Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today we have an episode with Golf Club Atlas founder
Speaker 1: randmri Set. But first I'm very excited to announce that
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Speaker 1: without further ado, here's randmri Set.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 1: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a frid Egg
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 2: off the thelf course.
Speaker 1: You're a big proponent of dogs on a golf course.
Speaker 1: Why has America lost its way and not allowed dogs
Speaker 1: for the most part on golf courses.
Speaker 2: Well, Americans are good at always coming up with excuses,
Speaker 2: and they'll talk about the litigious nature of society and
Speaker 2: if somebody's dog went over and barked and bit somebody
Speaker 2: that the club would be Libel and da da da
Speaker 2: da da. But you know, they've done it in the
Speaker 2: UK for one hundred and fifty years. It's just part
Speaker 2: of the game, as part of the evolution of the game,
Speaker 2: and somehow they are able to figure out how to
Speaker 2: do it and we're not. So I'm not going to
Speaker 2: come up with excuses for why it wouldn't work here.
Speaker 2: I just know that it works over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it would give It would make
Speaker 1: the game way more approachable. Also, I think about it.
Speaker 1: My wife isn't a big golfer, but she loves our dog,
Speaker 1: and if I go out and walk with the dog,
Speaker 1: she's exponentially more likely to come walk with me.
Speaker 2: Exactly. I mean, you read the article I wrote in
Speaker 2: Golf Week. I mean it just literally, My fondest memories
Speaker 2: are the five Morissets and our dog Sandy going to
Speaker 2: the golf course that Trump's playing, Cypress Point or Pine
Speaker 2: Valley or whatever. And I feel like the next I'm
Speaker 2: fifty five, that the generations behind me are getting cheated
Speaker 2: of something. At least in this country. They're not in
Speaker 2: the UK, but they are here, and you know, I
Speaker 2: lament that fact.
Speaker 1: Besides dogs, what are kind of the say, virtues of
Speaker 1: UK golf versus an American goth you'd most like to
Speaker 1: see come to America.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, in the UK, golf is a integral
Speaker 2: but relatively small part of your life. You should be
Speaker 2: able to go play eighteen holes, have a match with
Speaker 2: your friend maybe Stableford, in three hours or less. You
Speaker 2: have a pain at the end of the round in
Speaker 2: your back home, all within four hours. In America, it's
Speaker 2: going to you might be looking at a six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight hour proposition and it's just so much you know,
Speaker 2: it's this infinitely more time consuming and therefore to a
Speaker 2: certain degree, it's just that much more selfish. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a selfish pursuit. You're doing something that makes you happy.
Speaker 2: You're leaving your kids and your wife and your dogs
Speaker 2: at home, and so you know, I just I like
Speaker 2: the way that the Brits do it. You know, if
Speaker 2: it takes several hours and you scoot right back home,
Speaker 2: you know it's in proportion to its worth in your life,
Speaker 2: and you can get on and do all kinds of
Speaker 2: of other things. So you know, one of the and
Speaker 2: that you know, you can't walk a seven thousand yard
Speaker 2: course in two hours forty five like you can swim
Speaker 2: Ley Forest. You know, I can play two rounds at
Speaker 2: Swinley Forest in the time that it takes to walk
Speaker 2: a quote unquote championship course in the United States. And
Speaker 2: so you know, I'm I'm I'm just a huge fan
Speaker 2: of six thousand, sixty one hundred sixty two hundred yard courses.
Speaker 2: Part does not need to be reached, certainly seventy two,
Speaker 2: it can be sixty eight, sixty seven. You get your
Speaker 2: exercise in, you know, in a timely manner. And I
Speaker 2: think that that's you know that the Brits approach it
Speaker 2: like that. I've never seen a Brit stand off to
Speaker 2: the side of a green and write his score down
Speaker 2: right after holding out. And you know, through golf club
Speaker 2: battlests have had a lot of guests here and when
Speaker 2: I take them to Southern Pins Country Club. If somebody
Speaker 2: asked me after the first hole, what'd you get, I
Speaker 2: know that I've made a misjudgment and inviting that guy,
Speaker 2: and of course I'll always have some kind of witty
Speaker 2: retort for that. But you know, the card and pencil
Speaker 2: mentality that Mackenzie hated is alive and well here, but
Speaker 2: I don't see it in the UK.
Speaker 1: It's the thing that drives me the most nots is
Speaker 1: if I'm in the group behind a group that's in
Speaker 1: carts and you know, they walk off the green and
Speaker 1: they put their putters in their bag and they get
Speaker 1: in the cart, and then one will take off and
Speaker 1: one will be paused there for a second, and you
Speaker 1: know that they're writing down the scores for the whole.
Speaker 2: Sad to say. I mean, if you see that unfolding,
Speaker 2: probably just playing the wrong golf course, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just not You're not going to have kindred spirit
Speaker 2: golfers of the sort of golf that you and I like,
Speaker 2: you know around you, and that's just too bad.
Speaker 1: It's Southern Pines.
Speaker 3: That's one of the hidden gems of American golf.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's a delight. I mean, I contend
Speaker 2: that it's on the best property in Moore County. Every
Speaker 2: hole rises or falls twenty thirty feet. The green to
Speaker 2: tea walks are very short. I've lived here. I moved
Speaker 2: here in two thousand and Chris buy and I go
Speaker 2: out many evenings after work to play anywhere from five
Speaker 2: to eleven or twelve holes, and you know, we're closing
Speaker 2: in on twenty years of having done that, and not
Speaker 2: once if I made the mile drive thinking, gee, I
Speaker 2: wish I was doing something else. I mean, I'm always
Speaker 2: keen to get to the golf course. And a lot
Speaker 2: of that's just because the land is so good. Yes,
Speaker 2: all the detail work, you know, the ross detail work
Speaker 2: is missing, the greens have been modified, but nonetheless the
Speaker 2: appeal of the land just shines through their only homes
Speaker 2: on two of the holes, and oftentimes we'll skip those
Speaker 2: two holes. And regardless of how I left the house,
Speaker 2: I will be coming home in a better mood. If
Speaker 2: I was in a great mood when I left the house,
Speaker 2: I'll be in an even better mood when I return.
Speaker 2: So my wife, Fritz is always keen to shove me
Speaker 2: out the door and let me go get my hour fixed.
Speaker 1: It's funny I was. It was the middle of winter
Speaker 1: we left for this trip, and the one of the
Speaker 1: first nights, I was really stressed out, had been working
Speaker 1: all day, and I went out to a course and
Speaker 1: walked nine and like forty five fifty minutes came back
Speaker 1: and my wife was like shocked. I was in a
Speaker 1: completely different state of mind. And it's just amazing how
Speaker 1: like the spiritual, like the release, Like it's almost like
Speaker 1: meditation getting to go out and walk and play golf.
Speaker 2: So you didn't race home and enter your scores into
Speaker 2: the Gin handicap system and compute how many greens and
Speaker 2: regulation you had and how many pots.
Speaker 3: I wasn't keeping my stats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just putting with a pin in. I
Speaker 1: was you know, I was hitting a second chip if
Speaker 1: I wanted to hit a second chip. But most importantly,
Speaker 1: I was just hitting the golf ball and walking.
Speaker 2: That's what golf's for, and that just that message somehow
Speaker 2: gets lost in this country. And again, people are free
Speaker 2: to turn the sport into anything that they want to.
Speaker 2: But for me, you know, it's pure relaxation. A friend
Speaker 2: of mine once said, well, you don't ever play for money,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I play for something you know
Speaker 2: much better than that. I mean, it's just you know,
Speaker 2: bragging rights, and he just he didn't understand that.
Speaker 1: That's I went through. I was a competitive golfer for
Speaker 1: you know, I still play some competitive golf, but I
Speaker 1: was playing for score and I found myself. I got
Speaker 1: kind of you know, loss in my way. But then
Speaker 1: when I started writing and reading more about architecture three
Speaker 1: years ago, then all of a sudden, the enjoyment of
Speaker 1: golf like spiked. I cared so much less about what
Speaker 1: I was shooting, what I was scoring, and I was
Speaker 1: just enjoying walking and observing what was going on around
Speaker 1: me on the golf course. And it was just an
Speaker 1: enlightening moment. And I think that's the thing that people
Speaker 1: get lost with the It is the American mentality. It's
Speaker 1: always like striving. And what's ironic about it is at work,
Speaker 1: you're always striving to be better. You're trying to you know, grow,
Speaker 1: And that's like, you know, that's your where do the
Speaker 1: stress comes from? Right? It's like, why are we putting
Speaker 1: this all the stress on when we're doing a leisure activity.
Speaker 2: If I want stress, I'll stay at my desk. It's
Speaker 2: this meant to be a pure form of laxation. And
Speaker 2: again I don't know why. You know, let's say that
Speaker 2: you instead of shooting seventy five, you wanted to shoot
Speaker 2: seventy three. Well, how much more short game time is
Speaker 2: that going to take for you? To be away from
Speaker 2: your wife to try and lop those two shots off.
Speaker 2: And that's where it just becomes, you know, more and
Speaker 2: more and more of a selfish pursuit. And really the
Speaker 2: only person who cares what you shoot is you. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's not a person in the world who cares what
Speaker 2: you shoot other than yourself. And you know, all I
Speaker 2: can try and do is hope and pray to break eighty.
Speaker 2: And you know, if I do, you know there's a
Speaker 2: sense of satisfaction. And if I don't, who cares. But
Speaker 2: one thing, you won't hear me talk about it because
Speaker 2: I know nobody cares.
Speaker 1: That's exactly, nobody cares for yourself about what you're doing,
Speaker 1: or the guy, maybe the guy that you're playing a
Speaker 1: match against.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but then there's just match play and there's
Speaker 2: no score, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I think that's like a big thing, is
Speaker 1: the match play component, Like how much quicker things would
Speaker 1: play and how much differently course design would have been
Speaker 1: had match play been the predominant form of the game
Speaker 1: in the US versus stroke play.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we've just profiled Somerset Hills and White
Speaker 2: Bear Yacht Club on Golf Club that list and both
Speaker 2: of those in with three hundred and forty three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yarders, both of which you know, if you're
Speaker 2: in a tight match against a good player, you're pushing
Speaker 2: for three. It's really hard to achieve. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's a great match play holes. They don't fit into
Speaker 2: the American norm of the big, tough, you know, brutish, strong,
Speaker 2: two shotter in the round. But again in match play,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, to me, it's much more interesting.
Speaker 2: Could you birdy the whole and win versus get a
Speaker 2: par and you're opponent, you know, Bogie's has a mishap.
Speaker 1: What you're evaluating, say a golf course, and you just
Speaker 1: touched on to non championship golf courses by certainly today's standards,
Speaker 1: fun golf courses to play versus a brutish championship course.
Speaker 1: How do you do you do you kind of look
Speaker 1: at them as two different types of golf.
Speaker 2: No, I mean it just you know, the only thing
Speaker 2: that I know leaving a golf course is do I
Speaker 2: want to come back? That's the only thing that matters
Speaker 2: to me. And if I do want to, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd never understand somebody who says, you know, I just
Speaker 2: loved it. I had the best time. You know, do
Speaker 2: you think you'll ever go back now? I mean, you
Speaker 2: know there as you know, and that is the as
Speaker 2: ease of travel has come about in the last two decades.
Speaker 2: There are now a lot of chasers and people running
Speaker 2: around ticking boxes. I've played here, I've played here, and
Speaker 2: you know, if a guy has played a golf course
Speaker 2: one time, you know, he might have some surface remarks
Speaker 2: about it that you can pretty much read anywhere. I'm
Speaker 2: much more interested in the guy who's played at two, three,
Speaker 2: four five times and really taken the time to start
Speaker 2: to get to know the course. But it all comes
Speaker 2: back to, you know, do you want to return. I'll
Speaker 2: never forget the first time I played Castle Stewart. I
Speaker 2: just felt like I missed, you know, I wasn't hitting
Speaker 2: the ball well, I was always out of position. I
Speaker 2: just felt like I was missing something and I just
Speaker 2: knew that I was super keen to return. And so
Speaker 2: a few years ago, Fritz and I went up there
Speaker 2: in November. There are very few people. We stayed for
Speaker 2: three days and everything just opened up before me and
Speaker 2: it's just been one of my favorite courses ever since.
Speaker 2: But it only happens based on familiarity.
Speaker 1: That I feel the same way as I was talking
Speaker 1: to somebody the other day about Old Town Club and
Speaker 1: they're like, I'm surprised you're not hitting Old Town Club
Speaker 1: on this trip. And I was like, well, I talked
Speaker 1: talked to a guy at the club at Dunlop who
Speaker 1: suggests I come back in the fall. Plus I didn't
Speaker 1: want to just squeeze in one day, Like, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to go there, I want to go I want
Speaker 1: to be there for.
Speaker 2: At least too properly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's funny because, like what you were just
Speaker 1: talking about in Castle Stewart, I played. So I played
Speaker 1: National Golf Links for the first time this year, and
Speaker 1: the first round it was like I felt sensory overload,
Speaker 1: you know. I walked off the golf course and I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I've seen so much stuff that
Speaker 1: exactly that you were. I was struggling to pros and
Speaker 1: and then I got I got to go back again
Speaker 1: that week and play it again, and I picked up more.
Speaker 1: And then and then I went later in the year,
Speaker 1: and you pick up more that that time. I played
Speaker 1: with older equipment, so I picked up even more, Like
Speaker 1: you know, I'm playing with a ballota and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this T shot on seventeen isn't just bashed
Speaker 1: up the left. It's like, oh my god, I'm seeing
Speaker 1: bunkers I hadn't seen before. And that's the thing is
Speaker 1: with these great golf courses, you learn so much more
Speaker 1: and more and more every time around them, and it's
Speaker 1: almost it's unfair to even that's something with a rating system.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you, is like, how do
Speaker 1: you even cast judgment on a golf course one time around?
Speaker 1: Especially with the you know, the great ones.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of people. I remember a friend
Speaker 2: of mine, Ted Sturgis, from Indianapolis. We went to see
Speaker 2: Chambers Bay, Tom Doaks Course in Washington State, Tumble Creek,
Speaker 2: and the David McClay kid Course, Gamble Gamble's Hands and
Speaker 2: we was about a five day trip and Ted asked
Speaker 2: me at the end, and then we saw Waverley and
Speaker 2: then the Cow Club. He goes, so, you know, how
Speaker 2: would you rank the five courses? And I said, Ted,
Speaker 2: you know, asked me in five weeks and I'll have
Speaker 2: had time to kind of mull it over. But you know,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that's a little bit part of
Speaker 2: the danger. And I'm not I know, I have a
Speaker 2: Twitter account and people are tweeting at me, but I
Speaker 2: can't remember my password to ever respond. But I think
Speaker 2: that's a real danger. I personally would be very leery
Speaker 2: of making tweets leaving a golf course because I just
Speaker 2: you know, there's no rush. The world's not waiting for
Speaker 2: your opinion on a golf course. You might as well
Speaker 2: take the time to you know, to kind of roll
Speaker 2: it around. And I think about it. You know, it's
Speaker 2: always been ironic to me. We expect our architects to
Speaker 2: live and die on a site and only do two
Speaker 2: or three courses max in a year, and then we
Speaker 2: blow in and out in five hours to render some
Speaker 2: you know, judgment. Where's the fairness in that? It's just absurd.
Speaker 1: People always are like, you don't write your review, like
Speaker 1: you write about golf course right away when it's freshest,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I don't forget about it. I
Speaker 1: actually think more about it. And then you know what,
Speaker 1: the stuff that sticks with you the most too, right
Speaker 1: when you wait. So you started golf Club Atlasts in
Speaker 1: the late nineties, How did it come to be? And
Speaker 1: for anybody that's listening that's not gone to the site.
Speaker 1: It's essentially, I mean, something that's inspired me since I
Speaker 1: was a kid and read and you know, there's unbelievable
Speaker 1: troves of information about golf architecture on it.
Speaker 2: Well, to be honest, I was bullied into starting it.
Speaker 2: Some friends of mine had some software and they wanted
Speaker 2: to prove to corporations that it worked. And they asked
Speaker 2: me if I had anything that they could load into
Speaker 2: it that would demonstrate its viability. And I said no,
Speaker 2: And they came back and said, well, do you ever
Speaker 2: take pictures of anything? I said, apart from golf courses? No,
Speaker 2: And they said, well, you know, have you ever written
Speaker 2: about golf courses? And it turned out my brother and
Speaker 2: I wrote these little booklets and we would send them
Speaker 2: to twenty or twenty five people. I said, yeah, I
Speaker 2: enjoyed doing that. Said well, why don't you do some
Speaker 2: course profiles. We can do this and this, And then
Speaker 2: the clincher was they said you could have something called
Speaker 2: a discussion group. And this is in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, what's that and they said, well you
Speaker 2: can post. And I'm living in Sydney Australia. You can
Speaker 2: make a post and people around the world can read
Speaker 2: it and then respond back. And at the time I
Speaker 2: was going broke, calling people saying I just played Royal Melbourne,
Speaker 2: I just played Kingston Heath, I just played New South
Speaker 2: Wales and I'm getting these enormous phone bills and I said,
Speaker 2: so wait. Essentially, I thought, well, if I did that,
Speaker 2: it would pay for these stupid phone calls of me
Speaker 2: bragging to people. Sure enough, we started to assemble things
Speaker 2: and we went live in the summer of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: With this all a sudden ability for people to communicate,
Speaker 1: exchange ideas, you know, share information. How do you think
Speaker 1: golf architecture has changed with the founding of golf club Batlats.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, a lot of clubs do kind of
Speaker 2: cloak and dagger stuff. I mean, I know growing up
Speaker 2: that the power and control on what direction a golf
Speaker 2: course was going to go resided with a few people.
Speaker 2: Now there there's just so much more free flow of
Speaker 2: information and it's available to anybody and all you have
Speaker 2: to do is your due diligence. So there, in theory,
Speaker 2: there should be a lot more educated people on golf
Speaker 2: course architecture, you know, and in addition to the Internet
Speaker 2: and websites and podcasts like yours, there was a real
Speaker 2: resurgence starting in the mid nineties, just in printed literature,
Speaker 2: a lot of fine golf books. I know you're a
Speaker 2: huge fan of George Bado's book on CB McDonald and
Speaker 2: just you know, just became an instant cornerstone book that
Speaker 2: could disseminate, you know, valuable information to every McDonald rainter
Speaker 2: course out there. And you see places like Sleepy Hollow
Speaker 2: just latch onto it and and run with it. So
Speaker 2: so there's so much better information out there, and and
Speaker 2: it's available to all the members and I you know,
Speaker 2: and to be honest, you know what golf club at
Speaker 2: lists has become since two thousand and six seven, with
Speaker 2: the great implosion of new course construction, has really been
Speaker 2: chronicling all the great restoration work because there's been a
Speaker 2: paucity of new course construction. And you know, that's one
Speaker 2: thing that America has done better than the UK. They
Speaker 2: Americans have taken greater, more records and more detail has
Speaker 2: gone into restoration projects here than elsewhere around the golf globe.
Speaker 1: It's something that American golf has done better than that.
Speaker 1: That's a rare thing for some. It's actually, you know,
Speaker 1: I never read thought about it that way.
Speaker 2: And you know, I can whine a lot and wish
Speaker 2: the sport was simpler here and wish it was more
Speaker 2: akin to the UK roots. But that thought occurred to
Speaker 2: me when I was in Edinburgh a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: that that that is. And I asked several of the
Speaker 2: Scots I was with, and and nobody really would take
Speaker 2: the other side of that argument that they're that they
Speaker 2: do that are pure restoration work.
Speaker 3: How long did you live in Australia seven years nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty three to two thousand. How's the golf culture there
Speaker 3: different from say the UK and America.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a it's warmer, and so you'll see
Speaker 2: the folks with the socks pulled up to their knees
Speaker 2: and in short pants, and I don't think short pants
Speaker 2: are allowed even at some of the clubs in the UK.
Speaker 2: They have the same culture. In terms of pull trolleys.
Speaker 2: I don't ever recall seeing a caddy in Australia other
Speaker 2: than at an event. You know it, if you're an
Speaker 2: able bodied person in the UK or Australia, you're going
Speaker 2: to take a pool cart or you're going to carry
Speaker 2: your bag. I mean, you're not going to feel like
Speaker 2: a ponce and have some guy do it for you
Speaker 2: when you're perfectly capable. So in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: it's just a warm weather version of golf. In the UK.
Speaker 2: The biggest difference that they do is that they pull
Speaker 2: their trolleys right across the greens rather than around the sides,
Speaker 2: and you see so much of the you know, the
Speaker 2: fringes in this country are oftentimes the worst presented part
Speaker 2: of the golf course because they get so much traffic.
Speaker 2: In Australia recognizes that and they say the hardest surface
Speaker 2: on the golf course is the putting surface and you
Speaker 2: do the least damage, so just go, you know, drag
Speaker 2: your card across.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I as an American, you always walk around
Speaker 1: and put your bag on the fringe. And I was
Speaker 1: playing golf with Brian Palmer, who was the former superintendent
Speaker 1: of Short Acres, and He's just putting his bag right
Speaker 1: on the green and I'm like, well he's doing it
Speaker 1: and you know, same idea. He's like me resting this
Speaker 1: bag and he has, you know, a no stand carry
Speaker 1: bag like a it was like a Mackenzie bag and
Speaker 1: him putting it down. I mean that's less impact on
Speaker 1: the green than somebody walking it.
Speaker 2: You know, it makes sense. Another thing in Australia. I
Speaker 2: remember if you hit it to within your first putt
Speaker 2: to within two or three feet, and assuming you're not
Speaker 2: named by his line, you are fully expected to hold out.
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to see you mark clean the ball, step back,
Speaker 2: plumb bob, do this? Do that? You know there's a
Speaker 2: great sense of urgency to you know, beat four hours
Speaker 2: and just playing a you know, timely manner. Again, nobody
Speaker 2: has the patience to watch you grind over a two
Speaker 2: and a half footer.
Speaker 1: I don't have the patients to allow myself to rind
Speaker 1: over too.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now let's take a few moments to talk about
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Speaker 1: to ran Moro set. One of the new things that
Speaker 1: you added this year was a GCA is the one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty seven Custodians of the Game. I thought
Speaker 1: it was one of the best things I've read in
Speaker 1: a long time. Was the you know, the preamble to
Speaker 1: the to the list of courses. Tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about how you came up with that idea, why
Speaker 1: you decided to put it out now, and kind of
Speaker 1: the thought process behind what a true custodian of the
Speaker 1: game is.
Speaker 2: Well, I have you know, you and I were talking
Speaker 2: last night. You know, rankings and lists have taken on
Speaker 2: negative connotations lately, but I've always enjoyed puzzling over what resonated,
Speaker 2: what did and why do I like one course more
Speaker 2: than the other? Blah blah blah. And so Tom Doak
Speaker 2: asked me to join the Golf magazine panel in the
Speaker 2: mid nineteen nineties when I was living in Australia, and
Speaker 2: I served on that panel, but I became frustrated by
Speaker 2: several things that were going on, and I didn't think
Speaker 2: that the direction really represented in a speuse the the
Speaker 2: kind of golf that I really enjoyed. So I resigned
Speaker 2: from that panel in March or April, knowing full Well
Speaker 2: had already started to write the one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: seven Custodians of the Game. And one of the things
Speaker 2: that had prompted me was, you know, we write a
Speaker 2: lot of course profiles on golf club batlests on courses
Speaker 2: that are whether they're nine holers or six thousand, sixty
Speaker 2: two sixty three hundred yards, and I've just received some
Speaker 2: of the nicest handwritten letters from people saying thank you
Speaker 2: for being a voice of reason in the world, and
Speaker 2: so prompted by that. You know, you know, it's one
Speaker 2: thing if you feel like you're the only person who
Speaker 2: enjoys that golf, and sometimes you would just kind of
Speaker 2: keep your opinion to yourself, but I think there's an
Speaker 2: enormous group of people who would enjoy playing, you know,
Speaker 2: three hour round golf and some of the things that
Speaker 2: we've talked about earlier on your show, and so I
Speaker 2: tried to give a voice to to that, to to
Speaker 2: what you know, would appeal and then some of the
Speaker 2: things that you know that, like in America, you know,
Speaker 2: some of the trappings of the game that don't actually
Speaker 2: lend any real value. And so so I'm to be honest,
Speaker 2: I am very proud. And I got a lot of
Speaker 2: help from three or four people who asked to remain anonymous.
Speaker 2: But I was really really pleased with how it turned out.
Speaker 2: And I was pleased with the outcome because there were
Speaker 2: some people who were very upset that they didn't make it,
Speaker 2: which made me happy. And so you know it, you know,
Speaker 2: and it really reached far and wide. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: a technological idiot, and I'm always amazed at you know,
Speaker 2: golf club battlests. Having been going for long enough, you know,
Speaker 2: we have a reach into you know, all the corners
Speaker 2: of the world. And and it was and it was
Speaker 2: really pleasing. You know, a past captain of the RNA
Speaker 2: sent a glowing email and to a guy like me
Speaker 2: who cares about the history of the sport, what can
Speaker 2: you say? I mean, it just meant a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So where how does the list evolve?
Speaker 1: Is there you know plans for updating changing as you
Speaker 1: go along.
Speaker 2: The one hundred So it's interesting that you know, the
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty seven came about because there are
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty seven Open Championships that have been held,
Speaker 2: and there have been a few missteps along the way,
Speaker 2: like Kerneusti where they lost control of the core twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, but by and large it's been a testament
Speaker 2: to the game. So I decided to do one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty seven, and I said, with each Open Championship,
Speaker 2: I'll add another course to the list, and you know,
Speaker 2: in the process, over the course of a year, I
Speaker 2: might play revisit ten or fifteen, you know, or so
Speaker 2: of those courses, and so there'll be some some movement.
Speaker 2: Shawn Arble is a huge I'm just a huge, huge,
Speaker 2: huge fan of Shawn Arble's work in the United Kingdom
Speaker 2: profiling these country English courses and working on a trip
Speaker 2: with him and my friend Joe Andreoli in the first
Speaker 2: of September to go see a lot of common ground
Speaker 2: courses up the west side of England. So I have
Speaker 2: a feeling that two or three of those will squeeze
Speaker 2: their way onto the list, and next it'll become one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty eight Custodians. Even though somebody said that
Speaker 2: the expression the one hundred and forty seven Constodians has
Speaker 2: already wedged its way into the vernacular, and so you
Speaker 2: ought to keep it at that, even though the number
Speaker 2: will grow. And I think maybe that's the way I'll
Speaker 2: do it. And when it reaches one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: five courses, you'll know that it's been going for eight years,
Speaker 2: and so it'd be a nice process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it gives people a reason to reread that
Speaker 1: again every year, which is I think important is that
Speaker 1: you're always good to reread stuff and like jog your
Speaker 1: memory of Oh this is what's important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now you know it's fun.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the comments came from an architect who just
Speaker 2: played Royal Port Rush and and the several times that
Speaker 2: I've been there, it has had really wet, thick, heavy
Speaker 2: rough line on top of itself, and you know, it's
Speaker 2: a course is not heavily bunkered, and obviously it's a
Speaker 2: very windy sight. And then I just feared with the
Speaker 2: Open Championship coming there this year that it'd be even
Speaker 2: more narrow. And so that's an example of a course
Speaker 2: that didn't make it. And this architect was actually saying
Speaker 2: the playing conditions were wonderful and the rough wasn't impenetrable.
Speaker 2: So some of that just has to do with, you know,
Speaker 2: the weather in the time that you're there, and so
Speaker 2: you know, they're you know, probably is a is a
Speaker 2: course need to go revisit.
Speaker 1: But when how do you get into golf courses in
Speaker 1: the start? I mean, you've been traveling a ton, You've
Speaker 1: seen everywhere, you've been heavily. You're one of the co
Speaker 1: authors of the Confidential Guides with Tom Doak and Darius Oliver,
Speaker 1: And how how do you, you know, kind of start
Speaker 1: this golf crazed life.
Speaker 2: No, it's you know, it's one hundred percent due to Dad,
Speaker 2: who took a very relaxed approach, and he would go
Speaker 2: play nine holes every night after work. And he never
Speaker 2: put any pressure on us to go. And and as
Speaker 2: soon as you know, as soon as somebody doesn't want
Speaker 2: you to go, you want to go. So I mean,
Speaker 2: so you know, and and so we would, you know,
Speaker 2: we started off like that. And Dad worked at a
Speaker 2: regional investment firm and in Richmond, Virginia, and there was
Speaker 2: a man named Harry Easterly who worked there too, and
Speaker 2: mister Easterly later became the president of the USGA, and
Speaker 2: was on it, was the executive director of the USGA,
Speaker 2: and was a member at Saint Andrew's and Mirfield and
Speaker 2: every Augusta and Pine Valley, and and mister Easterly took
Speaker 2: an interest in my dad and father taking his three
Speaker 2: sons to play golf, and so in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: when I was twenty years old, we took our first
Speaker 2: trip to the UK and we played Dornock, Mierfield, Saint
Speaker 2: Andrew's and Turnberry. And you know, if you didn't like golf,
Speaker 2: then you know you didn't. If that didn't peak your
Speaker 2: interest in golf architecture, then something was wrong. And I
Speaker 2: ended up working for the USJA for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty five eighty six, you know, I started
Speaker 2: to see Fisher's Island, Shinnecak Hills, played Augusta with mister Easterly,
Speaker 2: So you know, obviously an incredibly fortunate, spoiled, rotten life,
Speaker 2: but it all resonated. And then you know, comparing those courses,
Speaker 2: though I was seeing some work going on to the
Speaker 2: Country Club of Virginia where we remember, that just didn't resonate,
Speaker 2: It didn't mesh what I saw these great courses, was
Speaker 2: what was going on with the local club. So you
Speaker 2: start pondering, wondering, wondering, and you know, one of our
Speaker 2: first trips was to Pinehurst and Harbortown. It was a
Speaker 2: family vacation from Richmond. We stopped in Pinehurst and we
Speaker 2: went down to Harbortown and you know, Harbortown has some
Speaker 2: obvious wow moments and really cool features and really cool greens.
Speaker 2: And I still think that in sand Hills are one
Speaker 2: of the two greatest courses, you know, in the in
Speaker 2: the modern game. That changed the direction of the game.
Speaker 2: But nonetheless, we walked away thinking that Pinehurst was all
Speaker 2: that bit more special and we just and on the
Speaker 2: ride home from Hilton Head to Richmond, which was something
Speaker 2: like eight nine hours, all we did was blabber about
Speaker 2: why we thought that. And so that's when I'm fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 2: You know, poor moms in the front. I'm sure she
Speaker 2: owned some ear plugs that I never saw, but you know,
Speaker 2: just trying to you know, you know, comparing Harbortown with
Speaker 2: these you know, calibogie sound and high winds versus Pinehurst, which,
Speaker 2: other than a couple of holes, doesn't move up or down,
Speaker 2: you know, more than ten or fifteen feet. It really
Speaker 2: was an interesting mental exercise. So just you know, from that,
Speaker 2: from that first Pinehurst Harbortown trip to the UK trip
Speaker 2: to some exposure to the Northeast courses, including like Yale University,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a recipe for falling in love
Speaker 2: with the study of golf architecture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the I think that's the Yale's one that kind
Speaker 1: of I think can show what a like how a
Speaker 1: person views the game. I was playing with a random
Speaker 1: guy yesterday and he was like, oh, that towel, I
Speaker 1: have a Yale towel and he couldn't see the whole towel.
Speaker 1: He's like that that looks like a that's a really
Speaker 1: wild course. Like and he was you know, in a
Speaker 1: in kind of a tone that was like he didn't
Speaker 1: like it, and like the blind shots and everything. You
Speaker 1: could just tell like, oh, this is the type of
Speaker 1: but and I don't want that to sound the wrong way,
Speaker 1: but I said, oh, yeah, that's amazing place, huh. And
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, it's something. And but you know that
Speaker 1: that place is like an adventure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I went up there when I joined the USA
Speaker 2: in eighty five and so I'm in Bernardsville and Yale.
Speaker 2: From Bernardsville, it was on a weekend. I went with
Speaker 2: Wes Seely, who's the director of communication, and we saw
Speaker 2: Herbert Warren wind up on the patio, wrapped up in
Speaker 2: a blanket, and that was awesome. But when we got
Speaker 2: back to the USGA and we said, yeah, we drove,
Speaker 2: you know, two and a half hours to Yale. And
Speaker 2: the man's response was, why did you go there? There's
Speaker 2: so many better conditioned courses in Connecticut, and you know,
Speaker 2: and yes, there was goose droppings all over the third
Speaker 2: Green and YadA YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. And I came
Speaker 2: back just blown away by that golf. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was just eye opening, and you know, talking about inspiring
Speaker 2: and da da da da dah. And and then you know,
Speaker 2: that guy's comment was just this bucket of cold water.
Speaker 2: And I just knew right away that he and I
Speaker 2: were coming at the sport from two different things, you know,
Speaker 2: two different angles. And again not saying you know, there's
Speaker 2: a right or wrong, but you know, I'll stick with
Speaker 2: my perspective.
Speaker 1: That's something that I think about all the time, especially
Speaker 1: with Augusta National, is that Augusta National has this ability
Speaker 1: that it you know, it essentially shapes the way so
Speaker 1: many people look at the way at golf. But the
Speaker 1: thing that people take away from Augusta National seemingly always
Speaker 1: as the conditions and the beautiful flower beds rather than
Speaker 1: like when it opened it had twenty two bunkers and
Speaker 1: it's got why, you know, for the most part, really
Speaker 1: wide fairways and strategic bunkers, limited force carries, extremely playable
Speaker 1: Like why do you think that's what the average American
Speaker 1: golfer takes away?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, boy, Augusta You know, for a lot
Speaker 2: of people, it kicks off their golf season. You know,
Speaker 2: if you live in Boston, you might not have hit
Speaker 2: a shot, and so it's just the awakening of a season.
Speaker 2: So there's an automatic built in euphoria. But I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, from my perspective, last time I checked, Alistair
Speaker 2: Mackenzie was viewed as a good architect and the changes
Speaker 2: that have been made there in the last twenty years
Speaker 2: have really pivoted away from the from Bobby Jones. From
Speaker 2: Bob Jones and Alistair Mackenzie's original thoughts. And you know,
Speaker 2: when they built that course, you know, the world's greatest courses.
Speaker 2: You know, in the thirties, you know, it was Pine
Speaker 2: Valley and it was Oakmont and then like you say,
Speaker 2: this course comes along with huge, wide fairways, just a
Speaker 2: handful of bunkers, but a lot of really cool plane angles.
Speaker 2: And then systematically, you've seen them this century reduce the
Speaker 2: plane angles, and you know, I just find it appalling.
Speaker 2: You know, the tree placement down the eleventh hole. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe if they had narrow if they'd put in trees
Speaker 2: on the left side of the fairway and push it
Speaker 2: over to the right. But I mean they just totally
Speaker 2: ruined all of the plane angles right now. You want
Speaker 2: to be, you know, ten yards into trees to have
Speaker 2: the best angle into the green, and so, you know,
Speaker 2: it's evolution is very regrettable. I'm personally shocked at how
Speaker 2: the rankings, all the magazines just give it a free pass.
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is the Holy Grail type place,
Speaker 2: and the poor work that goes on there just gets
Speaker 2: a pass, and I don't know, you know, that's its clout.
Speaker 1: I did an interesting article last year during the Masters.
Speaker 1: I looked at this scoring dispersion of holes from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two till now, and the eleventh is like shocking
Speaker 1: is essentially they've traded birdies and double bogies for pars
Speaker 1: and bogies. Yeah, with the planting, like it's become such
Speaker 1: a one dimensional hole and it's taken away the thrills
Speaker 1: and the near thrills that bounce into the water, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a double bogie comes out of
Speaker 1: nowhere with a guy who thinks he can pull off
Speaker 1: a shot that's trying to but like now it's just
Speaker 1: hidden in the fairway and if you're not in a
Speaker 1: perfect spot, just bail out.
Speaker 2: Right right now. Obviously, the US Open is now played
Speaker 2: in April, and that's really a shame because the Masters
Speaker 2: used to have its own voice and it morphed into
Speaker 2: the US Open, and you know, we already have a
Speaker 2: US Open, So let's go back to that brand of golf.
Speaker 2: You know, there are some rumblings that they are cognizant
Speaker 2: that they want to get back to how the course
Speaker 2: used to be. And of course those trees can be
Speaker 2: gone in a second. On the eleventh hole, just as
Speaker 2: an example, but the back tee on seven, you know,
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty five yard tea to that shallow green.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just it's just it's bad architecture, it's
Speaker 2: bad golf. You know, you would think they would know better.
Speaker 2: I mean, to their credit, they don't even hardly use
Speaker 2: the t anymore, but they to just they ought to
Speaker 2: get rid of it.
Speaker 1: You know, with the modern game and the modern driver,
Speaker 1: modern ball. I always reminds you of the McDonald quote
Speaker 1: with the Haskell ball where you talked about how you
Speaker 1: know the Haskell ball has you know, created, has made
Speaker 1: great holes indifferent and made many in different holes really great.
Speaker 1: And if the seventh a three hundred and fifty yard
Speaker 1: hole with a shallow green with a wide fair away
Speaker 1: would be one of the most compelling holes on the
Speaker 1: golf course. With the modern game, it's like, where are
Speaker 1: the guys going to drive it up to? Are they
Speaker 1: going are they going to try it drive it really close?
Speaker 1: Or are they going to lay back? You know, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, some guys might be on the right day,
Speaker 1: with the right wind, be able to drive the green,
Speaker 1: and all of sudden that hole would be one of
Speaker 1: the most fun holes to watch on a golf course
Speaker 1: that's got a ton of you know, unbelievable holes to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not a fan of courses where you automatically
Speaker 2: pull the driver every single time. And if they would
Speaker 2: play that hole from a three point fifty to four
Speaker 2: hundred yard I think you would see four or five
Speaker 2: different clubs pulled by different players, and in certain conditions,
Speaker 2: some people would probably try and driving into the green
Speaker 2: side bunker. But it'd be infinitely more interesting than having
Speaker 2: everybody hit driver and having you know, eight iron in.
Speaker 1: Obviously, I think we'd be in the same boat where
Speaker 1: we'd love to see Augusta National transform back to what
Speaker 1: it was. What are some of the projects that you've seen, say,
Speaker 1: over the course of GCA that have been the most
Speaker 1: inspirational in the sense of like transforming a golf course.
Speaker 2: One would be Sleepy Hollow where, you know, back when
Speaker 2: I worked at the USCA, we had a dinner there
Speaker 2: at once and nobody wanted to play the golf course,
Speaker 2: so it was just a having dinner in the Vanderbilt
Speaker 2: former state. And now nobody would go to Sleepy Hollow
Speaker 2: and not beg to play the golf course. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's transformational. Los Angeles Country Club. You know, George Thomas
Speaker 2: is an absolute legend and hero his work had been
Speaker 2: so mistreated and and at Los Angeles you now see
Speaker 2: that he's one of the you know, handful of greatest
Speaker 2: architects ever. You know, one restoration project that I think
Speaker 2: really flew under the radar because it's a it's a
Speaker 2: pretty quiet club as the country Club of Brooklyn. Again,
Speaker 2: Gil Hans did it and just did uh, you know,
Speaker 2: top tier work. I was amazed to read some negative
Speaker 2: comments about the course. But that's such a cool, old
Speaker 2: fashioned course with you know, the smallest greens aside of
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach that it represents a very appealing throwback. And
Speaker 2: now with the work that's occurred there that you know,
Speaker 2: they fully embraced that again. You know, I want to
Speaker 2: go to a golf course that's different. I don't want
Speaker 2: to go to a golf course that I've seen twenty
Speaker 2: five different versions of. In the country club, you know,
Speaker 2: in it's old fashioned ways, you know, it has its
Speaker 2: own voice.
Speaker 1: That's I think that's an important part is it's not
Speaker 1: about doing what the course down the street does. It's
Speaker 1: about doing what your course is, you know, and finding
Speaker 1: that unique feel, vibe, architecture, the funky stuff, getting that
Speaker 1: back and making yours, not, you know, like the course
Speaker 1: down the street, and then make them look at it
Speaker 1: and say, I want to be like that golf course.
Speaker 2: You know, you couldn't be more spot on. But in
Speaker 2: the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties, it was the club
Speaker 2: down the road is planting trees, and so we should
Speaker 2: plant trees. And so the courses just became more and
Speaker 2: more the same. And you know what's the point in that.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean part of that, though, is that it
Speaker 1: tied with the trend of society that was, like the
Speaker 1: mass suburbanization, everybody moving to the suburbs, everybody's you know,
Speaker 1: these housing developments that had the houses that looked exactly
Speaker 1: the same right down the road. And I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the things. Golf architecture follows trends in society
Speaker 1: so much and a sense of I think we're starting
Speaker 1: to see this shift back to hand craftsmanship, and it
Speaker 1: falls in line with what's going on in the greater society,
Speaker 1: where people are more involved, more interested in experiences, and
Speaker 1: more interested in, you know, buying lettuce that's locally farmed
Speaker 1: rather than the mass produced fifty cent lettuce. They wanted
Speaker 1: to have that they want to know where it's from,
Speaker 1: and I think that's where we're starting to see that.
Speaker 1: I'd be interested. What do you think? You know, obviously
Speaker 1: restoration has been a huge part of golf course architect
Speaker 1: for the last you know, fifteen twenty years. What what
Speaker 1: do you see as the next wave?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I speaking restorations. You know, you and
Speaker 2: I first met at the California Golf Club of San Francisco,
Speaker 2: which you know, talking about a transformation. If you've I
Speaker 2: had honestly never heard of that golf course. It came
Speaker 2: up in a few threads of golf Club Atlas, but
Speaker 2: you know the pictures that I saw it just it
Speaker 2: didn't resonate, you know. Now, in my opinion, it's that
Speaker 2: you know, it's the finest course you know in the
Speaker 2: greater San Francisco area, and you know, talking about going
Speaker 2: from zero to ten in a rapid rate, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's a transformation that you just can't beat. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, you know, to answer your question, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure we need more golf courses. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: that golf is growing. Maybe it is with women. So
Speaker 2: I'm much more of a fan of taking care of
Speaker 2: what we have. I do not play poor, bad golf courses.
Speaker 2: I would rather not play than go play a poor course.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people their exposure to golf is
Speaker 2: by playing in different courses because their bodies just want
Speaker 2: to play whatever's the cheapest golf course, and there's no
Speaker 2: hook to get you involved. So you know, if you
Speaker 2: said all we were going to do until twenty fifty
Speaker 2: is get our house in order and take care of
Speaker 2: all the courses that we have in the world already,
Speaker 2: I would be perfectly happy with that. Barring that, obviously,
Speaker 2: what I'd like to see is, you know, some more
Speaker 2: nine hole courses, more six thousand yard courses come up,
Speaker 2: more courses that you know it could be, and they
Speaker 2: have to be close to where people live. And the
Speaker 2: problem in America is the pricing of land can be
Speaker 2: prohibitive to then build something like that. But even as
Speaker 2: you and I discussed last night, even if it was
Speaker 2: a fivel golf course, I mean something, but just make
Speaker 2: sure that it's that it's of you know, high quality.
Speaker 2: It makes people think, it makes people want to hit
Speaker 2: a bump and run shot. You have options. You know,
Speaker 2: you can't have enough golf like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, It's the interesting aspect of how courses
Speaker 1: have gotten so long to fit for technology is just
Speaker 1: like when you're building a new course, do you build
Speaker 1: it to make it easy to walk for people playing
Speaker 1: the back teas or the middle ties. Either way, some
Speaker 1: class of golfer because of the seven thousand yards is
Speaker 1: going to have a bad walking experience where you're either
Speaker 1: walking back to teas or you have to walk forward
Speaker 1: all the time to teas, and and you're gonna have,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty seventy five yard walks between greens and teas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm actually not even a fan of tea's. I
Speaker 2: mean I say, prepare, give some prepared surfaces and let
Speaker 2: just people pick where they want to play from. And
Speaker 2: again you can't have you know, then you can't have
Speaker 2: a handicap if you're doing that and this and this
Speaker 2: and this. And you'll hear those arguments in this country,
Speaker 2: but you won't hear them in the UK.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was playing with some guys and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a course I played a bunch of times and
Speaker 1: it was really windy, and it was this it's a
Speaker 1: great there's this great risk reward par five like it's
Speaker 1: an infinitely better hole if you have a chance to
Speaker 1: go for it into and it's playing into a twenty
Speaker 1: five mile an hour wind. So I say to the guys, like,
Speaker 1: let's go move up. We moved up to like the
Speaker 1: green teas, which were, you know, one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: yards shorter than the back teas that we were playing,
Speaker 1: just because I was like, you got to have a
Speaker 1: chance to go for this. It's a great golf hole,
Speaker 1: and if you don't have it, like it's a it's
Speaker 1: a much worse golf hole.
Speaker 3: So we move up. Everybody's having to hit like.
Speaker 1: A long iron over you know, over water, try and
Speaker 1: you know you either bail out or you go for it.
Speaker 1: And you know everybody had you could tell had a
Speaker 1: great time. It's like, why can't you just play a
Speaker 1: tee based off of how you want to play a hole.
Speaker 2: You'll get no argument from me. I mean again, you
Speaker 2: start putting all these rules and regulations you know around
Speaker 2: a sport you have to take a cart, you have
Speaker 2: to take a caddy. Well really do you? I mean
Speaker 2: why just you know, like at the cow club, you
Speaker 2: can carry your bag, you can take a pool cart,
Speaker 2: you can take a caddy, or you can you can
Speaker 2: do anything you want to. You know, they just assumed
Speaker 2: that the members have common enough sense to do the
Speaker 2: right thing.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that pole carts are not allowed at
Speaker 1: a lot of clubs around the country.
Speaker 2: Well again, it gets back to the false perception that
Speaker 2: somehow they're tied to municipal courses only, and you go
Speaker 2: to Mierfield in Scotland and all you'll see your pool cards.
Speaker 2: I mean, the members never going to hire a caddy.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's just false. It's false perceptions that
Speaker 2: have been perpetuated.
Speaker 1: And what bothers you more mandatory carts or no pull
Speaker 1: carts allowed.
Speaker 2: Mandatory carts is a no go. So I'm just not
Speaker 2: gonna be there. So that doesn't.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, again, I've had so many great
Speaker 2: experiences with caddies. It's not that conceptually that I have
Speaker 2: a problem with caddies. You know, it's that you have
Speaker 2: to take one. But if you do show, if you
Speaker 2: do go to a place and they say, you know
Speaker 2: there are no pool cards, you know that they're trapped
Speaker 2: back in time and that they're not you know, they're
Speaker 2: just you know, it's just it's just bad decision. Making,
Speaker 2: so you're not likely to be with kindred spirits at
Speaker 2: a place like that.
Speaker 1: All right, last question, you're resident of the U Pinehurst
Speaker 1: Greater Pinehurst area. You got ten rounds?
Speaker 3: How you splitting them?
Speaker 2: Well, I will tell you. We're doing this interview on
Speaker 2: March the first, and this is the absolute best time
Speaker 2: of year to be here. Like Pinehurst Number two plays
Speaker 2: perfectly with its dormant Bermuda Fairways, dormy Club dormant Bermuda Fairways.
Speaker 2: So this time of year, I would lean heavily on
Speaker 2: those two courses, you know, Mid Pines and Pine Needles.
Speaker 2: For reasons that I don't understand. They both overseed and
Speaker 2: those courses become much lower and less fun. Midpines sparkles
Speaker 2: in August with their new Bermuda Fairways, it can still
Speaker 2: be very bouncy, very firm. So I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: hedge on your answer. It depends on what time of year.
Speaker 2: You know, the big We've kind of got the Big
Speaker 2: four and a half here, we've got Piner's number two,
Speaker 2: we've got dormy Mid Pines, Pine Needles, and then you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of the Cradle, and then you know,
Speaker 2: up the road, you've got Tobacco Road, and then just
Speaker 2: for a quiet afternoon hit again. I've just never been
Speaker 2: disappointed by Southern pines. But those are the courses that
Speaker 2: you have to you have to see.
Speaker 1: It's a funny when I plan my trip and everybody's like, well,
Speaker 1: why are you coming now? And I'm like, why am
Speaker 1: I coming now? When when else would you go? And
Speaker 1: then you listened to what Ross said about he was
Speaker 1: enamored with the way that played in the winter, and
Speaker 1: it was closed in the summer because in the winter
Speaker 1: the bermuda didn't stick and all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: could play ground game shots.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they're very favorable rates here. And I've played
Speaker 2: number four four times Number Pinter's Number two four times
Speaker 2: between the first week in January and the last week
Speaker 2: of February. And the longest it took us was four
Speaker 2: hours and fifteen minutes. One round was three hours and
Speaker 2: fifty minutes. And you know, when the guests come in
Speaker 2: peak season, you know the times are going to really
Speaker 2: swell beyond that, and that diminishes, you know, just some
Speaker 2: of the fun. But it is it's an absolute joy
Speaker 2: to live here right now, and I try to personally
Speaker 2: not travel very much so that I can take advantage
Speaker 2: of it this time of year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I know you're got you got a tight
Speaker 1: window here, so we appreciate the time every They can
Speaker 1: read a lot of your writing on Golf Club bat lists.
Speaker 1: You're doing some contributing for Golf Week, and uh be
Speaker 1: sure to check out Golf Club at list if you
Speaker 1: haven't yet. It's uh, it's it's really like a you know,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're a golf course addict, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's where you can definitely get your fixed on a
Speaker 1: regular basis.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, and I look forward to seeing
Speaker 2: your Elks course up outside of Chicago this summer.
Speaker 3: You got it. Let me know when you come. You know,
Speaker 3: bring the dogs.
Speaker 2: You're a good man.