 2: the mating rituals of the seals down on the beach.
Speaker 2: Come on, I mean, you just people just trying to
Speaker 2: block this project so it never happened, and it still
Speaker 2: sets there.
Speaker 1: That had to be kind of like, you know, you're young.
Speaker 1: It's like you got this job, you're you're super excited
Speaker 1: working with these guys, and having that happen with one
Speaker 1: of you, like the first projects had to be tough,
Speaker 1: like having it not happen.
Speaker 2: It was tough, but it was so exciting just to
Speaker 2: be there. But I do remember that, and we still
Speaker 2: sort of we don't think we joke about it, but
Speaker 2: we certainly still make reference to it. I remember one
Speaker 2: particular meeting, and I don't think Bill would mind my
Speaker 2: saying this. I remember one meeting, a Coastal Commission meeting
Speaker 2: which we had to attend, and people go up then
Speaker 2: make the case for either being in favor of or
Speaker 2: against the project. And this one particular attorney goes up
Speaker 2: and claims that the golf course architects the developers had
Speaker 2: made no effort to incorporate the various interests of the community,
Speaker 2: which was patently untrue. I mean they had moved the greens,
Speaker 2: moved this and change this over here. And Bill approached
Speaker 2: him during an intimission. He said, you know, you know
Speaker 2: just as well as I do that we have made
Speaker 2: all these changes, We've done all these things. And the
Speaker 2: attorney goes, Bill, please don't take it personally. I'm just
Speaker 2: I'm just doing my job. I'm just representing my client.
Speaker 2: And Bill just turned around and walk down the room
Speaker 2: like this is not a there's not a process, this
Speaker 2: is not a conversation. This is just a waste of
Speaker 2: everybody's time, which was a shame. So, yeah, that was
Speaker 2: the end of Dusk webinos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's still stakes in the ground, that's what So
Speaker 1: Austin Golf Club, that's that's a one of the things
Speaker 1: that is unique about that. Of course, I think from
Speaker 1: what people have characterized me, I've played it, but is
Speaker 1: that it's more Crenshaw than you know, Core and Crenshaw. Right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's a that's really like a Ben Crenshaw golf course
Speaker 1: by design.
Speaker 2: I mean Bill was very again again speaks to who
Speaker 2: he is and who they both are that Bill felt
Speaker 2: like this should be this is Ben's home club. This
Speaker 2: is something that he will be part of for the
Speaker 2: rest of his life. He should be the driver on this,
Speaker 2: and he was hilarious. It's hilarious to watch these two
Speaker 2: guys right because it's there's always a humor component. But
Speaker 2: I think Bill did most of the routing, you know,
Speaker 2: laid it out with Ben's advice. But yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker 2: All the greens, all the details, the bunkering, everything is
Speaker 2: essentially Ben's handiwork.
Speaker 1: Why is it a like what's different when Ben does
Speaker 1: everything from when you know the usual process of them
Speaker 1: building golf courses together.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I think Tom Kite described Austin
Speaker 2: Golf Club as the hardest golf course from ten yards
Speaker 2: in that there's so many little nuances in the greens,
Speaker 2: and if you're a really good player, you can work
Speaker 2: away around those. If you're not so good, it's it's tough.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a different Ben would probably not
Speaker 2: do a croquetial together, may not do greens quite like
Speaker 2: that for a less a compli a place where you're
Speaker 2: trying to accommodate a greater spectrum of players, it's a
Speaker 2: good players club. I think that's probably one difference some
Speaker 2: of the maybe some of the visuals like Ben. I
Speaker 2: don't think Ben was particularly interested in anything looking particularly
Speaker 2: flashy or it's all pretty subdued and golf centric and
Speaker 2: about placement and about angles and about contours. Ben's a
Speaker 2: big big on contours, mounds and things like that. So
Speaker 2: I think that's probably one difference over something they might
Speaker 2: have done together. And again, just the simple, unpretentious snow frills,
Speaker 2: just go out and have a good time playing golf.
Speaker 1: Would you characterize the way I've kind of always thought
Speaker 1: about it in my head, and I usually to rate
Speaker 1: and relate things like everybody does back to like in
Speaker 1: a way, Bill's almost like the writer and Ben's an
Speaker 1: editor where he comes in he looks at the projects
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: What do you think of you know? Like? Are you
Speaker 1: sure this? You know? Like? And that's the way the
Speaker 1: kind of process works, where you know, Bill will put
Speaker 1: together the article or the book, and then Ben goes
Speaker 1: through it and Addison gives his thoughts on different things.
Speaker 2: I think that's true, and I think, well, I will
Speaker 2: say this about ben uncanny ability to just step off
Speaker 2: a plane or out of a rental count and go
Speaker 2: out walk around and then it's such a high golf
Speaker 2: iq and has played the game so well for so
Speaker 2: long to say, how about if that shot presented itself
Speaker 2: a little bit differently? How about if we raise this
Speaker 2: upload and he's got this incredible, interesting idiosyncratic the vocabulary,
Speaker 2: Oh that's a little aggy. What does that mean? It's
Speaker 2: a little aggy over there, you know, how about this
Speaker 2: little guy right over here or that hot dog or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just the language is just fascinating. You can write
Speaker 2: a dictionary of just sort of terms that they use.
Speaker 1: For like the young guys that are working their first
Speaker 1: job with them. It's like, here's the translation of these things.
Speaker 2: That's a little that's a little puffy right there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so no, but you're right, but I did discover So
Speaker 2: my role with them really for most of them, my
Speaker 2: time working with them was sort of organizer, project organizer.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to organize the all the various
Speaker 2: project parts and give the guys what they need on
Speaker 2: the shaping side and sort of work with the client,
Speaker 2: you know, that sort of thing. So I would also
Speaker 2: organize Bill and Ben's time and when do you need
Speaker 2: Ben to come back. Well, if you just blew up
Speaker 2: the fairway because you're putting in irrigation range, he doesn't
Speaker 2: really what am I looking at. There's just the piles
Speaker 2: of stuff out there. So you had to get him
Speaker 2: at the right time. And there were sort of two
Speaker 2: times when it was really ideal to get him. One
Speaker 2: was once she was setting the stage. You're trying to
Speaker 2: the concepts for the holes short for path three or
Speaker 2: a longer hole over here, the way they all fit together,
Speaker 2: the changes in the direction. Great time to get him
Speaker 2: out there, get the two of them together, lay the foundation,
Speaker 2: and then he could go away. He was still playing
Speaker 2: at that time, go away play. And then you'd had
Speaker 2: to get him in once you you were a certain
Speaker 2: point of detail with the shaping where he could see it.
Speaker 2: I can see how this looks, and I can see
Speaker 2: yeah again a little too eggy or a little too
Speaker 2: puffy or whatever it was. So to get him at
Speaker 2: the right time was the key. And then they were
Speaker 2: just incredible together. And the way you could tell that
Speaker 2: Bill relied on and greatly valued Ben's input because from
Speaker 2: his point of view, you know, you've got so much
Speaker 2: going on with organizing jobs. Where are we going to
Speaker 2: go next, Have I routed this course for this perspective client,
Speaker 2: Did I go and look at these four other properties
Speaker 2: that Ben could come in with fresh eyes and say, yeah,
Speaker 2: well that's fine all that stuff, but that's maybe a
Speaker 2: little bit too eggy on the corn of that green. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's like with I think anybody
Speaker 1: can relate to that. It's like when you get so
Speaker 1: deep in the weeds and your thing and I in
Speaker 1: a in a golf project, a golf course that you're
Speaker 1: talking some of these things from end to end four years,
Speaker 1: you get and you know, I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that's unique about Bill, Bill and Ben and Coren
Speaker 1: Crenshaw is like they don't take a ton of jobs, right,
Speaker 1: so you know the jobs that they do or they
Speaker 1: are deeply, deeply invested in and very in the weeds.
Speaker 1: So when you get into those weeds, you know, you
Speaker 1: lose sight of little things and you get almost too
Speaker 1: close to Really it's that whole saying you're so you
Speaker 1: can't see the forest through the trees, right, And that's
Speaker 1: where the it's nice to have some of that just
Speaker 1: comes in and has you know, has also like at
Speaker 1: the time you're describing is going around the country playing
Speaker 1: golf at different places and seeing new stuff all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, granted the tours playing the same place as
Speaker 1: for the most part, but I think he was going
Speaker 1: and seeing new courses as I've read a lot about,
Speaker 1: like you know, famously going up to play Crystal Downs
Speaker 1: before he won the won the Detroit event or the
Speaker 1: Warwick Kills event. But but yeah, that's a fascinating thing
Speaker 1: about like scheduling their time. I have to ask, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, with that, like, how is it how is
Speaker 1: it scheduling all this stuff in planning with somebody that
Speaker 1: doesn't have email.
Speaker 2: That's a good point and somehow it works. And you're
Speaker 2: right to this day, Ben doesn't have email. Builders email
Speaker 2: they you ask the wives, they might have a slightly
Speaker 2: more nuanced view on this. How do they actually communicate
Speaker 2: without email? Because there is some some that goes channel
Speaker 2: through there and they have Scotty in the office, Scotty
Speaker 2: Sayers in the office, But yeah, they I think. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's I admire that I admire the keeping things simple.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is you were talking about stories. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are just coming to my mind as we speak
Speaker 2: about it. But I think there was one interview they
Speaker 2: did during the there was the Pinehost renovation where they're
Speaker 2: being interviewed about the project and about how that's all going.
Speaker 2: And the interviewer goes, yeah, there's something on your website
Speaker 2: about whatever it was, and they looked at each other,
Speaker 2: and you can tell us just one hundred percent genuine
Speaker 2: they look at it like we have a website. They
Speaker 2: had no idea they had a website, neither one of them.
Speaker 2: And I absolutely can see that. So now I think
Speaker 2: it's a point of great pride, right. It's but that again,
Speaker 2: it just speaks that now he's let's not clutter of
Speaker 2: things up unnecessarily. Let's just keep it simple. Let's pick
Speaker 2: up the phone and call me, Let's talk to each other.
Speaker 2: It's it's that's who they are.
Speaker 1: It's uh, yeah, I love when you get you get
Speaker 1: text messages from Bill and he uses emojis, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't use the you know, have the email. It's like
Speaker 1: he's using em my dad has no clue what an
Speaker 1: emoji is. But he could use the email. But that
Speaker 1: Bill does have an email, like you know, I you know,
Speaker 1: if I had my brothers, i'd probably get rid of
Speaker 1: my my email. What you know, we talked about a
Speaker 1: few projects. You have a particular core and Crunchhaw. Of
Speaker 1: course that's been finished. We're going to talk about Brambles
Speaker 1: and in a second, but that's done. That stands out
Speaker 1: in your mind as like, you know, that one's my
Speaker 1: the place I would spend the most time at.
Speaker 2: You know, Austin Golf Dolls was so much Ben's project.
Speaker 2: We were just trying to figure out what Ben I wanted.
Speaker 2: After that, I was very lucky to go to Atlantic
Speaker 2: City and work on a place called Hidden Creek, and
Speaker 2: Hidden Creek was it was just such a wonderful experience.
Speaker 2: Roger and Duena Hansen were the owners and the developers.
Speaker 2: They had other golf Bluehound Pines, they had a couple
Speaker 2: of golf courses that they had developed previously. But they
Speaker 2: had known Bill and Ben for years and this was
Speaker 2: their chance to work with them, and they were just
Speaker 2: so excited about it. And I remember Bill saying and
Speaker 2: again it's just just how what a what a what
Speaker 2: a wonderful thought. And for him to have the the
Speaker 2: willingness to say this. He said to me, I want
Speaker 2: you to work on this project in a manner where
Speaker 2: you feel like you could take someone back here someday
Speaker 2: and say this is what I believe in, this is
Speaker 2: this is the kind of golf that I like to
Speaker 2: play and would like to see and be part of.
Speaker 2: Use that mind set as you participate in this project.
Speaker 2: I mean you talk about a motivator for a thirty
Speaker 2: two year old, you know, really you want me to
Speaker 2: go here and just basically feel like this is I'm
Speaker 2: part of the design process. So that one, especially right
Speaker 2: down to the concept. You know, we sort of came
Speaker 2: up with the sort of heathland style. The property suited
Speaker 2: that perfectly. It was going to be a club that
Speaker 2: you know, members would play over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: so again you could come to learn to play the course.
Speaker 2: It could have a little bit of quirk to it,
Speaker 2: and so that one, I would say Hidden Creek was
Speaker 2: a special two years of being down there and working
Speaker 2: with an owner who trusted the process. It was different.
Speaker 2: It was not necessarily what you sort of normally would
Speaker 2: see on the Jersey Shore. There was some you know,
Speaker 2: some Willie Park influences and things like that locally, but
Speaker 2: for that era, it was it was very different. Bill
Speaker 2: and Ben embraced it and all the guys. It was.
Speaker 2: It was a very special time.
Speaker 1: I am back from Scotland, so it was a great trip.
Speaker 1: Just about two weeks over there, and thank you, big
Speaker 1: thank you to Zero Restriction for getting us over there.
Speaker 1: They were our sponsor for the two weeks and we'll
Speaker 1: have a ton of content that's coming out in the
Speaker 1: next couple weeks center around the trip. So they have
Speaker 1: a promo code going on right now if you are
Speaker 1: interested in getting some good outerwear SGS. That's SGS Summer
Speaker 1: twenty five. That's the promo code at zero restriction dot com.
Speaker 1: Big thank you to them for sponsoring this Scotland trip.
Speaker 1: We have some writing up on the website. We've posted
Speaker 1: some social videos also. I'm going to be writing kind
Speaker 1: of like a journal from the trip that I have.
Speaker 1: I've got notes written down. I'm just kind of formulating it.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to run those in the Friday newsletter.
Speaker 1: So if you're interested in just kind of stories and
Speaker 1: thoughts on courses along the way, sign up for the
Speaker 1: Fridagg newsletter at the Fridagg dot com. It'll be right
Speaker 1: there to pop up. You know, there's a and sign
Speaker 1: up for that and you'll get it get my thoughts
Speaker 1: kind of through the newsletter and then they'll be eventually
Speaker 1: posted to the website as well. I think you hit
Speaker 1: on something with the description of, you know, a golf course,
Speaker 1: like suiting the design to the concept of the course,
Speaker 1: and it sounds simple, but it doesn't always work right,
Speaker 1: you know where Okay, you know, we could build quirk
Speaker 1: into this because it's an everyday golf course versus you know,
Speaker 1: building a resort course, which is something that somebody might
Speaker 1: go to once in their life, you know, And you
Speaker 1: know is that something I guess, like you know, do
Speaker 1: you sometimes see golf courses that are miscast and maybe
Speaker 1: would work better if they were in a different setting.
Speaker 1: Just speaking in generalities, you and I we've.
Speaker 2: Talked about this privately, and I want to necessarily get
Speaker 2: too much into specifics, but yeah, for sure, I mean absolutely,
Speaker 2: And I think that's if you want to go down
Speaker 2: and look at the body of work that Core crunch
Speaker 2: Shaw has done. And I only mentioned them because I
Speaker 2: know that their work the best. I think that's one
Speaker 2: of the things they really do well. They really think
Speaker 2: through what is the purpose of this golf course? Capelua,
Speaker 2: I mean Cappalua could not be more different from Austin
Speaker 2: Golf Club, and Austin Golf Club could not be more
Speaker 2: different from hidden Greek sand hills. I mean, take a pick,
Speaker 2: but that very deliberate thinking through what is the purpose
Speaker 2: of this course? I think they do that as well
Speaker 2: as anyone I've ever seen. Again, now you're back to
Speaker 2: setting aside their own agenda, setting asiund their own interests,
Speaker 2: thinking about the client, thinking about what's best for the client,
Speaker 2: really something they do exceptionally well.
Speaker 1: So pigging backing off that, I think, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the majority of people that will encounter a core crunch
Speaker 1: shot course, play a resort course, you know that's just
Speaker 1: the name's or a public course like Warren and Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: How are those courses different than say a hidden creeker
Speaker 1: the private ones? Where are the different where the design
Speaker 1: differences are? East Hampton would be another, you know, private club.
Speaker 1: You know, how where where are things maybe ramped up,
Speaker 1: toned down at resorts versus at the private club experience?
Speaker 1: How do how do they kind of morph between the two?
Speaker 2: I think especially in the greens again I mentioned before
Speaker 2: with an Austin Golf Club. I mean those greens for
Speaker 2: your average resort guest would just be very, very challenging.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just a little more room to play, a
Speaker 2: little more room to get in the hole as opposed
Speaker 2: to have to hit exactly a precise shot. Do I think?
Speaker 2: I think that's the the width aspects. You know, they
Speaker 2: like to have wide fairways and different angles and use
Speaker 2: the property. I think that's pretty universally. You would do that,
Speaker 2: whether it's a resort course or for a private club.
Speaker 2: So the bunkering, you might say, well, the bunkering is
Speaker 2: a little more forgiving or less exacting on a resort course,
Speaker 2: but overall I would say not really. I mean I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say that. Say that Austin Golf or sand Hills
Speaker 2: or some of the courses that you would say are
Speaker 2: some of the more exacting of their designs. You wouldn't
Speaker 2: say the bunkering is particularly punishing. It certainly challenged you
Speaker 2: in terms of where you want to go and how
Speaker 2: you want to set up your angles and get around
Speaker 2: the golf course.
Speaker 1: They're all avoidable, yeah exactly, but you know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: find yourself in them. Sometimes they become unavoidable because of
Speaker 1: your own self, and that's when they exact the penalty,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about like stream Thung right, the you know,
Speaker 1: that's the you know thing you start to think about
Speaker 1: is like eighteen at sand Hills. It's like you get
Speaker 1: one of those bunkers that can just derail your day
Speaker 1: and then you know, but the same can be said
Speaker 1: about the resort of the fifteenth at stream song Red.
Speaker 1: You know, like that left bunker there just death.
Speaker 2: But then you always wondered, why did I go over them?
Speaker 2: On you, I shouldn't be over there? What am I
Speaker 2: doing over there?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you got you gotta get it closer
Speaker 1: there to make those holes a little bit shorter, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the most interesting things about
Speaker 1: you know, one of the golf analytics and people have
Speaker 1: created these strategies and oh, architecture doesn't matter because of
Speaker 1: these strategies at the end of the day. The architecture,
Speaker 1: like I am a big believer in Like, if you
Speaker 1: play enough golf, you figure these things out, like and
Speaker 1: whether or not, you know, the better players are always
Speaker 1: going to be more conservative, like and you figure these
Speaker 1: things out, and you know these there are a lot
Speaker 1: of systems and people out there that can help you
Speaker 1: play figure things out. Faster. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, the architecture, really great architecture entices people to
Speaker 1: do things they don't want to do, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's sometimes what happens with those holes, Like that's why
Speaker 1: you find yourself in some bunkers that you shouldn't be in,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great way to sort of catch
Speaker 2: all if you can get people to do things they
Speaker 2: shouldn't be doing. There's interest, there's challenge, there's attack and defense.
Speaker 2: There's all sorts of stuff building to that that I
Speaker 2: think is good golf as opposed it's being other just
Speaker 2: mindlessly hitting or it's so difficult that it's so obvious
Speaker 2: what you're trying to not do.
Speaker 1: It's stimulating, right like that I think about that all
Speaker 1: the time. Is like I really love when I get
Speaker 1: into a situation, you know, you find it on par
Speaker 1: fives a lot where I don't want to go for
Speaker 1: the green, but I definitely don't want to lay up,
Speaker 1: and I'm in this situation where neither of the options
Speaker 1: to me are very you know, appetizing, and I usually
Speaker 1: end up going for it, you know, at that point,
Speaker 1: And I think when when one becomes clear, like you
Speaker 1: know that's the people always say, you know, I love
Speaker 1: short part fours. I love short part fives. Like really,
Speaker 1: what you love is you love the decision, right, And
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be a short part four that
Speaker 1: creates that. A long part three can create that, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's just that the expectations change, right, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a fascinating thing with golf.
Speaker 2: Well, can I ask you about PA? I mean here
Speaker 2: we maybe we get to it later, but.
Speaker 1: You're gonna ask me a question.
Speaker 2: I think that is such a and we there's a
Speaker 2: group of us who are toying with the idea that
Speaker 2: pause wherely just it just gets gets in the way.
Speaker 2: What if we play with no PA.
Speaker 1: So there's a study that was done years ago. I
Speaker 1: think I did a podcast with the guys that did
Speaker 1: the study like three years ago, and they found on
Speaker 1: the PGA tour, so they used Pebble Beach was one
Speaker 1: of them, and I want to say Oakmont was one
Speaker 1: where they had they looked at scoring averages of I
Speaker 1: think nine at Oakmont went from a five to four, right,
Speaker 1: and then two at Pebble Beach went from a five
Speaker 1: to four. So they took those and they looked at
Speaker 1: the US Opens there when they were each fives and fours,
Speaker 1: and they you know, they did the study. They normalized
Speaker 1: the data so that it matched. And what they found
Speaker 1: was when those holes were played as par fours, players
Speaker 1: played a quarter of a shot better on the par
Speaker 1: four than the par five because of loss of version.
Speaker 1: So the fear of losing a stroke to bogey created
Speaker 1: a player. It made the players play more aggressively and
Speaker 1: then they played better. So you know, when it was
Speaker 1: a par five, players cared less about gaining the shot
Speaker 1: than when it was a par four about losing the shot.
Speaker 1: Is really like I I, you know, I think about
Speaker 1: this stuff all the time with like professional golf, right,
Speaker 1: like par in a way holds back the world's best players.
Speaker 1: Like if you if the tour, if the tour was
Speaker 1: more concerned with the total score, no, the total score
Speaker 1: rather than the under par score. So you know, you
Speaker 1: could change the par whatever, Like you know, the tour
Speaker 1: likes win twenty four underwins because it's exciting, okay, but
Speaker 1: if you change that par from say seventy two to
Speaker 1: sixty eight, the total score would likely be like so
Speaker 1: the what seventy times was to seventy. Let's just say,
Speaker 1: let's just say two seventy wins a tournament. It's a
Speaker 1: par seventy two, it's eight under. If you change the
Speaker 1: par to to seventy and it was two seventy, I
Speaker 1: bet to sixty eight wins exactly. So like the scores
Speaker 1: would go down, players would shoot lower scores with lower.
Speaker 2: Par And then you have to decide, as a community
Speaker 2: of golfers, do we want to have lower UNDERPA or
Speaker 2: higher school Because you could also go the other way
Speaker 2: and say we'll call all the holes pot fives and
Speaker 2: everybody shoots seventy five because they're so happy that they
Speaker 2: had no pressure. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing in a way, like what
Speaker 1: pars turned into is over under pars more important than
Speaker 1: the actual score, right right, Like people feel better when
Speaker 1: they shoot seventy eight on a par seventy two than
Speaker 1: when they shoot seventy eight on a par seventy, which
Speaker 1: is silly. It's still the same score, you know. And
Speaker 1: I also think about this all the time, right, like,
Speaker 1: like why doesn't par change with the conditions you play in?
Speaker 1: Like if you're playing in a thirty five miles or
Speaker 1: a wind at a place that hasn't rained for three
Speaker 1: weeks that's like firm and has tough pins, and I'm
Speaker 1: playing and it's seventy five sunny, no wind, and because
Speaker 1: it rained the night before, that's not the same score,
Speaker 1: right right? Partire changed like every day.
Speaker 2: Almost You know what we're getting into here, and we
Speaker 2: may need you know, three podcasts, is you know what
Speaker 2: drives the game? Why? Why do we follow certain things?
Speaker 2: Why do we insist on certain things? Why do we
Speaker 2: And this goes through the game with design of golf
Speaker 2: courses or the equipment, the way things are maintained, what
Speaker 2: things cost to maintain because of certain expectations. I mean,
Speaker 2: you really go down a rabbit hole that starts a challenge.
Speaker 2: If we're talking about pond, what does it mean? Where
Speaker 2: do we stop if we really don't want to start
Speaker 2: thinking about what? What is the game? Where did the
Speaker 2: game come from? And I'm not trying to stay in
Speaker 2: this direction for our conversation, but it's just something that
Speaker 2: fascinates me.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the game means something differently to every golfer,
Speaker 1: and I think that's one of the most beautiful things
Speaker 1: about golf, is like, you know, I'm super interested in
Speaker 1: into architecture, right, But I understand and I think this
Speaker 1: is where some people struggle. It's like I understand that,
Speaker 1: like some people are like super into equipment or some
Speaker 1: I was at a face that, you know when I
Speaker 1: played a lot of amateur golf, like I was there's
Speaker 1: a phase in my life where I was really really
Speaker 1: into improvement and like getting better shooting lower scores like
Speaker 1: that is a you know, there is a a portion,
Speaker 1: a large I think the largest subsection of the game
Speaker 1: is obsessed with shooting lower scores. The idea of a conquest,
Speaker 1: and that's where par is so valuable is it's the
Speaker 1: idea of conquest. And that's where the handicap system is addictive,
Speaker 1: Like I want to get down to zero. I want
Speaker 1: to get you know, it's that I think it's almost
Speaker 1: like a gamification of the sport. I mean, you think
Speaker 1: about all the courses that were built and how much
Speaker 1: you know, like all of a sudden, then part, what
Speaker 1: what does par matter if you're playing matches, If you're
Speaker 1: going to your club and the dominant tournament form is
Speaker 1: always matches and season long, like you know, you think
Speaker 1: about these clubs like you go to a club on
Speaker 1: a Saturday morning, it's like, hey, you in the big
Speaker 1: game for this it's all stroke play. It's all that week.
Speaker 1: You know what if your big game every week was
Speaker 1: like like the NFL, where you you square it off
Speaker 1: against another guy at the club and it was a match.
Speaker 2: Pine Valley, the Granddaddy of the mole here in the States,
Speaker 2: if that course had been built as a stroke play
Speaker 2: course the way it was originally and you had opening day,
Speaker 2: how the people would say this is insane, like how
Speaker 2: do I finish this golf course? But as a match
Speaker 2: play as a place to just play against someone else
Speaker 2: where you just pick up after a while, fantastic fun.
Speaker 2: So it's clearly changed.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I think that's so funny is like
Speaker 1: so many people, oh, it's a great match flight course.
Speaker 1: But it's like, I mean that seems like that be
Speaker 1: a great course. That's just a court that you're describing
Speaker 1: a fun golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again, if it was stroke play, I think
Speaker 2: you would just you feel some serious punishment if.
Speaker 1: You're that's well, that's why I hear with like the
Speaker 1: Crump Cup, you know, and knowing a few people that
Speaker 1: play it, like if you don't drive the ball great,
Speaker 1: You're dead, you know, you just you know, if you
Speaker 1: want to play well in that tournament, the Crump Cup
Speaker 1: at Pine Valley, like, the number one thing you have
Speaker 1: to do is drive the ball great. And typically the
Speaker 1: best drivers of golf ball play the best there.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll tell you what I do. Andy, as
Speaker 2: soon as I start going down the rabbit or the
Speaker 2: trail or the train of thought of golf should be
Speaker 2: more fun. You know, find a ball, hit it again,
Speaker 2: just use contours, make it where everybody has a chance.
Speaker 2: As soon as I go down that path, there's another
Speaker 2: path that starts up, like wait on a minute, wait
Speaker 2: a minute. We also really like to get beat up,
Speaker 2: you know, serious challenges where you again, back to sant Hills,
Speaker 2: you're fifty feet down in a hallway. You've got this
Speaker 2: one and ten chance on a recovery shot. If you
Speaker 2: made it so quote unquote fair and reasonable for everybody
Speaker 2: that you didn't have that chance to get in trouble,
Speaker 2: you also never had that chance to have that spectacular recovery.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's you just hit on it like
Speaker 1: and I think this is I think some of the
Speaker 1: direction of golf architecture in the last ten years has
Speaker 1: pushed it more into this the fair you know, the
Speaker 1: idea fun wide every you can always get your ball around,
Speaker 1: but I think when you get too far down and
Speaker 1: it's just it's a pendulum, right, when you get too
Speaker 1: far one way, what you lose is I think one
Speaker 1: of the essences of the game is when you're standing
Speaker 1: over a shot, in the back of your head, you're
Speaker 1: aware of consequence and that's what you know. That's the
Speaker 1: feeling you get and everybody that's listening to this, I
Speaker 1: assume everybody's played golf, but that's the feeling you get
Speaker 1: on the first t is that there's doubt and there's
Speaker 1: a worry of well, if this doesn't go well, what
Speaker 1: does that mean for the rest of the round? What
Speaker 1: it is like, what the first T is is getting
Speaker 1: you used to the like. You get more and more
Speaker 1: comfortable with consequence as you get into your round. That's
Speaker 1: why you're the most nervous at the front of your round.
Speaker 1: And then that's why you're the most nervous on the
Speaker 1: eighteenth hole putting in because at eighteen on the green,
Speaker 1: you feel the consequence of if I make this, I
Speaker 1: shoot x if I miss this, I shoot X. And
Speaker 1: no matter how many people tell you, don't keep scoring
Speaker 1: in the round, most people know around where they're at
Speaker 1: while they're putting on eighteen. So I think that like
Speaker 1: when you think about golf, I've never really tried to
Speaker 1: put this into terms. It's like consequence is essentially the
Speaker 1: key theme throughout the round, whether you're you know, keeping
Speaker 1: score or if you're studying great golf architecture, it's a
Speaker 1: hit it here or else, you know kind of proposition.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, as someone you know all
Speaker 2: of us in golf. If I have to make a choice,
Speaker 2: if I can either have the inscrutable fare, the bunkers
Speaker 2: are one foot deep, so you can never get criticized.
Speaker 2: If I can either have that or the one where
Speaker 2: and it's all stroke play and we keep down to
Speaker 2: the decimal point, we keep who did what and what
Speaker 2: hole and what's your total score? If I can have that,
Speaker 2: or I can have the adventure golf where occasionally I'm
Speaker 2: going to be absolutely out of position, I have nothing,
Speaker 2: but then once in a while I have a spectacular
Speaker 2: recovery and I can go in my pocket when I've
Speaker 2: had enough. I'm taking the pocket game every single time.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the great thing with match play because when
Speaker 1: you had enough, you put it in your pocket, you
Speaker 1: say it to your competitor, let's go to the next hall.
Speaker 2: So I think one of the challenges we face right
Speaker 2: now is how do we reconcile. Okay, we have the
Speaker 2: pro game over here, that's fine, they can do the
Speaker 2: thing for the rest of us who played golf to
Speaker 2: enjoy ourselves, be challenged, have some fun. How do you
Speaker 2: reconcile those two? How do you have a how do
Speaker 2: we tweak we need to tweak the format, and how
Speaker 2: do we then tweak the format where you get the
Speaker 2: best of the match play spirit experience without losing this
Speaker 2: all my handicap. I'm thinking about my school, which for
Speaker 2: some people is very enjoyable as well. Is there a
Speaker 2: way to get the two together.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that it just needs to
Speaker 1: be more madify. Maybe golf needs it needs to just
Speaker 1: let go of the I think there's an insecurity issue
Speaker 1: with the game of golf. Right. It's not comfortable. It's
Speaker 1: constantly tried to be put in a box, when golf
Speaker 1: is the game that's least in a box. Right, we
Speaker 1: play on a different course all the time. We play
Speaker 1: with different people all the time, the weather's different all
Speaker 1: the time. I think the coolest thing about golf, if
Speaker 1: I was going to tell somebody why you should play golf,
Speaker 1: is that golf is probably much like life, the only game, sport,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, where you'll never ever
Speaker 1: be in the exact same You'll never hit the exact
Speaker 1: same shot twice in your life ever, right Like you
Speaker 1: never have the exact same putt. You've had a putt. Oh,
Speaker 1: I've had a putt close to this, and you're remembering back, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've had a shot close to this. But the wind
Speaker 1: will never be the same, the yard, it will never
Speaker 1: be the same, the li will never be the same.
Speaker 1: Like all those factors that go into hitting a great
Speaker 1: golf shot will never be the same. Right and then,
Speaker 1: but golf has this thing where they want to say
Speaker 1: this is what golf is.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's the good way to wrap it up, this
Speaker 2: little segment where golf is like life.
Speaker 1: You're just the host.
Speaker 2: Now, we're not going to figure it out. We're not
Speaker 2: going to figure it out.
Speaker 1: You've come near the host studios of this podcast. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe maybe you should host it a Friday podcast. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about this golf course that we're sitting.
Speaker 2: At Nice when no more questions from Ben.
Speaker 1: Now you can ask questions whenever you want. Believe me,
Speaker 1: when it's way better discussion, when it becomes two way
Speaker 1: than when it's one way. You know, this is your project. Really.
Speaker 1: You know Bill and Bet are the architects. But you
Speaker 1: know I talked to Bill about it and he'll say,
Speaker 1: I think he said to me, Oh, you just need
Speaker 1: to talk to James. That's really James's project. You know
Speaker 1: the owners of Brambles, Well, it's James's project. Tell us
Speaker 1: about you know, when you found the site and just
Speaker 1: your journey of building Brambles.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean some this is may have heard about
Speaker 2: it or know about it, but it really is a
Speaker 2: sort of manifestation of this conversation we just had for
Speaker 2: the last half hour about you know, what is golf?
Speaker 2: How can we create a place that we think from
Speaker 2: our little lunch box is a fun place to go
Speaker 2: and play this game that we love. So I think
Speaker 2: that's where it really started. You know, I've worked on
Speaker 2: a number of different projects with different clients, different properties,
Speaker 2: different ideas. If you had one chance before it's all
Speaker 2: over to build something that you feel this represents what
Speaker 2: I believe in and what a group of people that
Speaker 2: I can put together and we could share some interest,
Speaker 2: share some value, should buy into what we're doing together.
Speaker 2: What would it be? And that's really what it is.
Speaker 2: We walking for us is a big part of that.
Speaker 2: We don't have to drive around in a golf cart,
Speaker 2: so the property is fairly subdued, I suppose overall, and
Speaker 2: in terms of you just being able to walk around it.
Speaker 2: You know, I love places like we talked about s
Speaker 2: Andrews North Berwick, but here more locally or maybe like
Speaker 2: you know all the old courses where they picked the
Speaker 2: property so you could walk around and enjoy playing off.
Speaker 2: That was a big part of it. There's a bit
Speaker 2: of a breeze you ask you know, Ben Crenshaw. You
Speaker 2: know the breeze and the way you have to shape
Speaker 2: the shot. You have to hold up in the wind
Speaker 2: or play the wind or read the wind. They figure
Speaker 2: out the direction. So we have a pretty good breeze
Speaker 2: out here. It's open, it's not two treelined. There are
Speaker 2: some groupings of trees. We're just sitting here looking at them.
Speaker 2: We were talking about them earlier. And I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that you get up into the trees and
Speaker 2: you get out of the trees, and you come back
Speaker 2: and you go up in it again. But it's not
Speaker 2: all tree lined, it's not all open. There's some variety
Speaker 2: in the scenery and the topography. And it was a
Speaker 2: place where we felt like if you built something like
Speaker 2: a chest high mound or contour, it would be meaningful
Speaker 2: because again, you're sort of it's sort of a horizontal
Speaker 2: type of property as opposed to if you build that
Speaker 2: on a more hilly property, it just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: But then we have a hole like five, which is
Speaker 2: a proper up and over a hill type of hole.
Speaker 2: The old white rock on the face of the hill.
Speaker 2: Just aim for that.
Speaker 1: And I'm kind of disappointed that you guys pulled the
Speaker 1: fairway down. You know that you should have just left
Speaker 1: it completely blind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we'll see, we'll see. But that's that's in
Speaker 2: essence what it is. And then just trying to cobble
Speaker 2: together a group of people who buy into this idea,
Speaker 2: who can see the project as something we're doing together,
Speaker 2: as opposed to where's my locker? How many tea times?
Speaker 2: Do I get you know, forget that. Just if you
Speaker 2: want to be part of building something that we're building together,
Speaker 2: that we enjoy together. Great, but let's not fall into
Speaker 2: some of that. We do so many unnecessary things in
Speaker 2: most of golf things, we convince ourselves we need stacked
Speaker 2: balls on the range. I mean you you can start
Speaker 2: right there and just say who really needs that? And
Speaker 2: yet effort goes into it. One person does it, then
Speaker 2: the next person thinks they have to do it, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you get this huge, big bill
Speaker 2: for playing around the golf and well how that happened. Well,
Speaker 2: we convinced our sales we needed all this stuff. We're
Speaker 2: trying to go back to eighteen seventy. It's just a
Speaker 2: bunch of people out there crashing around in the field
Speaker 2: playing golf together.
Speaker 1: I was, you know, one of the courses that gets
Speaker 1: you know, admired the most in golf is Chicago Golf.
Speaker 1: You know, and a lot of people never get to
Speaker 1: see it. But like you know, people always like to
Speaker 1: talk about how great the golf course is. But like
Speaker 1: one of the things that every time I go there
Speaker 1: that I walk away with is like how utilitarian the
Speaker 1: place is run and how you know how simple like
Speaker 1: the operational side of it is, like it's it's brilliantly simple.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that the conversation that I'll
Speaker 1: always I was talking to the head pro during COVID
Speaker 1: and he was he was like, I was like, what's
Speaker 1: going on with caddies that He's like, I don't think
Speaker 1: we're going to be able to have caddies like when
Speaker 1: they're reopening back up. And I was like, Oh, that's
Speaker 1: that's too bad. He's like, I'm really worried about golf
Speaker 1: carts and I go, what do you mean, Like what
Speaker 1: you know? He's like, well, like the people that can't
Speaker 1: carry their bag, like we don't have enough golf carts.
Speaker 1: And I just like it made me like burst out laughing.
Speaker 1: It's like, here's this like club and I think most
Speaker 1: people's like outward image of it is like this, this
Speaker 1: is a ritzy place that you know, but they didn't
Speaker 1: have enough golf carts to suffice for their tiny little
Speaker 1: membership when you know when they might have a influx
Speaker 1: of riders. And it's like that simplicity of operation is
Speaker 1: really beautiful that you know they have like just enough
Speaker 1: golf carts to get by.
Speaker 2: Now. That's Chicago Golf is a really good example of
Speaker 2: somewhere that we have actually sort of tried to draw
Speaker 2: the essence out of. We're not one of the five
Speaker 2: founding members of the USGA, we haven't been around forever,
Speaker 2: but we can still go there and look at what
Speaker 2: they do and try and take away what they do well.
Speaker 2: And we've been very lucky to do that. And at
Speaker 2: the time, Scott Border was still the superintendent when we
Speaker 2: went and visited a few years ago, and he would say, look,
Speaker 2: we just nothing's precious. We just we got a new
Speaker 2: guy on the crew. Go out Mother Greens. What's the
Speaker 2: worst case? You scouted down a little bit and it'll
Speaker 2: be fine in the week. I mean it'd be fine,
Speaker 2: just go mo. So that attitude of just small crew,
Speaker 2: everybody can do a little bit of everything. You just
Speaker 2: kind of work together onced.
Speaker 1: You first visit this site, When did you first find
Speaker 1: this site? And what drew you? Like? I think people
Speaker 1: you know that listen to this probably drive down the
Speaker 1: road and think about properties as golf sites and I'm curious,
Speaker 1: like you know, there's a lot of land, yeah, and
Speaker 1: here we're in northern California. What about this property drew
Speaker 1: you to it?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mentioned the dosk Weblos project earlier on, and
Speaker 2: that certainly reminded me that you have to be careful.
Speaker 2: It's not a foregone conclusion that you can get permission
Speaker 2: to build something just because you think, oh, look at that,
Speaker 2: it's beautiful some dunes out in the ocean. Let's go
Speaker 2: build a golf course over there. So I step number
Speaker 2: one was it might spend a third of time in California.
Speaker 2: Step number one was nothing in the California Coastal Commission jurisdiction,
Speaker 2: because we'll just never get it done the Wine Country
Speaker 2: and I was living down in the South Bay, down
Speaker 2: in Sam's area at the time, but it was literally
Speaker 2: Golden gate Bridge draw circle around it sort of two hours.
Speaker 2: Where could you go from San Francisco or the sort
Speaker 2: of the Central Bay area and get to somewhere where
Speaker 2: you could get this thing built and it would make
Speaker 2: sense to do it. Looked out towards Tahoe at the time,
Speaker 2: was really been a lot of stuff built over there.
Speaker 2: It felt a little overbuilt, and there was really nothing between.
Speaker 2: So he went to Sacramento. There's no reason to go
Speaker 2: out there anyway. You could go down the peninsula, you
Speaker 2: could go down Tomorrow Ray, but then you would never
Speaker 2: get out from under the shadows of Cyprus and Pebble
Speaker 2: and all those places. Plenty of good stuff down there,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't really mean anything down there, But the Wine
Speaker 2: Country was the one where there really wasn't much good golf.
Speaker 2: There's ma Akama, which is a wonderful club just over
Speaker 2: the hill, a couple of little local golf courses. There's
Speaker 2: an older club, Sonoma Golf Club, which does well and
Speaker 2: has a nice membership, and they do fine, but there
Speaker 2: really wasn't much. If you were up here for other
Speaker 2: reasons and you wanted to play golf, there really wasn't much.
Speaker 2: I think that's really when the lot of light went off,
Speaker 2: that if we could find a place within striking distance
Speaker 2: of the Wine Country in general, a place that millions
Speaker 2: of people come to from all over the world. Not
Speaker 2: only do you then have people who come and use
Speaker 2: the facility, which we want to maintain a healthy county
Speaker 2: program and all that stuff, you also get built in
Speaker 2: geographic diversity. You get people from New Zealand, people from Chile,
Speaker 2: to get people from Denmark, all over the place coming here,
Speaker 2: which he might say, I mean, that's a little esoteric,
Speaker 2: but I do think when it comes to the culture
Speaker 2: of the club and the people who come through here
Speaker 2: to have that, I think it's going to have a
Speaker 2: significant impact on what we become as a club and
Speaker 2: as a place to play. Imagine you're sitting on the
Speaker 2: porch out here and there's, oh, yeah, we just flew
Speaker 2: in from Argentina two days ago, we have family down
Speaker 2: in Saint Lena or whatever. I think that could be
Speaker 2: a neat piece of who we become.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah. One of the strangest human beings I
Speaker 1: ever played golf with was that Monterey Peninsula. This guy
Speaker 1: I played, I was playing with Zach Blair and we
Speaker 1: were on this trip, but he he invited a guy
Speaker 1: that he met at the coffee shop that morning to
Speaker 1: be our fourth. He's this guy. Hes a guy from Germany.
Speaker 1: He was a golf bro from Germany.
Speaker 3: And it was like one of the most fascinating things
Speaker 3: because here's this like guy who's at the coffee shop
Speaker 3: and he got invited to go play Monterey Peninsula Club
Speaker 3: that morning, and you just happen to be a German
Speaker 3: golf bro and He's like, yeah, I'll go play.
Speaker 1: Sure, And here he is. We're playing. And it was
Speaker 1: just like a fascinating thing because I learned a lot
Speaker 1: about like German golf, Like I would never have learned that,
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the neat things Also
Speaker 1: about a golf course is like it's a meeting place.
Speaker 1: It's a place where you can learn stuff, you can
Speaker 1: talk and converse with people, and you know, you get,
Speaker 1: like you said, a wide range of backgrounds. The more
Speaker 1: more different people you know from different backgrounds, it just
Speaker 1: it adds a whole place, right.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you what. And it's just like the
Speaker 2: Power or no Pa or match plays strup Per. You
Speaker 2: can bake it into the pie. You can consciously say
Speaker 2: we want this type of property, but we also want
Speaker 2: to try and build a certain type of club and
Speaker 2: really pull these levers and say rather than nothing to
Speaker 2: me would be more boring than if we became a
Speaker 2: version of say so generally the Hampton's Right, where the
Speaker 2: same people you saw all week long in the city,
Speaker 2: now you're hanging out with them at the beach club
Speaker 2: in the Hampton's Right. I mean that's nice, but it's
Speaker 2: just much more interesting if you just get some fresh
Speaker 2: influences and some people who have a different point of
Speaker 2: view than yours, Like you know, I've never thought about
Speaker 2: it like that. The guy from Germany who says, well,
Speaker 2: we don't stack our range balls and pyramids, we do
Speaker 2: them in snake or whatever. I mean, just something different
Speaker 2: and interesting that you never had thought about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's how are you going to go about
Speaker 1: getting that? Is it just the influence of having a
Speaker 1: place like do you think it'll just naturally happen from
Speaker 1: having wine country right there? We're very lucky members too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. And we're very lucky that we now.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're just so lucky to be in the
Speaker 2: position we are now where it actually looks like this
Speaker 2: golf course is good. It's going to work, and the
Speaker 2: grasses are going to grow, and it's just a it's
Speaker 2: a great spot. And we've had a lot of support
Speaker 2: we have. We've been lucky that people really you can
Speaker 2: tell some people they can't see it, but they can
Speaker 2: hear you talk about it. Their friends get it, the
Speaker 2: billcorep Ban crunch Shaw thing. You know, if they think
Speaker 2: this is something that is worth for them to be involved,
Speaker 2: and then it's probably going to be okay. So I
Speaker 2: think there was a part of that early on where
Speaker 2: guys were just mostly guys. We're very lucky to have
Speaker 2: quite a few women members as well, and we'd love
Speaker 2: to get some more. But I think there's the there
Speaker 2: is this sense of being part of something, and ironically
Speaker 2: we haven't really tapped into the because we're not open yet.
Speaker 2: So this idea that people actually come and play while
Speaker 2: they're in the one country, we haven't really experienced that yet,
Speaker 2: but I'm pretty sure it'll happen. And then the key
Speaker 2: the luxury problem we have then, or challenge, is to
Speaker 2: make sure that we leave spots for interesting people who
Speaker 2: come along who want to be part of this as members.
Speaker 2: It's a great problem to.
Speaker 1: Have, and there's a from what I understand, there's an
Speaker 1: aspect of accessibility that's always going to be a big
Speaker 1: part of.
Speaker 2: It, right absolutely, I again, without naming names, I can
Speaker 2: remember several projects where you now, you go out and you
Speaker 2: put two years into building a golf course, and the
Speaker 2: guys are out there double cutting and raking all the bunkers.
Speaker 2: Nobody's playing, Nobody is playing. I mean, I can see
Speaker 2: how that's maybe exclusive, but it's also like there's nothing happening.
Speaker 2: You've got to have some play, especially if you want
Speaker 2: to have a candy program. You've got to have some volume.
Speaker 2: And nobody goes to St. Andrews or those band and
Speaker 2: nobody goes to Bandon and maybe you know and complains
Speaker 2: about all those too many people here. It's all golf
Speaker 2: enthusiasts who are there to have fun. I don't think
Speaker 2: we're ever going to be packed up here unless we
Speaker 2: have an event or something. But let's have some play.
Speaker 2: Let's have people come out and play it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's neat, it's you know. Can you
Speaker 1: talk through some of the you know, challenges of building
Speaker 1: here in California and this operaty specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually one of our most recent members asked me
Speaker 2: that question the other day. He said, well, what's what was?
Speaker 2: What's what's? He asked me, what surprised you the most
Speaker 2: during the bill process? And knock on wood, I would
Speaker 2: almost say that it's been as smooth as it has been.
Speaker 2: I think COVID has been a factor that you know, Yes,
Speaker 2: it was hard to get materials, It hard to get
Speaker 2: you know, a crew put together. But once we had
Speaker 2: a crew, and once we had our stuff here, we
Speaker 2: just got after it outside and working, and so I
Speaker 2: think we actually had a was it was a good
Speaker 2: time to build a golf course. And then of course
Speaker 2: the last year of prices of skyrocketed on everything. Good
Speaker 2: luck getting sprinkledheads or whatever you're trying to get and
Speaker 2: if you can get them there twice what they were
Speaker 2: a year ago. So no, we've been been very fortunate,
Speaker 2: good good time to build.
Speaker 4: It's no question every everything's expensive. Everything in the world
Speaker 4: expensive right now, you know. Yeah, So obviously I think
Speaker 4: that one of the things that people take away from
Speaker 4: this course, like it's like visually when you think a
Speaker 4: lot of times when you think of Core Crunchhaw, it's
Speaker 4: like striking, and here, I think it's a little bit less.
Speaker 4: I think it's subtle, you know.
Speaker 1: I think there's this golf course, like I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people like when I first saw photos of
Speaker 1: the property, I thought it was flat, and then you
Speaker 1: get out here and you're like, oh, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of good movement here. I mean, like a popular thing
Speaker 1: is to call Chicago golf flat, but there's a good
Speaker 1: movement on Chicago golf. Right, of course, we talked about
Speaker 1: here has good movement, but it's a little bit more subtle.
Speaker 1: It's not it doesn't have the big ups and downs
Speaker 1: you talked about how you could add bumps like is
Speaker 1: there are other things that you think get drawn out
Speaker 1: a little bit more when you have a piece of
Speaker 1: ground that's not maybe as into your face as some
Speaker 1: of the dramatic sites.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I might just tweak that a little bit and
Speaker 2: just take you back to the conversations we had with
Speaker 2: Bill and Ben when they came out here that you
Speaker 2: know we we said to them, look, you know, don't
Speaker 2: hold back. You don't have to worry about it being
Speaker 2: too severe, you don't have to worry about the contours. Well,
Speaker 2: just we'll have green speeds can be whatever these contours
Speaker 2: will support. Don't worry about it. We'll figure that out.
Speaker 2: We also had a conversation about how, yeah, we don't
Speaker 2: really we don't. Nobody plays the old course or in
Speaker 2: North Beric and goes, wow, can you believe did you
Speaker 2: see that beautiful bunkering out there? Know that the bunkers
Speaker 2: shadows great placements, holes in the ground, ground the kind
Speaker 2: of draws you into the bunker. How about we have
Speaker 2: something like that, because if we try and do something
Speaker 2: that's more visual, we're always going to look like a
Speaker 2: horrible version of the beautiful work they've done at Centras
Speaker 2: Golf Club, Cow Club or Rinder. I mean, take your
Speaker 2: pick of all the Bay Area clubs that have done
Speaker 2: a beautiful job with their bunkering, and it's very visual.
Speaker 2: We go the other way. We go the bunker is
Speaker 2: it's a hole in the ground with a shadow, and
Speaker 2: try to stay out of it. And I also think
Speaker 2: the whole types rather than bunker left, bunker right strategy
Speaker 2: play around. How about the first hole is the one
Speaker 2: with the ditch in front of the green. How about
Speaker 2: the fifth holes, the one we hit it over the hill.
Speaker 2: How about the sixth holes, the one with the stone
Speaker 2: wall along the side where they have a lot of
Speaker 2: sort of inherent personality procrastinate as the lemma. I mean,
Speaker 2: you've got a hole there wheret some point you're gonna
Speaker 2: have to cross over the creek. Those are the ones
Speaker 2: that I again this is very selfish, but that kind
Speaker 2: of personality, there's sort of landscapes in and of themselves
Speaker 2: away I not try to believe the point, but to
Speaker 2: your question about can you if you have a more
Speaker 2: subdued property, can you build more severe greens? Probably? I
Speaker 2: mean we have some out here. Two is a two
Speaker 2: and three right there. Two particularly two was really not
Speaker 2: much to look at. Yeah, it was just a simple
Speaker 2: little down towards the creek and back up again. And
Speaker 2: then you build the green that has all that movement
Speaker 2: in it and it sys that it fits. I mean again,
Speaker 2: shout out Ryan Farrow, Zach Varady, Benjamin Warren, Amon Sullivan.
Speaker 2: I mean, the guys who were out here just did
Speaker 2: incredible job, and I think Ryan needs a special shot.
Speaker 2: He really led that whole charge on sort of taking
Speaker 2: Bill and Ben's guidance and saying here's here's what we're
Speaker 2: doing and then figuring out what that meant. And there's
Speaker 2: plenty of severe stuff, but it all, it all works beautifully.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I couldn't be more proud of those guys
Speaker 2: and happy with with what they've done.
Speaker 1: I can't wait till we can play golf out here
Speaker 1: me too, you know. That's uh, that's what I mean. So, James,
Speaker 1: this is part one. Well we'll do part two, part
Speaker 1: three some other date, you know. But I appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming on.
Speaker 2: Good. Thank you. Yeah, a good fun all right.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thanks guys, thank you for listening to another edition
Speaker 1: of the Frida Egg podcast. Today's episode was edited by
Speaker 1: Meg Atkins. Thank you Meg. As I mentioned at the top,
Speaker 1: I will be writing a bunch of journal entries of
Speaker 1: our time in Scotland. If you are interested in getting those,
Speaker 1: I would sign up for the Fridagg newsletter. It is free.
Speaker 1: It comes out three days a week Monday Wednesday Friday.
Speaker 1: Will Knights writes a lot of it. Brendan writes in it,
Speaker 1: Brenda Porath, Garrett Morrison writes in it. I write in
Speaker 1: it occasionally and it's a great way to stay up
Speaker 1: to date with all the golf news that's going on,
Speaker 1: as well as my journals from Scotland. So sign up
Speaker 1: at Thefrida Egg dot com for that and thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to another edition of the podcast. We will be
Speaker 1: back on Friday.