Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in arid egg Friday
Speaker 2: Egg There, Frida Egg Friday, fridag Bride Egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the course.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Golf Podcast.
Speaker 2: I am your host Andy Johnson. Today's episode, I am
Speaker 2: joined by Mike Manthy. Mike is the head superintendent at
Speaker 2: Midland Hills Country Club. It is in the Minneapolis St.
Speaker 2: Paul area. It is a Seth Rayner design that recently
Speaker 2: went underwent a restorer from Jim Urbina. Mike has a
Speaker 2: really super interesting story with you know, kind of how
Speaker 2: their restoration plans changed from finding a Seth Rayner plan
Speaker 2: late in the process. So we get into his career
Speaker 2: a little bit into music and and just you know,
Speaker 2: restoring a Seth Rayner and underlooked, underregarded Seth Rayner that
Speaker 2: I think, you know, should get more coverage in the
Speaker 2: in the Midwest as one of the really good golf
Speaker 2: courses in the Midwest. So we we dive into all that.
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Speaker 2: Now to Mike Manhood. Hey, Mike, I got to ask you. I,
Speaker 2: you know, when I visited Midland Hills this summer, you were,
Speaker 2: you know, in between a couple shows. I think you
Speaker 2: were leaving that night to go see the National And
Speaker 2: I got to ask, what what's been your favorite show,
Speaker 2: concert or other show I guess that you've seen in
Speaker 2: the last year. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge Walkman fan. So the Walkman got back
Speaker 1: to the other after a decade off kind of a
Speaker 1: sucker for the old old uh get get get the
Speaker 1: band back together scenario. So saw them in UH in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: which was a blast. So that's that's probably a that's
Speaker 1: that's the top of my list. The Nationals good. The
Speaker 1: Nationals great band, but they're not I'll probably get some
Speaker 1: slack fits for like a great live band band.
Speaker 2: Having seen the national live, I kind of agree like
Speaker 2: there's just there's maybe not enough energy and maybe there
Speaker 2: a combination of energy with older crowd leads to like
Speaker 2: it's kind of just a weird scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like an empty parking lot.
Speaker 2: You said it the uh let me with the reunion show,
Speaker 2: you know, getting a band back together. I imagine you had
Speaker 2: some like nostalgia from your twenties huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: I had this thing with the Chili Peppers. I had
Speaker 2: seen him live when I was in college, and then
Speaker 2: when I saw him again live and they played at
Speaker 2: the United Center, which was you know, that's always a
Speaker 2: rough scene in Chicago, but I like walked away like, man,
Speaker 2: they don't have the same stuff they had then Yeah,
Speaker 2: did you have any of that feeling or was it
Speaker 2: better than you expected?
Speaker 1: I think the anticipation was so great that I think
Speaker 1: they I think it delivered. It delivered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you have is there? What's your favorite place
Speaker 2: in Minneapolis to see a show?
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the Old School First Avenue is a
Speaker 1: famous venue, which you know everybody from Prince to Chili
Speaker 1: Peppers have played before they were big. The Palace Theaters
Speaker 1: has got great acoustics. I mean anything outside now, Like
Speaker 1: I love how a lot of bands are trying to
Speaker 1: play outside. Our local brewery Surly has got it awesome
Speaker 1: outdoor venue which is which is a blast. So I'll
Speaker 1: see any anybody anywhere.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I mean outdoor summer music. The best
Speaker 2: just doesn't doesn't really get better. It's it's like it's
Speaker 2: I just think that this brings a lot of great
Speaker 2: memories of my younger years when I think about that.
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about your profession. I'm
Speaker 2: sure you wish it was something in music sometimes, but
Speaker 2: but I would love to hear. I think one of
Speaker 2: the most fascinating golf course stories in the last five
Speaker 2: to ten years was you guys finding this rainer plan
Speaker 2: out of nowhere. Ye could you just walk tell us
Speaker 2: the story of finding this plan, how it happened, where
Speaker 2: you were in your rest duration plan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's obviously. It was a blast to kind
Speaker 1: of make a splash in the golf market for the
Speaker 1: the true architecture enthusiasts, you know, little Midland Hills. Mad
Speaker 1: Mad made some headlines which was so which was a blast.
Speaker 1: It was a blast for our membership. It was also
Speaker 1: a blast for the process because at the time we
Speaker 1: had already approved a master plan with Jim Orbina, who
Speaker 1: we'd been working with for several years, and he had
Speaker 1: seen enough Rainer to know and looking at our aerials
Speaker 1: that we were a rainer. But we just, like a
Speaker 1: lot of clubs, we don't have proof, right, We never
Speaker 1: had a drawing of any kind. Our first area was
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. We knew from our club minutes. We
Speaker 1: actually have club minutes all the way back to nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. They're all cataloged in books, hand typewrited'
Speaker 1: they're sweet. So we knew the background, but we didn't
Speaker 1: have the proof. So I would say it was like
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. We engaged with Jim and started working on
Speaker 1: the master plan. Took a nice slow route to kind
Speaker 1: of set objectives and budgets. And during that process, probably
Speaker 1: this time of year in twenty eighteen, I was super
Speaker 1: bored in my office and I have a closet and
Speaker 1: I have the ceiling tile that was in there crooked,
Speaker 1: and for like a decade I looked at this.
Speaker 2: You just ignored the crooked ceiling tile. Yeah, so just
Speaker 2: like the creaky door at your house.
Speaker 1: Super creaky. Yeah, you just so anyway, you know, winters
Speaker 1: are long here, they can be and uh, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just fix this. We're not finally gonna fix it.
Speaker 1: So I take my chair and I put it in
Speaker 1: my closet. And before I put the tile back, ceiling
Speaker 1: tail back, I'm like, I wonder what's up here? So
Speaker 1: I start snoop around up above the ceiling and sure
Speaker 1: enough I find this rolled up piece of paper. And
Speaker 1: my assistant at the my as system had to was
Speaker 1: at his desk and I said, Mark, you gotta come
Speaker 1: look at this. And I rolled it out on the carpet,
Speaker 1: and I mean it was like it was like finding
Speaker 1: buried treasure. Right the first thing I looked at was
Speaker 1: the stamp on it, which was nineteen twenty one, and
Speaker 1: it's not a Rainer. Well we don't know if Rayner
Speaker 1: drew it, but it's a Craning hardway. Craning Hardway was
Speaker 1: an irrigation well company from Saint Paul. We think what
Speaker 1: it is is it's drawn over up some type of
Speaker 1: drawing a blueprint from Rainer. So after that came out,
Speaker 1: kind of talked to leadership at the club and say, hey,
Speaker 1: this doesn't change things, but this this changes things. It
Speaker 1: changes everything. And a lot of a lot of assumptions
Speaker 1: that Jim had made, that I had made, that a
Speaker 1: lot of our long tenured members had made about certain
Speaker 1: holes and what was lost were kind of there on
Speaker 1: paper all of a sudden.
Speaker 2: Was that the first thing you found when you went
Speaker 2: up there, that was the only thing, that was the
Speaker 2: only thing that was up there, the only thing that
Speaker 2: was unbelievable. Yeah, and that that one of my follow
Speaker 2: up question is exactly what you just hit on. I
Speaker 2: feel like there are so many clubs that don't have
Speaker 2: a plan, and what we you know, end up having
Speaker 2: is architects that have a deep understanding of architects of
Speaker 2: old architects like like Jim has of Seth Rayner, you know,
Speaker 2: like Tom Dokaz of an architect like Gil Hans has
Speaker 2: done in so many places end up putting back what
Speaker 2: they think was there. Yes, how did your plan that
Speaker 2: was all assumption based? Like, what are a couple examples
Speaker 2: of it changing once the plan was there? Were there
Speaker 2: any general themes that you that were really different?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the main one that that solidified the
Speaker 1: assumption was is that Rainer didn't use a lot of
Speaker 1: ferry bunkers here because he used the topography as the
Speaker 1: hazard you had to. There was tons of blind shots
Speaker 1: out here because the corridors were so huge.
Speaker 2: I think for people that I'm going to assume that
Speaker 2: the vast majority of people listening to this have never
Speaker 2: visited your property, but I would say that it was
Speaker 2: one of the revelations of my year last year was
Speaker 2: how stunning, I mean how stunning of a property. Midland
Speaker 2: Hills sits on the back nine is extraordinary land for golf,
Speaker 2: like perfectly scaled contours like that, choppy rolling, irregular hills
Speaker 2: which leads to amazing fairway contours, amazing fairway natural hazards
Speaker 2: and then tremendous green sites. And the front nine's got
Speaker 2: a little bit more severe. It's a little bit different shaped,
Speaker 2: but that's also it's a very dramatic front nine. But
Speaker 2: the back nine, I would say, is just it's out
Speaker 2: of this world for golf. It's one of the least
Speaker 2: talked about really good golf courses in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, well, I appreciate that. In you know,
Speaker 1: as a superintendent, you always from an architectural standpoint, you
Speaker 1: think about the potential of the property you take care of.
Speaker 1: And when I start here in twenty ten, it was
Speaker 1: covered in trees, and two thousand trees later that have
Speaker 1: been taken out. We now have that gift to regift
Speaker 1: to the membership and reinforce what this golf course was
Speaker 1: all about and was the land. So some other things
Speaker 1: that maybe the plan solidified from assumption wise is, for example,
Speaker 1: the road hole. We knew there was ferry bunkers on
Speaker 1: the outside of the dog leg, and one of our shapers,
Speaker 1: Zach Vardy, was Jim Is like, I'm pretty sure this
Speaker 1: bunker was here, but there was no landform to find anything,
Speaker 1: And sure enough Zach started excavating and found the original
Speaker 1: bunker's hand. So that happened many times throughout the project,
Speaker 1: where Jim said, I think there was a bunker here.
Speaker 1: I think it the bunker extended to this point. And
Speaker 1: you know, the soils don't lie. If you dig down,
Speaker 1: you'll find history. You know, you'll find the history if
Speaker 1: you dig. And so those things happened several times throughout
Speaker 1: the project, and they were a blast. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had to take moments to just call everybody over to
Speaker 1: see what we found because it was it was it's
Speaker 1: just so fun. Irrigation cisterns that were buried next to
Speaker 1: greens that we had found. You know, those are over
Speaker 1: one hundred years old and they were basically intact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of that, a lot of that stuff that
Speaker 1: happened just kind of built to the story. That was
Speaker 1: kind of our story. You know, like you said, most
Speaker 1: of your listeners have never probably even heard of Middle Hills,
Speaker 1: but Jim had saw the potential in the place. And
Speaker 1: when we got finished, you know, we were to give
Speaker 1: it back to membership and then to see the the
Speaker 1: reaction is it's been a last You.
Speaker 2: Guys did a full shutdown for the renovation. How did
Speaker 2: you guys go about selling the membership over that You
Speaker 2: talked about it being a long term kind of sell.
Speaker 2: How was that process conveyed and what were the big
Speaker 2: moments that got you over the hump to get the
Speaker 2: work done.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the first and foremost thing that Jim
Speaker 1: preached to the membership was we want to make this
Speaker 1: golf course as fun as possible, and that's for everybody.
Speaker 1: Wasn't to make it harder. It wasn't to make it easier.
Speaker 1: It was to make it as fun as possible to play.
Speaker 1: With that being said, I think the campaigning that took
Speaker 1: place was to you know, if you have three hundred members,
Speaker 1: it's hard to get them all together in one room.
Speaker 1: It's they all have different objectives, they all have different
Speaker 1: personal wants. They all want to hold on to something
Speaker 1: that currently they have in the golf course that they
Speaker 1: think is going to change. You know, golf is an
Speaker 1: emotional sport, especially when you're very intimate with a property
Speaker 1: you've been at for a long time. You have a
Speaker 1: certain level of ownership, and change is hard. So we
Speaker 1: had to talk through all those things. I think one
Speaker 1: of the successful things we did is we broke out
Speaker 1: into kind of assigning members to talk to certain demographic
Speaker 1: parts of our membership to explain to them, you know, look,
Speaker 1: we're not going to we're not stretching out every hole.
Speaker 1: This isn't to chase the scorecard. So we did a
Speaker 1: really good job of trying to group everybody into abilities, age,
Speaker 1: skill level, you know, enjoyment, and really talk about how
Speaker 1: we're gonna make it, make it a funner golf course.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just about architecture that came with restoring that
Speaker 1: architecture came with making it fun for everybody. Angles with
Speaker 1: the ability just to put the ball from sixty yards out,
Speaker 1: all those things we couldn't do before. It was a
Speaker 1: it was a slow process, but I for us, we
Speaker 1: weren't in a rush. We were fortunate not to be
Speaker 1: in a rush that we didn't have to do it
Speaker 1: out of necessity. But it it it felt like the
Speaker 1: process stalled at some point. It never did stall, it
Speaker 1: just was there was There was moments where you got
Speaker 1: frustrated with not feeling like you were making momentum. But
Speaker 1: the but the culture of this club was one that
Speaker 1: we hired in our in architect, who we had a
Speaker 1: ton of trust in. He built that relationship over time,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to make sure that after the project
Speaker 1: was over, he wasn't just packing up his circus and
Speaker 1: leaving town. He wanted to continue the relationship for the
Speaker 1: long term and to continue to evaluate the work that
Speaker 1: we did and going forward with tweaks. So it was
Speaker 1: a I think every every restoration renovation has its cultural fit.
Speaker 1: Ours was to embrace the architecture which was Seth Reiner,
Speaker 1: which would obviously make our our property more attractable in
Speaker 1: a competitive market, but it was to really have our
Speaker 1: our end users just have a better experience. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of how it's turned out so far.
Speaker 2: How would you say with Rainer, he's obviously become a
Speaker 2: bit of a cult hero and golf architecture over the
Speaker 2: last ten to fifteen years. How have you seen it
Speaker 2: at the local level? Probably, you know, I don't want
Speaker 2: to mischaracterize Midland Hills, but you know, I imagine ten years
Speaker 2: ago nobody talked about Midland Hills being this Rainer golf course.
Speaker 2: How have you noticed at the course level the perception
Speaker 2: and the the stature of your golf course change because
Speaker 2: of just the association with Seth Rayner. Yeah, that was
Speaker 2: and did that help with the with the selling of
Speaker 2: the restoration.
Speaker 1: It didn't I would say it didn't help with the cell.
Speaker 1: It was kind of an unspoken thing that a couple
Speaker 1: of us at the club knew or hope that was
Speaker 1: going to happen. Because of again, our our membership isn't
Speaker 1: isn't really concerned about accolades or recognition. It's a pretty quiet,
Speaker 1: sleepy place, but it it we all there was, there
Speaker 1: was a small group of us that knew what the
Speaker 1: potential was and probably looking at at other examples of
Speaker 1: clubs that have gone through this, what would happen on
Speaker 1: the other side on a local level. I think it's
Speaker 1: opened a lot of people's eyes to a few things.
Speaker 1: We did our project kind of an untraditional sense from
Speaker 1: we didn't spend a massive amount of money doing it.
Speaker 1: We implemented our own staff into the into the construction phase,
Speaker 1: which saved us a ton of money and it and
Speaker 1: it increased our quality control. Uh. But it also we
Speaker 1: have we have now we have people that are that
Speaker 1: are at other clubs in town that we want to
Speaker 1: come see us to experience it that had zero interest
Speaker 1: in before. So yeah, it was kind of reaffirmation from
Speaker 1: telling kind of the naysayers that hey, if we do this,
Speaker 1: it's going to improve your enjoyment of the golf course,
Speaker 1: but it's also going to shed a spotlight of how
Speaker 1: cool this place really is.
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of times I a small
Speaker 2: percentage of people can see what a course can be,
Speaker 2: and being one of those and working there all the time,
Speaker 2: it has to be somewhat frustrating sometimes to hear people's
Speaker 2: negativity towards a place and know that it they just
Speaker 2: don't see what it could be. And then it's got
Speaker 2: to be extraordinarily rewarding afterward when that whole kind of
Speaker 2: discourse flips.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like a curran on a classic painting.
Speaker 1: You know, you just have to get vince people to
Speaker 1: take the cran off. And that's really where kind of
Speaker 1: our project started. Andy was eight ten years ago. We
Speaker 1: started to remove things from the property, which was just
Speaker 1: the extracurricular things that typical country clubs had, right your
Speaker 1: retaining walls and your flower beds and your stairs and
Speaker 1: chilt and stones and all of those things that were
Speaker 1: part of a trend. We started to remove those things.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think are being a said it
Speaker 1: really well and he said, we know we've arrived when
Speaker 1: there's nothing left to remove, and that really resonated with
Speaker 1: me about really playing golf course on a property, in
Speaker 1: promoting it in any way you can, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of what we did. It's just golf out there.
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Speaker 2: and from now back to Mike. Is there a favorite
Speaker 2: hole or section of holes in terms of the transformation
Speaker 2: that every time you go out and you just kind
Speaker 2: of smile about.
Speaker 1: I mean, the back nine is obviously special. The back
Speaker 1: nine is is a fantastic walk, and it's got some
Speaker 1: like you said, it's got that classic rumpled land and
Speaker 1: huge scale. The front nine, for me, I think has
Speaker 1: taken the biggest transformation. And everybody's always you know, members
Speaker 1: always want to play the back nine.
Speaker 2: But I love how it's funny. As a quick aside,
Speaker 2: I was playing the front nine and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 2: this is really good. And the person I was playing
Speaker 2: with was a former member and he's like, just wait
Speaker 2: till you get to the back Just wait till and
Speaker 2: I'm playing the front I'm like, oh, he keeps saying this, like.
Speaker 1: You know, so I think like the our Eden, which
Speaker 1: is the seventh hole to part three, and then you know,
Speaker 1: you play around the lake. The cool part about the
Speaker 1: Eden has got a water behind the green, you know,
Speaker 1: which is as close as you're going to get to
Speaker 1: the St. Andrew's Estuary is in Minnesota, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Rainer saw that and he was like, there was no
Speaker 1: other option to put the eat in there. And then
Speaker 1: you play around the lake, you play the nole hole,
Speaker 1: and then you play the case. Yeah, epic no hole.
Speaker 1: The scale of it, it's it's really hard to capture
Speaker 1: on even in a picture. And I put it up
Speaker 1: there with piping rock. It's really really solid, and it's
Speaker 1: a it's a hole that you can make a three
Speaker 1: and you can make a six. You know you've got
Speaker 1: a good hole when any day of the week, you
Speaker 1: know you might lose your score card on that hole.
Speaker 1: But that those that that three hill stretch is really
Speaker 1: great from the front, you know, and then you get
Speaker 1: to the back. Obviously, the re dan is a very
Speaker 1: unique dan, and I'm glad we didn't change it. We could.
Speaker 1: We could talk about that how most rare dans look
Speaker 1: like carbon copies. Ours is anything but and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to stand on that green and see the skyline of
Speaker 1: downtown Minneapolis is pretty cool.
Speaker 2: When did you first realize that you could get the
Speaker 2: skyline out of the property, Like, was there did you
Speaker 2: take down? Was there one tree that came down?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole back then, and it was I mean
Speaker 1: there's probably fifteen hundred trees in the back nine that
Speaker 1: came out to really promote that it was. I mean
Speaker 1: it's been a rewarding part. The tree removal has been
Speaker 1: a rewarding part, but it's been literally the hardest part
Speaker 1: of this whole process because we did ninety percent of
Speaker 1: it in house, and it's NonStop, you know, it ends
Speaker 1: it It starts in November and it ends in June
Speaker 1: when you get the stumps kind of grown in. So
Speaker 1: that's been the you know, the kind of the heavy
Speaker 1: heavy lifting was the tree work.
Speaker 2: This is a good topic in house tree removal versus
Speaker 2: contracting out. What what are the advantages of doing it
Speaker 2: in house and what are the toughest things about doing it?
Speaker 2: Like why do people contract it out?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the first thing is the risk, right,
Speaker 1: I mean risk of mitigation anytime you're running chainsaws and
Speaker 1: wood chippers. I mean that's that's no joke. So a
Speaker 1: certain amount of training needs to take place, and you
Speaker 1: have to have the right capital to be able to
Speaker 1: pull that off. You have to have the patience for
Speaker 1: it too. Our process was kind of slow and steady.
Speaker 1: Every year. It was x amount of trees over x
Speaker 1: amount of years. To be able to do it all
Speaker 1: at once. You know, it's it's a significant investment all
Speaker 1: at once. It wasn't in the carts for us. But
Speaker 1: it also wasn't the right thing for us to do.
Speaker 1: I think large scale mass removals at once can be
Speaker 1: a very scary thing that comes with some serious kickback.
Speaker 1: But if you slowly melt away the layers and layers
Speaker 1: of trees, it can kind of happen naturally over time.
Speaker 1: That was kind of what our plan was from the start.
Speaker 2: It's I think it's a good it's a valid point, right.
Speaker 2: It removes some of that initial shock and backlash when
Speaker 2: it happens over a long period of time, versus when
Speaker 2: it's just we went away for winter having been to
Speaker 2: the club and I come back and it's a completely
Speaker 2: different place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep. And and that just wasn't that that wasn't
Speaker 1: going to fit our culture. I think it was part
Speaker 1: of that process too. Was for me, it was educational,
Speaker 1: you know. Was it was educating membership as we went along,
Speaker 1: and the flat bellies that said, you know, we got
Speaker 1: to have a tree at two hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: yards out on both sides, and you know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: grow any rough underneath those trees. Once we started to
Speaker 1: remove them, and they realized, like, hey, are you going
Speaker 1: to ever mow the rough again? You know, those those
Speaker 1: those educational moments took a long time for for everybody
Speaker 1: to kind of be touched by it and really recognize
Speaker 1: what was happening, and it wasn't all bad. And I
Speaker 1: also think it's important too any to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: our scale of tree removal isn't for every club either,
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't think every club needs to
Speaker 1: be wide open and scaled like Midland is. No, it's
Speaker 1: it's not for everybody.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the you know, this is
Speaker 2: society at large. This is not a golf architecture problem.
Speaker 2: But what happens is, you know, there's this this kind
Speaker 2: of group follow the leader think and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: this is this is the way we have to do it,
Speaker 2: versus looking at each property design history and figuring out
Speaker 2: what the right solution is for them. You know that
Speaker 2: that's like the number one thing. And what I appreciate
Speaker 2: about the work that you guys did with Jim Orbina
Speaker 2: was that it was not like, hey, we need to
Speaker 2: do what Oakmont did, or we need to do like
Speaker 2: I think everybody goes to, we need to do what
Speaker 2: cal Club did. That's like the new line, and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: like instead of trying to copy Cal Club, which you're
Speaker 2: never going to do. You're never going to reach them
Speaker 2: if you're trying to copy them. What you need to
Speaker 2: do is like we need to do whatever we do,
Speaker 2: you you know, like that we have to figure out
Speaker 2: what our plan is and try and set a standard
Speaker 2: where people treat you like Cal Club, where we want
Speaker 2: to do what ex Club did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that goes I think that goes back to
Speaker 1: the culture of your of your club and being the
Speaker 1: best Midland Hills that we can be was our goal
Speaker 1: from the start. Yeah, we use some examples of restoration
Speaker 1: from Rainer architecture, but beyond that, it was always the
Speaker 1: goal of just being the best Midland Hills we can
Speaker 1: be and not not worry about what the Joneses are doing,
Speaker 1: because what makes Cal Club unique is that it's Cal Club.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I hear it everywhere like we're trying to be
Speaker 2: like Calclub. We're we're going to do this and we're
Speaker 2: going to be like Cal Club, and it's like.
Speaker 1: There's only one Cal Club, Man, Why did you try
Speaker 1: and be yourself? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Have you seen any cultural shifts at the club
Speaker 2: since you've down the work?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. Definitely, I think a few
Speaker 1: things we've had a huge influx of, and now our
Speaker 1: timing was unique, so we started our restoration in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: so before we even started with the onset of COVID,
Speaker 1: we didn't even know if we could pull the project
Speaker 1: off legally from a state standpoint. So obviously COVID brought
Speaker 1: a lot of people into the game, and we've had
Speaker 1: an influx of membership, but we've almost overwhelmingly had new members,
Speaker 1: younger members that have come and are interested to join
Speaker 1: a Seth Raynor golf club. Right, everybody's got a phone,
Speaker 1: everybody's got the Friday dot Com. They all can see
Speaker 1: what's happening and get that exposure that really wasn't easy
Speaker 1: to get from before or from from seeing what that
Speaker 1: are that classic architecture is. So there's definitely been a
Speaker 1: shift and people that have have joined recently that come
Speaker 1: on day one asking about the golf course, asking about
Speaker 1: the restoration, asking about Seth Reiner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, that's neat, it's uh, it's the I
Speaker 2: think that's the big opportunity that that renovations present. Beyond
Speaker 2: just a better course for the members, is the long
Speaker 2: term kind of cultural changes that they can present. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of times I think you see more walking,
Speaker 2: you see a little bit more appreciation for the golf course,
Speaker 2: which leads to better member care for for the course.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe less ball marks. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you see maybe.
Speaker 1: I mean are so big that our ball marks gets
Speaker 1: spread out.
Speaker 2: So that's gotta be a nice change.
Speaker 1: That is a good change. Uh, that's a good That's
Speaker 1: a good consolation.
Speaker 2: How did you get into turf? What was the calculus
Speaker 2: behind becoming a superintendent?
Speaker 1: Probably, like like most, the game of golf itself had
Speaker 1: me hanging around a golf course where I grew up,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't interested in golf. My grandfather used to
Speaker 1: bring me to the golf course in the in the summer,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't interested in the actual game, but I
Speaker 1: was interested in the tractors. And next thing I know,
Speaker 1: he had me picking rocks out of bunkers as a kid,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know they were paying me out of
Speaker 1: the till with his gambling money, I'm pretty sure. And
Speaker 1: I went to school for business and almost had my
Speaker 1: business degree and decided I didn't want to live in
Speaker 1: a cube for the rest of my professional life. And
Speaker 1: my grandfather was actually the one that said, you know what,
Speaker 1: why don't you go back and get in a ground
Speaker 1: me degree, So that's kind of that's how it happened.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I know it's been a super weird winter
Speaker 2: in the in the Midwest. You know, I get lots
Speaker 2: of texts from my family in Chicago telling me how
Speaker 2: it's warmer than uh than than in the Bay Area,
Speaker 2: you know, and it shouldn't have left, you know, the
Speaker 2: mild winter's abound. What what you challenges? Does the does
Speaker 2: a mild winter present you as a superintendent when you're
Speaker 2: probably you know it's February, you're probably used to being
Speaker 2: shut down, nobody asking if they come play.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I think typically if you ask somebody in the Upper
Speaker 1: Midwest of of their stress level, I think there's stress
Speaker 1: level in the winter can be just as high in
Speaker 1: the winter as it is in the summer. And obviously,
Speaker 1: mother nature you can't control what happens, but there are
Speaker 1: some widespread things that happen. Typically in Minneapolis, we'll get
Speaker 1: about fifty inches of snow. I think we've had six
Speaker 1: inches maybe. Wow. Yeah, it's been extremely warm, very dry,
Speaker 1: exposed turf is exposed turf with with no snow covers.
Speaker 1: Typically when you start worrying about desiccation everything drying out,
Speaker 1: that can be pretty devastating. We've had some timely snows
Speaker 1: and some rainfalls. Luckily the ground hasn't been frozen, so
Speaker 1: that water has gone in the ground. But yesterday it
Speaker 1: was sixty five and tonight slow is five degrees. So
Speaker 1: that type of temperature fluctuation is not not for the
Speaker 1: faint of heart. It causes potentially some some issues. So
Speaker 1: again there's nothing we can do about it. We just
Speaker 1: try to educate leadership of what's happening out there. But
Speaker 1: when you have weather like we've been having, everybody thinks
Speaker 1: that they're going to play golf early, and maybe maybe
Speaker 1: they will this year, but we always seem to have
Speaker 1: like that end of March, massive snow all we might
Speaker 1: not get it into this year, but every winter is different.
Speaker 1: This winter is definitely out of the norm, and anything
Speaker 1: you get anytime you get out of the norm, you
Speaker 1: get a little nervous. But I try not to lose
Speaker 1: any sleepover because there's nothing we can really do about it.
Speaker 1: We just have to pivot whatever it gives us and
Speaker 1: and try to execute a plan.
Speaker 2: Is there anything you do when you have that big
Speaker 2: temperature swing? Is there do you try and get water down?
Speaker 2: From what I understand, the turf struggles because of the
Speaker 2: quick drying out or the lack of moisture. Like I
Speaker 2: remember a few years ago I had Josh maher on
Speaker 2: from wild Horse and he was talking about how he's
Speaker 2: been experimenting with how to make snow. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 2: something that in the sand Hills of Nebraska. You know,
Speaker 2: moisture is averything every winter for them. Otherwise you have
Speaker 2: an event like they had two years ago where clubs
Speaker 2: with resources and with huge resources like sand Hills saw
Speaker 2: a ton of dead turf and then mom pas golf
Speaker 2: courses devastated by this. What do you do at a
Speaker 2: place where you know you have a lot MOI you
Speaker 2: get a lot more more moisture, But during those events,
Speaker 2: what are your kind of strategies?
Speaker 1: Well, anytime that you like on a typical winter, I
Speaker 1: would say, Andy, you get a bunch of snow in January.
Speaker 1: We've had this trend where it would warm up or
Speaker 1: would get a rain event where you'd get ice accumulation.
Speaker 1: And ice accumulation is an event that you can actually
Speaker 1: see and then you can hit the stopwatch and say, okay,
Speaker 1: this is day one of potential issues. There are things
Speaker 1: you can do physically to remove that snow and to
Speaker 1: expose the ice and to try to melt it with
Speaker 1: something like you know, being dry, exceptionally dry in desiccation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could go out in water, but then you run
Speaker 1: the risk of you know, crown hydration, which is when
Speaker 1: the turf takes the the water up and then it
Speaker 1: freezes and it inviscerates. It's like putting a can of
Speaker 1: pop in the freezer, right and explodes. That's that's what happens.
Speaker 1: The same thing doesn't sound No, it's terrible, right, especially
Speaker 1: if its your car so and and it's terrible and
Speaker 1: and it happens. It happens a lot, and it forces
Speaker 1: a lot of clubs to regrass to modern vent grasses.
Speaker 1: But you try to condition your turf to be as
Speaker 1: sustainable as possible, and that conditioning, I think where we
Speaker 1: grow grass. A lot of our summer conditioning is to
Speaker 1: survive winter. And when you get into a situation where
Speaker 1: we're going to have this massive sixty degree temperature fluctuation
Speaker 1: from yesterday to tonight. You do feel helpless because there's
Speaker 1: really nothing you can do. There are clubs that cover
Speaker 1: greens here. It's kind of a fading trend. But you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes the covers can make it worse because they generate
Speaker 1: heat underneath the cover, and you've got an artificial growing environment.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of damned if you do damn if
Speaker 1: you don't.
Speaker 2: Situation, But it don't sound fun. I see what you're
Speaker 2: saying about the stress level. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's just so many scenarios and there's so many
Speaker 1: variabilities that that it's hard to pinpoint a lot of
Speaker 1: times where we where you'll have turf loss.
Speaker 2: You know, in a way, the science is more figured
Speaker 2: out of of when it's ninety five and humid, Yes,
Speaker 2: what you need to do? Then when it's you know,
Speaker 2: cold and cry.
Speaker 1: Correct And in a lot of you know this, a
Speaker 1: lot of the the data collection that's been happening in
Speaker 1: and advances in technology and turf management, those are mostly
Speaker 1: dictated towards the summer growing months. The winter months are
Speaker 1: a whole different animal.
Speaker 2: What uh what? Speaking of technology, what advances in technology
Speaker 2: are you most excited for, say, in the next ten years.
Speaker 1: I think the integration of technology, to have a dashboard
Speaker 1: where you can go to find you know, your moisture,
Speaker 1: your chlorophyll analysis. All of those things that that can
Speaker 1: consolidate the data and put it, you know, put it
Speaker 1: on a on a dashboard are are extremely helpful from
Speaker 1: a developing technology standpoint. I mean, obviously everybody's waiting and
Speaker 1: we've been waiting for a while for for autonomous mowers.
Speaker 1: We've kind of taken too up forward a step back.
Speaker 1: Now it looks like we're going forward again. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously everybody's got labor challenges that will be fun. We've
Speaker 1: had We've done a bunch of testing for that here
Speaker 1: and it looks promising.
Speaker 2: What were your big takeaways from the testing for autonomous maurs.
Speaker 2: I think it's I mean, obviously it's a i think
Speaker 2: a hot topic in the industry, but also when you
Speaker 2: consider labor, it makes the most sense in terms of
Speaker 2: like where you could mitigate a lot of labor issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's important to probably pitch it as
Speaker 1: a reallocation of labor if you do have autonomous because
Speaker 1: they still need to be babysit. It's in some aspect,
Speaker 1: but it allows you to focus your labor down the middle,
Speaker 1: right down the corridors, and you know, maybe you can
Speaker 1: repetitively do some detailed things that your golfers really appreciate,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's edging sprinklers to filling all the
Speaker 1: fairway divots, whatever those time consuming things might be. You know,
Speaker 1: Autonomous is going to be able to reallocate the labor
Speaker 1: to really not just do the bare minimum, but to
Speaker 1: maybe do a little extra. Those things will be, uh
Speaker 1: will be exciting.
Speaker 2: We're we're you testing faraways rocks.
Speaker 1: Or bath faaraways, mostly faaraways. Yeah. The challenges with pharaoays
Speaker 1: obviously is the scale, right, the scale of mowing thirty
Speaker 1: to fifty acres or how many acres of faraways you have,
Speaker 1: and typically it takes three to five mowers, so you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of labor tied up for four or
Speaker 1: five hours in the day. But if a stick falls
Speaker 1: in the faraway or somebody's balls in the fairway, you know,
Speaker 1: all those things still have to be managed by a human.
Speaker 1: So it's also job security.
Speaker 2: From what I've gathered, like the aspirational job on the
Speaker 2: crew is the faaraway mower. That's like what you work
Speaker 2: up to and like seniority is the guy riding the
Speaker 2: faraway mower. That has to be a big shift, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think. I mean if I think about our staff,
Speaker 1: are our highest skilled Faraoy Moor, who mows our cleanup passes.
Speaker 1: I mean we always say he was born out of Toro.
Speaker 1: He can mow a laser beam like nobody can, and
Speaker 1: cleanups from a presentation standpoint, from our part of our
Speaker 1: restoration is a huge part. I mean our cleanup passes.
Speaker 1: I probably use ten cases of turf paint every year
Speaker 1: painting our cleanup passes on our fairways, which ten years
Speaker 1: ago I wouldn't have even thought about that. You know,
Speaker 1: it was painting cleanups on greens. So yeah, he's never
Speaker 1: gonna want to give that up.
Speaker 2: What what would you if you could remove one expectation
Speaker 2: from golf course maintenance? What would it be in terms
Speaker 2: of golfer expectation? If there's one thing you could you're
Speaker 2: you're the Tzar of golf and you could wave your
Speaker 2: wand and nobody asked for this anymore, what would it be?
Speaker 1: Probably comparing clubs to clubs, right, the comparison to we
Speaker 1: go right back to this, right.
Speaker 2: Why are our greens as fast as so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because everybody plays in guest days and member
Speaker 1: guests and and uh, everybody amps up their own golf
Speaker 1: course for those events. So then the expectations are you
Speaker 1: go play X y Z club and their greens were
Speaker 1: you know, rock star status. But that was a you know,
Speaker 1: that was just like the a PGA tour stop. I mean,
Speaker 1: they most places. It's just that's a snippet of what
Speaker 1: their normal conditionings are. So yeah, comparing apples to apples
Speaker 1: is almost impossible because every club is different.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always guess me, I get people like I'll
Speaker 2: play and it's like a hot day, and they'll like
Speaker 2: apologize about the greens being slower, and I'm like, honestly,
Speaker 2: I'm really happy they're slow, because I probably would like
Speaker 2: the golf course more at this speed than if you
Speaker 2: had them ramped up out of this world fast, because
Speaker 2: then I'd just be like, this is kind of silly.
Speaker 2: You know, You've got four pin whole locations on the
Speaker 2: screen when you could have ten, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It goes back to the culture
Speaker 1: of the club too, right of embracing the golf course
Speaker 1: changes every day throughout the day and That's the beauty
Speaker 1: of this game is that you play on a field
Speaker 1: that changes, and it could change from the front end
Speaker 1: of the back nine. And there's no reason to apologize
Speaker 1: for you know, a mucky, humid day where you can't
Speaker 1: even have gold bond. The greens are gonna are gonna
Speaker 1: be sticky.
Speaker 2: I one of the things that I think is crazy.
Speaker 2: And Steven Britain, uh superintendent at the Chevy Chase Club,
Speaker 2: brought this up, Well, why why do we need to
Speaker 2: have the same firmness across all the greens. Trying to
Speaker 2: achieve the same firmness on a on a green that's
Speaker 2: in the corner, that's in shade all morning, is that's
Speaker 2: insanity to try and strive to get the same firmness
Speaker 2: as say, your no hole that sits way up in
Speaker 2: the air is exposed the sun all day. And also
Speaker 2: when you go for this like homogeneous condition, it removes
Speaker 2: some of what you should want, which is local knowledge. Remember,
Speaker 2: oh this green I remember as a kid, and oh,
Speaker 2: this green is always wet. I need to control my
Speaker 2: spin a little bit here, or this green, this, this
Speaker 2: green is always a little bit slower. And these were
Speaker 2: the things part of the aspects that made up a
Speaker 2: great home course advantage. And I don't understand with like
Speaker 2: the way maintenance has gone in a lot of ways
Speaker 2: in some architecture, with like flattening greens for higher green speeds.
Speaker 2: What all you're doing is you're removing your home course advantage,
Speaker 2: which historically has been like a huge part of golf.
Speaker 2: Like if you go all the way back, it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: you have to go play the you have to go
Speaker 2: beat the parks in a challenge match at at Musselborrow.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that's where they played. If I
Speaker 2: if I mess that up, I apologize to the hundred
Speaker 2: historians that know that they'll correct you. Yeah, or you
Speaker 2: have to go play old Tom Morris at the old course, right,
Speaker 2: Like that was always the premise of the sport was
Speaker 2: this great. And all we're doing, it seems like, is
Speaker 2: chasing our tails to make every golf course the same,
Speaker 2: which is just irrational to me. And I always think
Speaker 2: courses in food and restaurants are a great comparison. And
Speaker 2: if this was the strive of restaurants across the country
Speaker 2: to make everything the same, yeah, people would be like
Speaker 2: throwing a fit. And it seems like golfers are embracing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they wouldn't. They wouldn't digest the product. I
Speaker 1: think it again, it goes back to the culture of
Speaker 1: uh thinking. Somehow we've found our way to think that
Speaker 1: these things should all be the same. I mean, my
Speaker 1: grandfather's hero was Ben Hogan, and Ben Hogan was always like,
Speaker 1: you know, what separates the good players from the best
Speaker 1: is their ability to adapt to the conditions. I mean,
Speaker 1: we go as far as bunkering, and people think bunker
Speaker 1: sand on the north side of green in the south
Speaker 1: side of the green should play the same. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's physically impossible. But I also think that and
Speaker 1: this isn't a dig but I think that. You know,
Speaker 1: when you look at golf courses and restorations these days
Speaker 1: and renovations, we do have, you know, a monastan of
Speaker 1: turf that literally looks perfect. From an esthetical standpoint, it
Speaker 1: looks perfect, and to our detriment our ability to train
Speaker 1: our staff and for them to execute our maintenance programs
Speaker 1: at such a high level. You don't need a PGA
Speaker 1: tour stop to look that way. We've got a ton
Speaker 1: of them in town and they look absolutely perfect. And
Speaker 1: I think that with that comes, you know, you lose
Speaker 1: a little bit of that rubb embracing rubb, of the
Speaker 1: rub of the green it you you expect perfection because
Speaker 1: it looks perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's obviously and I think the
Speaker 2: general trends of restoration, and I think part of it
Speaker 2: is just the the amazing advances that have happened with
Speaker 2: turf grass. Yeah, you know, and that advantage is that
Speaker 2: these new grasses present has also eroded some of the
Speaker 2: wonderfulness that the old school patina of of of worn
Speaker 2: in grass presents.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And and you know, for us, we weren't we
Speaker 1: weren't interested in regrassing. We wanted to keep the patina.
Speaker 1: I mean we actually flipped stot On tea boxes to
Speaker 1: keep it old. I mean, urbina is so old school.
Speaker 1: He wanted us to cut our bunker faces off and
Speaker 1: and put that grass back on the new bunkers, because
Speaker 1: you do lose some of that patina. And that's not
Speaker 1: to say that you can't have a classic golf course
Speaker 1: that still looks classic if it's regrassed. But also the infra,
Speaker 1: you know, the the infrastructures that we're investing in. I
Speaker 1: mean some of the numbers that clubs are spending are
Speaker 1: almost unattainable, but it it is getting them closer and
Speaker 1: closer to providing a product, or at least expecting that
Speaker 1: the product is going to be pretty damn similar every
Speaker 1: single day. But it's the pursuit of perfection is it's
Speaker 1: it's so fleeting and it's impossible to obtain other than
Speaker 1: a quick minute. But there's a lot of us that
Speaker 1: are pretty good at getting there.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get you out of here on a
Speaker 2: few quick questions. What is your favorite golf course outside
Speaker 2: of Midland to go visit in Minneapolis area?
Speaker 1: Minneapolis area, Minnicata.
Speaker 2: What's what's the superior twin city Minneapolis or Saint Paul.
Speaker 1: And why I think? I think most people in Minneapolis
Speaker 1: don't know Saint Paul exists, and people want to keep
Speaker 1: it that way. And I and I concur I live
Speaker 1: on the west side, but I work on the east side,
Speaker 1: and there is a a fantastic dynamic to uh to
Speaker 1: Saint Paula's wanting to keep the Minneapolis people on that
Speaker 1: side of the river.
Speaker 2: Favorite off season activity winter activity?
Speaker 1: Uh, probably music? Music music.
Speaker 2: What's the next show?
Speaker 1: H next show is Vampire Weekend. Oh yeah, they've been
Speaker 1: playing a long time either, so I now, Yeah.
Speaker 2: They're playing at the Greek and and uh in in
Speaker 2: Berkeley and I'm unfortunately going to be at the US Outpen.
Speaker 2: I was super bummed out, like, yeah, you talk, great band, historic,
Speaker 2: historic venue, and uh, I am not going to be
Speaker 2: here sadly. What what do you have? A just a
Speaker 2: music rack of one band that you've been listening to
Speaker 2: that maybe people haven't heard of, or maybe it's a
Speaker 2: retread that you should re listen to.
Speaker 1: Uh, that's a good question. I think I've been listening
Speaker 1: to this band called Jungle, okay, and Jungle is probably
Speaker 1: I don't know, give them a listen. You probably haven't
Speaker 1: heard Jungle.
Speaker 2: But okay, I'm gonna. I got it on Spotify now,
Speaker 2: all right, I'm gonna I'll queue it up right after
Speaker 2: we're done talking.
Speaker 1: So I love it.
Speaker 2: All right, Thank you, Mike and uh. I really appreciate
Speaker 2: your time and look forward to seeing you hopefully this
Speaker 2: this summer in the Twin City.
Speaker 1: Absolutely hopefully not in an empty parking lot.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you for listening to another episode of
Speaker 2: the Friday Golf Podcast, and big thanks to Meg Atkins
Speaker 2: for another wonderful light edit. Thank you Meg. As a
Speaker 2: quick reminder, one of the things that Meg works on
Speaker 2: a ton is the Frida Egg Pro Shop. That's pro
Speaker 2: Shop dot Thefrida Egg dot com. There you can find
Speaker 2: a wide array of new gear. We've got that thing stocked.
Speaker 2: I think we're starting to head into spring. I'm starting
Speaker 2: to see some trees blooming here on the West Coast.
Speaker 2: I know you're only a couple of weeks away Midwest
Speaker 2: and in Northeast, and you've had unseasonable, unseasonably warm weather.
Speaker 2: So start to think about spring, start to think about
Speaker 2: golf season. Check out the pro Shop, Proshop dot Thefrida
Speaker 2: Egg dot com. And thanks for listening to another episode
Speaker 2: of the fridayg Golf Podcast. We'll be back next week
Speaker 2: with a We've got a top fifty player in the
Speaker 2: world coming on, so that will be out on Monday
Speaker 2: at some point Monday, probably Monday afternoon. But thank you
Speaker 2: guys for listening and we will see
Speaker 1: You next week.