Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is brought to you by visit Milwaukee. Wisconsin
Speaker 1: is home to some of America's best public access golf,
Speaker 1: most of which is a short drive from Milwaukee Center.
Speaker 1: Your summer travel plans around coming to the Brew City.
Speaker 1: You can enjoy courses designed by the late great Pete Die,
Speaker 1: Langford and Moreau, Core and Crenshaw, David McClay, kid and
Speaker 1: many more, all within a reasonable drive from the city center.
Speaker 1: The trip around the city, stay in the city. It's
Speaker 1: a great spot to stay, and you know it gives
Speaker 1: you a lot of options at night beyond golf. The
Speaker 1: best part about staying in Milwaukee is those options and
Speaker 1: getting to indulge in the amazing food and beer scene.
Speaker 1: The city is immensely walkable and filled with great craft
Speaker 1: breweries and James Beard Award winning restaurants. Go to visit
Speaker 1: Milwaukee dot com slash golf for more information about how
Speaker 1: to make the most of your trip. We are back
Speaker 1: with an episode about a golf course that's less than
Speaker 1: an hour from Milwaukee, the nine hole Eagle Springs Golf Resort.
Speaker 1: It's an Eagle, Wisconsin. This course is the oldest course
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin and amazingly has been owned by the same
Speaker 1: family since its exception in eighteen ninety three. We speak
Speaker 1: with its current owner, Mike Bolan, about the history of
Speaker 1: the course and what is like to own a course today.
Speaker 1: I'm sure this will come out in the podcast, but
Speaker 1: Eagle Springs is worth the trip and stop. It's a
Speaker 1: nine hole course, so you can get around it quick
Speaker 1: and add it easily to a golf trip up in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend going. It has some unbelievable golf holes
Speaker 1: that you literally can see nowhere else, in the sense
Speaker 1: that you know that every course has holes that you
Speaker 1: can't see anywhere else, but these are holes that will
Speaker 1: make your jaw drop. And it's really Its close to
Speaker 1: Aaron Hills in Lasonia. So add it on go see it.
Speaker 1: Support a local business, you know, kind of a one
Speaker 1: man band, as Mike reveals. So without further ado, here's
Speaker 1: Mike bowling.
Speaker 2: I miss a green for example, I'm already upset when
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a fried egg
Speaker 2: Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg.
Speaker 1: Frida egg Frida egg Brian egg Frida egg Bride egg Lie.
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off the the hump course.
Speaker 1: Where do you guys fall on? The oldest golf courses
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin?
Speaker 2: From my what I was always told is when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, and I'm sixty five now, was we
Speaker 2: were started in eighteen ninety three, which makes us the
Speaker 2: oldest one to scumby, I believe, say they're eighteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: They also claim to be the oldest golf course.
Speaker 1: They might say eighteen hole, right.
Speaker 2: We were eighteen holes too at one point.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I.
Speaker 2: Mean they may say eighteen but and I think somebody
Speaker 2: just asked me that I think Janesville was the oldest
Speaker 2: country club because there was This book is mostly his
Speaker 2: book is mostly about the country clubs because it's the WSGA.
Speaker 2: But he does mention us into Scumbia in his book.
Speaker 1: So it explained kind of how the course came about.
Speaker 1: And obviously your family's history here.
Speaker 2: Well, my family came from the west coast of Ireland
Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty six, and I guess it'd be my
Speaker 2: great great grandfather and he had three sons and they
Speaker 2: came here and they farmed to begin with. And then
Speaker 2: one of his sons decided to build a hotel in
Speaker 2: the golf course in eighteen ninety three. So at one
Speaker 2: point there was an eighteen hole golf course with a hotel.
Speaker 2: Kind of there's pictures with the little big old Randez
Speaker 2: was he was torn down, I think in the probably
Speaker 2: the thirties. His his one of his daughters died and
Speaker 2: he had a broken heart and tore a hotel down.
Speaker 2: But the golf course has remained, although it got shortened
Speaker 2: from eighteen holes to nine holes.
Speaker 1: When did that happen?
Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of a guess. The man who taught
Speaker 2: me how to chip was a Chicago had a Chicago
Speaker 2: an insurance agency, and he was a country club golfer
Speaker 2: like his brother. Took me to play at north Shore
Speaker 2: after they played the you know, so they were serious,
Speaker 2: serious golfers. After they played the US Amateur there. And
Speaker 2: he when he was a kid, they had a cabin
Speaker 2: here and he mowed greens and he probably would be
Speaker 2: he'd probably be around one hundred thirty or forty years
Speaker 2: older than I am. And so he said when he
Speaker 2: was a teenager. So if he was one hundred, say
Speaker 2: he was fifteen. That would have been eighty five years ago,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty. Yeah, so he he said that it was
Speaker 2: that the course some of the course went further south,
Speaker 2: so it goes from number one towards number three, goes
Speaker 2: from north to south, so it'd have been continuing going
Speaker 2: south past number three, and then they there was a
Speaker 2: he said, number four came out and dog leg had
Speaker 2: a hard dog leg up. He said, there was some
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of area between eight nine
Speaker 2: and one. He said, there was some back and forth holes.
Speaker 2: But there there's a false front on in the middle
Speaker 2: of that area, just like there is a number six,
Speaker 2: So probably was a green there, and there's probably a
Speaker 2: tea by the tea by the there's a little square or
Speaker 2: rectangular raised a foot raised tea, and by number eight,
Speaker 2: by the two trees on the top of the hill,
Speaker 2: and number five down about one hundred yards out, there's
Speaker 2: another one of those little te's, but I've never seen
Speaker 2: a picture of it. One of the guys that follows
Speaker 2: you brought up a like a nineteen thirties aerial and
Speaker 2: it wasn't on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've looked at that nineteen thirty seven area. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it doesn't have it looks like a nine hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, that's what I saw too.
Speaker 1: Could be great depression. Yeah, maybe maybe it's when it
Speaker 1: went out.
Speaker 2: I've seen pictures where to the left of number three
Speaker 2: they plowed at one time, so you know, maybe it
Speaker 2: was a much firmer, a much firmer surface. You could
Speaker 2: you could if you stand at number four tea now
Speaker 2: and it used to Now that's too overgrown, but used
Speaker 2: to be able to see. There was a definite lower
Speaker 2: brush area and higher tree area where the fairway must
Speaker 2: have gone down. And now everything's too tall you can't
Speaker 2: see it anymore.
Speaker 1: So you're your relatives built the golf course and then
Speaker 1: through all the way till twenty nineteen, it's remained under
Speaker 1: family ownership.
Speaker 2: Yes, they had a they had a I guess there's
Speaker 2: when you inherit property. There's a there's a there's tenants
Speaker 2: in common and a joint tenancy. And I think in
Speaker 2: tenants in common. So if you have say you have
Speaker 2: four siblings and your parents, your parent dies, your last
Speaker 2: parent dies, and they give each one of you their
Speaker 2: portion of the of the of the estate in a
Speaker 2: in a joint tenancy, if there's four partners in this.
Speaker 2: When one of them dies, their part goes back to
Speaker 2: the original the other three it doesn't go to their descendants.
Speaker 2: And so that's how this was set up. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons that kept coming back into this
Speaker 2: smaller group, and eventually eventually was my grandmother or my
Speaker 2: mother were the last two here. So and then it
Speaker 2: got and then the store and I, you know, and
Speaker 2: then I in the nineties, I bought my sister out.
Speaker 2: She wanted to leave and do something else. So so
Speaker 2: now I'm I'm the last one.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit. I think we've got
Speaker 1: obviously so many of our listeners, and I get lost
Speaker 1: of emouths from people about like owning a golf course
Speaker 1: and buying a golf course and owning a golf was
Speaker 1: it like running a family a family owned golf course
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: There's been different cycles. So if you were in the
Speaker 2: nineties and two thousands, it was your t sheet would
Speaker 2: be full all the time, you know, you didn't really
Speaker 2: In fact, at some point I didn't even take that many, honest,
Speaker 2: so I didn't want to. I didn't want to push
Speaker 2: my regulars away. And now you move to this time,
Speaker 2: and now it's like there's not many of that and
Speaker 2: everybody is going trying to do events because there's more
Speaker 2: money involved with it. There's probably more ancillary products you
Speaker 2: can sell. People are here for a longer period of
Speaker 2: time for food and beverage. That's kind of where it's
Speaker 2: gone to. Where you know, you you know, do you
Speaker 2: you know, used to be we'd have people from six
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning, five thirty, they'd be here now
Speaker 2: seven maybe you know it's and that's not that's sporadic.
Speaker 2: You know, so I'm always thinking about giving a special
Speaker 2: on a weekend on a Saturday to come early. I
Speaker 2: know it's probably not true. And you know, if you
Speaker 2: go closer, more populated areas, but you know, there's a
Speaker 2: you know, it seems like there's been because of this,
Speaker 2: the the lack of courses, there's been a you know,
Speaker 2: a stagnation in demand. So the price you can charge
Speaker 2: is stagnated.
Speaker 1: Also, have your how much have your price has changed?
Speaker 1: It's like say that early two.
Speaker 2: Thousands that I'd say that from the early two thousands,
Speaker 2: they may have let's see, well in the early two thousands,
Speaker 2: we might not have had carts either, so that's the difference.
Speaker 2: They probably went up. I would say fifty percent the
Speaker 2: green fee prices, and then people because this course is hilly,
Speaker 2: they do use it. There's a lot of cart usage,
Speaker 2: so I'd say maybe fifty percent from that time. But
Speaker 2: you know, you know, probably in the last five years,
Speaker 2: if you know, if it's a dollar and you know
Speaker 2: on a say, on a twenty dollars green fee, if
Speaker 2: it's a dollar, that's you know, that's probably what it's been.
Speaker 2: And for a long time, expenses were stagnan too, but
Speaker 2: now they you know, they go up. It's you know,
Speaker 2: I bought a used rough More for eighteen thousand dollars
Speaker 2: this year, you know it it uh, it retails a
Speaker 2: brand new it's like sixty thousand. You know, there's no way,
Speaker 2: of course, I'm not even sure how some of the
Speaker 2: bigger courses can afford to have because they are going
Speaker 2: to have multiples of this, you know, or I only
Speaker 2: have one of these. So from that standpoint, you know
Speaker 2: that you know that that's made it a little tough.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a time I wanted to expand
Speaker 2: to eighteen holes and bought purchase land around me. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure that. I'm not sure that that would be
Speaker 2: well I'm too old now, but I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: that's the best investment. Although if you could build. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, if you could build a killer thirteen
Speaker 2: hole golf course, that might work nowadays too. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the that's the you know, as opposed to you know,
Speaker 2: twelve good holes and six bat holes. You might be
Speaker 2: better off of thirteen and do some kind of weird
Speaker 2: marketing that way or something. But you know, getting employees
Speaker 2: is kind of a you know, it's it's a you know,
Speaker 2: especially in my situation, don't really make enough for a
Speaker 2: full year time manager, year round manager to work with me,
Speaker 2: and you have a I have a tranchiant workforce. So
Speaker 2: a lot of them work for me for two, three years,
Speaker 2: four years, some of them. Sometimes you know, you'll have
Speaker 2: a kid who's going to grad school, you get seven
Speaker 2: years or eight years because they really they drank the
Speaker 2: kool aid and they like hanging out here. So they
Speaker 2: like the work and being outside and it's a beautiful place.
Speaker 2: And so from that perspective, it's it's a little bit challenging.
Speaker 2: I think the good things that you have, you know,
Speaker 2: dealing with the employees that do well and thrive, dealing
Speaker 2: with the customers. Talking to the customers. You know, they're
Speaker 2: they're they're always the best and the worst. You know,
Speaker 2: you get a bad one, it's really bad, but you
Speaker 2: get good ones. And it's like one of my favorite
Speaker 2: ones just died. And he's like you could you heat
Speaker 2: come and you could talk about you could talk about golf.
Speaker 2: You love golf, but you could talk about all kinds
Speaker 2: of unrelated things. And he was older and he had
Speaker 2: this life experience and and all that stuff is that
Speaker 2: stuff is still great. I mean that is you know,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're in and because I have to
Speaker 2: work all the time, I'm in here, and I contact
Speaker 2: these people, you know, I get to know them, and
Speaker 2: so that stuff is, that stuff is great. You know,
Speaker 2: I would tell you this that this place exists because
Speaker 2: my family never had any and much debt. And you know,
Speaker 2: like I said, I bought a use more. Don't buy
Speaker 2: new Moores. I bought a new Greens Moore because that's
Speaker 2: the most important one. But and and I was and
Speaker 2: I was willing to live this lifestyle where you you know,
Speaker 2: you're you know, seven days a week when you're on.
Speaker 1: From open to clothes pretty much.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I have people that are opened, but
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I mean I do. I live like
Speaker 2: two minutes away. I grew up across the parking lot
Speaker 2: and live there for a long time now on the
Speaker 2: other side of number nine Green. I don't know when
Speaker 2: you took that picture. There's a house there that's where
Speaker 2: it's like can walk down the hill. You know, it's
Speaker 2: so you're here. You know you're here, and it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's not it's not that lucrative for the amount of
Speaker 2: hours you're putting in. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: a it's a it's a beautiful place, and you know,
Speaker 2: and you do get two or three months off and
Speaker 2: you know, you get to I get to walk to
Speaker 2: the golf course with my dog or snow shoot with
Speaker 2: my dog on the golf course, and and you know,
Speaker 2: I like that. But it's it's, uh, it's not an
Speaker 2: easy it's it's I don't think it's a I don't
Speaker 2: think it's an easy go at least at least for
Speaker 2: an old guy like me.
Speaker 1: It's a In terms of taking care of the golf course,
Speaker 1: do you do you get on mowers? And mow sometimes.
Speaker 1: And do you have you know, part time staff? How's that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I I have. You know, there's I have
Speaker 2: a couple of I have a lot of retired guys.
Speaker 2: And I got a fairly moory just comes in and
Speaker 2: cuts fairways. I got a rough moor. He just comes
Speaker 2: in and cuts.
Speaker 1: They're specialists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're specialists. And if you can get a farmer
Speaker 2: or a truck driver that can drive straight lines, it's
Speaker 2: really good. But because professional mowing is is not just
Speaker 2: like mowing your yard. It's a it's a you know,
Speaker 2: it's being a professional mow is different than a guy
Speaker 2: mowing his yard. Because a lot of guys say to me,
Speaker 2: I love mow my yard. When I retire, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: come and mow for you. I go, well, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe that'll work, maybe that won't work.
Speaker 1: But it's a big yard too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a big yard.
Speaker 1: That's That's what I always say. I I like, really,
Speaker 1: I really like mowing my yard. But you know, mowing
Speaker 1: my yard takes forty minutes, and and a golf course
Speaker 1: is about you know, I don't know how many times bicker,
Speaker 1: but it's like the worlds are these are the biggest
Speaker 1: yards in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was when I was a kid, we
Speaker 2: had a we had one a five gang more in
Speaker 2: a in a tractor and it would take well only
Speaker 2: moan once a week. We'd start on Thursdays and it
Speaker 2: would take us day and a half to mode. Now,
Speaker 2: we didn't have a differentiation between rough and fairway at
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 1: It was all it was the gang out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything was mode at the same height. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm the weekend cutter a lot unless
Speaker 2: we have an outing than one of my one kind
Speaker 2: of full time guy, or there's a couple of college
Speaker 2: kids that will cut in the cut in the morning.
Speaker 2: I do. I do all the spraying. It's like, I
Speaker 2: figured it's my place, I'll take the risk. Plus I'm
Speaker 2: I'm pretty amble about it. I wear gloves and and
Speaker 2: mask and suit, and you know, I always say it's
Speaker 2: like I walk out, I go up the Pillsbury dope
Speaker 2: boys out there again. So but uh, you know, and
Speaker 2: I spray on. I spray as as needed. So I
Speaker 2: I have a degree in metallurgical engineering, but I have
Speaker 2: read a lot of turf books and I go to
Speaker 2: I go to a lot of turf education, and so
Speaker 2: there's kind of a monitoring of the trying to monitor
Speaker 2: the weather just to decide when to spray. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't want to spray right before rain.
Speaker 2: No, or but you do. Got to spray when you
Speaker 2: got a certain you know, temperature and humidity range, you know,
Speaker 2: I do, you know, I am. I am going to try,
Speaker 2: like hell not to you know. I played at University
Speaker 2: would Ridge once and I was playing and my ball
Speaker 2: was here and and the guy was spraying. He stopped
Speaker 2: six inches short of my ball and started six inches
Speaker 2: past my ball. I try not to. You're not really
Speaker 2: supposed to do that. According when I try not to
Speaker 2: do that, you know, I try to. So that limits
Speaker 2: spraying time a little bit too. If you're really busy,
Speaker 2: you don't find me out there. Generally I try to
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then when the weather's good, people are here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it kind of makes it tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. But but so you know, on a weekend,
Speaker 2: like I said, I could be the outside guy, the
Speaker 2: opener on the outside in the morning, and I could
Speaker 2: be working the closing shift in here. So that's if
Speaker 2: that's what's you know, you know, especially in the spring
Speaker 2: in the fall when my numbers start to drop.
Speaker 1: How many rounds a year do you guys do say?
Speaker 1: And in your best years?
Speaker 2: And then you know, and I'd say, you know, we're
Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't fluctuate that much. In the last
Speaker 2: two years. It was lower that you know, the year
Speaker 2: where we had the March that was you know, we
Speaker 2: actually mode fairways. The only time we've ever mowed fairways
Speaker 2: was was seventy in the March. You know, it's probably
Speaker 2: you know, probably sixteen to five to maybe eighteen eighteen
Speaker 2: thousand rounds, you know, So, and.
Speaker 1: What would you say, percentage wise is from your regulars.
Speaker 2: I'd say that probably sixty percent is you know, I
Speaker 2: have I have a you know, a bunch of like
Speaker 2: season A members this fairly strong league play and they
Speaker 2: play besides league, you know, there's a fairly strong you know,
Speaker 2: there's a senior discount fairly strong senior group that plays.
Speaker 2: We have a we do a junior membership where they
Speaker 2: have a they have a junior they have some instruction
Speaker 2: for six weeks and but they get a membership with
Speaker 2: it so they can come all summer if you want. So,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to encourage the ones who want to
Speaker 2: play golf. You know, sometimes you're become a little bit
Speaker 2: of a daycare center for some people. But but you know,
Speaker 2: I think that's the way it's always been for those
Speaker 2: kids that are golf golf nuts. I know.
Speaker 1: I think about my parents. I was like golf nutt
Speaker 1: and me and my buddy would ride our bikes with
Speaker 1: our bags, like to the muni, our local union, and
Speaker 1: we'd be there all day, every day of the summer,
Speaker 1: and like from age ten to doll you know, fourteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: And it's like you think about I think about that
Speaker 1: all the time. If like my parents had it pretty
Speaker 1: because they knew where I.
Speaker 2: Was, and you know, and you know, we watch out
Speaker 2: for you, and the people get to know you, and
Speaker 2: you know, you know, there's how how.
Speaker 1: Do you most people that come through that aren't regulars
Speaker 1: find you.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's word of mouth. I mean,
Speaker 2: because you'll get people that just live an Eagle that
Speaker 2: moved into the area and we have been here for
Speaker 2: five years. I didn't know you were down here, and
Speaker 2: I don't know. They'll maybe they drive by and see
Speaker 2: the sign, they talk to somebody, and finally they decided
Speaker 2: to come down here. As we talked earlier, we're getting
Speaker 2: some people because of you and your efficacy.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you gotta get more.
Speaker 2: You know, there's you know, there's I don't you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know how to say this too, that this
Speaker 2: this place is kind of you know, and you asked
Speaker 2: too about how you how we kept this place going.
Speaker 2: There's like a little community of people that have been
Speaker 2: invested and you know how you they volunteer their time.
Speaker 2: You know, they'll come in and you know, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, I had one of my my
Speaker 2: brother in law's niece. I didn't have a bar card
Speaker 2: person though, and two of her sisters had worked for me,
Speaker 2: but she had never worked for me. But she came
Speaker 2: into the bar card on a Thursday night, which is
Speaker 2: like a sixty person shotgun. I mean, that's the worst
Speaker 2: one to start with, because you're like, you have to
Speaker 2: keep moving. There's somebody on the whole that want something.
Speaker 2: But you know, she was like, she's industrial engineer in
Speaker 2: middle management for UPS, so she picked it up. You know.
Speaker 2: It was like, but uh so there's been this little
Speaker 2: community of people, and I think that that community interacts
Speaker 2: with other people and brings people in here Also, you
Speaker 2: know there's guys like you know, the John Warren who
Speaker 2: shoots the the yardages for your the course yardages and
Speaker 2: does the slope and stuff for the Wisconsin State off Association.
Speaker 2: You know, he knows and comes and he tells people
Speaker 2: and he you know, recommends us and he's not you know,
Speaker 2: just he's in the business too, so he doesn't golf much,
Speaker 2: but he you know, there's just different people that you know, people,
Speaker 2: different people. The Hickory Stick guys stumbled across this. So
Speaker 2: now we have a you know, the Hickory Stick group.
Speaker 2: They have an event here and they you know, guys
Speaker 2: keep you know, come through periodically and you'll you know,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Now for a quick word from our sponsor, visit Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: Milwaukee is home to some top tournaments. They obviously hosted
Speaker 1: the PGA Championship in two thousand and four, twenty ten,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. They had the US Open in twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: at Aaron Hills. This year, they host the Ryder Cup
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. A great you know, fall spot for
Speaker 1: a trip, and we're better to stay than center around Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: You can bring the family, you can bring your wife,
Speaker 1: your significant other to Milwaukee and make it a weekend
Speaker 1: with a little bit of golf center around the bustling
Speaker 1: downtown area. It's it's only about an hour up to
Speaker 1: Cohler from there, and you can take advantage of the
Speaker 1: great restaurants. There's a lot of great golf within a drive.
Speaker 1: There's you know, there's Eagle Springs as we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: there's Brown Deer, the home of the GMO or Tiger
Speaker 1: Madis first start. We might have more of that on
Speaker 1: that coming. And you're right on the Lake Michigan. It's
Speaker 1: a beautiful fall place, tons of activities to do beyond
Speaker 1: golf and beyond everything else. It's filled with Midwest hospitality.
Speaker 1: People from Wisconsin are really nice, except when you're talking
Speaker 1: about them about the Packers as a Bears fan. So
Speaker 1: to learn more about Milwaukee and making a great trip
Speaker 1: to Milwaukee, maybe for the Ryder Cup in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: go to visit Milwaukee dot org slash golf. Now back
Speaker 1: to my bowling. So it's funny. I remember I played
Speaker 1: here when I was a little kid, and I'd always
Speaker 1: remembered that second hole, and that's how I kind of
Speaker 1: refound it was I was driving back from I think
Speaker 1: it was either Lasonia or Sand Valley, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I got to stop at Eagle Springs and
Speaker 1: I just found myself amazed at the golf course, like
Speaker 1: beyond just you. Obviously, everybody's going to talk about that
Speaker 1: second hole because it's unlike anything you'll ever see in
Speaker 1: your lifetime. But you get on the first hole and
Speaker 1: that's one of the most amazing greens you ever see.
Speaker 1: And then the fourth hole has got to be one
Speaker 1: of the best part fours in Wisconsin. And you just
Speaker 1: go around and you're like, ah, this is this is
Speaker 1: a really great little golf course. And in terms of
Speaker 1: nine holes or nine holes are becoming more popular because
Speaker 1: people have less and less time, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what this has got more uniqueness and character than almost
Speaker 1: any course in America. Talk to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the course design in the history of the golf course,
Speaker 1: as you know, you know, originally eighteen holes, but then
Speaker 1: it moved to nine. And you know, I read on
Speaker 1: your website that the original designers somebody came in and
Speaker 1: redesigned it in the twenties. Correct.
Speaker 2: Well, not that I know of, It's always been well
Speaker 2: AG's Balding I think did it.
Speaker 1: And former Cubs manager right.
Speaker 2: Or Socks Socks are clubs.
Speaker 1: One of the two. I think it was the Cubs.
Speaker 1: I'm not positive though, and.
Speaker 2: So is I mean, like I said, I'm sixty five.
Speaker 2: The course has pretty much been the same other than
Speaker 2: we did in enlarge some of the greens and put
Speaker 2: the eyebrows and the bunkers on six, put an irrigation
Speaker 2: system in, you know, large the seventh green, large, the
Speaker 2: fourth green, and large the sixth green. Built some new tea's,
Speaker 2: So it is, you know, I'm not sure. What I'm
Speaker 2: not sure is Spaulding designed anymore than the first and
Speaker 2: the second hole the hickory stick. Guys have a they
Speaker 2: have a theory that Langford or Bendelo worked for Spaulding,
Speaker 2: but he didn't. I looked it up because they told
Speaker 2: me they were sure because you got the false fronts
Speaker 2: like Lasonia and and I'm like, I looked it up
Speaker 2: and he didn't start working for Spaulding until after this
Speaker 2: was Yeah.
Speaker 1: I looked it up too. Yeah, it's somebody that knew
Speaker 1: what they were doing. Definitely designed the golf course. That's
Speaker 1: like one thing that's very clear a few of the wholes,
Speaker 1: like scream Tom Bendelo. But but then I talked to you,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know those those eyebrow bunkers are very
Speaker 1: Victorian style, but then you put those in and how
Speaker 1: do I mean, how do you go about being in
Speaker 1: a golf course owner? Like when do you when do
Speaker 1: you decide to add tease and when do you.
Speaker 2: The biggest time we did it was when we dug
Speaker 2: the irrigation pond for the irrigation.
Speaker 1: System there, and that's on the third hole, right, it's
Speaker 1: on the.
Speaker 2: Third hole, and so originally there was a series of
Speaker 2: smaller ponds and streams between it, and so we connected
Speaker 2: I think three of those. So we had a lot
Speaker 2: of fill to get rid of. And so you know
Speaker 2: this this seventh hole, for instance.
Speaker 1: Was.
Speaker 2: The green and the green in the in the in
Speaker 2: the sand trap looked exactly the same, but they were
Speaker 2: half the size. So we hauled a bunch of that
Speaker 2: that spoil out and and just reduplicated doug This went
Speaker 2: over the old sand trap with the spoil, dug out
Speaker 2: a new sand trap, so it looks the same. It's
Speaker 2: a little bit it's kind of funky. People have problems
Speaker 2: putting it because if you're on the old part of
Speaker 2: the green, it breaks down towards the fairway, and the
Speaker 2: front part of the green is a little higher, so
Speaker 2: it breaks back up towards the hill. So it's a
Speaker 2: little it's a little it's a little funky that way,
Speaker 2: but local knowledge, right, Yeah, So same thing. We built
Speaker 2: a lot of tea's from the spoil from there. I
Speaker 2: think the sand traps on I just thought the sand
Speaker 2: trap sand traps on six. We brought that tongue down
Speaker 2: the greenen didn't come between the sand traps, and we
Speaker 2: brought it between them, and then I just thought it
Speaker 2: gave him more of an eye line or whatever. So
Speaker 2: it's kind of I mean, I look at I look
Speaker 2: at stuff. I look at stuff all the time and
Speaker 2: where where would be a good hole. And in fact,
Speaker 2: when I was going to build it another nine, I
Speaker 2: kind of had layouts for holes. And these are holes
Speaker 2: that that if you some of it is I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just see it and I think it'd be you know,
Speaker 2: I there's a I was when I went down to
Speaker 2: the meeting at chicaw yesterday. We were on one twenty
Speaker 2: going down and there's this creek along when you get
Speaker 2: gone by that spring creek or whatever it is, there's
Speaker 2: a creek there in a valley there, and I we
Speaker 2: used to drive there to see my my my cousins
Speaker 2: all the time, and I've always thought that would be
Speaker 2: a great place for a golf hole. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's just some of it something is, you know, I
Speaker 2: just see stuff in or it's just I got to
Speaker 2: get rid of spoils and I gotta, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like or it's like there's no there's not enough you know,
Speaker 2: a number on number one and number four because they
Speaker 2: were originally just the bowls. There's no there's we're running
Speaker 2: out of you know, we got busier, we were running
Speaker 2: out of cup positions. You know, we just gotta you know,
Speaker 2: some of it is some of it is just need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that it's that left side that you
Speaker 1: built on one looks like it's been there forever.
Speaker 2: Well part of it was, and then it just we
Speaker 2: brought that. We filled in. We filled in front, so
Speaker 2: they got the flat spot there, but the hilly part there,
Speaker 2: we didn't do much more than plant bent grass up there.
Speaker 2: We didn't really change it. We didn't regrade very much
Speaker 2: or you know, frankly, we don't. We don't have the
Speaker 2: money most of the time. You know, it was a local.
Speaker 2: The guy who did the fill was we we took
Speaker 2: soil off this place. The guy who did it was
Speaker 2: a guy who grew up. He worked here, his son
Speaker 2: worked here, his daughter worked that guy's daughter worked here.
Speaker 2: So you know, they have this kind of like I said,
Speaker 2: there's this community that kind of has kept.
Speaker 1: They feel like they an ownership, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's it's a it's a you know, it's
Speaker 2: not maybe it's not the most important place in their life,
Speaker 2: but it's a place that has some meaning to them.
Speaker 1: So and uh, when did you guys do the irrigation?
Speaker 2: We started in eighty eight and I think we brought
Speaker 2: it up in eighty nine. Eighty eight we had a
Speaker 2: bad drought here and h and all there was was crabgrass,
Speaker 2: and so I would I asked, I started asking, you know,
Speaker 2: my turf salesman. You know a lot of them are
Speaker 2: ex superintendents. You know, what am I going to do here?
Speaker 2: Is this grass going to come back? Is it just
Speaker 2: is it dead? Is a dormant? And they're like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, we don't know and I'm like, well should
Speaker 2: I put it? What about putting an irrigation system in?
Speaker 2: And they're like none of them would say anything, except
Speaker 2: for the Dewey Lock who built Kettle Maraine, which is
Speaker 2: just up sixty seven. He told me, he goes he
Speaker 2: just do it. He says, you'll never regret it. And
Speaker 2: he was helpful, and and it's made It made a
Speaker 2: lot of different It made the difference, and it came back.
Speaker 2: Mostly the grass did come back. It was dormant, it
Speaker 2: was dead. There still was in August. There's still a
Speaker 2: lot of crabgrass coming up because all that seed bed.
Speaker 1: But so that's got to be you know, your biggest
Speaker 1: kind of expense, right is that when you got to
Speaker 1: do stuff in like irrigation and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, it was the biggest, one of the biggest
Speaker 2: dollar project that we ever did. We did again, we
Speaker 2: did a lot of stuff that you're young, you don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, my crew, my crew of kids and I.
Speaker 2: We picked up all the spoils and it's gravel around here,
Speaker 2: so we picked up spoils. We bed the trench and sand.
Speaker 2: So we had a dump truck and we'd shovel it. Well,
Speaker 2: we had a front endloader. We could put the sand on,
Speaker 2: but we were in the dump truck shoveling off my hand.
Speaker 2: We did so much handwork. It's one of those things
Speaker 2: if you were if you knew what you were in for,
Speaker 2: you never would do it. But then once you do it,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like, well, a, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: big thing. So it was a really simple system. Those
Speaker 2: guys from Illinois they put it in, and then I
Speaker 2: don't know, probably fifteen years ago, twelve years ago, I
Speaker 2: put in a variable frequency drive, which when you put
Speaker 2: the original system in it's either all on or all off.
Speaker 2: And then you had a lot of water hammer and
Speaker 2: we were starting to have to repair a lot of brakes.
Speaker 2: So the variable frequency drive kind of worms up. The
Speaker 2: pressure kind of builds slowly, and we have not had
Speaker 2: to fix we have to fix sprinkler heads because they're
Speaker 2: all but not too many breaks anymore. And it's a
Speaker 2: thirty year old system, which by all, by all means
Speaker 2: it's supposed to be. You know, I'm not supposed to
Speaker 2: be working.
Speaker 1: The thing is I think in thirty years is what
Speaker 1: they say. It's kind of here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other thing we did because I was always
Speaker 2: going to build eighteen holes. Is it's oversized, so we
Speaker 2: didn't run at the smallest pipe. Our pipes are bigger,
Speaker 2: so that that may have something to do with it too,
Speaker 2: that you know, we built a system that could carry
Speaker 2: more a loon and then you know, heavier pipe and
Speaker 2: the bigger you go with the heavier it is a
Speaker 2: little bit. So so those are the two and that
Speaker 2: was like, you know, at that time, that was like
Speaker 2: a thirty thousand dollars expenditure, which you know, for me,
Speaker 2: again that's a big that's a big expenditure. You know. Lucky,
Speaker 2: luckily for me, the bank's been really supportive. I mean
Speaker 2: it's you know, I I pay my bills and you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: but even in the middle of the crash, I bought
Speaker 2: a loose who said of about twenty four brand new
Speaker 2: cards in the bank just said okay, so.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, your family's probably built up a lot
Speaker 1: of good will over the last you know, some of them.
Speaker 2: Were stubborn Irish people too, you know, you know, we
Speaker 2: bump our heads into things here and there.
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about the second haul. Yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 1: what was first tires reaction?
Speaker 2: Usually, well, there's people that play here because they've heard
Speaker 2: about it and they want to play it. There's people
Speaker 2: that hate it, and uh, you know, there's pretty people
Speaker 2: that find it hard to believe, you know, that that
Speaker 2: there's a hole like that, you know. Uh. Brett said
Speaker 2: that it was. He said it was the most severe
Speaker 2: sloped green, raised slope green like that, and he did
Speaker 2: he did say, I appreciate the fact that you didn't
Speaker 2: do it. Most people would have done and cut it down.
Speaker 2: When people, you know, when you asked there, as my
Speaker 2: clientele has gotten older, he said, they would have cut
Speaker 2: it down and made the green bigger instead of building
Speaker 2: the extra hole off to the side. You know, he
Speaker 2: you know, I mean when I was, when I was,
Speaker 2: I mean, I had it is you know, if you're
Speaker 2: on the left side, you know, and believe me, I've
Speaker 2: been everywhere on that over the course of my life.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's pretty steep, you know, it's uh
Speaker 2: you know, and when I was a kid, we didn't
Speaker 2: mow it that often. We cut it with size and
Speaker 2: whips like three times.
Speaker 1: How do you mow that?
Speaker 2: Uh line trimmers? Well you can, we have a we
Speaker 2: have a you can mow most of it with a
Speaker 2: we have a toro sidewinders where the decks slide so
Speaker 2: you can get change the center of gravity, so you
Speaker 2: can go up the so you can mow most of it,
Speaker 2: but the left sides all the line tremors underneath the
Speaker 2: sand traps, the top fifteen feets line trimmers. So that's
Speaker 2: you know, the back. We used to the back a
Speaker 2: little better. One of my friends has got one of
Speaker 2: the kids that work for me that's in the construction.
Speaker 2: He's got a track bobcat with a kind of industrial
Speaker 2: more and I was thinking maybe I could see if
Speaker 2: I get him to cut the back down a little
Speaker 2: bit again, because the back used to be used to
Speaker 2: be to be playable back there, but it's not real
Speaker 2: playable anymore.
Speaker 1: Do you have any clue how that got bult?
Speaker 2: No, I don't.
Speaker 1: I was trying to think it could be either like rubble.
Speaker 1: Maybe they piled up rubble.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm guessing that, you know, basically, because you know
Speaker 2: you have you know, the tee off is a ridge,
Speaker 2: so maybe there was just a ridge and maybe there
Speaker 2: was water washed out. I don't know, maybe it was
Speaker 2: roughly there. You know, my family and there's another family
Speaker 2: on the lake. Supposedly there's connected with Lake Lulu, and
Speaker 2: they use scoops with horses to haul fill to haul
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. Maybe they hauled phill that way.
Speaker 2: Maybe they scooped out, you know, down to the right
Speaker 2: where the new two is, there's a hole there. Maybe
Speaker 2: they were scooped they scooped out and had horses dragged
Speaker 2: up the hill.
Speaker 1: I don't know how tall is it from the left side.
Speaker 2: Well, it's hard to say because it falls all the
Speaker 2: way away from you to the fairway's gone, because it's
Speaker 2: on it. That's still part of the hill down there.
Speaker 2: You know, i'd say the twenty twenty five feet maybe
Speaker 2: when you get off by the fairway.
Speaker 1: You know, I was saying, I say, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say thirty. It's got to be ten yards up, yeah,
Speaker 1: at least, yeah, maybe more. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's you know, there's you know, it's you know,
Speaker 2: when I was when I was a kid, you you know,
Speaker 2: you could you know, I think you just had a
Speaker 2: nine iron. I could the grass. The grass was longer
Speaker 2: and the greens was slower, but I could pop it
Speaker 2: up and keep it on there. When I was a kid,
Speaker 2: and you know, now I struggled with a sixty degree open,
Speaker 2: although if you're it's and the grass is fairly tight
Speaker 2: down there. If you have a bad lie, though a
Speaker 2: lot of my older guys will just Texas wedge it
Speaker 2: up the hill. They've gotten down where they know how
Speaker 2: hard to hit that putter and it just goes, it
Speaker 2: bounces up and you know. And when I was younger,
Speaker 2: I learned that I skulled a shot and it hit
Speaker 2: it two thirds of the way up and it pops up.
Speaker 2: And so so if you have a bad lie that
Speaker 2: way that that's as supposed hitting a putter, I'm more
Speaker 2: like trying to slam it into the hill and pop
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: But so you have ten holes and you have a
Speaker 1: you have an alternate second hall. Yes, what was the
Speaker 1: why Why was that built?
Speaker 2: Because my customers were, my older customers were starting not
Speaker 2: to play number two. They'd take a six and they
Speaker 2: would drive by, and my joke was that they would
Speaker 2: pretty similar to start driving by my driveway. So it
Speaker 2: was to provide them was with an alternative because really,
Speaker 2: if you if you if you're not in shape to
Speaker 2: climb around too, as long as you're on the ramp,
Speaker 2: you're fine, and you're on the green you're fine, but
Speaker 2: it's a little bit of a struggle for every everywhere else.
Speaker 2: Even you see these old guys who hate sand traps
Speaker 2: and then they get they're cheering for the sand trap
Speaker 2: to catch her because I didn't want to be on
Speaker 2: the side of the hill. Even though that sand traps
Speaker 2: not easy for a person to hit out of it.
Speaker 2: But so so we built this over four or five years,
Speaker 2: we started to grub this out and we built this
Speaker 2: and typically yeah, yeah, I mean that's a lot of
Speaker 2: the seniors play it. The women's league, Women's league plays it,
Speaker 2: although there's a lot of them are seniors. Also, it's
Speaker 2: it's also if you miss it, it's difficult to get
Speaker 2: on too. It's not you know, it needs there needs
Speaker 2: to be some more grubbing done around that.
Speaker 1: But it would help private turf down there too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's it's it's hard. Yeah, don't have the huge
Speaker 1: staff right.
Speaker 2: Right well, and the thing too for so that for
Speaker 2: the green, we had a problem. We tried to make
Speaker 2: a push up green because all the other greens are
Speaker 2: push up greens native soil, and I think we had
Speaker 2: too much clay in the soil. So we've been trying
Speaker 2: to amend it with sand to try to get a
Speaker 2: little more woamy. So we've had a little bit of
Speaker 2: trouble with certain spots down there and the drainage comes
Speaker 2: through there, and we didn't do a very good job
Speaker 2: with the surface drainage either. On the left. I think
Speaker 2: my construction friend was trying to save me money as
Speaker 2: opposed to and we tried. We thought we'd try it,
Speaker 2: and then it really really hasn't worked out.
Speaker 1: So being the owner and you know, deciding these things,
Speaker 1: like how many times have you seen where you've tried
Speaker 1: to save money with something, but then in the long term,
Speaker 1: because of either maintenance time or or breaking down, it
Speaker 1: ends up costing you lots.
Speaker 2: You know, because I've been I've been doing it for
Speaker 2: a long time, and and there's people that come and said,
Speaker 2: you know, the golfer and said, have you ever thought
Speaker 2: about doing this? And I go, yeah, we probably even
Speaker 2: tried it and it doesn't work. It didn't work that time.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you that if you know, somebody was
Speaker 2: a little because I'm I'm really open to anybody, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't care who you are. If you're
Speaker 2: the fifteen year old that just walk around the properties
Speaker 2: said how come we do that? Couldn't you do this?
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe that's a
Speaker 2: good idea. I'm open to that anything anybody. So, but
Speaker 2: a lot we have tried a lot of a lot
Speaker 2: of different different approaches or you know, so it ends
Speaker 2: up you you pretty much you can go to you
Speaker 2: hit to go have to go to back to the
Speaker 2: basics and you know, can you can you top press
Speaker 2: with the old stole drop drop top wrestlers as opposed
Speaker 2: to the new style, avoid spending the money on the spinners,
Speaker 2: or you know, we've or we've this now we've now
Speaker 2: we've gone to going with fertilizer sprudders and buying bagsand
Speaker 2: to top dress more often. You know. So it just
Speaker 2: you know, there's and you know, and and stuff in
Speaker 2: the Gulf maintenance that falls in and out of fashion too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's not all it's not you know, there's
Speaker 2: some pretty much basics, but there's stuff that falls in
Speaker 2: and out of fashion.
Speaker 1: So definitely trend. You know, in terms of what what
Speaker 1: would you say as an owner, you look back on
Speaker 1: and laugh most about as you're you know, like I
Speaker 1: can't believe I thought that work would work.
Speaker 2: One of my friends and I were just trying to
Speaker 2: pull a truck. Pop the transmission popped up. We try
Speaker 2: to pull with the goods story, pull it into a wall,
Speaker 2: we pull it into a tree. I mean, it's uh,
Speaker 2: I'd have to think about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the best decision you've ever made?
Speaker 2: Well, there's probably a number of I mean the irrigation system,
Speaker 2: on the on the golf course side hiring, there's been
Speaker 2: over the years, there's probably been three or four people
Speaker 2: that probably became identified with this worked for me for
Speaker 2: multiple multiple years and became identified with the place, probably
Speaker 2: almost as much as I I was, and and actually
Speaker 2: taught me stuff that I wouldn't have learned I don't
Speaker 2: think if they got here. So some of it has
Speaker 2: to do with the people and and but as far
Speaker 2: as the golf course itself, it was probably the irrigation system.
Speaker 2: You know. I fight with the computer system, even though
Speaker 2: now the millennials are going to book everything, so you've
Speaker 2: got to have the computer system. But I always asked Luann,
Speaker 2: who worked for me for probably working for twenty years,
Speaker 2: and like, and she loved the computer to begin with.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know it's so much more work.
Speaker 2: It creates like another job. It does not that much
Speaker 2: better than the paper t sheet, you know. So but people, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but now you know, now the next generation does everything online.
Speaker 2: There's no choice anymore.
Speaker 1: See I think it takes longer to book something online
Speaker 1: than to call and book something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, I think it as kids don't
Speaker 2: like talking to people, That's what that's the thing. They
Speaker 2: would come, they would book check in and and get
Speaker 2: their cart and go and not not want to talk
Speaker 2: to anyone, which is kind of the weird thing I think.
Speaker 2: But because that's one of the big things about golf
Speaker 2: is it's a social for you know. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I was a serious player. I still you know,
Speaker 2: I still play the ball down. I had call penalties
Speaker 2: in myself. But it's a game of fun for people,
Speaker 2: and you know, that's you know, that's one of the
Speaker 2: things I think is, you know, as I became I
Speaker 2: started to look at other people's approach to the game,
Speaker 2: and you know, people have fun. You know, they bump
Speaker 2: the ball, they have fun. You know, it's there's a
Speaker 2: lot of ways that you know, you can you can
Speaker 2: you can do this, and.
Speaker 1: If you could do one project, say cost prohibited, no
Speaker 1: costs to it. What would you do to the golf course.
Speaker 2: I would have bought my neighbor's land that the Nature
Speaker 2: Conservancy just bought, and I would have built. I would
Speaker 2: have built another nine hole. That's pretty spectacular rugged land
Speaker 2: back there. And and and you know, from my perspective,
Speaker 2: you know, building is way more fun than maintaining. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's so that's you know.
Speaker 1: We should just go mow out some of those lost holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well maybe, except I knew where they were.
Speaker 1: You know that you can find them.
Speaker 2: There's I mean, I I thought there was, you know,
Speaker 2: I thought I had some some decent holes on the
Speaker 2: layout that I you know, it's pretty pretty primitive layout.
Speaker 2: I just working on the fifteen degree rule. You know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you you know fifteen degrees you
Speaker 2: have to That was what the guy told me to
Speaker 2: put the irrigation system in. Because he did that. He
Speaker 2: designed it so you have a center line and then
Speaker 2: you have fifteen degrees on either side, and so that's
Speaker 2: as it goes out. That's where your drive is gonna.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't have it across you know, if
Speaker 2: you start crossing the fairways, you're gonna start hitting people,
Speaker 2: or if you have real estate, you're gonna start hitting
Speaker 2: buildings or whatever. So that was, you know, but I
Speaker 2: laid out holes. There's still one little short part of
Speaker 2: three that I think there's like a little little peninsula
Speaker 2: that's narrow and sits out on a thumb and it
Speaker 2: won't have to be long. Could you have a narrow
Speaker 2: green you're hitting ned, But that's probably not my won't
Speaker 2: be me if that does that?
Speaker 1: So do you do you have kids?
Speaker 2: I have three step kids. All of them worked multiple
Speaker 2: years here. They all care about the place. The oldest
Speaker 2: one lives in in Amsterdam, and she if she was closer,
Speaker 2: she said she would she would give a role to
Speaker 2: try to run it. The second ones just became a doctor,
Speaker 2: so she's, you know, doing that in paying off.
Speaker 1: For for medical bell Harry LOLd, that's cool.
Speaker 2: And the youngest one who probably worked here, he probably
Speaker 2: worked here fourteen or fifteen years. He's getting a PhD
Speaker 2: in biochemistry at Arizona State and he well, he would
Speaker 2: like to do it. He'd like to be further along
Speaker 2: and thinks he could, you know, somewhat remotely. But he's
Speaker 2: worked inside, he's worked outside he's done. You know, he's
Speaker 2: done pretty much all the jobs here. So but it
Speaker 2: doesn't appear that at he started. At this moment, they're
Speaker 2: going to be I.
Speaker 1: Mean, he could be an academic. You could be an
Speaker 1: ideal job for somebody that wants to be a writer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you're just right, Well people aren't here,
Speaker 1: and then talk to people when they are are here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he well, he yeah, he's I don't know, he
Speaker 2: has this thing. He was going to be like a
Speaker 2: he was going to be an academic and but now
Speaker 2: he's you know, and even though they pay you as
Speaker 2: a science grad student, he's tired of being broke, so
Speaker 2: he might he might go work in industry for a
Speaker 2: little while.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's hard being broke.
Speaker 2: I mean it's not like it's not like he's a
Speaker 2: cruing debt because he's They do pay him, you know,
Speaker 2: enough to survive.
Speaker 1: But that's it. I mean, hopefully I'll keep going. In
Speaker 1: the family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, both the both the girls, the two older ones,
Speaker 2: both of them are married here. You know, so we
Speaker 2: had big, big.
Speaker 1: Wedd I do you guys do weddings a lot?
Speaker 2: We not really, We've done some friends' weddings. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of people that got married small you know,
Speaker 2: half hour deals up on number five looking out over
Speaker 2: the lake up there, and they a couple of people
Speaker 2: got married up there. But we haven't we haven't moved
Speaker 2: into that, you know, that market so much, although you know,
Speaker 2: the ones we put on for the kids were pretty
Speaker 2: you know, you know, it's like it's a it's like
Speaker 2: a week of work getting the place ready down here.
Speaker 1: So what are the cabins used for now?
Speaker 2: There's right now there's seasonal rentals, so the and it's
Speaker 2: so they rent from May first to November first, and
Speaker 2: they're not heated. And we blew out the water a
Speaker 2: couple couple of mondays ago. We blew out the golf
Speaker 2: course on Sunday and blew out the cottages on Monday.
Speaker 2: It's pretty much the same people come back, some of
Speaker 2: these two cottages. Some of the people probably been for
Speaker 2: forty years, forty five years, so it's kind of like
Speaker 2: a little community. The cottage up there behind you, up
Speaker 2: on top of the hill there at the center, there's
Speaker 2: a concrete building. It was an ice house for the
Speaker 2: for the hotel, and then they put porches on. There's
Speaker 2: another one that was a log cabin. It was they
Speaker 2: built as a playhouse for my mother, and then they
Speaker 2: put they put porches on it, and so these people
Speaker 2: rent it. They have access, I you know, own like
Speaker 2: eight hundred feet of the lake frontage down in front there,
Speaker 2: so they have access to the lake. And some of
Speaker 2: them golf, some of them don't golf. Some golf a lot,
Speaker 2: some of them just golf a little.
Speaker 1: That's a cool place. Everybody should come by if they're
Speaker 1: in the area. Drive by. You're in Milwaukee, come here.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, and there's springs down there. If you've
Speaker 2: never seen a bubbling spring, they're down in the front there,
Speaker 2: there's bubbling springs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's is it bubbling now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's crazy. It's cold.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really freeze. Those ponds, little springs don't really freeze.
Speaker 2: It might get if you got really really cold, weak,
Speaker 2: you might get a skim, but as soon as it
Speaker 2: gets back up to fifteen or twenty it comes off
Speaker 2: right away.
Speaker 1: So is it how warms the water in the summer there.
Speaker 2: In the springs? I think it's in the forties.
Speaker 1: Oh, so I'd say it's really cold.
Speaker 2: There was a back in an earlier iteration. We used
Speaker 2: to water out of the bigger pond down there, and
Speaker 2: there's a concrete building and and periodically you have to
Speaker 2: go and clean the filter in there, and so you
Speaker 2: have to go walk in the pond and and by
Speaker 2: the time you got done here were not quite numb.
Speaker 2: But but you get out and you get it's like
Speaker 2: eighty degrees and you come out and your legs are
Speaker 2: really cold. Hit burns like crazy. It's like, yeah, burns
Speaker 2: like But you know, you had to do it because
Speaker 2: that was the only and you could only water like
Speaker 2: three holes at a time, and you had it was
Speaker 2: all holes and bibs, so you would be dragging hose
Speaker 2: out and turning them on and so one night you
Speaker 2: water these three. We almost never watered three and five
Speaker 2: only only later on we started to bring a gas
Speaker 2: portable pumped down there.
Speaker 1: And three's got to be a drainage issue, hu it is.
Speaker 2: We have two, we have three some pumps that are
Speaker 2: running all the time down there. You know, they're around floats.
Speaker 2: They don't pump all the time, but this year they
Speaker 2: were pumping a lot. But you know, some some years
Speaker 2: you can a pretty hard bone stone at number for
Speaker 2: number three, and the same thing on five. And if
Speaker 2: you hear in at the end of the year, you
Speaker 2: come in and you you know you, if you hit
Speaker 2: the back part of the green, you're it's it's over. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a cool place. Everybody should come. So
Speaker 1: we'll see you, uh hopefully next year at the Steam
Speaker 1: Steam Shovel. But thanks for taking the time
Speaker 2: Well thanks for for asking me.