Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a brid egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 1: Egg Friday, Frida Egg Egg, fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm
Speaker 1: about ready to run off of the up course. All right.
Speaker 2: It's the end of twenty twenty three, so it's kind
Speaker 2: of that time of the year where we're going to
Speaker 2: do reflections, and I figured it might be fun for
Speaker 2: Garrett and I, Garrett Morrison, co host of this podcast,
Speaker 2: to get on and talk about some of the golf
Speaker 2: courses that we saw. So we're going to kind of
Speaker 2: break down our favorite new courses, like brand new new
Speaker 2: build courses that we saw. There were there're a like
Speaker 2: really like kind of a historic in the context of
Speaker 2: the last twenty years of golf course development openings this year,
Speaker 2: so there was you know, if we had dedicated our
Speaker 2: entire year just to seeing new golf courses, I think
Speaker 2: we would have gotten to all of them. But that's
Speaker 2: just one piece of what we do as a company.
Speaker 2: We also are going to talk about our favorite remodels.
Speaker 2: So one of the other trends. On top of new
Speaker 2: courses is tons of remodels. It's never been a better
Speaker 2: time to be a golf course architect than right now.
Speaker 2: And then we're going to talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: our favorite new to us course, So it could be
Speaker 2: an existing course, it could be a Golden Age course
Speaker 2: that was new to us this year, as well as
Speaker 2: a final kind of closing discussion around what we're excited
Speaker 2: for in twenty twenty four, which will prove to be
Speaker 2: another big year of golf course openings. Garrett, how are
Speaker 2: you doing?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a little under the weather. I think
Speaker 1: people will notice that I'm keeping my voice at a
Speaker 1: very low volume, and that's because every time I speak up,
Speaker 1: my throat yells at me. And I think that this
Speaker 1: is hitting a lot of us at this time of year.
Speaker 1: You know, kids are coming home from school with weird
Speaker 1: stuff going on in their bodies and passing that to parents.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure I'm not the only one out there
Speaker 1: who's struggling a little bit. But that's why I sound,
Speaker 1: you know, a little more low volume than usual. There
Speaker 1: will be quite a contrast between our voices. Andy. I
Speaker 1: think that people have already noticed that there is quite
Speaker 1: a contrast between our voices in general, but that will
Speaker 1: be even more pronounced today. So that's where I'm at.
Speaker 1: By the way, people should know that this is the
Speaker 1: Friday Golf Podcast, right, I'm not sure that you said
Speaker 1: that up off the top.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I didn't. I did not. I did not.
Speaker 2: You know, I will say having just got over I
Speaker 2: got over like a couple week debilitating cold from my daughter,
Speaker 2: and it's awful. It's just you see it coming. There's
Speaker 2: nothing you can do about it. You're just counting the
Speaker 2: days till you get sick. When once they come home
Speaker 2: with it, you know.
Speaker 1: Listen, there are worse things that I could be doing
Speaker 1: right now than talking about golf and podcasting and writing
Speaker 1: about golf and staying home while doing it. And so
Speaker 1: mostly I'm pretty grateful. But I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: get myself a little bit up in terms of energy
Speaker 1: here and go into this subject which I am very
Speaker 1: excited to talk about because it's been a super exciting year,
Speaker 1: golf architecture.
Speaker 2: All Right, before we jump in, let's take a quick
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Speaker 2: best in the industry at Club Champion. All right, so
Speaker 2: let's talk about it. Best new golf course that you
Speaker 2: saw this year.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now this answer might annoy people because it's a
Speaker 1: little bit predictable, But the best new golf course I
Speaker 1: saw this year was the Leado at Sand Valley. Now,
Speaker 1: is this a new golf course? That's one question about it.
Speaker 1: Is this Should this be in a restoration or renovation
Speaker 1: or something like that category? Is this technically a new build?
Speaker 1: That's one of the many impossible to answer questions that
Speaker 1: this course raises. But the reason this course has stuck
Speaker 1: with me so much, the reason I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: the Leado ever since I played it for the first
Speaker 1: time in the summer, is that it is so intricate
Speaker 1: that every time you kind of go back through the holes,
Speaker 1: you remember one more thing about each hole. You remember
Speaker 1: one little intricacy that you may have noticed in passing
Speaker 1: as you were playing the course, but it didn't really
Speaker 1: like fully stick in your brain, and so it didn't
Speaker 1: become part of your narrative of the course at the time.
Speaker 1: But when you go back and remember some of these things,
Speaker 1: all these layers keep showing up. There is so much
Speaker 1: to absorb with this course, and it gives you such
Speaker 1: a clear picture of what the degree of C. B.
Speaker 1: MacDonald's brilliance was that I just I have to give
Speaker 1: it the tip of my hat for this year. That
Speaker 1: is the most impressive and probably most important course that
Speaker 1: I saw this year. But I didn't see nearly as
Speaker 1: much as you did, so I'll put that out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think one of the things that the Leado
Speaker 2: would definitely be in the running of mine. And one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why, and it shares this with the
Speaker 2: course that I'm going to pick, is that every single
Speaker 2: I like would just love to have the Lido be
Speaker 2: the golf course that I play all the time because
Speaker 2: of how many aspects, like just the design of the
Speaker 2: golf course makes you think so much and presents you
Speaker 2: so many different ways that you can go about achieving
Speaker 2: the I want to get the whole ball in the
Speaker 2: hole as quick as possible, and that golf course, you
Speaker 2: know it just you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 2: You remember different things when you think about it. You're
Speaker 2: drawn to different holes and different aspects of the golf course.
Speaker 2: I just think that, you know, it's it's kind of
Speaker 2: a shame. I always think about this with resort courses.
Speaker 2: I think Old McDonald would fall into this bucket too.
Speaker 2: I think the loop at Forest Dunes falls into this
Speaker 2: bucket is that we get these like wildly intricate like
Speaker 2: puzzles of golf courses. The LIDO is certainly in this,
Speaker 2: and they're at these like remote resorts that you might
Speaker 2: go to one time in your life. Right, this is
Speaker 2: this type of golf course if it was in a
Speaker 2: municipal or a public daily fee setting in a area
Speaker 2: of the country that was accessible more accessible, like and
Speaker 2: I get these these are accessible areas for a lot
Speaker 2: of the country, but there are long drives and you're
Speaker 2: not getting like if you're not a member at Liedo,
Speaker 2: you have to get a tea time. It's it's hard
Speaker 2: to do. So the idea of some of these golf courses,
Speaker 2: some of them courses really when I think about that,
Speaker 2: I'm enthralled and want to go play time after time
Speaker 2: after time again and again, are like very difficult places
Speaker 2: to get to. So that's like one of my like
Speaker 2: nippicks of this whole thing is like these golf court
Speaker 2: like and I think hopefully we're getting we're building public
Speaker 2: golf and accessible golf is always the last the last
Speaker 2: frontier of innovation in golf course design and golf course construction.
Speaker 2: We're just starting to see, and we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about it a little later, like public short courses, which
Speaker 2: have been become a staple in the resort industry. So
Speaker 2: the fact that this is where resort design and developers
Speaker 2: are going. Is this type of intricacy. I think it's
Speaker 2: really good for maybe ten years from now in public design,
Speaker 2: but who knows where we're going to be in ten years, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we'll see. I mean, you know, the when
Speaker 1: you play the Leado, you can see why it was
Speaker 1: made to be a private course, right, Why it was
Speaker 1: made to be a member course. It's because it's a
Speaker 1: course that really rewards repeat play. But also it's one
Speaker 1: that if you play it just once in your life
Speaker 1: as part of a resort experience, you may not like
Speaker 1: it that much, especially if you play it back to
Speaker 1: back with Mammoth Dunes. Now, I don't want to make
Speaker 1: this like a bash Mammoth Dune's moment in the podcast
Speaker 1: or a bashed David McLay kidd part of the podcast,
Speaker 1: because I really think that Mammoth Dunes and Gamble Sands
Speaker 1: are very smart and intentional in what they do I'm
Speaker 1: writing about Gamble Sands right now, so I'm for Club TF,
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking about kind of that kid philosophy of
Speaker 1: resort golf, And the more you think about it, the
Speaker 1: more you realize that it's basically, in many ways, the
Speaker 1: polar opposite of the lido approach to golf architecture. Whereas
Speaker 1: the Lido has an extreme amount of detail and intricacy,
Speaker 1: as you said, Mammoth Dunes, gamble Sands, the David Kit
Speaker 1: approach is more about simplicity and straightforwardness, presenting risk reward
Speaker 1: options that are quite easy to see the first time
Speaker 1: you play the course, and so you can really engage
Speaker 1: with them the first time that you play the course,
Speaker 1: whereas at the Lido there's a lot there that you
Speaker 1: don't engage with the first time you play the course
Speaker 1: because you don't see it.
Speaker 2: Yet, Or in eightyr wide fairway where you just your
Speaker 2: ball doesn't go there, so you haven't been there, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And there's so much there in each part
Speaker 1: of the fairwey, I mean, Mammoth Dunes also has eighty
Speaker 1: two one hundred yard wide fairways, but a lot of
Speaker 1: them are fairly straightforward, and so you know, and then
Speaker 1: when it comes to difficulty, totally different as well. The
Speaker 1: Lido is very difficult to play, especially if you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with the course, whereas Mammoth Dune's Gamble Sands right way,
Speaker 1: you can kind of get aggressive with those courses. The
Speaker 1: leader makes you feel insecure, uncertain, even fearful at times,
Speaker 1: and and you eventually get over that as you get
Speaker 1: more familiar with the course, whereas right away a course
Speaker 1: like Mammoth Dunes is friendly and outgoing. It's a Golden
Speaker 1: Retriever right away, it's your best friend.
Speaker 2: It's a great, great comparison. I like that bringing the
Speaker 2: dog in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I thought that would appeal to appeal to
Speaker 1: the dog there.
Speaker 2: When I'm going for a run, you know, when I'm
Speaker 2: running and I run past dogs, I'm never worried about
Speaker 2: a Golden Retriever.
Speaker 1: No exactly right, yeah, yeah, you know, unless you think
Speaker 1: the Golden retriever might might stop you and insist on
Speaker 1: being petted when you're trying to get a working That's
Speaker 1: that's the most that you're that's the most you're.
Speaker 2: Worrying about that worried about that, right, I'm looking for
Speaker 2: reasons to stop running when I'm running, so all right,
Speaker 2: so for me, we'll we'll move this on. For me,
Speaker 2: I had, you know there are I saw a decent
Speaker 2: ount of new courses in the last calendar year to date,
Speaker 2: I've a couple of them open next year. It's like
Speaker 2: kind of like weird, like where you go and if
Speaker 2: we go into just different buckets, right, I just think
Speaker 2: what's going on in Aiken, South Carolina is extraordinarily impressive.
Speaker 2: And I got to like just be very open with like,
Speaker 2: I'm probably pretty conflicted here, right.
Speaker 1: I think it's all of Andy's friends who are building
Speaker 1: golf courses outside of akin what's going on here.
Speaker 2: So I've you know, Zach Blair, who's been on this
Speaker 2: podcast a number of times, was you know somebody that
Speaker 2: when I started this business I became friends with and
Speaker 2: you know, it's been amazing to watch him build the
Speaker 2: tree farm and put that together. Then you know Old Barnwell,
Speaker 2: which is my pick is was the owner and founder
Speaker 2: of Old Barnwell. I've known since I was like six
Speaker 2: years old. He's the same He's friends with my sister
Speaker 2: in high school. And so I'm I'm kind of biased
Speaker 2: in both regards, so I don't feel that bad, you know,
Speaker 2: picking between the two of them. But I am someone
Speaker 2: that might carry bias to these courses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're going to blame anything, then them blame
Speaker 1: just the brilliance and success of people who grew up
Speaker 1: in the North Shore of Chicago Gothic.
Speaker 2: So so anyways, Old Barbball is my pick. I was
Speaker 2: really blown away. I had walked it last year, the
Speaker 2: seven hole loop that they had set up, or six
Speaker 2: hole loop that they had set up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as did I. That's what I saw. And then
Speaker 1: I walked the rest of the course while it was
Speaker 1: still more or less under construction.
Speaker 2: And I had walked that also, but a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff hadn't been built yet. It was more kind of
Speaker 2: this is where it's going. I think, like you know,
Speaker 2: these two courses will forever. And I wrote a Club
Speaker 2: Tfe piece about this in the Design notebook. These two
Speaker 2: courses because of their proximity to each other, the time
Speaker 2: at which they were built, I mean, they were built
Speaker 2: basically in conjunction. Their timelines are months a couple months apart.
Speaker 2: It's truly amazing that this happened like in this area.
Speaker 2: And both of them are are extraordinarily great additions. To
Speaker 2: the golf landscape. So with the tree farm, you know,
Speaker 2: the stars is the land. But with old Barnwall, it's
Speaker 2: got a really nice piece of land. But I think
Speaker 2: what stars and this is? You know obviously for me,
Speaker 2: I think what gets me going most is architectural features.
Speaker 2: I get really into seeing things built. So like what
Speaker 2: I like about the golf courses. It's a good piece
Speaker 2: of land by now means it's a bad piece of land,
Speaker 2: but the piece of land is ramped up by some
Speaker 2: built features and some smart you know, some greens, some
Speaker 2: hazards and what I love about it, it's similar to
Speaker 2: the lido. There's a lot of space, but where you
Speaker 2: need to be changes a lot, right, and it and
Speaker 2: I have to imagine that, you know, this golf course
Speaker 2: was effectively being built by Brian Schneider and Blake Conant
Speaker 2: at the same time that Brian Schneider was the lead
Speaker 2: associate on the lead. Though I don't think that the
Speaker 2: reason that these golf courses to me feel very you know,
Speaker 2: somewhat similar is is it's not a It's not a coincidence, right,
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of things were kind of
Speaker 2: put into this and I think, like I think Old
Speaker 2: Barnwell is going to be polarizing. I think people I
Speaker 2: saw it firsthand. I played with a buddy of mine
Speaker 2: who who like on the second green. He's a very
Speaker 2: good player, played in the mid am last year on
Speaker 2: the second green. He putted off the green. You know,
Speaker 2: and we're playing after right, Yeah, we're playing with Brian Schneider,
Speaker 2: and like, you know, he's like outwardly pretty upset, like
Speaker 2: a few holes into the ground, and you know, and
Speaker 2: he's like, you know, these greens are insane.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's all you could talk about was how insane the
Speaker 2: greens were. And you can see how if you if
Speaker 2: you have this belief that once I hit the green,
Speaker 2: I should automatically be afforded a two putt, that these
Speaker 2: greens will rub you the wrong way. But these greens
Speaker 2: are about being in the right position in the fair
Speaker 2: way to find the right position on the green. They're
Speaker 2: about understanding where the right miss is to be. You know,
Speaker 2: where you want to miss it. If you if you're
Speaker 2: in a bad position, where do I want to be
Speaker 2: to then get up and down. I need to be
Speaker 2: on this side otherwise, Like and again what you said
Speaker 2: about Leedo, it really rewards and makes you want to
Speaker 2: play it more and more because you're decoding this puzzle
Speaker 2: as you play it every time after time. Really, some
Speaker 2: cool stuff about it is like there's some twists on
Speaker 2: some old stuff on some on some like you know
Speaker 2: modern architecture.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: There is like a rendition of the first green at
Speaker 2: National Golf Flinks of America. There's you know, the next
Speaker 2: hole is kind of their take on the second hole
Speaker 2: at National Golf Links of America. They have some you
Speaker 2: know different they they basically took a took a hole,
Speaker 2: built a hole out of Tom Simpson's book and flipped
Speaker 2: it right. It's the mirror of of a of a
Speaker 2: sketch that Tom Simpson never built, but it's a sketch
Speaker 2: from his book. And there's just some cool stuff there's
Speaker 2: it's just some some vertical hazards you definitely see where
Speaker 2: you know, Brian Schneider's done extensive work in the Walter
Speaker 2: Travis portfolio, and obviously Blake Conant and him were building
Speaker 2: this together. They were the co designers. They were kind
Speaker 2: of you do this green, they were editing each other.
Speaker 2: But you see that overall aesthetic of of kind of
Speaker 2: that that upward vertical hazard. The idea of like small
Speaker 2: pockets and greens that you have to get to, like
Speaker 2: a Walter Travis course wood and you know, it's just
Speaker 2: super fun. I I love it. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: go back there. I and and the same is said I,
Speaker 2: you know, and I want to be fair to Tree Farm.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that one of the amazing things
Speaker 2: about the Old Barnwell development is the growing that uh
Speaker 2: that the agronomy team there accomplished. It's I was standingly
Speaker 2: mature for being brand new. I haven't seen tree Farm
Speaker 2: since Master's Week and I saw Old Barnwell in November.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to see tree Farm, you know, seven
Speaker 2: months after you know it was it was very much
Speaker 2: preview play. So I haven't seen tree Farm in its
Speaker 2: you know, more realize uh you know form, And I
Speaker 2: think that's always important, Like you're doing these new courses thing,
Speaker 2: how of course ages is you know, like what the
Speaker 2: best course today is might not be the best course.
Speaker 2: You know what we think of best course today as
Speaker 2: might not be the best course in five years. How
Speaker 2: courses age you know it's different, right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean how courses settle in is so
Speaker 1: important and it's something that really it's short shrift in
Speaker 1: the discussion of new courses. Very rarely do you see
Speaker 1: someone go back and reevaluate a course that they initially
Speaker 1: reviewed when it opened. And I think that that should
Speaker 1: be something that's done more often that you really bring
Speaker 1: in to your consideration the dynamism and the evolution of
Speaker 1: a golf course. You know, much as Michelin reviewers go
Speaker 1: back to certain restaurants year after year to see if
Speaker 1: that restaurant has kept up at standards, we should do
Speaker 1: our best as people who talk about golf courses, to
Speaker 1: go back and see golf courses after they've been around
Speaker 1: for a few years to see if they've again kept
Speaker 1: up their standards or even raised those standards. That's hard
Speaker 1: to do because it involves a lot of travel and
Speaker 1: there's always new stuff to see. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: something we should talk about. When we get a chance
Speaker 1: to go see a course that has been around a
Speaker 1: few years, we should talk about it again.
Speaker 2: So one thing that I would love to to just
Speaker 2: you know, put out there. Also, obviously, this is Brian Schneider.
Speaker 2: This is a big kind of debut for him on
Speaker 2: the new build front. With Blake Conitt. It's exciting we're
Speaker 2: entering this this time. We're gonna have a lot of
Speaker 2: courses come online in the next couple of years, with
Speaker 2: architects building their first couple golf courses. You know, we're finally,
Speaker 2: like I think everybody's been clamoring for this, like can
Speaker 2: somebody hire somebody that's not Gil, Tom or Bill and
Speaker 2: Ben right, you know, and and that's you know, Gil Hands,
Speaker 2: Tom Doak or Corn Crenshaw, you know, but there haven't
Speaker 2: been the inventory of projects, the number of projects to
Speaker 2: persuade a developer to go outside the box. Right now
Speaker 2: we're seeing it where like developers are coming well like
Speaker 2: you know, Bill and Ben can't do this till twenty
Speaker 2: twenty seven, and Tom's booked till twenty twenty eight, and Gil,
Speaker 2: you know this is so we have to go in
Speaker 2: a different direction, right is the discourse. So it's really
Speaker 2: exciting to see new work from new architects, you know
Speaker 2: that have been doing restoration work or you know remodels,
Speaker 2: like small remodels where they might you know, tweak a
Speaker 2: whole or two here. The other thing I think that
Speaker 2: might get like that might not be as as fun
Speaker 2: of a story but is an important one is that
Speaker 2: we're watching two of the greatest architects in Corn Crenshaw
Speaker 2: in terms of new builds, Corn Crenshaw and Tom Doak.
Speaker 2: You know, if you start to stack up their resumes
Speaker 2: of courses that they've built, it is extraordinarily impressive. And
Speaker 2: they are they are all working. They are working on
Speaker 2: you know, another litany of courses, and you know, I
Speaker 2: think you could make an argument that they're only getting better.
Speaker 2: So like what does the next five years of their
Speaker 2: golf courses really entail? And you know, and your talking
Speaker 2: about legacies, right, you look at Alistair McKenzie's legacy. Like
Speaker 2: what I always think about with Alistair McKenzie's legacy is
Speaker 2: like he you can make an argument that he built
Speaker 2: the best course on four continents. You got you know,
Speaker 2: Royal Melbourne, you got Cyprus Point, you got Jockey Club
Speaker 2: down in South America, and you got Meyla Hinch. You
Speaker 2: could throw in the ring Like.
Speaker 1: I was wondering what your fourth one would be, Lahinch.
Speaker 1: You can I don't know if that's an Alistair McKenzie
Speaker 1: course through, yeah, but he definitely touched it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you you start to get to this idea
Speaker 2: like Alistair McKenzie, like that to me is legacy. So
Speaker 2: we're getting to the point in these these architects career,
Speaker 2: and I think Gill's kind of maybe like ten years
Speaker 2: behind where they are right now in terms of like
Speaker 2: just career scope. So I don't want to leave them
Speaker 2: out of this, but you know, they're I think they're
Speaker 2: in a little bit different spot. But like we're at
Speaker 2: this like legacy defining moment, especially with how much work
Speaker 2: that these architects have coming up. Where it is, it's
Speaker 2: going to be just really fun and I think, like
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people would look at like
Speaker 2: the recent builds that Tom has had and say that
Speaker 2: that's some of his best work he's ever done.
Speaker 1: It's certainly some of his most distinctive work. And he's
Speaker 1: doing projects that are really interesting for one reason or another,
Speaker 1: whether it's a new kind of property or a new
Speaker 1: kind of concept. You know of course that we both
Speaker 1: saw this year that's new but technically opening fully next
Speaker 1: year is such Valley and and that's that's an exciting
Speaker 1: course for for a host of reasons. Gil hants Is
Speaker 1: is just getting into a part of his career when
Speaker 1: we're going to see more new build work from him.
Speaker 1: We've seen an awful lot of renovation and restoration as well.
Speaker 2: It might be the best, he might be the best
Speaker 2: to ever do the renovation restoration.
Speaker 1: Stuff, right, Yeah, And he's certainly has has worked at
Speaker 1: uh the the most impressive list of clubs by far
Speaker 1: in America. And you know he's continuing to do that
Speaker 1: as well as start to do some more new build
Speaker 1: stuff like his work at Field's Ranch, which you saw
Speaker 1: this year and is new, So you know, it's very exciting.
Speaker 1: We have an embarrassment of riches right now for new
Speaker 1: golf courses, especially as compared to the last ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen years or so in this industry, and so I
Speaker 1: think we'll see a lot of exciting stuff. But like you,
Speaker 1: I'm really keen to see where Brian Schneider and Blake
Speaker 1: Conant want to take the craft next, because those are architects,
Speaker 1: along with Kyle Franz and others who are trying to
Speaker 1: a little bit younger, a generation younger, and are trying
Speaker 1: to move things to the next step. So we'll see.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about renovation candidates. What's on it
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 1: Well, I've got what may be a surprising pair here.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to talk about the Glenn Golf Park
Speaker 1: and this again is is just kind of turning into
Speaker 1: a Brian Schneider tongue bath because he was involved in
Speaker 1: this project as well. But the lead architect on it
Speaker 1: was Craig Halton, who is a Wisconsin based architect who
Speaker 1: has served as the contractor for many of the Sand
Speaker 1: Valley courses, maybe all of the Sand Valley.
Speaker 2: Courses found found the land from the Valley Craigs porch
Speaker 2: for any visitor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he was. He was kind of exploring the
Speaker 1: state with his wife and and that's how that property
Speaker 1: out in the middle of Wisconsin was found. And has
Speaker 1: also done the work to bring back Masonia Links to
Speaker 1: it's its former self and and so he's done some
Speaker 1: really cool work, but.
Speaker 2: He's mostly done a lot of work too.
Speaker 1: We don't we don't want to short shrift anybody, especially
Speaker 1: run Force. So in any case, Craig Haltem, we haven't
Speaker 1: seen a lot of original design work from him. And
Speaker 1: this Glenn Golf Park project is really interesting because it's
Speaker 1: not just a nip and tuck renovation. It was really
Speaker 1: a complete reimagining of this nine hole very affordable public
Speaker 1: course property, and they did the work for quite cheap.
Speaker 1: They had some backing from Mike Kaiser and his Michael
Speaker 1: Kaiser and his wife, and so there was money there,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a massive amount of money. And I
Speaker 1: think that if you just look at the changes that
Speaker 1: they made. I'm not arguing that this is Glen Golf
Speaker 1: Park is now a top one hundred golf course. That's
Speaker 1: never what it has been intended to be. But if
Speaker 1: you look at the specific changes that they've made, if
Speaker 1: you look at the comparison between the old golf course
Speaker 1: and the new golf course, so much of what they
Speaker 1: did is so smart and so replicable at other municipal facilities,
Speaker 1: especially nine holers. So one thing, they removed a few trees,
Speaker 1: not a huge amount of trees, but they remove trees
Speaker 1: and kind of the right spots so that they opened
Speaker 1: up the property a little bit, and then they just
Speaker 1: mowed out a whole lot of fairway. There's basically one
Speaker 1: cut out there, but it's not a super tight cut, right,
Speaker 1: It's a little bit longer, and so it doesn't require
Speaker 1: as many inputs as much attention as a very kind
Speaker 1: of short fairway would require so really sustainable maintenance, very simple, straightforward,
Speaker 1: and also provides a lot of room to play, a
Speaker 1: lot of possibility for angles, et cetera. Okay, second thing
Speaker 1: they did they didn't overdo it with the bunkers. The
Speaker 1: bunkers are really cool looking. They have some kind of
Speaker 1: like native grass fringe to them, but they're very simple shapes.
Speaker 1: They're pretty small, and there's very few of them on property.
Speaker 1: You know, most of the bunkers on the golf course
Speaker 1: are on a single hole, a par three I think
Speaker 1: it's six, and they basically there's like four bunkers or
Speaker 1: three or four bunkers on that whole alone, and that's
Speaker 1: like more than half of the bunkers on the entire
Speaker 1: golf course. So they have kept the maintenance of bunkers,
Speaker 1: which is such a money pit for so many municipal
Speaker 1: and affordable daily fee courses, and they have just you know,
Speaker 1: taken that kind of mostly off the table. It's going
Speaker 1: to be very straightforward to maintain these bunkers. And then
Speaker 1: finally they did a lot of really smart, sensitive work
Speaker 1: on the greens around the greens, coming up with some
Speaker 1: cool contours that make the game interesting they're just you know,
Speaker 1: beautifully contoured and tied in greens. There was some real
Speaker 1: sophisticated architecture put into that specific part of the course.
Speaker 1: That's where they put so much of their attention. And
Speaker 1: so I think that learning those three basic lessons about
Speaker 1: what the Glen Golf Park did would be enormously helpful
Speaker 1: for so many municipalities thinking about what to do with
Speaker 1: their golf courses, how to spend the little bits of
Speaker 1: money that they give, where to go with capital improvement projects.
Speaker 1: When the opportunity comes up to do one of these,
Speaker 1: I think what you do is you look at a
Speaker 1: lot of what they did here and try to apply
Speaker 1: some of those lessons to different specific sites around the country.
Speaker 2: I think I've got a similar trend. I think the
Speaker 2: thing that's most exciting to me. You talked about Glen
Speaker 2: Golf Park, another new public golf course that it was
Speaker 2: a renovation, is the park down in West Palm Beach.
Speaker 1: Lots of parks out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but to me, another park and Chaska, So Golden
Speaker 2: Gate Park and Saska the Loop at Shaska.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Loop Is it Chaska or Shaska?
Speaker 2: I think it's Shaskaaska. People saying sure, i'll get I'll
Speaker 2: get it reminded, I'll get one of us. One of
Speaker 2: us is somebody's wrong. So those two courses to me
Speaker 2: stand out. They are I think, you know so many
Speaker 2: people and I think the first round of golf I
Speaker 2: played on uh played golf and was at a par
Speaker 2: thirty one in like Waukegan, Illinois, which was it was
Speaker 2: like this kind of dumpy, you know, par three course, right.
Speaker 2: I think that that is the way that so many
Speaker 2: people play their first round of golf. And like, I
Speaker 2: don't really remember much about the golf course. I kind
Speaker 2: of can kind of like remember a few like the
Speaker 2: way it want wound around with property. That was a
Speaker 2: golf course that was the first round of my golf life.
Speaker 2: Another golf course that was instrumental in my life and
Speaker 2: golf was a par three course that's now a park
Speaker 2: in Libertyville, Illinois called Riverside. It was it was right
Speaker 2: on the river. It flooded when it was But par
Speaker 2: three courses are instrumental to people that enter the game
Speaker 2: like it is, it's got to be a sky high
Speaker 2: number of percentage of rounds of somebody who's a beginner's
Speaker 2: first five rounds. So with the Golden Gate Park project,
Speaker 2: which is in San Francisco. It's in Golden Gate Park.
Speaker 2: They took a nine hole effectively par three golf course.
Speaker 2: It was overgrown, it was fine, it was it was
Speaker 2: a nice golf course and you know, a nice place
Speaker 2: to play. It sits on sand dunes. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: probably a half a mile from the ocean. It sits
Speaker 2: on pure sand. And they took that golf course and
Speaker 2: they renovated and built a brand new nine hole golf course.
Speaker 2: It's got a partnership with the First te of San
Speaker 2: Francisco and Jay Blasi did the renovation. It was a
Speaker 2: twenty acre site and now it is twenty acres of
Speaker 2: fantastic golf, just really fun greens. Tasca a similar story.
Speaker 2: They took a you know, kind of like a par
Speaker 2: thirty course, so you know, a couple of par fours,
Speaker 2: and they renovated and they made it a fully accessible
Speaker 2: golf course so there's no bunkers. Anybody of any you know,
Speaker 2: with any anybody can go play golf there. And they
Speaker 2: both share like very similar design characteristics. Like Golden Gates
Speaker 2: got a few sand bunkers, but like they're more like
Speaker 2: exposed sand because it's like you're you're on sand dunes.
Speaker 2: You'd be silly not to expose some sand, right, And.
Speaker 1: There's you don't you don't want some revetted pot bunkers
Speaker 1: or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so there's a few, you know, there's some
Speaker 2: exposed sand. There's a couple bunkers. There's like kind of
Speaker 2: like a cool little like lines mouth green that's got
Speaker 2: a bunker that you can play around. So there's very
Speaker 2: minimal bunkers at Chaska, no bunkers. Both of them have
Speaker 2: fascinating greens, and both of them were done on a
Speaker 2: very small budget. I think. I think the Golden Gate
Speaker 2: Park project was around two million and the Chasca project
Speaker 2: was less than one point five. So these projects were
Speaker 2: done undertaken, funded, you know, locally, and it represents a
Speaker 2: type of architecture, a type of project that's achievable in
Speaker 2: a lot of different locales, right because it's not over
Speaker 2: the top expensive and the end result is an amazing product.
Speaker 2: It's a you know, we talk about this and I've
Speaker 2: used this conversation, this topic, this analogy so often. But
Speaker 2: if you want to get somebody into coffee, you don't
Speaker 2: take them to a gas station, you take them to
Speaker 2: a nice coffee shop, and you give them maybe, like
Speaker 2: you know, you give them something that's going to appeal
Speaker 2: to their palate, not you know, and so often with golf,
Speaker 2: with these par three courses, we've given somebody like the
Speaker 2: worst form of golf, right, the just the everybody's played
Speaker 2: the par three course with just the dead flat green.
Speaker 2: It's a field, right, And these are you know, these
Speaker 2: whole These courses spark imagination with their greens and and
Speaker 2: I'm super excited both of those courses will be kind
Speaker 2: of big stars, I think of twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 2: was lucky to see both of them this year, and
Speaker 2: I can't wait for more of these golf courses to happen.
Speaker 2: This is the trend that's really needed in public golf,
Speaker 2: and for both courses, they're going to remain extremely affordable.
Speaker 2: I think for city residents. The Golden Gate Park courses
Speaker 2: twenty two dollars.
Speaker 1: So right, And I think, you know, part of the
Speaker 1: hope here is that local government officials and residents can
Speaker 1: look at the projects that have been done on a
Speaker 1: small scale at these courts and then look at some
Speaker 1: of the other golf assets that they have locally and think, well,
Speaker 1: this little course looks a lot better than this big course. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe if we set aside a little more money, we
Speaker 1: could do something cool with a big course too, Because
Speaker 1: San Francisco has some places that could use a little
Speaker 1: bit of love, some eighteen whole courses that could be
Speaker 1: really cool with a bit of work, And I think
Speaker 1: probably the same is true in a lot of cities
Speaker 1: throughout the country. And so you know, starting small is
Speaker 1: a really great idea for introducing cool architecture into a
Speaker 1: municipal golf system. And so I'm really glad to see
Speaker 1: that that's happening at these courses. Now, both of these
Speaker 1: open in twenty twenty four, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, or early twenty twenty four. So I think
Speaker 2: I think Golden Gate Park's plan is January, right, so
Speaker 2: you know, a month away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so you can play in January. Obviously, can't
Speaker 1: do the same in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Minnesota, Minnesota. It should be a big story with the
Speaker 2: USAM at Hazeltem because it's you know, it's basically it
Speaker 2: shares the lake that hazel Teine's on. It's just on
Speaker 2: another extension of the lake.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, two things that I want to mention about
Speaker 1: these projects quickly. One is that I believe there's a
Speaker 1: common link in terms of shapers at Golden Gate Park
Speaker 1: and at Shaska. I believe Brett Hochstein worked on both projects.
Speaker 2: And Ben Warren. Ben Warren was the lead architect, another
Speaker 2: you know, very talented young shaper.
Speaker 1: Ben work at a Golden Gate Park too.
Speaker 2: No, no, he did not, so in Jay Blasi, I did.
Speaker 2: I failed to mention Ben's name on the Chaska project,
Speaker 2: so you know, it's a It's another example of exciting
Speaker 2: to see young names getting chances.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And the other thing people should know about the
Speaker 1: about the Chaska project is that the the whole idea
Speaker 1: of the facility is that it's going to be radically
Speaker 1: accessible to adaptive golfers. So they're really trying to do
Speaker 1: everything they can to accommodate adaptive play and disability access.
Speaker 1: And in fact, that's one of the reasons that the
Speaker 1: project has taken a little while, because they need to
Speaker 1: build some on site facilities to really fulfill that mission.
Speaker 1: So the golf course has been shaped and more or
Speaker 1: less finished for a while, but basically it's kind of
Speaker 1: waiting on the clubhouse and other things to come in
Speaker 1: to make sure that the course can really right away
Speaker 1: serve its mission, which is to enhance the experience of
Speaker 1: adaptive golfers. So that's something that's very important there that
Speaker 1: you know. Again, it's one of those things that different
Speaker 1: places in the world, who you know, where people want
Speaker 1: to improve their golf, they can look at that as
Speaker 1: an option and to communicate to people that golf is
Speaker 1: not this kind of elitist, cloistered sport, that there can
Speaker 1: be a real effort to reach out to the community
Speaker 1: and make golf an experience that everybody can enjoy. So
Speaker 1: those are those courses. Now, there were some glossier renovations
Speaker 1: that we didn't mention that, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: maybe just quickly mention them. There's the country club near Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Gil Hans restored that golf course. I know you liked
Speaker 1: what you saw there. Yeah, I've I played that course
Speaker 1: pre renovation or pre restoration and was really impressed with
Speaker 1: the land and some of the boldness of the way
Speaker 1: that the holes use the landforms on that property. So
Speaker 1: super excited to see.
Speaker 2: That maybe Flynn's best work outside of Shinnecock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I haven't seen an
Speaker 1: awful lot of Flynn, but I would leave it like
Speaker 1: that's a really well designed golf course. The lake course
Speaker 1: at the Olympic Club has opened back up after again
Speaker 1: a gil Hant's restoration. Lookout Mountain has gotten some attention
Speaker 1: for some of the really bold restoration work that Tyler
Speaker 1: Ray's team did there. So there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: action in the restoration and renovation category of the golf
Speaker 1: course industry. But one overall shift that I'm noticing that
Speaker 1: I think I'm excited about is that a lot of
Speaker 1: the obvious restorations like straightforward, we want to bring this
Speaker 1: course back to what it was because it was a
Speaker 1: great course in the first place and we couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: do anything better. A lot of those projects have been
Speaker 1: done basically, and now what we're looking at totore time
Speaker 1: to restore again. So yeah, yeah, there's two paths here.
Speaker 1: We can try to convince green committees that they didn't
Speaker 1: restore it properly the first time and that we need
Speaker 1: to try it again, except with a bigger budget, which
Speaker 1: I hope we don't see a lot of. There's the
Speaker 1: other direction we could go with this opportunity or that
Speaker 1: it could go. I'm not sure that we can have
Speaker 1: any influence on it is. These are just economic forces
Speaker 1: that are out of our control. But I'd like to
Speaker 1: see more courses that maybe don't have very good golf
Speaker 1: courses realize that they don't have very good golf courses
Speaker 1: that weren't particularly well designed in the first place, that
Speaker 1: have worn out their welcome, that look dated at this point.
Speaker 1: I would like to see some of those golf courses
Speaker 1: higher talented architects trained in this neoclassical mode that Corn
Speaker 1: Crenshaw and Tom Doak and Gil Hants have popularized, and
Speaker 1: see what can be done with golf courses that have
Speaker 1: kind of seen their day and need to become something new.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to see more creative, aggressive, out of
Speaker 1: the box renovations. I'm hoping to see some of that work.
Speaker 1: We've seen a few projects like that, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to see more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's kind of
Speaker 2: the next frontier right is, and I think we're going
Speaker 2: to see a lot of that coming do with irrigation
Speaker 2: systems needing to be replaced and a lot of courses
Speaker 2: that were built in nineteen eighty and nineteen ninety thinking
Speaker 2: about what does the next thirty years look like for
Speaker 2: us now that we're here with our irrigation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all right, we wanted to talk about one
Speaker 1: more topic, right, we wanted to talk about for.
Speaker 2: That Before that, Oh, I want to talk about a
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Speaker 1: Let's do it.
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Speaker 2: it out. All right, let's get to new courses that
Speaker 2: might be old courses, new courses to us.
Speaker 1: Yes, new to us. So we wanted to talk about each.
Speaker 1: Each of us wanted to talk about a course that
Speaker 1: we saw for the first time this past year that
Speaker 1: it's not newly renovated, that's not newly built, but that
Speaker 1: we enjoyed and had never seen before. So this is
Speaker 1: just a little reflection on the year I saw. I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of these courses that there are some
Speaker 1: to choose from that I really want to talk about.
Speaker 1: But if I had to choose one, I think I'd
Speaker 1: choose Winchester Country Club near Boston, Massachusetts. I like it.
Speaker 1: It's not a course that gets talked about a whole lot,
Speaker 1: and my understanding is that it's pretty private, and that's
Speaker 1: probably why this is not a public course like the
Speaker 1: William J. Divine Golf Course at Franklin Park that I
Speaker 1: played during the same trip and really enjoyed. You know,
Speaker 1: that's another Donald Ross course that I think people should
Speaker 1: should check out on the public side. But the reason
Speaker 1: Winchester stuck with me so much is that I don't
Speaker 1: know that I've seen any course from its era it
Speaker 1: was originally kind of it was, it took its more
Speaker 1: or less its modern form and kind of the late
Speaker 1: teens is my understanding, and it kind of evolved from
Speaker 1: there through the twenties. I don't know that I've seen
Speaker 1: a course from that era, aside from Yale, that has
Speaker 1: so much massive earth moving. I mean, like usually at
Speaker 1: older courses, if you're talking about like maximalist courses from
Speaker 1: the golden age of golf architecture, courses that you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't make any secret of the fact that the
Speaker 1: architects made some alterations to the landscape or sit on
Speaker 1: pieces of land that needed to be changed in order
Speaker 1: to be you know, formed into a golf course. Usually
Speaker 1: with courses like that from this era, you see the
Speaker 1: lion's share of the shaping, almost all of it around
Speaker 1: the greens, right. You see the green pads built up
Speaker 1: in order to make them flat enough to be puttable,
Speaker 1: and you see some shaping of hazards around the greens.
Speaker 1: But usually the fairways kind of sit naturally. At Winchester,
Speaker 1: the thing that really struck me was that it sits
Speaker 1: on such a severe hillside that you really wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to play golf on it if they hadn't basically
Speaker 1: lifted up about half of the fairways. So these are
Speaker 1: entire fairways that were built up from the hillside, like
Speaker 1: propped on these ledges. Ross's team just had to go
Speaker 1: and do this without modern machinery. And I think the
Speaker 1: shaping is really cool looking. It's pretty overt, like you
Speaker 1: can see where they made changes, but it looks kind
Speaker 1: of rugged and gnarly, maybe because the course is just
Speaker 1: older at this point and it's kind of settled into itself.
Speaker 1: But looking at that course made me think about how
Speaker 1: little we understand the golden age of golfer chitecture and
Speaker 1: how many generalizations we make about it that are not
Speaker 1: entirely accurate. I think people would be shocked at how
Speaker 1: much earth moving went into making this golf course playable
Speaker 1: and how kind of interestingly it's pulled off and so
Speaker 1: really enjoyed Winchester. It's going to get worked on soon,
Speaker 1: I think, maybe even coming up this next year by
Speaker 1: Andrew Green, and you know, Andrew Green's a talented restoration specialist.
Speaker 1: One thing I do hope about Winchester. One thing that
Speaker 1: I like about it right now, and that I hope
Speaker 1: kind of stays with it a bit is how old
Speaker 1: it feels right? It really, you know, and there are
Speaker 1: ways in which it's old that are probably not appealing
Speaker 1: to members. You can see bunker liners sticking out. You
Speaker 1: can see that some stuff needs attention. But right now
Speaker 1: this course definitely feels like it's era. It feels like
Speaker 1: it comes straight to us from the nineteen teens. And
Speaker 1: one thing I really hope is that greens team finds
Speaker 1: various ways to maintain that sense even as they do
Speaker 1: some necessary updates across the golf.
Speaker 2: Cold and what you're talking about there is bunker sand color.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's bright white, bunker sand like right now,
Speaker 1: the bunker sand there is basically like looks like it
Speaker 1: was carted in from a lake beach, you know, and
Speaker 1: so it looks like it's right, It looks right for
Speaker 1: the site.
Speaker 2: You're talking about bunker sand. You're talking about the grass.
Speaker 2: You know, when you go to a lot of renovation renovations,
Speaker 2: the grass will be like, you know, brand new mona
Speaker 2: stand grass like. The idea of keeping some of the
Speaker 2: greens like patchy like some of the best, some of
Speaker 2: the best greens, I feel I have a lot of
Speaker 2: different coloration. It's an amalgamation of grasses, right, That's what
Speaker 2: gives it this old feel. And I do feel like
Speaker 2: that's probably my least favorite trend with renovations, is just
Speaker 2: the the way things look brand new. It's like, wait,
Speaker 2: you just you you lost some of the you know,
Speaker 2: the essence of it. I you know, it's it's part
Speaker 2: of the cool thing about seeing an old building is
Speaker 2: that it's old, right. You know. It's the same thing
Speaker 2: about the old golf course. Right, there's just a feel
Speaker 2: to it when it when it has those those grasses
Speaker 2: that just don't look brand new, they're almost jarring, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I will I'll go. You know, I've got a tough,
Speaker 2: tough selection here.
Speaker 1: You did a lot of travel in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: A decent amount, But I would say, I I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm gonna pick you know, just generally with this this topic,
Speaker 2: it's a place that I find that exceeds my expectations
Speaker 2: is where I generally fall on this. Right, It's not
Speaker 2: necessarily the best course that I saw, but it's the
Speaker 2: one that I always that stick. The ones particularly that
Speaker 2: stick with me are the ones that exceed what I
Speaker 2: think they are going into it. So like, for example,
Speaker 2: I had really high expectations of Hollywood Golf Club and
Speaker 2: they met those expectations. That was an amazing golf course,
Speaker 2: and I was, I cannot wait to see it again.
Speaker 2: It is so cool. Right. I played Augusta National this year.
Speaker 2: I had extraordinarily high expectations and it met those expectations.
Speaker 2: A lot of that, like I struggle with that course
Speaker 2: with like nostalgia. Right, I would say the courses, the
Speaker 2: two courses that stand out to me as exceeding the
Speaker 2: expectations I had going into them are Midland Hills in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: I had always been very interested in this golf course
Speaker 2: because from the beginning of the Frida Egg one of
Speaker 2: the early kind of pieces that had us stood out
Speaker 2: a little bit was the were these template pieces. And
Speaker 2: I've been talking to Mike Mantheini, the superintendent there, for
Speaker 2: years about pictures and stuff, and they just didn't have
Speaker 2: very good pictures of the place. So I'd never really
Speaker 2: seen the golf course outside of a Google Earth straight down.
Speaker 2: Jim Urbina just did some renovation work there, restoration work there,
Speaker 2: and it's really wonderful. The back nine is extraordinary like
Speaker 2: the back nine is is great. It is like perfectly
Speaker 2: scaled golf ground, and it's got some really cool templates,
Speaker 2: some unique templates. Like one of the things that's super
Speaker 2: cool there is their Burrits hole. The the trough in
Speaker 2: the middle of the Burritz kind of goes on a
Speaker 2: diagonal right as opposed to a straight line. I've never
Speaker 2: seen a rainer Burrits look that way right where it's
Speaker 2: kind of like diagonal. The alpshole is unbelievable. You get
Speaker 2: over and then you're and then when you're coming out
Speaker 2: of the Alps hole, if you look back, you see
Speaker 2: the minut Apolis skyline. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: The Radan hole is kind of like a Radan punch bowl.
Speaker 2: It's a really unique variety. And then on the front nine,
Speaker 2: and the front nine is no slouch. It's got a
Speaker 2: really neat Alps or a really neat no hole. Like
Speaker 2: that course is wildly under talked about. Nobody talks about
Speaker 2: that golf course like in the in the Twin Cities area.
Speaker 2: And I think it's really good. I think it's a
Speaker 2: lot better than some courses that are talked about a
Speaker 2: much much more the other one. And I think like
Speaker 2: a lot of it. It's like nobody's seen it, like
Speaker 2: the photos. Like we live in this culture with Instagram
Speaker 2: right where you see these courses and people are all
Speaker 2: I want to play there. I don't think anybody has
Speaker 2: really seen Midland Hills until this year, you know. So. Uh.
Speaker 2: The other one that I that stood out as like
Speaker 2: blowing away expectations with Saint George's in in uh on
Speaker 2: Long Island. It's right next to Port Jefferson. Uh. It's
Speaker 2: an easy fair from like Connecticut and stuff, and it's
Speaker 2: just like one of those like it just a constant
Speaker 2: reminder when you go to Long Island is like how
Speaker 2: much of the oxygen National Golf Links and Shinnecock like
Speaker 2: suck up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the Saint George's is a Devereux Emmett golf course,
Speaker 1: and Devereux Emmett is a you know, one of the
Speaker 1: most significant designers in Connecticut and New York from the
Speaker 1: early Golden Age to the mid Golden Age. He did
Speaker 1: a lot of work in that region, but not much
Speaker 1: outside of it, and so he's probably not as well
Speaker 1: known as a lot of equally gifted architects who traveled
Speaker 1: a bit more fun fact about Devereux. Emmett is that
Speaker 1: he he was very much on site and helping during
Speaker 1: the construction of National Golf Links. He was one of
Speaker 1: the original funders of that project and was friends with C. B.
Speaker 1: MacDonald And so yeah, he's he's very entwined with that
Speaker 1: whole area and its golf architecture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he he is his course, like his family course, right.
Speaker 2: They wanted he wanted to build his what Charles what
Speaker 2: CB McDonald had at Nashville. He wanted his own. And
Speaker 2: he scoured like the area where he's from for a
Speaker 2: long time trying to find land. Like he looked at
Speaker 2: a lot of different sites. He said, ale, on this one,
Speaker 2: it's it's awesome, awesome land. And I think the reason
Speaker 2: it doesn't get talked about at all is because it's
Speaker 2: like sixty three hundred yards, but you wouldn't know it's
Speaker 2: sixty three hundred yards. It's like just like you're playing
Speaker 2: up and over. There's a bunch of blind t shots
Speaker 2: up and you know you're playing significant elevation. It is
Speaker 2: so fun. It is so fun. It's got like the
Speaker 2: right amount of like dramatic long island scale where you're like, wow,
Speaker 2: like this is why there's great golf here is like
Speaker 2: look at this, Look at what the way this hole
Speaker 2: traverses this land. But then it's got like some really
Speaker 2: like playful humorous quirk to it right some above ground,
Speaker 2: uh you know hazards, some like really deep trench bunkers.
Speaker 1: Crazy crazy bunkering, like just like splatters splatters of bunkering.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's a cool rest restoration story too. The
Speaker 2: club's kind of been at it the old Superintendent Adam
Speaker 2: Jesse and Gil Hants have been kind of working at
Speaker 2: this since like the nineties, and it is if they
Speaker 2: do a little by little and the course keeps getting better,
Speaker 2: it's almost all the way back to like when you
Speaker 2: look at the old arial to what it is today,
Speaker 2: it's like so close to being all the way back.
Speaker 2: It is an awesome place. We're having an event there
Speaker 2: in August. I like I'm jacked about it. I'm like
Speaker 2: so excited.
Speaker 1: Cool, Okay, I think we're at the point when we
Speaker 1: can talk briefly about stuff that we're looking forward to
Speaker 1: seeing in twenty twenty four. I really just want to
Speaker 1: hit this very quickly. But you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: course openings coming up, a lot of renovations are going
Speaker 1: to you know, open up as well. But something I'm
Speaker 1: particularly excited to see is some work from Kyle France
Speaker 1: some original designs from Kyle Franz. Kyle is maybe best
Speaker 1: known for his restorations of the ross courses just outside
Speaker 1: of the Pinehurst Resort, so Mid Pines, Pine Needles and
Speaker 1: Southern Pines. Kyle Frans did the work at all those
Speaker 1: courses that you know, has really made them just as
Speaker 1: impressive as most of what the Pinehurst Resort itself has
Speaker 1: to offer. And recently Kyle has started to get more
Speaker 1: new build jobs and one of those is outside of Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas at Luling. There's more work that he's doing at
Speaker 1: Cabot Cabot Citrus Farms. There's a project and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have an exact date. And also
Speaker 1: there are so many different courses at Cabot Citrus Farms.
Speaker 1: I think care Yeah, there's there's some names to these
Speaker 1: courses Career Squeeze Edge.
Speaker 2: The Karuka or cab Itt Citrust. I believe it's a
Speaker 2: fall opening.
Speaker 1: Yes, which it's basically what used to be the Fasio
Speaker 1: course there right, the.
Speaker 2: Which was it's an amazing property. It's an amazing property.
Speaker 1: So they regarded as one of one of the faz's
Speaker 1: best designs and probably his best publicly accessible design. But
Speaker 1: they've made the bold decision to just kind of let
Speaker 1: cal Frans go crazy on it, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious to see what he produces.
Speaker 2: He is he's also building Broomsedge, which is outside of Columbia,
Speaker 2: and that I think the plan is to have some
Speaker 2: preview play by the fall four And one of the
Speaker 2: cool things about that golf course is that it plans
Speaker 2: to have some some very accessible aspects to it for
Speaker 2: the public. While it's a private club, it will be accessible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So he's working on some interesting new build projects.
Speaker 1: And just as we talked about with Brian Schneider and
Speaker 1: Blake Conan, there is this new generation of architects coming
Speaker 1: up who have worked for years, made it through the
Speaker 1: recession by doing jobs for Corn Crenshaw, Tom Doak, Gil Hants,
Speaker 1: David McLay, kid Right, Ron Force, you know any number
Speaker 1: of architects who are getting more more jobs than the
Speaker 1: younger generation. These new newly emerging architects worked for them,
Speaker 1: and now they're getting some opportunities to go crazy on
Speaker 1: their own pieces of land. And I know from talking
Speaker 1: to Kyle Franz that he has a lot of ideas
Speaker 1: about where he wants to take the craft next. And
Speaker 1: so do I know whether I'm going to love everything
Speaker 1: he does at these courses? No, I don't know that
Speaker 1: because I haven't seen them, but I can almost be
Speaker 1: certain that it's going to be really interesting, really bold,
Speaker 1: and it's going to push in some new directions that
Speaker 1: we haven't seen golf architecture push recently. So looking forward
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 2: All right, you talked about this. One thing I'm super
Speaker 2: excited about is the renovation of Madina. Just being somebody
Speaker 2: from Chicago, it is. It is our real hope for
Speaker 2: major championship.
Speaker 1: The last hope of Chicago for the only major championship.
Speaker 1: Olympia Fields might have something to say.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think the USA has gone back. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, all right, Uh, Madina has a lot of
Speaker 2: things working as benefit obviously Chicago, but massive infrastructure to
Speaker 2: host any type of tournament, you know, Ryder Cup to
Speaker 2: US Open, and there are very few golf properties with
Speaker 2: as much space. And I am super excited to see O. C. M. Ogilvy,
Speaker 2: Kaking and Mead Uh they're you know, they're getting they're
Speaker 2: kind of similar to France Kyle Franz. They're getting. We're
Speaker 2: gonna see some of their first work come online. They've
Speaker 2: had the Shady Oaks project that's been really kind of
Speaker 2: quiet what people have said about it. They're building thirty
Speaker 2: six holes at fall Line. They have the Madina renovation
Speaker 2: that's coming online and it is, and then they have
Speaker 2: a project up in Minneapolis, and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: from from that perspective, it's super exciting to see what
Speaker 2: a you know, a died in the Wool Championship course
Speaker 2: that has like, you know, a big history of like
Speaker 2: we're just gonna like, we're going all in on what
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties Championship golf is, right hard hard like narrow fairways,
Speaker 2: bunkers around the greens, and it's going to be completely different.
Speaker 2: And hopefully there's a PGA Tour and a President's Cup
Speaker 2: around when they're supposed to host in twenty twenty six, hopefully,
Speaker 2: and we'll get to see a new architects groups idea
Speaker 2: of what champ Pachhip golf is. And I think that's
Speaker 2: super exciting. So that that one, to me is kind
Speaker 2: of a Homer pick, and uh I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1: All right. My homer pick is the shortiest course at
Speaker 1: at Bandon. I don't know if that's exactly homer since it's.
Speaker 2: Like a specific Northwestern right stick together?
Speaker 1: Yeah, am I in central California? It's Portland, Oregon in
Speaker 1: central California. No, no, no, oh well that oh no,
Speaker 1: that would be ridiculous to say that. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're only only reasonable takes about geography here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so us two Pacific northwesterns got to stick together,
Speaker 2: us Cascadiens.
Speaker 1: All right. I think I think that's it. From my end,
Speaker 1: we've kind of we kind of covered it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this, Uh well, we'll talk soon and uh and
Speaker 2: thanks for coming on and we can't wait for twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four and fresh golf courses. Thanks to everybody for
Speaker 2: a great year.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for.
Speaker 2: Listening to another edition of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode was edited and produced by Matt Russ's Thank
Speaker 2: you Matt. A quick reminder, I'm a procrastinator. I have
Speaker 2: done no holiday shopping as of right now. It's not
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