1
00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:04,680
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.

2
00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:09,120
Speaker 1: Today's episode is brought to you by ourselves, the Frida

3
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:13,360
Speaker 1: Egg Pro Shop. It's holiday season. We have a big

4
00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:18,720
Speaker 1: selection of stuff. We've got apparel, hats, all kinds of

5
00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:24,919
Speaker 1: T shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, Fried Egg, Shotgun Start branded stuff,

6
00:00:24,960 --> 00:00:29,360
Speaker 1: and then also a large print shop. So if you

7
00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:32,720
Speaker 1: go over there, you're bound to find something that is decent.

8
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:35,120
Speaker 1: You know, if you like the Fried Egg, support us

9
00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:38,280
Speaker 1: by checking out our pro shop. If you want to

10
00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:42,280
Speaker 1: dress up your office or your house, or you know

11
00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:45,120
Speaker 1: whatever your significant other will let you hang up in

12
00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:48,479
Speaker 1: your house, check out our print shop. We've got both

13
00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:52,519
Speaker 1: paper fine art paper prints that you can frame or

14
00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:54,000
Speaker 1: you can just get the print if you want to

15
00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:56,720
Speaker 1: put your own frame on it, and also metal prints.

16
00:00:56,760 --> 00:01:02,240
Speaker 1: Those are stunning their vivid colors and really pop. They're

17
00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:06,400
Speaker 1: very unique in if you're looking for something sleek, check

18
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:09,120
Speaker 1: out the metal prints. They are beautiful. I have a

19
00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:13,679
Speaker 1: few in my basement. And if you order today Monday

20
00:01:13,959 --> 00:01:17,120
Speaker 1: or Sunday, this is the day of this recording, Monday,

21
00:01:17,959 --> 00:01:21,320
Speaker 1: November thirtieth, we do have a sale. It's twenty percent off.

22
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:26,319
Speaker 1: It'll automatically be accounted for it discount. You don't need

23
00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:30,280
Speaker 1: any codes just or at checkout, So just go order

24
00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:32,960
Speaker 1: what you want and you'll get twenty percent off everything

25
00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:35,160
Speaker 1: that includes prints, all apparel.

26
00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:36,039
Speaker 2: It's a good deal.

27
00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:41,880
Speaker 1: The website is proshop dot Thefridagg dot com. That's where

28
00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:45,120
Speaker 1: you can get to it proshop dot Thefridagg dot com.

29
00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:50,760
Speaker 1: Today's episode is with golf course architect golf course owner

30
00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:53,560
Speaker 1: Mike Young. Mike has been in the business for a

31
00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:57,960
Speaker 1: long time. Mike built his first golf course, the Fields

32
00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 1: in Lagrange, Georgia. Talk extensively about that. That was built

33
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:06,280
Speaker 1: in the late eighties. He built it by himself. He

34
00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:10,239
Speaker 1: was really, you know, one of the first design build guys,

35
00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:14,120
Speaker 1: along with Tom Doak and Bill Corr. So Mike's got

36
00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:18,560
Speaker 1: a lot of experience and after a year's in architecture,

37
00:02:18,639 --> 00:02:22,040
Speaker 1: he has bought and manages some golf courses. So we

38
00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:25,360
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the golf management side. So, without

39
00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:28,160
Speaker 1: further ado, here is Mike Young.

40
00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:31,320
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When

41
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:33,440
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

42
00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:35,480
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball in a bright egg

43
00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:38,560
Speaker 3: Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida, egg Frida, egg Frida, egg

44
00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:40,360
Speaker 3: brigg Frida, egg bride egg lie.

45
00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:42,600
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the course.

46
00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:54,560
Speaker 1: I'm interested to talk to you about how you got

47
00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:59,400
Speaker 1: into golf design in the first place. You know, in general,

48
00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:02,640
Speaker 1: you were you were a turf equipment sales rep.

49
00:03:02,760 --> 00:03:06,120
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, But I did that on purpose. I did

50
00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:09,400
Speaker 3: that with the intention of getting into golf design. But

51
00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:14,160
Speaker 3: I was I'll go back to the start, and I

52
00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:19,960
Speaker 3: was in boy Scouts and I had a I didn't

53
00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:22,360
Speaker 3: have one of the freaky Scout masters, but I was

54
00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:27,200
Speaker 3: in boy Scouts and I had watched him build a

55
00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:30,000
Speaker 3: golf course near me, and I said, I want to

56
00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:36,000
Speaker 3: learn to design golf courses. I'm sixteen. So my senior year,

57
00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,720
Speaker 3: my dad said, you can't get out until you become eagle.

58
00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:44,080
Speaker 3: So I had to do the Eagle Scout thing. So

59
00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:46,240
Speaker 3: they take all the Eagle Scouts in the state and

60
00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:48,640
Speaker 3: they put us up at the High Regency in Atlanta,

61
00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,840
Speaker 3: and they bring a mentory in for two days and

62
00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:54,600
Speaker 3: he talked to you about what you want to do,

63
00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:56,720
Speaker 3: and I said, well, I want to design golf courses.

64
00:03:56,800 --> 00:03:59,680
Speaker 3: So they bring me this guy. He's a big architect,

65
00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:02,840
Speaker 3: that John Portman, who did all a lot of the

66
00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:06,240
Speaker 3: big buildings in Atlanta and all over the world. He says,

67
00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:08,160
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about that stuff. But there's a

68
00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:10,160
Speaker 3: guy out here's supposed to be good that's building the

69
00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:13,800
Speaker 3: Athletic Club, and he's building a place down here on

70
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:17,760
Speaker 3: the side of lind And it's Robert Trent Jones Junior,

71
00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:23,440
Speaker 3: Robert Trent Jones Senior, and his guy was a guy

72
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:29,080
Speaker 3: named Ron Kirby there. And I went out there and

73
00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:31,520
Speaker 3: I was picking up rocks and doing all this one day,

74
00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:35,080
Speaker 3: and then they had me go out and meet Ron Kirby,

75
00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:40,160
Speaker 3: and I was just a little kid. He says, well said,

76
00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:41,480
Speaker 3: if you're going to get into stuff, you got to

77
00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:43,479
Speaker 3: go through the turf business or something like that. And

78
00:04:43,480 --> 00:04:47,000
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, right, whatever. So it went away. Never

79
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:50,200
Speaker 3: thought about it much anymore of getting in it that way.

80
00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:55,800
Speaker 3: And after school I started thinking about it, and I

81
00:04:55,839 --> 00:04:59,120
Speaker 3: remembered what he'd said. So I started researching, and I

82
00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:01,800
Speaker 3: found the Toro to distributor, and I said, hey, you

83
00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:04,680
Speaker 3: got to let me go to work. I want to

84
00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,880
Speaker 3: call on golf courses where I can see everything and

85
00:05:08,880 --> 00:05:12,040
Speaker 3: and learn this business and I do not, And he's like, well,

86
00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:15,080
Speaker 3: nobody can be a golf architect. It's just not that many.

87
00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:17,640
Speaker 3: I said, well, that's what I want to do, and

88
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:19,240
Speaker 3: I don't want to work for one because I don't

89
00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:22,479
Speaker 3: want to be in an office. So I started taking

90
00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:28,040
Speaker 3: pictures and going around seeing superintendents and calling on new construction. Uh,

91
00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:31,360
Speaker 3: And I liked it. I did it that way.

92
00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:35,840
Speaker 1: That's obviously a unique approach. I mean, most people go

93
00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:38,919
Speaker 1: and work for an architect. What what you know doing

94
00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:42,640
Speaker 1: it that way? What advantages do you think you get?

95
00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:43,279
Speaker 2: It gave you.

96
00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:47,039
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not the first one to do it that way,

97
00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:48,839
Speaker 3: but there were some there's some others who have done that.

98
00:05:48,920 --> 00:05:53,159
Speaker 3: But it if you go work for an architect and

99
00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:57,520
Speaker 3: you sit in the office and you're drawing or rendering

100
00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:02,000
Speaker 3: or whatever. You've got his thoughts, his ideas, and you

101
00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:07,080
Speaker 3: follow that family tree or something. But if you're calling

102
00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:09,719
Speaker 3: on these guys, you can walk in every one of

103
00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:15,200
Speaker 3: them's office, which I did, and you can see you

104
00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:20,479
Speaker 3: come to your own conclusions. And then because you didn't

105
00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:23,840
Speaker 3: work for him, whenever you come out of the turf

106
00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:27,120
Speaker 3: business to start your own thing, it sort of pisses

107
00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:29,600
Speaker 3: them off. And they don't consider you qualified or whatever.

108
00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it's interesting because I kind of think about it.

109
00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:37,400
Speaker 1: I got into golf from outside of golf, and I

110
00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:41,040
Speaker 1: came in without certain notions that get built in. And

111
00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:44,360
Speaker 1: if you work for an architect, I imagined a certain extent,

112
00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:49,800
Speaker 1: your thoughts and opinions and ideas get shaped by that architect,

113
00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:50,880
Speaker 1: whether you know it or not.

114
00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:56,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that. You know. I had four or

115
00:06:56,040 --> 00:06:58,160
Speaker 3: five years where every day I would see four or

116
00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:01,920
Speaker 3: five golf courses and I would take slides and I've

117
00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:06,680
Speaker 3: still got most of them. And you would see the

118
00:07:06,839 --> 00:07:09,520
Speaker 3: old classics or the old courses, not all of them

119
00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:13,640
Speaker 3: were classic, and then you would see some of the

120
00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,760
Speaker 3: new stuff as being built and you're like, man, I

121
00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:21,400
Speaker 3: don't know that I'm into that or whatnot. And so

122
00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:24,880
Speaker 3: you weren't shaped where if you were in that office,

123
00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:29,760
Speaker 3: you were sitting there learning things that were modern golf.

124
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:34,120
Speaker 3: For instance. I just remember being at one architect's office

125
00:07:34,200 --> 00:07:36,280
Speaker 3: and I was talking to him one day, just driving

126
00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:39,600
Speaker 3: him crazy, you know. And on all your old courses,

127
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:43,360
Speaker 3: because people walked, you always walked into the front of

128
00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:45,360
Speaker 3: the green, so you approached the green from the front,

129
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:49,960
Speaker 3: but with golf cars, you approach it from the side.

130
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:53,960
Speaker 3: And so they would design these golf courses to where

131
00:07:53,960 --> 00:07:56,760
Speaker 3: they made sure there were no bunkers or anything, or

132
00:07:56,800 --> 00:07:59,080
Speaker 3: they had an easy way to get into the walk

133
00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:00,880
Speaker 3: onto the green from side the hole.

134
00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:04,440
Speaker 2: And I'm like, they decided around the cart path.

135
00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:08,040
Speaker 3: But that's common when you start. Yeah, it's designed around

136
00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:10,160
Speaker 3: the cart path. In other words, Hey, they're gonna get

137
00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:12,120
Speaker 3: out here, so let's don't put a bunker here, because

138
00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:13,720
Speaker 3: we want to have plenty of room for not to

139
00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:17,320
Speaker 3: wear it out. And I'm like, that's not what all

140
00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:21,880
Speaker 3: this is about where And so naturally I was if

141
00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:25,520
Speaker 3: I if I built one where you had bunkers or

142
00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:27,239
Speaker 3: something there, then I didn't know what I was doing.

143
00:08:27,360 --> 00:08:28,720
Speaker 3: That kind of that kind of stuff.

144
00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:32,720
Speaker 1: You know, when you're seeing five courses a day, I

145
00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:36,800
Speaker 1: assume you were mostly around the southeast. Were there any

146
00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:41,520
Speaker 1: courses that really stood out to you old or new

147
00:08:41,760 --> 00:08:45,640
Speaker 1: that you know from you know, obviously the bunker story

148
00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:48,520
Speaker 1: with the cart path, But were there ones that stood

149
00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:50,480
Speaker 1: out to you and said I like this? And then

150
00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:54,800
Speaker 1: were there ones where You're like I don't like this? Yeah,

151
00:08:55,400 --> 00:08:57,640
Speaker 1: distinct ones, you know, Yeah.

152
00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:01,640
Speaker 3: You know, there were some of those, plenty of those.

153
00:09:02,640 --> 00:09:04,520
Speaker 2: Any examples of the good ones.

154
00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:08,760
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Palmetta Club definitely stood out and people

155
00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:14,000
Speaker 3: weren't really talking about it. The Dick Wilson course that

156
00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:17,000
Speaker 3: nobody talks about called Mountain Mountain View down at Callowi

157
00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:20,080
Speaker 3: Gardens was really in good shape. Then it was a

158
00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:22,040
Speaker 3: good golf course. It stood out. You could see that

159
00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:29,839
Speaker 3: it was it was thoughtfully done. Atlanta Country Club is

160
00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:34,280
Speaker 3: one you don't ever hear about. That was that I liked.

161
00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:37,000
Speaker 2: What did did you?

162
00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:40,520
Speaker 1: You know, your early days and this is obviously these

163
00:09:40,559 --> 00:09:43,960
Speaker 1: travels are shaping the way you're thinking about golf. Were

164
00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:46,680
Speaker 1: like the common things that you saw and courses that

165
00:09:46,720 --> 00:09:47,200
Speaker 1: you liked?

166
00:09:47,720 --> 00:09:48,880
Speaker 2: You know, what would did? Did you?

167
00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:51,920
Speaker 1: Were there threads about, you know about the things that

168
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,959
Speaker 1: you saw, and I imagine in many ways those were

169
00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:58,040
Speaker 1: rarer than the ones that you kind of looked at

170
00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:00,720
Speaker 1: and said, ah, you know golf course.

171
00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:08,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, the I guess I had my eye for art,

172
00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:10,000
Speaker 3: and whether you know, you don't ever know if it's

173
00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:11,840
Speaker 3: a good eye or not unless people hire you to

174
00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:16,400
Speaker 3: do another one. But I heard somebody once say that

175
00:10:17,559 --> 00:10:20,480
Speaker 3: a lot of people want to find the golf course

176
00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:22,840
Speaker 3: and then other people want to move the golf course there,

177
00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:27,040
Speaker 3: and so, like you sort of, my philosophy is is

178
00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:30,760
Speaker 3: to start with that steak and build out a lot

179
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:36,640
Speaker 3: of the signatures and all. Because they're used to marketing

180
00:10:36,679 --> 00:10:38,800
Speaker 3: themselves to sell real estate and all that, are given

181
00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:41,840
Speaker 3: a piece of property and they start on the outside

182
00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:44,320
Speaker 3: and build in. In other words, I got to put

183
00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:46,560
Speaker 3: the hole here. So they start moving a lot of

184
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:49,640
Speaker 3: dirt and holds get up in the air, and I

185
00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:53,480
Speaker 3: probably my biggest thing was trying to keep it down

186
00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:57,240
Speaker 3: on the ground. And when I built my first one

187
00:10:57,559 --> 00:11:01,760
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight eighty nine, everything I kept it down

188
00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:04,320
Speaker 3: did we didn't do it. And so people are like, well,

189
00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:06,160
Speaker 3: you can't do that. You got to get the greens up,

190
00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:09,800
Speaker 3: you got to do this all these technical aspects. And

191
00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:12,840
Speaker 3: I wasn't worried about the technical aspects out it because

192
00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:14,600
Speaker 3: my ground was sloping and I knew I could drain

193
00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:19,520
Speaker 3: the water. So uh, I just I just think you

194
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,920
Speaker 3: got to find the hole and then carve it out

195
00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:25,760
Speaker 3: from there. I'm not into bringing dirt in to build

196
00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:26,080
Speaker 3: a hole.

197
00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:30,679
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about your first designed the fields. How

198
00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:32,080
Speaker 1: did you get that opportunity?

199
00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:37,200
Speaker 3: Well, I was in the turf business or the equipment business.

200
00:11:37,559 --> 00:11:39,600
Speaker 3: So you'd go to the trade shows and I'd met

201
00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:42,960
Speaker 3: guys you had a I was building a network, and

202
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,600
Speaker 3: I knew a guy that was a seed salesman, and

203
00:11:45,679 --> 00:11:49,040
Speaker 3: he grew up in the pecan business, and he was determined.

204
00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:52,920
Speaker 3: He wanted to build a golf course. And I knew

205
00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:55,560
Speaker 3: that people weren't gonna let me build one, so I

206
00:11:55,600 --> 00:12:01,120
Speaker 3: just I said, look, let me build this thing, and

207
00:12:01,160 --> 00:12:03,520
Speaker 3: I won't charge anything. We'll trade for a lot or

208
00:12:03,559 --> 00:12:07,560
Speaker 3: something like that. And he said okay. So I routed

209
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:11,560
Speaker 3: it started going down there. In the afternoons. We'd we

210
00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:15,040
Speaker 3: had a skid steerloader and we had a small dozer

211
00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:17,680
Speaker 3: and we'd work on it, work on it and have

212
00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:21,120
Speaker 3: guys move rocks during the day. Took two years. And

213
00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:23,480
Speaker 3: then while I was building it, I got two other jobs.

214
00:12:25,520 --> 00:12:32,440
Speaker 1: It's yeah, and that's hot and the the uh.

215
00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:36,920
Speaker 3: The first one, the first one I got. This guy's name.

216
00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:39,839
Speaker 3: His name was little Boy. He had one of these

217
00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:41,080
Speaker 3: El Camino trucks.

218
00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:42,320
Speaker 2: Was he a little boy?

219
00:12:42,880 --> 00:12:43,960
Speaker 3: No, not at all.

220
00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:50,000
Speaker 2: Most people of the nickname little boys aren't little boys.

221
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:54,440
Speaker 3: No, So little boy, little Boy comes down of the

222
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:57,520
Speaker 3: course and he says, I hear you're building this golf

223
00:12:57,559 --> 00:13:00,960
Speaker 3: course and so and so liked it or something, and

224
00:13:01,160 --> 00:13:03,120
Speaker 3: he says, I want to build one. And it was

225
00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:06,280
Speaker 3: up in Atlanta. It was where Atlanta was developing, up

226
00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:09,520
Speaker 3: four hundred. He says, can you come look at my land?

227
00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:13,439
Speaker 3: So I said sure, he said, he said when I

228
00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:15,120
Speaker 3: said when do you want me to? He said tomorrow.

229
00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:18,080
Speaker 3: So I go up there the next day and I

230
00:13:18,120 --> 00:13:19,880
Speaker 3: look at it and I said, this just won't work.

231
00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:23,640
Speaker 3: It's solid rock and it's straight up and down. He said, okay,

232
00:13:23,720 --> 00:13:26,920
Speaker 3: hold on, let me find some more. I'll call you back. Well,

233
00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:30,160
Speaker 3: I start home. By the time I get home, he's called.

234
00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:33,000
Speaker 3: He said, I got another piece. Can you come back tomorrow.

235
00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:40,319
Speaker 3: I go back the next day and he says, how

236
00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:42,040
Speaker 3: is this? I said, this will work. We can do this.

237
00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:48,000
Speaker 3: And so he had a big country music park on

238
00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:50,439
Speaker 3: the lake in Atlanta that had a lot of big

239
00:13:50,559 --> 00:13:52,760
Speaker 3: country music stars come there. And that was what they did,

240
00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:58,280
Speaker 3: was that and chicken processing. So he says, well, how

241
00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:00,760
Speaker 3: much is this going to be? Said, well, it'll be

242
00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:06,480
Speaker 3: a couple of million dollars. Uh, you know, to build

243
00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:10,440
Speaker 3: what we were doing it. So he writes me check

244
00:14:10,520 --> 00:14:13,680
Speaker 3: for me, and he said here and I'm hold on

245
00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:17,560
Speaker 3: the side. We got a we got the latest thing.

246
00:14:17,559 --> 00:14:21,800
Speaker 3: You know, we got to permit it. He says, well,

247
00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:23,760
Speaker 3: we don't want to do all that up here. You

248
00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:25,520
Speaker 3: don't have to do that, and I'm like, yeah, we do.

249
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:30,760
Speaker 3: So we started that. And meanwhile, I go back two

250
00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:32,960
Speaker 3: weeks later and I go up to the hill and

251
00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:35,640
Speaker 3: there's one hundred golf cars there. I said, what the

252
00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:38,040
Speaker 3: hell have you done? He said, I'm digging a basement

253
00:14:38,080 --> 00:14:40,880
Speaker 3: over there for the clubhouse, and said I went down

254
00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:43,600
Speaker 3: to athletic club bought all their used carts or something

255
00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:47,120
Speaker 3: they were turning in so we'd have some cars. That

256
00:14:47,280 --> 00:14:49,360
Speaker 3: was my second one, and it was just a matter

257
00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:52,160
Speaker 3: of me. They were really good clients, but it was

258
00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:56,560
Speaker 3: just keeping them under control. These guys they were rolling and.

259
00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 2: Then it sounds like they were very impulsive.

260
00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:02,480
Speaker 3: Very pulsy. But we went from there. So it was

261
00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:06,280
Speaker 3: it was not the refined country club client.

262
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:11,600
Speaker 1: So with the fields, you get this job and you

263
00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:16,240
Speaker 1: hadn't never done any of this before. No, so the

264
00:15:16,280 --> 00:15:20,360
Speaker 1: dozer gets delivered or there. What how talk me through

265
00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:22,920
Speaker 1: like the first few days when you're just getting on

266
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:24,160
Speaker 1: the dozer and doing this.

267
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:27,320
Speaker 3: Well, we had a we had a guy that could

268
00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:30,480
Speaker 3: run a dozer, and I'd start sort of showing him

269
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:31,920
Speaker 3: what I want to do, and then I'd learned the

270
00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:34,360
Speaker 3: dozer and this was an old dozer, and then I'd

271
00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:35,880
Speaker 3: get on it and mess around some and then the

272
00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:37,560
Speaker 3: other guy would get on it and then we'd get it.

273
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:40,840
Speaker 3: You know, it's like taking a log and making it

274
00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:43,400
Speaker 3: into lumber and finally seeing it down in the furniture.

275
00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:46,960
Speaker 3: So we probably took five times the amount of time

276
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:48,640
Speaker 3: a guy that knew what he was doing could do.

277
00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:54,560
Speaker 3: And then we just kept doing everything. We built USGA

278
00:15:54,680 --> 00:16:00,440
Speaker 3: greens and we that was a process. We got a

279
00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:02,960
Speaker 3: guy to help us with that. Once we learned how

280
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:04,680
Speaker 3: to do it, we did the rest of ourselves. But

281
00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:09,320
Speaker 3: floating them out and everything took a while. We put

282
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:13,040
Speaker 3: in the irrigation, uh and one of the partners was

283
00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 3: a dentist, and that that guy would go out every

284
00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:17,840
Speaker 3: afternoon put the pipe in the ground. He had a

285
00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:22,680
Speaker 3: ball doing that and it was I mean, it was

286
00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:26,520
Speaker 3: done just just that way.

287
00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:31,360
Speaker 1: So this is before and you know for everybody this project,

288
00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:35,680
Speaker 1: everybody gives obviously Todd, who is it regular here? A

289
00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:38,560
Speaker 1: good friend of yours. All the credit for being the

290
00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:41,240
Speaker 1: first design build guy to come back really, you know

291
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:45,280
Speaker 1: with high Point and corn Crunchhaw obviously with sand Hills,

292
00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:48,280
Speaker 1: and but this is before both those, and it's just

293
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:50,720
Speaker 1: you and a couple of guys out there building the

294
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 1: golf course.

295
00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:55,200
Speaker 3: Huh yeah. And I think that those guys were we

296
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:57,040
Speaker 3: were all about the same time. I think Tom and

297
00:16:57,080 --> 00:17:00,880
Speaker 3: I really the first good pieces of land and Goodman's

298
00:17:00,920 --> 00:17:05,160
Speaker 3: I got. We've always done design build, and it's it's

299
00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:12,439
Speaker 3: a delicate subject because for so long it it it

300
00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:14,400
Speaker 3: was like, well, you can't do this. It's not fair

301
00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:17,280
Speaker 3: to the client. You know, you could you could be

302
00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:19,679
Speaker 3: screwing the client or whatever. And you can't be an

303
00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:23,960
Speaker 3: architect if you're also building it. And I just didn't care.

304
00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:31,639
Speaker 3: But some of the so called professional architects considered it

305
00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:34,359
Speaker 3: a no no to build your own courses. And now

306
00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:38,760
Speaker 3: looks like they're coming full circle. But I still have

307
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:45,160
Speaker 3: my theories that that's when Dick Wilson was doing his thing,

308
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:48,480
Speaker 3: that was he was not professional enough for some of them.

309
00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:52,160
Speaker 3: That's when him and Jones started having their conflicts.

310
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:57,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, it you know, for you had to be you know,

311
00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:59,760
Speaker 1: obviously you alluded to the fact that you took a

312
00:17:59,840 --> 00:18:04,399
Speaker 1: night traditional route into architecture, which probably you know, rubbed

313
00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:06,520
Speaker 1: some of the profession of the wrong way. And then

314
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:09,480
Speaker 1: you get into architecture and you take a non traditional

315
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:13,240
Speaker 1: route of constructing a golf course, which you know probably

316
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:17,359
Speaker 1: saved a lot of money for your clients, and you know,

317
00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:20,120
Speaker 1: but it also you know, you were you were somebody

318
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:24,080
Speaker 1: doing something different, which always you know, ruffles feathers, right.

319
00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:27,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I think it's as you get older,

320
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:31,439
Speaker 3: you realize you might have ruffled them, but because you

321
00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:34,560
Speaker 3: were taking a job that they would have otherwise gotten,

322
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:38,159
Speaker 3: and naturally they're going to tell them you don't know

323
00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,040
Speaker 3: what you're doing, and you did this wrong or you

324
00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:44,280
Speaker 3: did that wrong. And that used to just really piss

325
00:18:44,400 --> 00:18:47,959
Speaker 3: me off. Now like, well, I don't know that there

326
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:49,560
Speaker 3: is any wrong in this business, dude.

327
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:51,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

328
00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:56,719
Speaker 1: So the field, you know, it opens and it eventually,

329
00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,920
Speaker 1: you know, lives the course of life a different owner,

330
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:04,320
Speaker 1: and it comes up for sale and you you purchase

331
00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:08,600
Speaker 1: it back. Talk about that whole experience, and now you're

332
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 1: now you're not only a golf architect, but also a

333
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:12,720
Speaker 1: golf course owner.

334
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:19,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've owned four different courses different times. And you know,

335
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:22,360
Speaker 3: my son when he got out of school, he came

336
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:25,520
Speaker 3: to work with me and probably knows as much as

337
00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:29,560
Speaker 3: he's been building golf courses and designing with me for

338
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:33,560
Speaker 3: twenty years now. He's forty two years old. And Ashley,

339
00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:39,000
Speaker 3: I said, hey, let's put our office down here, and

340
00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:43,760
Speaker 3: you moved down here. So office is upstairs and he

341
00:19:43,840 --> 00:19:47,280
Speaker 3: does everything from there. It's just a base and he's

342
00:19:47,359 --> 00:19:50,000
Speaker 3: learned the agonomics off of Google. I mean, he's he's

343
00:19:50,040 --> 00:19:55,040
Speaker 3: got a finance degree and he likes being outside, so

344
00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:59,760
Speaker 3: he got on Google and we've he does the superintendent

345
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:03,600
Speaker 3: work and then he's travels to the different sites wherever

346
00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:05,840
Speaker 3: we're working on golf courses. I mean, he was in

347
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:08,760
Speaker 3: Costa Rica for two and a half years building that course,

348
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 3: and uh he's been designing and building and might be

349
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:19,800
Speaker 3: a lot better than I am because he's uh oh,

350
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:21,280
Speaker 3: he's a little more laid back.

351
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:23,919
Speaker 2: Oh.

352
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:27,520
Speaker 1: You know, it's not necessarily better for certain things, you know,

353
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:30,720
Speaker 1: not always the uh it could be, could be, you

354
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 1: could be better for different situations, you know.

355
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:34,920
Speaker 3: That's right, That's and that's what I think often that's

356
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:35,520
Speaker 3: how it happens.

357
00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:37,280
Speaker 2: He might not have been able to deal with little

358
00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:38,880
Speaker 2: Boy the way you deal dealt with him.

359
00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:42,400
Speaker 3: I had little boy rowing little boys, and little boy

360
00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:44,840
Speaker 3: was a big concrete pumper. That's what he did. He

361
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:47,840
Speaker 3: pumped concrete. He was a mess.

362
00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:49,840
Speaker 2: What was that golf course called?

363
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,919
Speaker 3: It was called country Land and it's still there. It is.

364
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:57,040
Speaker 3: It's six thousand it's right in the middle of all

365
00:20:57,080 --> 00:21:00,240
Speaker 3: the growth in Atlanta. It's six thousand yards long, and

366
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 3: they cover it up. I mean they play. I don't

367
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:05,560
Speaker 3: know how many rounds they play. But it's on Georgia

368
00:21:05,600 --> 00:21:07,520
Speaker 3: four hundred and it's just a little golf course that

369
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:11,960
Speaker 3: we just shaped out. And the guy had shaping with me.

370
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,679
Speaker 3: There was a guy named Craig Mitz, and Craig had

371
00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:20,399
Speaker 3: been with Fozzio and Craig was an architecture nut. And

372
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:25,040
Speaker 3: he got out of Houston and his father had been

373
00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:28,880
Speaker 3: the head pro at Westchester and the head pro at

374
00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:32,480
Speaker 3: Shady Oaks, and he traveled tour with Hogan and he

375
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:34,640
Speaker 3: was like second in the master. His name was Dick

376
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 3: Mitz and you'd look up Dick and Dick was so

377
00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:40,480
Speaker 3: Craig was a nut. All he did was take pictures

378
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:43,160
Speaker 3: on the weekends of golf courses and he's a really

379
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,199
Speaker 3: good shaper, and he would take the Hispanic dudes and

380
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,320
Speaker 3: at six point thirty they'd do calisthenics. He'd have two

381
00:21:49,359 --> 00:21:52,800
Speaker 3: that'd cook lunch every day. Craig just worked on that

382
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 3: deal with me and he really did some good shaping.

383
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:59,000
Speaker 3: And it's a six thousand yard deal that's just nobody

384
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:02,639
Speaker 3: hears about, and they covered up with people playing it.

385
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 3: It's right up and coming Georgia.

386
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:09,360
Speaker 1: It's interesting you talk about Craig mess and how he

387
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 1: was like a serial photo taker of golf courses. You

388
00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 1: would go to all the different potential customers and customers

389
00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: and take photos. And you know, not a lot has

390
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 1: changed because I go to golf courses and take a

391
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 1: ton of photos, but you know, the mediums and the

392
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: access the information has changed. How was it watching kind

393
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:36,040
Speaker 1: of the internet and how golf architecture changed. Talk a

394
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: little bit about that because obviously from you know, your

395
00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,359
Speaker 1: time when you started in the late eighties to now,

396
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,040
Speaker 1: you know, the spread of information is just completely different.

397
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that book Outliars, You might have read it.

398
00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:55,920
Speaker 3: It's I was born about the right time. So we're

399
00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 3: to where there was opportunity to do golf courses. Guys

400
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 3: now don't have that opportunity. So when I'm selling, man,

401
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 3: there's one or two golf courses a year coming along

402
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,640
Speaker 3: at the most. And then when I started building them,

403
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 3: it just happens to hit. And when that was going on,

404
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:18,199
Speaker 3: there was a magazine called Golf Course News, which was

405
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:23,640
Speaker 3: a big magazine, came out every every month, and everybody

406
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 3: would put everything they were doing in there. You'd want

407
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 3: to go in there and say, Hey, Art Hills is

408
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 3: building over here, Fasio's over here, you're over here. And

409
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 3: photography got big, so the photographers would would photograph these

410
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 3: holes and they would photograph sort of from the air

411
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 3: up on the ladder, where you get these totally different

412
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,639
Speaker 3: views than you would on the ground. And it became

413
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 3: a big promotional deal. And you're sitting there where everybody's

414
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 3: hyping this stuff and hyping it, and you're shut in

415
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 3: the back of your head. I think everybody in the

416
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 3: business knew, man, this shit can't go on. This can't

417
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 3: go on. You're just playing it's it's gonna blow. And

418
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 3: so I put an ad in the mac in one

419
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,600
Speaker 3: of those magazines one time that it said we create dreams,

420
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:19,120
Speaker 3: not nightmares. And it was talking about and it, uh,

421
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 3: it really ticked off a lot, and uh, but it

422
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 3: got me some work. And I realized then that this

423
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 3: that you don't tell people where you're working because all

424
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 3: you're doing, all these guys are advertising, and next thing

425
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 3: you know, they're running around trying to get the developer

426
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,199
Speaker 3: of whatever. A guy come in, say, I work for

427
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 3: so and so developer blah blah blah blah blah. Next

428
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 3: thing you know, there's ten guys calling that developer, you know,

429
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,479
Speaker 3: wanting to want to see if they can get his

430
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:57,360
Speaker 3: next project. So you just don't. It's changed. For so long,

431
00:24:57,400 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 3: everybody was hyping in and there was so much stuff.

432
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 3: And when they started that one course of day thing,

433
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 3: I'm sitting there thinking to myself, Man, this is crazy.

434
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: But I imagine you had that perspective a little bit too,

435
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 1: coming from you know, where you were kind of in

436
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:18,120
Speaker 1: a golf turf business, a different line of the business

437
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: where you're you know, going to clubs and working with

438
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 1: them and working around their needs if you're selling something,

439
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: you're starting to understand how a golf course works. And

440
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 1: I imagine you know, an architect at that time, they

441
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 1: are the one course a day thing. They're just thinking

442
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,159
Speaker 1: this is the biggest swoon ever for their business and

443
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 1: probably look at you're looking at it through different lens

444
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: at that point.

445
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had, And let's go there for a second.

446
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:50,239
Speaker 3: I'll tell you this. It's one of those businesses that

447
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 3: you're like, this business shouldn't exist because it's it cannot

448
00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 3: sustain itself. And when I say that, you go back,

449
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 3: you think, and let me rephrase this. I think that

450
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 3: if it wasn't for God superintendents, none of us would

451
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 3: be in business. And those are those guys are the key,

452
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 3: and I think the world of them. My father in

453
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 3: law is a superintendent at some good clubs, and I've

454
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 3: got a great respect for those guys. But I don't

455
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 3: know of any superintendent's curriculum that gives these guys that says, hey,

456
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 3: here's how you operate that golf course for profit. So

457
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 3: often the guy comes out and the first thing he

458
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 3: wants to do is go to work for a big

459
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 3: club so that he can get some interviews at another club.

460
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 3: And the first thing he asked is how much budget

461
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 3: do I have? You take that budget, you do everything

462
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 3: you can do with it, so you can go to

463
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,120
Speaker 3: the next club and get more budget, and you work

464
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 3: through about three or four clubs and it's great. It's

465
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 3: the way the industry is set up. But in the

466
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 3: modern world, I don't know that most corporations are set

467
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 3: up to function that way. They want you to make

468
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 3: a profit. And so I'm sitting there watching and I'm

469
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 3: working for these companies, and not to name any companies,

470
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 3: but they'll go give a grant to Uga Turf School

471
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 3: or Penn State Turf School. Well, obviously, by the time

472
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 3: that guy gets out of school, he's been using that

473
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 3: equipment or that fertilizer or that irrigation and you've been

474
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 3: taught a certain way. And it's like, hey, if I

475
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 3: come in there and say, look, we're not gonna put

476
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 3: in a two million dollar irrigation system because economically we

477
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 3: can hire one guy to come around and do this, this,

478
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 3: and this, and it'll be twenty years before you ever

479
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 3: made up the difference. And the young guys look at

480
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 3: you like, well, you can't do it that way. And

481
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 3: the biggest thing to me, and the thing that still

482
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:02,679
Speaker 3: stands out to me, was I remember, I remember working

483
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 3: for Toro when John Deere was getting in the business,

484
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 3: and at one of our seminars, we had this guy

485
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 3: that would come Ken Peters or something. He wrote a

486
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 3: book called a One Minute Manager or something. He'd come

487
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 3: and speak to us, and it was the Toro seventy

488
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 3: two inch Groundsmaster was a rotary mower that superintendents used.

489
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 3: And he said, you got to realize, if John Deere

490
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 3: sells one of their mowers that's seventy two inches, why

491
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 3: to every distributor, every dealer they have, they will have

492
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 3: manufactured more mowers and Toro sales an e year. So

493
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 3: we're like wow. And then I was I was calling

494
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 3: on Augusta National every other Monday. I'd have to be

495
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 3: there and I'd go call them them and the mechanics

496
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time in the mechanic and Paul

497
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 3: Latshaw was coming in as the superintendent. He was coming

498
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 3: from Oakmont. He had taken one of our Toro greensmowes

499
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 3: called a G three, and he'd welded two more reels

500
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 3: on it made a five gang greens Moore that he

501
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 3: could mow fairways with. Well. In nineteen eighty five we

502
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 3: mowed the masters with a Toro eleven blade transport frame.

503
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 3: It pulls behind a tractor and Lightshaw's bringing this thing

504
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 3: up to another level. Well, Toro and all the other

505
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 3: companies they love that because the transport frame the gang more.

506
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 3: It would last you twenty years at a normal golf course,

507
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 3: but if you could get a lightweight fairway unit in there,

508
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 3: you've got about five years out of it, and you'd

509
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 3: sell the cost of the machine and parts over that

510
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 3: five years. So we were taught to, you know, don't

511
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 3: be pushing these gang moars. So now what I use

512
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 3: in my fairways is game moors. And I go to

513
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,719
Speaker 3: a young superintendent. He's like, I would never have one

514
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 3: of those things on my golf course. And I'm like, okay,

515
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 3: how much you want for it? It's like I take

516
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 3: a thousand bucks. You go get a gang more that

517
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 3: you can't put buy them for a thousand dollars, put

518
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 3: to a three thousand in them. The thing last year

519
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 3: from now on where we've taught people to spend more

520
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 3: and more money, and we've the guys that are in

521
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 3: charge of these clubs at all now are their fathers.

522
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 3: They didn't borrow money and spend money at these private

523
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 3: clubs like we do today. I've got a picture from

524
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety, either ninety seven or ninety eight. I'll send

525
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 3: it to you. Sometimes it's a five gang Jacobsen pull

526
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 3: frame behind a Willis jeep on the sixteenth hole at

527
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 3: Cyprus Point.

528
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.

529
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 3: And I took that picture of him and this is awesome.

530
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 3: And that was you know, that's twenty four years ago

531
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 3: and these guys are still still pulling this jeep and

532
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 3: got a jeep out there pulling this five game. I'm

533
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: like yes. And and you'd go to some of these

534
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 3: modern resort residential places and't it have all this modern equipment,

535
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 3: these maintenance buildings. That was so we've just we just

536
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 3: let all that get out of hand.

537
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: I used to work in the restaurant industry.

538
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 2: We still this.

539
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: I sold this like loyalty program as a startup. But

540
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: I remember talking to a experienced restaurant tour and he said,

541
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: you know, the biggest mistake that all new restaurant owners

542
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 1: make is they want they want the shiny new ovens.

543
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: They want to go buy, you know, all these shiny

544
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: new ovens. And the first you know, what happens immediately

545
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: is you know, they sink all this costs and what

546
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: I do is I go buy all used evens from

547
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 1: the people that buy the new ovens and then go under.

548
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting how you know, you know from

549
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: your experience in a way like what you do, especially

550
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: at the field, as you maintain a very good golf

551
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: product for a very low cost to the consumer. And

552
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: you know to do that you have to get creative

553
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: and take shortcuts and do things differently than the modern trend.

554
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're all in it. I mean, what you're doing.

555
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 3: You know, the golf magazines they don't. Y'all do it

556
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 3: a much better job than golf magazines and they don't

557
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 3: know what to do about it. But it's it's the

558
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 3: golf business. If you don't know how to there's eight

559
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 3: hundred I think one of the guys was saying not

560
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 3: long ago, there's eight hundred courses in the United States

561
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 3: that have a waiting list that are considered exclusive clubs

562
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 3: that have a waiting list and can still charge an

563
00:32:55,320 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 3: initiation fee and can build projects. Only then you got

564
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 3: another two thousand clubs that are private five oh one

565
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 3: c three privates with a board and they might be

566
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 3: struggling but they're all wanting to do projects. They want

567
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 3: to assess people to do projects. And the difference in

568
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 3: those clubs is those top eight hundred, the club is

569
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:26,479
Speaker 3: there for the member, and in these others, the member

570
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 3: is there for the club because the club's gotten where

571
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 3: they've got to have that member. They got to you know,

572
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 3: you're there when you start seeing wide screen TVs over

573
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 3: the urinals because the clubs that can do the widescreen

574
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 3: TV ural thing, they're right at the top. That's when

575
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 3: these and that's what that middle group that doesn't know

576
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 3: any better, they're just doing all these things. And the

577
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 3: new thing is we've got to be a family club.

578
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 3: Got to be a family club. Well, if if you

579
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 3: don't have a set of dues to where a guy

580
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 3: that doesn't play golf can't join, then you're not a

581
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 3: family club because the golf is the number one thing.

582
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 3: And if your do's are up where you are, what

583
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 3: are the fifteen grand a year from clubs up there?

584
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 2: Yeah it depends, but yeah.

585
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 3: Let's just say if but down here seven hundred bucks

586
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 3: a month and if you don't play golf, you're not

587
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 3: going to join for the swimming pool and the tennis

588
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,760
Speaker 3: you're gonna go to another place. And so we've gotten

589
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 3: into this deal where everybody's selling everybody on the clubhouse

590
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 3: and all that other stuff. And while all that's going

591
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 3: going on, you got twelve thousand golf courses out there

592
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 3: that are either run by management company or individual owners.

593
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 3: And those individual owners, like me, they're not gonna get

594
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 3: into magazines. They're not gonna run around to everybody and

595
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 3: tell them how they do it. They just gonna keep

596
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:58,320
Speaker 3: doing it and keep their mouth shut. And every state's

597
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 3: got that, and you can find it, and it's it

598
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 3: might not be as gloom and doom for them as

599
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 3: some people make it out to be.

600
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,359
Speaker 1: Well, I think if anything twenty twenty has taught us

601
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: that with clubs and club golf, is that the golf

602
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: has got to be your core product because all of

603
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 1: the other stuff, if it goes away, you know what,

604
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, all you have is

605
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 1: a golf course. And you know, with with obviously social

606
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: distancing and what's happened the popularity for golf, and you know,

607
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: all these places are posting record rounds and I'm sure

608
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:33,879
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen it on your end where more

609
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 1: people are playing golf because it's a way to get

610
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: away and safely, you know, get recreation and do something.

611
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, I hope one

612
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:45,919
Speaker 1: of the long term impacts of it is that these

613
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: clubs have windfall from you know, they lose all their weddings,

614
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 1: but they get windfall from golf and the revenue generally

615
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 1: by golf, and they think to themselves, wow, you know

616
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: this golf thinks the most important thing we have.

617
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 2: But it probably won't go that way.

618
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 3: I think it could, but I think what determines that's

619
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 3: the square foot the size of the clubhouse. Some of

620
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 3: them they don't know how to get rid of that clubhouse.

621
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,879
Speaker 3: You know, if you had, if if your generation's gonna

622
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 3: end up saving golf. As far as I can see

623
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 3: it coming, they don't really want to go join the

624
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 3: big club. That's they don't want to be burdened with that. First,

625
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 3: they're too mobile. There's no way to pay a big

626
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 3: initiation fee here, stay three or four years, move to

627
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 3: another town, do it again, and do it three or

628
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 3: four times. Not gonna happen. They would rather be at

629
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 3: a club with good greens, good teas, some architectural merit

630
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 3: to it. Go on a golf trip to Bandon here,

631
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 3: sand Valley or wherever, and you can see that coming on,

632
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 3: and you can cater to that guy and create a

633
00:36:55,040 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 3: product that works and they're gonna they're gonna use. And

634
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 3: I think it's so good to watch these kids that

635
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 3: that are that don't mind you know what I mean

636
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 3: by edges? When when they don't mind the edges, if

637
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 3: my cart pads are broken over here, and uh, I

638
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 3: don't have all my ob steaks up, or I don't

639
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 3: spend a fortune on my edges, but give them a

640
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 3: good product with good greens, good teas, bunkers and let

641
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 3: them go play golf. They understand it and they're fine

642
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 3: with that. And you can give it to them at

643
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 3: a price that lets you make money and lets them play.

644
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 3: That's where we're going.

645
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: It's the expectations, the set of expectations, what people value

646
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 1: in a way that is changing.

647
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like hippie girls that didn't wear makeup. You

648
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 3: have real good looking girls with no makeup on, just

649
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 3: a little hippie girls. Then you get these damn girls

650
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 3: with all this makeup on, all this stuff, wanting to

651
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 3: be a step for wife. And you you you see that.

652
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 3: It's your generation is more in the hippie hippie gulf.

653
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 3: It's where the edges are just it's just natural. I

654
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 3: mean I'm a one height in the yeah, and then

655
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 3: thirty yards in front of the greens. We really soup

656
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 3: it up. We primo it. We go ultra light. Fairway mowers,

657
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 3: chipping areas, everything are mode that way and that's where

658
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 3: everybody plays. But in the in the fairways, we're a

659
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 3: little over half inch with game moars and doesn't it

660
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 3: lets us do it? I mean I could, I could

661
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 3: take it up another level of two, but I had

662
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 3: to charge more.

663
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 2: How how does that you know? And relate?

664
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 1: Like, say you you want to make what you're doing

665
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: around the greens all the all the way through the

666
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 1: fair away what you know in the end cost, how

667
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: would that translate to the golfer? Like you know, I'm

668
00:38:57,120 --> 00:38:59,360
Speaker 1: going away from gang mowers. I'm going to the lightweight

669
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 1: mowors that can I can get this thing down a

670
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: little bit more, you know on a greens feed basis.

671
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: Are we talking a five ten dollars increase to the

672
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: retail golfer for all times?

673
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 3: Probably probably ten to fifteen. And I say that let's

674
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 3: think about that. I've we maintained with three people. Ashley

675
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 3: does that. He as we have three people. One guy's

676
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 3: been there thirty years, needs great, and that's our crew.

677
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 3: If I go to mowing fairways, I'm gonna go to

678
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 3: the lightweight fairway mower. I'm gonna have to mow it

679
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 3: more frequently. I'm gonna have to sharpen it much more

680
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 3: because the gang mores. We sharpen those once maybe twice

681
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 3: a year if we get some knicks. But other than that,

682
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 3: you sharpen that real mower, and then you come in

683
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 3: for the winter, rebuild it and go again. We're gonna

684
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 3: fertilize more. We're gonna we primo the entire course. Anyway.

685
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,359
Speaker 3: The primo is a growth retarding that tightens it up,

686
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 3: and so we would end up getting that look and

687
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 3: and mow and wall to wall like that would take

688
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 3: considerably more time and probably another two to three people

689
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:17,479
Speaker 3: on the crew.

690
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 1: You know, Garrett Morrison just did a pod for us,

691
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: a story on you know, the pursuit for green grass,

692
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: and you know, kind of related around Augusta, and he

693
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 1: related it to people's lawns. And I think everybody can

694
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: understand it from a long standpoint is you know, you

695
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:36,399
Speaker 1: go out, you get the fertilizer. You know, you put

696
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: all these inputs in and you start mowing it lower.

697
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,839
Speaker 1: All you're doing is you you just need to do

698
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: more for the lawn because you're opening it up to

699
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: so many more you know.

700
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 2: Different diseases, diseases.

701
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it becomes so much more susceptible. And it's so

702
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 1: different than especially a public golf course where you know,

703
00:40:56,440 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: you're you're an hour fifteen south of Atlanta. You're not

704
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: in you know, you're not in suburban Atlanta, where like

705
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:07,360
Speaker 1: you could just you know, you could throw a stone

706
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: to one hundred thousand golfers and you're you're you're providing

707
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: a you know, affordable golf product for you know, the masses.

708
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: But you in order to do that, you have to

709
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,479
Speaker 1: do things certain ways, and you know, and this is

710
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 1: a perfect example of a way that nobody's It doesn't

711
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: provide any real difference, Like the amount of money that

712
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: you have to essentially pass on to the consumer doesn't

713
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: equal the increase in playing experience. Right, I'd rather save

714
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:42,919
Speaker 1: fifteen bucks and have fairways that's you know, a half inch,

715
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: rather than have it be you know, like a you know,

716
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:51,280
Speaker 1: a fringe and pay fifteen dollars more in my personal opinion,

717
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: but you know, somebody else would say that's great. I

718
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: want the fairway to be this.

719
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 3: Way, I think. I think you're exactly right. I think that.

720
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 3: And the other thing is that I think so many people

721
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 3: now they equate that level to the quality of the course.

722
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 3: They can't under they can't distinguish or differentiate between maintenance

723
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:16,839
Speaker 3: and architectural strategy. So lots of times, the higher your

724
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 3: maintenance and the better your maintenance, they consider that a

725
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 3: much better course design wise and everything. So you got

726
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 3: to get past that. But the number one thing in

727
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 3: my opinion, and we'd have to talk to a superintendent

728
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 3: about this. But by the way, I listened to his

729
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 3: podcasts on the green grass and it was good. The

730
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 3: number one thing is high to cut. You think about

731
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 3: it all the way through. If when I was growing up,

732
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 3: bent grass was nowhere near the problem in the south

733
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 3: it is now, but fast was eight and the grass

734
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 3: was mode at a quarter inch or more. So the

735
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 3: grass didn't have near the disease issues or near the

736
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 3: problems that it had once you started cutting at an

737
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 3: eighth one inch or a hundred or whatever you're going

738
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 3: to call it, and so everything. When you start lowering heights,

739
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:10,359
Speaker 3: you get more disease, you get more issues, You got

740
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 3: a different mowers, more expense, more people, and so height

741
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 3: to cut has so much to do. And the number cuts.

742
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 3: If you've got a fairway cut and then you've got

743
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 3: a short rough cutting and a rough cut and a

744
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 3: tee height and a cut around the greens. Look how

745
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 3: many mowers you got, Look how many people you got?

746
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 3: We just mow everything just like just like they do

747
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,439
Speaker 3: in Europe. If we can't to use that.

748
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:43,879
Speaker 1: With so you the field is doing really well, you know,

749
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 1: and now you're to the point where you're reinvesting money

750
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: into the club, Like how are you thinking about rein

751
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,760
Speaker 1: putting money back into the golf course and the different

752
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: projects that you're doing, whether they're on the course or

753
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: off the course.

754
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 3: Well, this is Ashley's doing all that. He's on site

755
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 3: with me doing projects, but his his the fields is

756
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 3: more like his thing is. We're trying to create a

757
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 3: a millennial type golf is what I call it. And

758
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 3: everything we haven't taken anything. Everything we've put back in there,

759
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 3: we haven't taken anything out and it's it's it's a

760
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 3: a different environment. And the the restaurants more like a

761
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 3: pub with the fire pits and what's the cornhole stuff

762
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 3: y'all do and all that corn but uh but uh,

763
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 3: the bags, the boats ball or bochi ball or whatever.

764
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 3: And we've we're doing music. We had three hundred people

765
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,959
Speaker 3: at a concert the other night where we had a really

766
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:03,279
Speaker 3: good band in from Mobile. And we're focusing right now

767
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 3: on specialized in barbecue. Got a smoker coming in, built

768
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 3: a barbecue shed, deal, really focusing on the practice area

769
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 3: and and understanding that that we're not a country club,

770
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 3: but we're going to be where the guy that wants

771
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 3: to play golf and then wants to see his kids

772
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 3: play softball or soccer or whatever later in the afternoon

773
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 3: can come out, pay, come back the next day if

774
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:33,959
Speaker 3: he wants to, or walk away, and we can still

775
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 3: make it. We're not we're not dependent on having a

776
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 3: five hundred person membership or something. And so it's it's

777
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 3: a it's a totally different venue than a club. It's

778
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 3: very simple. Inside we're doing like a little dormitory upstairs,

779
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:56,919
Speaker 3: trying to decide whether to do airstreams or do little

780
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 3: cabins out in the woods where because we've got guys

781
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 3: that come down and you know, they would stay there,

782
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,320
Speaker 3: and we can build those things fairly reasonable. So it's

783
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 3: it's just back to basics.

784
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:10,879
Speaker 1: Are you surprised that it has become a place where

785
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: people travel to to play from, you know, sometimes eight

786
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:17,080
Speaker 1: plus hours away?

787
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am. I think Sweeten's Cove helped us and

788
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 3: everybody with that. They really did a good job on

789
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 3: that social media and all that stuff, and I wouldn't

790
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 3: I wasn't aware of how much that helped. But I

791
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 3: see these guys coming in and like one night and like, well,

792
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 3: you know, well, what's that Harvard bag dude? It's like, well,

793
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 3: I played golf at Harvard. And I'm like, well, so

794
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: what are you doing down here? And he's like he's like, well,

795
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 3: we love it here we come. And and then I've

796
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 3: I've found that that guys that are good players that

797
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,279
Speaker 3: are playing in the mid Am and the us M

798
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 3: and all one day I see that and he's gone

799
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 3: back about one hundred yards because I'm fairly open, he

800
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 3: just crossed over a hole and teed up on a

801
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 3: hole there and says, man, I come in here and

802
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 3: play all the time to practice from a tournaments because

803
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,400
Speaker 3: it's firm and fast, and I can step back on

804
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 3: these teas and make these holes have a long I wan't.

805
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 3: So I'm like, well, maybe we're onto something. Maybe it's

806
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 3: me that has the issue of thinking I got to

807
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 3: be nicer and nicer and nicer. Maybe these kids do understand,

808
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:29,200
Speaker 3: because a lot of the guys my age don't understand that.

809
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 3: And they don't they don't want that they my age group.

810
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 3: I grew up playing golf. I see too many guys

811
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 3: that now that are my age. They don't care about

812
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 3: really getting better at golf. It's more of a social

813
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 3: thing where they can hang out, smoke some cigars, get

814
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 3: their handicap where they can win this, that and this,

815
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 3: and they're not into it. The kids now actually walk

816
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:01,360
Speaker 3: and do things, and it's hard to get four guys

817
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:06,880
Speaker 3: my age that will walk, even our golf trips. When

818
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:08,479
Speaker 3: we go on a golf trip, you gotta get guys

819
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 3: that'll go walk. So y'all's generation is gonna change it.

820
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think about my dad.

821
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's golf nutt plays every chance he can.

822
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:21,880
Speaker 2: He's like a fifteen handicap. He walks.

823
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: But you know, I'll send them to places. You know,

824
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: they'll ask me when they're going somewhere where they should

825
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 1: go play. I'll send them. You know, one time he

826
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: went to places in Wisconsin. I send him and he goes.

827
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 2: You know, I just struggle with those wide open places.

828
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 2: I just I kn'tck it on. He's like, you need

829
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 2: more trees. I'm like what. I'm like, that's gonna help you.

830
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: You're you know you're for you don't really know where

831
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: the ball's going, like evinent wide open. It's only gonna

832
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: make it more fun for you. But he almost struggles

833
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 1: with the juxtaposition.

834
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 3: I think that's yeah, that's the other and they don't

835
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 3: get it. It's just just I'll had guys. I was

836
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:02,399
Speaker 3: going to take some guys down to Hoopy a few

837
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 3: months ago, and when they found out they had to walk,

838
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 3: It's like, no way in hell am I going there.

839
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 2: Little boy wouldn't be going to Hoopie.

840
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 3: A little boy, little boy didn't he play golf. Little Boy,

841
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 3: little boy didn't play golf. He'd come out there and

842
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 3: ride around drink beers. But uh, when you've got that

843
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 3: el Camino and you got that thing waxed up and

844
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 3: you don't play golf, you just ride. But it was

845
00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 3: so I don't know, but it's it's changing.

846
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:37,919
Speaker 1: So you've operated, you had a different perspective coming into

847
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:42,280
Speaker 1: architecture because you were on the turf selling turf equipment side.

848
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: You get into architecture and then your journey gets you

849
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,799
Speaker 1: owning golf courses. How did owning golf courses, you know,

850
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: did that bring another level of different way thinking of

851
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:58,440
Speaker 1: the architecture side, which you still are building, you know,

852
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:02,320
Speaker 1: redesigning golf courses. How did your views on architecture change

853
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: once you got in the weeds of owning and operating

854
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: golf courses.

855
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 3: Not much, you know about the time that we were starting,

856
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 3: like Tom was starting, and I knew who Tom was.

857
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:20,319
Speaker 3: He probably didn't know who I was, but I was

858
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 3: regional and and my goal all along is I saw

859
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:28,240
Speaker 3: a niche there for public golf. And if you remember,

860
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 3: you might not be old enough to remember. When I started,

861
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 3: the signatures didn't touch it, they wouldn't go near it.

862
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 3: There was never it was all resort, residential. And then

863
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 3: then when things started changing in that you started seeing

864
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 3: the Nicholas's and all go to the public, and they

865
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 3: called it upscale daily fee, our country club for a day,

866
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 3: and that was the new hike. But for my first

867
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 3: five or six years, nobody wanted to go near the

868
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 3: public stuff. It was all and so you could. The

869
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:05,279
Speaker 3: big boys didn't didn't touch it, and I thought there

870
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 3: was a niche in public golf, and I just started

871
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:12,319
Speaker 3: sort of championing that and seeing what was out there

872
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 3: because I saw a lot of owners that were doing

873
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:17,720
Speaker 3: okay with it, and they were individual owners. My theory's

874
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:20,359
Speaker 3: always been, if God's doing well, you really don't need

875
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:24,719
Speaker 3: management companies that much, because most a lot of the

876
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 3: management companies there were there to say, hey, I can

877
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,120
Speaker 3: lose you less money and you lose yourself. And that

878
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,320
Speaker 3: was brought on by a big builder that had a

879
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 3: thousand acre subdivision wants somebody to run the golf while

880
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 3: he sold the houses. And that's and so I just said, hey,

881
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 3: my focus is going to be public. I'm going to

882
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 3: try to make it where they can make money at it,

883
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 3: or if not make money, at least not lose money.

884
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 3: And so we went at it that way. And it's

885
00:51:55,400 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 3: sort of like a guy that owns McDonald's versus a

886
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 3: guy that has, uh, Peter Lugers in New York. Everybody's

887
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 3: heard of Peter Lugers or whatever, and they want to

888
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,799
Speaker 3: go there and spend all the money. But the guys

889
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 3: at the McDonald's are doing okay. So you're both in

890
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:25,480
Speaker 3: the restaurant business. And the golf in this country is public.

891
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 3: I mean, there's twelve thousand golf courses. I had a

892
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,319
Speaker 3: guy tell me the other day we're down to we've

893
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 3: got twenty eight thousand golf pros in less than six

894
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 3: thousand of our golf courses now have a class A

895
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:38,880
Speaker 3: head pro, you know, because the way it's changed. You

896
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 3: got a lot of resorts. I might have ten of them,

897
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 3: but the whole industry people are saying, hey, I don't

898
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,000
Speaker 3: need this, this and this, I can run it. So

899
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,280
Speaker 3: golf pros are having to change. And it's it's the business.

900
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 3: Business is just getting more and more efficient, and it's

901
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 3: you're never going to hear about public golf. You're going

902
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 3: to hear about You're going to hear about Bandon and

903
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 3: I don't have a problem with that. You're going to

904
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 3: hear about whatever. A new course is being built on

905
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:14,359
Speaker 3: the right kind of land, but not many people even

906
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 3: get to play those courses when you weigh it all out,

907
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 3: I mean, those of us that are fortunate enough to

908
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 3: play them see it. But so many other guys just

909
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 3: go from public course to public course.

910
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the way ninety eight percent of

911
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 1: the golf worldy not ninety eight, but ninety percent of

912
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:36,240
Speaker 1: the golf world interacts with golf.

913
00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 2: Everybody always loves to look at the twenty.

914
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: Five million golfer statistic in America and they've failed to

915
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:46,800
Speaker 1: recognize that, you know, twenty of at least twenty million

916
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: of those people are just I go play public golf

917
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 1: course around me. Like, that's the way almost all my

918
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 1: buddies are that have just recently gotten to the game

919
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: in their early thirties. They just go play public golf

920
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,359
Speaker 1: course to public golf course. They don't play the same

921
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 1: public golf course every week they go. You know, it's

922
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: just like, oh, I'm going here this week. They invite

923
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:07,439
Speaker 1: me all the time, and I'm like, I don't play

924
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:08,880
Speaker 1: golf on Saturday mornings.

925
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:10,600
Speaker 2: You know, I'm in the golf business.

926
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 1: But like it's like, they go here, they go here,

927
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 1: they go here, and it's just and I ask him

928
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,400
Speaker 1: about like why do you choose that? And they're like, well,

929
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to go see this place. So

930
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:23,799
Speaker 1: they had a good deal on golf. Now, how did

931
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:28,400
Speaker 1: how is golf now being somebody that was in the

932
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 1: in the owning golf and operating golf before and after?

933
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 2: What has that done?

934
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 3: I think it's the worst thing ever happened to public golf.

935
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 3: And that's my opinion. They did a couple of years

936
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 3: ago they did fifty nine million dollars in revenue and

937
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 3: Golf Channel lost six or seven million, own by the

938
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:53,280
Speaker 3: same company. And all they've done is take the average

939
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 3: public golfer and make him a commodity. He has no

940
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:59,760
Speaker 3: loyalty to you or anything else. He looks for the deal.

941
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 3: And their system is based on barter, where they're not

942
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:07,839
Speaker 3: out there to make money on you selling around off

943
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 3: their software. They're out there to take if you know

944
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:12,640
Speaker 3: how it works. They get two tea times, sometimes three

945
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:16,040
Speaker 3: tea times a day. It's twelve players at three and

946
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:19,000
Speaker 3: if they sell that at twenty bucks while you're trying

947
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 3: to sell it at sixty, you know they've made two

948
00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 3: hundred and forty dollars a day off of you and

949
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 3: you'll see people. I was on it for six months

950
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 3: and you'd see the same people come in and by

951
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 3: that time, if they couldn't get that time, they would

952
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 3: go to another course where they could get the deal.

953
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:36,440
Speaker 3: But they were not going to pay your full green fee.

954
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 3: So I stopped and it helped me, and I think

955
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,719
Speaker 3: more and more people are changing now. I think the

956
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 3: eventually somebody will figure out another t sheet that works, because.

957
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: It's have you ever thought about doing like a punch card?

958
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:55,279
Speaker 1: I know it sounds stupid, but you know, like in

959
00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 1: a way, it's kind of like, oh, I got the

960
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: Field's punch card. I get a free round or a

961
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:02,720
Speaker 1: free card every five rounds or something.

962
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 2: Something we.

963
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:09,919
Speaker 3: Do, something like we sell a card where they they

964
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:15,120
Speaker 3: get twenty five percent, they can buy five hundred dollars

965
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 3: worth of golf for four hundred bucks, that kind of stuff,

966
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 3: and then they just it doesn't punch anymore. It works

967
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:24,879
Speaker 3: off the point of sale. But we do a lot

968
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:26,160
Speaker 3: of those different things like that.

969
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:28,479
Speaker 2: I think there's value in the punch card.

970
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:31,440
Speaker 3: I think there probably would be just having.

971
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:33,480
Speaker 2: The physical card would be added marketing.

972
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 3: Well, why not. It's it's something to try.

973
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 2: It's something people carry around.

974
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 1: I got stuff in my wallet from all over the place,

975
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:43,120
Speaker 1: Like you never know when you pull it out and

976
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 1: you're like, oh yeah, I forgot about.

977
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:48,239
Speaker 3: That, and then you realize how many people just like

978
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:51,080
Speaker 3: you just said, they forget about it. So you might

979
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 3: make more money with that than you do, you know,

980
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 3: because they don't they throw it away or lose it

981
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 3: or whatnot. But it's it's it's y'all are just gonna

982
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 3: view that differently. It's it's y'all just view the entire

983
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:12,919
Speaker 3: entire thing is different. And if you're I've asked guys,

984
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 3: if I'm a titleist salesman, I might want to call

985
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 3: them the bigger clubs in Atlanta because Titleists is geared

986
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 3: towards that. But if I'm the bridgestone salesman, I might

987
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:26,120
Speaker 3: want as many of those public courses as I can get.

988
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,439
Speaker 3: Same with golf carts, I mean, golf cart people don't

989
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:33,520
Speaker 3: make their money selling just to the privates because there's

990
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:36,800
Speaker 3: not enough of them. They got to sell to everybody.

991
00:57:36,920 --> 00:57:43,720
Speaker 3: And it's it's it's you can't. You can't come in

992
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 3: and sell an irrigation system to a guy that's doing

993
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 3: six or seven hundred thousan dollars a year. You can't

994
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:52,960
Speaker 3: come in and sell them a two million dollars irrigation system.

995
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:55,440
Speaker 3: So you've got to stop it. You got to figure

996
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 3: out how do I get this guy to where he

997
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 3: survives or does he just have to shut down when

998
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 3: everything quits working? And that's it's the gorilla golf or whatever.

999
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 3: There's guys out there. There's a course will shut down

1000
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:14,200
Speaker 3: over here in a one hundred and fifty thousand dollars

1001
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 3: pump station. Somebody might pick it up for five thousand dollars.

1002
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:21,439
Speaker 3: And he's sitting down there in Florida and he's also

1003
00:58:21,520 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 3: picking up the heads every time they change heads on

1004
00:58:24,120 --> 00:58:26,919
Speaker 3: a resort course in Phoenix every four or five years.

1005
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 3: And he's cleaning those heads up. And little Johnny Public

1006
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 3: he knows to call him, called in there and buy

1007
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 3: irrigation head for twenty bucks apiece and buy a pump

1008
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 3: station for this. That market is huge.

1009
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:46,000
Speaker 1: And it's like when a golf course closes, like you know,

1010
00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 1: go get their green grass. You know, see if you

1011
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 1: can go scalp the greens.

1012
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 3: You can do that, you can go. But look at

1013
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 3: the guys that go cut that dig the heads up

1014
00:58:56,800 --> 00:59:00,680
Speaker 3: the guy digs all the heads up, the takes the

1015
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 3: pump station. It's it's it's you know, and and and

1016
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 3: doing you see that all over and a lot of

1017
00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:13,280
Speaker 3: the renovation stuff or we try not to do that

1018
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 3: much renovation restoration, but a lot of it you you

1019
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 3: end up doing that way because they don't even know,

1020
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:23,080
Speaker 3: they don't even know that's available. Mh.

1021
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:25,600
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you were going back, if you were

1022
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:31,600
Speaker 1: Mike Young and you were sixteen year old eagle scout, now,

1023
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,840
Speaker 1: how would you would you how would you get into

1024
00:59:34,920 --> 00:59:38,200
Speaker 1: the into the golf architecture business. If you were redoing it,

1025
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:40,240
Speaker 1: would you do it the same way or how would

1026
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 1: you go about it?

1027
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 3: I don't know that I would. I mean I think

1028
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:50,320
Speaker 3: that it's it's uh, all these all these kids that

1029
00:59:50,400 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 3: come to you, good kids, smart kids that want to

1030
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:56,720
Speaker 3: do it. I mean, I can we all know a

1031
00:59:56,760 --> 01:00:01,640
Speaker 3: lot of them show art kids that could go into

1032
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:05,800
Speaker 3: business doing something else, and they considered a glamour job.

1033
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:08,760
Speaker 3: It's not a glamour job. I mean for the average

1034
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:13,480
Speaker 3: golf architect you're building stuff like I build, it's there's

1035
01:00:13,640 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 3: five or six guys that get the glamour and and

1036
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:20,120
Speaker 3: that's a brutal business. It's just that you don't know,

1037
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 3: you don't know where the next one's coming from, and

1038
01:00:24,120 --> 01:00:27,960
Speaker 3: and that's that's we'll get out of here. But the

1039
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 3: that's why I started trying to figure out how to

1040
01:00:30,200 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 3: buy golf courses or whatnot, because I don't think if

1041
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:35,800
Speaker 3: you go back and look, I don't think any golf

1042
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:40,479
Speaker 3: architect in the past was really what you'd consider full time.

1043
01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 3: I mean, there's always been the old guys. They were

1044
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 3: either golf pros or doing something else that's at that

1045
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:51,760
Speaker 3: subsidized their golf design. They would do it when it

1046
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 3: was there. And that's sort of what I like to

1047
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:56,000
Speaker 3: do is try to mix it in there where you're

1048
01:00:56,040 --> 01:00:59,280
Speaker 3: like a holistic golf company. We can we can do

1049
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:01,920
Speaker 3: it all. We can operate it, we can buy it,

1050
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:05,920
Speaker 3: we can build it, we can design it. But if

1051
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:08,120
Speaker 3: you're not doing that, then you're going to be sitting

1052
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 3: there where your wife better have a good job or something,

1053
01:01:11,360 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 3: because there's gonna be times when there's just nothing to do.

1054
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 3: And not just it's it's a business. That's it's a craft.

1055
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:21,600
Speaker 3: It's not a it's not a profession. It's a craft.

1056
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:24,480
Speaker 2: You got to have lots of side hustles. You know,

1057
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:25,480
Speaker 2: you've got to be a hustler.

1058
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:27,680
Speaker 3: It's basically you've got to be a hustler.

1059
01:01:27,720 --> 01:01:30,600
Speaker 1: But in a way, what you've done is like you know,

1060
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:33,160
Speaker 1: you a lot of I think a lot of people

1061
01:01:33,240 --> 01:01:36,560
Speaker 1: that build golf courses are don't know what they're doing.

1062
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 2: You know, like they say, I want to build a

1063
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:39,480
Speaker 2: golf course.

1064
01:01:39,720 --> 01:01:42,120
Speaker 1: Is they It's not like they made their money building

1065
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:45,680
Speaker 1: golf courses. So having somebody that you know, like you,

1066
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:48,360
Speaker 1: you've got a nice perspective where you operate them. You've

1067
01:01:48,360 --> 01:01:51,800
Speaker 1: built them, You've sold surf grass equipment into them. You

1068
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 1: you know, you maintained a golf course with with Ashley

1069
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:57,920
Speaker 1: and other golf courses that you maintained like you, you

1070
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: actually could be more of like a consultant on top

1071
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:02,160
Speaker 1: of designing a golf course.

1072
01:02:02,640 --> 01:02:05,280
Speaker 3: We can take them. I mean we've done turnkeys, we've

1073
01:02:05,280 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 3: done it where we've built clubhouse, we've done everything all

1074
01:02:08,640 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 3: the way through. And there's other guys that do that.

1075
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 1: Mike, we we're gonna get you out of here. Thank

1076
01:02:18,920 --> 01:02:21,960
Speaker 1: you for coming on. Well, may do more topics like this.

1077
01:02:22,120 --> 01:02:27,720
Speaker 1: I think obviously unique expertise beyond just the golf course

1078
01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 1: architecture standpoint, and being somebody that owns and operates and

1079
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:37,800
Speaker 1: you know, has a wonderful place, I recommend the fields

1080
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: to everybody. I think it's one of the most best

1081
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:46,400
Speaker 1: hidden gems in America. You know, there's it gets. It

1082
01:02:46,440 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 1: doesn't get nearly the traffic that it deserves. So you know,

1083
01:02:50,160 --> 01:02:53,600
Speaker 1: it's only an hour fifteen from from Atlanta. My buddy

1084
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 1: and I my buddy who I went out there with,

1085
01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:58,000
Speaker 1: and I still talk about it.

1086
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:01,200
Speaker 2: You know. It's we went on a great winter day.

1087
01:03:01,240 --> 01:03:03,680
Speaker 1: It was not, you know, a pleasant day to play golf,

1088
01:03:03,720 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 1: but both of us being northern nurse, we we had

1089
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 1: just the best time out there playing a match. And

1090
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:13,080
Speaker 1: it is so so neat. So I love that place.

1091
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:14,600
Speaker 1: I can't wait till I get back down there.

1092
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:18,800
Speaker 3: We'll come back down. Yeah, stop back next time. We'll

1093
01:03:18,840 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 3: talk about Johnson City. Ye see that while we're doing it.

1094
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:25,959
Speaker 2: It's my golf course. Yeah, there you go, Jath City.

1095
01:03:26,400 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 3: That's it. That's it. Yeah, all right, I'll tell a

1096
01:03:29,800 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 3: little boy we talked about it. I'll see you