Speaker 1: All right, we are back with part two of our
Speaker 1: podcast with Tom Doak. If you miss part one, check
Speaker 1: it out on our iTunes page or on our website. Also,
Speaker 1: if you enjoy the podcast, please rate us or leave
Speaker 1: a review in iTunes. And without further ado, here is
Speaker 1: Tom Doak.
Speaker 2: I miss a green for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 3: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a brid egg Frida egg, the dreaded Friday Friday,
Speaker 2: Frida egg brid egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm
Speaker 2: about ready to run.
Speaker 3: Off of the course. I wanted to talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about.
Speaker 4: Your life as a golf course critic and you know
Speaker 4: the travels and you know, obviously playing great golf courses
Speaker 4: and seeing different architecture has to help your architectural career.
Speaker 4: But for a golfer with limited accessibility, what what would
Speaker 4: be your three destinations abroader in the States that you
Speaker 4: would recommend traveling to.
Speaker 2: Oh man, it's a big question. It's a big world. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, Scotland and Ireland are geared to
Speaker 2: the golf tourist that you know isn't necessarily a member
Speaker 2: of a club. I mean, you don't have to have
Speaker 2: any clouds to go play Valley Bunty and you just
Speaker 2: sign up in advance and pay the green feet and
Speaker 2: you're there and you know, and you know, you're you're
Speaker 2: getting to see some of the best courses in the world,
Speaker 2: and you know, most don't have that much experience with
Speaker 2: links golf, so you know, and you're getting to see
Speaker 2: the game the way it started and why it started
Speaker 2: that way. You know, if you you know, if you
Speaker 2: get to spend long enough over there, you know, like
Speaker 2: I did spend any year over there after college, you know,
Speaker 2: it really becomes a part of you that you know,
Speaker 2: it's just a different ethos of golf. So you know,
Speaker 2: that would always be my first choice, and I you know,
Speaker 2: I get back there fairly regularly, although kind of with
Speaker 2: my book project, I've committed myself to go in other
Speaker 2: places and i'd you know, I'd be happy just going
Speaker 2: back to England or Scotland all the time. But but
Speaker 2: I've still got some places that I want to see.
Speaker 2: You know, Australia is pretty much the same. You know,
Speaker 2: the best courses in Australia, Well, now there's a couple
Speaker 2: of them like Barn Google that and the new ones
Speaker 2: in King Island that are open to the public. But
Speaker 2: you know, even a place like you know, it helps
Speaker 2: a little bit if you can write and say I'm
Speaker 2: a member of a club in the state, but I
Speaker 2: think you can play them even if you're not, if
Speaker 2: you write a nice letter. And those are tremendous golf courses,
Speaker 2: and you know, and again you know, they have a
Speaker 2: lot to teach us too, especially in terms of like
Speaker 2: how they use water on golf courses and how dry
Speaker 2: and firm they keep it because it doesn't rain much
Speaker 2: in Sydney and Melbourne and they have to be more
Speaker 2: efficient with water. And you know, California has a lot
Speaker 2: to learn from Australia and how to manage water and
Speaker 2: golf courses. And you know, you'll never see bunkering like
Speaker 2: that anywhere else. You'll never see a bunch of Part
Speaker 2: three is as good as you'll see like on every
Speaker 2: course at Melbourne. So that's a great destination, kind of
Speaker 2: a once in a lifetime place for most people, but
Speaker 2: definitely worth the trip. And then you know, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of great resorts in America, and you know, I'll
Speaker 2: play abandoned dunes. I mean, you know, being able to
Speaker 2: go there for a few days and you know and
Speaker 2: just stay there and play all those courses and see
Speaker 2: how different they are, and you know, it really does
Speaker 2: feel like like something in the West of Ireland or
Speaker 2: or somewhere in Britain in terms of how the golf
Speaker 2: courses play. You know, it's a tremendous place to go
Speaker 2: and it's it's a cool thing to have been a
Speaker 2: part of.
Speaker 4: And everybody gets gets the chance to play two of
Speaker 4: your golf courses.
Speaker 3: So that's a that's a big cluss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm plugging my own work there. You know, I've
Speaker 2: done I've done some stuff in Australia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what course did you go to, whether it's
Speaker 4: public or private in the States where you walked in
Speaker 4: with very low expectations and were most pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 2: Well, that's happened a lot over the years. Although it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's to do now. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I remember like going to Cruden Bay for the first
Speaker 2: time in Scotland and you know, in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 2: and I'd only ever seen one picture of it, so
Speaker 2: you know, I you know, I knew just enough to know, well,
Speaker 2: this could be pretty exciting because it's one picture looks
Speaker 2: like it's pretty spectacular piece of land. But I had
Speaker 2: no idea what the golf hols are going to be
Speaker 2: like until I got there, and that, you know, that
Speaker 2: sense of discovery of going around it for the first
Speaker 2: time and being all these pool and wild things. You know,
Speaker 2: we've kind of lost that a little now because any
Speaker 2: any golf course you want to know about you can
Speaker 2: find a thousand pictures of on the internet now. But
Speaker 2: I still go places that that I'm surprised that, you know,
Speaker 2: even if I've seen some pictures of them, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, either because they've done a good restoration or
Speaker 2: because you know, they're just not you know, usually it's
Speaker 2: it tends to be private clubs, so they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're not marketing it. Like you know, the trip I
Speaker 2: made last year that was a real eye opener was
Speaker 2: going going across Iowa. You know, there's like there's no
Speaker 2: golf courses in Iowa that are raided in the Golf
Speaker 2: Digest or Golf magazine lists, and and you know, there's
Speaker 2: no Alistair McKenzie courses or Killing Half courses, so you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's not anything about it where you think, well,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, that's going to be a different golf destination.
Speaker 2: But you know, the first course I saw you you know,
Speaker 2: if you're if you're coming from the east, you go
Speaker 2: across the Mississippi River and you're there in the Quad
Speaker 2: Cities region and the very first golf course when you
Speaker 2: go across the bridge about two miles is an Allison
Speaker 2: course called Daventort country Clubs. Is it's just their restoration
Speaker 2: of is a terrific golf course. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: we do consulting for Milwaukee Country Club and the Country
Speaker 2: Club of Detroit, which are two of the best Allison
Speaker 2: courses in the States. And I thought this was better
Speaker 2: than the two them. Wow. And yet nobody's you know,
Speaker 2: I've never heard that from anybody. So you know, again,
Speaker 2: it's a private club is in Iowa, and they don't
Speaker 2: market themselves at all, So who's going to know that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you know, and it was part of the reason
Speaker 2: it's not on the Golf Died just list. Until their renovation,
Speaker 2: it was only like sixty three or sixty four hundred yards,
Speaker 2: so they were dismissing it on that basis. And it's
Speaker 2: still you know now at sixty seven hundred, which is
Speaker 2: just plenty for me. But there's there's probably some golf died,
Speaker 2: just panelists who think that's not fun enough.
Speaker 4: Well, I then we're both on that same page with
Speaker 4: with the with the panel ratings.
Speaker 2: But but there were like five or six courses in
Speaker 2: Iowa that I really thought were pretty cool. And you know,
Speaker 2: one of them was a Donald Ross course Sea Rapids
Speaker 2: that they just renovated and did a great job with.
Speaker 2: One of them was a Perry Maxwell course, the one
Speaker 2: for Iowa State University as a typically wild Perry Maxwell
Speaker 2: green on it, you know. And there was a new
Speaker 2: course outside of Des Moines that Keith Foster did which
Speaker 2: is probably the best, the best solo design of his career.
Speaker 2: So there was really a lot there. And it's just
Speaker 2: the fact that they're private and they don't you know,
Speaker 2: they're not like northern Michigan where they pool their advertising
Speaker 2: dollars and run ads and golf digest so you don't
Speaker 2: hear anything about it. M h.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4: I'm in the state next to Iowa, and I have
Speaker 4: played no golf in Iowa. I think I've only been
Speaker 4: there when I visited the University of Iowa. So this
Speaker 4: sounds like somewhere I got to go this summer.
Speaker 2: Well it's funny too, because I never thought, I mean
Speaker 2: I was when I was there, it was like cold
Speaker 2: and windy and nat I was there like first of
Speaker 2: April or something, and it was it had been really
Speaker 2: nice in March, and then it was cold and windy
Speaker 2: in April and it was just I mean, I just
Speaker 2: froze my butt off for four days walking around seeing
Speaker 2: all these courses and trying to play in it once.
Speaker 2: But but that's another thing.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 2: It's windy and Iowah. You know, that's a good thing
Speaker 2: for golf. It makes the golf a lot more interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it adds a as an element and it's uh,
Speaker 4: it's just it's different than what a lot of people
Speaker 4: experience in places like Chicago or or Philadelphia, where you've
Speaker 4: got lots of trees.
Speaker 3: So what what architects?
Speaker 4: Uh, you know, have you gained a lot of appreciation
Speaker 4: for from all these travels and playing all all these courses?
Speaker 2: Too many to lift? I mean, you know there's there's
Speaker 2: you know, there's four guys that get most of the
Speaker 2: attention and then there's four or five others like George Thomas,
Speaker 2: because he wrote his book and and did a couple
Speaker 2: of courses that are you know, prominent tour side that
Speaker 2: they get a fair share of attention. And then most
Speaker 2: of the other golf course architects who worked back in
Speaker 2: the old days, you know, aren't well known today. Somebody
Speaker 2: like Bill Langford who worked around Chicago, or or Perry Maxwell,
Speaker 2: who did some of his best work building golf courses
Speaker 2: for Alistair Mackenzie but then did some great stuff on
Speaker 2: his own. Or Walter Travis. You know, we've worked in
Speaker 2: a couple of Travis golf courses and they've been consulting
Speaker 2: a Garden City golf club for approaching thirty years.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: You know, they all did some terrific work and and all,
Speaker 2: you know, all at this sort of detail level. You know,
Speaker 2: they didn't necessarily have a spectacular ocean front site, but
Speaker 2: the greens they built and this, you know, in the
Speaker 2: bunkers they built, the featuring and and they you know,
Speaker 2: they some of them were working on some pretty rugged
Speaker 2: terrain and so they came up with golf holes that
Speaker 2: that are just different than the kinds of things you
Speaker 2: see now. You know, they're they're hillier and the you know,
Speaker 2: the I mean, it's the landing area their their original
Speaker 2: landing area might have been designed at you learning twenty yards.
Speaker 2: So so now you can blow it over that, but
Speaker 2: you do so at your peril because because it really
Speaker 2: wasn't meant you know, it really wasn't meant to be
Speaker 2: played that way, and you can get yourself in a
Speaker 2: lot of trouble trying to go for it, you know.
Speaker 2: So you know, I've seen so many cool things, and
Speaker 2: you know, and I've seen and I've seen more than
Speaker 2: a couple that you know, that were designed by people
Speaker 2: you never heard of, or nobody even really remembers who
Speaker 2: the heck built it, and you know, and yet it's
Speaker 2: a cool golf course. So so you know, I wish
Speaker 2: people didn't pay as much attention to the names as
Speaker 2: they do. Yeah, you know, it sounds crazy. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, my living is the fact. Part of the
Speaker 2: reason I make a good living is the fact that
Speaker 2: people know who I am. But and and that's you know,
Speaker 2: it's and it's hard to you know, I can't remember
Speaker 2: like years ago, either either Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicholas.
Speaker 2: I think it was. Palmer said that, you know, he'd
Speaker 2: really like it if if people came to play one
Speaker 2: of his courses and they really liked it, but they
Speaker 2: didn't even know who built it. I thought, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: but that's hard to do when they put your picture
Speaker 2: on the scorecard.
Speaker 4: It's it's very it's very, very true. So what I
Speaker 4: got I had some Twitter questions I put up and
Speaker 4: want to get to some of those. So Jay rigged
Speaker 4: and wants to know what are the best nine hole
Speaker 4: courses that you've seen and how do you, you know, rate
Speaker 4: them compared to an eighteen whole course.
Speaker 2: The best nine hole course I've seen is uh Royal
Speaker 2: Worlington and Newmarket in England, which which to Cambridge golf
Speaker 2: team uses. So it's somewhat famous. But you know there's
Speaker 2: one that you know its origin there is a little
Speaker 2: bit of a mystery. Harry Colet had something to do
Speaker 2: with it at some point, but but the guys who
Speaker 2: designed it originally are really kind of known names yet.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's on a it's on a tight piece
Speaker 2: of land and it's fairly unassuming looking. There's actually a road,
Speaker 2: the road that goes by the clubhouse and goes alongside
Speaker 2: the first and second hole. You know, you play over
Speaker 2: the road at the ninth hole, so you're actually driving
Speaker 2: through the golf course. And you could drive through that
Speaker 2: golf course in and not give it a second glance,
Speaker 2: thinking oh wow, that's really cool. And then but you
Speaker 2: get out in the middle of the first fairway and
Speaker 2: look at the shot you've got into the green and
Speaker 2: it's like, oh my goodness. And the nine holes of that,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's nine really good holes on a
Speaker 2: nine holdse which you don't see that much. You know,
Speaker 2: there's there's a handful of others. Whittonville in Massachusetts is
Speaker 2: a Donald Ross course, and I think that's probably the
Speaker 2: best nine hole course in America. Gil Hans just did
Speaker 2: a bunch of restoration work on it made it that
Speaker 2: much better. But you know, I've been going there. I
Speaker 2: haven't been there that many times, but the first time
Speaker 2: I went there was like thirty years ago this summer,
Speaker 2: so it's always been a favorite. Another one that I
Speaker 2: thought for the first time a year or two ago
Speaker 2: with super in New Hampshire. It's kind of like not
Speaker 2: that far north of Hartford, Connecticut. You just go up
Speaker 2: through Massachusetts and you're right there. Styles and Dan Cleek
Speaker 2: Course or maybe just Styles actually, but terrific piece of ground.
Speaker 2: And then the Dunes Club that my kids have built,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty close to my Lost Dunes down in
Speaker 2: the corner of like the corner of Michigan as you're
Speaker 2: going around the lake towards Chicago, which is a you know,
Speaker 2: a really neat, fairly freeform golf course. And you know,
Speaker 2: I saw it the first time when it was brand new,
Speaker 2: and and before i'd met Mike and and thaught, you know,
Speaker 2: just some of the the way they'd done tees, more
Speaker 2: free form and stuff. I thought, Wow, this is a
Speaker 2: you know, this is the kind of guy I'd like
Speaker 2: to work for. And I'm glad I had the team.
Speaker 2: As far as how I rate them, I kind of
Speaker 2: informally think, you know, it cost them one point on
Speaker 2: the dok scale that they're only in nine hole course,
Speaker 2: you know, because it's like you know, if you you know,
Speaker 2: you know, there there are some there are some very
Speaker 2: good golf courses that there's one nine holes that's great
Speaker 2: and the other nine holes kind of sucks. I won't
Speaker 2: go into specifics today. I saw one of those pretty
Speaker 2: reasons actually that I thought, well, yeah, this nine holes
Speaker 2: is great. The other night holes, it's like they shouldn't
Speaker 2: have even built it. They should just play the play
Speaker 2: them one good nine twice. And but you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I do that with recognition that it's harder to build
Speaker 2: eighteen great holes than it is to just build nine
Speaker 2: grade holes. But at the end of the day, if
Speaker 2: you've got a really good nine hold course, you know
Speaker 2: that's a great golf course and there's no reason to
Speaker 2: knock it down that much because there's only nine of
Speaker 2: the hole, because you can go play them again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and just so people that aren't familiar, Tom came
Speaker 4: up with a Dok scale, which is how he rates
Speaker 4: golf courses. It's a one through ten and there he
Speaker 4: rates them all in his books called The Confidential Guide
Speaker 4: to Golf Courses. I highly recommend them if you're into
Speaker 4: golf courses. They're they're just terrific things to just read
Speaker 4: through and great ways to figure out where you want
Speaker 4: to play next.
Speaker 3: Tom tell us a little bit about how you came
Speaker 3: up up with the Dok Scale.
Speaker 2: It's really kind of a lark. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: the original version of The Confidential God was just written
Speaker 2: for I printed forty of them and gave him away
Speaker 2: to friends and people that had helped me go around
Speaker 2: and see some of these golf courses, you know, like
Speaker 2: I gave I gave George Pepper a copy, and I
Speaker 2: gave them Crunchhaw copies. We he die a copy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It was because I was writing just for friends. It
Speaker 2: was very off the cup and informal and brutally honest.
Speaker 2: You know, if I didn't like a famous course, I
Speaker 2: just said, don't bother ever going to this place and
Speaker 2: they're making fun of a back call of a hole
Speaker 2: that I thought was terrible or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 2: and I never really intended for it to be seen
Speaker 2: by more than a handful of friends. But you know,
Speaker 2: I came up with the Doak scale and given the
Speaker 2: courses as zero to ten rating was kind of a
Speaker 2: shorting because I really, you know, I think the first
Speaker 2: book covered like six or seven hundred golf courses, so
Speaker 2: I was you know, I was only writing a I
Speaker 2: only had room to write a paragraph or two about
Speaker 2: the golf course, and I couldn't really cover it, you know.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like I was going to cover it hole
Speaker 2: by hole, So I just thought well, you know, I
Speaker 2: want to I want to put a number with it,
Speaker 2: so you know, if I write about Augusta, and you know,
Speaker 2: because everybody's already read brilliant things about Augusta and all
Speaker 2: these people I've given this book to, no Augusta. You know,
Speaker 2: I want to write what I don't like about Augusta.
Speaker 2: But then I don't want everybody to think, well, he
Speaker 2: hates Augusta. He thinks it's the worst concourse in the world,
Speaker 2: because he wrote two paragraphs they are bad about it.
Speaker 2: So the number was kind of like, no, you know,
Speaker 2: it's still a nine on my one to ten scale.
Speaker 2: It's out of ten, but it's not a five. I mean,
Speaker 2: I really like the golf course. So you know, the
Speaker 2: number was kind of a a safety valve check originally.
Speaker 2: But you know, once when I when I decided, on
Speaker 2: the advice of all my friends, that I should really
Speaker 2: publish the book for the past because it was you know, basically,
Speaker 2: it was what I knew about golf course architecture, was
Speaker 2: from seeing all those golf courses, and it would be
Speaker 2: good for my career to put that out there, even
Speaker 2: if it was controversial. You know. Then the numbers became
Speaker 2: like the whole point for most people, which is too bad.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the to me, the book is
Speaker 2: still about what I have to write about the golf course.
Speaker 2: You know what, Why do I think you should go here? What?
Speaker 2: What's interesting about this golf course? It would make you
Speaker 2: want to travel all the way to see it. That's
Speaker 2: really the purpose of the book, you know. It's not
Speaker 2: It's not meant to be doke critiques every architect whoever
Speaker 2: with It's meant to be like, you only have so
Speaker 2: much timey andy. So if you're going to England, you
Speaker 2: know which of these courses should you try to go see?
Speaker 2: And it's written in a way that yes, I've got
Speaker 2: numbers on them, and you could say, well, I'll go
Speaker 2: to all the nines in the eighth and the sevens
Speaker 2: and I'll use that as a cutoff, you know, but
Speaker 2: that's not really how you know, you shouldn't even do that.
Speaker 2: You should read what I say about the golf courses
Speaker 2: and you should look at which ones they're close together
Speaker 2: and go, oh, yeah, you only gave that a five,
Speaker 2: But it sounds pretty cool, So maybe I should go
Speaker 2: see that, you know. And I'm not expecting it to
Speaker 2: be one of the top hundred courses in the world.
Speaker 2: But it's you know, it's going to be cool enough
Speaker 2: to go be worth spending four hours, yep. And that's
Speaker 2: you know, and that's you know, that's been the success
Speaker 2: of the books, that it works really well on that level,
Speaker 2: and the people that go out of their way to
Speaker 2: see some of course they never heard of because I
Speaker 2: recommended it, are mostly pretty pleased by having made their detour.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I think it's it's just a great resource
Speaker 4: for if you're unfamiliar with an area. I mean, you
Speaker 4: can learn so much about different courses and just figure
Speaker 4: out you know, the I always say to people they
Speaker 4: should have a you know, a purpose for why they
Speaker 4: want to play somewhere, and it does a great job
Speaker 4: of giving you a reason to go play somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I just you know, I was
Speaker 2: involved in the rankings of courses with Golf Magazine back
Speaker 2: from almost the time they started doing and I'm not
Speaker 2: involved in that anymore. And I really think, you know,
Speaker 2: all those rankings is just you know, they've overpowered everything else.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, I know these panelists that like
Speaker 2: they go to Asia for a week and they go
Speaker 2: play two courses in Korea and three in Japan and
Speaker 2: one in Thailand. And you know, because they're quote unquote
Speaker 2: top one hundred golf courses or curious candidates for the
Speaker 2: top one hundred, and they drive right by, you know,
Speaker 2: they're I mean like Japan is the best example of that.
Speaker 2: You know, Kasumi Giseki used to be ranked in the
Speaker 2: top hundred golf courses and I can't remember if it
Speaker 2: still is now or not, but there was another course
Speaker 2: that Allison had something to do with, Tokyo Golf Club
Speaker 2: get next door to it, and for years Canilis never
Speaker 2: went there. They would go to Kasumikoseki because it was
Speaker 2: in the top hundred and they wanted to see all
Speaker 2: the top one hundred, and nobody would go. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not even across the street, it's like works off
Speaker 2: the same driveway, but you couldn't get anybody to go there,
Speaker 2: you know, because they had to get on a plane
Speaker 2: to go to Thailand tomorrow instead. And that just bothered
Speaker 2: the hell out of me. You know, I just think, well,
Speaker 2: you know, go see you know, actually goes if you're
Speaker 2: going to take a golf trip to Japan, for God's sake,
Speaker 2: go see Japan. It's and that's you see the same
Speaker 2: thing in Scotland. You know, people people go to Scotland
Speaker 2: and you know, if this is their first trip to Scotland,
Speaker 2: they think, well, I may never get to do this
Speaker 2: again in my life, so I've got to go see
Speaker 2: all the Open champions courses in Scotland and then and then,
Speaker 2: but I also want to see Dornick because because everybody
Speaker 2: says it's a great golf course. So you know, so
Speaker 2: that means that you're you know, you're driving two hours
Speaker 2: from Edinburgh to Saint Andrew's and you're driving two or
Speaker 2: three hours more to get over to Troon, and then
Speaker 2: you're driving like five hours to get up at Dornic
Speaker 2: and five hours coming back, and you skipped so many
Speaker 2: good golf courses in between there it's a joke.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and and you're all that time in the car
Speaker 4: you could have played two or three more rounds of
Speaker 4: golf and seeing you know, it's like, just because they're
Speaker 4: an open road of course, doesn't mean for the ten
Speaker 4: handicap that it's the best place to go play.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, no.
Speaker 2: The only thing it means is it's the most expensive
Speaker 2: golf course are going to see in the k you know,
Speaker 2: they charge two hundred and fifty dollars for all of them.
Speaker 2: And you know there could be a good golf course
Speaker 2: down the street that there's still only charge at sixty
Speaker 2: four because it's not so well known. And that's you know,
Speaker 2: so that's part of you know, that's part of the
Speaker 2: confidential guide to it. It's like, you know, my little
Speaker 2: intros to the different sections are basically, for God's sake,
Speaker 2: don't do that. You know, if you're you know, if
Speaker 2: you're going to Scotland, just assume that you're going to
Speaker 2: like it and want to go back again some days.
Speaker 2: So don't try to touch all the bases this trip.
Speaker 2: Just you know, pick a couple areas and see some
Speaker 2: of the little golf courses because you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of times you you get more out of that. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, you know, if you're staying around, say,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're staying around where Mirfield is out
Speaker 2: there to the east of Edinburgh and you know, and
Speaker 2: you take time to play North Derrick and you take
Speaker 2: time to play Gullin, but maybe you've got time to
Speaker 2: go see like you'll Skindy to this little fifty four
Speaker 2: hundred yard golf course that the you know, par sixty
Speaker 2: eighth and the first t is like literally, you know,
Speaker 2: as soon as you step off the pavement the walkway
Speaker 2: from around the clubhouse, you're on the tee. And the
Speaker 2: first of all the part three in the greens like
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty yards right over there was a
Speaker 2: really hard shot. And then the eighteenth green is like
Speaker 2: steps away from the first team and you know, it
Speaker 2: was fifty four hundred yards and most Americans have dismissed that,
Speaker 2: but then they go and play it and it's not
Speaker 2: so easy, and it's a very intimate little place and
Speaker 2: you play it in like two hours because it's so compact.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to have that experience somewhere to
Speaker 2: understand that, you know, golf courses don't all have to
Speaker 2: be the same, and they don't all have to be
Speaker 2: seven thousand yards long. But if all you go to
Speaker 2: is the Open championship courses that you know, they've all
Speaker 2: been rectified, and you know they're not you know, they're
Speaker 2: not as quirky as everything else in Scotland, and they're
Speaker 2: really cool by far. The coolest part of going to
Speaker 2: Scotland is that you will see some things that you
Speaker 2: would never see anywhere else, because you know, you can't
Speaker 2: tell the Scotts that they don't know about going, you know,
Speaker 2: you know you can't tell him, well, fifty four under
Speaker 2: your course that is that's no. They're like, of course,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, you know, it's a lot of fun. What
Speaker 2: are you talking about?
Speaker 3: It's uh, that's that, it's funny.
Speaker 4: My my buddy is going exactly to in Edinburgh and
Speaker 4: I recommended North Barrack and uh going, but that's a perfect,
Speaker 4: perfect U Kills Beanery is the perfect recommendation for him
Speaker 4: because he's he's asking.
Speaker 3: You know, he's asking for more.
Speaker 4: What Jeff wants to know, what are five courses in
Speaker 4: North America that you haven't played yet that are on
Speaker 4: your list?
Speaker 2: M You know, that's hard for me to answer, because
Speaker 2: I've been you know, part of the reason for going
Speaker 2: back and updating the Confidential Guy is to check some
Speaker 2: of these places off my list. But then I have
Speaker 2: to admit to you that I don't you know, I
Speaker 2: don't always have time to play everywhere. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to see a bunch of courses if I can
Speaker 2: tell other people about them, and I don't always have
Speaker 2: time to play, or I get there and you know,
Speaker 2: it's thirty eight degrees and blowing at thirty miles an hour,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't go out and play an app But
Speaker 2: if I did, then I'm not going to go see
Speaker 2: the course twenty miles down the road too. So so
Speaker 2: the only one that comes to the top of my
Speaker 2: head of you know. I mean, I've played most of
Speaker 2: the top fifty golf courses in the world, and I
Speaker 2: think the only one that I haven't played is oakmar
Speaker 2: I've been to Oakmont like three or four times, and
Speaker 2: it just it never worked out for me to play.
Speaker 2: When I was there, you know, I was like I
Speaker 2: was welcome to play, but they had an event going on.
Speaker 2: Or I was going to play but we got ringed
Speaker 2: out or something. So you know, so so one of
Speaker 2: these days I'm going to go do that because I
Speaker 2: really love the golf course. But you know, I wish
Speaker 2: I had more time to play golf. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I get invitations from people all the time, oh, come,
Speaker 2: you know, come play here, and it's like, well, I'd
Speaker 2: love to, but but but I'm traveling a lot of
Speaker 2: days still building golf courses, and then and then I'm
Speaker 2: crazy enough to take on this book project, and I
Speaker 2: need to go see golf courses in Korea and Vietnam
Speaker 2: this year, and I just don't have much time to
Speaker 2: get back to to Nebraska and play.
Speaker 3: Mm hm.
Speaker 4: So I got this, I got this question a couple
Speaker 4: of times. Easiest change for a golf course to make
Speaker 4: that would have the biggest effects.
Speaker 3: In terms of improving it.
Speaker 2: I assume, well, you know, I don't do a lot
Speaker 2: of like renovation projects where we really change a golf
Speaker 2: course dramatically. I mean, we we do restoration projects. But
Speaker 2: trying to take a golf course that's not that great
Speaker 2: and turn it into something great, you know, I've kind
Speaker 2: of avoided because it's all a matter of opinion, you know.
Speaker 2: And when you've got three hundred members that that joined
Speaker 2: the place because presumably they kind of like it, you know,
Speaker 2: blowing it up and turn it into something different, there's
Speaker 2: a really big you know, you're going way out on
Speaker 2: a limb to do that. So you know to me that,
Speaker 2: you know, the two things that make a golf course
Speaker 2: really good are the routing and the set of groups.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's really it's really almost impossible to
Speaker 2: change the routing of a golf course after it's been
Speaker 2: there for fifty years, and I've you know, planted trees
Speaker 2: and done everything else to reinforce the routing, you know,
Speaker 2: changing it and just completely redoing it. You're just blowing
Speaker 2: it up and making a hold of golf course. So
Speaker 2: I won't I won't take that as an example. You know,
Speaker 2: the best thing that you could possibly do, the biggest
Speaker 2: impact by far, would be building a really good set
Speaker 2: of greens. But again, that's the step that most clubs
Speaker 2: don't want to make because you've got to close the
Speaker 2: golf course to do it. You're basically closing for a
Speaker 2: year to rebuild the greens. But that would certainly be
Speaker 2: the most impactful thing, you know, as far as the
Speaker 2: easiest thing to do. To me, it's getting the mowing
Speaker 2: lines right, you know, getting the corners of the greens
Speaker 2: back to where they used to be so you can
Speaker 2: jam a pin over in the corner. Because because most
Speaker 2: old golf courses, those things have kind of got rounded
Speaker 2: off over time, and and you know, the very coolest
Speaker 2: little edges of the golf course just aren't in play.
Speaker 2: The city. Same with you know, getting the fairway lines
Speaker 2: back to the right places. You know that sometimes that
Speaker 2: get that introduces a lot of strategy. Back to the
Speaker 2: golf course that it's just you know, it's been narrowed
Speaker 2: up kind of arbitrarily to get it to thirty yards
Speaker 2: wide because that's what the sprinkler here covers. And you
Speaker 2: know they've they've missed the in kind of a hole
Speaker 2: when they did that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's I see that. At the course I play at.
Speaker 4: There's a one green. It's a Donald Ross. There's one
Speaker 4: green that used to be this massive green and and
Speaker 4: like half the green is missing because of because of
Speaker 4: a sprinkler, because of sprinklers, and you see this like
Speaker 4: where this green used to go, and it's like that
Speaker 4: might have been the best green in all of Chicago.
Speaker 2: But which is that.
Speaker 4: It's a Calumet country club. It's down by the Phlossmoor
Speaker 4: and Olympia and Ravslow. It's a the a highway cut
Speaker 4: through it, and now it's you know, overgrown, kind of
Speaker 4: the story of a lot of Chicago country clubs. But
Speaker 4: they're starting to take trees down and we're getting it back.
Speaker 4: But there's this one green that is just unbelievable if
Speaker 4: they had, if they could get it back. But there's
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's a club that's low on money,
Speaker 4: and there's a sprinkler right in the middle of where
Speaker 4: that part of the green would be, So it's got constraints.
Speaker 4: So somebody asked if there was one, you know, one
Speaker 4: place you could play that's accessible to the public, that
Speaker 4: you could walk in the afternoon, was a Sunday bag,
Speaker 4: what course would it be?
Speaker 3: And you only get one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the hardest thing. I mean, you know, I've
Speaker 2: been to fifteen hundred golf courses and most of the
Speaker 2: best golf course in the world. So any of these
Speaker 2: questions were anybody asked me you only get one, I
Speaker 2: just have to you know, I just have to laugh
Speaker 2: at like, so go back, what are my criteria.
Speaker 3: Let's say it's it.
Speaker 5: Let's walk it with a Sunday bag in the afternoon
Speaker 5: in the States, We'll say in the States, and it's accessible,
Speaker 5: it's accessible, and it's not mine.
Speaker 2: I'll throw in it.
Speaker 3: Not we'll do that too.
Speaker 2: But accessible part really narrows it down a lot. Possimo
Speaker 2: is a great course and it's a little hilly for
Speaker 2: some people to walk, So so that would be a
Speaker 2: little tough to recommend, but but that's one of the
Speaker 2: first places that springs to mind. I'll pick one that's
Speaker 2: not far from where I'm talking today, in traversity. There's
Speaker 2: there's an old club in northern Michigan called Belvedere, which
Speaker 2: is a semi private club. They're only like, you know,
Speaker 2: basically the members around for two months in the summer,
Speaker 2: and it's harder to get onto those two months, but
Speaker 2: the rest of the time, the public's welcome. All you
Speaker 2: have to do is calling. And you know, it's a
Speaker 2: really cool, simple, old golf course laid out on a
Speaker 2: farm by Willie Watson, and you know, he liked it
Speaker 2: enough that when George Thomas was doing his book on architecture,
Speaker 2: he sent him a couple of diagrams of the whole
Speaker 2: There's actually three of them and they're all in Thomas's book. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I thought out the place the first time
Speaker 2: it came up here, and it was kind of you know,
Speaker 2: at that point, it was really kind of run down
Speaker 2: and they didn't have much money to spend on it.
Speaker 2: But they've done a really nice job of fixing it
Speaker 2: up and it was host for the Michigan Amateur for
Speaker 2: years and years and years. They just went back there
Speaker 2: every year and everybody loved coming north and playing there.
Speaker 2: And then somebody, you know, somebody of the Golf Association said,
Speaker 2: oh no, we have to move this around all over
Speaker 2: the state to different places, so not everybody has to
Speaker 2: go north every year. And you know, mostly good amateurs
Speaker 2: in Michigan are still kissed about it.
Speaker 3: I've heard a lot of great things about.
Speaker 2: It, and it's very it's it's a very simple golf
Speaker 2: course with a really good mm hmm.
Speaker 4: So thanks so much for the time. You've been more
Speaker 4: than generous. We're going to get you out here. Last
Speaker 4: question and then we've got an overrated, underrated segment we're
Speaker 4: going to throw at you. But last question is, you
Speaker 4: know you famously through your book, through writing, how much
Speaker 4: you'd love to get do a bell Air renovation. It
Speaker 4: sounds like you've secured, you know, doing a bell Air restoration.
Speaker 4: What would be the next golf course that you would
Speaker 4: most want to do a restoration up?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, you know, the bell Air thing came up
Speaker 2: pretty funny because I think Rand more Fit asked that
Speaker 2: question and a you know, we were we just finished
Speaker 2: volume two of the Confidential Guys. So for some reason,
Speaker 2: bell Air was on my mind and I just blurted
Speaker 2: it out. And you know, I should have been more
Speaker 2: careful because the problem with answering your question is there's
Speaker 2: always some consulting architect that's already working there, which in
Speaker 2: bel Air's case with Tom Fabio, and I just kind
Speaker 2: of stepped on him and said, gee, you know, I
Speaker 2: wish they were doing something different. And I had no
Speaker 2: idea even knew anybody at bell Air, but it turned
Speaker 2: out I knew like two or three of the younger
Speaker 2: guys that were on the Green Committee, so they all
Speaker 2: so they called me about it, and yeah, a year
Speaker 2: and a half later, where you know, we're gonna we're
Speaker 2: gonna start a renovation there this fall. So now I
Speaker 2: you know, now I'm thinking, oh, you know politics. Do
Speaker 2: you know where can I say that that somebody's not
Speaker 2: going to be mad that I said it, or I'm
Speaker 2: trying to steal their job away from them. So I
Speaker 2: don't even know if I can answer the question because
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: It's like, hey, well we'll give you we'll give you up.
Speaker 2: In that little okay, I mentioned that little nine whole
Speaker 2: course I saw in New Hampshire, New Hampshire. You know
Speaker 2: it's it's barely hanging on as a golf course, surviving
Speaker 2: year to year. They don't even have enough money to
Speaker 2: keep their pretty little clubhouse open. It would not take
Speaker 2: very much to get it back to just looking perfect
Speaker 2: like they've done for White and Phille, and I would
Speaker 2: love to be part of that. I'd do that for
Speaker 2: a dollar because it's a cool little golf course. But
Speaker 2: you know, I'd only do it if if they get
Speaker 2: their leaf with the town right to make sure the
Speaker 2: place survive, and that seems to be an issue for
Speaker 2: them right now, so I don't I don't know where
Speaker 2: that's going, but i'd love to It is a great
Speaker 2: golf course. I'd really love to help them. Need is
Speaker 2: somebody nobody consulting there, So I'm on stave ground.
Speaker 4: Whoever's listening from the Northeast that has a passion for
Speaker 4: golf courses, you know, that's the one they got to
Speaker 4: go check out. So this is gonna be a new
Speaker 4: regular podcast segment. We're gonna end it with Overrated or
Speaker 4: Underrated and I've got just I've got six things here
Speaker 4: and you just just say, overrated or underrated, and then
Speaker 4: we'll get you out of here. No explanation, no explanation needed.
Speaker 4: Aaron Hills, who overrated template hole golf.
Speaker 2: H overrated to me because I've seen so much of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, Pebble Beach.
Speaker 2: He used to be overrated, might be getting to be
Speaker 2: underrated now because it's like a popular All of that
Speaker 2: place is overrated. I mean there's still like, you know,
Speaker 2: the best stretch of golf holes in America at Pebble Beach.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's uh, it's funny how the pendulum swings
Speaker 4: with things.
Speaker 3: Double fairways, very overrated.
Speaker 2: I don't really like that as a design concept that much.
Speaker 2: I think people do it as a gimmick.
Speaker 3: We'll throw in there with it, double.
Speaker 2: Greens, same same, very overrated.
Speaker 3: Okay, Whistling Straights.
Speaker 2: Ooh, you know, overrated with you know, based on its
Speaker 2: golf digest rating, I guess, but but you know, not
Speaker 2: overrated as a project. I mean, to turn what they
Speaker 2: started with into what they finished with is a pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: I just don't think it's one of the top twenty
Speaker 2: golf courses in America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I kind of agree with it.
Speaker 4: It's an amazing place you should go to, but it's
Speaker 4: not one of the top twenty five courses you should see.
Speaker 4: And then last one, the Great Hazard.
Speaker 2: The Great Hazard, the you.
Speaker 4: Know Hell's half acre par five design that you use
Speaker 4: at stream Song Blue.
Speaker 2: Well, it said nearly everything else is overrated, but I'll
Speaker 2: say that's underrated. I mean you still don't see it
Speaker 2: that much because you know, people are afraid, like you know,
Speaker 2: even stream Song it's like, you know, we really debated
Speaker 2: are we going to really cut this off or are
Speaker 2: we going to give people a way around it somehow,
Speaker 2: because it's just you know, that's more the politically correct
Speaker 2: thing to do. But you know, that's why the Great
Speaker 2: Hazard is underrated. You don't see it that much anymore.
Speaker 2: It's a really cool feature and you just don't get
Speaker 2: to see it because it's not politically correct. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love the Great Hazard.
Speaker 4: I think it's just genius, especially the way you did
Speaker 4: a stream song where if you have to lay up
Speaker 4: short of it, you still have a chance to get
Speaker 4: to the green.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's for my case, that's the way.
Speaker 2: That's the way to go. As you know, layoff and
Speaker 2: then you're like two hundred twenty to go and you
Speaker 2: could still pull it off if you get a great shot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that that that you brought that back.
Speaker 4: It's something I want to see more of in the future.
Speaker 4: I think it's a great way to defend par fives
Speaker 4: and make it interesting. So Tom, I really appreciate the time.
Speaker 4: You've been awesome and I'm sure all the listeners will
Speaker 4: love it.
Speaker 3: And we, uh.
Speaker 4: We were looking forward to seeing more of your work.
Speaker 4: And thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2: All right, Andy, nice to talk to you. And I'm
Speaker 2: curious to see how many how much response I'll get
Speaker 2: to this. Viously, I've said enough controversial things that you'll
Speaker 2: get somebodys.
Speaker 4: Well, it'll be great. And then for everybody, Tom recently
Speaker 4: joined Instagram. It's at Dope Golf. Sounds like his interns
Speaker 4: got in his ear and uh got them on on
Speaker 4: a social media platform. So if you like seeing great
Speaker 4: golf courses, check it out.