Speaker 1: I miss a 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 ball.
Speaker 2: In a brid egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, fridagg bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 2: run off the golf course. Welcome back to another edition
Speaker 2: of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is one of
Speaker 2: our architect profiles. We are going to dig deep into
Speaker 2: the work of Walter Travis and to talk about Walter Travis,
Speaker 2: I have Brian Schneider joining me. He's been a longtime
Speaker 2: lead associate at Renaissance Golf. He also does his own
Speaker 2: solo work. You will be probably seeing a lot more
Speaker 2: of Brian Schneider work in the years to come. Right now,
Speaker 2: he is he's busy building a eighteen hole design with
Speaker 2: Blake Conant at Old Barnwell in Aiken, South Carolina. But
Speaker 2: in terms of Walter Travis, he's done in extensive restoration
Speaker 2: work at a few of Walter Travis's golf courses, including
Speaker 2: Hollywood Golf Club in New Jersey Garden City, which is
Speaker 2: a devereue. Emmett and Walter Travis Design North Jersey, which
Speaker 2: he is actually doing right now, a restoration of and
Speaker 2: Round Hill. So he has seen all but one of
Speaker 2: the Walter Travis courses that are left according to him,
Speaker 2: and no better person to talk to about Walter Travis,
Speaker 2: you know from a also you know, just building features,
Speaker 2: but the you know, the architecture of that made him unique.
Speaker 2: We talk about Walter Travis here and it was a
Speaker 2: real fun conversation. So without further ado, here is Brian Steider.
Speaker 2: All right, Brian, we're here to talk about Walter Travis.
Speaker 2: I think you know, this is an architect that I
Speaker 2: got a little bit deeper into the weeds on this year,
Speaker 2: saw a couple more of his courses. I've seen a handful,
Speaker 2: and I know you really respect the man, respect his work,
Speaker 2: and I think sometimes it even shows through in a
Speaker 2: little bit into your work, some of the things you
Speaker 2: might see from you you see in Walter Travis's work.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: My first question has to be, if Walter Travis was
Speaker 2: around today, do you think he'd go by Walter or Walt.
Speaker 1: I think he was a Walter. I think he was
Speaker 1: a Walter.
Speaker 3: Brilliant question though, I kind of think he'd be walled.
Speaker 3: I think he'd go that wall.
Speaker 1: You can't go wrong with either one. Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: It's a good dance. That's win win.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about background, obviously you consult
Speaker 2: at a number of Travis clubs, And tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit about the guy and how he got into
Speaker 2: golf and what you know about his background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not a biographer, but you know he was.
Speaker 1: He was born in Australia eighteen sixty two or something
Speaker 1: like that, moved to the States as a pretty young
Speaker 1: guy in eighteen eighty six or so. Took up golf
Speaker 1: nine or ten years later, when he was thirty four
Speaker 1: years old. I think it was a pretty athletic guy.
Speaker 1: But yeah, took up golf grudgingly as I understand it,
Speaker 1: at age thirty four, and you know, four years later
Speaker 1: won the first of his three US Amateur Championships nineteen
Speaker 1: oh four. Was the first brit to win the British Amateur,
Speaker 1: which didn't go over very well. He wanted Sandwich in England.
Speaker 1: The locals were none too happy about it. I forget
Speaker 1: the exact details of kind of the trophy presentation or
Speaker 1: whatever the fact or whatever. You know, the ceremony was
Speaker 1: after he won, but the fellow presenting his trophy was
Speaker 1: none too kind to him in that in his little speech.
Speaker 1: I don't think the locals treated him all that well,
Speaker 1: at least according to Travis. But in any case, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was the first non brit to win that important
Speaker 1: title at the time. He won it using the Schenectady putter,
Speaker 1: which was a mallet putter kind of center shafted that
Speaker 1: was banned by the RNA not long after that.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they they banned the center shafted putter. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it was necessarily directly retaliation against his win,
Speaker 1: but but you wouldn't discount that neither.
Speaker 2: They've done some things to Bryson that might some might
Speaker 2: say or sim you know, he starts doing one thing
Speaker 2: and that it's banned a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's uh has a long history of
Speaker 1: such things.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe Bryson will become the next Walter Travis golf
Speaker 2: architecture too.
Speaker 1: Tra Travis was like the Shambo in that way. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was always experimenting with different equipment, and you know
Speaker 1: he was I feel like he was one of the
Speaker 1: first guys to adopt the haskellball for competition when other
Speaker 1: folks were very sternly against it. And I think that
Speaker 1: those things, especially the schonenectady, I think that led to
Speaker 1: his falling out with McDonald. Actually he was he was
Speaker 1: pretty tight with Cebe McDonald early on. He was very
Speaker 1: much involved in the planning and development of the National
Speaker 1: Golf Links.
Speaker 2: Is that how he started playing was because of Cebe
Speaker 2: McDonald's or you.
Speaker 1: Know, no, you know, he worked when he moved to
Speaker 1: the States. He lived in New York City and just
Speaker 1: kind of ran in circle where people played golf as
Speaker 1: a as a social thing and it was a business,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of an essential of business at the time.
Speaker 1: In the circles he ran into play golf. So I
Speaker 1: think he took it up just because the folks he
Speaker 1: knew was socialized with were golfers. I don't know where
Speaker 1: the connection to McDonald's started exactly. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: both they both spent a lot of time at Garden
Speaker 1: City together along with Emmett and a bunch of other folks.
Speaker 1: So it might have been through Garden City that he
Speaker 1: got to know McDonald well. And McDonald honestly respected him
Speaker 1: as a golfer and invited him to participate in the National.
Speaker 1: Travis was none too happy. You know, McDonald was a
Speaker 1: pretty staunch traditionalist, and when it came to the rules
Speaker 1: of golf he almost entirely deferred to the RNA completely.
Speaker 1: And you know, when the RNA took away Travis's putter,
Speaker 1: Travis wasn't too happy that he didn't have McDonald's support.
Speaker 1: So the two had a falling out. And you know,
Speaker 1: to read McDonald's book now, when he talks about the
Speaker 1: National Golf Links, I don't think Travis gets a single mention,
Speaker 1: but you know, the impression is that he was essentially
Speaker 1: a co designer. You know, he was very much involved there,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I don't know that. I don't know they
Speaker 1: ever got back to getting along, which happened with Emmett too.
Speaker 1: You know, he and he and Devereux Emmett were were
Speaker 1: buddies for a long time, and you know, Emmett had
Speaker 1: laid out Garden City. Travis made some changes to the
Speaker 1: golf course and they had a falling out perhaps over
Speaker 1: some of that work. There's a beautiful letter at on
Speaker 1: the wall at Garden City from Emmett to Travis. You know,
Speaker 1: in like nineteen twenty one, I think where Emmett said
Speaker 1: something along the lines of, you know, dear Travis, you know,
Speaker 1: we were once very good friends, and I always regretted,
Speaker 1: regretted to our estrangement. Can we not be friends again?
Speaker 1: It's like this sweet, you know, part felt letter, and
Speaker 1: there's there's no knowing if Travis ever responded. But yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently once Travis was crossed, he didn't didn't let go
Speaker 1: of grudges easily.
Speaker 2: Him and McDonald would be a pairing that was just
Speaker 2: bound for an explosion. Probably, So I'd never really heard
Speaker 2: of Travis being a co designer of National Golf Links.
Speaker 2: And is there something about the design to you, like,
Speaker 2: is there a feature specific, you know, on a hole
Speaker 2: that really like stands out to you like this reminds
Speaker 2: me of a Travis feature?
Speaker 1: Not really. I mean, Travis was known for his wild greens,
Speaker 1: and clearly the National has some of those, But but
Speaker 1: there aren't any greens at the National that I look at,
Speaker 1: and so that was definitely Travis.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mike's Cerba. I don't know if you know Mike
Speaker 1: or heard him. Yeah, he wrote a really interesting long
Speaker 1: article about that whole saga and how Travis was basically
Speaker 1: just written out of the history of the National by McDonald.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good read if you ever want to
Speaker 1: get into it.
Speaker 3: Further, Yeah, I will, I'll look into that now.
Speaker 2: It's uh, it's uh McDonald. The McDonald is a cantankerous fellow.
Speaker 2: And you know you talk about the letter writing. I
Speaker 2: think I don't know if like club histories now, like
Speaker 2: when you think about if you go to a lot
Speaker 2: of these historic places and they have in their library
Speaker 2: or their history room these letters that were written by
Speaker 2: architects back to clubs, are those gonna be like emails
Speaker 2: printed out in the future, Like what that's gonna be?
Speaker 2: But it just makes me think like, is uh, you
Speaker 2: know Skokie or you know, uh, North Jersey going to
Speaker 2: have an email printed out from you to them about
Speaker 2: the about the changes that you're making at the course?
Speaker 1: That's what not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if if I was somebody that never seen
Speaker 2: a Walter Travis design, how would you describe it?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's hard to do that with architects, you know,
Speaker 1: just he was a product of the time, So there
Speaker 1: wasn't you know that clearly wasn't my much earth moving
Speaker 1: involved in building his golf courses, but he clearly also
Speaker 1: did a lot of work around his green complexes. You know,
Speaker 1: he packed a lot of contour and slope in typically
Speaker 1: small packages, you know, relative to to modern greens. Especially
Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't afraid of blind shots, so a
Speaker 1: lot of his courses featured blind shots off the tee
Speaker 1: or even into greens. But it's hard, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just hard to stereotype any architect that way, but his
Speaker 1: you know, his greens. Definitely there are similarities from one
Speaker 1: course to the next, especially kind of in the heyday
Speaker 1: of his design career. You can go from one course
Speaker 1: to the next and you can definitely recognize the similarities.
Speaker 1: And I suspect that was at least partly driven by
Speaker 1: the people that were building his golf courses for him.
Speaker 1: That you know, he did a lot of his work
Speaker 1: in the Northeast, and I presume that you know, he
Speaker 1: took shapers builders from one project to the next, and
Speaker 1: that helped him build the greens that he built, which he's.
Speaker 2: Known with uh with the greens, and I think you
Speaker 2: zeroed in on those. And I think if a conversation
Speaker 2: about Walter Travis, probably like starts starts at the greens
Speaker 2: because you know, they are some of the most unique
Speaker 2: greens that you'll you'll encounter, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 2: think one of the things that I was most struck
Speaker 2: by is like how well they handle modern speeds. But
Speaker 2: can you explain, you know, like what it is that
Speaker 2: make Travis greens unique.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you touched on that. I mean, the
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about them. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there's ever been an architect who's built more
Speaker 1: interesting greens, but they do continue that they're packed with contour,
Speaker 1: but they still work really well at today's green speeds,
Speaker 1: which is fascinating. I mean, there are there aren't many
Speaker 1: greens on his courses where it's just a steep five
Speaker 1: percent back to front. You know, where you're gonna you're
Speaker 1: gonna put off the green or if you miss over here,
Speaker 1: you're just dead because you can't keep it on the green.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of his greens are kind of segmented,
Speaker 1: and they contain little ridges and backstops and bowls and
Speaker 1: contour around the edges, mounting around the perimeters that kind
Speaker 1: of help you stay on the green even if you're
Speaker 1: in the wrong section and you're gonna have a hard
Speaker 1: time getting within six or eight feet with your first putt.
Speaker 1: At least you're not gonna end up thirty yards down
Speaker 1: the approach in most cases. Again, it's hard to pigeonhole
Speaker 1: his greens to him, and there's a lot of variety,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the things that makes them really
Speaker 1: worth study. It's not the same thing over and over.
Speaker 1: So we did have a few greens that you might
Speaker 1: even call templates that he did kind of take from
Speaker 1: course to course with him. But you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of them feature these broad swales across the greens, almost
Speaker 1: beter Ritz like or diagonal swales, little pimpoly mounds around
Speaker 1: the edges. There's just a lot going on. But it's
Speaker 1: fun to see, you know, it's fun to go from
Speaker 1: one course to the next and there's always you know,
Speaker 1: if it's a well preserved Travis course, you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna find a bunch of really cool greens and you're
Speaker 1: going to see some stuff you've never seen before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think those act like kind of those pimply
Speaker 2: as you just rib them pipli edges around the exteriors
Speaker 2: of the greens are are so compelling because of you know,
Speaker 2: when you get the pins over into the edges right,
Speaker 2: they play such an interesting role if you're coming from
Speaker 2: the right place. They're almost like helping contours. And then
Speaker 2: when you miss, like in a spot, say that you
Speaker 2: miss it just short right of a front right pin,
Speaker 2: you get these really awkward little pitches over and they're
Speaker 2: almost like Maxwell rolls, but bigger, right, would you?
Speaker 3: Is that how you describe them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're definitely abrupt, you know, they can be very
Speaker 1: pointy and pimply, But you're right. I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: want to short side yourself on a lot of his
Speaker 1: greens because you're often going up and over something and
Speaker 1: trying to stop at in a relatively small section of
Speaker 1: the green before it tumbles down to the next one,
Speaker 1: Whereas if you're missed on the other side, you often
Speaker 1: got a backstop, which makes that that recovery shot a
Speaker 1: lot easier. So yeah, sorting out where to miss around
Speaker 1: his greens is an important part of playing well on
Speaker 1: his golf courses.
Speaker 2: This that era of design, to me is so good
Speaker 2: because of the lack of ability to move so much
Speaker 2: dirt right, But he was by no means like a minimalist.
Speaker 2: You look at like what he did around greens, and
Speaker 2: there he did significant earth moving around greens in some cases, right.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And it's not on the same
Speaker 1: scale as Langford and Moreau or rain Or necessarily you're
Speaker 1: not not creating these massive pads, but they're you know,
Speaker 1: the contouring does extend out to the approaches and the surrounds,
Speaker 1: and he was kind of pinching up material to to
Speaker 1: create some of them mounting around the edges and to
Speaker 1: give the greens a little bit of elevation. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there was there was certainly some work that went into
Speaker 1: his greens. A lot of them aren't just laying on
Speaker 1: the ground like Garden the City. A lot of greens.
Speaker 1: I bring up Garden City, but a lot of those
Speaker 1: greens aren't his. So I didn't mean to make that
Speaker 1: that comparison necessarily.
Speaker 3: With him not building everything up.
Speaker 2: But you brought up Rainer and lang for Moreau, and
Speaker 2: you know, Charles Banks would fall into this about too,
Speaker 2: where they a lot of their work was greens were
Speaker 2: built up. What advantage of keeping things on the grade
Speaker 2: did that provide Travis at the Green more often? Obviously
Speaker 2: he built some greens up, but like you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, I love Langford of Moreau and I really
Speaker 1: like Rainer's work. But you know, I think one of
Speaker 1: the drawbacks of Langford's work is that it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: well suited to the ground game. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the approaches there are some pretty abrupt rises into
Speaker 1: the green where you're just better off flying it out
Speaker 1: of the green. And Travis was not like that. I
Speaker 1: mean to me, his greens are asking you to land
Speaker 1: them all short and run it. On a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: Tom Simpson was kind of the same way, and Willie Park.
Speaker 1: You know, it's there are similarities to the old course,
Speaker 1: and then a lot of times there's an abrupt but
Speaker 1: very manageable contour at the front of the green, you know,
Speaker 1: a false front that's two feet high instead of on
Speaker 1: a rain or Langford course where it's six rate feet high,
Speaker 1: just asking you to land it short and climb that
Speaker 1: little contour and then stop it on the backside. So
Speaker 1: I think it's very much geared towards running approaches and
Speaker 1: thinking about using the ten twenty thirty yards short of
Speaker 1: the green to get your ball close, especially the front
Speaker 1: hull locations, and that's what I love about it. It's
Speaker 1: he asks for different shots into his greens, and a
Speaker 1: lot of architects do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like you can build a little bit
Speaker 2: more variety in too right, you know. Like one of
Speaker 2: the things that is, I think a lot of his
Speaker 2: greens are kind of deceiving where they can kind of
Speaker 2: run away or you're putting uphill and you feel like
Speaker 2: you might be putting down like there, and I think
Speaker 2: this might be and like I'm just you know, kind
Speaker 2: of rubbaging off the top of my head here. But
Speaker 2: those things he created on the exterior, the big slopes
Speaker 2: on the edges of the greens almost obscure the way
Speaker 2: you see the smaller stuff in the green.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I think they can make reading puts confusing you.
Speaker 1: It's almost like when you're building greens on hilly ground,
Speaker 1: the stuff you're seeing in the background can throw off
Speaker 1: your impression of what the what your put's going to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he wasn't afraid to build greens that fall away
Speaker 1: or whole locations that are dead flat. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily know the routing was his strength, but
Speaker 1: he did have a pensiant for you know, routing hole
Speaker 1: up and over a hill and then just benching the
Speaker 1: green on the backside, you know, lift up the back
Speaker 1: of the green six feet to hold it in, but
Speaker 1: everything's still falling away, and if you land on the green,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna have a hard time stopping it.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times, like the tent that scrant
Speaker 1: is a great example. Yeah, you've got to be thinking
Speaker 1: about landing it well short of the green, just letting
Speaker 1: it trick along and hope you don't fall off the back.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. You don't see that from a lot
Speaker 1: of architects, and that's something he'd like to do fairly often.
Speaker 2: That might be like an example you mentioned like there
Speaker 2: were there's some common green slash holes that you've seen
Speaker 2: across his body of work.
Speaker 3: Are there any? Are there?
Speaker 2: What are some that come to mind that have you know,
Speaker 2: some shared similarities. I don't want to use the word template,
Speaker 2: but maybe some common hole designs and what those look like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he often did a riff on the beer ritz.
Speaker 1: You know, a swale, not usually as deep as what
Speaker 1: Rainer would have built, but you know, just a soft
Speaker 1: swale running across the center of the green or or
Speaker 1: oftentimes at a bit of a diagonal. That was something
Speaker 1: you see on almost all of his golf courses, and
Speaker 1: you know, oftentimes it's arranged a little bit differently. It's
Speaker 1: the configuration of the rest of the green varies from
Speaker 1: course to course, but the diagonal swale across his greens
Speaker 1: is something you see quite a bit.
Speaker 3: Be like country Club at Troy's twelfth Hall have something.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, that's a good one. And he built you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a maiden style green on a number of
Speaker 1: courses too. You know Miss Squamicat, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've been Miss Quamakat in Rhode Island. It's you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys worked there, including Rayner and Ross
Speaker 1: and Travis. At some point they mighted Travis on to
Speaker 1: take a look around, and the fourth green there, He
Speaker 1: and Ross were buddies. They work together a bit of Pinehurst.
Speaker 1: Travis takes credit for Pineher's number two and some article
Speaker 1: or a letter, so I don't know the extent to
Speaker 1: which that's true, but he and Ross certainly knew each
Speaker 1: other well. But the fourth green and Miss Quamaicat, which
Speaker 1: theoretically is a Ross course, you know, is a very
Speaker 1: much a splitting image. Spitting image of kind of a
Speaker 1: maiden style green he's built elsewhere. It's you know, there's
Speaker 1: kind of a high crown at the front, a swale
Speaker 1: running across the middle, and then two little pads in
Speaker 1: the back divided by a swale. That's a green I've
Speaker 1: seen more than once. I'm at North Jersey Country Club
Speaker 1: right now and there's seventeenth. There's a dead ringer for
Speaker 1: the fourth and Miskwamika.
Speaker 2: That's that, yeah, I mean, and most probably would have
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't know Travis worked there or even
Speaker 2: you know, had been there. And it's like you'd probably
Speaker 2: think that's a Rainer because Rainer built maiden greens, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's about half the size of what Rainer
Speaker 1: would build a lot packed into a little package. That
Speaker 1: The seventeenth here at North Jersey's at the end of
Speaker 1: a reasonably short par five. But it's all the work
Speaker 1: you can do to get up and down if you
Speaker 1: missed the green.
Speaker 2: I think that's the thing you hit on is the
Speaker 2: size of these plateaus, right, And people probably think of
Speaker 2: like a Rainer green with plateaus, they're really big. I
Speaker 2: think this shocking thing about the Travis ones is sometimes
Speaker 2: how small they are and it's like, wow, you got
Speaker 2: to hit like I mean, they're so abrupt coming up
Speaker 2: and then there's just this little paddock of space and
Speaker 2: it's totally achievable, but it's extraordinarily difficult to do, and
Speaker 2: when you miss it leads to a lot of really
Speaker 2: fun shots. Whether you're putting up onto it, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to get it up on there, or you're chipping
Speaker 2: from around the green it opens up. I mean, do
Speaker 2: you land it kind of into the slope, do you
Speaker 2: land it short of the slope, let it run up,
Speaker 2: do you try and hit a higher shot that lands
Speaker 2: up on the slope. It's really I think, you know,
Speaker 2: when we talk about how it has stood up the
Speaker 2: test of time. The thing with the greens is they
Speaker 2: have these these vicious slopes, these you know, really abrupt slopes,
Speaker 2: but then there's such pockets of flat area. But they're small,
Speaker 2: you know, but they they still retain pain so many
Speaker 2: pin positions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's often a counter roll on the other side
Speaker 1: that helps keep you win, you know, and that's that's
Speaker 1: why they continue to work really well. If they're almost
Speaker 1: little bowls that you know, if you get in the
Speaker 1: right spot, it's going to help you, but finding that spot,
Speaker 1: because they're pretty small, can be a challenge. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not It's not lost on me too, that there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of really great superintendents taking care of
Speaker 1: his golf courses now, so you know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of shortcress around his greens and you've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of options, and you know, these guys are doing fantastic
Speaker 1: work taking care of his golf courses and that makes
Speaker 1: him a lot of fun to play.
Speaker 2: You've done a lot of work and as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: you're at North Jersey right now a Travis that you're
Speaker 2: working on a restoration plan at What is it like
Speaker 2: when you try and recreate his work?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it a difficult style to recreate?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's brutal. It's like, yeah, the guy was the
Speaker 1: best builder of greens ever, and it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: just build eleven greens just like Travis would have. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was that easy everyone to do it. It's hard.
Speaker 1: It's really hard. You know. One thing that's made it
Speaker 1: easier is digital mapping of greens. So we didn't do
Speaker 1: that last year, but this year at North Jersey, I'm
Speaker 1: building the greens at grade, and you know, I just
Speaker 1: paint the line around the perimeter and say this is
Speaker 1: where the green is, and our contractor will map that,
Speaker 1: core it out, put the we're building USGA green, So
Speaker 1: they'll core it out, you know, they'll put the gravel in,
Speaker 1: they'll put the drainage in, they'll put the mix in,
Speaker 1: and I don't have to worry about getting screwed up.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like they've got this this digital map
Speaker 1: of it so that once all that work is done,
Speaker 1: they could put it back exactly as I left it.
Speaker 1: So the hard thing about building a USGA green is
Speaker 1: often the little rolls at the edge, you know, getting
Speaker 1: the green over the top of these these pointy little
Speaker 1: knobs or these fall offs, the false fronts that can
Speaker 1: be really hard to do well in a bulldozer, to
Speaker 1: the point where last year I was using an excavator
Speaker 1: on the edges to kind of touch some of that up.
Speaker 1: So it was a pretty involved process. But using the
Speaker 1: method we're using this year makes my life a lot easier.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more work for the contractor, but
Speaker 1: it makes my life easier, which is more important to me.
Speaker 1: So I think we're getting really cool shapes. But it
Speaker 1: is hard. I mean it is hard. And I've spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time going back to Travis Courses over
Speaker 1: the course of the past couple of years to really
Speaker 1: hone in on his greens and you know, take some measurements,
Speaker 1: check grades. Yeah, Unfortunately, they've got a handful of original
Speaker 1: greens here still and the other places I've worked, I've
Speaker 1: taken a transit to a lot of their greens and
Speaker 1: really studied what makes them work. So I hope I'm
Speaker 1: doing a decent job, but it is a challenge. It's
Speaker 1: definitely a challenge.
Speaker 3: With all those travels.
Speaker 2: What are some of your favorite holes of Travis holes
Speaker 2: at a few courses, maybe just give us a couple.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, he built you know, according to the
Speaker 1: Travis Society, he built fifty one golf courses I think
Speaker 1: is their number, and I've got another four or five
Speaker 1: where I've seen articles that mentioned that he might have
Speaker 1: been there. So, you know, basically built or remodeled fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty some golf courses. Probably a dozen of them
Speaker 1: either never got built or have been wiped out completely.
Speaker 1: You know, there's probably another ten or twelve where there's
Speaker 1: still a golf course in the place he built it,
Speaker 1: but it's no longer anything like what he built, you know.
Speaker 1: I think there's only half a dozen that you would
Speaker 1: say are well preserved that they're actually still pure Travis
Speaker 1: golf courses, and there's probably another eight or ten that
Speaker 1: are are awfully close. So it can be hard to
Speaker 1: find original, great, original holes by him. But there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of great holes, you know. The one that pops
Speaker 1: into my head is the seventh that's Granton. You've not
Speaker 1: been as Grant.
Speaker 3: Yet, I haven't. I kills me. It kills me.
Speaker 2: I was Inton for a friend's wedding years ago, and
Speaker 2: I had my wife with me and it was my friend,
Speaker 2: you know, she didn't know anybody. It's just like one
Speaker 2: of those times where you can't you can't leave, you know.
Speaker 2: And it was like I was like, I'm right here.
Speaker 2: When am I ever going to be back and Scranton here?
Speaker 2: I want to go see this place, but I can't,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, and then and then it pissed
Speaker 2: rain on Sunday.
Speaker 3: It was like the one chance.
Speaker 2: I was like kind of thinking, you know what, I'll
Speaker 2: sneak out, I'll walk out there, I'll walk in the morning,
Speaker 2: just just jog around it at least see it. And
Speaker 2: then it's like it was like an utter downpour, like
Speaker 2: a deluge, like you rainy wouldn't want to go out into.
Speaker 1: It's still there. It's not going anywhere. I'm sure you'll
Speaker 1: be back in Scranton someday. Someday. But there's seventh holes
Speaker 1: really cool. There's a bunch of great holes there.
Speaker 3: Is that that's a hillier site, right it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the clubhost sits on top of a big hill,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean that's the hilliest part, but the
Speaker 1: rest of the ground does have some movement to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The tenth hole there, which I mentioned earlier, is just
Speaker 1: a really cool par four that's just racing down that
Speaker 1: hill and the green is tacked onto the steep hill
Speaker 1: at the bottom and he jacked up the back and
Speaker 1: there's a little stream behind the green, so if you
Speaker 1: go along, there's a fifty to fifty chancer in the stream.
Speaker 1: That's a really cool hole. It's just a spine that
Speaker 1: runs across the green from right to left about halfway back,
Speaker 1: and if the pin's behind that, you've got to go
Speaker 1: up and over this eighteen inch spine and try and
Speaker 1: stop it on the backside. There's a great hole like
Speaker 1: that at glenn Lyden, this really cool little course up
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire, the nine hole course that's got a
Speaker 1: really similar green.
Speaker 3: That's like a neighborhood course, right.
Speaker 1: It's a I don't even know what to make in
Speaker 1: the place. Really. I don't think they have a pro necessarily.
Speaker 1: I think it's just attached to this funky, tiny little
Speaker 1: community and they have access to the golf course. And
Speaker 1: I got in touch with somebody there. It's hard, it's
Speaker 1: hard to get somebody on the phone, but you know,
Speaker 1: I was out that way and it reached out just
Speaker 1: trying to find someone to talk to and kind of explain,
Speaker 1: you know, what I do and who I am, and
Speaker 1: you know, do you mind if I take a walk
Speaker 1: around your golf course while I'm passing through tomorrow. And
Speaker 1: the guy's kind of like, yeah, we don't really do that.
Speaker 1: We don't really let people walk around the golf course.
Speaker 1: So I got up really early the next morning, before
Speaker 1: I thought anybody would be there, and took a quick
Speaker 1: walk around and didn't see anyone. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: quirky little place, and that's a really hilly spot, but
Speaker 1: there's some great greens and a couple of really cool
Speaker 1: holes out there.
Speaker 2: Somebody told me about that place at one of our
Speaker 2: events and he was like, you know, I don't even
Speaker 2: really know how how you play it, but you know,
Speaker 2: I think, he said, my son and I we just
Speaker 2: like just jumped out there and played one day because
Speaker 2: nobody was out there, and and it's just to cool play.
Speaker 2: He was telling me how cool it was. I like
Speaker 2: thought about trying to, you know, veer off course. I
Speaker 2: just didn't have enough time to veer off course to
Speaker 2: go up there and see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty neat. It's pretty neat. It's very it's
Speaker 1: very hilly and pretty quirky. But there's some cool greens.
Speaker 1: It's really neat holes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had seen so.
Speaker 2: I'd seen Garden City, which obviously is is uh you
Speaker 2: know some Travis uh some ev't and you know, that's
Speaker 2: a more subdued site. I saw, you know, Cape Rundle
Speaker 2: is a little bit more subdued site, and I thought,
Speaker 2: you know, then we went and saw a country called Detroit,
Speaker 2: which is on a very severe site, and it was
Speaker 2: it was interesting. You know what you said about his
Speaker 2: uh he maybe not the greatest router. You know, I
Speaker 2: did feel like I was climbing hills all day long,
Speaker 2: But I thought the greens, you know, I was curious
Speaker 2: if like the greens would be a more toned down
Speaker 2: on a more severe site like you see a lot
Speaker 2: of places, and definitely not it was.
Speaker 3: You know, they're still hat packed as much of a punch.
Speaker 2: And you know, you see a lot out of like
Speaker 2: this game kind of of like where the ground with
Speaker 2: a lot of architects where the ground is wild, they
Speaker 2: might tone it down to the greens a little bit.
Speaker 2: But with then when it's flat, it gets really funky
Speaker 2: at the greens. And with him, it seemed that it
Speaker 2: had that same consistency at the green that you would
Speaker 2: see and maybe not quite as wild as a Cape Arundle,
Speaker 2: you know, from one through eighteen. You know, there's a
Speaker 2: couple more subdued greens at Troy, but like overall it's
Speaker 2: still had those like big highlight greens.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think he knew how to turn down
Speaker 1: the volume necessarily that he just he went for it everywhere.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the greens at Troy or that's a wild set.
Speaker 3: That place could be really really cool.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, Garden City is different. You know what,
Speaker 1: I really do think of that as an Emmet golf
Speaker 1: course at this point. You know, I've been fortunate to
Speaker 1: work there a long time and and they've got two
Speaker 1: assistant superintendents there that are just you know, lunatics for
Speaker 1: finding everything they can about the golf course. So they've
Speaker 1: got this massive treasure trove of information, which is great.
Speaker 1: Travis made a bunch of changes to the golf course
Speaker 1: over the years, especially before the nineteen thirteen Amateur, but
Speaker 1: most of that we were bunkers, you know. He had
Speaker 1: a bunch of bunkers to the golf course. He took
Speaker 1: out a bunch of Emmett's cross bunkers, or took out
Speaker 1: half of Emmitt's cross bunkers and left the other half
Speaker 1: to give you away around and he redone four of
Speaker 1: the greens prior to that event, the twelfth being one
Speaker 1: of them, which is you know, the crazy green at
Speaker 1: Garden City. But somebody came in and undid his work
Speaker 1: on the other three at some point. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was Emit or somebody else, but a
Speaker 1: lot of his work to the greens didn't survive there.
Speaker 1: But a lot of his bunkers are still still intact,
Speaker 1: but it's very much an emmittt routing, and most of
Speaker 1: the greens are still original Emmitt. But yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: totally different place than than most of his work.
Speaker 3: Is the par three the back line? Was it thirteen
Speaker 3: with a crazy twelve? Twelve? That is that Travis Green
Speaker 3: or I'm at Green.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was Travis. They talked about you know,
Speaker 1: there's an article before the thirteen Amateur that mentions I
Speaker 1: think dromedary humps was the term they used to describe
Speaker 1: what he did to those four greens. So yeah, twelve
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one. There were three other ones. I
Speaker 1: think it was two and two and nine, and I
Speaker 1: forget the fourth one. But yeah, no, that green's crazy.
Speaker 1: That Green's crazy.
Speaker 3: That's a great way to describe it. What is it?
Speaker 1: Dramatary dromedary mounds, dromedary humps, I think is what the
Speaker 1: term was. That that green is interesting that I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've ever seen if you've been to Columbia
Speaker 1: Country Club near d C.
Speaker 3: I've seen the photo, the old photos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a there are a bunch of great old
Speaker 1: photos of their sixteenth Oald which is a part three
Speaker 1: over a little stream back in the day. Today it
Speaker 1: looks like the twelfth in Augusta, but.
Speaker 3: Maybe someday. H. H.
Speaker 1: Barker was the pro at Garden City when Travis was
Speaker 1: doing his work, and Barker was hired to redesign the
Speaker 1: golf course at Columbia and stole the idea for the
Speaker 1: you know, of the twelfth hole of Garden City and
Speaker 1: rebuilt that green almost exactly as the sixteenth at Columbia.
Speaker 1: And then before the Columbia host of the nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: one US Open, they hired Travis to come in and
Speaker 1: tweak the golf course and he blew that green up,
Speaker 1: so really yeah, and I think, you know, he and
Speaker 1: Barker were buddies, and I think they worked together on
Speaker 1: the renovation before the Open. But he changed that green completely,
Speaker 1: basically just filled in all the space between the mounds,
Speaker 1: and yeah, undid it. So Barker copied the idea and
Speaker 1: Travis was the one to wipe it out, which is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. I wish they'd put that back. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was a really cool feature and that was a
Speaker 1: really cool golf course. The two of them built some
Speaker 1: really wild stuff there, and unfortunately it's all gone at
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 2: But you know that if there's one place that you
Speaker 2: could build some bold and you know, different stuff that
Speaker 2: would really stand out on the eastern East Coast, it'd
Speaker 2: be in DC.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know you are ahead of Alter Travis course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, DC's screaming for screaming for a golf course with
Speaker 1: that sort of character.
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Speaker 3: What you know with his bodywork?
Speaker 2: And this is kind of an impossible question, like, you know,
Speaker 2: given all the stuff he did in its hey like
Speaker 2: in its heyday, what course would you consider his masterpiece.
Speaker 1: At this point? Probably Hollywood, and it's it's a bit
Speaker 1: of an anomaly in his portfolio. I mean, the bunkering
Speaker 1: at Hollywood is what gets everyone's attention, and for a
Speaker 1: good reason when he built it. You know, he built
Speaker 1: like two hundred and sixty bunkers and we've been shipping
Speaker 1: away restoring those. We did a big bunker project there
Speaker 1: nine years ago in twenty thirteen, and at that point
Speaker 1: there were like one hundred and seventy and we've added
Speaker 1: a few more back and I think we're up to
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty six at this point, so it's
Speaker 1: still missing a bunch of bunkers. But he didn't really
Speaker 1: do that anywhere else and the style of bunkers are
Speaker 1: more flash sand and it's definitely an anomaly. And it
Speaker 1: was he built that on the heels of his time
Speaker 1: working with Crump at Pine Valley, so it's hard to
Speaker 1: think he wasn't inspired by by what was going on
Speaker 1: over there. Crump actually kind of enlisted him to try
Speaker 1: and make Pine Valley reversible, which was that Travis was
Speaker 1: into East Potomac Park, the MUNI and d C was
Speaker 1: reversible golf course. Hopefully we're going to get the chance
Speaker 1: to restore that in the next couple of years. The
Speaker 1: West Course of Westchester originally was reversible, which is hard
Speaker 1: to believe when you walk that piece of property, you
Speaker 1: look at playing some of those holes backwards, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to understand why they settled on this routing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there are drawings of the holes at Pine
Speaker 1: Valley playing in the other direction. That was Travis's mission,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it was ever built to accommodate it,
Speaker 1: but that was something Crump had assigned him to do.
Speaker 2: I mean reversibil you always think of as like you know,
Speaker 2: with the Westchester or the Pine Valley, right, you always
Speaker 2: think about a reversible course being a little bit more
Speaker 2: mellow on the ground. And I think like Tom talks
Speaker 2: about that with the Loop. When he saw the land,
Speaker 2: he was like, you know what, there's nothing like super
Speaker 2: crazy about this land.
Speaker 3: But and that would.
Speaker 2: Allow for a reversible golf course, right, and you think
Speaker 2: about East Potomac. I mean that's about his flat of
Speaker 2: a piece of property as you could find. And you
Speaker 2: know the old course, which was obviously was reversible. That
Speaker 2: is a very you know, very flat. There's a ton
Speaker 2: of contour on it, but for the you know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't have huge topographical movement.
Speaker 3: The idea of building a.
Speaker 2: Reversible course in Westchester is kind of crazy to think of. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think like Dan Hickson did a semi reversible
Speaker 2: course and that's on a more severe land at Sylvie's Ranch.
Speaker 2: But there's also nine other greens. It's not like the
Speaker 2: way you would think about reversible. So there's greens to
Speaker 2: accommodate the other route. You know, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously flat land accommodations that I wonder if you could
Speaker 2: ever put back the reversible ability at Westchester.
Speaker 1: I'd love to try. You know, that'd be high on
Speaker 1: my list of places that should be restored and not
Speaker 1: just for the reversible thing, but his bunkering scheme there
Speaker 1: was pretty wild, and he built a lot of little
Speaker 1: clusters of pot bunkers all over the place, and it
Speaker 1: was it was a really cool golf course back in
Speaker 1: the day. And they've done a good job of preserving
Speaker 1: the greens generally, though it's been a few years since
Speaker 1: I've been there. I know they've been doing some work.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've touched the greens necessarily, but
Speaker 1: they haven't really messed up the routing or the greens, thankfully,
Speaker 1: So that'd be a good one to put back together someday.
Speaker 2: We've talked about the abrupt nature of his greens and
Speaker 2: the slopes and his greens. I think like something else
Speaker 2: that we haven't really touched on that you've you've talked
Speaker 2: a little bit about is are his but also his
Speaker 2: above ground features on the peripheries of fairways around greens.
Speaker 2: He was very big on building things up, it seems like,
Speaker 2: rather than down. What is it about What do you
Speaker 2: like about those above ground features that he built?
Speaker 1: You know, I think he was just a very practical guy.
Speaker 1: And you know, a place like Hollywood that's a sandy site,
Speaker 1: so he went a little wild with the bunkers there.
Speaker 1: But you know here at North Jersey and Round Hill
Speaker 1: where I've worked, you know, there are rocky sites, and
Speaker 1: to try building bunkers here a is really hard, and
Speaker 1: b generates a bunch of rock if you can, if
Speaker 1: you can get in the ground, you're gonna dig up
Speaker 1: a bunch of rock that has to go somewhere. So
Speaker 1: you know, at North Jersey, I think when we're done
Speaker 1: with our work here, there's going to be fifteen or
Speaker 1: sixteen bunkers. But he built mounds all over the golf course,
Speaker 1: including in the fairways between holes. You know, there was
Speaker 1: a bunch of rock and he had to do something
Speaker 1: with it. So instead of digging bunkers everywhere and fighting
Speaker 1: the rock, he just built moulins and all the spoils
Speaker 1: from the construction work. And for the first few years
Speaker 1: of its existence, the members were asked to carry a
Speaker 1: little pouch with him as they played golf and pick
Speaker 1: up stones in the fairways as they played, and you know,
Speaker 1: Travis basically told him where to dump the stones. So
Speaker 1: there were piles of rocks all over the golf course
Speaker 1: for a few years, and eventually they either hauled some
Speaker 1: away or just grasp them over, you know, threw some
Speaker 1: soil on him and grasped him over. But that's how
Speaker 1: they dealt with the rock problem.
Speaker 3: Is a different kind of drop zone.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, there's a funny article that North Jersey
Speaker 1: had a club magazine for a few years, and that's
Speaker 1: where they talk about picking up the rocks. But they
Speaker 1: also blast the architect for what a horrible selection of
Speaker 1: the site. And you know, they blame him for sticking
Speaker 1: and a rocky, difficult piece of ground where they had
Speaker 1: to pick up a rocks for three years. But you know,
Speaker 1: we're putting some of that stuff back and around Hill
Speaker 1: was the same way. They had a bunch of mounds
Speaker 1: in the fairways that in the fifties they were superintendent
Speaker 1: took out, but he used that as as hazards instead
Speaker 1: of bunkers. You know, I'm sure he would have would
Speaker 1: have placed bunkers in a lot of the same locations
Speaker 1: if it was easy to dig a hole, but instead
Speaker 1: he just used the mounds. But they were very much
Speaker 1: in play. They were not just chocolate drops on the
Speaker 1: edges of holes. They were in the middle of fairways
Speaker 1: and they got in your way.
Speaker 2: Seeks of a year work at Lanark and and your
Speaker 2: early work at Old Barnwell, to me seems like the
Speaker 2: above ground features that Travis kind of built you were
Speaker 2: you were incorporating somewhat into your work. What is it
Speaker 2: about the grass mound that that really appeals to you
Speaker 2: as an architectural feature.
Speaker 1: Honest, I'm just kind of sick of bunkers, you know.
Speaker 1: The work Atlantic was was kind of like the thing
Speaker 1: I was just talking about, and we ended up with
Speaker 1: a bunch of material. They didn't have a dump. We
Speaker 1: had to find a place to put it, so we
Speaker 1: just built features with it. Old barn Wall's not quite
Speaker 1: the same, but I do think they're cool hazards. I
Speaker 1: think it's just rather than building bunkers everywhere, you can
Speaker 1: have some bunkers, you can have some mounds, you can
Speaker 1: have some burns. You know. It's just another type of
Speaker 1: feature that adds to the overall complexity of the golf
Speaker 1: course and Tom's you know, Tom Doak has alluded to
Speaker 1: it on our projects in Houston where we worked with
Speaker 1: Brooks Kopka Memorial Park. Bunkers don't matter to good players,
Speaker 1: you know, especially green side bunkers and fairry bunkers. Generally,
Speaker 1: if you're a really good player and you hit it
Speaker 1: a long way, you're either you're going to try to
Speaker 1: avoid a fairry bunker if it's in your way, whether
Speaker 1: you just swing harder or lay up. You know, very
Speaker 1: rarely to good players end up in ferry bunkers if
Speaker 1: they can avoid them. So they're not really effective hazards
Speaker 1: for challenging the best players, but they beat up the
Speaker 1: average player. And contour and mounds are a little different
Speaker 1: than that. You know, if Brooks made that point when
Speaker 1: we were working with them, that you know, if you've
Speaker 1: got an awkward lie in the rough, whether it's off
Speaker 1: the fairware, especially around the greens, those are the hardest
Speaker 1: shouts for him. That's what makes that's what makes something
Speaker 1: challenging for him, Or is that doesn't really make golf
Speaker 1: a lot harder for the average player. Certainly not as
Speaker 1: difficult as playing out of a fairway bunker or a
Speaker 1: bunker forty yards short of a green. So I think
Speaker 1: it's a really effective way of testing the best players well,
Speaker 1: letting other people find their ball and get around and
Speaker 1: not have to rake bunkers as often. So I just
Speaker 1: think they are a great alternative to immediately opting for
Speaker 1: sand everywhere you want a hazard.
Speaker 2: With Travis, I think one of the things that, like
Speaker 2: a lot of these great golden h architects, especially the
Speaker 2: ones that worked in the Northeast, not a lot of
Speaker 2: his golf is accessible. There is a course that I
Speaker 2: think is extraordinarily good in Maine, not too far from Boston,
Speaker 2: that everybody can play, and we've talked about it on
Speaker 2: our YouTube channel, Caper, and I'd love, you know, to
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about that golf course and to
Speaker 2: you what are the quintessential things that somebody could take
Speaker 2: away from that golf course that would help them understand
Speaker 2: Walter Travis.
Speaker 1: That's a fantastic place. I mean, it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those places that feels like it hasn't changed in one
Speaker 1: hundred years in a really good way.
Speaker 2: Absolute must see golf course, like maybe the most underrated
Speaker 2: golf course, one of the most underrated golf courses in America.
Speaker 2: And it's just because it's fifty eight hundred yards in
Speaker 2: my opinion, you know, it's like that place. If I
Speaker 2: played there every day the rest of my life, I'd
Speaker 2: be like the happiest human being.
Speaker 1: In the world. George Bush, he loved the place. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, from the pro shop to the locker
Speaker 1: room to the pro ken has been there forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a great place to hang out. And the
Speaker 1: Gulf is really fun. I mean it's it's a tiny
Speaker 1: piece of land. I mean, there's a reason it's fifty
Speaker 1: eight hundred yards and it's it's not wide any where. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially on the front nine. It's it's a shooting gallery
Speaker 1: when it's busy.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you drive in. Your car is in
Speaker 2: jeopardy when you drive in right through the middle of
Speaker 2: the golf Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: There's no wasted space. That sends the message from the
Speaker 1: get go that you got to be on your toes.
Speaker 1: A lot of the land, especially on the front nine,
Speaker 1: is pretty flat. You know, there aren't a bunch of features.
Speaker 1: There are some really great holes that kind of play
Speaker 1: across the waterways that run through the golf course, but
Speaker 1: a lot of the property is really flat. It's just
Speaker 1: a great example of you know, there are a handful
Speaker 1: of holes that are reasonably short, not very wide, and
Speaker 1: dead straight, but they've got these brilliant greens that turn
Speaker 1: an otherwise dull hole into something really interesting. So it
Speaker 1: just illustrates that you don't have to move heaven and
Speaker 1: earth to creat interesting golf. Just build a cool green
Speaker 1: and you've got something worth playing. And that place is
Speaker 1: loaded with cool greens. Yeah, that's one of the wilder sets.
Speaker 1: You know. Bruce Heppner's worked there for years, my good friend,
Speaker 1: and he's done a great job with the Club of
Speaker 1: preserving and restoring and it's just I think it's maybe
Speaker 1: the most authentic Travis course in America. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all about the greens. And I think that's Travis's architecture.
Speaker 1: You know, generally, he didn't overdo the bunkering, he didn't
Speaker 1: overdo hazards, wasn't really into dog legs all that much.
Speaker 1: You know, he built a lot of straight holes, but
Speaker 1: every one of his holes had a really cool green.
Speaker 1: And I think Cape Ronald is the perfect example of that.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of those holes, and I think one
Speaker 2: of the advantages I had I played it in like
Speaker 2: a hurricane was passed by, so it was like a
Speaker 2: thirty mile in our wind. So like, you know, you
Speaker 2: have these three hundred and fifty yard holes that I
Speaker 2: was hitting long irons in too, because you know, you're
Speaker 2: playing under the wind. I mean it made it it.
Speaker 2: I think it enhanced the experience so much. But you
Speaker 2: go through that golf course and you think about the
Speaker 2: greens out there, and it's like, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: a perfect example, like the first hole is a great,
Speaker 2: extraordinary green, but in a way it's like one of
Speaker 2: the more dull greens on the entire golf course, which
Speaker 2: is crazy when you play the first hole and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is an unbelievable look at this green, and then
Speaker 2: you think through the round and you're like, well, half
Speaker 2: of the green is pretty you know that right, half
Speaker 2: of the green's pretty tame outside of that you know
Speaker 2: kind of front feature and that that's really you know,
Speaker 2: you go through that golf course and it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: when you talk about greens that you'd want to have
Speaker 2: in your backyard, there are like there are six to
Speaker 2: ten examples of greens that you would want to have
Speaker 2: in your backyard, and in some of them are even
Speaker 2: those like I think some of the cool ones out
Speaker 2: there are like the more subdued greens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's some wild stuff like seven, eight eleven.
Speaker 1: Those greens are bonkers, but Yeah, there's great variety. You know,
Speaker 1: there are some quieter, more subtle greens, but they're never
Speaker 1: flat and dull. You know, there's always a little something
Speaker 1: going on that makes a back right hole location totally
Speaker 1: different than a front left hole location. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful set. It's a beautiful set.
Speaker 2: I assume you know, and you could correct me if
Speaker 2: I'm wrong here, but you would say that Walter Travis
Speaker 2: was the greatest green builder ever.
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I love his greens and
Speaker 1: I've I've got a pension for greens that have a
Speaker 1: lot going on. I like wild greens, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: think they're fascinating. I love going to one of his
Speaker 1: golf courses, especially when I hadn't seen a bunch of them.
Speaker 1: Was it was always really exciting to to go see
Speaker 1: a new one and just you know, oh, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see what he came up with here. You know,
Speaker 1: so many of his places have wiped out a lot
Speaker 1: of his greens. There are a lot of his golf
Speaker 1: courses that only have three or four of them left,
Speaker 1: but they stand out, you know, they're they're worth the
Speaker 1: effort to go see it, even if it's only a
Speaker 1: small handful of greens that are left.
Speaker 2: Who would you place like in the near class below
Speaker 2: him as an architect, Just to give people you know
Speaker 2: that may not have seen traviscore.
Speaker 1: Donald Ross, Yeah, Donald Ross comes to mind. I mean
Speaker 1: his his best work is exceptional. I think he built
Speaker 1: so many golf courses that you know, it can be
Speaker 1: a crapshoot whether you're going to find something really cool
Speaker 1: or not. I mean they're almost always well routed and interesting,
Speaker 1: but they don't all have the same level of detailed
Speaker 1: to the contouring that that you might find it some
Speaker 1: of his best golf courses. But yeah, Ross's best work
Speaker 1: is is exceptional. And tilling Hast is the same, you know,
Speaker 1: a little uneven through his whole body of work, but
Speaker 1: his best courses place like Wingfoot and Fenway. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: greens are terrific. Somerset Yeah, yeah, Harry Colt did some
Speaker 1: beautiful work is another one.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't believe that that the same guy.
Speaker 2: It Maybe this is the credence to like telling Gas
Speaker 2: maybe didn't build best page Black, but I can't believe
Speaker 2: the same guy built the greens at Bethpage Black is
Speaker 2: the guy that built the greense at Fenway or wing
Speaker 2: Foot or Summerset, it's you can't It's it's utter banana land.
Speaker 2: How dull the greens are at beth Page in comparison to.
Speaker 1: Those, Yeah, I don't know the whole story behind that place,
Speaker 1: but you have to believe that something's happened there or
Speaker 1: or they just never got built the way he intended,
Speaker 1: because yeah, they're they're a far cry from those other
Speaker 1: places you mentioned. He was great. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: Tom Doak is really good at varying his style from
Speaker 1: golf from course to course, and I think tilling Has
Speaker 1: did that better than any of those old guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the places you just mentioned, from beth Page to Wingfoot
Speaker 1: to Somerset to San Francisco Golf Club. It's hard to
Speaker 1: believe the same dude built all those places. That's one
Speaker 1: of the things I love about his work. But he
Speaker 1: built some cool that said it, Fenway's really good.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people probably won't see all
Speaker 2: three of these, but like I think one of the
Speaker 2: testaments to tilling Has is just like if you go
Speaker 2: you see the two courses at Wingfoot, the course across
Speaker 2: the street at quaker Ridge and the course about mile
Speaker 2: away at Fenway, And these are four courses that I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's ever been an architect that's
Speaker 2: built four courses closer together other than maybe like donal
Speaker 2: Ross at Pinehurst, but like there's four courses right next
Speaker 2: to each other, and they are like so drastically different
Speaker 2: from each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even the two at wing Foot like they're Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're very different golf courses. Both great.
Speaker 2: What if Travis's work have you not seen yet that
Speaker 2: you have on your like wishless to see?
Speaker 1: There's one left. It's in Canada. It's between Quebec and Montreal.
Speaker 1: It's called Grand Mayor Resort. It's been tinkered with. Charles
Speaker 1: Allison did some work there after Travis, but I think,
Speaker 1: as best I can tell, I think it's slightly neglected,
Speaker 1: pretty well preserved, and I've seen some pictures of some
Speaker 1: pretty cool greens. So Quebec City is a place I've
Speaker 1: wanted to visit for a long time. So at some
Speaker 1: point I'll find three or four days to head up
Speaker 1: to mind Trel and I think Grand Mayor and check
Speaker 1: out Quebec City. That's that's the last one on the
Speaker 1: Society's list that I need to see, there are a
Speaker 1: few others that I mentioned earlier that have been mentioned
Speaker 1: in articles here or there where, or he may have
Speaker 1: been associated that I want to check out, but I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what I'm going to find at those places.
Speaker 2: Did his his career working at was it the American
Speaker 2: golfer being he I mean, he wrote a ton, Like
Speaker 2: That's one of the things I think that's interesting about
Speaker 2: Travis is like, you know, he opined about golf and
Speaker 2: golf architecture a lot, and you can kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, you always like the architects that you can read.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of them wrote a ton, some
Speaker 2: of them didn't write at all, but he wrote a lot.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you did you find stuff in
Speaker 2: articles that like give you a lens into his brain?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's yeah, it's good that you mentioned
Speaker 1: that because he was not just a golfer and he
Speaker 1: was not just an architect. I mean, he was you know,
Speaker 1: he's on the short list of people you would say,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe the most important figure in early
Speaker 1: American golf. I mean, he was fascinated by the game.
Speaker 1: Once he took it up, it'd been him pretty hard
Speaker 1: and he you know, he was into turf grass, he
Speaker 1: was into equipment, and he wrote about all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And The American Golfer was a really influential magazine and
Speaker 1: he wrote a lot for that magazine. So it Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great to have somebody like that that put their
Speaker 1: thoughts in words. You know, when you're working on rain
Speaker 1: of courses, it's impossible to find anything he ever wrote.
Speaker 1: Maybe McDonald wouldn't let him, but yeah, Travis loved to write,
Speaker 1: which which is really helpful for trying to get inside
Speaker 1: his head. And he wrote really well and he didn't
Speaker 1: pull any punches when he wrote, which makes him interesting
Speaker 1: to read.
Speaker 2: If you were creating a Travis itinerary for people, you know,
Speaker 2: what would be on like the let's just say the shortlist,
Speaker 2: like the the five to five to eight courses that
Speaker 2: you you must see or try to go see. And
Speaker 2: obviously you already mentioned Hollywood, and we talked about Cape Rundle,
Speaker 2: which I assume would be on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there are six that are really well preserved,
Speaker 1: those two Hollywood, Cape Arrundle, Troy, which you mentioned in Albany.
Speaker 3: Cool place.
Speaker 1: It is a cool place. Yeah, it's a very cool place.
Speaker 2: Kind of kind of like one of those clubs where
Speaker 2: it's like great that they never had money, but also
Speaker 2: you're like, if you just had a little bit of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You could, you could do some really cool stuff here.
Speaker 2: But then you know, the fact that they never had
Speaker 2: that much money is why it probably never got changed.
Speaker 1: And that's yeah, that's probably the case with a lot
Speaker 1: of his work. I mean, he didn't work in metropolitan
Speaker 1: areas all that often. He's kind of like Langford, like,
Speaker 1: his stuff is scattered in little towns in the countryside,
Speaker 1: the places that never had money to screw it up.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so there's those three. You know. Cherry Hill
Speaker 1: Club in Ontario, just across the river from Buffalo is
Speaker 1: another one that's pretty well preserved. I wouldn't say it's
Speaker 1: one of his best courses necessarily. It's a pretty flat,
Speaker 1: quiet piece of lamp there's a cool set of greens there.
Speaker 1: And the other two or nine hold is grand Leyden
Speaker 1: is well preserved in New Hampshire, and the other one
Speaker 1: is it's an eighteen hole golf course, but he only
Speaker 1: did nine at Penhills in western Pennsylvania. The front nine
Speaker 1: is Travis the back nine he routed eighteen holes, but
Speaker 1: Dick Wilson built the back nine years later.
Speaker 3: That had to be a big, big juxtaposition those two nines.
Speaker 1: It is, it is. They've been doing a little bit
Speaker 1: of work to try and make the back feel a
Speaker 1: bit more like the front. But they've got a ways
Speaker 1: to go. But that's a pretty neat place. They've got
Speaker 1: a beautiful little clubhouse. That's a cool place to visit.
Speaker 1: Those six places are all really far from one another.
Speaker 1: You know, he did a bunch of work in clusters.
Speaker 1: You know, New Jersey here has a handful of his
Speaker 1: courses in this one called Lakewood, not far from Hollywood,
Speaker 1: which is well preserved but neglected. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a really cool trip. If you go from all
Speaker 1: the Ney to Buffalo, you can see six or seven
Speaker 1: of his courses that way. Jan and Dassis is a
Speaker 1: really neat golf course near I think that's near Utick
Speaker 1: or Syracuse. They've got a very cool set of greens.
Speaker 1: Handful of holes have been changing there, but the stuff
Speaker 1: that remains is really neat.
Speaker 2: It's it's like, you know, a much like like Langford.
Speaker 2: There's only a few really great examples, more so with
Speaker 2: Travis than Langford.
Speaker 3: I feel like.
Speaker 2: But yes, you know, we'll have to do this about
Speaker 2: Langford one of these days too. You know it'll be uh.
Speaker 2: That's my my constant campaign to restore Kanky elks is,
Speaker 2: you know, going even even while I moved out of
Speaker 2: the state.
Speaker 1: I hope it happens. Yeah. Yeah, that's a cool place
Speaker 1: waiting for some love.
Speaker 2: Hey, Brian, thanks so much for coming on and sharing
Speaker 2: some wisdom on Travis. We're I'm looking forward to seeing
Speaker 2: your work at North Jersey as well as the new
Speaker 2: work that you are you're building down in South Carolina,
Speaker 2: and I'm excited to see you get more and more work.
Speaker 1: Appreciate that, Amy, It's been fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Frida
Speaker 2: Egg podcast. Big thanks to Matt Russis. He is a
Speaker 2: new member of the Frida Egg. He edited and produced
Speaker 2: this podcast. Will be uh. He'll be doing a lot more,
Speaker 2: a lot of video and audio stuff, so you will
Speaker 2: you'll hear his name a bunch and thanks Matt for
Speaker 2: putting this together. As a quick reminder, we're really excited
Speaker 2: we launched Club TFE. It will officially start kick off
Speaker 2: January second. Club TFE is a membership. It's for people
Speaker 2: that want more content from a nothing's changing for you
Speaker 2: the podcast listener, newsletter reader. But if you are wanting
Speaker 2: more particular into golf architecture, we are going to be writing, talking,
Speaker 2: and doing more video content around golf architecture as well
Speaker 2: as all other facets of the game, so it's not
Speaker 2: just a golf architecture product. We'll have the Club TF
Speaker 2: blog and if you're interested in learning more about this,
Speaker 2: go to Thefrida egg dot com slash membership. It is
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty dollars a year, so ten dollars
Speaker 2: a month that comes out to it's one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty dollars a year, and we're going to deliver.
Speaker 3: Loads of content. So we just put up on the.
Speaker 2: Blog a thing about how we're going to rate golf
Speaker 2: courses and we will be putting up a sample review
Speaker 2: and rating so everybody can kind of see what we're talking.
Speaker 3: About with this.
Speaker 2: But we're really excited about Club TF. We're a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks away from.
Speaker 3: Launch, and join in if you haven't and you want
Speaker 3: more from us.
Speaker 2: So thanks to Brian for coming on talking to Walter Travis,
Speaker 2: and I hope everybody has a great holidays,