Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, Frida egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg, Bride egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and
Speaker 1: today we have a kind of two part episode for you. First,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to Joseph Lamania about the Golf Nacional,
Speaker 1: which is the venue for the Olympics golf competition this year.
Speaker 1: Joseph and I thought we would discuss how this course
Speaker 1: kind of represents the ultimate case study in course fit
Speaker 1: and why course fit is important. Then in the second
Speaker 1: half of the episode, I'm going to speak with John
Speaker 1: wall who is the superintendent at shan Chin Bay in China,
Speaker 1: fascinating Core and Crenshaw golf course. And John has an
Speaker 1: amazing perspective on golf from the UK where he's originally from,
Speaker 1: to Asia where he currently resides. So I thought that
Speaker 1: would be an interesting discussion and I have all sorts
Speaker 1: of questions I want to ask him about golf in Asia.
Speaker 1: Before we get to all of that, a quick word
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Speaker 1: I'm here with Joseph Lamanya. Joseph, how's it going.
Speaker 2: It's going great, Garrett. I'm excited to talk about the golf.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna I'm doing well. We're gonna get into
Speaker 1: the Golf Nacional my favorite course. I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: try to convince me to have more respect for it
Speaker 1: by the end of this conversation. No, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: do that. It feels like you're going to do that.
Speaker 1: We'll see. Well. In any case, the intention here is
Speaker 1: to talk about the Golf Nacy now and why it
Speaker 1: represents a kind of important test case I suppose for
Speaker 1: course fit, especially as regards the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup,
Speaker 1: which is one of the great events for understanding the
Speaker 1: dynamics of course fit. That is, how a golf course
Speaker 1: fits a certain type of player's game or doesn't. So
Speaker 1: you were at the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup. What are
Speaker 1: some of your memories from your experience there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess I should mention obviously the reason
Speaker 2: we're doing this is with the Olympics. They're starting this week,
Speaker 2: so we have two weeks of the Golf National Maybe
Speaker 2: we'll get a little bit into if it's going to
Speaker 2: play similarly, how it's going to play differently. But my
Speaker 2: lasting memories of the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup were that
Speaker 2: at that point, I mean, I was very into the
Speaker 2: data and predicting golf course predicting player performance and how
Speaker 2: that interacts with different golf courses back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: Like I'd already been doing that for years leading up
Speaker 2: to twenty eighteen, and I believed that the golf course
Speaker 2: would play a significant role, but that Team USA would
Speaker 2: likely still win that Ryder Cup and a lot of
Speaker 2: egg on my face because it ended up being a
Speaker 2: bloodbath in the other direction. And I don't want to
Speaker 2: overstate necessarily how much of a role that both the
Speaker 2: golf course design set up and also preparation played, but
Speaker 2: it was I think it had played a massive, massive role.
Speaker 2: And if you just said, well, Team USA just didn't
Speaker 2: play well, I think you'd be overlooking the role that
Speaker 2: a golf course that was set up very specifically to
Speaker 2: prey on the Americans and to play into the hands
Speaker 2: of Europeans, especially in the way that they prepared for
Speaker 2: that golf course. Like that was a huge story from
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, and I think it was a really important
Speaker 2: moment in golf history for understanding some of that.
Speaker 1: Why did you think going in that the Americans were
Speaker 1: gonna win? Was it just because they were better?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they had a significant talent advantage on paper,
Speaker 2: and I think there are a lot of reasons why
Speaker 2: sometimes that doesn't end up materializing, right, Like we there
Speaker 2: was a similar story at Marco Simone in the most
Speaker 2: recent Ryder Cup in Europe where the Americans were favored
Speaker 2: again and lost. But I felt like going into that
Speaker 2: particular Ryder Cup, especially looking at the rosters, now, I mean,
Speaker 2: you didn't think about like you had justin Thomas Brooks Koepka,
Speaker 2: Dustin Johnson was playing great, like Jordan Speith. I mean,
Speaker 2: there were a lot of players. Speith wasn't at the
Speaker 2: height of his powers, but there were a lot of
Speaker 2: really good golfers on the American side, and Europe just
Speaker 2: felt like it wasn't nearly as deep. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean I didn't think it was going to be a
Speaker 2: bloodbath that the Americans were going to clean up. But
Speaker 2: I thought the Americans would win and it was the
Speaker 2: furthest thing from that.
Speaker 1: What were the aspects of course fit the e you
Speaker 1: thought were especially relevant as you saw the event play
Speaker 1: out in twenty eighteen. What should we focus on.
Speaker 2: The biggest I know we've talked about this on this
Speaker 2: podcast before. People get way focused on narrow fairways, thick
Speaker 2: rough and stop there like that. Those are the defining
Speaker 2: characteristics of whether or not something is going to be
Speaker 2: about accuracy, and that is just way too reductive to
Speaker 2: understand what's actually happening with how accuracy is tested. Not
Speaker 2: only were the fairways narrow, but they narrowed at the
Speaker 2: length that players would be hitting driver, which basically takes
Speaker 2: driver out of a lot of golfer's hands. And so
Speaker 2: if you have a huge distance advantage, as the American
Speaker 2: team did, you're not going to get to realize it
Speaker 2: because if you do hit driver, it's often the wrong play.
Speaker 2: Tightly coupled with that, there was a graduated rough approach
Speaker 2: just off the fairways. The rough wasn't that thick way
Speaker 2: off the fairways, it was extremely thick, and I Team
Speaker 2: Europe specifically made sure that the fans were as far
Speaker 2: back as possible so that they weren't trampling rough that
Speaker 2: they knew the American team would end up in more often.
Speaker 2: And so that's a huge lasting memory. It was striking
Speaker 2: to see in person like that there was such a
Speaker 2: conscious effort on that, Garrett, and it played out that way.
Speaker 2: I mean, Team USA was in the fescue and off
Speaker 2: the fairways constantly. I mean, Phil was taking less than
Speaker 2: driver and missing fairways like. It was a complete I
Speaker 2: don't want to curse, but disaster for the American team.
Speaker 2: And I also think this is part of why this
Speaker 2: event stands out so much. The golf world has changed
Speaker 2: so much since twenty eighteen, as have all sports, with
Speaker 2: how much more intelligent decision making has become. In the NFL,
Speaker 2: teams didn't go for it all the time on fourth
Speaker 2: down in twenty seventeen. Now they all go for it
Speaker 2: on fourth down in the right situations quote unquote, like
Speaker 2: the optimal situations to go for it on fourth down.
Speaker 2: The same thing has happened in golf. Like golf players
Speaker 2: play way more intelligently with their course management now than
Speaker 2: they did in twenty eighteen, so it was particularly exacerbated
Speaker 2: on a setup like this, And I do believe that
Speaker 2: the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup played a role in speeding
Speaker 2: up that process and making players much more intelligent, because
Speaker 2: it was so in your face that if you didn't,
Speaker 2: if you run Team Europe, you saw the payoff of
Speaker 2: what it looks like when you're well prepared and when
Speaker 2: you understand some of this stuff. And on the other side,
Speaker 2: the Americans got completely humiliated by not believing in some
Speaker 2: of this course management not paying a lot of attention
Speaker 2: to it. I think it was an inflection point in
Speaker 2: how golf courses are played.
Speaker 1: Well, how often do we see courses like the Golf
Speaker 1: Nacy now And you know, could a player conceivably experience
Speaker 1: the twenty eighteen Rider Cup and just say that was
Speaker 1: such an unusual setup that it doesn't really matter to me?
Speaker 2: I think you could. But it's not black and white
Speaker 2: like the Golf Nationale versus something that's totally different like
Speaker 2: Tory Pines. I mean, every these concepts about when you
Speaker 2: should hit driver and like what your targets should be,
Speaker 2: those concepts are all pertinent. No matter where you're playing.
Speaker 2: They provide some level of advantage to you. It's going
Speaker 2: to be much bigger at the Golf Nationale than somewhere
Speaker 2: like Tory Pines. But it does matter everywhere. So I
Speaker 2: hear you that perhaps they didn't find it as necessary
Speaker 2: to really dive into the Golf Nationale because nothing else
Speaker 2: looks like it, and I'm not going to tailor my
Speaker 2: game specifically to that type of setup that we never see.
Speaker 2: But I think the players who understand why this stuff
Speaker 2: is important have realized those advantages on many other golf courses.
Speaker 1: So getting back to the aspects of the setup or
Speaker 1: the course the design that preferred accuracy at the golf nacy.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned the graduated rough right, you mentioned taking
Speaker 1: driver out of player's hands. I think you refer to
Speaker 1: either in what you said or in your article that
Speaker 1: you published about this in our newsletter on Wednesday morning,
Speaker 1: variable fairway wis. So was there anything else out there
Speaker 1: that was significant to prioritizing accuracy off the tee? And
Speaker 1: then in addition to that, are these the only things
Speaker 1: that can be done to prioritize accuracy off the tea
Speaker 1: and a golf course setup or design.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a few things there. One thing that I think
Speaker 2: flew under the radar that I didn't have enough of
Speaker 2: appreciation for at the time, and the more I've reflected
Speaker 2: on it, the more it seems important in retrospect, was
Speaker 2: the way there are a lot of grass moguls lining
Speaker 2: the fairways that yeah, elevate and create good vantage points
Speaker 2: for fans Like I can remember sitting on a lot
Speaker 2: of those moguls and watching the action. But they also
Speaker 2: if you ended up on those moguls, you had uneven
Speaker 2: lies in thick fescue like that. Just if those had
Speaker 2: been all flat, it wouldn't have been nearly as penal
Speaker 2: to miss wide.
Speaker 1: But TPC Sagres does this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good example. It's not as thick as
Speaker 2: the mounds are at La Gulf Nation now, but same thing, right,
Speaker 2: and it creates that stadium viewing. So that was something
Speaker 2: in retrospect that I think was super important. The other
Speaker 2: part that was more relevant in twenty eighteen than it
Speaker 2: would be now. Players just knew which clubs to hit
Speaker 2: off of tees on the European side, and that's part preparation,
Speaker 2: Like they had more tools at their disposal and a
Speaker 2: smarter team behind them to understand like this is not
Speaker 2: a driver, this is a three wood, this is an iron.
Speaker 2: And I think Team USA was much less sure of
Speaker 2: themselves on that kind of stuff, which does exacerbate the
Speaker 2: accuracy advantage. Right, if you stand up in bash driver
Speaker 2: on a hole that you shouldn't be hitting driver, then
Speaker 2: you have to hit that so straight and it may
Speaker 2: not even be on a hole that you're going to
Speaker 2: realize much of an advantage by executing it. So I
Speaker 2: think that was another massive thing. And to then answer
Speaker 2: your final question, is that the only way to test accuracy. No,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of different ways that you can
Speaker 2: test accuracy. But I do think if your goal is
Speaker 2: to have accuracy at a premium, there needs to be
Speaker 2: a different penalty associated with a narrow miss and a
Speaker 2: wide miss. And that's the biggest thing that I think
Speaker 2: setups tend to get wrong, even as recently as like
Speaker 2: Winged Foot and Oak Hill, which we've seen in majors.
Speaker 2: The narrow fairways that are super firm are very hard
Speaker 2: to hold, and so you saw it, Oh kill a
Speaker 2: lot of holes where you just couldn't really hit the
Speaker 2: fairway that had hit fairway percentages forty to forty five percent,
Speaker 2: and if you missed by a yard, it wasn't different
Speaker 2: than missing by thirty yards. And that's fine if we
Speaker 2: want to see setups like that every once in a while.
Speaker 2: But that's how you get Bryson to Shamba Rory to
Speaker 2: an extent, Guys who kill the golf ball off the
Speaker 2: tee with driver and when they swing away they don't
Speaker 2: have to worry as much about hitting it particularly straight.
Speaker 2: So I think that those are important to contrast. There's
Speaker 2: not only one way to do it. But thinking that
Speaker 2: narrow fairways in thick rough test accuracy is not inaccurate.
Speaker 2: Sorry for using the same word there, but it's not
Speaker 2: an accurate way to characterize how golf courses play.
Speaker 1: It's not the narrowness that prioritizes accuracy. It's the combination
Speaker 1: of elements that you've been talking about, the kind of
Speaker 1: graduated rough, the variable fairway withs, the various hazards off
Speaker 1: the corridor, off the fairway, the you know, the mounding
Speaker 1: and the bunkers and the water right, all of that
Speaker 1: stuff kind of works together at the golf nasty now
Speaker 1: to make it an unusual test of accuracy and to
Speaker 1: bring players to the four who have that skill. You
Speaker 1: mentioned a couple of narrow courses that don't really prioritize
Speaker 1: accuracy and why they don't, right, So Oak Hill Tory
Speaker 1: Pines is a good example of one where there's not
Speaker 1: a big difference between a narrow and a wide myths,
Speaker 1: So you might as well might as well just kind
Speaker 1: of wail away a driver off the tee wing foot.
Speaker 1: Perhaps that would be a good example as well. Those
Speaker 1: are courses maybe that represent a misunderstanding of where the
Speaker 1: accuracy test comes from. I wonder if there are any
Speaker 1: wide courses that you think are not necessarily a good
Speaker 1: test of accuracy off the tee, but present a good
Speaker 1: test of driving overall, you know, distance and accuracy and
Speaker 1: strategy combined.
Speaker 2: To me, the easiest example, and I think it's the
Speaker 2: best example, is Augusta National, where every player I've talked
Speaker 2: to about Augusta, when I say like, I feel like
Speaker 2: this is much more demanding off the t than it's
Speaker 2: given credit for, almost unanimously agree. Despite it being you
Speaker 2: have to hit the ball relatively straight out Augusta. It's
Speaker 2: not the biggest premium on accuracy, but you can't go
Speaker 2: out there and just spray it. We've seen what happens
Speaker 2: when Bryson does that. I mean the first hole at Augusta.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite opening holes in professional golf.
Speaker 2: I think it's a great example of this concept that
Speaker 2: a narrow miss gets penalized a little bit, a wide
Speaker 2: miss gets crushed. Right the first hole, there's a bunker
Speaker 2: down the right kind of at fairway. It's kind of
Speaker 2: a driver length if you hit a good drive, you
Speaker 2: have a reasonable look. Birdie's tough, but you're probably not
Speaker 2: making you're certainly not making worse than bogey, but probably
Speaker 2: making par. If you miss a little left, then you
Speaker 2: have some trees to contend with, but you still have
Speaker 2: a shot. And if you miss way left or way right,
Speaker 2: you're looking at bogie or double bogie or worse like that.
Speaker 2: Hole is a great example of small miss is penalized
Speaker 2: a little bit. Wide miss is penalized a lot. So
Speaker 2: I think in general Augusta is a wide course that
Speaker 2: is much more demanding off of the tea that it's
Speaker 2: given credit for. And the other component that we really
Speaker 2: haven't hit on is firmness, and I think firmness clearly
Speaker 2: plays a huge role in that because when you're coming
Speaker 2: from the fairway and you have spin, you can stop
Speaker 2: the ball. When you're coming out of rough it's not
Speaker 2: as big of a thing at Augusta, but trying to
Speaker 2: hit something in with not a lot of spin into
Speaker 2: firm greens, especially at Augusta with the tight runoffs like
Speaker 2: it can end up in some hairy spots. So that's
Speaker 2: another part of the Golf Nationale test to the more
Speaker 2: firm that is, the harder it is to hold the
Speaker 2: greens from the rough, and so I think firmness needs
Speaker 2: to be mentioned as well well.
Speaker 1: Truean also was a good recent example of there being
Speaker 1: a big difference between approaching those greens out of the
Speaker 1: rough and approaching them out of the fairway. That was
Speaker 1: something that that course and set up really highlighted and
Speaker 1: was unusual.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: You just really saw the ball land and run out
Speaker 1: from the rough in a way that it wasn't as
Speaker 1: much from the fairway. So that was pretty cool to see.
Speaker 1: So getting back to the golf it's going to be
Speaker 1: different this week, right, I mean, it's not a Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup setup. And first of all, this sort of gets
Speaker 1: at why the setup was the way it was in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. There was a motive behind that setup. There
Speaker 1: was a reason to push the fans back and to
Speaker 1: have that graduated rough presentation, and it was that the
Speaker 1: European Tour was setting up the golf course and trying
Speaker 1: to present a course that gave an advantage to their team.
Speaker 1: Usually there isn't that kind of motive behind a golf
Speaker 1: course setup. Usually, the motive to bring fans as close
Speaker 1: to the action as possible is stronger than to present
Speaker 1: a test of accurate driving, right, And that's why we
Speaker 1: don't see fans pushed back very often because it's a
Speaker 1: more powerful reason to bring them closer. That fans get
Speaker 1: to see the action closer. That's a more powerful powerful
Speaker 1: reason to do that than to make sure that players
Speaker 1: are being accurate off the tee. And so I wonder
Speaker 1: how different this week is going to be because the
Speaker 1: motives are just different. Right, the course setup team doesn't
Speaker 1: have the same set of reasons to try to make
Speaker 1: accurate driving important. So what do you expect out of that.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be nearly the test
Speaker 2: the accuracy test that twenty eighteen was. If you go
Speaker 2: and look at players transcripts, you're seeing players kind of
Speaker 2: say both, like some of the players who were there,
Speaker 2: like Tommy Fleetwood played and Rory also played in the
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen Ryder Cup and are playing in the Olympics.
Speaker 2: I think Rory said something to the effect of like
Speaker 2: playing pretty similarly, maybe not quite as thick of rough
Speaker 2: for most of what I've seen, And Alex Norin made
Speaker 2: this point, like the rough is pretty uniform, It's not
Speaker 2: as much of a graduated rough. It's gonna play a
Speaker 2: little softer than it did at the Ryder Cup. There's
Speaker 2: been more rain coming into this event, and just in general,
Speaker 2: the course isn't bouncing as much. It looks like it
Speaker 2: has a little bit of firmness to it. It's not
Speaker 2: gonna play as much of an accuracy test as it
Speaker 2: did in twenty eighteen. I'm kind of disappointed, and I'd
Speaker 2: be interested in what your opinion is of that, because
Speaker 2: I think you could in good faith make the argument
Speaker 2: that the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup set up is contrived
Speaker 2: and like the graduated rough looks bad and it's not
Speaker 2: how golf courses should play, and I think you could
Speaker 2: go down that path. And I hear some of that,
Speaker 2: but I think it was such an iconic event that
Speaker 2: presenting it that way is a really cool way to
Speaker 2: present this particular golf course. Maybe if we we wouldn't
Speaker 2: want to see it every week, but I would have
Speaker 2: loved to see a little bit more thickness in a
Speaker 2: little bit of a graduated rough approach, sort of as
Speaker 2: a nod to the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup, and kind
Speaker 2: of in my view, like I know, they do the
Speaker 2: French Open there every year. But I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of cool to present this golf course the way that
Speaker 2: it was presented in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: I guess I mean probably to most people, the twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen Ryder Cup set up is not as iconic as
Speaker 1: it is to you. That's fair because people don't think
Speaker 1: about the same things that you do with regards to
Speaker 1: course fit and course set up and these questions. I
Speaker 1: think for golf nerds of a certain persuasion that the
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen Ryder Cup is clearly important for all the
Speaker 1: reasons that you've outlined, and it would be understandable to
Speaker 1: want to see something like that again, to see players
Speaker 1: have to tackle that challenge again. But I don't think
Speaker 1: that in general people view the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup
Speaker 1: that way right, or place it in that high of
Speaker 1: esteem in the history of course setups or Ryder Cups.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I can see both sides here myself.
Speaker 1: I like variety. I like different kinds of courses presenting
Speaker 1: different kinds of examinations to great players, and so having
Speaker 1: a twenty eighteen the golf every once in a while
Speaker 1: is really compelling to me. I like to see how
Speaker 1: those different variables end up affecting play. That's interesting stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's what we want out of golf tournaments. We
Speaker 1: want every course to be different. I do think that
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen was interesting because of setup choices and not
Speaker 1: because of the golf course. I think that setup is
Speaker 1: what can make this golf course interesting, and without it,
Speaker 1: to me, it's not really much of a golf course.
Speaker 1: I said this to Andy a couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of like a Pete die course, but
Speaker 1: without the personality, without the quirk, without that kind of
Speaker 1: extra shot of brilliance that Pete Die tended to bring
Speaker 1: to his designs. It's sort of like it's imitating that
Speaker 1: that stadium course format, but it does it in a
Speaker 1: somewhat more dull and rote way. And so I think
Speaker 1: in order to make this course interesting to watch that
Speaker 1: you have to set it up in some kind of
Speaker 1: freakish manner. Otherwise I'm not sure it has that much
Speaker 1: to offer.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mostly agree, and then that's probably part
Speaker 2: of what's motivating me to want to see that kind
Speaker 2: of a setup, because otherwise this golf course may just
Speaker 2: not have the teeth that or the architecture to make
Speaker 2: it super interesting, like these greens aren't super creative. I
Speaker 2: don't know that there are many holes that stand out.
Speaker 2: I mean, the closing stretch kind of gets sighted a lot,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of water. But like I hear
Speaker 2: you it referring to it as a less creative Pete
Speaker 2: die design, I think is fair. But we saw what
Speaker 2: it can do when it is set up in a
Speaker 2: particular in a particular way, like it wasn't the twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen Ryder Cup. And maybe that's motivad my comments for
Speaker 2: wanting to see it that way, because it does play
Speaker 2: very interestingly that way, and some guys just get their
Speaker 2: butts kicked like that. It's not going to do that
Speaker 2: this week, and so I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: will watch it and be underwhelmed, especially if the only
Speaker 2: other time that they've seen it is at the twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen Ryder Cup. I don't know that the French opens
Speaker 2: commanding like massive numbers the DP World Tour event that's
Speaker 2: there every year. So I think people will probably watch
Speaker 2: it and think back on twenty eighteen and it'll feel
Speaker 2: like a completely different experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably, But there's still going to be elements of it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so if you're handicapping this event, if you're looking
Speaker 1: at players who might do well, say just on the
Speaker 1: US team, my governing assumption would be that somebody like
Speaker 1: Wyndham Clark is not well suited to this golf course,
Speaker 1: whereas Colin Moricawa and to a lesser extent, Xander Schoffle
Speaker 1: and Scottie Scheffler, who are both sort of more all
Speaker 1: court players, but especially Moricala, seems well suited to this
Speaker 1: kind of golf course. Tommy Fleetwood is playing for Great
Speaker 1: Britain and he obviously did brilliantly at the twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup. Do you think we'll see some of the
Speaker 1: same players doing well that we saw in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: but just maybe having a little bit less of an advantage.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look to me, Francesco Mullinari. He's not playing in
Speaker 2: this Olympics, but he's a great example of somebody that
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen was playing great golf. Not the longest hitter,
Speaker 2: but hit it dead straight and was a great iron player.
Speaker 2: I think that's the recipe here. So Scotti Scheffler, great example,
Speaker 2: Colin wri Kyle a great example. I think Corey Conners
Speaker 2: is a great example of a player who should do
Speaker 2: really well here. And then if you wanted like a
Speaker 2: little bit more of a long shot tight name. Abraham
Speaker 2: Answer has always been one of the most accurate hitters
Speaker 2: on any tour, and I think he's somebody to keep
Speaker 2: an eye on, though again, he would benefit from more
Speaker 2: of the twenty eighteen setup than what we're gonna see
Speaker 2: this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gotcha, Okay, any other last comments about the golf
Speaker 1: Nascy now, things that people should look out for, particular holes,
Speaker 1: What should people be looking for in Analympic golf competition.
Speaker 2: I would just say paying a lot of attention to
Speaker 2: what happens when somebody hits a wide miss and when
Speaker 2: somebody hits a narrow miss, and envisioning twenty eighteen and
Speaker 2: just using it as a test case for like how
Speaker 2: this particular design can be a can be hyper focused
Speaker 2: on testing accuracy. It's not going to be that way
Speaker 2: this week, but it'll still test accuracy. Like the first
Speaker 2: hole is a good example where there's water down the
Speaker 2: left and if you go wait too far right, like
Speaker 2: you're dealing with moguls and thick rough. If you hit
Speaker 2: it a little left, the fairway does bleed into the water,
Speaker 2: so it can bounce and roll into the water. It's
Speaker 2: not as firm this year as it wasn't twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: so you're going to see less of that. But in
Speaker 2: the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup, guys were hitting it in
Speaker 2: the water, so I would pay a lot of attention
Speaker 2: to that. I guess my only other parting thought is wondering,
Speaker 2: to you, does the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup stand out
Speaker 2: as one of the most iconic of the last twenty
Speaker 2: years or do you think that that's only applicable to
Speaker 2: a certain person that's very focused on course fit Because
Speaker 2: to me, I would think even for people who aren't,
Speaker 2: that's one that really stands out given the drama and
Speaker 2: the chaos around that event.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess when I think of the twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen Ryder Cup, I don't think of course factors as much,
Speaker 1: though I know that that was important and a big
Speaker 1: subject of discussion and a determining factor in the result
Speaker 1: of the event. I think more about the way that
Speaker 1: certain US players just collapsed and the way that the
Speaker 1: European team came together you know, the Fleetwood Mullinari pairing
Speaker 1: was so amazing and effective and inspiring sort of, whereas
Speaker 1: Patrick Reid was out there calling New York Times reporters
Speaker 1: after the event and throwing tiger woods under the bus.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was the perfect representation of the
Speaker 1: way that those two different teams interact with each other
Speaker 1: and deal with hardship, deal with difficulties. The European team
Speaker 1: seems to come together and the US team at the
Speaker 1: time at least seemed to have a tendency to split
Speaker 1: apart and point fingers and have conflicts with each other.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course afterwards also Brooks Koepka and
Speaker 1: Dustin Johnson apparently got in a fight too, And so
Speaker 1: there was all sorts of stuff going on within the
Speaker 1: team dynamics that I think was relevant to the outcome
Speaker 1: or at least interesting to talk about, and that to
Speaker 1: me proved more memorable than the golf course itself. I
Speaker 1: think in general, at Ryder Cups, I'm not that moved
Speaker 1: by the golf courses, and it might just be because
Speaker 1: they're not really to my taste. I like wide courses
Speaker 1: where there's some semblance of lateral strategy and optionality off
Speaker 1: the tee. And even if pros don't really take advantage
Speaker 1: of that these days, or aren't really required to take
Speaker 1: advantage of those kinds of options off the tee, I
Speaker 1: still like seeing them and I still like thinking about them,
Speaker 1: And of course, like the golf nacy and now, the
Speaker 1: successful play on that course is fairly one dimensional. You know,
Speaker 1: there are places where you could hit a driver versus
Speaker 1: a three iron, and that's some kind of strategy that
Speaker 1: that brings in a choice that a player has to make.
Speaker 1: But to me, it's just a little bit less compelling
Speaker 1: because still the goal is to hit the fairway and
Speaker 1: it's a black and white kind of outcome. You're either
Speaker 1: in the fairway or you're in the rough. Now, what
Speaker 1: you're saying about the graduated rough and the difference between
Speaker 1: narrow misses and white misses, that gives me something else
Speaker 1: to look at. And that's why I appreciate that analysis.
Speaker 1: You know that that really does become interesting if you
Speaker 1: look at the difference and outcomes between barely missing the
Speaker 1: fair way and missing wide and then apply that to
Speaker 1: a place like Tory Pines, then you start to understand
Speaker 1: why Tory Pines does not emphasize accuracy, but what golf
Speaker 1: does that's at least fun, and so I can start
Speaker 1: to look for that kind of thing more. But in general,
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup venues and so far Olympic golf venues aside
Speaker 1: from Rio the first one haven't really done it for me,
Speaker 1: and so I focus on different things.
Speaker 2: I guess that's fair. I think the only pushback at
Speaker 2: all would be that, given how it's a technology discussion,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of things, but optionality in professional golf
Speaker 2: is sort of a lost art in terms of trying
Speaker 2: to find better angles because angles just generally don't matter
Speaker 2: that much in professional golf. I think there are ways
Speaker 2: that we can make them matter more. I'm not of
Speaker 2: angles don't matter at all, person, but the optionality that
Speaker 2: this golf course presents off of the tee is with
Speaker 2: club selection, and to me that's more compelling than there
Speaker 2: being no optionality at all. Right of it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: which side of the fairway you're down and you're pulling
Speaker 2: driver every time. So I actually think in a weird way,
Speaker 2: this golf course presents more optionality than maybe a lot
Speaker 2: of other golf courses do. That we see week in
Speaker 2: and week out so maybe a little bit of pushback there,
Speaker 2: but your point is taken.
Speaker 1: Angles don't matter. That's what we're concluding on Man. The
Speaker 1: Frida Egg podcast certainly has evolved over the years, Joseph.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. We've talked about this. Angles matter.
Speaker 2: They just don't matter very much.
Speaker 1: No, I get it. As far as a pro strategy
Speaker 1: is concerned. I just like looking at interesting golf courses.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of what I'm after when I'm watching
Speaker 1: golf on television. I know that these guys are kind
Speaker 1: of doing their own thing and just bashing it, and
Speaker 1: their equipment allows them to do basically whatever they want
Speaker 1: to whatever golf course they want, and so that's that's
Speaker 1: to me kind of a lost cause. But I just
Speaker 1: like seeing an interesting golf course on the screen. And
Speaker 1: so when when there's uh, you know, when when there's
Speaker 1: some dynamism to the golf course, when there's some width
Speaker 1: and some different possible outcomes, different angles into the green
Speaker 1: that are possible even if they aren't being chased, then
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Whereas I get a little bit bored
Speaker 1: with golf courses where I know that the only outcome
Speaker 1: is going to be either you're in the fair way
Speaker 1: or you're in the rough. That doles it down a
Speaker 1: little bit for me.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, that's just angles could matter a
Speaker 2: lot more in professional golf. We just don't go to
Speaker 2: venues that make them matter. So I am with you
Speaker 2: on that, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Joseph, thanks for coming on the pod. As always,
Speaker 1: should be a good time watching Olympics golf. You know,
Speaker 1: we we only get it every four years, so let's
Speaker 1: enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Sounds good looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Before we get to my interview with John Wall of
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Speaker 1: local Toro distributor for more information. Okay, I am here
Speaker 1: with John wall the superintendent at and I want you
Speaker 1: to check my pronunciation right off the bat. Here is
Speaker 1: it Shaun chin Bay.
Speaker 3: Huan Chin Bay. Yeah, that's that's close.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right. I was trying my best. I was
Speaker 1: looking up all kinds of resources for how to how
Speaker 1: to pronounce this properly because it looks like shankin Bay,
Speaker 1: which is would not be a perpitious name for a
Speaker 1: golf course. I don't think shank and Bay, but but
Speaker 1: Shaun chen Bays sounds sounds a little better. How are
Speaker 1: you doing today?
Speaker 3: Were very well? Thanks for in the midst of Sumner
Speaker 3: renovations and the Sun's outsode. All is right with the
Speaker 3: world perfect.
Speaker 1: So you know, right before we came on, John, you
Speaker 1: let me know that you've actually played the golf Nassy now,
Speaker 1: which is what Joseph Lamania and I discussed in the
Speaker 1: in the first part of this episode here, what are
Speaker 1: your quick takes on the golf? What do you think
Speaker 1: of the course?
Speaker 3: I think I like it more than most I think
Speaker 3: it serves as a different kind of golf course to
Speaker 3: what we commonly see. I think, you know, people find
Speaker 3: it easy to criticize a more penal golf course, especially
Speaker 3: when perhaps a Ryder Cup team has you know, taken
Speaker 3: a battering there, and so it's it's easy to part
Speaker 3: of it with a golf course that gave your team
Speaker 3: a lot of issue. But I think the especially the
Speaker 3: finishing stretch, provides you know, a lot certainly visual interest.
Speaker 3: It serves as a binary between success and failure. So
Speaker 3: I think it actually makes a very good venue for competition.
Speaker 1: So, as I mentioned, John, and I'm moving on quickly
Speaker 1: from the praise of the golf nacy Now as you
Speaker 1: can tell, I'll just you know, I'm not gonna I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give my stamp of a proval to that,
Speaker 1: though I do acknowledge that the finishing stretch is very nice.
Speaker 1: You are the superintendent in a very different kind of course. However,
Speaker 1: wide fair ways, this is a corn Crunshaw golf course.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, that's exactly it. Wh're yeah, a little less
Speaker 3: let's say manufactured. You know, that natural style of golf
Speaker 3: that Kor and Cruncher are famous for is exactly what
Speaker 3: you get here in spades perfect.
Speaker 1: So you're there. Now, where did you get your start
Speaker 1: in golf? Where did you get introduced to the game
Speaker 1: in golf?
Speaker 3: I mean I started first playing golf just as a
Speaker 3: schoolboy with friends, nothing too serious, ended up working on
Speaker 3: golf courses in England just for a small stretch, and
Speaker 3: then began an education in turf, which is possible in England,
Speaker 3: which led to opportunity to work abroad. You know, traditionally
Speaker 3: turf education is possible in England and America and the
Speaker 3: rest of the world. Yes, you can do it online nowadays,
Speaker 3: but traditionally you couldn't. And golf is a worldwide game.
Speaker 3: So it made sense to me as kind of a
Speaker 3: young young man full of you know, adventure and Faustian spirit,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it, to see what golf
Speaker 3: was like in the rest of the world. And that
Speaker 3: took me to France, it took me to Hong Kong,
Speaker 3: Vietnam and now China. So I'm, you know, not deliberately
Speaker 3: staying out of England, but there's great opportunity. There's so
Speaker 3: much interest and enjoyment in just seeing golf outside of
Speaker 3: what I think, you know, the media views. You know,
Speaker 3: Great Britain and Ireland, in America and perhaps Australia is
Speaker 3: the world of golf, but there is other fantastic golf
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up in England?
Speaker 3: About an hour west of London, so a place called Reading.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you play much seaside golf when you were
Speaker 1: growing up?
Speaker 3: No, Actually, I'm pretty my portfolio of British courses is
Speaker 3: fairly underdeveloped. It's you come to the other side of
Speaker 3: the world and you look back at where you grew
Speaker 3: up and you realize how much good golf was on
Speaker 3: your doorsteps. So I'm kind of kicking myself and not
Speaker 3: taking the opportunity to play more back when I had
Speaker 3: the chance.
Speaker 1: Well, when you started learning about turf, did you develop
Speaker 1: some kind of respect for links agronomy or were you
Speaker 1: mainly focused on kind of the inland scenes.
Speaker 3: I mean, when you first start studying turf, you you
Speaker 3: don't know you're asked from your elbow, to be frankly honest, So.
Speaker 1: Well, none of us know are asked for my elbows
Speaker 1: when we start studying anything. Frankly I mean, so I think.
Speaker 3: You learn to appreciate links more as you you know,
Speaker 3: gain education or you gain experience. I think to a
Speaker 3: relative novice, Links is kind of hard to grasp what
Speaker 3: the excitement is about. I remember going to an open
Speaker 3: in Rawson George's two thousand and three and being a
Speaker 3: little bit underwhelmed. I'd heard all this amazing stuff about
Speaker 3: Link's golf and it was a very you know, dull
Speaker 3: brown golf course. And thankfully I've moved on from that
Speaker 3: and I can now appreciate just you know, the amazing
Speaker 3: land and architecture that takes place on a Links course.
Speaker 1: Now, there are a number I know of turf students
Speaker 1: who listen to this podcast and trying to adopt their
Speaker 1: perspective for a minute. You know, you getting a turf
Speaker 1: education in the UK and you found your way to Asia.
Speaker 1: This is an opportunity, This is something that people could do.
Speaker 1: And so how how did this happen for you? How
Speaker 1: did you end up applying for jobs or looking at
Speaker 1: jobs in Asia? And how might a young turf student
Speaker 1: explore those kinds of opportunities.
Speaker 3: Sure, the way in which I got to Asia was
Speaker 3: Hong Kong Golf Club were running an internship, six month internships,
Speaker 3: and that was how I got my foot in the door,
Speaker 3: and then a very short time after starting the internship
Speaker 3: and assistant superintendent position opened up at the same club,
Speaker 3: and so I just transitioned from there.
Speaker 1: Very cool. So in addition to Hong Kong, where else
Speaker 1: did you end up going early in your career?
Speaker 3: I spent a summer in the south of France at
Speaker 3: a resort called Terre Blanche, which is a play of
Speaker 3: Thomas design that chateau of course, and then there's a
Speaker 3: second eighteen there as well, So yeah, you know, being
Speaker 3: in your late teens in the south of France for
Speaker 3: a summer is a good spot. Next year I spent
Speaker 3: in Paris at a hawtrey course called San Mamora Bretesh
Speaker 3: and then yeah, made my way out to Hong Kong
Speaker 3: the year after that, So it like, yeah, as I've
Speaker 3: kind of covered already, it a turf degree or just
Speaker 3: being in golf in general gives great opportunity to travel
Speaker 3: see the world.
Speaker 1: How did you eventually find your way to Shanchan Bay?
Speaker 1: What was that? I don't know. Did you just hear
Speaker 1: about the job opportunity and applied and went there or
Speaker 1: was there some kind of intention behind getting to that
Speaker 1: course specifically?
Speaker 3: I mean I was aware of Shansien Bay, you know,
Speaker 3: ever since it opened. It it opened to some fanfare,
Speaker 3: you know, eleven years ago, now, so I was I
Speaker 3: was always aware of it. I always you know, thought
Speaker 3: I would love to work at such a place. I'd
Speaker 3: been in I've been in Vietnam for seven years kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, fairly confident in what I was what I
Speaker 3: was doing. And I ended up in discussion with the
Speaker 3: general manager at shan Chien Bay. They were looking for
Speaker 3: a superintendent they would, you know, towards the end of COVID, which,
Speaker 3: as you may be aware, lasted a little bit longer
Speaker 3: in China than it did the rest of the world.
Speaker 3: So I saw an opportunity to work at a dream
Speaker 3: course kind of by low kind of and with the
Speaker 3: intention of you know, selling high in a few years time.
Speaker 1: Well, when you say dream course, that is the proper
Speaker 1: term for the golf course, you know. So for people
Speaker 1: who aren't aren't familiar with shan Chenbay or haven't seen
Speaker 1: the pictures, this is a ranked course, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those that shows up in the in
Speaker 1: the top one hundred rankings and so on. And there
Speaker 1: are photos of it out there that are pretty widely circulated.
Speaker 1: But if if somebody has not heard of this course,
Speaker 1: how would you describe it?
Speaker 3: It is, well, a corn creunch or course over dramatic
Speaker 3: seaside land on a you know, on a basically a peninsula.
Speaker 3: You've got you've got the sea on about two hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy degrees of the actual property. It's up and down.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a perhaps you could say, in evolved
Speaker 3: version of the Cappelloua property. It's it's very dramatic in
Speaker 3: its elevation change. So yeah, that would be the briefest
Speaker 3: synopsis I could I could give you. It's you know,
Speaker 3: completely unspoiled. There are no towers, busy roads, airports. You know,
Speaker 3: right now adjacent to the course, you are in your
Speaker 3: own little world. It's a yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 3: say sanctuary because that sounds awful, but yeah, once you
Speaker 3: come through the gates, you're in a separate world.
Speaker 1: Have you been to the Capealua resort before?
Speaker 3: No, just just being a kind of a bit of
Speaker 3: a nerd and you know, watching the golf, studying it, and.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I've I've been to neither Capalua nor
Speaker 1: Shanshan Bay. But that comparison really resonates because you know,
Speaker 1: Shanchen Bay has it's kind of set on these seaside ravines.
Speaker 1: It looks like like this spectacular you know, heavy elevation
Speaker 1: change kind of land directly seaside, and you know, to
Speaker 1: see a corn crunch shaw course on that kind of
Speaker 1: landscape is pretty stunning. They built it later in their
Speaker 1: in their careers than Kapalua, so you have a few
Speaker 1: of the more you know, signature corn crench shaw, you know,
Speaker 1: bits of style on shen Chin Bay more so than Kapalua.
Speaker 1: But an incredible looking golf course. I wonder are there
Speaker 1: are there any like agronomic challenges that are that are
Speaker 1: specific to chuan Chen Bay. And I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: those can be generalized out to agonomic challenges in China
Speaker 1: or Asia. But you know, starting with the specific, like
Speaker 1: are there difficulties in growing grass at chan Chen Bay
Speaker 1: that are kind of specific to that location?
Speaker 3: I don't think specific to the location, no, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, any climate gives you a challenge depending on
Speaker 3: the grass you're growing. Most people know with past palam
Speaker 3: that it is kind of disease pro depending on the
Speaker 3: weather patterns that you're getting. So yeah, sure that that
Speaker 3: could be a basic answer. But beyond that, you know,
Speaker 3: we have a pretty good climate year round. You know,
Speaker 3: we don't get frost, so I am without major major
Speaker 3: agronomic issue.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, that's pretty good. So I should have asked before
Speaker 1: generally where where in China is shan Chan Bay because
Speaker 1: as people know, a rather a large countryes.
Speaker 3: China is a big place. We are on Hainan Island,
Speaker 3: so Heinan Island is a little island just off the
Speaker 3: south coast of China. It's in that little corner the
Speaker 3: Gulf of Tonkin with with Vietnam or Vietnam just to
Speaker 3: its west, so we it's kind of colloquially known amongst
Speaker 3: Westerners as the Hawaii of China. It gets, you know,
Speaker 3: good weather. It's not the stereotypical you know, people have
Speaker 3: negative connotations when they envisage China in their mind's eye
Speaker 3: of gray skies, factories, lots of concrete. But I'm not
Speaker 3: saying that's true or false, but in finance case, it
Speaker 3: certainly isn't. It's a lot of greenery. It's as tropical
Speaker 3: as you can possibly get in China, is.
Speaker 1: It kind of a vacation spot for Chinese people. Is
Speaker 1: this a place that they go the way that you know,
Speaker 1: say a lot of Americans go to Hawaii to get away.
Speaker 3: Yes. Absolutely, there's a lot of domestic tourism that comes
Speaker 3: onto the island, especially during the winter months when you know,
Speaker 3: the northern the northern cities are much colder, whether it's
Speaker 3: just to escape the cold or you know, for winter golf.
Speaker 3: A lot of our members, you know, will play all
Speaker 3: their golf down here in the winter months when they're
Speaker 3: you know, there are other other courses are frozen over
Speaker 3: in the north.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay, who does your crew consist of? Like where
Speaker 1: where do you draw from? And what are the I
Speaker 1: would assume there are various nationalities making up your crew.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, we're extremely homogeneous. It's really men and
Speaker 3: women from the local village. And that's wow, pretty much
Speaker 3: it without exception, you know, a few staff from a
Speaker 3: bit further afield within Hainan and China as a whole.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I am on the agronomy team, I am
Speaker 3: the superintendent, the one foreigner, and everyone else is from here.
Speaker 1: So you're the one Westerner. In terms of languages spoken,
Speaker 1: I guess you've probably learned how to speak a few
Speaker 1: languages in your time and in Asia or is there
Speaker 1: kind of a Lingua Franco with with English among these?
Speaker 3: Not so much. I mean I've become quite good at
Speaker 3: golf course language, as in I can you know, speak
Speaker 3: golf course, French, golf course, Cantonese golf course, Vietnamese and
Speaker 3: now picking up golf course Mandarin. If you put me
Speaker 3: in a restaurant and ask me to read a menu,
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm exposed as an idiot pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you learn through the is you know, to
Speaker 3: be very direct with your communication, which doesn't come across
Speaker 3: as route. So you have to get over that because
Speaker 3: if you're not direct, then there's misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: Sure, right, So you know people who come to work
Speaker 1: for you, do you see them kind of going on
Speaker 1: to turf careers elsewhere? Is there kind of a developmental
Speaker 1: pipeline coming through shan Chen? Because I think this is
Speaker 1: a this will be a good turf job. I mean
Speaker 1: that what a what a great course, and you know,
Speaker 1: what a what a chance to kind of advance in agronomy.
Speaker 3: I guess here not so much. I think because just
Speaker 3: simply because of our location within Hainan Island, with you know,
Speaker 3: fairly remote. And I don't want to sound ridiculous in
Speaker 3: saying this, but it's nothing we do is too advanced
Speaker 3: and it can all be done by local people with training.
Speaker 3: And I mean, frankly, a lot of people see it
Speaker 3: as a job to work on a golf course and
Speaker 3: not a not a career, so they're very happy to
Speaker 3: come to work, drive the tractor, do some spraying whatever
Speaker 3: whatever and return home. So whereas you know, other places
Speaker 3: do serve more as a springboard or you know, a
Speaker 3: stepping stone in people's careers.
Speaker 1: What I mean, what an interesting job you have. Just
Speaker 1: I'm sort of fascinated by the details, as you can tell.
Speaker 1: But you are. You are way out there and very
Speaker 1: far from far from home for sure.
Speaker 3: But sorry, it's not I don't find it. It's not
Speaker 3: like being an expat at a logging farm in the
Speaker 3: Congo one hundred years ago. You know, you can live
Speaker 3: very very comfortably. And yeah, sure maybe if you transition
Speaker 3: from you know, living your life in Toledo or something
Speaker 3: and you came directly to hear you would find the
Speaker 3: transition very difficult. But you know, I started in Asia
Speaker 3: in Hong Kong, which is kind of a very gentle
Speaker 3: way of being introduced to Asia, and you get used
Speaker 3: to any cultural differences, cultural changes, and over time you
Speaker 3: kind of get introduced to the hardest stuff, let's say
Speaker 3: of Vietnam and now China. Just it's a I'm not
Speaker 3: here to carry water for any government, but it's a
Speaker 3: fantastic place to live well.
Speaker 1: And one distinction between Hainan Island and say Hawaii is
Speaker 1: that there are some pretty big cities on the island
Speaker 1: out there right there. There's quite a few people living
Speaker 1: in this location. It's not it doesn't strike me as
Speaker 1: being remote in the sense that, like Fijis wrote, right.
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all. You can you know, you
Speaker 3: go up to Haiko within an hour, and then you
Speaker 3: can fly to Hong Kong, fly to Bangkok. So yeah,
Speaker 3: like I said, I don't see this as a hardship post.
Speaker 3: It's very comfortable.
Speaker 1: All right. So maybe we could chat a bit about
Speaker 1: the golf course industry in Asia. You have some broad
Speaker 1: experience in Hong Kong, Vietnam, in China. Vietnam seems to
Speaker 1: be one of the few places that's really booming and
Speaker 1: has been for a while. In terms of golf course development,
Speaker 1: it's not something that a lot of Western golfers know
Speaker 1: a lot about. I don't think like what the golf
Speaker 1: course construction industry is like in Vietnam. Why do you
Speaker 1: think it is? It is such a healthy and growing
Speaker 1: industry there in Vietnam.
Speaker 3: A few things, so I think as a whole, Vietnam
Speaker 3: has really come onto the map in terms of tourism
Speaker 3: in the last let's say ten years. In terms of golf,
Speaker 3: I would say most of the golf in Asia is
Speaker 3: quite exclusive, quite private. If you look at China, Japan, Korea,
Speaker 3: the vast majority of golf is either extremely expensive prohibitively so,
Speaker 3: or it's private. And so Vietnam and Thailand, and let's
Speaker 3: say Malaysia as well, maybe Indonesia to some extent can
Speaker 3: serve as a very good getaway for a lot of
Speaker 3: other Asian countries. You can fly to let's say Danang,
Speaker 3: have it two or three days of golf, and fly
Speaker 3: back to Korea, let's say, and you can do that
Speaker 3: for less money than it would cost you to play
Speaker 3: once at a course outside of Seoul.
Speaker 1: Gotcha? Okay? So what are some what are some other
Speaker 1: interesting places and golf courses that you've been to in
Speaker 1: the in the general region, whether Vietnam or elsewhere.
Speaker 3: If we've got to cover Asia as a whole, my yeah,
Speaker 3: my personal favorite. I can tell you the brief story
Speaker 3: of how I found it. I was on a I
Speaker 3: went to Nepal on a little hiking holiday on my
Speaker 3: own a few years ago, and I'd done my hike
Speaker 3: around the mountains and I was in the town of
Speaker 3: Pakara and quite literally, a postcard in a shop window
Speaker 3: said him Alayan golf Course. And I thought, well, I've
Speaker 3: got a day to spare. I like golf. I might
Speaker 3: as well go and check this out. It would be
Speaker 3: interesting to, you know, play golf over here. Had no expectation,
Speaker 3: and so I turned up and there's this golf course
Speaker 3: inside a ravine. There's this giant waterfall, looked like something
Speaker 3: out out of the you know, Journey to the Center
Speaker 3: of the Earth. There was sheep, there was a newborn
Speaker 3: baby goat near the first tee, which it was just
Speaker 3: this mythical place. The mist was lifting out the ravine
Speaker 3: as the sun came up and heated, you know, heated
Speaker 3: the air. And on top of all that, it's it's
Speaker 3: a sublime golf course that is entirely unique. There was
Speaker 3: a there was a visitor book next to the next
Speaker 3: to the little Starter's hut, and Tom Doak had been
Speaker 3: a guest there, I don't know, six months prior, and
Speaker 3: his jokey little comment was that it was an eleven
Speaker 3: on the Doak scale. So I think his his word
Speaker 3: takes a bit more weight than mine. So take it
Speaker 3: from him that it's an exceptional place.
Speaker 1: What makes the golf course so impressive? I mean, it's
Speaker 1: in this massive canyon right next to rivers.
Speaker 3: This river running through it, which is just kind of
Speaker 3: white rapids. You're playing over it, along it down from
Speaker 3: the cliff edge, over the cliff edges. It is, it is.
Speaker 3: It's a very If a golf course can be a drug,
Speaker 3: it's an extremely strong drug that you know makes you
Speaker 3: makes your eyeballs widen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting. Do you have any information about how that
Speaker 1: golf course was built? I mean, I've just seen a
Speaker 1: few pictures and I'm kind of stunned that it even
Speaker 1: exists there.
Speaker 3: It is one of I think I know his name,
Speaker 3: Major gurung So in an ex Nepalese army. Uh well,
Speaker 3: Major obviously well owned the land. I probably should have researched.
Speaker 3: They should. So, yeah, he developed the golf course over
Speaker 3: over a number of years. That's as best as I
Speaker 3: can provide.
Speaker 1: I mean, hey, that that that sounds right to me.
Speaker 1: It's not. It wasn't Tom Doak out there designing, designing
Speaker 1: the holes. So but yeah, what in what an interesting place?
Speaker 1: So I understand that you've also seen gil Hans's effort
Speaker 1: at the Leado in Thailand, and I was curious about
Speaker 1: your reactions to that. Not not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: you know, Western media have gotten out to see that
Speaker 1: golf course, but of course a lot of us have
Speaker 1: been to the Lido in Wisconsin. It just so happened
Speaker 1: that gil Hans was building a similar concept around the
Speaker 1: same time near Bangkok. You've been out to see this,
Speaker 1: What were your impressions there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think obviously the Leado that was built in
Speaker 3: Wisconsin kind of stole the thunder, and perhaps it's a
Speaker 3: larger scale than the one in Bangkok. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: think Aledo style golf course on a flat piece of
Speaker 3: land is by and large going to be the best
Speaker 3: possible use of that land. So to play these template
Speaker 3: holes and especially with firm turf. A lot of Asia.
Speaker 3: Anyone who's kind of played in Asia may agree that
Speaker 3: predominantly the conditions can be a bit softer than what
Speaker 3: a purist would like. My experience at Ballysheer was the
Speaker 3: complete opposite of that. I've never played on such firm
Speaker 3: and bouncy turf in Asia, which really adds to the experience,
Speaker 3: you know, of playing such a golf course.
Speaker 1: Now, they built this golf course kind of my understanding
Speaker 1: is in sort of a floodplain slight type area, or
Speaker 1: even like a low lying kind of area. Is am
Speaker 1: I right about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean the entirety of Bangkok is a pretty
Speaker 3: flat place.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so it's impressive that they've gotten it to
Speaker 1: be firm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean that again, I've been there once.
Speaker 3: I've played it once. Maybe I was there on a
Speaker 3: good day. Who knows what it's like after it's you know,
Speaker 3: been through a wet spell. So I can only speak
Speaker 3: to the one time. But if they can have it
Speaker 3: that firm and that fast, I mean, what a fantastic
Speaker 3: place to play golf. And whether whether it's accepted by
Speaker 3: the people that play it, you know, it's a dramatic
Speaker 3: departure I think from what golf predominantly is across Asia,
Speaker 3: which is green, you know, nice white bunkers, you know,
Speaker 3: the stereotype. So it is a departure from that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there is kind of an image of
Speaker 1: Asian golf courses that I have, and it's such a
Speaker 1: broad category that it's probably not right to make generalizations
Speaker 1: about Asian golf courses. Right, this is this is a massive,
Speaker 1: massive array of courses. But you know, in general, what
Speaker 1: we're looking at, and you know, specifically maybe even the
Speaker 1: developments in Vietnam that are going in the new courses
Speaker 1: in Vietnam there does seem to be kind of a
Speaker 1: general style and you know what I would characterize as
Speaker 1: kind of resort golf, right the bright white sand, the
Speaker 1: bright green turf and everything kind of luxurious. Have you
Speaker 1: seen the potential for like a counter trend I guess
Speaker 1: that goes against that or does there exist kind of
Speaker 1: an alternative to that type of golf in many places
Speaker 1: that you've been.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there are certainly, Let's take Vietnam as
Speaker 3: an example, there are certainly golf courses there that are
Speaker 3: exceptions to that rule. So Dunang Golf Club, which is
Speaker 3: a Norman course where Harley Cruz was the main kind
Speaker 3: of on site architect during the construction. That's a very
Speaker 3: sand belt esque design, which was one of you know
Speaker 3: the earlier golf courses twenty ten ish I think in Vietnam.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that is surprisingly kind of rugged in terms
Speaker 3: of in its departure from you know, the green stripee
Speaker 3: stuff that you might see elsewhere. Joyana just down the road,
Speaker 3: the Robert Trent Jones course is very similar because it's
Speaker 3: on you know, sand, They brought a lot of sand
Speaker 3: in for that project. The scale is massive, so that
Speaker 3: that is different as well. And then the Norman core
Speaker 3: in the in the south, the bluffs Ho Tram Again
Speaker 3: it's dramatic, it's sandy, there's waste areas. It's not your
Speaker 3: kind of pond with a fountain style that that does
Speaker 3: exist in a lot of Asia. But I think it's
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be right to paint with too broad of
Speaker 3: a brush and saying that too many golf courses in
Speaker 3: Asia are of a forgettable style that isn't appealing to
Speaker 3: a purist.
Speaker 1: So getting back to Shaunchon Bay where you're working, you know,
Speaker 1: just in terms of your your day to day job
Speaker 1: and what you're trying to accomplish out there with the turf,
Speaker 1: with the golf course. What excites you right now about
Speaker 1: your work, Like, what are what are you really trying
Speaker 1: to do to take that course to the next level.
Speaker 3: I mean, the most basic crowd pleaser is is always
Speaker 3: green speed, regardless of club. You know, we're not trying
Speaker 3: to be silly, but there's an expectation of a good
Speaker 3: speed so that the you know, the character and the
Speaker 3: life of the greens is properly expressed, and that in
Speaker 3: a you know, past partement can be a little bit
Speaker 3: challenging at times, depending on the weather. But just getting
Speaker 3: on top of that, I'd say that's, you know, predominantly
Speaker 3: why I'm here. Ensuring that the course place is intended.
Speaker 3: The the jungle here which surrounds the entire course, I
Speaker 3: call it jungle, but that's kind of what it is.
Speaker 3: Ensuring sightlines are maintained, kind of curated. Natural is again
Speaker 3: not a not a very poetic phrase, but unless we
Speaker 3: manage the jungle, it will eat the golf course. But
Speaker 3: if we manage it too much, then it doesn't look natural.
Speaker 3: So it's keeping that balance between the between the two extremes.
Speaker 3: And then look the golf course here. It was built.
Speaker 3: Bill core only agreed to be the architect, and he
Speaker 3: spent one hundred and fifty six days on site here,
Speaker 3: by the way, which is I think a pretty extreme
Speaker 3: number of days given how far away he was from home.
Speaker 3: So he worked with landscapes unlimited to construct the course
Speaker 3: forward construction and so this place was really built exceptionally well.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: Maintaining that infrastructure that is here is of high or
Speaker 3: critical importance. And yeah, just ensuring good presentation. I'm not
Speaker 3: here to most golf courses in Asia, let's say, are
Speaker 3: a six out of ten, and we're not here to
Speaker 3: be a six out of ten. And yeah, that's a
Speaker 3: very simple way of saying that's why I'm here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, little a little bit of pressure. You mentioned, uh
Speaker 1: past palum right, which I have a vague understanding that
Speaker 1: this kind of turf has a has a varied reputation.
Speaker 1: Tell me about like maintaining this kind of turf, like
Speaker 1: what it takes to present it really well?
Speaker 3: Sure with I mean we all we certainly strive to
Speaker 3: have firm and bouncy conditions. But with past palum. I
Speaker 3: think it's more of a binary between it can be
Speaker 3: too wet and it can be too dry, and finding
Speaker 3: that balance is very difficult. You, of course, you don't
Speaker 3: want it to be too wet because then it plays
Speaker 3: too soft. But if you let it get too dry,
Speaker 3: it kind of falls on its face, wilts and dies.
Speaker 3: So getting that balance is takes a lot of attention,
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, moisture readings, daily measurements, being
Speaker 3: on top of irrigation practices, making sure staff understand why
Speaker 3: they're watering, how they're watering in order to get the
Speaker 3: best bang for their buck that way. Yeah, just keeping
Speaker 3: organic matter low in order to make sure that surface
Speaker 3: layer of soil is not too soft.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay, So you know, just kind of wrapping up here.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much you how much you know
Speaker 1: about about what you want to do next. But do
Speaker 1: you have any any plans or desires or no matter
Speaker 1: how distant, to eventually get back to the UK, or
Speaker 1: do you feel like you've you've put down roots where
Speaker 1: you are and you're going to keep going.
Speaker 3: I have nothing against the UK, but I'm I'm seeing
Speaker 3: more opportunity elsewhere at the moment. Frankly, and this is
Speaker 3: a large topic, maybe a hot topic, but what course
Speaker 3: managers head green keepers in the UK are paid, I
Speaker 3: think is unattractive to a lot of people in America,
Speaker 3: in the rest of the world, it's I think it
Speaker 3: certainly needs to increase in order to attract outside talent.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, maybe leaning into the controversial topic a bit,
Speaker 1: this is something that I've I've gotten some kind of
Speaker 1: understanding of as I've gotten to know superintendents, but it
Speaker 1: seems like almost there's a different view of superintendents, or
Speaker 1: as it's put in the UK course managers, you know,
Speaker 1: as though it's a it's just a different kind of
Speaker 1: position there, at least in the way that it's perceived.
Speaker 1: Have you Have you gotten that sense too.
Speaker 3: I think it varies club to club, But I mean,
Speaker 3: just to give some numbers as examples, I don't know
Speaker 3: what the average crew size in the US is, but
Speaker 3: in Asia, you know, I've got forty staff on my
Speaker 3: in my department. Here in Vietnam for third six holes,
Speaker 3: i had over one hundred staff, including hotel and some
Speaker 3: other stuff. So you know, there is that compared to UK,
Speaker 3: where the crew sizes are much smaller. Yeah, us is
Speaker 3: it what fifteen twenty twenty five on a crew, So
Speaker 3: you know, the I think the budgets that are managed
Speaker 3: are a lot larger, and so whether the salary is
Speaker 3: kind of increases with not not directly and proportionally with
Speaker 3: crew size, the or the overall budget. But I think
Speaker 3: that that could be a part. But then you look
Speaker 3: at the whole kind of picture of the economy in
Speaker 3: Britain and wages or salaries in Britain are just like
Speaker 3: the rest of Europe, a lot lower compared to the US.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's an interesting thing. But
Speaker 1: you know, you would think that it would be an
Speaker 1: enormously attractive job to manage a links course, but there
Speaker 1: are there are some I guess, sort of drawbacks there.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you when you think about turf
Speaker 1: students coming up, I guess what would be your what
Speaker 1: would be your argument for them to look at opportunities
Speaker 1: an agent, look for an internship.
Speaker 3: But like you did, I think you can help you
Speaker 3: stand out. You know, I think a lot of turf
Speaker 3: students go through the Ohio State program, which by all
Speaker 3: accounts is a fantastic program. You can work at some
Speaker 3: of the top clubs. You get to go to multiple clubs,
Speaker 3: you go to Wealth of Experience, they provide extra education.
Speaker 3: I America is a great place I love to visit,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of for the rest of the
Speaker 3: world that I think is as good, better, you know,
Speaker 3: more interesting. Perhaps so you can stand out by you know,
Speaker 3: being a little bit more adventurous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well, John, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the podcast. This is really interesting and best
Speaker 1: of luck there in shan Chin Bay.
Speaker 3: Garet, thanks for having me. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: This episode of the Fridagg Golf Podcast was produced by
Speaker 1: PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you're enjoying the content
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