WEBVTT - The Original Augusta National (feat. Brian Schneider and Josh Pettit) 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.800 The original Augusta National. The Augusta National that Alistair McKenzie 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:08.920 and Bobby Jones built in nineteen thirty two was, in 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:13.320 my opinion, one of the strangest and most interesting courses 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.480 ever designed. So let's talk all about it. I'm Garrett Morrison, 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:27.520 and this is designing golf, all right. Today's big question, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.400 what's with all the template holes at Augusta National. I'm 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.199 not sure if this is common knowledge, but a lot 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.800 of holes at Augusta were based in part on some 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.800 of the most famous holes in golf. And we know 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.479 this because Alistair McKenzie wrote about it in an article 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.800 called Plans for the Ideal Golf Course published in nineteen 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:53.800 thirty two. He described all eighteen holes at Augusta, and 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.000 many of them, it turns out, were inspired by some 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.720 of his and his co designer Bobby Jones's favorite holes, 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.160 including several holes from the old course at Saint Andrew's, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.640 which both he and Jones revered. In fact, their intention 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.480 at Augusta was to create a kind of inland American 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.200 version of the old course. Now a lot of these 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:22.160 influences are still detectable at Augusta, but it does take 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.840 a bit of effort because the course has changed a 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.120 great deal over time. The original iteration of the course 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.559 was much wider and less tried. It had only twenty 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.119 two bunkers, many of which were very large and intricate. 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:44.160 The greens had these chaotic shapes with strange little tongues 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.640 kind of jutting out in different directions. There was more 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:52.920 artificial mounding throughout the course. The seventh, tenth, and sixteenth 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:58.520 greens were completely different, located completely differently, and the sixteenth 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:03.040 hole in particular was just a different hole altogether. And 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:08.000 overall the course was just more rugged in appearance and 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:13.079 eccentric in its design ethos. Which is not to say 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.600 that Augusta National was better originally than it is now. 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.360 It was just different and probably more in tune with 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.720 the principles that Alistair Mackenzie outlined in that nineteen thirty 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.400 two article that I mentioned. So to understand the original 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.280 architecture at Augusta National, I think you have to know 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.280 a little about those so called template holes, and to 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.000 help with that, I'm going to bring on Josh Pettitt. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.880 Josh is a golf architect, but more important for our purposes, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.119 the founder of the Alistair Mackenzie Institute. And the first 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.920 thing Josh told me about the template hole issue is 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.840 that mackenzie and Jones really weren't trying to do template 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.880 holes in the way that we normally think of them. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.239 They both revered the old Course as the paramount example 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.000 of the greatest golf course, and they were trying to 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.840 take inspiration from many of these holes. They specifically were 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.600 not trying to copy them. And McKenzie goes out of 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.840 his way to write about that a lot. You know, 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:19.440 some people were sort of claiming they were building a 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.800 golf course that was just a copy, you know, a 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.200 bunch of holes that were copies of great holes, and 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.640 you know, he didn't like that characterization. So, you know, 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.560 it's important to understand that he was really trying to 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.280 take the ideas, the concepts, the strategic concepts of those 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.160 holes and then apply them on a different landscape and 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.560 create like a new version of them, so much so 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.040 that he hoped, you know, he thought when they were done, 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.920 they'd done such a great job that that collection of 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.680 holes would then go on to inspire future architects to 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:50.240 do a similar kind of process. 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.360 So the first of these kind of remixed templates that 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.560 I want to talk about is the fourth hole. 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.080 The fourth hole that that part three. 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.080 You know, it's like a mid length Part three, and 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.560 it's modeled after the eleventh at St. Andrews, the Eden 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:09.000 and I think many in that era would consider the. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.240 Eden is the greatest short hole in the world. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.240 So, yeah, you know that that green, it's it's flanked 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.760 by those two bunkers in the front, you know, similar 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.640 to the eleventh at Shane Andrews that has you know, 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:22.120 the hill bunker on the left and the strath on 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.280 the right, and you know, you just don't want to 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.359 miss long. If you're gonna miss, you're gonna miss short 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.920 in the middle sort of in that bowl there. 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:31.640 But you do not want to go long. 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.719 If you go long on the fourth hole, you might 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.640 not be able to stop your chip or putt before 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.240 it runs off the front of the green. And that 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.760 is definitely a feature of the Eden hole at St. Andrews. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.200 It's kind of a strategic game of distance control. You 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.360 have these threatening bunkers toward the front of the green, 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.240 but if you're too scared of them and you go long, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:59.640 you'll find yourself in an even worse position. Obviously, one 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.720 thing that the fourth hole at Augusta National doesn't have 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:08.760 is the eden estuary framing the green. There was a 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.400 road pretty close behind the fourth Green, originally Berkman's Road, 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.600 but it was rerouted when the club lengthened the par 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.640 for fifth hole in the late twenty tens. Now, speaking 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.680 of the fifth hole, it was actually inspired by an 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.880 even more famous hole at St. Andrews, the Road Hole. 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:30.200 So going back to this idea that they were trying 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.080 to not copy these holes, one of the reasons why sites, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.039 you know, it's sort of a fool's errand to try 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.160 to copy these holes, is because the visuals, the surrounding 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.160 landscape is going to be completely different. And so yeah, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:46.120 the example of St. Andrews, you have the eaton estuary, 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.479 but I guess Nationally you don't. So that's why you 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.120 don't want to like directly copy these holes verbatim. But 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.599 in the case of the fifth hole, the road hole, 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.719 it's again it's just taking the strategy and then in 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.880 this case it's mirroring, it's sort of reversing it off 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.920 the tee. So you know, the road hole you play 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.680 out to the left and the dog leagus to the right, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:09.839 and you're trying to carry over the old course hotel 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.640 as close as you can to set up your angle 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:15.119 of approaching the green. 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.920 The fifth that Augusta is the exact opposite. 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.640 It's a slight dog leg left, it's not as severe, 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:23.960 and the corner of the dog leg is made up 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.440 by what was just one big bunker. Now there's two 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:32.320 bunkers there and you know, some trees and so in 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.520 that case you want to play to the right to 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.840 carry that as much as you can to then open 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:39.320 up your approach into the green there. 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.960 Now the green itself there's no road bunker. Are there 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.800 any similarities between the fifth green at Augusta National and 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:48.960 the and the road green? 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.679 Yeah, I mean I think at first site, at first glance, 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:54.599 you would say not really. 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.440 But it is kind of on a plateau. That's sort 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:58.040 of what he says. 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.800 It's sort of, you know, sort of raises up to 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.800 the sort of plateau green similar to that green, but 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.440 the green itself is very very different green, yet it 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.640 doesn't have the road hole bunker there. So this is 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.000 I think another another example of where he was just 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.640 trying to take some of these ideas and apply them 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:20.200 onto a very different landscape, and then the result would 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:24.080 be like a very new end product that was like 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.360 not you know, you would see some resemblance, but also 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.640 had a lot of unique characteristic extended of itself. So 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.320 he was trying to take certain ideas and not copying everything. 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.840 So sometimes it was more like the t shot. Other 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.800 times it was more the way the green played, but 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.000 he wasn't trying to copy the whole from tea to 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.080 green and replicate that in any way. 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.040 Finally, to round out this kind of three hole stretch 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:52.200 of very well known templates or semi templates, the par 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.160 three sixth hole at Augusta National was, according to Mackenzie, 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:01.280 inspired by the Redan at North Barrackle Club in Scotland. 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:03.240 The green is set up in a way where it 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.080 allows you to feed a ball from the front right 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:07.600 of the green to the back left of the green 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.000 if there's a pin there, because there's a bunker in 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.240 the front left that's sort of guarding that. So there's 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.080 this kind of massive mounds sort of a buried elephant 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.760 sort of in the back right of the green, and 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.760 that mound if you kind of hit right into it 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.680 with your you know, probably like a mid iron in 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.600 those days, maybe a long iron for some people, and 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.440 you know, the ground was firm. It was sort of 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.440 feed the ball back left to a pin right there, 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.199 and that in a way, you know, that functions similarly 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.400 to how the Redan functions. He does say he kind 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:42.760 of like brags a little bit, and he says like, 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.199 they didn't necessarily build a better version of the Red Dan, 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.280 but they built a more beautiful, more attractive version just 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.840 because of the surroundings and the visuals and the esthetic 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:53.439 of the bunker. 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.760 And he really liked visually the way that hole looked. 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.840 So Augusta National originally had these re interpreted versions of 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.240 the Eden, the Road and the Radan four, five, and six, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.520 but the references to old links courses at Augusta just 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:16.360 kept going from there. The original seventh hole had a 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.839 swale in front of its green that was inspired by 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.920 the Valley of sin On the eighteenth hole at Saint Andrew's, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:26.439 and then the eighth green with those big mounds surrounding 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.559 it was influenced by the punch Bowl seventeenth Green. Mierfield, 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.680 I won't go through every illusion that Augusta National makes 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.880 to other courses, but suffice it to say that there 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.640 are a lot of them, and if you're interested, I'd 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.480 recommend reading Mackenzie's article Plans for the Ideal Golf Course. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.040 It's really interesting and informative, and you can find a 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:52.760 great reprinting of it on Josh's website, which is alistairmackenzie 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.400 dot org. But before we wrap up, there is a 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:02.120 broader question for me here about Alistair McKenzie and what 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.480 he was up to when he was helping Bobby Jones 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.200 design Augusta National in the early thirties. Why do you 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:13.959 think he was interested in incorporating influences in this way 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.880 at this point in his architectural career. 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:19.880 There's a couple of reasons. I think. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.040 First of all, it was so much to do with 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.040 the fact that he was starting to get sites that 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.760 weren't very good sites. Now, not to say that the 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:30.560 site of Augusta wasn't a good site, but it was 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.720 a severe site to build on. 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.240 It wasn't links Land, let's say. 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:42.080 And coming out of his time in South America, where 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.400 he spent a good amount of time in nineteen thirty 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.680 in Argentina and in Uruguay, a lot of those courses 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.480 that he designed, some of which didn't get built. 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:53.679 He was using this idea of all these templates. 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.679 He was referencing these all basically his favorite holes, his 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:00.360 inspiration because he was working on sites where he had 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.680 in some cases zero features to work with and. 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.440 He would have to manufacture everything from nothing. 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:09.640 And then when he got to Augusta, he had been toiling, 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.640 you know, he'd been toying with those ideas for a 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:17.760 couple of years. And then he and Bobby Jones, because 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.599 of their shared reverence of the old course that was 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:23.480 essentially what they were trying to create. They were trying 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.360 to create what they called the world's ideal inland course. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.800 They were trying to create like an inland version of 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:30.520 Saint Andrews. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.800 And so I think that gave. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:39.440 Him a creative license to pull from, you know, to 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:40.760 use those holes as inspiration. 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.640 Yeah, it's such an interesting evolution for him because Mackenzie 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.079 had spent so much of his career to that point 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:56.320 theorizing camouflage, theorizing ways to make courses look as though 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:00.559 they had not been constructed, that they had just been 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:05.400 sitting there all along, and not only theorizing that, but 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:10.000 practicing it and coming up with techniques to execute courses 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:16.040 that looked completely natural, and Cypress Point might be the 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.920 height of that. For him, that might be the best 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.920 that he had ever done in that regard. And it's 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.440 almost like after Cypress Point, or maybe after Pasa Tiempo 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.160 in nineteen twenty nine, he started thinking, Okay, well, what else. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.960 Is there as a great artist, which I think he was, 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.480 and he considered himself that he had that mentality of, 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.559 you know, like Bob Dylan would say, a great artist 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:40.800 has to be careful never to arrive. 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.920 They're always in a constant state of evolving. 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.319 And that gets to the heart of why I admire 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:52.560 Alistair Mackenzie's career so much. To the very end, he 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:59.439 was pushing and experimenting and trying to find new ways forward. Unfortunately, 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.200 he died in January nineteen thirty four, just a couple 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:07.679 of months before the first Augusta National Invitation tournament later 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:13.360 renamed the Masters, And I've always wondered what he would 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:17.560 have done next, because for him, Augusta National was the 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.439 beginning of something. It was the beginning of a new 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:25.080 design approach. And part of why I'd like looking back 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.080 at that first iteration of the golf course is that 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:34.400 it offers a glimpse of how creative and idiosyncratic Mackenzie's 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.360 late nineteen thirties designs might have been if he had 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.679 gotten to build them now. Fortunately, we do have plenty 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.920 of historical information about the original Augusta National, so today's 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.800 golf architects can continue to learn from that version of 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.720 the course and maybe build some of the stuff that 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.000 Mackenzie didn't get to. One current architect who has been 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.640 inspired by the early Augusta is Brian Schneider. Brian is 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.720 a longtime Tom dok associate and the co designer of 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.599 the Great Old Barnwell in South Carolina. Brian has a 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.959 lot of interesting projects coming up, including a solo design 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.239 at the Michael Kaiser Resort Old Shores in the Florida Panhandle, 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.080 and this new course, according to Kaiser himself, is going 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.600 to draw some inspiration from the Augusta National of the 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:27.360 nineteen thirties. So who better to elaborate on this topic 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.680 than Brian Schneider. But real quick before we jump to him. 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:37.400 The Friday Golf Pro Shop is ready for major season. Specifically, 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:42.360 our Mackenzie Bunker illustration drawn by our own Cameron Hurtis, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.720 is back, and you'll find it on b drafty favorites 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.360 like the Andy Hoodie and the Dewey Pocket T shirts, 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:53.840 as well as on various headcovers, hats, and much more. Plus, 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.280 Cameron has a new T shirt that shows this Mackenzie 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.040 Bunker illustration in a new light, so make sure to 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.800 check that out. You can see all of this at 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.920 pro shop dotthfrid Egg dot com. All right, let's go 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:16.680 to Brian Schneider. All right, Brian Schneider, welcome back to 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:18.360 the pod. Thank you for being here. 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:20.200 My pleasure, thank you for having me. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.680 So I want to start with what I think is 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.280 a really interesting part of your backstory, which is that 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.840 you worked maintenance at a bunch of great golf courses, 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:35.080 including Augusta National, earlier in your career. So could you 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.040 give me the background for that, Like what made you 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:39.520 decide to do that? 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.400 You know, it was relatively late in college for me. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.960 I graduated in nineteen ninety seven from the University of Wisconsin, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.360 and for most of my time in college I had 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.880 ideas about going to medical school and you know, kind 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.280 of getting into sports medicine or something along those lines. 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.880 And it was relatively late in my college career that 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:06.880 I decided to switch gears and get into golf some way. 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:12.200 I had an inkling that architecture interested me a bit, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:15.440 but I wasn't entirely aware that architecture was really a 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:16.560 thing that you could do for a living. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:18.040 You know. 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:19.840 I was aware of certain architects at the time, and 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.960 Pete Die had recently designed the original version of Black 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.160 Wolf Run in Wisconsin, which made a big splash, so 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:29.600 his was a name I was aware of, and I 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.880 traveled around a little bit, but you know, you know, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:33.960 the entirety of the golf i'd played to that point 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.440 in my life was in the state of Wisconsin and 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.920 not too far away from where I lived, so I 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:41.560 hadn't been exposed. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:42.120 To a lot of architecture. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.680 But when I decided that maybe doing something in golf 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:47.240 sounded cool, Black Wolf Runt. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:48.880 Was the first place I reached out to. 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.600 I'd played the golf course once or twice and thought 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.080 it was really cool and thought it'd be a neat 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.360 place to work. So I just sent a letter hate 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.360 Black Wolf Run, I'm looking for a job. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:01.440 Can you hire me to do anything? 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.440 And I don't know if they sent it around to 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.160 various department heads. But the person I heard back from 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.360 was a fellow named Steve Kurda, who was the superintendent 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.359 of the river course in nineteen ninety seven, and he 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.840 basically said, you know, that was spring of ninety seven. 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.960 You know, he said, y as we're opening up, we'll 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.920 certainly need some labor through the summer. If you want 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.160 to come over, we've got an intern house I could 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.520 put you in. So I started working there before I 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.359 finished school. I graduated in May or early June or 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.119 whatever it was, and I had been an athlete. I 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:40.280 was a wrestler in college and had always anticipated graduating 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.360 in four years. I broke my ankle my third year 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:47.640 in school, red shirted, which attacked another year of eligibility 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:49.720 on to the end of college. So I stuck around 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.520 for another year, and in order to remain eligible, I 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.160 kind of had to preserve a class that I needed 0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:59.199 to complete to graduate, and for me, that was I 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:00.280 think Biology on one. 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:02.359 So I was a. 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:06.080 Biochemistry and molecular biology major, and as you know, my 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.520 final semester of school, Biology one to one was the 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.919 class I had to complete. At that point, I was 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.159 pretty comfortable living in Sheboygen most of the time and 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.760 just going back to Madison for exams. So I started 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.360 working there. That was a long story. Started working at 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:26.000 Blackwolf run as fall was coming along in the end 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.439 of the season was creeping up. I decided that I 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.560 was going to send out resumes to another golf course 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:35.000 or several other golf coursesn't find somewhere to spend the 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.280 rest of the fall, and thought, well, this is really cool, 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.320 you know, like being on a golf course every day 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.000 is really neat. Well, I worked at Black Wulf from 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.920 the Straights course at Whistling Straits was under construction. I 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:46.360 got to spend a fair bit of time out there 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.800 seeing that happen, and it was that it's like, Okay, 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:50.760 building golf courses is neat. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:51.760 I want to do this. 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.920 By that point, I reached out to a handful of architects. 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.880 I talked to Tom Doak, I talked to Bill Corr. 0:18:58.920 --> 0:18:59.680 I believe. 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:02.960 I'd met a few other architects that had come through 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.119 Black Wolf while I was there, and for the most part, 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:07.560 especially Tom and Bill. You know, I asked for advice 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:11.480 and they they said, A, see as many golf courses 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.240 as you can, and b learn how to run equipment, 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.159 and I wasn't, you know, financially, I wasn't in a 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.040 place where I could just travel around and play golf. 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.680 I never had access to private clubs, so I thought, 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:25.600 you know, one of the things I learned quickly at 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.280 black Wolf Run was that superintendents are really generous about 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.240 sharing their golf courses with people in that business and 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.560 people have an interest. So through that, I realized, I 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.639 can see golf courses this way. If I work for 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.720 superintendents and work at cool places, that will open some 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.159 doors for me to study other golf courses. So the 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.800 three letters I sent out went to Pine Valley, Crystal Downs, 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.360 and the sand Hills, and the first superintendent to get 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.040 back to me was Corey Crandall at the sand Hills 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:53.879 and said, you know, we're getting late in the summer. 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:55.640 We shut down in October. 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:56.880 If you want to come out for a few months 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:58.680 and help us get ready for winter, that'd be great. 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:00.440 We could use the help. So I went on there for. 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.800 Two months until they shut down, and just something clicked 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:06.560 at that point, like Okay, I'm going to keep doing this. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:08.119 And while I was at the sand Hills, I went 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.000 to Prairie Dunes and saw some of the other golf 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.000 courses out that way, which is not easy to do 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:15.880 from the sand hills. And that was before a lot 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.080 of the golf courses in Nebraska existed that people rave 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.600 about today. But that was my way of seeing a 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.879 lot of golf courses. So from there I went to 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.240 Scottsdale for the winter, and then on to Riviera, where 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.640 I worked for a legendary golf course superintendent named Paul 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.679 Latshaw who had worked at Augusta National, and Oakamont and 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:38.640 Congressional and a bunch of other places along the way 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.119 and hosted a bunch of US opens and the handful 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.399 of masters. And his son was the superintendent of Marion 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.000 at the time, So one side worked for mister Latchaw Riviera. 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:50.880 That opened a lot of doors. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.520 Starting first with his working for his son Paul at Marion, 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:57.920 and then from Marion I went on to. 0:20:59.520 --> 0:20:59.960 Shinnecock. 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.240 From Shinnacok, I went to Augusta, and I would later 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.880 work at Pine Valley and the Old Course for a bit. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.240 But the Augusta stint was, you know, obviously unique one. 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.040 They were all great opportunities, but Augusta, obviously it was 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:15.640 a really exciting. You know, that was the first one 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.680 they actually had me fly down for an interview and 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.280 they kind of pee in a cup and give them 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.240 my criminal history and whatever else. It was an interview 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:27.639 unlike anything else. You know, just coming down to make 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:29.520 seven bucks an hour? Do I really have to do? 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.359 I really have to buy a two hundred and fifty 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.600 dollars flight? Yeah, because you know I wasn't you know, 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:37.119 I think I made a minimum wage or just above 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:39.640 that for most of that time, and I literally lived 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.520 out of my you know, my meercury cougar for most 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.879 of that time, which was great. I could play a 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.080 bunch of free golf at some really cool place. Doesn't 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.399 get access to study as many golf courses as I 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:53.119 could see. But my idea was, you know, I'm just 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:54.960 going to travel around. I'll get a job somewhere for 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.399 three to six months, be able to study that golf 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.160