Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: This edition of the podcast is slightly different as it
Speaker 1: was hosted in front of a live audience at the
Speaker 1: Sand Valley Golf Resort in Wisconsin. Bill Corr and Jim
Speaker 1: Craig of renowned Core and Crenshaw Design joined the podcast
Speaker 1: to discuss their brand new seventeen hole par three course,
Speaker 1: the Sandbox, and their eighteen hole Sand Valley design, as
Speaker 1: well as other topics. The podcast starts with an introduction
Speaker 1: from Sand Valley General manager Glenn Murray. Without any further delay,
Speaker 1: Here's Bill Coourr and Jim Craig.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset when
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 4: In a frid Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 4: Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg.
Speaker 2: Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the
Speaker 2: golf course.
Speaker 4: I've got the distinct honor to introduce tonight's panel.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: First, I'll start with the team of Core Crenshaw Who
Speaker 4: and Craig Who are an acclaimed design firm in the
Speaker 4: world of golf, spanning over the last thirty five years.
Speaker 4: Their record really goes without saying. I could rattle off
Speaker 4: a lot of you know, very renowned courses like the
Speaker 4: sand Hills or Banded Trails or stream Song Red or
Speaker 4: Old Sandwich or Cabot Cliffs, and I'm not even doing
Speaker 4: that list justice. The thing that really strikes me the
Speaker 4: most about your firm is the work ethic. I you know,
Speaker 4: as we I've been in the golf industry for the
Speaker 4: last twenty years and you work with a lot of
Speaker 4: different partners, and your firm works as hard as any
Speaker 4: anyone that I've seen in the industry in my twenty
Speaker 4: year career. The other thing that has always been a
Speaker 4: common theme with working with anybody from Core Crenshaw is
Speaker 4: just how they, you know, treat everybody with you know,
Speaker 4: they treat everybody like ladies and gentlemen. From my Ritz
Speaker 4: Carlton background, I certainly had that burned into my training,
Speaker 4: but you guys really have that throughout your firm. So
Speaker 4: the sandbox open today and Ben Crenshaw had another commitment.
Speaker 4: But as we joke about the Sandbox, we often call it,
Speaker 4: you know, the short name for Core Crenshaw's Ben C
Speaker 4: and C and you know, they often refer to it's
Speaker 4: a C and C design, but we've kind of internally
Speaker 4: called it a C, C and C design because Jim
Speaker 4: Craig has really been the champion behind bringing this course
Speaker 4: to life, and if you had any fun on it today,
Speaker 4: I'd like to hear a little round of.
Speaker 3: Applause for that court.
Speaker 4: So while Core Crenshaw's been around for thirty five years,
Speaker 4: there's a new brand in golf that's been growing over
Speaker 4: the last two three years called The Friday. So they've
Speaker 4: amassed quite a following in terms of social media and
Speaker 4: blogs and their followers. So I get to introduce our
Speaker 4: moderator tonight. I give him a lot of credit for
Speaker 4: following a dream. Had a career in tech, a successful
Speaker 4: career in tech, but knew that golf was his real
Speaker 4: passion and so he kind of jumped two feet in
Speaker 4: to becoming a a golf writer, a golf blogger, and
Speaker 4: he writes on all things about golf and travel, but
Speaker 4: he really focuses in on golf course architecture, which is
Speaker 4: what we're here to talk about tonight. So I'd like
Speaker 4: to introduce the founder of The Friday, Andy Johnson.
Speaker 6: All Right, thanks, everybody, and what an honor to be
Speaker 6: here with these two gentlemen that have done some incredible
Speaker 6: work across the world. Playing the Sandbox, you get the
Speaker 6: feeling I grew up playing at a UNI course, but
Speaker 6: I also played a par three course down the street,
Speaker 6: and it makes me think, you know, when I play there, Wow,
Speaker 6: if I had gotten to play the Sandbox on a
Speaker 6: regular basis, how much more golf I would have played
Speaker 6: as a kid. And I played a lot of golf,
Speaker 6: So it's really a great core. I think from just
Speaker 6: hearing people walking around the first tea, walking around the resort,
Speaker 6: the biggest question out there is why seventeen holes?
Speaker 2: Well, I am going to immediately defer to Jim and
Speaker 2: Michael and Chris Kaiser who were back there in the back,
Speaker 2: because they are the ones who came up with this idea,
Speaker 2: because we had just we were finishing the sand Valley
Speaker 2: course and the next thing I know, I get a
Speaker 2: call from Jim and he says, you know, Bill, would
Speaker 2: you and Ben you know, what do you think about
Speaker 2: a short course here? I said, well, if they think
Speaker 2: there's a market for it, absolutely, But I know, particularly Jim,
Speaker 2: I'm going to let you finally answer this. But I
Speaker 2: know particularly you and Michael had had discussions about the
Speaker 2: attractiveness or potential attractiveness of that. Now and Ben and
Speaker 2: I just tagged along. Man, We just said, we think
Speaker 2: it's a great idea. Let's see out. Let's see what
Speaker 2: we can do. So Jim, you can, you can explain
Speaker 2: how this idea actually originate.
Speaker 5: A sorry, we're fancy. Yeah, you're good to go.
Speaker 3: Is it live?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 7: Well, thanks for being here tonight. It's nice to see
Speaker 7: all your faces and know that you actually got to
Speaker 7: play out there. Thanks to Glenn and his staff for everybody.
Speaker 7: They do a great, great job here at Sam Valley.
Speaker 7: And I'm glad you guys all came. I think we
Speaker 7: should give a nice hand to those guys. I have
Speaker 7: no idea how we ended up with seventeen holes. It
Speaker 7: was started to be a part two course. I didn't
Speaker 7: have no idea what a part two courses. I've never
Speaker 7: seen one. We had twenty holes that you could put
Speaker 7: to we called it we had twenty twos, and that
Speaker 7: didn't work. So Michael is more or less less eighteen
Speaker 7: Well it's too conventional. Well, let's go see how many
Speaker 7: good ones we can find. And we found seventeen good
Speaker 7: ones thanks to him. Yeah, I think it's a good call.
Speaker 7: We enjoyed this opportunity to find that many holes. First
Speaker 7: of all, is great material out here. It's a wonderful opportunity.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting too. I guess the foundation of that
Speaker 2: whole concept started with Mike Kaiser, who I remember when
Speaker 2: we were He had the idea that we would do
Speaker 2: the short course the preserve at Bandoned Dunes, and there
Speaker 2: was this triangle of land that overlooked the ocean in
Speaker 2: the dunes that Ben and Mike and I all wanted
Speaker 2: to put into abandoned trails. And we realized if we
Speaker 2: did it, the dunes were very closely configured in terms
Speaker 2: of contours, and if we tried to build regulation length
Speaker 2: holes there, we were going to have to bulldoze them
Speaker 2: away to make them work. We thought that site was
Speaker 2: just simply too pretty to do that, so we skipped it,
Speaker 2: and it was it was a bit painful to skip
Speaker 2: that and not use it. And then when Mike came
Speaker 2: back a few years later and said, Bill, Ben, would
Speaker 2: I think we need a part three course here for
Speaker 2: people who are coming to play, and just you know,
Speaker 2: there comes a point they can't just walk and play
Speaker 2: thirty six holds a day. He said, I think we
Speaker 2: need a Part three course, and I think we all
Speaker 2: know where it should be. He remembered that that particular
Speaker 2: piece of ground where Preserve is. But I guess what
Speaker 2: I'm getting to Jim is I remember distinkly the day
Speaker 2: Michael Chris that I was with your dad and I said, Mike,
Speaker 2: so you want to build a Part three course. How
Speaker 2: many holes do you want it to be? And he said,
Speaker 2: I don't care. As long as it's not nine or eighteen,
Speaker 2: any other number is fine. Just find the best holes
Speaker 2: you can find and do that and build the holes.
Speaker 2: He said, I don't care if they're sixty yards long
Speaker 2: or one hundred and sixty yards long, but bill holes
Speaker 2: that are good enough that you could take any one
Speaker 2: of them off the Part three course and put it
Speaker 2: on one of the regulation courses and it would be
Speaker 2: very well accepted. So that's when you look back to
Speaker 2: Sand Valley. To me personally, that's where I trace it.
Speaker 5: Back to that idea.
Speaker 2: And then Michael Chris, you and Jim took that and
Speaker 2: ran with it here and produced what you played today.
Speaker 6: So thanks to the success of the Preserve and now
Speaker 6: and many other short courses around the country. It's become
Speaker 6: really a big trend, and I think the demand for
Speaker 6: short courses is up. When you guys go about designing
Speaker 6: a short course, how does it differ from that of
Speaker 6: a regular well, I.
Speaker 2: Think andy for me, you get an opportunity to do
Speaker 2: some things that you probably would not be able to
Speaker 2: do on a regulation link course. For those of you
Speaker 2: who played today, a prime example of that is the
Speaker 2: third green, which is what we refer to as the
Speaker 2: double Plateau green. To those who might not know that concept,
Speaker 2: it's the green out there looks like it's got two
Speaker 2: match boxes buried entered with a trough in between. And
Speaker 2: that's a very famous green at the National Golf Links
Speaker 2: in Long Island, and it works.
Speaker 5: There on the eleventh hole.
Speaker 2: But generally it's hard to make something that extreme work
Speaker 2: in a regulation golf course, and we just felt like
Speaker 2: that we could do those kind of things on a
Speaker 2: short course. And Jim, again leading this whole thing with
Speaker 2: the Kaiser family, said let's come up with some of
Speaker 2: the neatest stuff that we've never been able to do.
Speaker 2: So it gives us an opportunity from a design standpoint
Speaker 2: to do that, it also gives the opportunity from a
Speaker 2: playing standpoint to plague golf in quick fashion and not
Speaker 2: spend half a day or the entire day doing it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: Actually, when we were we were deciding on some holes
Speaker 7: out there, I think that you and some extra gentlemen
Speaker 7: over there talked about what we should do for a
Speaker 7: for a trophy for the event out there, and it's
Speaker 7: kind of like the same thing. We had some ideas
Speaker 7: kicking around with a bunch of folks, and you know,
Speaker 7: I think that's the way we did here.
Speaker 3: We talked to.
Speaker 7: The folks around that that that we're all in for
Speaker 7: a part three course.
Speaker 3: And thought, well, now, what would you like to do
Speaker 3: if you had your your pick here.
Speaker 7: I'm surprised that we only only kept with seventeen holes
Speaker 7: because if somebody had to say stuff, because I'd probably
Speaker 7: still be out there building holes.
Speaker 3: But it was a collaborative effort, no doubt.
Speaker 5: And I guess andy too.
Speaker 2: From the standpoint if you're in our business, and particularly
Speaker 2: if you're one of the younger guys working in this
Speaker 2: in this business, so much of that time is spent
Speaker 2: just trying to fulfill someone else's concept, or someone else
Speaker 2: as the principal for whom whom you work or something.
Speaker 2: Not so much for Jim, who's worked with us since
Speaker 2: he was five years old. But there was a young
Speaker 2: guy working out here named Ryan Ferrell, who is an
Speaker 2: extraordinary background in golf architecture and education and implementation. But
Speaker 2: as we would go through out there, I remember walking
Speaker 2: through and it's the twelfth hole right there. We had
Speaker 2: walked past it numerous times. No one had ever done
Speaker 2: a sketch, no one had ever done a concept for it.
Speaker 2: We just kept walking by it, and finally we walk
Speaker 2: by there one day and Jim and Ryan and are
Speaker 2: walking by and Jim goes, well, what are we going
Speaker 2: to do here?
Speaker 5: I had no idea.
Speaker 2: I had never even thought about it, and I just says, well,
Speaker 2: what we're going to do here is walk to the
Speaker 2: next hole, and Ryan's going to figure out what this
Speaker 2: is going to be. So we kid about it being
Speaker 2: the pharaoh Hoe. But you know, that's that's interesting for
Speaker 2: people who are involved in this business of building stuff
Speaker 2: to be able to go I've had an idea, I
Speaker 2: would like to try to implement it, and then to
Speaker 2: implement it and see folks like you come and.
Speaker 5: Say that's pretty neat. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: So it's a it's far of the really positive aspects
Speaker 2: of this whole business.
Speaker 5: Jim.
Speaker 6: If you ever had an idea that you were really
Speaker 6: nervous to show Bill that, you know, whether it was
Speaker 6: on the sandbox or sand Valley or any other course
Speaker 6: that you know, you had this idea that he was
Speaker 6: just talking about with, you know, Ryan's idea of the whole.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have. I have.
Speaker 7: It's a pretty regular thing. I have to kind of
Speaker 7: ask permission to do much of anything.
Speaker 5: Five.
Speaker 7: I wasn't really five. I was actually like twenty five,
Speaker 7: but I acted in five. So there's a lot of
Speaker 7: that could make you a list of things, you know,
Speaker 7: but the patience that this man has shown me.
Speaker 3: Who you know him?
Speaker 6: How does your day to day work, Jim? How does
Speaker 6: building a green you know, the manner and what you
Speaker 6: do it, How does the process work?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 7: I think it's it's different. You know, everywhere we go.
Speaker 7: We obviously have good direction.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: Hogan used to say, you know that the swing was
Speaker 7: nine tenths over it set up, and you know the
Speaker 7: way we've been lucky, you know to have sites that
Speaker 7: were you know, very conducive for golf. And and William
Speaker 7: and Ben have always on a way to you know,
Speaker 7: get around that property with with as you know, as
Speaker 7: gracefully as possible. So depending on what the materials like,
Speaker 7: it's it's if we could say it's all the same.
Speaker 7: We talk about concepts and and the way it would
Speaker 7: would match with what's behind it or what's in front
Speaker 7: of it. And uh, and and we we rough something
Speaker 7: in working at the green, working at all the green sites,
Speaker 7: and and kind of a place to start that may
Speaker 7: move a little bit here or there, but start at
Speaker 7: the green and then and then work backwards, I think
Speaker 7: is what we do.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 7: Sometimes it moves, sometimes it evolves, but it's fun.
Speaker 6: Shane and Michael had a great conversation last night, and uh,
Speaker 6: Michael really talked about how you guys like to use
Speaker 6: and highlight the land. What were the core aspects of
Speaker 6: both Sand Valley and the Sandbox that you wanted to
Speaker 6: highlight about the natural features of the land here at
Speaker 6: Sand Valley.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think Andy it was you know, anytime you've
Speaker 2: given the opportunity to work with a truly gifted piece
Speaker 2: of property, of property that seems like it can yield
Speaker 2: a very interesting.
Speaker 5: Golf course without a lot of alteration. You want to
Speaker 5: work with it, not against it.
Speaker 2: So we come with the philosophy, as Jim said that
Speaker 2: we come with no preconceived notions as to what the
Speaker 2: length of the course is going to be, what the
Speaker 2: style of the course is going to be, what the
Speaker 2: whatever is going to be. We try to study the
Speaker 2: property and say this is We're going to let this
Speaker 2: guide us in terms of what the course will turn
Speaker 2: out to be. So with sand Valley, I remember out here,
Speaker 2: Ben and I'd be walking with Jim, and you know,
Speaker 2: when it cleared the trees off of it, it took
Speaker 2: on a very similar appearance because it's ridges and valleys,
Speaker 2: and of course it's all sand, so it's happly named
Speaker 2: in that regard. But I remember the first time we
Speaker 2: walked through and talking to Jim, man, we're gonna we're
Speaker 2: going to have to figure out how to make these
Speaker 2: holes where they don't all look alike, because when you
Speaker 2: started looking at the landforms and the big scale of
Speaker 2: the landforms, it would have been easy to become very
Speaker 2: very repetitive out there run all the holes down the
Speaker 2: valleys for example, run on all perpendictor over the hills,
Speaker 2: or whatever the case may be. And so we we
Speaker 2: tried to study and say, all right, if we were
Speaker 2: out here walking around, how would we walk around this
Speaker 2: property without being too physically taxing, and how would we
Speaker 2: then lay holes out that would be different and still
Speaker 2: and still interesting but complement this site. So in that case,
Speaker 2: that's that's what we did with Sand Valley. In the
Speaker 2: case of the Sandbox, it was almost the complete opposite.
Speaker 2: When Jim said that he and Michael and Chris and
Speaker 2: had been thinking about, you know, the possibility of doing
Speaker 2: the Part three course, went out there and looked. It's
Speaker 2: much smaller, it's much smaller scale, it's much flatter, and
Speaker 2: we thought this is perfect because Sand Valley, the golf
Speaker 2: course sand Valley is a big scale. The golf course
Speaker 2: Mammoth Dunes is absolutely perfectly named because it's mammoth in scale.
Speaker 2: And so we thought the Part three course, the fact
Speaker 2: that they had chosen this site that was down here,
Speaker 2: much smaller scale, much more intimate, much more level, would
Speaker 2: give the opportunity to do a golf product that was
Speaker 2: completely different than the other courses. So in a sense,
Speaker 2: both of them. The big scale of sand Valley the smaller,
Speaker 2: more intimate scale at the Sandbox was driven by the
Speaker 2: sites who were built on.
Speaker 6: You've done a lot of work with the Kaisers, and
Speaker 6: obviously since nineteen ninety nine when Banded Dunes started, the
Speaker 6: golf industry started to have a seismic shift. Obviously Sand
Speaker 6: Hills was a big part of that. In ninety five,
Speaker 6: what about working with the Kaisers is different than say,
Speaker 6: other clients.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is hard to say, but these guys sitting
Speaker 2: in the room, but you got to ask you question.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, Andy, you did. You did.
Speaker 2: This family has done so much and been so positive
Speaker 2: for golf, not just in America but in the world.
Speaker 5: They are changing the way people perceive golf.
Speaker 2: People for so many years perceived that the very best
Speaker 2: golf courses in the world were exclusive, they were private,
Speaker 2: they were hard to get, you know, to get access to.
Speaker 2: And their whole concept is exactly the opposite. Let's find
Speaker 2: sites that are site driven, not demographically driven. They're driven
Speaker 2: by the contours of the ground to produce the most
Speaker 2: interesting courses, not the population that happens to be or
Speaker 2: not be adjacent to it. And so they took that
Speaker 2: concept and then said, and we want it to be
Speaker 2: public access. Mike Kaiser was a founding member of the
Speaker 2: course we did at Sandhills, and that that in the
Speaker 2: self is special. But the fact that you know, he
Speaker 2: looked and said, I wish, I wish everybody could see
Speaker 2: the Sandhills. I wish you could could happen. But then
Speaker 2: to say, now my family and I are going to
Speaker 2: go try to present opportunities for people to experience that
Speaker 2: type of golf, but do it in a in a
Speaker 2: public access arena is truly special. And you know, in
Speaker 2: our business, Nandy, the best you, the greatest thing you
Speaker 2: could ever hope for, is to be given a truly
Speaker 2: special site and the freedom to work with it, not
Speaker 2: work for an owner who lords over you and says
Speaker 2: I want this, I want that that's going to be this.
Speaker 2: I don't like that that type thing. And and Mike
Speaker 2: and now Michael and Chris and the family, they don't
Speaker 2: do that. They give you the opportunity to work with
Speaker 2: something extraordinary and the freedom to work with it. And
Speaker 2: are they involved, absolutely, And that's the for the betterment
Speaker 2: of each project. But I think history will record that
Speaker 2: this family will be hugely impactful in the in the
Speaker 2: evolution of golf in the most positive way. And I
Speaker 2: you know, Michael Chris, I've said to your dad numerous times, Mike,
Speaker 2: you've given us so many opportunities, maybe it's time for
Speaker 2: somebody else to get the experiences. And Michael and Chris's
Speaker 2: dad same age. I am so we you know, we
Speaker 2: kind of look at each other and and he does
Speaker 2: they do. They're giving opportunities for younger architects and different
Speaker 2: people to be experienced. But at the same time, once
Speaker 2: a while, Michae Lexeme goes, Bill, I'm getting old, I'm
Speaker 2: kind of getting set in my ways, and I go
Speaker 2: there's a part of me feels guilty about that, and
Speaker 2: there's another part that.
Speaker 5: Just goes, thank you Lord.
Speaker 2: We're just gonna follow these people wherever they want to go,
Speaker 2: as long as they want us.
Speaker 6: I imagine, like we talked about this when we talked
Speaker 6: earlier about when Dick Youngskap called you about sand Hills,
Speaker 6: like you want to build in Nebraska. When when they said, hey,
Speaker 6: we got a great site in central Wisconsin. What was
Speaker 6: your immediate reaction.
Speaker 2: Well, my metior action is Mike on the phone was Mike.
Speaker 2: The last time I looked, I didn't see an ocean
Speaker 2: next to Wiscon And now maybe at one time, many
Speaker 2: millennia ago, there was, but I just don't see it
Speaker 2: there because Mike had told me through the years, he said,
Speaker 2: I'm only going to go where I can find sand
Speaker 2: next to the ocean, dunes next to the ocean. That
Speaker 2: was the cornerstone and the thing that he looked for most.
Speaker 2: And so coming here was a bit of a not
Speaker 2: just a leap, but it was it was off on
Speaker 2: a different tangent. And Craig Halton, who's out here, who
Speaker 2: came and discovered this property through research, through the you know,
Speaker 2: over the entire state of Wisconsin to find a sand
Speaker 2: site and then was able to meet one person in particular,
Speaker 2: Australian guy whom we both know, but who who said
Speaker 2: this could be neat and introduced him to Mike. And
Speaker 2: I remember Mike telling me he said, Bill, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go look at the sight up in Wisconsin.
Speaker 5: Where's the ocean, you know?
Speaker 2: And he came here and he called afterward and he goes, well,
Speaker 2: I went there with every intention of saying no, and
Speaker 2: he said, I walked around the site, and he walked
Speaker 2: to Craig Halton and you know, Chris Michael. I don't
Speaker 2: know exactly who all was here at that point, but
Speaker 2: some of the Kemper sports people and Mike at least
Speaker 2: the way he conveyed it to me was I went
Speaker 2: there to say no, and I came away ready to
Speaker 2: say yes.
Speaker 6: Getting back to short courses in the sandbox, what is
Speaker 6: it do you think about these courses that are making
Speaker 6: them so popular in today's game?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean my personal perspective is it's and I
Speaker 2: grew up playing on some Part three courses and in
Speaker 2: North Carolina many years ago. The problem was at that
Speaker 2: point in time and a Part three course was more
Speaker 2: often than not considered to be a second choice, a
Speaker 2: second rate citizen, a second something, something that was you
Speaker 2: did if you couldn't get to a primary course. And
Speaker 2: what's happening now is that concept has been flipped and
Speaker 2: turned on its head, so to speak. And with things
Speaker 2: like the Preserve, like the Sandbox, like the Cradle that
Speaker 2: Gil Hanson the people at Pinehurst had done, like what
Speaker 2: Tom Doak has done, like these things that are now
Speaker 2: coming online Part three courses that are ever as interesting
Speaker 2: as regulation scale. Golf is exposing people. In this case,
Speaker 2: most of us in a room played a lot of golf.
Speaker 2: He exposes us to interesting golf on a small scale,
Speaker 2: but probably more importantly gives people in this room and
Speaker 2: people like gym and you know, with with younger families,
Speaker 2: the chance to expose them to really interesting golf and
Speaker 2: in such a way that it doesn't become so frustrating
Speaker 2: they can play it faster. It plays into this whole idea,
Speaker 2: how do you get people involved?
Speaker 5: How do you do.
Speaker 2: It without taking up an entire day doing it? But
Speaker 2: the ability to to do that and and then do
Speaker 2: it in a in a reasonable amount of time. With
Speaker 2: today's well, particularly with young folk who have opportunities to
Speaker 2: be exposed so many things, the attention span, for natural
Speaker 2: reasons is is much tighter so and shorter. And so
Speaker 2: this gives people a chance that this is this is
Speaker 2: real golf. It's on the small scale, this is the
Speaker 2: real thing, and uh, you know, it's it's just neat
Speaker 2: for us to trust to see and as we said,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a chance for us to do something
Speaker 2: on a smaller scale that we might not be able
Speaker 2: to do on a bigger and Jim, I don't know
Speaker 2: how you would expand.
Speaker 3: At I think that's exactly right. You know that the
Speaker 3: frustration can sometimes be caused by.
Speaker 7: By just maybe having your young youngster with you on
Speaker 7: a course that might hold up play or something. You know,
Speaker 7: you kind of feel a little bit like, oh, we
Speaker 7: got to scoot along here, unless it's late in the
Speaker 7: day I grew up, you know, if I could reach
Speaker 7: the gas pedal, I was hustling carts for candy bars
Speaker 7: or something, so I could get out and play when
Speaker 7: everybody was gone. But this, if we all hit t
Speaker 7: balls off off of a hole, one of us may
Speaker 7: be over there, and one of us may be over there,
Speaker 7: and on these short you know, playing at the green
Speaker 7: from all different spots, which is which is great, it's fun,
Speaker 7: but these short, these shorter ideas that they seem like,
Speaker 7: you know, you can have a collection of holes that
Speaker 7: you could all walk out there to the you know,
Speaker 7: short of the green and all drop a ball and
Speaker 7: say let's go from right here, and it gives you
Speaker 7: a nice way to learn the game, whether it's with
Speaker 7: your kid or your grandma or or you know, just anybody.
Speaker 7: And they if it's if it's Grandma, she might just
Speaker 7: beat you, you know, and that's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: I can think of when the when the Preserve opened
Speaker 2: and I'm standing on the first tea with Mike Kaiser
Speaker 2: and there was one group there Andy that played had
Speaker 2: four generations from players went from an eighty some year
Speaker 2: old man to an eight year old and each.
Speaker 5: Generation you know in between.
Speaker 2: It may have been actually five now I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 2: but it was a fascinating thing to see.
Speaker 5: That's something you wouldn't see.
Speaker 2: On a regulation like big course, and it's just a
Speaker 2: it's a neat aspect of what you're talking about.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's the coolest part of the par
Speaker 6: three courses and the short courses is at levels the
Speaker 6: field you know, you could you know, the eighty year
Speaker 6: old could win, the eight year old could win, and
Speaker 6: everybody is.
Speaker 1: On the same level.
Speaker 6: What did you guys learn from doing the Preserve that
Speaker 6: you might have changed or you know, made better doing
Speaker 6: the Sandbox.
Speaker 2: Well, the one hand, they're completely different because the terrain's
Speaker 2: different than The thing they have in common is that
Speaker 2: sand base. But the biggest thing of all is the
Speaker 2: I'm not sure any of us knew how well received
Speaker 2: the preserve would would become and so it was on
Speaker 2: a bit steeper terrain. So when we were doing the teas,
Speaker 2: the tea surfaces there are somewhat smaller than here, and
Speaker 2: through the years we found it quite frankly, they're too
Speaker 2: small and been trying to expand some this, that and
Speaker 2: the other. So when we were about to embark on this,
Speaker 2: one of the first things Jim and Michael Chris went
Speaker 2: out and walked the preserve, talked to the superintendent out
Speaker 2: there about what the issues were, and it was absolutely
Speaker 2: we need more t space.
Speaker 5: So you will see teas here.
Speaker 2: Although they may not look big any individual level you're on,
Speaker 2: when you start looking, they they spread out and they
Speaker 2: meander here and there and all around and uh, not
Speaker 2: only provide different angles, but more usable space.
Speaker 6: Jim, were there any unique stories or or challenges that
Speaker 6: you encounter during the construction phase?
Speaker 7: You know, just seeing my face every day is a
Speaker 7: struggle for everybody. You know, it's it's like, oh, Lord,
Speaker 7: here he comes. How long is he going to stay today?
Speaker 7: You know, I think taking.
Speaker 3: Everybody's ideas that that we were.
Speaker 7: Presented with and and and uh and making them happen.
Speaker 3: Was was It's it's easy to talk about stuff.
Speaker 7: You know, but but actually making it happen is another thing.
Speaker 7: So it's it's a it's it's a hard you know,
Speaker 7: it's it's a lot of it's a heavy load to
Speaker 7: to to have a great idea and starting there at it.
Speaker 7: You know, it's a tough one. So I think everybody
Speaker 7: gave it there all. I mean, it's a pretty pretty
Speaker 7: darn neat deal and I think it's only going to
Speaker 7: get better out there when the surface gets a little
Speaker 7: like this. I think for the game, it's a good
Speaker 7: a good thing to take your eyes out of the
Speaker 7: air and put them on the ground and you start
Speaker 7: to make sense of what's out there.
Speaker 6: So yeah, yeah, I went around and was hitting just
Speaker 6: a six iron in this afternoon. It was a lot
Speaker 6: of fun.
Speaker 3: You start to get.
Speaker 6: Imagination back, and it's funny. I was recently watching like
Speaker 6: a nineteen forty PGA championship and that was the only
Speaker 6: shot these guys were hitting. Were along the ground. It's
Speaker 6: so weird, you know, guys one hundred yards out and
Speaker 6: he's just like running a ball up to the green.
Speaker 6: It's something you don't see today that is all a
Speaker 6: sudden acceptable and it's there, you just nobody uses it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: It's like it's like somebody asked Michael about golf carts
Speaker 7: last night, and and and and I love it. He said, well,
Speaker 7: how much do golf carts cost? How much do you
Speaker 7: pay for around and he didn't know the answer. I
Speaker 7: thought that was great that, you know. The thing that
Speaker 7: wasn't really in there was the opportunities that that that.
Speaker 3: Also offers with turf.
Speaker 7: You know, you can you can't hardly have a golf
Speaker 7: cart on fescue unless you have a card path. And
Speaker 7: and when when you can grow fescue, that that creates
Speaker 7: a whole nother game. The ground game is a game
Speaker 7: that you know, if the course were solid bent grass,
Speaker 7: it would certainly limit you, you know, as to how
Speaker 7: that ball is going to react. And and I think
Speaker 7: that's that's a great, you know, tribute to their belief
Speaker 7: in the game. And it gives us a chance to
Speaker 7: hit those shots that we see in Scotland. You know
Speaker 7: that that that are super fun and on that ground
Speaker 7: you can you can play over.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just a different game.
Speaker 6: It really needs open it up from for questions from
Speaker 6: the crowd. I got him so The question is how
Speaker 6: much of your design is done on the computer versus
Speaker 6: the field, and then once you get out on the ground,
Speaker 6: how much does it change.
Speaker 5: Well, if you're asking me, I'm he.
Speaker 3: Has no email address.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think he could turn one on.
Speaker 7: Look, look his wife counts the steps.
Speaker 3: He can't even charge.
Speaker 6: This sty He does use emojis.
Speaker 3: Though he does, he does.
Speaker 2: No Ben and I Jim not so much. But Ben
Speaker 2: and Ire lumbering dinosaur is waiting for extinction who do
Speaker 2: not either use a computer nor have an email address
Speaker 2: or anything like that. So I've never used a computer
Speaker 2: in my life. I wouldn't know what to do with it,
Speaker 2: and just open it and look at it and wonder
Speaker 2: what to do next. So we're we're still very much
Speaker 2: the old fashioned way, and I'm not sure saying this
Speaker 2: is right. You know, if you were if I were
Speaker 2: Gym's age or Andy's age or something and really trying
Speaker 2: to get established in the golf design profession, obviously I
Speaker 2: couldn't do it. But given the background and things, can
Speaker 2: still go out there and just wander around with topographical
Speaker 2: maps and make notes on it, but mentally just visualizing
Speaker 2: and getting a sense of the property, and how do
Speaker 2: you walk across and if this does it have any
Speaker 2: attributes for.
Speaker 5: Golf or or not?
Speaker 2: And if it does, how would you start to visualize
Speaker 2: a golf course being laid out on this I mean,
Speaker 2: in our case, it's generally trying to figure out a
Speaker 2: circulation pattern. How would you go out there and walk
Speaker 2: around the property? People do it with computers all the time,
Speaker 2: The vast majority of people do. We're still the old
Speaker 2: way of well, let's go out there, let's take two
Speaker 2: or three days or four or five days, and let's
Speaker 2: walk around. If I were coming out here not even
Speaker 2: thinking about golf, how would I want to walk around
Speaker 2: this property to see the most interesting elements and do
Speaker 2: it in such a way I don't feel like I'm
Speaker 2: it's so physically demanding. I mean, yeah, it's I still
Speaker 2: to this day believe that's a good way to go.
Speaker 2: And once you can get a kind of a sense
Speaker 2: of the property and a sense of how you would
Speaker 2: travel around it, then you start to try to figure
Speaker 2: out how to break that into into terms of golf
Speaker 2: and golf holes. But we, I guess, specifically to your question,
Speaker 2: we use the computer as a zero and the rest
Speaker 2: of it is, you know, depending on what.
Speaker 6: So when when Bill has an idea for a whole
Speaker 6: how does he present it to you? Does he just
Speaker 6: you know, does he just say, hey, you know, this
Speaker 6: is what I'm thinking, and you you go do it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think so, yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 7: I think every site challenges us a little bit to
Speaker 7: come up with something on our own. And like Ryan's
Speaker 7: hole out here, you know, we kept walking past it
Speaker 7: and finally we said, Ryan, do something, and he did. So,
Speaker 7: you know, there's all kinds of ways, but he has
Speaker 7: so much direction. His mind is like a computer, you know.
Speaker 7: He makes it sound like it's just, oh, just a
Speaker 7: little pleasant. He's like that ross guy that used to
Speaker 7: do the paintings.
Speaker 3: Oh, and here's your happy little tree over here.
Speaker 7: But yeah, he puts there's not a minute or a
Speaker 7: place that he doesn't think about. And I think one
Speaker 7: of the greatest things you see is I don't know
Speaker 7: that I've ever actually done what he's asked me to do.
Speaker 7: He gets there and goes, so, cheez, how are we
Speaker 7: going to make chicken salad out of this?
Speaker 3: And somehow he does.
Speaker 7: He finds good in just about everything that we do,
Speaker 7: and it may be exactly what he was thinking. But
Speaker 7: it's we were able to do something different, and we
Speaker 7: keep changing every day. We don't ever do it the
Speaker 7: same way. I can guarantee you that they saving grace
Speaker 7: for me is I forget most things, So forgiving things
Speaker 7: is really easy for me.
Speaker 3: So he's a fun man to follow. I can tell
Speaker 3: you that.
Speaker 5: Well, I will say this.
Speaker 2: I won't get off too much on a tangent here,
Speaker 2: I hope, But Ben and I for years have said
Speaker 2: we are so fortunate. I mean, Jim is sitting here tonight.
Speaker 2: There are other There are other people who've worked with
Speaker 2: us for years who are equally talented and extraordinary people.
Speaker 2: And one of the great misconceptions in GoF architecture is
Speaker 2: that there's some one person who walks out on this
Speaker 2: site has every idea, every concept reconceived or figured out,
Speaker 2: and gives it to a someone one to go build.
Speaker 2: That just simply does not happen, and if it does,
Speaker 2: the golf course is not going to be very good.
Speaker 2: We have, through all these years tried to work with
Speaker 2: extraordinarily talented people and give them the freedom to work too,
Speaker 2: just like the Kaisers give us the freedom to work.
Speaker 2: We try to give Jim and the other guys the
Speaker 2: freedom to work because you know how talented they are.
Speaker 2: While on earth, if you were a jockey, would you
Speaker 2: get on a horse try to win a race and
Speaker 2: be there telling the horse pick up your right hoof,
Speaker 2: put down your left, pick up You know you don't
Speaker 2: do that. And you say, we're going in this direction,
Speaker 2: this is the goal, this is what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2: You run for it, go for it. And so many
Speaker 2: times we end up being yes, we have ideas, but
Speaker 2: so many times we end up being editors as well
Speaker 2: and observing the work the talented people do and then
Speaker 2: saying this fits, then the concept, let's go with it.
Speaker 6: It's like one of my friends as a writer, said that,
Speaker 6: you know, all writing sucks until it gets edited. So
Speaker 6: the question is mentioned national Golf links. What are five
Speaker 6: or six other courses that you and Ben have been
Speaker 6: inspired by?
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean probably we would pick many of the ones
Speaker 2: you the folks here tonight would pick. But Ben and
Speaker 2: I both grew up playing.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: I grew up playing as a kid some around a
Speaker 2: lot of Donald Ross courses. But then when I was
Speaker 2: in school at wake Forest, there was a Perry Maxwell
Speaker 2: golf course literally adjacent to the campus, and that course
Speaker 2: influenced me so much. Ben when he was a kid
Speaker 2: grew up playing on the Austin the original Austin Country Club,
Speaker 2: which was a Perry Maxwell course. So we had that
Speaker 2: in common. Is to Perry Maxwell did some most incredibly
Speaker 2: artistic greens. Ever he worked without McKenzie on number of
Speaker 2: projects and things. But so we had that in common.
Speaker 2: Perry Mixwell courses, but you know, we we would just
Speaker 2: go see things.
Speaker 5: We'd all see them. Gymstam.
Speaker 2: You go to some place like Pine Valley, or you
Speaker 2: go to the National Golf Links. There could be two
Speaker 2: more different golf courses, and yet it's hard to choose
Speaker 2: which is which would I really prefer, you know more,
Speaker 2: And it's just that they have experience of seeing things
Speaker 2: and trying to appreciate things, and and and and giving
Speaker 2: some thought to why do I like these more? But
Speaker 2: we've been so fortunate in the years to work with
Speaker 2: some just extraordinary places, not just new sites but existing courses,
Speaker 2: and you just go out there and you just marvel
Speaker 2: at it. I mean, I've I've spent more than a
Speaker 2: few days walking around Cyprus.
Speaker 5: Point you know and be the.
Speaker 2: Only person out there in the afternoon, the only person
Speaker 2: everybody plays it cryer in the morning. So in the
Speaker 2: afternoon it's just fantastic and you and you walk around
Speaker 2: and go and our best day.
Speaker 5: Could we have ever thought of this? Could we have
Speaker 5: ever done this? And well, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 5: know about that, but it's.
Speaker 2: Just those kind of experiences and those kind of courses.
Speaker 2: And I wish I could just say, oh, it's one
Speaker 2: through five, it was this, this, and this as soon
Speaker 2: as as soon as I would do that, if I
Speaker 2: picked one of them and said, oh, that's number one, this, two, three, four,
Speaker 2: these are the five courses, I would go to one
Speaker 2: of the other eight or ten or whatever course is
Speaker 2: and go ooh, I messed up.
Speaker 5: That one should be that.
Speaker 2: So we've it's just been a process.
Speaker 6: The question is after a course opens, what's the process
Speaker 6: for editing and any changes that are made over the
Speaker 6: over the years.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a very good one because that is a
Speaker 2: process that happens. If you're four enough to work for
Speaker 2: a club or an ownership group or a family who
Speaker 2: again allows you freedom to work with a with a
Speaker 2: good sight, you do the best. You know how to do.
Speaker 2: I mean, right out of the box. You're doing everything
Speaker 2: that the way you think is the best way to
Speaker 2: do it as you're building the course, but it's still
Speaker 2: it happens in a fairly short period of time, and
Speaker 2: once that course is open, you hope that the owners
Speaker 2: for whom you've worked will absolutely observe how that course
Speaker 2: handles play, be it just everyday play or be a
Speaker 2: championship play, but how it fulfills or or perhaps doesn't
Speaker 2: fulfill the goals it was intent that were intended. And
Speaker 2: over a period of time you you go back and
Speaker 2: you say, all right, how do we see this? How
Speaker 2: it is progressed and everything evolves, and you think, perhaps
Speaker 2: if we made a refinement here or refinement there, it
Speaker 2: would be better. And the best owners again allow you
Speaker 2: to do that, and yes, Bandon Trails was one of them.
Speaker 2: I mean Jim and Jim did so much of the
Speaker 2: work at Bandon Trails. And yet once you see exactly
Speaker 2: how tight and firm that fescue got for those of
Speaker 2: you who played after years ago, like at number eighteen,
Speaker 2: and you would see it roll off the front of
Speaker 2: the green, and next thing, oh my god, it's forty
Speaker 2: yards back down the fairway with the wind blowing from
Speaker 2: the north, and that wasn't really what we intended. So
Speaker 2: when you're allowed to opportunity to go back and work
Speaker 2: not really so much on the green but right in
Speaker 2: front of it to try to address those issues, and
Speaker 2: we appreciate that. And even if you see that, whether
Speaker 2: it's one of our horses or anyone else's, if you
Speaker 2: see that in process, that doesn't mean it was bad
Speaker 2: the first time. It just means you've learned through the
Speaker 2: process and people deserve that, not that it was bad,
Speaker 2: but there could be a better way to handle some
Speaker 2: of the issues you've seen, so the best golf courses
Speaker 2: evolved and through.
Speaker 5: That through time.
Speaker 6: I know you're not gonna like this question. If you
Speaker 6: if you could put one of the holes in the
Speaker 6: sandbox in your backyard, which one would it be and why?
Speaker 2: So that first I'll go for that, and then you
Speaker 2: can answer that I you know, it'd be the third hole,
Speaker 2: the double plateau thing. We've talked about doing something like
Speaker 2: that for years and we just never found the right
Speaker 2: situation to do it. And when we were walking out
Speaker 2: there and Jim actually the one who mentioned them. By
Speaker 2: the way, we could do one of those somewhere and
Speaker 2: there you go. You're right, we could do it, and
Speaker 2: what would be perceived is either unfair, goofy, or just
Speaker 2: totally out of bounds on a regulation course. We thought
Speaker 2: could work here, and we watched enough play there today
Speaker 2: and Tim who made Ah, well you made on thirteen,
Speaker 2: I guess, but Mark Son, yeah, yeah, And so it's
Speaker 2: those kind of things that wouldn't be the only one.
Speaker 2: There would be other ones, but that one for me
Speaker 2: personally just stands out.
Speaker 5: Would your wife like it? I'm sorry, would your wife
Speaker 5: like it?
Speaker 6: Back there?
Speaker 2: Sure the dogs could run over it and they yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: she'd be okay with that.
Speaker 5: That's good.
Speaker 7: Well, we haven't talked about my cottage, but I think
Speaker 7: we could have all.
Speaker 3: Of them in my backyard.
Speaker 7: It just building my house right back there, and it
Speaker 7: could be my backyard.
Speaker 6: Michael Michael Jim's cottage.
Speaker 7: I can't say that I have a favorite. I mean,
Speaker 7: the third hole out here is a lot of fun,
Speaker 7: and we have looked for a spot like that, There's
Speaker 7: no doubt. You know, the National Golf Links has that green.
Speaker 7: Very it's different, but it's this kind of the same idea.
Speaker 7: There's so many of them. You know, I just I
Speaker 7: don't know that I have a favorite. I would just
Speaker 7: ask you to pick one, and I'd say, thank you
Speaker 7: very much.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's probably like picking your favorite kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, all right, Well.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for being a part of this and
Speaker 6: awesome course, and congratulations on you know, another home run.
Speaker 2: Thank Andy, and thank all of you for coming. We
Speaker 2: really do appreciate it. We hope you enjoyed the experience.
Speaker 2: And you know, David Kid's course is going to open
Speaker 2: here soon and sand Valley who would have thought the
Speaker 2: Kaiser to have done it again?
Speaker 6: You've been listening to the Fried Egg podcast.
Speaker 3: We do the digging before you