Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison, Managing editor at the Frida Egg. Today
Speaker 1: we have part two of our deep dive into Frida
Speaker 1: Egg founder Andy Johnson's trip to the Carolinas. Part one
Speaker 1: was all about Kiowa, and this time we focus on
Speaker 1: municipal golf. But first, this episode is brought to you
Speaker 1: by the Fridagg Print Shop. You'll find it in our
Speaker 1: pro shop at proshop dot Thefrida Egg dot com. We
Speaker 1: have a newly redesigned print section, freshly stocked with beautiful
Speaker 1: photography of great golf courses. The latest editions include photos
Speaker 1: of Wildhorse Golf Club in Nebraska and the Ocean Course
Speaker 1: at Kiowa. The light, by the way that Andy got
Speaker 1: at Kiowa is just sensational. So check it out proshop
Speaker 1: dot Thefrida Egg dot com and take a look at
Speaker 1: our prints. You can get them framed, mounted on metal,
Speaker 1: or you can just order the print itself. Great way
Speaker 1: to support what we do. All right, So we've got
Speaker 1: a bit of a hybrid episode for you today. The
Speaker 1: first thirty minutes will actually be a conversation between Andy
Speaker 1: Johnson and Troy Miller. Troy Miller is the architect who
Speaker 1: recently did a SETH Rayner inspired renovation of Charleston Municipal
Speaker 1: golf course. It's really cool work, and we also have
Speaker 1: an article in a video about it. You can find
Speaker 1: those on the Friday dot com and on our YouTube page.
Speaker 1: After the interview with Troy Miller, Andy and I will
Speaker 1: come in with some additional thoughts about Charleston muni and
Speaker 1: also about some public courses he saw in Asheville, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: And this discussion gives us a chance to touch on
Speaker 1: some bigger ideas about municipal golf in general and how
Speaker 1: it might find a way forward in the twenty first century. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here's Andy and Troy Miller. I miss
Speaker 1: a green, for example, I'm already upset when I find
Speaker 1: my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when
Speaker 1: I find my ball in a frid Egg Friday egg
Speaker 1: then dreaded Frida egg Frida, egg Frida, egg egg Frida
Speaker 1: egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off
Speaker 1: of the.
Speaker 2: Hump course game. Tell us a little bit about your path.
Speaker 3: So I grew up here in Charleston, grew up in
Speaker 3: the golf industry, My father's a golf professional, and because
Speaker 3: of that I was exposed to some really great architects
Speaker 3: early on in life, most notably Pete Die when we
Speaker 3: were building a the Ocean course. I was nine years
Speaker 3: old in nineteen eighty nine when that started, and so
Speaker 3: I got to spend a lot of time with Pete,
Speaker 3: and then over the course of the next decade growing
Speaker 3: up in Charleston, got to work on renovation projects with
Speaker 3: Fazio's group and Nicholas's group, and inevitably ended up landing
Speaker 3: with what was probably Pete's greatest giver of work over
Speaker 3: his career, a Landmark Land Company. Pete did about forty
Speaker 3: golf courses for Landmark through the seventies and eighties, and
Speaker 3: when I came out of grad school at University of Georgia,
Speaker 3: I got picked up by Landmark Land Company as an
Speaker 3: in house architect, very similarly the way that that Smitt
Speaker 3: and Curly were back in the seventies and and so
Speaker 3: I was there for about ten years doing mostly international
Speaker 3: apes Hill and Barbados in Spain, Arcos gardens, and worked
Speaker 3: in Ireland a bit and Lake Presidential and Maryland and
Speaker 3: so so yeah, I was with Landmark through twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: the crash hit like a lot of real estate companies,
Speaker 3: and there's no question that Landmark was a was a
Speaker 3: golf centric resort residential developer. And when the crash hit No. Eight,
Speaker 3: it took its toll on Landmark and Jerry Barton, our CEO,
Speaker 3: passed away in twenty eighteen, and so it was it
Speaker 3: was kind of a closing of a chapter.
Speaker 4: So when the crash happened, obviously everything halts. How did
Speaker 4: you pivot, you know, in your professional life? Yeah, I
Speaker 4: mean obviously everything at that to that point had been golf.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely so starting out as a golf course architect
Speaker 3: with a with a real estate development company gives you
Speaker 3: a lot of opportunities to learn a lot of different
Speaker 3: parts of the business. Because as much as we would
Speaker 3: all as golf purists loves to believe that it's just
Speaker 3: pure golf all the time, there's a lot that goes
Speaker 3: into it and around it. And so what I was
Speaker 3: able to do through two thousand and eight, nine, ten, eleven,
Speaker 3: all the way through the mid twenty teens was really
Speaker 3: pick up the development side and understand how to build
Speaker 3: a community and how to build the presence of a
Speaker 3: golf course and how that golf course really grows with
Speaker 3: the amenities that go along with it. And so I
Speaker 3: got more into the development side of things, marketing, real estate, construction,
Speaker 3: the whole nine yards, and so was really very fortunate
Speaker 3: to be in that position at that time. And the
Speaker 3: thing that's really interesting, I think for a group of
Speaker 3: guys that came out of school in the mid two thousands,
Speaker 3: I always say that I saw the best and the
Speaker 3: worst that my industry will ever be in the first
Speaker 3: five years of my career, which I think is pretty
Speaker 3: valuable because it gives you a certain amount of perspective.
Speaker 3: When things get a little too frothy or when things
Speaker 3: look like they're not very good, you always look back
Speaker 3: at those years and say it's been worse.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, going through that kind of stuff, obviously like
Speaker 4: you've had to develop different skills. Yeah, obviously I imagine
Speaker 4: that you feel like you've developed just as a professional
Speaker 4: more and it probably is going to help you the
Speaker 4: next twenty years. The all the experience that you've gone through.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, absolutely. I think that it really shows the
Speaker 3: importance of market and importance of what you're trying to achieve.
Speaker 3: That you know there are courses for horses, and there
Speaker 3: are there are sites for specific golf courses in specific projects.
Speaker 3: And in the mid two thousands, I think the thing
Speaker 3: that I learned the most about how hot the golf
Speaker 3: market was in the early two thousands was it was
Speaker 3: just free flowing capital and people were building golf courses
Speaker 3: wherever they could find a spot to do it. And
Speaker 3: it was one of those things where there wasn't a
Speaker 3: lot of thought given to is this the right product
Speaker 3: for the right market at the right time. And so
Speaker 3: those are the first three questions I usually asked myself
Speaker 3: before I get involved with the project. Is it the
Speaker 3: right project for the right market at the right time.
Speaker 4: Do you have any examples, maybe without naving names, w
Speaker 4: are that where you were like, well, this isn't.
Speaker 2: Gonna work, but we're gonna do it anyway, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I saw it. So I saw a lot of these,
Speaker 3: especially after two thousand and eight, because what happened was
Speaker 3: we actually started to kind of put together a list
Speaker 3: of all of these projects that were kind of in limbo.
Speaker 3: We called it the Zombie book. It was the walking Dead.
Speaker 3: All of these projects that had started, some of them
Speaker 3: had been completed, all the way to opening and then
Speaker 3: weren't able to really get over the hump because of
Speaker 3: the recession. And some of them were just wrong timing,
Speaker 3: some of them were just the wrong product. And I
Speaker 3: can think of a few that were on sites that
Speaker 3: had no business being golf courses, where they may have
Speaker 3: spent you know, in the close to eight figure range
Speaker 3: blowing things up and still were nowhere near having a
Speaker 3: site for a golf course. That you just kind of
Speaker 3: sit back and you go, man, what are we doing here?
Speaker 3: And so I think that's there's a lesson to be
Speaker 3: learned there, and taking the path of least resistance when
Speaker 3: it comes to design is always a good thing, but
Speaker 3: you have to look at it not just in the
Speaker 3: lay of the land, but also in the market and
Speaker 3: where it exists.
Speaker 4: So with the obviously projects, the amount of them, sheer
Speaker 4: amount of them a lot different. How have just the
Speaker 4: projects that come across your desk that you get to
Speaker 4: look at or you know, evaluate, how have those changed
Speaker 4: from before the crash to after the crash?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think certainly there is there is a
Speaker 3: much greater emphasis on history today, and you know, I
Speaker 3: think that trying to look in there is such a
Speaker 3: big piece of this renovation restoration world that we're seeing
Speaker 3: so much of these days, and I think that people
Speaker 3: are really looking back at, you know, what has been
Speaker 3: historically successful. I think one of the biggest things that's
Speaker 3: changed from a real estate perspective is the fact that
Speaker 3: that that monolithic, big single family lot golf development is
Speaker 3: completely archaic and as a dinosaur, and I don't think
Speaker 3: we'll ever see it again. I might eat my words
Speaker 3: on that, but you know, I think that now trying
Speaker 3: to figure out the right way to to try to
Speaker 3: create a market and try to create a project with
Speaker 3: different types of real estate, and I think there's a
Speaker 3: lot of things that probably because of the coming of
Speaker 3: age of millennials and some of their habits and the
Speaker 3: way that things are, there's not as much desire to
Speaker 3: own the big mansion in the master planned golf course community.
Speaker 3: You know. I think that's that's something that has changed
Speaker 3: significantly with the projects.
Speaker 4: Talk about creating a market, you mentioned that, like what,
Speaker 4: you know, creating a market today versus the old model
Speaker 4: of real estate play pure real estate big houses, golf course, yeah, houses.
Speaker 3: On it absolutely. You know. I think through the early
Speaker 3: two thousands, there was definitely formula out there. You know,
Speaker 3: you got a name architect, you got an equestrian center,
Speaker 3: you know, you had two or three you checked a
Speaker 3: few boxes, and you had a glossy picture and one
Speaker 3: of the good magazines or in a full page spread
Speaker 3: in one of the big national circulations, and then you
Speaker 3: lived off of that for the first couple of years
Speaker 3: of sales and created kind of created that monster that way.
Speaker 3: And often we're targeting different places as second home, depending
Speaker 3: on where you were in the country and and their
Speaker 3: longtime habits of where people traveled. But today it is
Speaker 3: much more about trying to suit the market that exists.
Speaker 3: Trying to induce a market these days, I think is
Speaker 3: a much more difficult road to hoe. And while there
Speaker 3: have been some great examples of it, and I think
Speaker 3: that a lot of the very remote golf destination stuff
Speaker 3: that's happened over the last twenty years is a great
Speaker 3: example of how you create a market and take people
Speaker 3: to places they've never been because of the quality of
Speaker 3: the sites. That's the one opportunity that we're going to
Speaker 3: continue to have is quality of remote sites to go
Speaker 3: create a market. Otherwise, when you're talking about creating markets,
Speaker 3: you're really looking at what's there today, what's the player
Speaker 3: looking for, what's the missing piece in any given city
Speaker 3: or any given region that you think, hey, this has
Speaker 3: got an opportunity to survive and succeed. I'd say that's
Speaker 3: a good way of trying to think of think through
Speaker 3: a project on the forty thousand foot level.
Speaker 4: I think that kind of lends well into the conversation
Speaker 4: of what you're doing here in Charleston. Obviously a lot
Speaker 4: of people have seen pictures, heard a little bit about
Speaker 4: your work at Charleston Muni, but then you also are
Speaker 4: working on some a few other developments. Talk about Charleston
Speaker 4: the golf market before you started.
Speaker 2: Working at Muni. At the Muni and you know.
Speaker 4: What, you kind of saw where the maybe strengths are
Speaker 4: in weaknesses and holes in the market where you're trying
Speaker 4: to create a market here.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, I think that Charleston and I am completely
Speaker 3: a homer on this because as a born and raised Charlestonian,
Speaker 3: I feel very strongly about Charleston's placing golf and I'd
Speaker 3: be remiss if I didn't say that this was the
Speaker 3: birthplace of golf in North America. Back to seventeen thirty
Speaker 3: nine really prehistoric golf.
Speaker 2: Everybody, everyone seems every every funny.
Speaker 3: He's got a claim. I promise you nobody can go
Speaker 3: back to seventeen thirty nine. And I really consider that
Speaker 3: prehistoric because it's pre old Tom Morris. And so when
Speaker 3: we talk about Charleston Green and playing golf downtown Charleston
Speaker 3: what is now Colonial Lake in the seventeen hundreds, I
Speaker 3: think that's a much that I think that wins. And
Speaker 3: so my yeah, But with Charleston today, you know, it's
Speaker 3: interesting growing up around the resort at Kiowa and what
Speaker 3: has happened out there in the influence of Pete and
Speaker 3: the ocean course. You know, we've got this this great
Speaker 3: destination golf course, and we have great Golden age golf
Speaker 3: here at the country Club at Charleston and Yamons Hall.
Speaker 3: But then we have a lot of also rans. We
Speaker 3: have a lot of golf here that never really created
Speaker 3: a golf destination out of Charleston. People came to Charleston
Speaker 3: to see the history, to see the city, and they
Speaker 3: play golf while they were here. But we have a
Speaker 3: lot of golf courses in the city proper that are
Speaker 3: good enough to play while you're here, but none that
Speaker 3: are really good enough to come play. And so my
Speaker 3: hope is that over the course of the next five
Speaker 3: to ten years, we'll actually elevate the Charleston market, save
Speaker 3: Kiowa and think about Ocean Course as one of those
Speaker 3: belt loop kind of places as a place to come
Speaker 3: visit and to play golf and to really have an
Speaker 3: experience of playing two or three golf courses and experience
Speaker 3: some really good golf.
Speaker 2: Well. And that's the thing.
Speaker 4: I think there's a tremendous you talk about markets and
Speaker 4: holes in markets. I always have said, is you know,
Speaker 4: urban golf For a golfer that is an older golfer
Speaker 4: that has a family or a partner that might not
Speaker 4: play golf, the ability to play golf in a city,
Speaker 4: go to cool city. I mean like Charleston, I think
Speaker 4: is most well known for its restaurants, it's nightlife, it's
Speaker 4: you know, the things you could do when you come
Speaker 4: to Charleston. It's a great destination city. And if you
Speaker 4: just have you know, golf that people know, hey, I
Speaker 4: could go play here and see something pretty cool, it's
Speaker 4: going to attract people. Because Kiwa is a great place
Speaker 4: and it's very close to Charleston in relation to many
Speaker 4: destination courses.
Speaker 2: But it is a hall.
Speaker 4: To get out there, You're gonna have a long day
Speaker 4: out there, and then by the time it's a full
Speaker 4: day event, versus having something that is relatively close to
Speaker 4: the city and able to experience and be back by,
Speaker 4: you know, not missing much of the day, you know,
Speaker 4: with your family.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I think that's exactly right. And so
Speaker 3: Kyowa that's why I really say Kiwa is a separate thing,
Speaker 3: no different than Sea Island, being somewhat out from other
Speaker 3: major metropolitan areas. And so really the idea Charleston Municipal
Speaker 3: was being a nineteen twenty nine golf course being built
Speaker 3: at the same time as Yamen's Hall and the country Club,
Speaker 3: and being able to see if you squint it a
Speaker 3: little bit, you could see some of those classic features
Speaker 3: of a rain or design. And so it really kind
Speaker 3: of fell to the bottom line of saying, let's really
Speaker 3: enhance this and give it an experience that the general
Speaker 3: public just doesn't have otherwise when it comes to this
Speaker 3: style of architecture. And so it was something that I
Speaker 3: felt like if we did and we did it right,
Speaker 3: and we really enhance the features that you would see
Speaker 3: on a rain or McDonald golf course. It would bring
Speaker 3: people that were visiting the city to experience golf in
Speaker 3: the city. And we're talking five minutes from downtown Charleston,
Speaker 3: and so this does really open up that opportunity. And
Speaker 3: what that does even more so is it allows the
Speaker 3: general public of the locals to continue to have a
Speaker 3: municipal golf course that they can be very proud of
Speaker 3: that they can play for a very low rate and
Speaker 3: be subsidized by guest play at a slightly higher rate,
Speaker 3: which is still below market for a public daily fee
Speaker 3: in Charleston, and that subsidy should allow the golf course
Speaker 3: to stay in the kind of shape it needs to
Speaker 3: stay in and should allow for it to continue to
Speaker 3: really get enhanced.
Speaker 4: Yeah, with your project, I think obviously so many people
Speaker 4: go to their local muni whether you know so many
Speaker 4: in urban areas, and they dream about the ability to
Speaker 4: be able to reimagine the golf course and update it
Speaker 4: and give it, put a little you know, TLC into it.
Speaker 4: Talk about the process of going through that and getting
Speaker 4: it through the city. Where did it start, how did
Speaker 4: it come about, and how did it get to where
Speaker 4: it is? Today with the finished product.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that it definitely takes is
Speaker 3: is a lot of passion from the people involved, from
Speaker 3: the people in leadership, And dating back to really twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: was the first conversation that I had with the mayor
Speaker 3: who basically said, Hey, I want to do something about
Speaker 3: Charleston Muni. And I said, okay, well, let me take
Speaker 3: a look at this. And I went at that point
Speaker 3: and started drawing conceptual plans and came back not only
Speaker 3: with a conceptual plan but also a pro forma as
Speaker 3: to why it made sense for the city and how
Speaker 3: it was going to create a return for the city.
Speaker 3: And so at that point we came back and decided
Speaker 3: to go ahead and put together a five ZHO one
Speaker 3: C three of the friends of the Muni that would
Speaker 3: be part of that charitable arm that would gain us
Speaker 3: some of that fundraising arm. So the way that the
Speaker 3: project was originally intended was to basically have two thirds
Speaker 3: of the money come from the city and a third
Speaker 3: of the money come privately raised, and we've pretty much
Speaker 3: achieved that throughout the course of the last few years.
Speaker 3: The funding mechanism took several years because it had to
Speaker 3: go through a bond referendum that was part of another
Speaker 3: recreation bond. And then the process itself is heavily scrutinized
Speaker 3: because it's a city project that has to go through
Speaker 3: city capital projects, and so the process is not that
Speaker 3: of a typical private development, and so it does take
Speaker 3: some effort and it takes some time. But I think
Speaker 3: if you get the right people involved, and really it's
Speaker 3: about the passion. And there were so many people people
Speaker 3: in Charleston that just loved that place. And my family
Speaker 3: history dates back to the thirties there. My grandfather caddied there,
Speaker 3: My father's first jobbing golf was there in the late sixties,
Speaker 3: his first job as a professional, and so there were
Speaker 3: so many people along the way that just said, we
Speaker 3: care deeply about it, how can we help, how can
Speaker 3: we make this happen. Then it wasn't just monetarily, but
Speaker 3: it was also some political pressure that really got the
Speaker 3: project going.
Speaker 4: With regards to the pro forma creating, you know, showing
Speaker 4: the value, because this I think this is where so
Speaker 4: many people like, how did you go about presenting the
Speaker 4: case that hey, if we do this, you know this
Speaker 4: is going to go from something that loses money for
Speaker 4: the city to something that's going to be something that
Speaker 4: brings in revenue for the city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the biggest thing there is really looking at
Speaker 3: what is the market rate for a non resident to
Speaker 3: come play golf, and at the top top end of that,
Speaker 3: when it comes to municipal golf courses, you've got place
Speaker 3: like Tory Pines and Bethpage Black And while we're never
Speaker 3: trying to achieve those LIFs level, what it showed us was, hey,
Speaker 3: we've got market rate to come play golf as a
Speaker 3: as a visitor to Charleston. We've got a lot of
Speaker 3: room for growth there. And so that was really the
Speaker 3: biggest change in the revenue line of being able to say, hey,
Speaker 3: we can go achieve ten thousand rounds. We do sixty
Speaker 3: thousand rounds a year on MUNI and so if ten
Speaker 3: thousand of those were out of town play at a
Speaker 3: slightly higher rate, all of a sudden, that's going to
Speaker 3: subsidize this thing, allow us to spend the money we
Speaker 3: need to from a maintenance perspective to keep it up
Speaker 3: and not create any kind of problems in terms of
Speaker 3: accessibility for all of the local residents.
Speaker 4: And I think this is where this project's a little
Speaker 4: bit different than a lot of product. You see munis
Speaker 4: go down this road where they put money into their
Speaker 4: golf course, but oftentimes it's money where they're putting a
Speaker 4: lot of money in, but they aren't getting a drastically
Speaker 4: different product from what they had. How did you play
Speaker 4: the architecture into this? And I imagine, you know, just
Speaker 4: thinking common sensely that had a lot to do to say,
Speaker 4: this is how we attract money. Yes, you know, how
Speaker 4: we attract out of town money is with this right.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, I think that the whole idea, and we've
Speaker 3: taught a lot. Charleston is a very historic town and
Speaker 3: we've got a role to play in the history of
Speaker 3: the history of America and the history of golf and
Speaker 3: the history of the Golden Age and Rayner McDonald's style architecture.
Speaker 3: What Rainer did in this town, you know, is such
Speaker 3: a great, great example of his work and exactly how
Speaker 3: and it's why it fits so well in the low country,
Speaker 3: the ability to really enhance the features of the golf
Speaker 3: course on relatively flat property. And so the idea when
Speaker 3: it was pitched was really about listen, we're a historic town,
Speaker 3: We're a sophisticated town. We deserve a historic, sophisticated golf
Speaker 3: course to call our own. And so when we really
Speaker 3: dug down into it and started talking about the history
Speaker 3: of Rayner and the experience in the low Country, it
Speaker 3: was an easy pitch to get people behind the idea
Speaker 3: of bringing these template holes to the table, really trying
Speaker 3: to create that experience for the public daily fee player.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think obviously they're getting a drastically different
Speaker 4: experience than what they had. Talk about how much of
Speaker 4: the how much new stuff is out there, what are
Speaker 4: the biggest, let's say, defining characteristics of beauty today versus
Speaker 4: what was Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sure, So the greens themselves were all completely rebuilt and
Speaker 3: are roughly about fifty percent bigger, fifty to sixty percent
Speaker 3: bigger than they were before, much bolder contouring and essentially
Speaker 3: and like I said, because that golf course was built
Speaker 3: in the twenties and we had that you know, we
Speaker 3: had that influence. It wasn't a rainer, as many people
Speaker 3: might have said over the course of the years. But
Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty nine, a lot of the same laborers
Speaker 3: that built the country club and built Yamans Hall were
Speaker 3: going there and these were the only two examples of
Speaker 3: golf in Charleston, so you know, they'd go across town,
Speaker 3: take a look, and say, okay, let's go build that.
Speaker 3: And it was a bad game of telephone is what
Speaker 3: it came. But you still got a lot of the
Speaker 3: same features. And so there was a lot of those
Speaker 3: big rectangular pads that were there that we were able
Speaker 3: to take these you know, satellite dish greens that had
Speaker 3: just atrophied over the years and expand them back out
Speaker 3: into those corners and then accelerate just by sharpening the
Speaker 3: edges a little bit, elevating really no more than six
Speaker 3: inches to a foot in most green complexes, but creating
Speaker 3: some bolder contours. And one of the great things about
Speaker 3: working on a municipal golf course where you know that
Speaker 3: the limits are never going to be pushed in terms
Speaker 3: of green speed, was the freedom of being able to
Speaker 3: create some bold contouring in the greens. I can tell
Speaker 3: you you know, opening day, those greens were running nine
Speaker 3: and a half and I was listening to people walk
Speaker 3: off that golf course saying, they can't keep these greens
Speaker 3: at twelve like this, It's just going to be too much.
Speaker 3: And so it's really good to create some perceived green
Speaker 3: speed rather than actual green speed, because it takes a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure off of your maintenance, you know, in
Speaker 3: terms of the architecture. And I lost my train of thought. Andy,
Speaker 3: tell me what what? What was your question?
Speaker 2: I can't remember.
Speaker 4: I can't either, you know, I don't even remember, but
Speaker 4: you know what you know?
Speaker 2: So let's you talked about the defining features.
Speaker 3: They're defining features. So let me say first, So there's
Speaker 3: there's twelve template holes out there. There's eleven at the
Speaker 3: Country Club of Charleston, and then there's thirteen at Yamon's Hall.
Speaker 3: And of those templates, I think the ones that will
Speaker 3: stand out the most of people. And where the biggest
Speaker 3: physical change to the property came was the corner of
Speaker 3: the golf course. That's eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. At
Speaker 3: that point you kind of leave kind of the parkland
Speaker 3: style of the golf course, crossed the road and head
Speaker 3: down towards the river into something that feels much more lynxy,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, now you've got your playing
Speaker 3: redan cape, road and short in that order. And so
Speaker 3: I think having that corner of the golf course with
Speaker 3: those very recognizable template holes and the views that were
Speaker 3: created simply by we we eliminated about two and a
Speaker 3: half acres of new growth forests that was kind of
Speaker 3: blocking the view of the river, and in its place,
Speaker 3: we dug a rether large lake that's in between golf holes,
Speaker 3: primarily for storm water and also to create generate the
Speaker 3: material to elevate some of these holes that were sitting
Speaker 3: in the floodplain. So there was a lot of functionality
Speaker 3: to what we did, and then the architecture just became
Speaker 3: the fun part.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and obviously talk about the functionality. I think I
Speaker 4: visited it was probably a perfect day to visit because
Speaker 4: I saw, you know, all of all of the existing
Speaker 4: courses and original courses issues, and I think that's beyond
Speaker 4: you know, the increase in design. Talk about just the
Speaker 4: functional design things that you did to make it a
Speaker 4: better golf course day and day.
Speaker 3: Sure, so drainage, obviously being in a low country and
Speaker 3: being at a very low elevation as Immuni is, you know,
Speaker 3: the biggest thing that we did was create better drainage
Speaker 3: and elevated some of those holes that were along the
Speaker 3: flood in the floodplain along the river. Some holes were
Speaker 3: elevated as much as five to seven feet from where
Speaker 3: they were before. Others just six to twelve inches is
Speaker 3: all it really took. But you mentioned, you know, you
Speaker 3: came on a day when we had a king tide,
Speaker 3: which is basically a seven and a half or eight
Speaker 3: foot tide. And I can remember being out there days
Speaker 3: and watching the tide come in across the fifteenth fairway
Speaker 3: and literally reached the far end of the fairway and
Speaker 3: just thinking, my god, how are we going to do this?
Speaker 3: And the way we were able to do it was
Speaker 3: actually by creating digging out a pond, creating a better
Speaker 3: dyke system that had been there, and just elevating that
Speaker 3: to kind of combat what is these rising tide levels
Speaker 3: that we're seeing in the low country and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, now what we have as a firm and
Speaker 3: fast golf course that should stay that way, that's got
Speaker 3: the appropriate drainage. And a big thing in Charleston too,
Speaker 3: is we talk about living with water because you ain't
Speaker 3: gonna get rid of it. We're we're at sea level
Speaker 3: and it's not going anywhere. And so the biggest part
Speaker 3: of it was moving the water out of the areas
Speaker 3: of play, getting it off to the edges, into ditches,
Speaker 3: into new ponds, things that didn't come into play and
Speaker 3: didn't become more penal in terms of the design and
Speaker 3: the way the golf course played, but functionality wise, provide
Speaker 3: a place for the water to get off to so
Speaker 3: that you can keep those fairways in those center lines firm.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think anybody that's worked or has intimate knowledge about,
Speaker 4: you know, working in a municipal project or just any
Speaker 4: project in general, worst of the biggest challenges of the
Speaker 4: project over the course of the of the year and
Speaker 4: a half.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that certainly working in a municipal setting,
Speaker 3: in a government setting, there there's always there's always a
Speaker 3: maybe not the sense of urgency that you know that
Speaker 3: you need to have as a golf course builder and
Speaker 3: as a golf course architect, knowing, hey, that the clock's ticking.
Speaker 3: We got to grow in to hit I can't wait
Speaker 3: for your seventh person to sign off on this so
Speaker 3: that I can get pipe in the ground, so that
Speaker 3: I can plant grass. Trying to educate people on that
Speaker 3: perspective and kind of with that that mentality is a
Speaker 3: tough thing, and so I think that's part of the
Speaker 3: reason why a lot of these municipal projects don't get
Speaker 3: done in this kind of unique manner where it truly
Speaker 3: was a city led project. I think the vast majority
Speaker 3: of what we've seen with these municipal projects around the
Speaker 3: country recently have been the takeovers where you get a
Speaker 3: foundation that comes in and says, hey, we're going to
Speaker 3: take it. We're just gonna lease it from you. You
Speaker 3: guys are completely hands off, And honestly, I'm kind of
Speaker 3: proud of the fact that that's not one of these
Speaker 3: I think that the fact that the city is going
Speaker 3: to still run it, that it is still the city
Speaker 3: is wholly in, one hundred percent, and it's something for
Speaker 3: them to be proud of. We have got a great
Speaker 3: park system in the city of Charleston, and this should
Speaker 3: be the crowning jewel of that. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm actually quite pleased that we didn't have to go
Speaker 3: to the level of privatizing to get action.
Speaker 4: Do you think also with that there's an enhanced sense
Speaker 4: of pride, not just with you know, the city as
Speaker 4: a whole, all the way down through the maintenance steam
Speaker 4: that worked on the project, Like, do you think that
Speaker 4: is going to lead to where we've abc less atrophy,
Speaker 4: you know, on the golf course in the future. You
Speaker 4: know what that sad tale that so many municipalities see
Speaker 4: is where green shrink, fairway shrink. Do you think because
Speaker 4: you know the city went through it with you and
Speaker 4: your team, that you'll see a longer lasting product than typically.
Speaker 3: I sure hope. So. I think that there's so many
Speaker 3: people who care deeply about it, and a lot of
Speaker 3: those people are the people who are working there and
Speaker 3: that have been there for decades in some cases, And
Speaker 3: so I really do think that'll be the case in
Speaker 3: the community involvement on this project as well. I mean,
Speaker 3: we had volunteer days. We had volunteers planting the landscaping
Speaker 3: on that on a beautiful November day, And to hear
Speaker 3: guys now going out there and playing and say, hey,
Speaker 3: I planted that dogwood.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I think that there is a sense of pride that
Speaker 3: comes with it that I hope will translate into better
Speaker 3: course care, that will translate into long term conditioning, and
Speaker 3: a sense of pride that I hope everybody in Charleston
Speaker 3: and have in.
Speaker 4: It so quickly before we get out of here, we'd
Speaker 4: be remiss to not talk about Patriots Point and your
Speaker 4: involvement there and potentially what could happen there in the future.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah, So Patriots I think is an incredible site.
Speaker 3: We've got a ton of frontage on Charleston Harbor.
Speaker 2: Explain what Patriots Point is today.
Speaker 3: So for folks that may not know, Patriots Point Links
Speaker 3: is an existing public, daily fee golf course that's situated
Speaker 3: on Charleston Harbor, just across the harbor from downtown Charleston,
Speaker 3: right in Mount Pleasant and so and it was actually
Speaker 3: an old, dread site, not dissimilar to Toledo as we've
Speaker 3: talked a little bit about. And so the you know,
Speaker 3: it's one that the site visually is incredibly stunning and
Speaker 3: the golf course is very mediocre. And the idea is
Speaker 3: it is really a great opportunity to create something fully
Speaker 3: from scratch there that hopefully will be, like we talked
Speaker 3: in the beginning, a golf course it's good enough to
Speaker 3: come play, not just one that's good enough to play
Speaker 3: while you're here. And where that in the market is,
Speaker 3: it'll continue to be public resort, upscale resort. It's kind
Speaker 3: of where we're looking at. And I think there's enough
Speaker 3: room there to really create a golf course that can
Speaker 3: challenge the best players in the world, be very playable
Speaker 3: and visually stunning for any visitors. And one quick little
Speaker 3: cute note is the fact that you know our seventeenth
Speaker 3: and eighteenth holes, which will primarily stay the same there.
Speaker 3: And I was standing on the seventeenth Green looking across
Speaker 3: at the historic lower peninsula of downtown Charleston, and I'm
Speaker 3: standing there looking across this big open marsh and you
Speaker 3: can kind of see a little bit of the harbor,
Speaker 3: and then all you see is the battery south of
Speaker 3: Broad neighborhood to all the church steeples, and I'm looking
Speaker 3: at that, going gosh, this looks really familiar to me.
Speaker 3: And I started thinking back, and really I realized that
Speaker 3: from that tea, it's about the same distance from the
Speaker 3: far end of Saint Andrew's back into town as it
Speaker 3: is from from there to downtown Charleston. And the visual
Speaker 3: is quite similar in a lot of ways because of
Speaker 3: this old, historic town. And it just kind of as
Speaker 3: I was sitting there looking at it, it gave me
Speaker 3: a sense of responsibility for the site. I feel like
Speaker 3: it really is is a big opportunity.
Speaker 4: With with that designing upscale where you're talking upscale resort
Speaker 4: versus what you did and Charleston and the muni what
Speaker 4: can you what more freedom does upscale upscale resort model
Speaker 4: give you than you know, a daily fee municipal or
Speaker 4: is the process pretty similar?
Speaker 3: I would honestly say the process is pretty similar. I
Speaker 3: think for a long time, you know, when it was
Speaker 3: all about longer, harder is better, that may not have
Speaker 3: been the case. And I know I've I've heard and
Speaker 3: seen the instance where well, you can't do this, it's
Speaker 3: a resort course, it's not a private course, or you
Speaker 3: can't do this, it's a municipal course, not a not
Speaker 3: a resort course or a private course. And in reality,
Speaker 3: you know, the golf course architecture that we've brought to
Speaker 3: Charleston Municipal that I intend on bringing to Patriots Point,
Speaker 3: which by the way, not look the same as Charleston Municipal,
Speaker 3: should be readily playable for everyone. The challenge, and as
Speaker 3: Pete always said, you can never challenge the best players
Speaker 3: in the world physically, you have to challenge them mentally.
Speaker 3: And for me, probably as it is for many short
Speaker 3: grass is kind of that ultimate equalizer for people and
Speaker 3: so I'm big on short grass. I'm big on creating
Speaker 3: those areas that really creates an opportunity for the average
Speaker 3: guy to put it up in two putt and the
Speaker 3: good player to have to think. And when you've created
Speaker 3: that thinking and a good player, you've done your job.
Speaker 3: Because good players don't like to think. And when you've
Speaker 3: made them think and given them options, then you've challenged them.
Speaker 3: And that's the goal that.
Speaker 1: We all have. And now back to me and Andy
Speaker 1: picking up right in the midst of our conversation about
Speaker 1: Charleston MUNI.
Speaker 4: You know, I think what I love about the project
Speaker 4: is it had a purpose, Like it had a vision.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like we're just gonna brush up our course
Speaker 4: and we're going to spend a bunch of money to
Speaker 4: fix our drainage while we're at it. We're gonna make
Speaker 4: something that's representative of our city, our historic city, in
Speaker 4: our in our golf community. Like it gives the public
Speaker 4: an opportunity to see. You know, they aren't exactly like
Speaker 4: the templates that you see at country Club Charleston or Yemen's,
Speaker 4: but they give the average municipal golfer a wildly different
Speaker 4: golf experience than what you would get at almost every
Speaker 4: other municipal like another one that is similar as Mount
Speaker 4: Prospect in Chicago, which of course another town with two
Speaker 4: Rainer designs in Chicago, golf and short acres.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: And what I kept thinking about was your podcast with
Speaker 4: Blake The School of Architecture where you talked about sense
Speaker 4: of place, like it gave it a real sense of place.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing I loved about the project, Like
Speaker 4: you know, as somebody that has seen a lot of
Speaker 4: the Rainer stuff has written about Rainer templets extensively. Like
Speaker 4: I could quibble with a few things out there, like
Speaker 4: in the execution of a few things, by the end
Speaker 4: of the day, I couldn't get over.
Speaker 2: It was really fun. It's affordable.
Speaker 4: It's twenty five dollars for a resident to play, and
Speaker 4: I think like one of the biggest things that it exposes,
Speaker 4: like the regular golfer to like a different style of architecture,
Speaker 4: which I think is so valuable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not just It wasn't done just because
Speaker 1: Rayner is fashionable right now. It was done because there
Speaker 1: are courses in the Charleston area that you've mentioned, Yamen's
Speaker 1: Hall and Country Club of Charleston that are Seth Rayner
Speaker 1: golf courses that are on properties that are correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, but pretty similar yeah, to what Charleston
Speaker 1: Municipal occupies. Yamen's Hall goes out to a kind of
Speaker 1: marsh side location on a few of its holes. Country
Speaker 1: Club of Charleston, of course, is a lot of the
Speaker 1: course sits along these tidal marshes that are so representative
Speaker 1: of this low country region. You know, that's a very
Speaker 1: distinctive landscape in that area. And Charleston Municipal has that
Speaker 1: property that is so valuable for a municipal course to
Speaker 1: have a property that is as tied to its place
Speaker 1: as that one. And now they have introduced some architecture
Speaker 1: to the course that resembles these other courses that have
Speaker 1: been there that kind of define the golf culture in
Speaker 1: the city in the nineteen twenties, and they've brought that
Speaker 1: vibe to this municipal golf course that residents can play
Speaker 1: for twenty five dollars. And so it should be clear
Speaker 1: that this is not a golf Twitter thing, This is
Speaker 1: not a golf podcast thing where they're like, oh, Seth
Speaker 1: Rainer's hip, now let's get in on that this is
Speaker 1: very much a Charleston thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And most importantly the golf course doesn't flood at
Speaker 4: high tide or with a quarter inch of rain. That's
Speaker 4: the most important thing is that the back nine is
Speaker 4: able to be used every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I think that the biggest win of all of
Speaker 4: it is it just straight up functions better.
Speaker 1: So what are what are a couple of holes out
Speaker 1: there that you would like to highlight that you think
Speaker 1: are pretty cool.
Speaker 4: I mean, the back nine is so cool when it
Speaker 4: gets down and you play ten, it's got a crazy green,
Speaker 4: and then you go to eleven, which is the radan.
Speaker 4: I think the dance slope is a little weird s
Speaker 4: right in the middle rather than up at the front.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have that kicker.
Speaker 4: So that but then that radan, it plays right down
Speaker 4: to the bridge and then the holes. There's a kpe
Speaker 4: hole that plays out. It's a funk hole, and then
Speaker 4: they've got the road that comes back and then a
Speaker 4: short hole. Short hole is wonderful. That green is really severe.
Speaker 4: The thumb print, like you can play some really fun
Speaker 4: shots with the thumb print. The thumb prints almost in
Speaker 4: the middle of that is almost like a punch bowl,
Speaker 4: you know, in a way where you can really play
Speaker 4: them up off a bank and into it and anything
Speaker 4: you miss is going to be a really tough putt.
Speaker 4: And then you got a really neat maiden green, the
Speaker 4: you gotta hit really good shots on on the next
Speaker 4: all the fifteenth. Then there's some really I think some
Speaker 4: of it is more subdued greens, like the seventeenth is
Speaker 4: a neat green and the ninth. Really loved the ninth
Speaker 4: green too, But it's a really it's a fun golf
Speaker 4: course and it shows like three million dollar complete renovation.
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean it has to be boring. They didn't
Speaker 4: spend a crazy amount of money when you think about
Speaker 4: you know, they had a nineteen twenty nine golf course
Speaker 4: that didn't have any money put into it for essentially
Speaker 4: almost one hundred years, and they put money into it.
Speaker 4: And just because you put a small sum of money
Speaker 4: into it doesn't mean that the architecture has to be bland.
Speaker 4: Like interesting architecture doesn't cost any more money than bland architecture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been beating that drump for years, and I
Speaker 1: think the message is maybe starting to sink in. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who don't quite believe it.
Speaker 4: Well, you just see almost every municipality will just hire
Speaker 4: I don't want to bang on people, but like they'll
Speaker 4: hire somebody that's been doing work around the area for
Speaker 4: thirty years and they build just the same kind of
Speaker 4: stuff that was there. It's I think the neat thing
Speaker 4: about it, too, is the business models flipped there where
Speaker 4: now because they have something interesting, they're going to charge
Speaker 4: sixty bucks out of towners and they expect to make money.
Speaker 4: It's been a money loser for the city forever and
Speaker 4: they now expect to make money. Their maintenance budget is more,
Speaker 4: but they because of that out of town revenue. You know,
Speaker 4: you're in three x essentially what you get for a resident,
Speaker 4: They're going to make money.
Speaker 1: And that connects to one of my hobby horses, which
Speaker 1: is that city golf courses should be attractions. They should
Speaker 1: be not only facilities that serve the public. Obviously that's
Speaker 1: the first priority. Let's serve the local public here, but
Speaker 1: they should also be things that people come to town
Speaker 1: to see, just like people come and see other government facilities,
Speaker 1: like you know, the city hall building or whatever. They
Speaker 1: come to see government architecture because it's interesting it's cool
Speaker 1: and it's well maintained. But somehow that logic does not
Speaker 1: always or rarely even does it extend to golf courses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why don't cities treat their golf courses as these incredible
Speaker 1: assets that they can use to make their town a
Speaker 1: center of culture and a center of tourism. So rarely
Speaker 1: are golf courses given that kind of attention and that
Speaker 1: kind of credit where a city is saying, this is
Speaker 1: a really interesting and worthy piece of architecture of art
Speaker 1: in its own right, and it's not just a golf course,
Speaker 1: you know, in the sense that people can go out
Speaker 1: there and hit a ball around. It has some history
Speaker 1: and it is well designed, and people should come see it.
Speaker 1: That's what I think Charleston has.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: It's a course that people are going to see prest
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be like, huh, yeah, I don't want
Speaker 1: to go see that, you know, just like people see
Speaker 1: pictures of the Santa Barbara Courthouse. I grew up in
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara, California. Beautiful courthouse. Thousands of people go take
Speaker 1: tours of that courthouse every year. It's not just a
Speaker 1: place where legal proceedings happen. It's a beautiful work of art,
Speaker 1: and for whatever reason, cities have not given that same
Speaker 1: kind of attention and credit to golf course architecture.
Speaker 4: I think part of it, though, is golf culture in
Speaker 4: general of exclusion. And like I remember as a kid,
Speaker 4: the public golf course that I grew up playing, like Bluff,
Speaker 4: they were very strict about us just being around or
Speaker 4: anybody that wasn't a golfer being around. In this idea
Speaker 4: that a golf course can only be for golfers. Yeah,
Speaker 4: is the thing that holds so much of this back
Speaker 4: is that there can't be mixed uses for this land,
Speaker 4: and this idea that an area could only be for
Speaker 4: golf is incredibly idiotic, and you know, I think it
Speaker 4: does golf no favors and you know, only help golf
Speaker 4: if you made it more open and accessible to people
Speaker 4: that might want to go for a walk, you know,
Speaker 4: and make areas that people can use, because if they're
Speaker 4: around the game, they're much more likely to pick up
Speaker 4: the game. You know, if they're walking on a golf course,
Speaker 4: they're probably more likely to play golf eventually.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's so true that attitudes and perceptions
Speaker 1: need to change, both among people who don't necessarily play
Speaker 1: golf in communities and people who do play golf, they
Speaker 1: all need to realize that they're part of the same community.
Speaker 4: Do you think that golf architecture could ever get to
Speaker 4: the point where people who don't play golf would be
Speaker 4: interested in seeing the architecture of a golf course, Because
Speaker 4: sometimes when I explain to people like my wife's friends
Speaker 4: that don't know anything, they ask me, oh, you cover golf,
Speaker 4: and I say, yeah, I do a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: on golf architecture.
Speaker 2: They're like, what's that.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, you know, just like a building, a
Speaker 4: golf course is built by architects and they're these and
Speaker 4: they're like real, they like get interested in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there are different schools of it, and there's
Speaker 1: a whole history, and there are personalities involved. It's a
Speaker 1: fascinating subject. And that's exactly what I'm saying. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think that there could potentially be people who don't
Speaker 1: play golf who would be interested in going and seeing
Speaker 1: golf course architecture. I think that there's no reason that
Speaker 1: shouldn't be the.
Speaker 2: Make ye a small number.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe maybe. But you know the other thing about it, though,
Speaker 1: that's attractive is that if we turn golf courses into
Speaker 1: mixed use spaces into welcoming spaces for non golfers somehow. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there are safety issues that this can't be done immediately everywhere,
Speaker 1: but there are places where that have worked this out.
Speaker 1: It's not only cool to go see the architecture if
Speaker 1: you're interested in that kind of thing, but it's also
Speaker 1: cool just to go take a walk in a nice, open,
Speaker 1: naturalist setting. People love taking these walks around golf courses,
Speaker 1: as was proven when COVID shut down golf courses and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden people flooded out to take walks
Speaker 1: around them. They're like, Wow, this is beautiful out here.
Speaker 1: This is a really nice place to be.
Speaker 2: Your buddy the desk furniture maker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, my friend in San Francisco who said they
Speaker 1: should shut down Presidio golf course because he and his
Speaker 1: family had a nice picnic out there. Okay, he's an idiot,
Speaker 1: but basically what he was saying was I like this place,
Speaker 1: and I think that is the seed of a place
Speaker 1: where we could agree. Yes, I argued with him on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I probably didn't handle that very well, but the seed
Speaker 1: of it was he went and saw this place that
Speaker 1: he hadn't been before because he doesn't play golf, and
Speaker 1: he thought it was a nice place to spend some time.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is not a threat to golfers.
Speaker 1: That really shouldn't be interpreted as a threat to golfers.
Speaker 1: It should be an opportunity where we're like, we can
Speaker 1: get the public interested in these places. We can all
Speaker 1: kind of come together as a community and invest in
Speaker 1: golf courses to turn them into the versions of themselves,
Speaker 1: not only for the sake of golfers, but for the
Speaker 1: sake of the entire community, because municipal golf courses are
Speaker 1: part of their communities. They're not some separate thing. Anyway,
Speaker 1: That's that's my whole rant.
Speaker 2: I agree, you're preaching to the choir.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, if anybody disagrees, please send us an email.
Speaker 2: Maybe use golf facts.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, use golf facts if you're listening. If you're listening, Justine,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear your thoughts about golf course architecture
Speaker 1: of the municipal varieties and otherwise. Anyway, Well, one cool note.
Speaker 4: I'd be remissed if I did not mention this. Troy
Speaker 4: is trying to do something cool in the pump house.
Speaker 1: Troy Troy Miller, architect behind the renovation of Charleston Municipal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he's trying to do something cool with a
Speaker 4: pump house, and he's trying to collect golf balls from
Speaker 4: municipal courses from all over the country and then like
Speaker 4: a fix them to the wall in the pump house,
Speaker 4: which is very visible on the golf course. It's like
Speaker 4: then between the sixteenth and the seventeenth hole. So he's
Speaker 4: trying to make something kind of unique there.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 4: So if you have, like if you have surplus of
Speaker 4: golf balls from municipal golf courses across the country side
Speaker 4: of Troy or the Charleston Mini golf course with a
Speaker 4: you know, attention Troy Miller.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool. So that's Charleston Municipal. Now we've kind of
Speaker 1: gone backwards through your trip because you went to Charles,
Speaker 1: you were going south. You went to Charleston after you
Speaker 1: had already gone through Ashville, North Carolina. But we're going
Speaker 1: to go back to Asheville, North Carolina now and talk
Speaker 1: about some of the golf around there and some of
Speaker 1: the reasons to go there. It's not necessarily mentioned as
Speaker 1: a golf destination. But there it's in North Carolina, so
Speaker 1: there's plenty of great golf courses, not only in the
Speaker 1: city but in the area around there. But just to
Speaker 1: start off, Ashville itself is I feel a highly underrated town.
Speaker 1: I've been there. I haven't played golf there. I went
Speaker 1: there for a wedding one time with my wife and kid,
Speaker 1: and it was fantastic. Now, obviously this was pre COVID
Speaker 1: and so you probably didn't get to see all the
Speaker 1: restaurants and stuff. And yeah, that's too bad.
Speaker 4: I went into one of the fame breweries and got
Speaker 4: to go.
Speaker 2: Beer, you know, which is good beer? Though, right, it
Speaker 2: was good beer.
Speaker 1: It's a great brewery town. I forget what the names
Speaker 1: of the breweries are.
Speaker 2: I you know, it is the one that just got bought.
Speaker 2: I went to Wicked.
Speaker 1: Is it Wicked something?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's what it is. It's a good
Speaker 4: it's so cool, you know, one of the neat things.
Speaker 4: And I don't want too many people to find out
Speaker 4: about this because, like you know, I might want to
Speaker 4: move there someday.
Speaker 2: I don't want people to drive up the prices.
Speaker 4: But they had only nine days over ninety degrees in
Speaker 4: Ashville last.
Speaker 2: Year, good lord, and then you know what, we were there.
Speaker 4: It was the cooldest time of the year. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: was still golfable. Yes, it was forty five, like it
Speaker 4: snowed one day, but it was forty five, you know,
Speaker 4: And you could definitely play golf in the winter. You
Speaker 4: could play golf twelve months of the year. You get
Speaker 4: seasons and it's not too hot. I'm a big fan.
Speaker 4: And obviously we didn't get experience as much of the
Speaker 4: food and beer scene or nightlife scene. But I'm looking
Speaker 4: forward to going back in different times a because there's
Speaker 4: a lot of golf courses that I didn't get to
Speaker 4: see that I want to see. And that's really the
Speaker 4: main impetus, you know, is I want to get back
Speaker 4: and see a ton of places. But we drove straight
Speaker 4: to Ashville, and I talked about how it took like
Speaker 4: three hours to get to northwest Indiana. It was like
Speaker 4: three in the morning when we were pulling into Ashville.
Speaker 4: And we stayed in Black Mountain, which is a town
Speaker 4: just outside of Asheville, because we figured we're not going downtown, why,
Speaker 4: you know. And it was this beautiful little mountain town.
Speaker 4: It was so cool loved it. But we stayed there
Speaker 4: and my wife was reading the Black Mountain website and
Speaker 4: she's like, oh, are you going to see the Black
Speaker 4: Mountain golf Course? And I was like, I know, Like
Speaker 4: you do you mean Asheville Municipal, which is, you know,
Speaker 4: one of the courses on my list. And she's like, no,
Speaker 4: the Black Mountain golf Course. And I'm like, why would I.
Speaker 2: Go see that?
Speaker 4: And she goes, well, it says here is designed by
Speaker 4: Donald Ross. So you know, Josie of course had no
Speaker 4: sympathy for us. Big up till three driving, so we're
Speaker 4: up at like six point thirty. The next day, I
Speaker 4: got a huge coffee and I went walk Black Mountain
Speaker 4: in the morning and it was interesting. So Front Nine,
Speaker 4: like so many courses, the Front nine is Donal Ross routed.
Speaker 4: It's been monkeyed with a little bit, but you can
Speaker 4: see some really cool holes like shared fair aways just
Speaker 4: neat green sights, and it's as Black Mountain. It's in
Speaker 4: the foothills of the mountain, so it's got some good terrain,
Speaker 4: like not terrain you see every day. So the Front Nine,
Speaker 4: I'm walking, I'm like, hey, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: If they did some stuff. It could be cooler.
Speaker 4: You know, there's some underlying issues at some places. Obviously
Speaker 4: there's some drainage issues, which is a huge problem because
Speaker 4: there's houses being built all around, you know, on the mountain.
Speaker 4: So like you see the with a lot of mountain
Speaker 4: golf courses, old mountain golf courses, they have tons of
Speaker 4: drainage issues because the soil there's nowhere for the water
Speaker 4: to go, yeah, because the soil is very rocky, and
Speaker 4: then you've got development all around just throwing water onto
Speaker 4: the golf course. So obviously some drainage issues. But the
Speaker 4: front nine very cool, and then you make the turn
Speaker 4: to the back and there's a sign that greets you
Speaker 4: that's like kind of it winds through a neighborhood and
Speaker 4: the sign says like this is strictly for golf activities.
Speaker 4: You know, it's very unsafe to walk here, which is
Speaker 4: a dovetail of what we were just talking about. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm on this back nine and I'm just like, well,
Speaker 4: that's not a very nice sign, you know, Like I'm
Speaker 4: in like basically a swamp. The golf holes all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, just they don't make sense. They're fighting the
Speaker 4: terrain they're going into extraordinarily narrow corridors. There's just nowhere
Speaker 4: to hit the ball. You're seeing boxes right in landing
Speaker 4: areas of other holes for the next hole, and you're like,
Speaker 4: what the hell is going on? And it was just
Speaker 4: nine holes crammed into this tiny little space to build
Speaker 4: a golf course. And one of the things on the
Speaker 4: website that my wife read is that, you know, it
Speaker 4: is famous for the Donald Ross nine and it's seventeenth hole,
Speaker 4: which was at one point the longest hole in the world,
Speaker 4: the par six, and it was one of the most
Speaker 4: defensive holes I've ever seen in my life. And this
Speaker 4: was after I was on the phone with Stephen Britain,
Speaker 4: because at this point I'm calling Stephen asking I have
Speaker 4: all these crackpot theories, which I'll be getting into later.
Speaker 1: Stephen Britain, Superintendent.
Speaker 2: Superintendent Chevy Chase.
Speaker 4: I'm talking with him and I'm telling him about how
Speaker 4: awful the holes are. And I turn and I get
Speaker 4: onto the seventeenth and I'm like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 4: telling this is the worst of all of them.
Speaker 1: You know, describe it a little so par six, seventeenth hole.
Speaker 4: Off and you hit the landing area it's like the
Speaker 4: side of a mountain. So it's had like a very
Speaker 4: severe grade just to the left of the fairway as
Speaker 4: a cart path, and to the left of that is
Speaker 4: a creek. So I went in the shop after and
Speaker 4: I asked him. I asked the guy about the seventeenth hole,
Speaker 4: and just like, hey, people like that seventeenth hole. He's like, well,
Speaker 4: you know, it's a famous hole. I'm like yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 4: let me ask you in the summer, when it's you know,
Speaker 4: firm and kind of baked out, can you hold the
Speaker 4: ball in the fairway at all?
Speaker 2: And he looks at me. He just shakes his head,
Speaker 2: just like.
Speaker 4: And I go, so, then does it hit the cart
Speaker 4: path that going to the creek And he was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: happens a lot. But then the creek crosses like three
Speaker 4: more times. It plays up to like a raised green.
Speaker 4: But you know the holes before it that we're sharing,
Speaker 4: you know, you've got two holes in like a forty
Speaker 4: yard wide corridor playing opposite directions. I mean that's almost
Speaker 4: as offensive. But anyways, I'm walking. I'm talking to Stephen
Speaker 4: because after about two holes, I realized, like, golf shouldn't
Speaker 4: be here, like traditional golf doesn't work on this site
Speaker 4: because there's not enough space for it and it's too
Speaker 4: severe and it doesn't drain. It's just and you just
Speaker 4: think about it from the maintenance side. Is that maintenance
Speaker 4: team there, you know, the front nine's pretty cool and
Speaker 4: with a little work with drainage, you could make it
Speaker 4: really a really good nine, you know, and it would
Speaker 4: play really well. But then when I got on the
Speaker 4: back nine, I realized this is where they spend all
Speaker 4: their time. I walked in tennis shoes the front nine,
Speaker 4: My feet weren't wet. The back nine I'm walking through
Speaker 4: just like mud. And you realize this is where all
Speaker 4: the problems are and where the maintenance team is just
Speaker 4: trying to make it playable, and it's a terrible nine
Speaker 4: holes that shouldn't even be in existence in its current form.
Speaker 4: And then it came back to that sign at the
Speaker 4: start of the back nine that's like, do not walk.
Speaker 2: This is this is only for golf.
Speaker 4: In reality, the oxymoron of it is that it should
Speaker 4: never have been for golf. And so I called Stephen,
Speaker 4: you know, midway through this, because I was curious, like
Speaker 4: in my head, like hey, if I told you I'm
Speaker 4: going to cut your golf course by nine holes. What's
Speaker 4: your maintenance budget going to be percentage wise just maintaining
Speaker 4: nine holes? You know, he was like sixty to seventy percent.
Speaker 4: Maybe if you have a really good super maybe fifty
Speaker 4: five percent to seventy percent.
Speaker 2: And I started thinking about it.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, this is a golf course, it's
Speaker 4: a small community, it's a small mountain town, is clearly thriving,
Speaker 4: but it's only eighteen thousand people. Is like, with all
Speaker 4: the golf around, this would be better as a nine
Speaker 4: hole golf course. And they don't have a driving range,
Speaker 4: So you could take some of that back nine that's
Speaker 4: allegedly a golf course, turn into a driving range, maybe
Speaker 4: a short course which is perfect for that severe land
Speaker 4: in small corridors, you know, or convert it to just
Speaker 4: a park, like make it open lands for this growing,
Speaker 4: thriving community that's adjacent to the golf course, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, then more people are around the golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and doing these kinds of things makes so much
Speaker 1: sense for eighteen whole courses that are struggling, and we
Speaker 1: all know them. There's a bunch of them in fact,
Speaker 1: that have Donald Ross Front Nines or purported Donald Ross
Speaker 1: Front Nines, and then a back nine that was added
Speaker 1: later that's not nearly as good because not every architect
Speaker 1: is Donald Ross, and so this describes a lot of
Speaker 1: golf courses certainly that might just function better as nine
Speaker 1: whole courses. My only response to that, my only disagreement
Speaker 1: with that general idea is that it has to be
Speaker 1: and maybe it's not a disagreement, but it has to
Speaker 1: be extremely specific to each course.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's not a blanket.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have courses where one nine is really good.
Speaker 1: We all know them, where one nine is really good
Speaker 1: and the other nine is not so good. Pacific Grove
Speaker 1: Golf Course, you know, one of my favorite player in
Speaker 1: the world near Monterey, California. Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course
Speaker 1: has one nine that was built in the thirties that
Speaker 1: kind of goes through the neighborhoods inland and it was
Speaker 1: designed by Chandler Egan. It was probably pretty cool at
Speaker 1: one time, but has been really compromised by the development
Speaker 1: around it and by some moving around of the holes
Speaker 1: that has happened to accommodate parking lots, clubhouses, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and so it's not particularly good right now.
Speaker 1: There are some pretty bad holes out there. There are
Speaker 1: some pretty good holes on that nine as well, and
Speaker 1: then the back nine is sublime. The back nine is
Speaker 1: in the dunes. It's just amazing. There are six amazing
Speaker 1: holes on that back nine, maybe seven. And so a
Speaker 1: lot of people have said, why don't we just chop
Speaker 1: off the front nine make it a world class, you know,
Speaker 1: nine hole golf course. And my response to that is,
Speaker 1: not only does that front nine have a lot of history,
Speaker 1: in fact more history than the nine in the dunes,
Speaker 1: but people use it like that course is super successful.
Speaker 1: The community uses that go of course, and so who
Speaker 1: am I to come in and say it's not well
Speaker 1: designed enough for my tastes, we should shut it down.
Speaker 1: If the community uses it and it's successful, then great,
Speaker 1: the course is sustainable. Great, But if you have a
Speaker 1: course where there are big problems financially, maintenance wise, environmentally,
Speaker 1: primarily because of one poorly built nine, then that's where
Speaker 1: you start exploring these solutions. I think, which is what
Speaker 1: you're talking about with Black Mountain.
Speaker 4: And I think the course has done well with COVID.
Speaker 4: I like that and talking to the guy in the
Speaker 4: pro shop. But I you know, I did ask about
Speaker 4: the back time. I'm like, is it always wet back there, like,
Speaker 4: and he was like, oh, yeah, it's always wet.
Speaker 1: They could do a lot better probably.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's nine holes in a short course. Yeah, all
Speaker 4: of a sudden that severe land makes for a great
Speaker 4: short course. You could play from high point to high point.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I think one of the things that the misconception is
Speaker 4: like severe land isn't really good for regular golf, but
Speaker 4: it's really good for short courses. Like, if you give
Speaker 4: me a severe plot of land, it's probably hard to
Speaker 4: find eighteen holes out on it. But you know what's
Speaker 4: really easy to do, really easy to find par threes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Mcveig's Gauntlet at Sylvie's Valley Ranch, which I
Speaker 1: visited this past year. Mcvay's Gauntlet is probably built on
Speaker 1: the most severe piece of land that I've ever seen
Speaker 1: used for golf. And it's hard, but it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of part threes and it works. Yeah, that is one possibility.
Speaker 1: Another is like driving range, practice facility. We all know
Speaker 1: what makes the most money in the golf business, and
Speaker 1: that's a successful driving range.
Speaker 4: And then my thought was like you could go to
Speaker 4: the city and say, hey, we're going to nine. We're
Speaker 4: cutting our maintenance budget, but can we reinvest a portion
Speaker 4: of the money we're saving you Yeah, into the golf course, Like, hey,
Speaker 4: we want to have one of the best nine holers
Speaker 4: in the country, and that's something we think we can achieve.
Speaker 4: Like the way it's currently constructed, they will never have
Speaker 4: a golf course that I would say is worth going
Speaker 4: to play unless you're there, right, but if they not
Speaker 4: redid But they restored that original Ross nine, and that's
Speaker 4: what it was. It's a really it's got a ton
Speaker 4: of potential.
Speaker 1: So Black Mountain and then you went to Asheville proper
Speaker 1: Asheville Municipal golf course, So tell me about.
Speaker 2: That another ross.
Speaker 4: This is like if you want to see Dona Ross,
Speaker 4: there's don Ross everywhere within an hour, and so many
Speaker 4: places I didn't get to see because we were only.
Speaker 2: There for two days.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: One of the neat things is even some of the
Speaker 4: private clubs, if you're a polite and ask nicely, they
Speaker 4: probably will let you come play. I know that's the
Speaker 4: case for Country Club of Ashville, which was redone by
Speaker 4: Rich Mandel, and I think Mimosa Hills is pretty open
Speaker 4: about unaccompanied guest play. The Asheville Muni obviously very historic
Speaker 4: Donald Ross, you know, nineteen twenty nine. There's a golf
Speaker 4: channel piece on it if you search it cool place
Speaker 4: for the most parts remained for the most part, not
Speaker 4: too much monkey around with the original design, so you know,
Speaker 4: it's very playable. The greens on the front nine they
Speaker 4: play like low in the lowlands, you know, kind of,
Speaker 4: and then the back nine gets up into the into
Speaker 4: the more of the mountains. The front nine has really
Speaker 4: it kind of winds around and it's it's pretty flat,
Speaker 4: some neat greens, and then it's got a great volcano
Speaker 4: green on the eighth and it plays, and then the
Speaker 4: ninth really starts some of the more dramatic land.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the things with severe land right
Speaker 4: is you've got connector holes, holes that are just a
Speaker 4: means to get you to the next area that's really golfable.
Speaker 4: And the tenth and eleventh hole at Asheville Municipal are
Speaker 4: two connector holes that had some renovation work done at
Speaker 4: some point that have completely made them worse. There's like
Speaker 4: a raised bunker that was like wedged into this giant
Speaker 4: hillside and they've got homes on they play kind of
Speaker 4: in these like funnel and again this is a drainage issue.
Speaker 4: This is mountain golf. Like half of it being good
Speaker 4: is about just getting water off it, because Asheville is
Speaker 4: a place, it rains a lot too, and you can
Speaker 4: tell that all the work that's been done to it
Speaker 4: has just made it more of a drainage nightmare. No
Speaker 4: grass in the fairway, and it's just like an example
Speaker 4: of like how if you hire the wrong architect you
Speaker 4: end up with something worse. You spend a bunch of
Speaker 4: money to get worse. You know, I guarantee if they
Speaker 4: did nothing, it would function better than it does now.
Speaker 4: But those two holes, then you get up into this
Speaker 4: like spectacular topography. The twelfth through the seventeenth is an
Speaker 4: incredible stretch. It's almost like on like a foothill ridge.
Speaker 4: You play down in the lowlands and then you get
Speaker 4: up into like part way up the mountains and there's
Speaker 4: this big ridge that you're kind of playing along, some
Speaker 4: really spectacular holes, some added bunkers that are in car
Speaker 4: pass Like it's just one of those places where you
Speaker 4: go around and you're like got these really good bones.
Speaker 4: It's really a great community asset. It's busy all the time,
Speaker 4: tons around, but it could be so much more. It's
Speaker 4: just one of those where you look at it in
Speaker 4: that same vein of East Potomac, or Rancho Park in La.
Speaker 1: Yolds Park at Winston Salem.
Speaker 4: Maybe yeah, where it works, it's a great affordable asset
Speaker 4: for the community. But if they went the route of
Speaker 4: a Charleston or you know, a just a pure yeah,
Speaker 4: you wouldn't want to go the route of Charleston where
Speaker 4: you redid it, But if you put three million into
Speaker 4: the place, it could be really spectacular. In one of
Speaker 4: those things you got to do if you're a golfer
Speaker 4: when you're in a Nashville and you could they could
Speaker 4: compete with the course that I didn't get to see
Speaker 4: that I really was disappointed that I didn't have time
Speaker 4: to see was Grove Park, which is now it's tied
Speaker 4: to a hotel, the Omni, and it's a Donald Ross
Speaker 4: course that's a little bit more upscale. But if they
Speaker 4: they put three million dollars into that point, into Asheville, Muni,
Speaker 4: you could have a golf course that could compete with that.
Speaker 4: It could go punch for punch while providing the town
Speaker 4: a great asset.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And again Ashville super cool town, university town, unc
Speaker 1: Ashville is there. The brewery that we were trying to
Speaker 1: think of earlier is called Wicked Weed, Yes, which is
Speaker 1: very much a modern brewery name. Charleston and Ashville might
Speaker 1: not be the first places that come to mind when
Speaker 1: people think I'm going to go on a golf trip.
Speaker 2: That's the cool thing about them, though, is you can
Speaker 2: go there and do other stuff.
Speaker 1: The other stuff. And Charleston we didn't even talk about
Speaker 1: Charleston culture, Yeah, which is the greatest food, music, like
Speaker 1: amazing place.
Speaker 4: You know, I was there and I wanted to see
Speaker 4: these courses, but then you know you want to get
Speaker 4: back so you can do stuff. And I was there
Speaker 4: with my family, like you know, these are places like
Speaker 4: if you do your planning and advance and get the
Speaker 4: tea times early, you can go play golf and be back.
Speaker 4: The other thing is it's not an hour away. You know,
Speaker 4: you're ten minutes away from where your your family is.
Speaker 4: So if you get in early tea time, you're there
Speaker 4: and you're back and you got the whole rest of
Speaker 4: your day.
Speaker 2: In some of the coolest cities.
Speaker 4: Yeah, city golf deserves a revival because to me, it's
Speaker 4: the coolest destination golf. You know, as you go to
Speaker 4: city and you get to experience the new culture and
Speaker 4: you have really cool night life. And I mean, I
Speaker 4: work in golf, so I think my perception has changed
Speaker 4: a little bit. But I really like going to a
Speaker 4: city and playing eighteen holes and then hanging out the
Speaker 4: rest of the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally agree. That's our show for today. We should
Speaker 1: be back soon. In the meantime, if you've been enjoying
Speaker 1: the podcast, leave a rating or review or both in
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. Really helps people find the Frida Egg. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.