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 1: And when I find my ball in a brid egg.
Speaker 3: Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday fridagg Bride egg Lie,
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today. I am excited
Speaker 1: about this podcast. One of you know, something that made
Speaker 1: me really happy about the Masters was our creative director.
Speaker 1: I guess that could be his title. Cameron Herdis won
Speaker 1: the media lottery to play a gust National. Cameron's been
Speaker 1: with us for a few years now and is really
Speaker 1: responsible for making our long form videos on YouTube tick Our.
Speaker 1: You know, the design to see on a lot of
Speaker 1: our merchandise is Cameron's work, and he is a very
Speaker 1: very talented creative and he has He's also a golf
Speaker 1: architecture nut. Cameron's won the Leado Competition, the Alistair McKenzie
Speaker 1: Society Leado Competition. He's won that three times in his
Speaker 1: young life. He's actually banned from the competition now, which
Speaker 1: is kind of a bummer for him. So he's been
Speaker 1: very into golf architecture since a young age, and for
Speaker 1: him to get the chance to play Augusta National the
Speaker 1: Monday after the Masters was really cool. So he joins
Speaker 1: to chat about his experience, his thoughts on playing the
Speaker 1: golf course. For the first part of this podcast and
Speaker 1: then the second half, I'm joined by Brian Schneider, who's
Speaker 1: becoming one of the most in demand golf architects in
Speaker 1: the industry, and we talk about three golf courses that
Speaker 1: he's thinking a ton about right now. So we kind
Speaker 1: of just chat golf courses. This is going to be
Speaker 1: a heavy golf course architecture golf course pod with Augusta
Speaker 1: National and then the three golf courses that Brian Schneider's
Speaker 1: thinking about the most right now. So before we get
Speaker 1: into this podcast, let's talk about our friends at Maui Nui. Here,
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Speaker 1: All right, let's get to Cameron Heurdis on playing Augusta
Speaker 1: National and his thoughts on Augusta National. All Right, Cameron Hurtis,
Speaker 1: I would say you're our head of creative. I think
Speaker 1: that's your title.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: We're not big on titles here at Friday Golf. You
Speaker 1: spend a week trucking around the golf Augusta National. I
Speaker 1: mean and when I say truck and you're you're carrying
Speaker 1: around cameras. You're out there for basically like twelve hours
Speaker 1: a day, up and down the hills. What are your
Speaker 1: what are your Well, let's start this you while you're
Speaker 1: on here is you won the media Lottery, you played
Speaker 1: a guy to National on Monday. But I would love
Speaker 1: to hear what you've learned the last two years spending
Speaker 1: an immense amount of time at Augusta National with like
Speaker 1: just getting around in terms of like patrons and the
Speaker 1: golf course.
Speaker 4: It's it is one of those things where the more
Speaker 4: I felt much more comfortable this year working the Masters
Speaker 4: tournament as a photographer. You know, the big thing with
Speaker 4: media is that you do not get inside the ropes
Speaker 4: access to the tournament, which I think is part of
Speaker 4: the fun part, that's part of the challenge, but it
Speaker 4: also means that you need to learn like the best
Speaker 4: places to get shots of players, especially when the crowds build,
Speaker 4: especially when Rory and Bryson are playing in back to
Speaker 4: back groups or in the same group. So it's just yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I felt so much more comfortable this year.
Speaker 4: You just figuring out spots to get to routes. And
Speaker 4: I think the most important thing too, is like and
Speaker 4: it it was important late and late Sunday, was just
Speaker 4: being able to get to certain points quickly if you know,
Speaker 4: like a group might be coming up seventeen and then
Speaker 4: for example, Rory's playing fourteen and fifteen on Sunday and
Speaker 4: you're trying to get places quickly, just like knowing if
Speaker 4: there are shortcuts just getting around. I just I felt
Speaker 4: like I learned a lot the last the first year
Speaker 4: and then this year, just being able to move quickly
Speaker 4: from point to point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like a great example of that is like sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to walk further to get somewhere faster, like
Speaker 1: the direct route is so often not the fastest route.
Speaker 1: But like to me, like getting to the if you
Speaker 1: want to watch fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and it's like busy,
Speaker 1: you have to get to the left side of fifteen
Speaker 1: because then you could watch every single one of the holes.
Speaker 1: But if you're not on the left and it's hard
Speaker 1: to get from amen corner to the left side of fifteen, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a very challenging way to get place to get
Speaker 1: to and you can do all kinds of things and
Speaker 1: it you know, the key though, is getting across and
Speaker 1: waiting at the one place the you know, I find
Speaker 1: it's harder. It takes longer if you wait at the
Speaker 1: layup area of fifteen to get across then it does
Speaker 1: if you just walk around sixteen.
Speaker 4: This is this is the big thing that I that
Speaker 4: I remembered when you move from practice rounds to the
Speaker 4: tournament days is the crosswalks and how important it is
Speaker 4: and how yeah in a lot of cases, because all
Speaker 4: of a sudden there's groups back to back to back,
Speaker 4: whereas like practice round days, a lot of times you
Speaker 4: have gaps and the crosswalks is open and it's easy
Speaker 4: to get across the holes. But like even getting from
Speaker 4: say the right side of nine back to the press building,
Speaker 4: A lot of times I would just I would just
Speaker 4: hoof it around nine Green and the one te which
Speaker 4: is it's annoying because it's like a big hill to
Speaker 4: get up there, huge hell. But you know, if there's
Speaker 4: a group coming up nine and a group teeing off one,
Speaker 4: you might be sitting there for like ten minutes potentially,
Speaker 4: like waiting for both of those crosswalks to clear. So
Speaker 4: it's just stuff like that. Like, yeah, a lot of times,
Speaker 4: like you said, you have to go around to get
Speaker 4: somewhere more quickly.
Speaker 1: So you played Augusta National and we're not gonna go
Speaker 1: shot by shot here.
Speaker 4: We don't want to.
Speaker 1: Nobody, nobody needs that. Pj's raising his hand in the background.
Speaker 1: He wants that. But uh, we're you're very into golf architecture.
Speaker 1: I reference this in the intro. You've won the Leado Competition.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit about that at the end.
Speaker 1: You've won the Leado Competition three times, you're banned from
Speaker 1: the event, which I think is humorous. But what was
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, like I I had like some
Speaker 1: takeaways when I got to like, you know, you you've
Speaker 1: covered the event now two years, you spent a ton
Speaker 1: of time on site. What was the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: you picked up from being inside the ropes and playing
Speaker 1: Augusta National that you hadn't picked up outside the ropes
Speaker 1: or on TV.
Speaker 4: I will start by saying, I intentionally haven't read your
Speaker 4: piece or Brendan's piece from the last two years, just
Speaker 4: trying to keep a clear mind. So if I like
Speaker 4: hit some things that you guys talked about, I apologize.
Speaker 1: Brendan wasn't on this podcast talking about his round. Oh
Speaker 1: really yeah, Okay, so you know they had nobody has
Speaker 1: heard of this for two years since me and Garrett
Speaker 1: talked about my round, so this is kind of fresh.
Speaker 4: It's uh, I mean, it's just a strange experience. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of spots on the golf course where you
Speaker 4: feel like you can get close to or approximate like
Speaker 4: an approach shop. But the there's a lot of spots
Speaker 4: when you're finally inside the ropes that it feels really strange.
Speaker 4: But I think I think the biggest thing I picked
Speaker 4: up on and I wrote about it was just how
Speaker 4: relentless the golf course feels from a golf perspective, and
Speaker 4: how you just constantly feel like you're on a razor's
Speaker 4: edge of like complete disaster at all times. And I
Speaker 4: think when you're also struggling to hit shots, that gets
Speaker 4: amplified a lot, and the danger areas sort of they
Speaker 4: amplify in your mind. But yeah, it's just it's just
Speaker 4: like this constant, constant sort of fear, and it's it's
Speaker 4: tough to like relax and just like make a swing
Speaker 4: a lot of times because you see short, you see long,
Speaker 4: you see left, you see right, these these spots where
Speaker 4: you know getting down into is just going to be
Speaker 4: almost impossible if you miss.
Speaker 1: As has Brandal Shambli Golf Channels brand simply coined it,
Speaker 1: sensory blitz creak.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really it is.
Speaker 1: And the thing that's ironic about it is that it
Speaker 1: does all that and what you just said is perfect
Speaker 1: is like, you know, it makes it really hard to
Speaker 1: like swing the club freely, and it's like the the
Speaker 1: number one thing that you have to do there is
Speaker 1: play with freedom, because that's the only way you're going
Speaker 1: to achieve the shots. They're achievable shots, all of them
Speaker 1: are achievable. But to achieve them, there has to be
Speaker 1: freedom in the swing because you can't just like guard
Speaker 1: against something out there because then when you're guarding against it,
Speaker 1: the margins are so so thin.
Speaker 4: And I that's what I love about it is you
Speaker 4: can always see there's always a route to the hole, right,
Speaker 4: Like you can see the shot. A lot of times
Speaker 4: you're like, yeah, if I just get the ball to
Speaker 4: hear you, it'll feed in and it rewards great shots.
Speaker 4: And we see that every year, Like guys shoot sixty
Speaker 4: five sixty six pretty consistently if you're swinging the club
Speaker 4: well during the tournament, like it is possible, but a
Speaker 4: lot of but and so you can see those shots,
Speaker 4: but it's just yeah, if you're not free, if you're
Speaker 4: if there's any doubt in your mind, it's just it's
Speaker 4: so difficult to find find those spots.
Speaker 1: It's funny that that played out. So what you just
Speaker 1: said like explains the tournament so well in the sense
Speaker 1: of like so Rory and Bryson on Sunday, like there's
Speaker 1: probably just a lot more rattling around in each of
Speaker 1: their brains. Both of them are like pretty noted whether
Speaker 1: or not, you know, like Bryson talked about somebody asked
Speaker 1: him if he could do YouTube video at Augusta. What
Speaker 1: do you do? He said, like the history and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Rory McElroy's got an incredible history mind, Like he could
Speaker 1: probably like rattle off European Tour Player of the years
Speaker 1: for twenty five straight years. You know, incredible history mind.
Speaker 1: You think about like they they had this more more
Speaker 1: stuff on their mind and they're playing really pretty good golf.
Speaker 1: Bryson obviously was struggling with approach but scoring, scoring incredibly well,
Speaker 1: and they go shoot seventy three, seventy five and it's
Speaker 1: just a matter of like probably just not being as
Speaker 1: free as they were the first two days or first
Speaker 1: three days. You know, it's an amazing thing. Was there
Speaker 1: a particular hole that stood out that you you hadn't
Speaker 1: you know, maybe given enough.
Speaker 4: Credit to I would say probably the fifth hole. And
Speaker 4: I think part of that is because I actually it
Speaker 4: was the first hole I played really well and I
Speaker 4: did make a birdie on that hole. It's a great
Speaker 4: verd but it's like, which was like a top five
Speaker 4: have golf moment for me in my life? Probably, But yeah,
Speaker 4: that's a hole where a you don't you probably don't
Speaker 4: go to it a lot as a patron or even
Speaker 4: as a media member because it sort of sits isolated
Speaker 4: up on the ridge.
Speaker 1: It's agree that I started a personal rule that I
Speaker 1: don't go to the fifth hole because I just don't
Speaker 1: want to get stuck back there.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think I think there was one day, it
Speaker 4: was Thursday or Friday, where I realized I just completely
Speaker 4: missed it the day before. I just never walked up
Speaker 4: to it, and like, yeah, it's kind of hard to
Speaker 4: get to and you get stuck, and there's really no
Speaker 4: reason to be down the right side of it unless
Speaker 4: you're entering from the south gate, I guess. But it's
Speaker 4: a really cool hole. And and I think the benefit
Speaker 4: of playing the member tees on that hole is that
Speaker 4: it allows you when you hit, if you hit a
Speaker 4: good drive, to carry the bunkers down the left, which
Speaker 4: I think is important. I think it's something they've lost
Speaker 4: from the Championship teas, Like I think I think the
Speaker 4: fact that it's supposed to set up more like a
Speaker 4: road hole, you should be able to access the far
Speaker 4: left side of the fairway because especially to that back
Speaker 4: right Sunday pin, it really allows you to hit more
Speaker 4: up the length of the green versus across the false front,
Speaker 4: and then the pin is like two paces from the
Speaker 4: back edge. I mean, it's like this one of the
Speaker 4: scariest pins on the golf course probably so I think
Speaker 4: that hole. I haven't watched it as much recently, but
Speaker 4: it certainly clicked in my head more I think when
Speaker 4: I played it and hit a couple of nice shots
Speaker 4: on it as well.
Speaker 1: That's I think that they did a renovation. It would
Speaker 1: have been maybe twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Ish for the fifth, yeah, some less, something like that.
Speaker 1: And they obviously moved the tea's way back. That was
Speaker 1: part of their kind of moving a road, and it
Speaker 1: reintroduced the hill, which I think is great for the
Speaker 1: tea shot. It is, and I think the longest hitters
Speaker 1: can carry the bunker. But if you think about those
Speaker 1: bunkers in place of if you're thinking about the seventeenth
Speaker 1: at the old course, the you know, in place of
Speaker 1: the old course hotel and kind of the diagonal, like
Speaker 1: they just that's what they're those bunkers are supposed to be.
Speaker 1: And the bunkers don't mimic that strategy very well. They're
Speaker 1: just kind of like there and very penal, and it
Speaker 1: it just it doesn't promote any sort of thought of
Speaker 1: like I'm going to try and get close to it,
Speaker 1: because there's no there's no reason to be anywhere near
Speaker 1: them because of how far I feel like, how far
Speaker 1: they eat in and how they didn't incorporate. Like, to me,
Speaker 1: the most interesting part of that hole is the ridge
Speaker 1: on the left. Yeah, and that ridge on the left
Speaker 1: is just not even in play people players.
Speaker 4: It would be amazing to see players challenging the left
Speaker 4: side because if you miss left, like you're gone, you're
Speaker 4: gone down the hill, down the ridge, you know. With
Speaker 4: the current setup, and I think they kind of I
Speaker 4: think with the way they push the t back, it's
Speaker 4: sort of just straightened the hole more. And so guys just, yeah,
Speaker 4: you just play right of the bunker because from I mean,
Speaker 4: those bunkers feel like they're about twenty feet deep. So
Speaker 4: in most cases they're so deep it's kind of just
Speaker 4: an auto layup probably anyway, So guys just don't even
Speaker 4: want to challenge them, so they play out to the
Speaker 4: right and then they've got sort of a mid iron
Speaker 4: in but it doesn't set up. But to me, like
Speaker 4: the green makes so much more sense when when you
Speaker 4: approach it from the left you can see sort of
Speaker 4: the strategy and how it lengthens the green for you
Speaker 4: on that approach out, which I think is really neat.
Speaker 1: It is such a cool green. And one of my
Speaker 1: perchase is always I go basically from four, two, six,
Speaker 1: so I skip and I go behind six, which is
Speaker 1: a great place to watch golf. And I always think
Speaker 1: when I'm sitting behind six green of that ridge on five,
Speaker 1: because you know, it really just like sits right above
Speaker 1: the six screen, and how if that ridge was cleared
Speaker 1: and that there was golf, Like how amazing of a
Speaker 1: viewing place it would be to be watching five from
Speaker 1: down low up.
Speaker 4: You know. And yeah, I love looking from six up
Speaker 4: the hill to five bunkers. I mean they're like so
Speaker 4: high up, like it's it's an impressive ridge, Like it's
Speaker 4: significant and it's unique to the property. It's the only
Speaker 4: hole that really does that, and it would be cool
Speaker 4: to if you could see that across there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's like it also like obscures how
Speaker 1: cool the property is that there's this like back high
Speaker 1: ridge that you only play one hole on and.
Speaker 4: If you don't realize it, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because it's so isolated the way it is like it
Speaker 1: it with the trees in the ornamentals. It kind of
Speaker 1: like you're kind of like in your own world over there.
Speaker 1: It's like it feels like a separate wing to the house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but really it's just like it would be like if
Speaker 1: you put it in like a housing term, it would
Speaker 1: be like if you were on like a hallway above
Speaker 1: your family room. You know, like if you had like
Speaker 1: a open hallway above your family room and there was
Speaker 1: like another room that like that you're looking down on,
Speaker 1: and now it's just like it's just walled. It's just
Speaker 1: a wall, right, and so you don't get that feel
Speaker 1: of like being able to look down.
Speaker 4: And but it is like one of the cooler holes
Speaker 4: on the golf course, I sort of realized as I
Speaker 4: played it too, which so there's that there's aspect to.
Speaker 1: It's kind of I think it's probably the hole that
Speaker 1: Mary's like dramatic topography with a with a super dramatic green.
Speaker 1: It's the only hole that kind of has like both
Speaker 1: the green and the topography amped up to like a ten.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, those greens are those pins are terrifying.
Speaker 4: I mean the back ones are terrifying you because that's
Speaker 4: the thing too, is the green is perched on the
Speaker 4: edge of that ridge basically, and it just I mean,
Speaker 4: I think there's maybe one or two times in my
Speaker 4: life I've seen someone actually missed the bunker and go
Speaker 4: all the way down the hill because it's I mean,
Speaker 4: it's you're basically gone at that point. So that Sunday
Speaker 4: pin feels like it's just hanging off a cliff essentially.
Speaker 4: Uh So, yeah, that's a that's a cool spot.
Speaker 1: In terms of shots, what were your three favorite individual
Speaker 1: golf shots out there? Not like that you hit that,
Speaker 1: like you enjoyed the process of hit from like the
Speaker 1: way you just looked at it and.
Speaker 4: Saw it. I would say it's funny. The one that
Speaker 4: I was dreaming about once, uh once I got selected
Speaker 4: when I won the media lottery was the second shot
Speaker 4: into eight, I think, which is really funny because you
Speaker 4: can't see the green, like if you hit a good drive,
Speaker 4: it's completely blind. But I am a sucker for blind shots,
Speaker 4: and so I hit a Finally, I hit a good
Speaker 4: drive on that hole, which was nice. So, I mean,
Speaker 4: you can carry the bunker pretty easily from the member tees.
Speaker 1: You're in the rory zone.
Speaker 4: Then I was.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 4: I think I was past the past the crosswalk. I
Speaker 4: think I had like one ninety into the like to
Speaker 4: the pin to that middle pin, which was a really
Speaker 4: neat pin. Also like I don't like right on that ridge,
Speaker 4: right on the ridge sort of like so I ended
Speaker 4: up about fifteen feet short and you're sort of putting
Speaker 4: across the ridge, so it's sort of like a double
Speaker 4: breaker and it just it's right on top. But yeah,
Speaker 4: that for whatever reason, mostly because of the green, I
Speaker 4: guess that was a hole where I really wanted to
Speaker 4: hit a good drive and have a decent angle into
Speaker 4: that green, which I did. I set up perfectly. I
Speaker 4: was up the right and then you run up to
Speaker 4: the top and there's like one pine tree in the
Speaker 4: distance and essentially the top of one of those mounds
Speaker 4: that you can use to like wine up your second shot.
Speaker 4: And I hit a great shot, and then I thought
Speaker 4: I pulled it a little bit too much, and I
Speaker 4: was really concerned that I was gonna miss miss the
Speaker 4: hills left, which like also would be a fun shot
Speaker 4: to hit. But my caddy Bussy was standing up on
Speaker 4: top of the hill and he gave me the thumbs up,
Speaker 4: which was very exciting because I knew I was gonna
Speaker 4: have an eagle putt on it, which was great. That
Speaker 4: was a good one.
Speaker 1: You didn't make it, did you.
Speaker 4: I didn't make it. I left it like I hit
Speaker 4: a good putt. I left it a probably six or
Speaker 4: eight inches short because it kind of runs away after
Speaker 4: the hole. It's a little bit scary. Uh, let's see
Speaker 4: what other shots well. So, I mean fourteen was another
Speaker 4: approach that I'd always wanted to hit and just had
Speaker 4: a harend. I mean at that point, I was like
Speaker 4: really struggling, and uh, fatigue.
Speaker 1: I read you're right up. You have a righte up
Speaker 1: on the website. But I think you said fatigue was
Speaker 1: setting in. I mean, you've probably like I want to
Speaker 1: do this justice. If I had to activate, I would
Speaker 1: activate that. You walk with like twenty five pounds of
Speaker 1: camera gear, forty to fifty thousand steps a day when
Speaker 1: we go to when we go to the Masters.
Speaker 4: That's the thing. And like you're so amped the whole
Speaker 4: week that you don't even you're not even tired, So
Speaker 4: you're not sleeping a whole lot either. No, And I
Speaker 4: think and I realized that, Yeah, my legs at that
Speaker 4: point I wasn't swinging the driver well, which is pretty
Speaker 4: common for me, but at that point my legs were
Speaker 4: completely gone, and I sort of I snap hooked it
Speaker 4: into There's those two big fire throat bushes in between
Speaker 4: fourteen and fifteen, like right right in the middle of
Speaker 4: the trees. So I hit in the first one, took
Speaker 4: a drop, hit a tree. It dropped into the second
Speaker 4: fire thorn bush about fifty yards further up. So then
Speaker 4: I took another drop and at this point, like I
Speaker 4: think they were just going to pick up my ball,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I want to hit a shot
Speaker 4: into the screen, right like I've been dreaming of hitting
Speaker 4: a shot into the screen into this Sunday pin. So
Speaker 4: I hit a punch out. It just caught another branch.
Speaker 4: Of course, drops down about seventy yards from the green,
Speaker 4: which is actually kind of a perfect distance. So I
Speaker 4: had like a seventy yard pitch to that Sunday pin
Speaker 4: which sort of sits in that bowl, and hit one
Speaker 4: of the best shots of the day. One hopped it
Speaker 4: onto the back slope and spun it almost into the
Speaker 4: hole to like tap in, which was for like my
Speaker 4: eight or nine or ten or whatever I made on
Speaker 4: the hole, which is great. That was a good one.
Speaker 1: That's one of my big regrets about by round was
Speaker 1: I blue my drive on I'm thirteen into the trees
Speaker 1: right and had to lay up. And then on fourteen
Speaker 1: I blew it into the trees right and I hit
Speaker 1: the green, but it was like not the type of
Speaker 1: shot that I wanted to hit into the green, you know,
Speaker 1: like where I was like coming from in the trees,
Speaker 1: and just it's such.
Speaker 4: A hard T shot. No, it's such an awkward T shot. Fourteen, Like.
Speaker 1: Rory talked about how he had trouble seeing the lines
Speaker 1: on seven, fourteen, and seventeen all going that direction, and
Speaker 1: they like, if you think about them, they all play
Speaker 1: like along the side of the hill and you have
Speaker 1: the camber, and it makes it makes the fairways feel
Speaker 1: so small even you know, and obviously seven and seventeen
Speaker 1: are pretty small.
Speaker 4: It's one of my favorite parts of Augusta And something
Speaker 4: I picked on picked up on the first time I went,
Speaker 4: was just how well the routing is constantly sort of
Speaker 4: working slightly against whatever the slope is. In order to
Speaker 4: hold the fairway, you've got to either take an aggressive
Speaker 4: line or work the ball correctly into that slope. Whether
Speaker 4: it's two, whether it's seven, fourteen, seventeen. Yeah, they all
Speaker 4: sort of work slightly one direction.
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing that doesn't get talked about
Speaker 1: a ton about Augusta National.
Speaker 4: Is that the.
Speaker 1: The routing. How often you play along side hills, Like
Speaker 1: when you get a kind of I wouldn't call it
Speaker 1: a heaving, maybe a heaving site you could, you could
Speaker 1: probably throw it in that category. Thats you want is
Speaker 1: like so often you're playing up and down and over
Speaker 1: and there. The magic of it is that the topography
Speaker 1: allowed for so many holes to play along the slope
Speaker 1: like fourteen, like seventeen seven.
Speaker 4: I would recommend anyone to just look at look at
Speaker 4: the topography map, the topo map of Augusta, of the property,
Speaker 4: and just you just to me, the holes make so
Speaker 4: much more sense when you see them on top of
Speaker 4: the topo lines because you can see how, hey, how
Speaker 4: the waterways were working down the property in these valley,
Speaker 4: these natural valleys that are created, like between two and
Speaker 4: eight for example, and how those both feed in two
Speaker 4: sort of feeds, both directions off the left and the
Speaker 4: right as it works down the hill. But to me,
Speaker 4: you just see these subtle little movements one direction or
Speaker 4: the other, and how they just so cleverly like routed
Speaker 4: the holes along and against those slopes. What's your last
Speaker 4: shot that you oh man, let's see. I uh, I
Speaker 4: mean I ended up. I hit a poor drive on
Speaker 4: three and I had like one twenty five. I was
Speaker 4: left of the bunkers and I tried to get key
Speaker 4: with it, so the ball came all the way back down.
Speaker 4: I was basically in the Scotti zone, which I feel
Speaker 4: like you kind of just have to hit that shot
Speaker 4: to realize how freaking insane it is, Like how hard.
Speaker 1: I feel like they make it look so easy.
Speaker 4: It's I mean, I think the Sunday pin on three
Speaker 4: like might be top three scariest championship pins in golf,
Speaker 4: like it's and to me, that green again, it's like
Speaker 4: I've walked around at a bunch now, like at the tournament,
Speaker 4: but when you're standing on it, it felt so much
Speaker 4: smaller to me standing on that green on the green
Speaker 4: than off the green.
Speaker 1: I pretty much reave putts with my feet, and to me,
Speaker 1: the third green, my feet felt like on fire when
Speaker 1: I stepped on them because it's so severe too.
Speaker 4: This was so severe. And that was one thing that
Speaker 4: I noticed this year was and it's not like I
Speaker 4: did notice it, but when you're standing on say four
Speaker 4: t or you're walking down the right side of four
Speaker 4: and you look back at three, I mean you can
Speaker 4: see the entire third green just facing you, and you
Speaker 4: realize how much it's pitched away from the approach shot.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so you feel like you have about a
Speaker 4: half an inch spot to land your chip shot on three,
Speaker 4: which I didn't quite do. And then I will say, actually,
Speaker 4: as a follow up, one other shot was I ended
Speaker 4: up on the middle tier on nine to that front
Speaker 4: left pin. I'm Bussy. My caddie, who's like a local
Speaker 4: legend and is an amazing green reader, gave me a
Speaker 4: pretty fantastic read. But that, honestly was probably one of
Speaker 4: the best shots I hit. Was that lag put to nine,
Speaker 4: which still went about two and a half feet by,
Speaker 4: But uh, yeah, that was kind of a cool one
Speaker 4: as well. Yeah, that.
Speaker 1: You had a good caddy, huh.
Speaker 4: I think Bussy was great. Brendan had him. I don't
Speaker 4: think you had him, did you. I didn't have them.
Speaker 4: You didn't have him.
Speaker 1: Paid worth his weight on the greens I hear.
Speaker 4: I'm one hundred percent. I like shudder to think about
Speaker 4: what it would have happened. Hey, if I had been
Speaker 4: reading those greens by myself and be if there had
Speaker 4: been some I mean, I'm sure there's a few guys
Speaker 4: out there that can read the greens well. But it
Speaker 4: was pretty clear. And the interesting thing too, was that
Speaker 4: he was clearly struggling to read some of the new greens,
Speaker 4: like fifteen. He knows the greens so well in his
Speaker 4: head that he gave me a read on fifteen and
Speaker 4: it just like didn't quite do what he thought I
Speaker 4: was going to do. And I mean that was a
Speaker 4: green that got rebuilt last year, which was kind of
Speaker 4: an interesting little note that I had from that round.
Speaker 1: Also, that's fascinating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were, and they were sixteen was was quite
Speaker 4: firm too, like, so I was sort of I was
Speaker 4: picking his brain a little bit on that green too.
Speaker 4: What it what it changed?
Speaker 1: But the leather was he got breezy, breezy hot that
Speaker 1: had to be die, that had to be intense.
Speaker 4: It was hot, and it was blowing like a steady
Speaker 4: twenty from the south, which meant that six was straight
Speaker 4: down wind, and I will tell you I hit a
Speaker 4: good Yeah, I hit a good shot. It was right
Speaker 4: at the pin, landed about two feet over the green,
Speaker 4: and shot forty yards basically up between the tea's on
Speaker 4: seven And normally, like during a tournament, there'd be patrons
Speaker 4: there to like stop the ball, but there was nothing
Speaker 4: to stop it, and I ended up about forty yards
Speaker 4: over the green on six. Yeah, where'd you end up
Speaker 4: after that?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 4: You know what, I hit a phenomenal chip and yeah,
Speaker 4: I kept it on the top tier maybe about twelve
Speaker 4: or fourteen feet, which was actually a really good shot
Speaker 4: from there.
Speaker 1: I think if I were playing from forty yards over
Speaker 1: that green to that backpin, I think i'd play for like,
Speaker 1: just like if you're thinking about it directionally coming from back,
Speaker 1: I'd play for like short left fringe, just like be
Speaker 1: like yeah, playing to just like barely like creep it
Speaker 1: into the fringe so I could put the next one.
Speaker 4: I knew that it was like one of those shots.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're out there, I'm assuming like, hey, this
Speaker 4: might be the only time I play. I'm going to
Speaker 4: try these shots, and I know that if I don't
Speaker 4: pull the shot off, it might end up forty yards
Speaker 4: down the front of the green, but I hit it
Speaker 4: perfectly and it like just had the right amount of
Speaker 4: spin and kept it on that top tier, which was
Speaker 4: which was huge.
Speaker 1: All Right, personal question, who's the first person you called
Speaker 1: after your round?
Speaker 4: You know what? With the time difference because my parents
Speaker 4: are on the West coast too, I think the first
Speaker 4: person I called was my girlfriend Jess actually, but she
Speaker 4: was very excited. She actually, I mean I was out.
Speaker 4: She was texting me Sunday because she was I mean,
Speaker 4: everyone was watching on Sunday. So she even she was
Speaker 4: at home, home alone and she turned the golf on
Speaker 4: Sunday and was watching, So she was very excited about that.
Speaker 1: It was wild how many texts I got from like
Speaker 1: random people that don't watch golf that watch Sunday.
Speaker 4: It really I know you and Brandon talked about it already,
Speaker 4: but it really hit and Trevor hit a nerve. I think, yeah,
Speaker 4: it just like sort of hit hit everyone. So it's cool.
Speaker 4: It's been cool to just like I've seen some friends
Speaker 4: since then too, and it's just been cool to talk
Speaker 4: about and relive all the moments Sunday and Monday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was I was talking to a random dad
Speaker 1: at my town's Easter egg hunt about it, and I
Speaker 1: mean it was just fun to chat again about I
Speaker 1: think it'll be a tournament we talk about for a
Speaker 1: long long time. What any grand takeaways from this year's tournament? Yeah,
Speaker 1: You're always a take factory, you know. Yeah, You've got
Speaker 1: the most takes at the company that nobody hears.
Speaker 4: Nothing but hot takes. You know.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 4: It was tough, like you are working, but like I'll admit,
Speaker 4: I'm a Rory fan. It was incredibly emotionally exhausting, and
Speaker 4: I mean there are points where I'm just like looking
Speaker 4: at other fans and we're just like shaking our heads, right,
Speaker 4: I wrote about uh yeah. I mean Brendan talked about
Speaker 4: after he hit the T shot on twelve like it
Speaker 4: was like an exodus. Everyone was just like walking up
Speaker 4: the hill, right, And my mind was like thinking, should
Speaker 4: I just go try and get a spot on eighteen? Now?
Speaker 4: Should I just like set up camp and like get
Speaker 4: an angle as he's coming up eighteen because he's obviously
Speaker 4: gonna win. And watched him hit his T shot and
Speaker 4: lay up on thirteen, and then when he dumped it,
Speaker 4: it was like just had to throw the entire game
Speaker 4: plan in the trash and like figure out what to do.
Speaker 4: I will say I think Rory got jammed by a
Speaker 4: catch basin on thirteen, if I'm being completely honest. There's,
Speaker 4: like he said he was on an upslope. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: there's I found the spot. It's right near Raysed Creek.
Speaker 4: But there's like this big drain that sits right down there,
Speaker 4: and I think his ball just collected into it and
Speaker 4: he ended up on the front of it on the upslope,
Speaker 4: which it was kind of yeah, I mean it's like
Speaker 4: kind of an awkward shot. I think he kind of
Speaker 4: got jammed on thirteen.
Speaker 1: Not gonna lie, I don't think he had a good
Speaker 1: shot whether or not he got jammed by the catch facin,
Speaker 1: but it could say the shot a little more difficult.
Speaker 4: It is, And like that's the thing about Augusta is
Speaker 4: in the back of your mind and you're thinking, if
Speaker 4: I pull this a little bit, I'm gonna have forty
Speaker 4: feet down the hill and like I'm gonna have to
Speaker 4: hit the most incredible two putt like to get out
Speaker 4: of here with a par right, And so you just
Speaker 4: start to maybe like, yeah, shade a yard or two right,
Speaker 4: a yard or two right and then all of a
Speaker 4: sudden you make, yeah, like an uncommitted swing, and that happens.
Speaker 1: I think the frustrating thing about it is like if
Speaker 1: you the greens are I think, like what make Augusta
Speaker 1: so amazing and and in the pinnable locations they are
Speaker 1: very pudtable, but the slopes are so severe. And what
Speaker 1: drives me crazy is how like people don't take away that, like, okay,
Speaker 1: like if you have heavy contouring that creates these great
Speaker 1: like locations on greens that then in that combined with
Speaker 1: some width, is going to make some really interesting strategy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody takes away that the greens, Like we end up
Speaker 1: with people softening, Like I mean, all the clubs in
Speaker 1: the Northeast are just not all I'm stereotyping. So many
Speaker 1: historic clubs in the South is in the Northeast are
Speaker 1: softening their greens for green speed because they want to
Speaker 1: have fast greens. And it's like, but the heavy contouring
Speaker 1: is what makes the greens special and dynamic and creates
Speaker 1: that like what you just said, where in the back
Speaker 1: of your head you shade because you know what if
Speaker 1: I miss this left, like all of a sudden I'm
Speaker 1: going to you know, have this really hard to put.
Speaker 4: That's the thing. And you and Trevor hit on it
Speaker 4: and it I think you have to play it to
Speaker 4: realize it. But like you hit a hit. I was
Speaker 4: back left on four, I was on the green, but
Speaker 4: I had like, you know, forty five feet from the
Speaker 4: top shelf to the bottom shelf. I hit an incredible
Speaker 4: lag putt and it went six feet by, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I just hit a great shot. And you but you're
Speaker 4: just constantly grinding, like you know, you rarely ever have tappens,
Speaker 4: which I think Trevor said that it just like doesn't
Speaker 4: happen out there.
Speaker 1: That I think that's the thing. Cameron, you play tournament
Speaker 1: golf as a kid. To me, the most important thing
Speaker 1: as a tournament golfer is like stress management. It's one
Speaker 1: of the especially when you play a four day tournament
Speaker 1: like it, you know, when you can keep stressed off
Speaker 1: you and like stress generally comes in the form of
Speaker 1: when you're trying to save pars and four to four
Speaker 1: to eight, four to ten foot putts really are like
Speaker 1: huge like areas of stress. Yeah, and Augusta, it just
Speaker 1: feels like you always having those whether it's for par
Speaker 1: or bogie or worse, especially.
Speaker 4: When you're not hitting the ball, if you're not hitting
Speaker 4: it to the correct spots. Yes, it's just the stress,
Speaker 4: just the magnitude of the stress just amps up on
Speaker 4: every single hole, because all of a sudden, if you
Speaker 4: miss into the wrong spot, whether it's a chip or
Speaker 4: a putt, getting down in two sometimes just feels like impossible,
Speaker 4: like you can't do it.
Speaker 1: So you made three birdies, yeah, five, eight, and where else?
Speaker 4: Sixteen? Back right? Yeah, which your least favorite hole too.
Speaker 4: It's a great tournament hole and it's well positioned in
Speaker 4: the round. And I will say, like I know they
Speaker 4: set that pin. It was like a Nicholas anniversary celebration anniversary. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a great pin. I wish that they would sort
Speaker 4: of alternate, honestly, Like you've got to hit you've got
Speaker 4: to hit a good shot to the funnel pin also
Speaker 4: obviously to catch the funnel correctly, but you've got to
Speaker 4: hit such a good shot to sort of hold that
Speaker 4: back right section on sixteen as well. And I hit
Speaker 4: a yeah, I hit a great shot on that whole.
Speaker 1: It's amazing when you heard Rory after talk about how
Speaker 1: in the back of his head, like he knew he
Speaker 1: had a birdy opportunity at fifteen, but sixteen he was
Speaker 1: really worried about because it was gonna be hard to
Speaker 1: that back right pin. He's like, because it wasn't in
Speaker 1: the traditional spot. And I was, you know, I was,
Speaker 1: I was pretty worried about about hitting a shot back there.
Speaker 4: It's it's a difficult one. You have to flight it correctly.
Speaker 4: The spin has to be right because it'll feed off
Speaker 4: right and it'll going along is not great, and then
Speaker 4: obviously it'll funnel down to the left as well. But yeah,
Speaker 4: they've really stuck with the low left pin for a
Speaker 4: long time. I feel like they used to mix it
Speaker 4: up a bit a bit more, and I do hope
Speaker 4: they kind of bounce around on six team going forward,
Speaker 4: because I think that's actually a really interesting ben on Sunday.
Speaker 1: It would be would be fun. It creates, it changes
Speaker 1: the dynamic of the finish where sixteen seventeen eighteen are
Speaker 1: just like hold on exactly for dear life, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of where then thirteen fourteen, fifteen you got to
Speaker 1: you gotta make hay. Yeah, totally all right, Cameron, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on thank you for all all your
Speaker 1: work during the Master's Week. You know, you make all
Speaker 1: of our our visual visual things we do pop. So
Speaker 1: thank you and I couldn't have been happier that you
Speaker 1: got the chance to play.
Speaker 4: Well. Thanks. I think I think the whole team. It
Speaker 4: was a team effort Master's Week, but I was just
Speaker 4: just happy to be out there. There's not much better.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's head over to Schneider. Big thanks to
Speaker 1: Cameron for coming on the pod. It is like, literally
Speaker 1: his least favorite thing to do is to appear on
Speaker 1: the podcast. He likes to be he likes to be
Speaker 1: the man behind the scenes. He does not like to
Speaker 1: be out front. But he's always very well thought out.
Speaker 1: So big thanks to Cameron for coming on. Before we
Speaker 1: get over to Brian Schneider, let's talk about our friends
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Speaker 1: That's Redroostergolf dot com. And let's get to Brian Schneider.
Speaker 1: All right, Brian, Well come on, I am. I'm excited
Speaker 1: to chat with you. This is our I feel like
Speaker 1: we talk every year, but new segment that we're going
Speaker 1: to do on this podcast. And this is a I
Speaker 1: appreciated when I texted you your response because that's the
Speaker 1: whole point of it. This is a moving target. It
Speaker 1: changes all the time. What are the three courses that
Speaker 1: are rattling around your brain the most right now? And
Speaker 1: obviously you texted me something along the lines of like
Speaker 1: my three at this point are going to be different
Speaker 1: than the three I tell you tomorrow.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's hard to narrow it down to three.
Speaker 3: And it's uh yeah, it's definitely a moment in.
Speaker 1: Time, exactly exactly. Its completely changes based off the day
Speaker 1: of the week. I think with this, you know my
Speaker 1: answer today would be different tomorrow. So I think that's
Speaker 1: what makes us fun is it doesn't mean it's just
Speaker 1: an end all, be all my three favorite It's just
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking about now. So let's get into it.
Speaker 1: You're a busy man. I don't want to keep you around.
Speaker 1: I know you got you got a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in the hopper and and we're going to be excited
Speaker 1: to see some of your new stuff coming online this year.
Speaker 1: But what is one course that you are thinking about
Speaker 1: a lot?
Speaker 3: So I'm I've been fortunate to see a few virgin
Speaker 3: pieces of land in the last week or so, so
Speaker 3: I've got a couple of a few topo maps laying
Speaker 3: around that I've been playing with, one of which you know,
Speaker 3: the site is kind of a series of big ridges
Speaker 3: and valleys, and my mind immediately went to Seminole for that.
Speaker 3: So I've been thinking a lot about Seminole, which is
Speaker 3: not something I do often. You know, Seminole is it's
Speaker 3: a pretty wonderful place, and you know, it's a very
Speaker 3: very good golf course for people like you who play
Speaker 3: golf very well. It's less enjoyable for people like me
Speaker 3: who don't play as well as you do. So I've
Speaker 3: got a lot of respect for the design. It's a
Speaker 3: brilliant piece of work, the way that Ross took advantage
Speaker 3: of the features of that site. And it's full of
Speaker 3: great golf holes, you know, but it's kind of like
Speaker 3: Pine Valley and that is full of great golf holes
Speaker 3: that are you know, almost unanimously you know, designed and
Speaker 3: especially maintained in a way that makes it a real challenge.
Speaker 3: So it's a place I respect. It's a wonderful place.
Speaker 3: It's not a place I love. But from a routing perspective,
Speaker 3: some of the challenges of this map I've been playing with.
Speaker 3: You know, my mind went to Seminole and how Ross,
Speaker 3: you know, took a venue and there's the ridge on
Speaker 3: the ocean and the ridge a few hundred yards inland,
Speaker 3: and how many of the holes play pretty gracefully up
Speaker 3: and down across those ridges. And some of the best
Speaker 3: holes on the property are the ones that really take
Speaker 3: advantage of the topography in unusual ways, like the fourth
Speaker 3: and the sixth and the third. So seminals one that's
Speaker 3: been popping around my head just this morning and today
Speaker 3: as I'm playing around with this map.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of directions to go with Seminole. It
Speaker 1: is obviously it's one of the more revered golf courses.
Speaker 1: I also think it's it's one of the most like
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great golf course, but I can't
Speaker 1: think it falls in the Chicago golf bucket of golf courses,
Speaker 1: where like people will say it's overrated, because it's not.
Speaker 1: I don't think like it. It's overwhelming, overwhelmingly like awe
Speaker 1: striking the first time you play it. But as you
Speaker 1: you know, the property, for I would say sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the property is fairly mundane. I mean, you have,
Speaker 1: as you alluded to, those two big ridges and in
Speaker 1: between it's it's kind of just relatively flat land and
Speaker 1: low yeah, and low right, it's not not exactly like.
Speaker 1: I don't think you would take that site and say
Speaker 1: it's extraordinary, but the golf that was produced on it is,
Speaker 1: and it is completely how those ridges are used are used, right.
Speaker 1: I think I compared it to like a salad bowl
Speaker 1: years ago I wrote it's a big salad bowl, and
Speaker 1: the two ridges are the forks like your tongs that
Speaker 1: you put in the bowl just to prepare the salad,
Speaker 1: and they're kind of on the edges. I think that's
Speaker 1: the description I use to give people kind of a
Speaker 1: more idea of what the site is like. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, you have these high ridges
Speaker 1: on the outside that are like almost like the edges
Speaker 1: of the bowl. And it is amazing how how many
Speaker 1: holes interact with those ridges, right there are very there's
Speaker 1: only what probably two or three that that don't have
Speaker 1: some connection to one of those ridges.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whether you're whether it's a tee you're teeing off
Speaker 2: from a pie down to the flats, whether you're playing
Speaker 2: through the flats up to a green halfway up, or
Speaker 2: you know the holes that play.
Speaker 3: On top that are the best ones and off the sides. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's pretty remarkable. And you know also the way the
Speaker 3: holes change direction over and over. I mean it's a
Speaker 3: windy place. You're right in the ocean, so there's always
Speaker 3: a breeze. But I don't know that you're playing two
Speaker 3: holes in the same direction. There are more than two
Speaker 3: holes in the same direction at all out there, and
Speaker 3: you're changing direction constantly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the ever present wind there, Like a calm day
Speaker 1: in South Florida in that location, with it right up
Speaker 1: on the ocean, I mean, a calm day is still
Speaker 1: going to be like a club and half too club wind.
Speaker 1: I think that's just it just makes it accentuates the
Speaker 1: gulf so much. Right, if you put that place in
Speaker 1: a very unwindy place, let's just call Central Ohio, I
Speaker 1: don't think it would have the same reverence as it
Speaker 1: does because of the natural conditions and elements that it
Speaker 1: has on a day in, day out. It's a reliable wind.
Speaker 1: And I think like that's the thing, like when when
Speaker 1: you're able to create a course that moves around as
Speaker 1: much as it does, it just is like a it's
Speaker 1: a constant pressure, right. I always think that, like great
Speaker 1: golfers have the ability to play these like stress free
Speaker 1: rounds and great architecture has a way of compiling stress.
Speaker 1: And if you think about yourself as a human being
Speaker 1: like stress, eventually you can only take on so much
Speaker 1: stress before you crack. And I think that's what kind
Speaker 1: of a round of golf does. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a course that's better at accumulating stress on
Speaker 1: you than seminole. I think like ones that I would
Speaker 1: think of in a similar vein like mirrorfield, would be
Speaker 1: one that accumulates stress like you just like nothing is
Speaker 1: you don't look at anything and think that's overly hard.
Speaker 1: There are a few shots, like I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: playing seventeen and the winds coming off the ocean, that
Speaker 1: could be overly hard. Like for the most part, none
Speaker 1: of the shots feel overly hard, but the accumulation of
Speaker 1: them over the course of eighteen holes, you are going
Speaker 1: to make a mistake and then you are going to
Speaker 1: get in a really difficult position. I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the tough things as an architect, having those
Speaker 1: two ridges, does that they're big ridges? Does that make
Speaker 1: it difficult because it can maybe make it feel monotonous.
Speaker 3: Some of the holes blend together a bit, you know,
Speaker 3: the ones that are are playing east west. You know,
Speaker 3: there are some of those holes that follow a similar pattern. Definitely,
Speaker 3: it's hard to distinguish two from eleven. For instance, Mierfield
Speaker 3: has a little bit of that too, But.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the The.
Speaker 3: Mention of Chicago Golf Club is interesting because you look
Speaker 3: at both of those sites and just you know, if
Speaker 3: you're analyzing the architecture, it's like, man, those guys got
Speaker 3: the most out of those two sites. You know, to
Speaker 3: your point, you wouldn't necessarily look at either one of
Speaker 3: those sites. Are Seminal is a cool site. I mean,
Speaker 3: you're on the ocean, you've got sand dunes, but there's
Speaker 3: a bunch of that property that was swamp Essentially, It's like, wow,
Speaker 3: he really did the best he could with that site.
Speaker 3: Chicago's that way certainly. You know, it reminds me a
Speaker 3: lot of Pinehurst too. And you know, the greens at
Speaker 3: both of those places tend to be elevated and crowny
Speaker 3: and when they're firm and in the wind. You know,
Speaker 3: it's nothing new that wind and firm greens are the
Speaker 3: things that make golf really hard for good players. But
Speaker 3: I think you know, as long as players hit it now,
Speaker 3: as far as players hit it, those two things are
Speaker 3: more important than ever. And you know, there aren't many
Speaker 3: days you go to seminole where the greens aren't firm
Speaker 3: and it's not blowing, so you know, it is always
Speaker 3: a test for good players.
Speaker 1: What amazes me I was talking to somebody about this
Speaker 1: other day, how these guys that are members there, these
Speaker 1: older guys, like that's the course they play all the time,
Speaker 1: but they figure out how to get around it. Like
Speaker 1: I don't understand how Like if I played there every day,
Speaker 1: it would just kick my ass. Eventually I think I
Speaker 1: just give up. But these guys play there all the time,
Speaker 1: and it's like these these guys that are seventy years old,
Speaker 1: like scratch out seventy fours. I think there is like
Speaker 1: an aspect of that golf course where the vast majority
Speaker 1: of people don't play it enough to really you know,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people will never play it, but
Speaker 1: like you know, the people that do play it one
Speaker 1: or once or twice every five years, like you know, rare.
Speaker 1: Like I do think that golf course similar to Pine
Speaker 1: or so number two. It if you know where to
Speaker 1: manage your misses, you can start to get around it
Speaker 1: a little bit more like they've the first couple of times,
Speaker 1: you just have no chance. You're gonna rip balls off greens.
Speaker 1: You're gonna miss long and in places that you just
Speaker 1: can't miss, even though you're twenty feet from the hole,
Speaker 1: Like you know that. I think there is like an
Speaker 1: aspect of that golf course mismanagement is like the number
Speaker 1: one thing you have to do because you're going to
Speaker 1: miss out there with the wind and from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of the best courses of that way.
Speaker 3: I mean Pine Valley certainly is that way. You know,
Speaker 3: the first time around, you're just in awe of everything
Speaker 3: and you feel like you can't miss anywhere, And the
Speaker 3: more you get to know it, you realize, wow, there's
Speaker 3: there's some space out here if you can control your ball.
Speaker 3: You know where to hedge. Lido is very much that
Speaker 3: way too. You know, the first visitors to let O
Speaker 3: where it's like, wow, that's a really hard golf course.
Speaker 3: After you've played it a bit, you start to learn.
Speaker 3: But yeah, because you missed it over there when the
Speaker 3: pin's there, you had no chance, But you have seventy
Speaker 3: yards of room in that direction to make your second
Speaker 3: shot that much easier.
Speaker 2: The Leado. That's not uncommon among some really good golf
Speaker 2: courses that people think are really hard.
Speaker 1: The Leado is such an interesting golf course. I love
Speaker 1: that it is now like that resort is going to
Speaker 1: play it. It's you know, obviously it's like a limited
Speaker 1: amount of resort play at sand Valley a day on
Speaker 1: the lead, you know. I love that it's like coming
Speaker 1: clear that like the resort guests don't like the lead
Speaker 1: out and the like. It's like playing it one time.
Speaker 1: It's really hard.
Speaker 2: It's like the old course.
Speaker 3: I mean to me, it's it's more like the Old
Speaker 3: Course than any course I've played, because it's super vague
Speaker 3: off the te's. You know, you go to Saint Andrews
Speaker 3: and if you've never walked the golf course before, you're
Speaker 3: just you know, for the next four hours, you're just
Speaker 3: gonna hit it with your caddy points, and Liedo's got
Speaker 3: a lot of that.
Speaker 2: It's like, just hit it there, and there's nothing.
Speaker 3: Terribly fun about doing that until you get to learn
Speaker 3: what's on the other side of that ridge that you
Speaker 3: can't see over, what the green looks like. And the
Speaker 3: more you get to know it yourself, the more engaging
Speaker 3: it gets, but the first time around it's you know,
Speaker 3: I remember going to Lido shortly after they opened and
Speaker 3: went in the pro shop and was talking to the
Speaker 3: guys in there, and you know, like, man, everybody loves it.
Speaker 3: People are just raving about it. And I was like,
Speaker 3: I think most of those people are lying, you know.
Speaker 3: They they've been told that this is going to be
Speaker 3: some great things, so they've feel compelled to to rave
Speaker 3: about how great it is. But I don't think most
Speaker 3: people the first time around haven't any idea what they're doing,
Speaker 3: and certainly don't appreciate all the subtlety. And that's very
Speaker 3: much the case of the Old Course. I feel bad
Speaker 3: for people that go to St Andrews or go to
Speaker 3: Scotland and you know, play seven the top one hundred
Speaker 3: courses in a week and you know, fly through St
Speaker 3: Andrews play the Old Course, because you can't possibly enjoy
Speaker 3: and appreciate it the way you could if we all
Speaker 3: had the luxury to play there.
Speaker 1: Often, I feel like the Leado's it's such a local
Speaker 1: knowledge place. It is a golf course that the first
Speaker 1: time around you're just like hitting it to places, as
Speaker 1: you said, very vague off the tea great way to
Speaker 1: describe it. But then if you start to understand where
Speaker 1: you're trying to get to with different whole locations, you
Speaker 1: can effectively, you know, you can effectively create situations where
Speaker 1: you hit regularly into gathering pins. I always think of
Speaker 1: Tom's quote. I think that this was in the third
Speaker 1: podcast I ever did with them. It was about stream
Speaker 1: song Blue. I asked, I think the question was like,
Speaker 1: what what do you wish people could know about this
Speaker 1: golf course? He said, I wish there were signs on
Speaker 1: the golf course that I could put on contours that
Speaker 1: when you're on the wrong side of a contour it
Speaker 1: says you have hit it in the wrong spot, because
Speaker 1: like every contour has a helping side and a hurting side.
Speaker 1: But like at the Lido, it's a great example of
Speaker 1: if you get to a certain position off this vague
Speaker 1: t shot, if you know, it's kind of like an
Speaker 1: open ended question, if you can get off the blocks
Speaker 1: and have like a great like I find writing to
Speaker 1: be like this, if you can get if I could
Speaker 1: get out of the blocks with a great opening paragraph,
Speaker 1: which is always my kryptonite as as an author, is
Speaker 1: that I just can't get started but if you get
Speaker 1: off the blocks, then everything falls into place right. And
Speaker 1: the lido's so similar to this, Like if you can
Speaker 1: get it into the right spot, if you know where
Speaker 1: the whole location is is, you get into the right spot,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it becomes like a very friendly
Speaker 1: golf course. But if you're in the wrong spot, it
Speaker 1: is a very challenging golf course. And I do think
Speaker 1: like the value of a great, great caddy out there
Speaker 1: is so yea, so huge. I had. I had a
Speaker 1: caddy this summer out there that like he told me,
Speaker 1: like I generally feel like I have like a pretty
Speaker 1: He was like, he told me to hit it like
Speaker 1: thirty yards short of a green and I was like really,
Speaker 1: and he was like thirty yards short, thirty yards left
Speaker 1: and I think it was on seven h and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, I'm gonna do it, and it fed
Speaker 1: right to the hole, and you know, like then like
Speaker 1: from that moment on, I was listening, you just get
Speaker 1: into good spots and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: can you can take advantage of the cop Yeah, that.
Speaker 3: Has some really good caddies there, But you're right, it's
Speaker 3: one thing to get over the vagueness of the t
Speaker 3: shots like on twos, like trust me, there's a bunch
Speaker 3: of space on the other side of that ridge, just
Speaker 3: hit it over there. But the greens are the thing
Speaker 3: like you and that takes more time to get to
Speaker 3: know the greens. But it's like, oh the pins back
Speaker 3: left today, I can't go anywhere near the I've got
Speaker 3: to miss here and better off being twenty yards short
Speaker 3: and left than anywhere right of center.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's what makes Gulf fun too. I mean
Speaker 2: as a member, you know, that's what you want in
Speaker 2: a golf courses.
Speaker 3: You know, a the variability from day to day that
Speaker 3: those sorts of that, that sort of architecture gives you.
Speaker 3: But also just taking time to figure out a golf
Speaker 3: course and hopefully you don't know the best way to
Speaker 3: play a whole the first time you play it, and
Speaker 3: hopefully the best way to play a whole changes from
Speaker 3: day to day. I don't know that Seminole's quite that way.
Speaker 3: I think Seminole is a bit more prescriptive, just like
Speaker 3: you know, those greens are just hard, and if you
Speaker 3: know there's there's a preferred angle where you're playing down.
Speaker 3: The link to some of those greens, and if you
Speaker 3: miss that ten yards right or left, playing across the
Speaker 3: green a little bit is a much harder shot.
Speaker 1: This is kind of what I was getting at with
Speaker 1: the big ridge topography. Does that just generally lend itself
Speaker 1: to prescriptive golf more so than the smaller, like more
Speaker 1: human size contoury.
Speaker 3: Probably, you know. I I have learned about my own
Speaker 3: taste that I kind of like flat golf. You know,
Speaker 3: to me, the best you know, not necessarily tea shots,
Speaker 3: but the best approach shots to me are the ones
Speaker 3: that are you know, level or downhill a little bit,
Speaker 3: because then I can play short of the green and
Speaker 3: let it run on and I can watch that. I
Speaker 3: don't really like playing twenty or thirty feet up to
Speaker 3: a green. I don't enjoy that shot that much because
Speaker 3: you can't see what the ball does when it lands.
Speaker 4: You're and you're.
Speaker 2: Limited in the shots you can play. You know, if
Speaker 2: you're relatively flat, like it's St.
Speaker 3: Andrew's or Hollywood's one of my favorite places to play,
Speaker 3: a lot of those shots are just kind of ground
Speaker 3: level and you can hit any shot you want. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I think you do have a little more freedom to
Speaker 3: play a variety of shots on flatter ground. When you
Speaker 3: get into hilly ground, the land is telling you more
Speaker 3: what kind of shots you want to hit.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to number two. What's uh, what's
Speaker 1: your second course that you're thinking a lot of?
Speaker 3: So one of the other topo maps that's laying in
Speaker 3: front of me reminds me of a few of my
Speaker 3: favorite places, and I'm gonna lump. I'm gonna cheat and
Speaker 3: lump three places together.
Speaker 1: I get I get accused of doing this all the
Speaker 1: time on the pod because you like to talk. Well,
Speaker 1: I just like to jam stuff together so that you know.
Speaker 1: I do this for our five things about majors. This
Speaker 1: is where I get accused of having like eight things
Speaker 1: that I make into five.
Speaker 2: It's like the one bite pizza review.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you you doing this. I appreciate you turning
Speaker 1: the tables on me.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 3: The three I'll say are Garden City and Walton heath
Speaker 3: Old and wood all Spot, which to me are all
Speaker 3: very closely related cousins. I get all three built on
Speaker 3: relatively flat ground. You know, there aren't big hills at
Speaker 3: any of those places, and the architecture embraces that.
Speaker 2: At those places.
Speaker 3: You know that so many of the greens at all
Speaker 3: three of those places are just laying on the ground,
Speaker 3: you know, subtle tilts left right, right to left away
Speaker 3: from you in some cases, and the features aren't you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's some stuff built up above ground, but a
Speaker 3: lot of the bunkers are just like sunken down in
Speaker 3: the ground. And this, this site that I'm playing with
Speaker 3: this map, reminds me so much of that that there's
Speaker 3: just this beautiful, gentle movement.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like plus or minus seven or eight feet.
Speaker 3: Sandy, gravelly soils that drain really well, and I think
Speaker 3: it would lend itself really well to that style of architecture.
Speaker 3: So as I'm you know, playing with the map and
Speaker 3: working on these routings, I'm finding places, you know, green
Speaker 3: sites that are just quiet on the ground, not necessarily
Speaker 3: on a high, necessarily in a pocket, but just kind
Speaker 3: of an open space on the ground and tilting and
Speaker 3: an inconmuniate direct I think that's really cool old school architecture.
Speaker 3: And you know, Garden City. Unfortunate to work at Garden
Speaker 3: City and have spent a lot of time there over
Speaker 3: the years, and you know, a couple of years ago
Speaker 3: they were looking at adding a couple of back teas,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking to myself, you know, who are these four?
Speaker 3: And I asked, what was you know, every spring they
Speaker 3: host the Travis you know, the Great Amateur event, and
Speaker 3: I was like, what was you know, what did the
Speaker 3: Metalist shoot last year? And I think the best score
Speaker 3: was like a seventy or seventy one, which is amazing
Speaker 3: to me because that golf course, now, we've spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time over the past ten years really restoring
Speaker 3: it to the photographs in nineteen thirty six that was
Speaker 3: in the last hosted an amateur. That was their last
Speaker 3: major event. So the golf course now, with the exception
Speaker 3: of a few back teas and a few forward tees,
Speaker 3: it's almost identical to the golf course they played in
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty six. You have the best amateurs in the country,
Speaker 3: in the world or hovering around power or over power,
Speaker 3: and that the architecture is timeless.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I love that sort of architecture. And the golf course
Speaker 3: is playing firmer than it has in a long time.
Speaker 3: They're superintendent Mike mcleeby has just been pounding saying into
Speaker 3: the greens and the approaches and you can hit the
Speaker 3: shots you want to hit. But that architecture is really
Speaker 3: simple but still holds up really well to the best
Speaker 3: players in the game.
Speaker 1: I think that those greens are just so hard to
Speaker 1: hit into you you always I feel like you generally
Speaker 1: know where to land shots, Like you know, when you're
Speaker 1: that golf course, with the way it's set up distance wise,
Speaker 1: you get a lot of wedges in your hands, and
Speaker 1: I think like the best thing you can do to
Speaker 1: combat wedges is greens that run away, like variety, varying
Speaker 1: the greens because and this is always why I've taken
Speaker 1: away from Garden City is like Garden City, the more
Speaker 1: you play it, the more worried about where you land wedges.
Speaker 1: It becomes so much of a well, this is one hundred,
Speaker 1: this green tilts away. I'm not sure how much it
Speaker 1: tilts away. Do I need to land this ninety four?
Speaker 1: You start to think you're just it gets you thinking
Speaker 1: because you're not used to it. You know, every hole
Speaker 1: feels like you need to land it a different number,
Speaker 1: and you get frustrated because like you'll hit a wedge
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, it's perfect, and then you have
Speaker 1: to off the back of the green because it pitches
Speaker 1: away like it just gets a bad bounce or it
Speaker 1: takes a big first hot because you get that unpredictability
Speaker 1: you know, that comes with just such a wide variety
Speaker 1: of greens like that. It's just magical how those greens
Speaker 1: sit on the ground too. I think that that's one
Speaker 1: of the other things, is like it's so hard to
Speaker 1: decipher from the fairway what's going on at the green
Speaker 1: and where you want to land it.
Speaker 2: And it's it's about more than just the number two.
Speaker 2: It's about yes, your tey. You know.
Speaker 3: It's like, Okay, I've decided now I want to land
Speaker 3: this ten yard short. But am I taking a full
Speaker 3: swing and trying to land it as soft as I can?
Speaker 3: Or am I knocking this down?
Speaker 2: So it's about.
Speaker 3: Trajectory as well as where you want to land it, which,
Speaker 3: you know, the more you're thinking about what kind of shot,
Speaker 3: no how far you want to hit it, the more
Speaker 3: compelling golf gets, and you're thinking about what happens after
Speaker 3: the you know, once the ball lands, what's it going
Speaker 3: to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really fascinating it. You know, another
Speaker 2: thing we're.
Speaker 3: Doing there over the past couple of years we've been
Speaker 3: you know, they've got these sand dams, which are kind
Speaker 3: of a result of top dressing and you know, buzzing
Speaker 3: around with the sand pro working the sand into the
Speaker 3: green after you've verified it leaves a little ring around
Speaker 3: the green and it's it's subtle the first year and
Speaker 3: slowly builds every year you do that. So we're removing
Speaker 3: these sand dams around the greens, which you know now
Speaker 3: they're really nondescripted. But at the same time, we're adding
Speaker 3: short grass around some of the greens. So you know,
Speaker 3: they used to have you know, they were never terribly
Speaker 3: well defined, but some of them had the definition of
Speaker 3: rough leading in to them and around the backs, and
Speaker 3: we're wiping that out in a lot of places and
Speaker 3: just adding short grass. So now the greens you're just
Speaker 3: floating in space and a sea of short grass. So
Speaker 3: I think it's getting even harder to get your bearings
Speaker 3: and understand where just how far away is that it
Speaker 3: feels uncomfortable because you know, the green is just literally
Speaker 3: floating in short grass.
Speaker 2: It's a cool look.
Speaker 1: It's also you get the number right, you get the
Speaker 1: one hundred yards, but if you play a course, it's
Speaker 1: one of those courses where you might play it more,
Speaker 1: it might get more frustrating because like you're thinking one
Speaker 1: hundred yards, like, well, is that one hundred yards with
Speaker 1: the green with the whole twelve paces on or sixteen
Speaker 1: paces on? And that makes a huge difference because the
Speaker 1: front part of the green might be different than the
Speaker 1: back part of the green, you know.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, then again, you know the greenkeeper has done
Speaker 3: a great job affirming up the approaches now so you
Speaker 3: can hit all those shots and it's like that's the
Speaker 3: opposite of seminal where it's like you can hit any
Speaker 3: shot you want and none of them are easy. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got to have touch, and you've got to have
Speaker 3: judgment and you've got to execute. Yeah, it's not telling
Speaker 3: you what to do at all. It gives you a
Speaker 3: lot of freedom to play whatever shot works best for you,
Speaker 3: which to me is the best kind of golf.
Speaker 1: Were you did you work on the Woodhall SPA project
Speaker 1: with Tom?
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's been one of the golf courses that I
Speaker 1: haven't seen this long, fascinated me the most and been
Speaker 1: high up on on on list of courses that I
Speaker 1: really want to see on any given year. What there's
Speaker 1: you know, you lumped in with Garden City. There's also
Speaker 1: seems like there's a lot of like big scale moments
Speaker 1: out there, like with bunkers impactful.
Speaker 3: You know, you'll appreciate it because you're a drone guy
Speaker 3: and you you like that perspective being up and you
Speaker 3: can see more.
Speaker 2: And Garrett would love it.
Speaker 3: But when you're on the ground, it's a relatively flat place,
Speaker 3: so so some of those features that look great from
Speaker 3: ten feet in the air, you're not really seeing the
Speaker 3: full depth of them, you know. And that wood all
Speaker 3: spots fame for the par threes and the fifth is
Speaker 3: probably the boldest of the bunch, but it's the skinny
Speaker 3: little green that's surrounded by bunkers all around, and they
Speaker 3: must be i don't know, ten twelve feet deep with
Speaker 3: straight vertical faces. But the tea's about the same level
Speaker 3: as the green are just slightly above, so you're not
Speaker 3: seeing the floors of the bunkers at all from the
Speaker 3: tee and it's not until you're up by the green
Speaker 3: and probably in one of those markers that you appreciate
Speaker 3: how deep they are. There are a few moments around
Speaker 3: the golf course where Yeah, there are things that are
Speaker 3: kind of in your face. And it's one of the
Speaker 3: coolest looking golf courses in the world. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: just a very the texture is great, and the natives
Speaker 3: and the sand and the green turf and the trees,
Speaker 3: and it's really a beautiful, kind of rugged, masculine looking
Speaker 3: golf course.
Speaker 2: It's really a cool looking golf course.
Speaker 1: Does England have the most aesthetically pleasing golf not on
Speaker 1: the Ocean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of beautiful golf in England, I mean,
Speaker 3: and probably the most dwell.
Speaker 2: America is tough to be.
Speaker 3: Just because it's so big and we have so many
Speaker 3: golf courses as a destination, you know, as a as
Speaker 3: a overseas destination for American golfers, England has such a
Speaker 3: wide variety of you know, great parkland, heathland and links. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of beautiful golf courses in England, the stuff around. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you catch the the heathling courses around London the
Speaker 3: right time of the year when the heather's in bloom, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's a gorgeous style of golf that you don't
Speaker 3: really get to experience anywhere but England.
Speaker 1: All Right, what's what's your third course that you've been.
Speaker 4: Thinking of.
Speaker 1: Or fifth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's counting?
Speaker 1: I made this three. I made this three because I
Speaker 1: thought three was really hard to pick.
Speaker 2: Three is sorry, and I cheated. I'm not taking any back.
Speaker 2: I'm not taking any back.
Speaker 3: The other one is just a project I'm kind of
Speaker 3: in the middle of, so I'm thinking of it a
Speaker 3: fair bit right now. And that's at a place that
Speaker 3: nobody knows of in Connecticut called Silver Spring Country Club
Speaker 3: in Ridgefield, which you know isn't far from Greenwich or Westchester,
Speaker 3: but just far enough, you know, Like Ridgefield's a beautiful
Speaker 3: little town, and the golf course sits in a space
Speaker 3: that's largely surrounded by untouched forest and a really peaceful place,
Speaker 3: a great membership, a lot of really wonderful people there,
Speaker 3: and a really pleasant golf course and a nice piece
Speaker 3: of land. I don't really love touting my own work
Speaker 3: this way, but it's yeah, you asked the question. So
Speaker 3: you know, it's a project that we did nine holes
Speaker 3: this year, the back nine. Well we'll get into the
Speaker 3: front nine this coming fall. You know, it's a nice routing,
Speaker 3: so I'm not really changing that too much, but you know, greens,
Speaker 3: bunker's teas have been tinkered with a lot over the years,
Speaker 3: and we're we're tinkering a lot more and kind of
Speaker 3: changing the style of the golf course. Will keep in
Speaker 3: the bulk of the routing intact. But it's been a
Speaker 3: really fun project, I think, trying to give it its
Speaker 3: own style and create some some funky features that freak
Speaker 3: people out a little bit when we first built them,
Speaker 3: but I think are going to be a lot of
Speaker 3: fun to discover and play over time. That's been a
Speaker 3: really fun project and something I've got to wrap up
Speaker 3: a little bit this spring and then get back to
Speaker 3: in the fall for nine more holes.
Speaker 1: What's it like, you know, changing completely changing, you know,
Speaker 1: like the golf course. Everybody's joined there because they seemingly
Speaker 1: like the golf course. So you know, as you said
Speaker 1: mege a funky, provocative and really like, you know, not
Speaker 1: changing the routing, but changing the te's, greens, fairways, bunkers.
Speaker 1: That's going to completely change the golf course. What's it
Speaker 1: What's it like overhauling a place? I imagine that when
Speaker 1: you open, you aren't going to have one unanimous approval
Speaker 1: from the club, like you know, from from the members
Speaker 1: standpoint because golfers hate change more than anything in the world,
Speaker 1: you know, But what what do you kind of like
Speaker 1: think about while you're changing it and balancing that idea
Speaker 1: of like, the membership joined this other place that I'm
Speaker 1: completely overalling.
Speaker 2: It's a really good point and a point I make often.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like you said, the members joined that place
Speaker 3: for a reason, presumably because they really like the golf course,
Speaker 3: and getting them to buy into something completely new isn't
Speaker 3: always easy, which you know, frankly, most of the work
Speaker 3: that I do on older golf courses like Garden City
Speaker 3: or Hollywood or other places I work is restoring.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like you've changed this over the years. It was
Speaker 3: really cool one hundred years ago. Let's just put that back,
Speaker 3: and let's put that back as faithfully as we can.
Speaker 3: And then if people don't, you know, if people don't
Speaker 3: like that sort of change, you just blame the dead
Speaker 3: guy and say, well, this isn't me, that's what he did,
Speaker 3: and that's a little more acceptable. When you start changing things,
Speaker 3: you open yourself up to more criticism because my opinion
Speaker 3: is not necessarily better than anyone else's. I'm the one
Speaker 3: being paid to make all those changes, so somebody values
Speaker 3: my opinion. But it's a very different thing and I
Speaker 3: haven't done a lot of that.
Speaker 2: You know, we did some of that.
Speaker 3: Atlantic in Philly a couple of years ago, and I
Speaker 3: think that went over reasonably well. So there's some players
Speaker 3: that hate that too. As long as more people love
Speaker 3: it then hate it, then you're okay, I guess. And
Speaker 3: if you can replace the members that threaten to leave,
Speaker 3: you're in a good spot.
Speaker 2: But it is a challenge.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're taking something that a lot of people
Speaker 3: love and have gotten to know for a long time.
Speaker 3: And you know, they were giving a lot of tours
Speaker 3: this fall as we were doing the work, and members
Speaker 3: that come out and say, oh, this is a completely
Speaker 3: different hole.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to play this now. And that's
Speaker 2: kind of the.
Speaker 3: Idea that you're going to have something fresh to play
Speaker 3: and hopefully that's fun and exciting, and hopefully that excitement sticks.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like discovering something new can be fun as long
Speaker 3: as people like it, and hopefully that lasts. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's so much of building a golf course, you know,
Speaker 3: and people ask about a Barnwell, it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: we just built the kind of golf that we like
Speaker 3: to play, and then you hope that other people like
Speaker 3: to play that kind of golf too.
Speaker 2: And this is the same thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, I'm just building something I think is
Speaker 3: really cool and something I would like to play. I
Speaker 3: think this hole is going to be more fun now
Speaker 3: than the version you had before. Hopefully you like what
Speaker 3: I like. In two years from now you're all really
Speaker 3: happy with it, or enough of you are happy with it.
Speaker 3: The club is still in a good space, and you've
Speaker 3: got a bunch of other people that want to play
Speaker 3: and join and to fit a good tracker good of that,
Speaker 3: So hopefully that holds for at least a few more projects.
Speaker 1: That's my philosophy with like the podcast, people are like,
Speaker 1: how do you figure out what to talk about? Well, like,
Speaker 1: I just talk about stuff I'm interested in, and I
Speaker 1: figure there's thousands of other people that are interested in
Speaker 1: it as well. So I think, you know, take that, like,
Speaker 1: if I like to play this type of golf, then
Speaker 1: I think other people will like to play this type
Speaker 1: of golf. Is a is a generally good philosophy. I
Speaker 1: think like one of the challenges, like I think something
Speaker 1: that I find is fascinating is like country clubs just
Speaker 1: like struggle with chefs. Right, so country like anybody that's
Speaker 1: ever been around the country club there they wrote to
Speaker 1: they rifle through chefs. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that people it's probably like a good place to work.
Speaker 1: Country club is good, good place to be a chef.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, you have to cook like the staples,
Speaker 1: Like there has to be a stake, there has to
Speaker 1: be like and one of the struggles is like it's
Speaker 1: hard for chefs to feel creatively they have their creative
Speaker 1: itch scratch because like it's a menu that like people
Speaker 1: want to go to the club and know what's on
Speaker 1: the menu, and chefs naturally want to be inspired into
Speaker 1: cooking what they want to cook and try new things
Speaker 1: and experiments. So it's this culture that kind of runs
Speaker 1: counter And I think like one of the things with
Speaker 1: country clubs, having you know, played a country club in
Speaker 1: a different point in my life, is like they're just everybody.
Speaker 1: There's such creatures of habit. Like they play the golf
Speaker 1: course the exact same way they you know, they set
Speaker 1: up the golf course. A lot of golf courses if
Speaker 1: you look in America over the last you know, six decades,
Speaker 1: have removed more optionality from their golf course than they've
Speaker 1: then adding. I think in the last you know, ten
Speaker 1: fifteen years, we've been in a period of them adding optionality.
Speaker 1: Whether or not they use it or not is a
Speaker 1: great question. But like, you know, if you put the
Speaker 1: back tea on a middle tea box one day, someone's
Speaker 1: bound to come in and be like, what, why was
Speaker 1: the back tea up on this hole?
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, and handicap in America plays in that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like, oh, I've got to I've got
Speaker 3: to post my score and I've got to play from
Speaker 3: the same set of teas.
Speaker 2: It's like, just go out and have fun. Like fun
Speaker 2: is good, but it is funny.
Speaker 3: You know, you change a golf hole and you add
Speaker 3: a bunker in the fair way, and then somebody comes
Speaker 3: out and says, well, I'm going to drive it in
Speaker 3: that bunker every day, Like that's right where I hit
Speaker 3: my drive.
Speaker 2: It's like, then, don't hit driver.
Speaker 3: To do something else, avoid the bunker. But it's funny
Speaker 3: to watch people play a golf course after it's reopened
Speaker 3: when you've made changes, because yeah, they've just tried to
Speaker 3: play it the way they always did, and the golf
Speaker 3: course isn't reacting the same way, and that can be
Speaker 3: frustrating for some people.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things this happened, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is just my I just feel
Speaker 1: like one of the things that's happened over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years is that golf courses have been more
Speaker 1: and more it's just like drivers okay almost everywhere. And
Speaker 1: I think, like I play a lot different golf courses
Speaker 1: now than I played when I was like but I
Speaker 1: just think that in a way we've gotten away, like
Speaker 1: from I think part of this is like balancing fun factor,
Speaker 1: Like people think, oh, it's like we have to be
Speaker 1: able to hit driver everywhere, it's fun. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of this is destination golf getting wideer friendlier,
Speaker 1: which I think overall is a good thing. But I
Speaker 1: do think like the idea of like holes that you
Speaker 1: might hit a three iron have become like this, like
Speaker 1: black sheep. It's like, oh, I can't hit driver, Like
Speaker 1: this isn't fun. But like I do like when I
Speaker 1: think about like putting together a round of golf and
Speaker 1: managing a golf course, like sometimes like holes where you
Speaker 1: have to hit a three iron it's okay, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's just it could be me
Speaker 1: personally too, just being aggressive because I don't like care
Speaker 1: what I shoot anymore. You know, could be that too,
Speaker 1: But I do feel like it's it's become such a
Speaker 1: like with new golf courses, and the general trend is
Speaker 1: like the hole, you almost have to be able to
Speaker 1: hit driver on a hole. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: feel that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the Nationals are great, Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 4: I mean it.
Speaker 3: Architecturists trended towards big, wide fairways, lots of space, find
Speaker 3: your ball, keep moving.
Speaker 2: Angles.
Speaker 3: Theoretically, the National is a great example. There are a
Speaker 3: handful of holes of National where it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: if you want to hit it more than two to eighty,
Speaker 3: you know, the fairway stops here. If you want to
Speaker 3: hit it further than this, you've got to go over
Speaker 3: there instead to that offset fairway.
Speaker 2: You got a terrible line in from over there.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: We tried to do some of that at Old Barnwell,
Speaker 3: Like you can hit driver if you want, Like, there's
Speaker 3: a fairway out here for you to hit driver. But
Speaker 3: we're going to shove you to a place where you
Speaker 3: don't want to be coming in from and make your
Speaker 3: second shot that much harder. And National has a handful
Speaker 3: of holes that do that so well that you know,
Speaker 3: the fairway just ends, you know. The ninth of Mirfield
Speaker 3: is a great example of that too. The bunker's up
Speaker 3: the left and that broken ground. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: your your your direct line to the hole ends right here,
Speaker 3: you know, And it's a distance where you're still a
Speaker 3: long way from the green. If you want to get
Speaker 3: closer to the green, you can try and squeeze it
Speaker 3: up there, but you don't. You may not like where
Speaker 3: you end up.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't. I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I don't think golfers like it when you just cut
Speaker 3: them off and there's no place to hit driver.
Speaker 2: But I don't know that this is a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's like I think it's hole,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, And I think if you don't do that,
Speaker 1: it's hard to get longer irons at a reasonable yardage
Speaker 1: on like a smaller parcel land, Like, how how else
Speaker 1: are you going to get a seven iron six iron
Speaker 1: into a long hitter's hand other than cutting off the
Speaker 1: fair away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, make a you know, if there's a four hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy yard part four, you're not hitting five irons
Speaker 3: into those holes today, no.
Speaker 1: Which is kind of insane.
Speaker 4: I played it.
Speaker 2: People hate long part threes, you know.
Speaker 3: They tend to hate long part threes too, Like when
Speaker 3: you force good players to hit a long club into
Speaker 3: a part three, they seem to hate that too. So
Speaker 3: you can't win because that's really the only place to
Speaker 3: force somebody to hit a long club is a two
Speaker 3: and ninety yard part three.
Speaker 2: But nobody likes that.
Speaker 1: I played one of the courses I grew up playing
Speaker 1: this fall, and they built a new back tee on
Speaker 1: one of the holes and it it. It was it's
Speaker 1: like thirty yards back of where the old back tea
Speaker 1: used to be. And I hit driver and I hit
Speaker 1: a really good t shot and it was amazing because
Speaker 1: I got to it and I was like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is like where I used to hit approach shots in
Speaker 1: when I was in high.
Speaker 2: School club anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was it was wild to be because
Speaker 1: it's like, this is a hole. It was like four
Speaker 1: to fifty hole. Now it's like four to eighty. The
Speaker 1: four to fifty hole was had become just driver wedge,
Speaker 1: which is wild. It's insane, insane, And it used to
Speaker 1: be like a good drive in the there was like
Speaker 1: a little rise at two fifty at two hundred out
Speaker 1: from the green, So two fifty when I was in
Speaker 1: high school, I mean like that was like a good carry,
Speaker 1: like and if you didn't hit it good, you didn't
Speaker 1: carry the rise, so you wouldn't get the bounce. And
Speaker 1: it's like, you know what, Like now that it's back,
Speaker 1: it's like kind of an intact but still at four
Speaker 1: eighty for a really long hitter. And I just played
Speaker 1: recently with a kid in high school who's sixteen, who
Speaker 1: like flew at fifteen yards past me and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: and he's never gonna think about you know, like four
Speaker 1: eighty is just driver wedge. It's it's utterly nuts. I
Speaker 1: don't understand, you know, like for a constrained property in
Speaker 1: old school golf course, like what, you know, where can
Speaker 1: you go when you only have one hundred and fifty acres?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's tough. That's tough. And there's I think
Speaker 2: there's something low.
Speaker 3: I mean, the satisfaction kind of hitting a great four
Speaker 3: iron is totally different than the satisfaction of hitting a
Speaker 3: great seven iron.
Speaker 2: But how often do you have that opportunity? You know,
Speaker 2: you don't get to hit great four roans because you
Speaker 2: hit it too far.
Speaker 1: Do I know you don't watch a ton of pro golf.
Speaker 1: Do you remember Rory mcroy's two iron into eighteen at
Speaker 1: the Scottish Open a couple of years ago because he
Speaker 1: was playing into like the thirty I mean, like, yes,
Speaker 1: that shot. I will never forget that shot. If it
Speaker 1: was a wedge I would have forgotten it by now,
Speaker 1: you know, or if it was an eight iron or
Speaker 1: a seven iron even, but that was just extraordinary, And
Speaker 1: I think like the same thing for a player, Like
Speaker 1: the shots you remember the most are generally the extraordinary shots,
Speaker 1: and they usually aren't with seven irons. They're usually with
Speaker 1: like four irons or hitting an amazing recovery shot around
Speaker 1: the greens or you know, those are the shots I
Speaker 1: tend to find myself remembering the most.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you give great players seven irons and they're hitting
Speaker 3: it inside ten feet three times out of ten.
Speaker 2: You know, great shots.
Speaker 1: Now you're going to get You're going to get the
Speaker 1: stat voice coming at you. You gave cold, you have
Speaker 1: to speak in vague vagary or else they will weapodize
Speaker 1: their stats in any way to get you.
Speaker 2: Well. In any case, they're they're really good at hitting
Speaker 2: seven arons relatively close to the hole.
Speaker 3: I love watching the old shells matches where guys are
Speaker 3: running forwoods on the greens. Yeah, like that you don't
Speaker 3: see anymore, and that was fun to watch.
Speaker 1: I mean for golf architecture to and and this is
Speaker 1: so true for like ninety golfers. Is the your construction
Speaker 1: of greens extends well beyond the green because it goes
Speaker 1: into the approaches for those running shots that is all
Speaker 1: thought of.
Speaker 4: I mean, what is it?
Speaker 1: Is it about twenty yards an ind for most holes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is still the way a lot of people play. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and especially a lot of a lot of ladies. I
Speaker 3: mean watching even watching the women's tours, the trajectory is
Speaker 3: totally different. Completely, It's more relatable and it's more fun
Speaker 3: to watch because angles still do matter for them a
Speaker 3: little bit, or it doesn't on the tour. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it certainly depending on what kind of all you're building.
Speaker 3: It's the twenty thirty forty yards short of the green
Speaker 3: and then everything around the green that you're spending a
Speaker 3: lot of time thinking about too.
Speaker 1: Just this is a complete off the top of your head.
Speaker 1: I'm curious women's Open is going to like extraordinary places,
Speaker 1: but they're mostly men's open sites. What's one course understanding,
Speaker 1: like sixty five hundred yards is fine? Is great for
Speaker 1: women's golf. I think Lancaster was a great example of
Speaker 1: a golf course that would never host a men's event
Speaker 1: that shined last year. What's one golf course in America
Speaker 1: you'd love to see host a women's tournament beside Cypress
Speaker 1: point beside Cypress?
Speaker 5: Yeah, answer, no, you gotta go a little well, give
Speaker 5: us something, Give us something, give us like your favorite,
Speaker 5: give us an Indie rock, don't give us the rolling
Speaker 5: stones here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all the easy Pine Valley than National, Like
Speaker 3: all those are too easy because they should be going
Speaker 3: to those places because they can't, you know amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they can play all those places without having to change
Speaker 3: the golf course.
Speaker 2: It would be so much fun, and they're starting to
Speaker 2: take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: I think, finally, maybe I don't think. I don't think
Speaker 1: the LPGA like I think the best women's product would
Speaker 1: be if you like reworked at and said, like we're
Speaker 1: only going to host like we're gonna do like twelve
Speaker 1: events a year at like the premiere golf courses in
Speaker 1: the world, and try and pitch it that way. I
Speaker 1: think you could get like a unbelievable product because you
Speaker 1: could actually have like the footprints matchup.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ninety ninety seven percent of the top fifty golf
Speaker 3: courses in the world don't work for the man anymore.
Speaker 2: They'd almost all work for the ladies.
Speaker 3: Sunningdale, you know, Saint Jorge, just hell Roll, Melbourne, Kingston Heath,
Speaker 3: they'd all be fantastic.
Speaker 2: It would be fun to watch them go around those
Speaker 2: golf courses.
Speaker 1: One one off the radar. One give us, give us
Speaker 1: something for the archives here, you know, uh see.
Speaker 2: You're putting me on the spot. Country Club is Scranton.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 1: There you go, Walter Travis. Why would it be fun?
Speaker 3: It's because it's a wild set of greens where you
Speaker 3: need to think about where you're going to land the ball,
Speaker 3: and there are a bunch of greens there where you
Speaker 3: can't land your ball down the putting surface and feel comfortable.
Speaker 3: So you've got to run balls onto greens, and I
Speaker 3: think it'd be a blast to watch that. It's kind
Speaker 3: of their short game, and like their short game shots
Speaker 3: are so fun to watch too, because yeah, they just
Speaker 3: they play it a different trajectory and they're so good
Speaker 3: at the shots I love to watch.
Speaker 1: The topography would be great there too, because it's a
Speaker 1: fairly severe piece of land, right, Like it's got kind
Speaker 1: of like heaving movement right yep, yes, all time, All time.
Speaker 1: Regret was I went to a buddy's wedding in Scranton
Speaker 1: and didn't stop there. It's like, how many times are
Speaker 1: you going to find yourself with a weekend in Scranton?
Speaker 1: But I was with my wife and she doesn't play golf,
Speaker 1: and she didn't know anybody at the wedding.
Speaker 2: That's pray.
Speaker 3: Before you were a big deal too, you could you
Speaker 3: could just make that happen now you're you're a celebrity,
Speaker 3: But it might have.
Speaker 2: Been tough for back then.
Speaker 1: So I yeah, well it should have gone. Should have gone.
Speaker 2: It's not going anywhere. You got too many places to see.
Speaker 1: Way too many, too and too little time. Brian, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on. Uh, it's always fun to talk
Speaker 1: golf courses with you. And look forward to seeing some
Speaker 1: of your new work this year. Silver Spring maybe getting
Speaker 1: out there this year anytime. All right, big thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. I
Speaker 1: head to Scotland this week. I will be in Scotland.
Speaker 1: We'll have an episode next week with Garrett Morrison. We're
Speaker 1: gonna dive into a couple of topics and I will
Speaker 1: be abroad, but we will be back next week. And
Speaker 1: big thanks to PJ Clark for producing, editing and getting
Speaker 1: this podcast out to the world. Thanks PJ.