Speaker 1: I miss the green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my.
Speaker 2: Ball in a brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Egg,
Speaker 2: Friday Friday bride.
Speaker 3: Egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 4: We're here at the Seavil Golf Training Facility at Stanford
Speaker 4: University Varsity Golf.
Speaker 1: Somebody just corrected me, So what the exact title is.
Speaker 4: I've got a couple of architects going to have a
Speaker 4: lively discussion about golf courses that were built in a
Speaker 4: certain era and you know what to do with them,
Speaker 4: and then we're gonna get to some questions. But I'm
Speaker 4: joined by Jay Blasi, who's a second time guest, and
Speaker 4: Brett Hochstein with Brett Hochstein Design, Golf Design.
Speaker 1: You got rid of the golf I did?
Speaker 5: It's just a hocksteye design shorter, very good.
Speaker 4: Little alliteration almost it's not an alliteration, just a little round.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm off to hot start.
Speaker 6: So for anybody that didn't get where we are, we're
Speaker 6: at the Stanford Golf Practice Facility and they've got a
Speaker 6: lengthy name.
Speaker 1: That I've watched. So today we're gonna do a.
Speaker 4: Podcast about, you know, kind of the Dark Ages of
Speaker 4: golf and the courses that we've got all over the
Speaker 4: place and kind of what to do with them, as
Speaker 4: as the kind of you're seeing a a condensing of
Speaker 4: golf where a lot of golf courses are closed, some good,
Speaker 4: some bad, and you know, there's certainly a lot of
Speaker 4: great courses, but there's also some that leave a lot
Speaker 4: to be desired with the architecture, the design, and overall
Speaker 4: the enjoyment of playing them. So, you know, I got
Speaker 4: these two experts here, so hopefully I don't do much
Speaker 4: of the talking. And uh yeah, first I wanted to
Speaker 4: talk about, you know, kind of what these courses are
Speaker 4: when they were designed and how they were you know,
Speaker 4: how they were built.
Speaker 1: So you know, Jay, you want you want to kick
Speaker 1: it off.
Speaker 7: Well, I think when we talk about the Dark Ages
Speaker 7: were often referring to the time, you know, you can
Speaker 7: pick a starting point, but somewhere maybe from the fifties
Speaker 7: to the nineties, or or more primarily from the fifties
Speaker 7: to the eighties, and oftentimes it'd be golf courses that
Speaker 7: for those of us who love Golden Age architecture and
Speaker 7: some of the principles that go with it. These golf
Speaker 7: courses were built and feature a lot of different elements
Speaker 7: that don't contain a lot of those same principles, but
Speaker 7: maybe more importantly, contained a lot of artificial elements, whether
Speaker 7: that's artificial mounding, or they've created water features, whether those
Speaker 7: are lakes or waterfalls, heavy landscaping, lots.
Speaker 1: Of earth moving, and whatnot.
Speaker 8: Perhaps the other big thing is just due to advances
Speaker 8: in technology, whether that's and earth moving equipment and turf
Speaker 8: grass technology.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, these golf.
Speaker 7: Courses started going to areas where golf wouldn't naturally occur,
Speaker 7: so swamps and deserts and mountain sides.
Speaker 1: And sites that weren't naturally conducive.
Speaker 7: So now all of a sudden, you're using you're moving
Speaker 7: lots of earthf you play a hole, then you get
Speaker 7: on your cart path and drive a quarter mile, and
Speaker 7: then you go play the next hole and whatnot. So
Speaker 7: for those of us who love those principles, that that
Speaker 7: period of time that we've referred to as the Dark
Speaker 7: Ages is one that we'd love to forget or do
Speaker 7: our best to undo.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And sort of reason that it got to that point was.
Speaker 2: That we had all this new technology, big machines, advances
Speaker 2: in maintenance, an agronomy where we could be greener. They
Speaker 2: have faster skies, certain heights and caught and all that,
Speaker 2: and people got a really and error for these new
Speaker 2: features is they didn't have them before, and instead of
Speaker 2: doing the right things with.
Speaker 5: It, such as Alistair McKenzie.
Speaker 2: Always talked about the bulldozer and you know what great
Speaker 2: things could possibly do well, there really wasn't, due to say,
Speaker 2: the depression and war time and all that.
Speaker 1: There's not much lineage or action from the.
Speaker 2: Golden Age all the way to the guys picking it
Speaker 2: back up in the sixties, so there isn't necessarily that
Speaker 2: sort of thought to say.
Speaker 5: Let's use this for good and for artistry and for you.
Speaker 2: Know, making conditions that are fun versus just esthetic and pleasing.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of a direction it all went, and
Speaker 2: the way it was marketed and the way the public
Speaker 2: sort of made it up, I.
Speaker 1: Guess I see.
Speaker 8: I think the big one big shift that occurred as
Speaker 8: well is if you think back to the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 7: When golf courses were created, typically It was a group
Speaker 7: of people getting together for the love of golf and
Speaker 7: they had a common interest, and they set out to
Speaker 7: build a golf course because they were interested in golf,
Speaker 7: and they'd go find an appropriate site. Typically they'd go
Speaker 7: serve for the right land that had good soils and
Speaker 7: was gently ruling. During this period we referred to as
Speaker 7: the Dark Age as some of that change and the
Speaker 7: purpose for building a.
Speaker 1: Golf course change.
Speaker 8: So now somebody has a housing development, so the golf
Speaker 8: course is really the engine to sell houses or vice. First,
Speaker 8: we're building the resort a hotel, so the golf course
Speaker 8: is the carrot to fill the hotel rooms. And when
Speaker 8: the focus or the reasoning behind the golf course existed
Speaker 8: and changed, some of the priorities changed as well.
Speaker 1: In terms of the architecture.
Speaker 4: It's interesting I'm reading the links by Routert Hunter and
Speaker 4: he talks about how the land for golf, like if
Speaker 4: a club doesn't didn't buy the appropriate amount of land,
Speaker 4: the land price.
Speaker 1: Would go up so much after they built a course
Speaker 1: because then.
Speaker 4: The housing would come in, and then you know, the
Speaker 4: model changed to where it was housing first, golf course second,
Speaker 4: which you know, detriment to the golf and you know,
Speaker 4: long term it might be a detriment to the house.
Speaker 9: And also as we kind of saw with you know,
Speaker 9: the the you know, consolidation, Sorry happened, but I'm curious.
Speaker 4: It's something that Brett touched on, was the stop and ideas, Like,
Speaker 4: not very often does an industry go through, like an
Speaker 4: almost twenty year period where ideas and the flow of
Speaker 4: ideas stop.
Speaker 1: And it had to.
Speaker 4: Be very crippling because you saw there's the no real connection.
Speaker 4: There are very few connections from architects in the fifties
Speaker 4: to Alistair McKenzie. You know, one would be Robert Trent
Speaker 4: Jones was connected to Stanley Thompson who was connected to
Speaker 4: Alistair McKenzie, and that'd be one, but there weren't many.
Speaker 4: Most of them spawned then from Robert Trent Jones, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: for the most part.
Speaker 2: You could also say Jack Flunning came from McKenzie, but
Speaker 2: his his mark was fairly limited.
Speaker 8: I think I think the lineage point is a good one,
Speaker 8: and you know, relating to the depression and the war
Speaker 8: and and.
Speaker 1: How that impacted things.
Speaker 8: I would I may disagree that there was a stop
Speaker 8: in ideas, and I think maybe a priority is shifted
Speaker 8: if you look at golf courses built shortly after the war.
Speaker 7: I think the guiding principle was functionality, you know, and
Speaker 7: you know, we're worried about costs and to how we
Speaker 7: build something just super efficiently as opposed to necessarily strategically.
Speaker 1: So it may.
Speaker 8: Not be the same idea, but I don't know that
Speaker 8: there was a completely total stop of ideas. And as
Speaker 8: we evolve into the sixties, seventies, and eighties, there were
Speaker 8: all sorts of ideas. Any many who love Golden Age
Speaker 8: golf might just not like those ideas, you know, the
Speaker 8: idea of adding lakes and adding waterfalls and adding flower
Speaker 8: beds and mounting those were ideas.
Speaker 4: There's a rise in popularity of professional golf also, so
Speaker 4: that could be part of it where they started to
Speaker 4: think we need to really you know, the the great
Speaker 4: player all of a sudden was the forefront focus of golf,
Speaker 4: like Ben Hogan, you know, and how do you challenge
Speaker 4: a guy that? And it wasn't the right way to
Speaker 4: challenge but they thought, you know, lakes and making them
Speaker 4: go over, but it made it just inseparable for a
Speaker 4: regular player. So how many of these courses are still
Speaker 4: kind of out there and and and.
Speaker 10: I think moving forward, what do you what can be
Speaker 10: done with with these golf courses as we look at
Speaker 10: you know, this architecture and golf is moving in a different.
Speaker 1: Direction from these courses, and you.
Speaker 4: Know they're going to need updates with you know, when
Speaker 4: irrigation systems come up.
Speaker 1: Like what can we do with these? With these golf courses?
Speaker 5: Well, the nonvotable answer is too many.
Speaker 2: And I think I'd probably say for as far as
Speaker 2: public golf and the accessible golf goes.
Speaker 5: It's the majority of the horses.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really had a lot to do
Speaker 2: with the shaping of our golf culture in.
Speaker 1: General in this country.
Speaker 5: This is the focus on riding instead.
Speaker 11: Of walking, keeping track of your store, and just why
Speaker 11: we played horses at the The pros are playing not
Speaker 11: necessarily thinking about your own game.
Speaker 5: And what's the second Parliament?
Speaker 1: And you know, what can be done with them? I
Speaker 1: shouldn't ask so many questions.
Speaker 4: Can they be improved for you know, low costs or
Speaker 4: do they need to be you know, completely overhauled, Like.
Speaker 1: What could you do with a you.
Speaker 4: Know, a residential course that stay has only got you know,
Speaker 4: limited corridor space.
Speaker 2: So that's that's the one where it's a big challenge
Speaker 2: that I was gonna say, it's really a spy site
Speaker 2: specific mm hmm. We need reference where it's really narrow
Speaker 2: corridors and the routing, which i'd say routing and greens
Speaker 2: contouring goes are the two most impactful parts of design.
Speaker 2: And when the routing is compromised with that limited, you're
Speaker 2: already really up against it. And so is the cost
Speaker 2: of going through and making each.
Speaker 5: Individual whole, you know, interesting and compelling.
Speaker 2: Is that going to make the course good enough and
Speaker 2: interesting enough to outweigh the costs.
Speaker 5: I'm not totally sure. There are other examples though, where.
Speaker 2: The housing doesn't be quite as limited or the land
Speaker 2: isn't limited. One example what thought off the top of
Speaker 2: my head was of course, called the Kyote Club in
Speaker 2: southeast Michigan that I grew up nearby. It was built
Speaker 2: the late nineties. It's got, you know, all the mounding,
Speaker 2: the pretty.
Speaker 5: Generic bunkering, not a lot of interest. I mean, you
Speaker 5: can find yourself on hold twelve.
Speaker 1: And be like, I'm kind of bored.
Speaker 2: I should go stop the cart rating and get a beer.
Speaker 5: But it's on a pretty nice gentle piece.
Speaker 2: Of ground, mix of land. It's half open, half kind
Speaker 2: of in the woods, so.
Speaker 5: You can kind of go in and out of it.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of example where you know, you could
Speaker 2: easily fill some ponds, maybe rerouted, rebuild all the greens
Speaker 2: and bunkers, and come up with something pretty interesting for
Speaker 2: not that exorbit of a cost.
Speaker 8: I think that we've touched up a little bit on
Speaker 8: some of the issues that are in play. And Brett
Speaker 8: made a comment earlier which I think is critical for
Speaker 8: everybody to understand, and that is that as it relates
Speaker 8: to golf and golf courses, it's one hundred percent site specific.
Speaker 8: So the right solution at eve, even in the same market,
Speaker 8: you know, it will take your Chicago even too. Golf
Speaker 8: courses in Chicago land, the market could be drastically different
Speaker 8: from from one to another, and therefore the solution that
Speaker 8: the best possible solution could be drastically different from one
Speaker 8: to the other, even in the same market. To to
Speaker 8: Brett's point, I think the potential for improvement is largely
Speaker 8: based upon the land and the constraints that were placed
Speaker 8: on it. So housing is a key constraint. Road crossings, Uh,
Speaker 8: you know, the routing of the golf course full length
Speaker 8: concrete cut pass that you touched on earlier, Andy that
Speaker 8: they're going to need in movements golf courses just in order.
Speaker 1: To survive the long term.
Speaker 7: Just like your house, you need to reinvest and so
Speaker 7: the irrigation system oftentimes needs to be redone.
Speaker 1: That's your biggest single investment.
Speaker 8: So if and when it's time to redo the irrigation system,
Speaker 8: that's a great time to look at is there anything
Speaker 8: else that we should be doing well? Is now the
Speaker 8: time to do bunkers and greens or could change anything
Speaker 8: else around.
Speaker 1: And if you have a situation where you have a
Speaker 1: great piece of.
Speaker 8: Ground, but the layout that's on it just isn't very special,
Speaker 8: doesn't take advantage of the features very well, the natural
Speaker 8: features of the land, and it's due for infrastructure investment,
Speaker 8: that's the.
Speaker 7: Right time to get in and take a new look
Speaker 7: and see could we.
Speaker 8: Serve the community better by creating something that relates and
Speaker 8: it's more fun. The other thing is we know that
Speaker 8: contraction is going to occur, so there might be an
Speaker 8: opportunity in a number of places where you've got eighteen
Speaker 8: twenty seven holes now that they end up being better
Speaker 8: served as a nine.
Speaker 1: Hole facility or a twelve hole facility, something.
Speaker 8: Different, where maybe you take the good land and reserve
Speaker 8: it for golf and the other can become housing, or
Speaker 8: it can become a park or open space.
Speaker 1: Or something else. And soccer field you can kill two
Speaker 1: birds with one stone. Mm. That's I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's the thing.
Speaker 4: I more I've gotten into this, the more I've traveled,
Speaker 4: is like, you know, the dearth of bad options for
Speaker 4: the public versus good options is it's it's frightening, Like
Speaker 4: you know, like you go to I go to a city,
Speaker 4: like I play in Chicago, and like there's really only
Speaker 4: like five public golf courses that I would like actually
Speaker 4: enjoy going playing, and I play those five all the time.
Speaker 1: When I go play in public golfing.
Speaker 4: But like, you know, so many of them I've once
Speaker 4: I've seen about eight holes.
Speaker 1: I'm like, get me out of there.
Speaker 4: I don't want I don't want to do this, And
Speaker 4: so many of them are constricted by like I mean,
Speaker 4: like car paths always stick out to me, Like it's
Speaker 4: just like it's hard to almost take a.
Speaker 1: Photo without getting car path in it. Some of these
Speaker 1: places they cut down in middle of the fairway, But
Speaker 1: where would.
Speaker 4: You say, you know, and I know it's all site specific,
Speaker 4: but is it inside fifty yards?
Speaker 1: If you had a limited budget.
Speaker 4: Where you could you do the most, you know, create
Speaker 4: the most interest for the most bang for your buck.
Speaker 4: Say somebody had, you know, budget to do a little
Speaker 4: bit of work, where would you focus.
Speaker 1: The most around the green? That's because that is where.
Speaker 8: A lot of these golf courses during that period of
Speaker 8: time are very more dimensional. You're nine times out of
Speaker 8: ten it's an aerial shot. If you miss the green,
Speaker 8: you're punished.
Speaker 7: You're either in rough or a bunker, and in those
Speaker 7: positions your only shot out is a sandwich. Right, So
Speaker 7: your approach shot is repetitive all through the entire and
Speaker 7: then your recovery shot is repetitive.
Speaker 8: So by simply redoing green complexes, you can introduce strategy.
Speaker 1: You can introduce variety.
Speaker 7: You can have shots that you can land the ball
Speaker 7: short and feed the ball into the green, and you
Speaker 7: can feed it in from the side, or you can
Speaker 7: have a backstaff.
Speaker 1: You can have short grass around the greens.
Speaker 8: And now you can use you know, the potter all
Speaker 8: the way up to a hybrid and everything in between.
Speaker 1: So you can add so much more strategy there. So
Speaker 1: if you only had one place to spend your money,
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 8: To Brett's point earlier, even that might not cross the
Speaker 8: threshold if the routing is totally screwed up and you've
Speaker 8: got a whole where you play out two hundred and
Speaker 8: eighty yards and then turn right and got a hundred.
Speaker 1: Degree ankle and go the wrong way, you know, but
Speaker 1: the bang for your bucks at the green complex, am
Speaker 1: Lie Brett.
Speaker 4: What do you think are some you know, to go
Speaker 4: along with like greens, but what are some other like
Speaker 4: of the most important design features that create like, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of like a sustainable golf model and playable you know,
Speaker 4: obviously fun, but like outside of you know, interesting greens,
Speaker 4: what would you say are some of the you know,
Speaker 4: most important parts of design to creating a place that's
Speaker 4: really fun to play for the public and you know
Speaker 4: you can get people around and that kind of.
Speaker 2: I think, well, yeah, definitely of the greens, and then
Speaker 2: going backwards from there, creating more width is.
Speaker 5: Uh is one way to do it.
Speaker 2: And less uh sort of a maintain rough, not not
Speaker 2: a big.
Speaker 5: Family maintained rough.
Speaker 2: Really I'd rather just be more short grass makes it
Speaker 2: more interesting and uh, you know it's a the point
Speaker 2: you bring up, it'll uh helps get people around faster.
Speaker 5: It helps people enjoy the game a bit more.
Speaker 2: And even if they're not necessarily thinking about which side
Speaker 2: and a fair way to be on the game an advantage.
Speaker 5: You know, they're they're getting.
Speaker 2: Around and they're having a good time as opposed to
Speaker 2: happing it out under a tree, you.
Speaker 5: Know some deep.
Speaker 1: Whine or rough or whatever.
Speaker 5: Thinking about bunkers in the interesting way is.
Speaker 1: Just that they're.
Speaker 2: Or the mid handicapper making them sort of think and
Speaker 2: taking on challenge is if you step a bottle of
Speaker 2: tea and you go to address the ball, then you
Speaker 2: kind of step back and think, what the way second
Speaker 2: should I be doing this? I think that's a great
Speaker 2: way to engage the golfer, make a you have fun.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, it's like, yeah, I think it's so
Speaker 1: important always.
Speaker 4: To you know, not forget like the thrill of golfer. Everybody,
Speaker 4: you know, like the high handicap her still wants to
Speaker 4: feel the challenge of taking it over a bunker and
Speaker 4: you know it's a it's but then you also have
Speaker 4: to weigh that with like challenging.
Speaker 1: And that's like, I think placement a bunker. How do
Speaker 1: you guys go about placing bunkers?
Speaker 4: Because I've read where some architects do it formulatively, and
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, it's two hundred and eighty yards,
Speaker 4: We're going to put a bunker right here, and some
Speaker 4: guys just throw them out there or want to say,
Speaker 4: I just put them where it shouldn't be.
Speaker 8: You know, well, I wanted to follow up or piggyback
Speaker 8: on what you guys were just talking about earlier in
Speaker 8: terms of, you know, still providing a challenge to somebody,
Speaker 8: but can you do it.
Speaker 1: In a in a way that is more sustainable.
Speaker 7: So if you look at many of those golf courses
Speaker 7: built during that period of time, you might have a
Speaker 7: cluster of five or six bunkers all in one grouping
Speaker 7: in a landing area, right, and then you look at it.
Speaker 7: One simple thing is to say, okay, well, of that giant,
Speaker 7: you know, sixty yard area that's all sand and broken
Speaker 7: up into.
Speaker 8: Six bunkers, there's only a five yard area that's actually
Speaker 8: impact in.
Speaker 1: The strategy of the whole. If you can get rid.
Speaker 7: Of the other stuff, now you've simplified the maintenance practices
Speaker 7: you've maintained or enhanced the actual strategic value of it.
Speaker 7: So those are some of the little things you can
Speaker 7: go look at and existing golf course and.
Speaker 1: Say, hey, these are ways that we can improve it
Speaker 1: for everyday play.
Speaker 12: Of course in Chicago did that They took out like
Speaker 12: it's called harbor side.
Speaker 4: They took out like an un I mean, they removed
Speaker 4: probably about sixty percent of the bumpers.
Speaker 7: I think if you if you were to do an
Speaker 7: inventory of golf courses built in the nineteen eighties, you
Speaker 7: could probably reduce the sand on ninety percent of those
Speaker 7: courses by at least fifty percent without having negative without
Speaker 7: having a negative impact on strategy, and maybe having a
Speaker 7: positive impact on strategy well.
Speaker 4: And pace of play, oh right, ganging around that's more sustainable.
Speaker 1: You can get more rounds out, you know, people are
Speaker 1: even playing more when they play faster. And then also
Speaker 1: the maintenance side of things.
Speaker 12: I was at BALLI Neil and they have them one
Speaker 12: point five acre Punny Green, and I was trying to
Speaker 12: do the maintenance in my head of that and it
Speaker 12: was an astounding number robots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, robot we need grow, do they have they're coming.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they have them at Ballily Neil.
Speaker 1: I know that there are facilities that are starting to
Speaker 1: use them. They're on their way. Google should start. They
Speaker 1: probably did it thirty years ago. Yeah, we just didn't
Speaker 1: know about it. We've had that for ueresh.
Speaker 8: To your to your point on bunker placement again, I
Speaker 8: think it's site specific, an architects specific as to how
Speaker 8: they come about. If you've got a great piece of
Speaker 8: land that has natural features and natural movement in the land,
Speaker 8: many times bunkers can evolve based on that natural movement.
Speaker 7: It's just kind of peeling back whatever vegetation is there
Speaker 7: and highlighting it in terms of the whole and strategy
Speaker 7: of the whole. The closer you get to the green
Speaker 7: probably the more the placement of the bunker is is
Speaker 7: something that's actually thought out or or designed or or.
Speaker 8: Crafted as opposed to just finding it naturally. But I
Speaker 8: think the days of formulaic bunkering and laying them out
Speaker 8: at two AD are hopefully past us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think following any formula and golf design is
Speaker 2: a good idea.
Speaker 5: I think you just always have an open mind to
Speaker 5: every single situation.
Speaker 1: Variety.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's what keeps people coming back over and over
Speaker 8: again and throughout the course of a round. If you
Speaker 8: can offer different challenges, different opportunities for excitement, different opportunities
Speaker 8: for escape, Those are u those are the things that
Speaker 8: get people excited and keep them coming back.
Speaker 1: So let's say, you know, let's move to a more
Speaker 1: positive topic.
Speaker 6: We've got a lot of We've got a lot of
Speaker 6: Twitter questions, so I figure we'll do some we'll do
Speaker 6: some overrated, underrated, everybody's favorite podcast segment, and we'll do
Speaker 6: some questions.
Speaker 5: So I fired this off a.
Speaker 1: Few minutes ago. So this is so how much This
Speaker 1: is a good question from Nate Mowery.
Speaker 4: How much time planning going to deciding to grasses and
Speaker 4: strains for a golf course.
Speaker 7: When you're building, it's certainly something that's fought out, and
Speaker 7: typically it's a team effort. Obviously, if if it's an
Speaker 7: existing facility, you're working with the existing superintendent and their team,
Speaker 7: and then they're usually leaning on agronomous or university researchers
Speaker 7: that are helping them.
Speaker 1: So in a perfect world, you can do that a couple.
Speaker 7: Of seasons in advance, where you could actually do test
Speaker 7: plots on your own facility. You know, it's one thing
Speaker 7: to do to check out test plots.
Speaker 8: Somewhere else, but if you can do it on your
Speaker 8: own property, that's always the best advantage. So I think
Speaker 8: the simple answer is the greater lead time you can have,
Speaker 8: the better chances for success that you'll have, and the
Speaker 8: more testing and trials that you can do, the better chancel.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, I know I've had my own preferences.
Speaker 2: Going into something that's generally whatever is going to be
Speaker 2: play the furthest.
Speaker 5: And fastest, while also you know, not being a.
Speaker 2: Total burdener expert costs and maytain and typically.
Speaker 5: Those two things you know going in anyway, So it's
Speaker 5: just a.
Speaker 2: Matter of finding out if that fits within the client's
Speaker 2: budget and you know their preferences and with the superintendent is.
Speaker 5: Going to be maintaining it.
Speaker 2: And I've got it at a turf background myself, so
Speaker 2: I've got, you know, a little bit of able to
Speaker 2: discuss it and more to which I think helps.
Speaker 5: And you know, I don't working mad and so I
Speaker 5: understand it. It's uh like like it to be a.
Speaker 2: Two way thing between the superintendent and you know, architect
Speaker 2: or shape or whoever's out there.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that collaboration helps. Probably with the whole
Speaker 9: projects so important, it's critical, I'd say. I imagine there's
Speaker 9: like an ownership stake that the that the more you
Speaker 9: can get the club or course is staff involved helps after.
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, anytime you can get buy in from the
Speaker 8: whole team, you know, the idea of coming up with
Speaker 8: one common vision.
Speaker 1: Right, that we're always working towards, and there might be different.
Speaker 7: Ways to get there, But as long as the vision
Speaker 7: is the vision and that's what we're all working towards,
Speaker 7: then that's a recipe for success.
Speaker 5: So we got to Bay Area resident.
Speaker 9: As we learned this morning, it takes quite a long
Speaker 9: time to get around the bay.
Speaker 5: What's the most underrated? This is from counter Doherty.
Speaker 4: We'll do most underrated Bay Area, of course, one public,
Speaker 4: one private.
Speaker 1: Good question.
Speaker 2: If I could stretch the Bay Area all the way
Speaker 2: up into just north of Nat County, I would.
Speaker 5: Say at the Springs at the Springs nine to will.
Speaker 2: All properly redone by Dover Renaissance guys, I don't know
Speaker 2: about ten or fifteen years ago, and it's just it's
Speaker 2: really interesting golf. Get some neat greetings, out there. It
Speaker 2: moves around property in really great way. It's in and
Speaker 2: out of certain aspects of it, and it's just really
Speaker 2: it fits the site context the.
Speaker 5: Area so well. They they they're card barn is an.
Speaker 2: Old refurbished uh barn from you know the property whenever
Speaker 2: it's a cat ranch or whatever it was, and just
Speaker 2: there's that sort of details.
Speaker 5: But this is a really special place.
Speaker 13: Private of course was pride and out well, So I'll
Speaker 13: get out of there when when you're out in the
Speaker 13: wine country with the life, you know, set.
Speaker 1: Up wine and setting set up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 5: That's a that's a good advice.
Speaker 1: I need to get up there. It's hopefully it's okay
Speaker 1: with all the piers and everything.
Speaker 5: So I think they got away with it. The drive
Speaker 5: out there probably kind of depressing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, from a private club standpoint, I don't really know
Speaker 8: that it's actually under rated or off the.
Speaker 1: Radar, But in my mind I underrated is metal.
Speaker 8: Club and and Sean Tully that super up there, just
Speaker 8: continues to.
Speaker 1: Help the golf course.
Speaker 8: Evolve, and Mike Degrees has done a good job up there,
Speaker 8: and so that's continuing to just kind of keep evolving
Speaker 8: and just keeps getting better and better and better with
Speaker 8: with time.
Speaker 1: And it's a good, pretty special place when, of course
Speaker 1: gets better over the years.
Speaker 9: You know, so often when you see that it happened
Speaker 9: where if the fairways get it narrower, the.
Speaker 4: Grads gets fall a right, Yeah, are architecturally minded?
Speaker 5: Is superintense or is there their treasure? It's all right, overrated, underrated.
Speaker 1: The Olympic Club from Connor also.
Speaker 3: Curious hot top uh, great club, great membership, overrated.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll go with overrated.
Speaker 4: Underrated from Josh Roby Double dog Leg par five, I'm.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna throw a copy on in there.
Speaker 8: So so long as you can you can see and
Speaker 8: and you can play the angles, I'll say underrated. If
Speaker 8: there's trees, you know, if you're if it's a dog
Speaker 8: leg left and gotta play around trees, and then the
Speaker 8: second half goes around trees to the right, so you
Speaker 8: really can't see your maneuver it, then I'll say overrated.
Speaker 1: So it's both.
Speaker 5: That's I was trying to figure out how.
Speaker 2: I want to say that, and that's pretty much it
Speaker 2: be able to actually take.
Speaker 5: On the that's.
Speaker 4: That's it's kind of like that fourth hole at Bethpage
Speaker 4: you know, but there aren't many in the way of
Speaker 4: the whole trees. Yeah, it's pretty pretty, it's pretty cool,
Speaker 4: pretty pretty.
Speaker 1: It's terrible, all.
Speaker 4: Right, Philip Johnson, Overrated under rated the switchback call Brett,
Speaker 4: you gotta go first this one.
Speaker 5: By switchback, are you referring to.
Speaker 4: Like I think I think I think it's like a
Speaker 4: fade t shot, draw second shot or a draw t shot.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought you were actually going like reverse angle.
Speaker 2: Also started thinking about like.
Speaker 5: Switch that all the way down affair with it.
Speaker 4: I'm thinking more more conventional, like where something calls for
Speaker 4: one shot shape, you know, kind of the whole the
Speaker 4: whole changes.
Speaker 1: In terms of underrated underd I think that's a cool
Speaker 1: little it's not christ any.
Speaker 7: Time you get anytime you can introduce angles, and it's
Speaker 7: usually a byproduct of having with.
Speaker 1: You know, we've already touched on with over and over again. Today.
Speaker 8: If you can, if you can have with and take
Speaker 8: advantage of angles, that creates compelling golf and encouraging Shotshe
Speaker 8: ball's gotta gonna mean we gotta change.
Speaker 1: The ball to do that just goes right down. Curious.
Speaker 4: Uh, this is something I've actually wondered it's about Olympic Club.
Speaker 14: You know they have the fairways historically. You know that
Speaker 14: every body season when they host the tournament that they'll move.
Speaker 14: They'll dog like one way, but the slope goes the
Speaker 14: opposite way. What do you what are you guys thoughts
Speaker 14: on on fairways like that? Like, I don't know what
Speaker 14: the terminology is.
Speaker 1: Reverse camera. Yeah, that's reverse camera. I knew it was
Speaker 1: reversed something, you know. I'd say if.
Speaker 2: I mean just going back to the whole variety thing,
Speaker 2: if you used every once in a while, it can.
Speaker 1: Be you know, a good thing and doing it eighteen
Speaker 1: times in a row.
Speaker 5: I don't know if that's interesting or fun.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that is that, but done.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, I'd say it's good to a spring left.
Speaker 1: Once in a while. I would make two points for
Speaker 1: everyday golfers.
Speaker 8: I would say it works far better if the whole
Speaker 8: moves left to right and the land.
Speaker 1: Is moving right to left.
Speaker 8: Is because nine percent of golfers fade or slice the ball,
Speaker 8: so they're hitting into the slope, so it becomes more playable.
Speaker 1: So that'd be one point.
Speaker 8: I would echo Brettsen that when done in moderation or
Speaker 8: as a change of pace.
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
Speaker 8: The other caveat I put on it is if there's
Speaker 8: enough room to actually let the ball run out. So
Speaker 8: a twenty yard wide fairway and a reverse camber, to me,
Speaker 8: is not very compelling because you're just going to end
Speaker 8: up in the rough all the time. If you actually
Speaker 8: have enough space to let the ball run out and
Speaker 8: let it go run seventy yards away, then it's kind
Speaker 8: of interesting because now you're encouraging people to hug the
Speaker 8: right side.
Speaker 7: If they bail out and they missed, they still have
Speaker 7: a shot, but now it's much longer.
Speaker 1: So it can it can add to the strategy or
Speaker 1: just a horrible angle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're going back to shot and you're encouraging
Speaker 2: getting a draw or fade into that sot to try
Speaker 2: and hold it out there, which is interesting.
Speaker 5: I think it's no.
Speaker 4: I think that's really I It stimulates, you know, the
Speaker 4: thought process, that's the key for thinking.
Speaker 15: That's all right, we've got here's a good Drew Nedzinski.
Speaker 15: What are some modern design features.
Speaker 4: We've talked about a few of them, but we'll get
Speaker 4: you each get one modern design.
Speaker 1: Features that we're going to see more and more with
Speaker 1: newer courses. Maybe they're like newer features that you're seeing
Speaker 1: pop up and designed that you think should be used more.
Speaker 1: I'm adapting this question. I don't know, Shue, I don't
Speaker 1: know so much. I don't necessarily think it's so much
Speaker 1: new features.
Speaker 8: It's just kind of embracing the past, and it all
Speaker 8: relates back to kind of sustainable golf.
Speaker 1: We've touched on it many.
Speaker 4: Yeah before short grass hunters, Jay overrated, underrated.
Speaker 1: Offensive lineman s wearing touchdowns.
Speaker 5: Very underrated.
Speaker 1: That was it was brilliant because it was a backyard
Speaker 1: backwards past. It was actually a lateral perfectly executed. Jay
Speaker 1: is a big Badgers fan. Wiscons the badders, so you know,
Speaker 1: and we took down the Alna. They took down my
Speaker 1: line thanks to an offensive lineman touchdown. He ran for
Speaker 1: fifteen yards bene fourteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anytime I don't think you can talk, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of like golf, anytime you can get the ball
Speaker 4: rolling is a good thing. I think anytime in football
Speaker 4: you can get a big man running with the ball underrated.
Speaker 1: Somebody has one. Gravity has its advantages. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: do uh, we'll do one more. We're kind of amount
Speaker 1: of time Crunch because of the traffic here. Overrated, underrated,
Speaker 1: Poeanna Greens, overrated.
Speaker 5: In general, obraded in general.
Speaker 8: Yeah, what about just embracing a poe once you get
Speaker 8: you feel again it's all sites specific.
Speaker 1: I mean, we sound like a broken record when it
Speaker 1: comes to.
Speaker 7: That, but uh yeah, I mean there's no reason that
Speaker 7: Poe Greens can't be a great surface.
Speaker 1: But on balance, you don't see people striving for it
Speaker 1: off the bat in general, and there the.
Speaker 5: Surface itself as far.
Speaker 2: As going ball, they can be really great, but it
Speaker 2: almost always they're gonna be soften.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you overly receptive, and.
Speaker 1: It's just.
Speaker 2: That's not as interesting as to have to think about
Speaker 2: green that's gonna bounce and rule, and.
Speaker 5: You really have to think about where you're gonna land instead,
Speaker 5: and you can achieve.
Speaker 1: That better with Ben.
Speaker 2: And in most cases you can where there's poet and
Speaker 2: you can you can manage Ben.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, that's it is it is it wingfoot or
Speaker 1: one of the courses out.
Speaker 4: He's like buys the poem green into people try and
Speaker 4: rip out or ripping out there, We'll take it.
Speaker 5: They buy it.
Speaker 7: Well, I think the other thing to know about Poe
Speaker 7: is there's you know, I know just enough about grass
Speaker 7: to be tangerous.
Speaker 8: But my understanding is there's so many different strains and
Speaker 8: lines of it. So when you when you when you
Speaker 8: use that blanket phrase, the poem that you're talking about.
Speaker 7: In Pennsylvania is different than the poe that you're talking
Speaker 7: about in California.
Speaker 2: And yeah, well, I mean there's a reason they're doing
Speaker 2: that because it's it's really a valuab.
Speaker 5: As cool as evolved. What you said, you're over eighty years,
Speaker 5: one hundred years, and you're that's.
Speaker 1: Not gonna grow in the nursery.
Speaker 5: So of course it has those types of greens, and
Speaker 5: you're buying down the.
Speaker 2: Road and it's doing a bunch of greens expansions and
Speaker 2: it doesn't have a big enough nursery.
Speaker 1: They could really use that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, to help marry up with the current breeds.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point. I didn't never think about it
Speaker 1: as like green expansion.
Speaker 8: When you have best tough Well, yeah, if you're expanding
Speaker 8: greens and you go through the whole process and you're
Speaker 8: doing all the construction, you see him pull the sod
Speaker 8: off and send it to the side.
Speaker 7: If you do the green expansion, when you put that
Speaker 7: side back, you haven't covered the whole green.
Speaker 1: You still kind of cover the new wings and everything.
Speaker 1: So what's the best and most efficient way to make
Speaker 1: that work. I'm gonna just start a sod farm, you
Speaker 1: and Greg site. Yeah, just do a bunch of them
Speaker 1: all throughout the country and you're just gonna.
Speaker 5: Be buying up little plasland.
Speaker 1: You you're evolving into Greg Norman. You can have sod
Speaker 1: farms and a vineyard. You can have it all. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming it on.
Speaker 5: I appreciate that your guys's time.
Speaker 9: Sorry it was a little truncated, but is that a
Speaker 9: clear People enjoy the discussion, appreciate the opportunity here
Speaker 11: M