WEBVTT - Yolk with Doak 21: Linksland, Mike Strantz, and Environmentalism 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:06.199 Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.639 Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.400 at b dratty. It took a little while, but the 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.760 entire country is open for golf. It's exciting development. I'm 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.640 in Illinois, so we were one of the last states 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:22.680 to open, and it's been nice to have it back. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.599 With everywhere open for golf, no better time to look 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.720 at your closet and maybe get some new polos have 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:31.560 a new look this year when you're at the club 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:35.920 or going to the course. I highly recommend the Liam 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.040 Polo from b Dratty. The Liam Polo is the original 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.400 polo they made. It is made with this really soft cotton, 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:49.280 Peruvian cotton. It's got the pocket on the left chest 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.519 and easy to wash, easy to take care of, and 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.600 the best part about it is you come off the 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.240 golf course and you still look great. And if you 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.320 use the promo code TFE twenty five at bdradty dot com, 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.520 you'll get twenty five percent off your purchase, so you'll 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.319 look great and you'll get a nice discount on the 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.160 Liam Polo. You can add a monogram, you can personalize 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.319 this thing, so it's a really cool shirt. Highly recommend 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.720 use the promo code TFE twenty five and you'll get 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:22.600 twenty five percent off on bdradty dot com. Today's episode 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.319 is a new one of the Yoke with Doak. So 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.600 this is part of the Batchelor recordings that I did 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:32.160 in January with Tom where we were just recorded for 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.640 copious amount of hours. This episode we hit a lot 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:41.479 of listener questions, so we hit on topics such as 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:43.760 the links land and you know one of the some 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.040 of the downsides to building on links Land, Mike Strand 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.800 who he would like to listen to from from the 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.600 past on a podcast and much more so, without further ado, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:55.600 here's Tom Doak. 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.880 I miss a green for example, I'm already upset when 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:00.960 I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.000 And when I find my ball in a bright egg 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.560 Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, fridagg. 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:37.160 Bright egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the. 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:34.560 Course from a dusty gray. 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:40.000 You only hear people wowed linx land, But what are 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:45.400 the main details and obstacles faced while constructing links land 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.440 courses as opposed to inland courses. 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:53.800 If any one of the things is unreal lynx luan ground. 0:02:55.840 --> 0:03:00.079 The soil is really fragile, like there's there's only a 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.680 little bit of you know, it's sandy all the way down, 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.560 but that little bit at the top is has got 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:12.880 more nutrients in it, and you really really don't want 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.480 to disturb that unless you have to. And it's really 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.000 hard because it's such a thin layer. It's really hard 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:19.800 to peel it off and save it and put it 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.359 back on. You know, a lot of golf courses an 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.320 inland ground, you'll strip six inches or a foot of 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.200 topsaw off and reconjure everything, and then you've got a 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.360 huge pile of topsaw to put back down. But on 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.920 a links course, it's a really fine layer and you 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.280 can destroy it pretty easily, and you don't want to. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.640 I mean, that's you know. I remember seeing Kingsbarns under 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.839 construction of Walter Woods, who was the greenkeeper at Saint 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.920 Andrew's when I lived there, was a consultant to Kingsbarns, 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.480 and that was his main thing was you know, that 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.640 was that little bit of topsaw was like gold to 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.720 him and it had to be preserved at all costs 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.840 and it had to go back down over everything when 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.080 it was done or wasn't going to play like a 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:01.760 links course. 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:03.960 I imagine. 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.200 The other thing is the wind probably blows. It's probably 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.760 is it harder to get stuff to sit just the way. 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:10.920 You want to. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.800 Yeah, in general it can be. That can be pretty 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.440 fine material too. It was the same in Australia when 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.600 we were building St Andrew's Beach. I mean, the the 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.560 great layer of soil at the top was really fine 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.400 and really dark compared to it. You know, it was sand, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:32.080 but it was a very dark brown sand. So yeah, 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:33.400 if you put it in a pile over to the 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.279 side for very long, it just half of it blows away. 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.600 Here's a question from waiting on willow Old Tom Morris 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.800 met Donald Ross, who met Pete Die met Tom Doak? 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.760 Who did Tom Doak meet? That will be an innovative 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:50.000 force of their generation. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:55.600 Wow, we skipped over a few people in there, so 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:56.560 I'm only. 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.880 He was limited to a certain amount of characters. 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:03.760 I'm only two people removed from old Tom Morris according 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:10.120 to that equation. That's cool, hmm. You know, I mean 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.560 I've had a ton of talented people work for me, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.279 and you know, some of them have made names for 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.440 themselves already, Gil Hands and Mike DeVries. But you know 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.000 that questions more like generation skipping. Those those people are 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.320 forty years apart, and you know that's you know, it's 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.760 hard for Gil or Mike or those guys to do 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:34.400 something really different than what I'm doing because this style 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.520 is so in vogue right now that everybody talks about 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.280 it kind of the same way. And if you're really 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.679 trying to think about, well, who's going to change things, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.720 it's impossible to predict. I mean, who knows who's going 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.280 to be the guy who or girl who sticks their 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:56.719 neck out and really does something different that leads everybody 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.119 else to go in a different direction. You know, I 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.680 hope it's one of the people that I've that I've 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.000 spent some time with and helped train. You know that 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.640 that's I tried to tell them all exactly what Pete 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:12.640 Dye told me, which is essentially, don't copy what I'm doing, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:18.520 find your own thing. You know. And when I worked 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:23.360 for Pete, the one thing that we never talked a 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:29.599 lot about at all was style. And you know, he 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.480 didn't try to teach me his style of doing things. 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.159 He taught me his method of doing things and being 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.120 out there in construction and you know, really working at it. 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.400 But what the golf course was going to look like, 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.919 I'm not going to say it didn't matter, but you know, 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.919 that was kind of up to him. And you know, 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.120 he left that impression on me that if I ever 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.560 got in position to do that, it should be up 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.560 to me, and I should try to do something different. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.159 You know that I drew most of that just from 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.520 the conversation we had about Harbortown, you know, because we 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:03.640 were working a long cove and Harbortown's like five miles 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.080 down the road, and one morning I got him talking 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.400 about that, and he said, you know, up to Harbortown, 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:15.320 he still really admired Robert Trent Jones's work. But when 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.480 he was working on Harbortown, he was living by Palmetto Dunes, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.160 and he drove past the Jones course at Palmetto Dunes 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.240 like every day to go to work, and he kept 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.520 looking at that golf course over there, and he finally 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.680 said to himself, not very long into the thing, I 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:32.720 got to do something different than that. We can't just 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.640 keep doing that. And so he tried to do something 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:41.239 as different as possible from what mister Jones was doing, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:48.480 and that was harbortown tight small, really small greens, you know, 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:53.760 really abrupt features, but not necessarily a ton of them. 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.480 And I just took that as don't do the same 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:03.160 thing I'm doing. So somebody's going to do that sooner 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.520 or later and change the world again. And I, you know, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.320 I have a few ideas who it might be. But 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.760 you know, I got a letter from a young guy 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.040 in Canada last week wanting an intern job, and he's like, 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.720 you know, he just sounds like a really intelligent kid, 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.000 and he's you know, he's talking about data driven stuff 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.720 and how you know how to apply that to golf 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.840 course architecture. And I I would say, I'm a skeptic 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.960 about that right now, but you know, that might be 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.319 where this thing goes in twenty years. Who knows. 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:39.360 Almost like everybody nudges and what if you're you know, 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.400 there's like a big nudge or a big push into one 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.520 direction right, and then it's like a steady nudge until 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.000 there's the next big push. Really, it's kind of the 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.160 way I think about it's in a way, it's a 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.800 lot like if you look at a different industry, how 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.280 they advance, there's you know, gradual and then somebody makes 0:08:58.280 --> 0:08:59.319 a drastic change and. 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.480 Everybody sure it's you know, it's it's not quite the 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.800 fashion business. But you know, once his style is kind 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.280 of in vogue, it tends to stay there for a while, 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:14.760 and other people kind of don't push too far outside 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.440 that for fear they won't get any work at all 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.400 until you know, people have kind of gotten tired of it, 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.600 and then it's time for somebody to come along and 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:27.120 do something that's way different, you know. You know, I 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.240 see a couple of things now that are kind of 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:34.720 way different, you know, just like just like back fifteen 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.000 years ago, Jim Ming's stuff was way different, and Mike 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:42.840 Strands's stuff was way different, you know, and there's there's 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.280 some stuff going on like that now, but whether whether 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.000 it's the right time for it, you know, it's really 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.800 hard for that to work when the business is so small, 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.480 because you know, most architects are just trying to find 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.360 one job for next year, and they don't want to 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:03.400 take the risk of doing something radical and having people 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:07.080 not like it, because then then they got nothing next year. 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.319 You have to be willing to take chances if you're 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.400 going to do something like that. 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.440 You brought up Mike Strants and something I've thought a 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:22.000 lot about. You know, you guys were peers, but with 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:28.040 drastically different styles. Yes, And I'm curious where with him 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:33.320 passing away young, do you think architecture would be different 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.040 today he had he not because he was kind of 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:37.319 almost like a counter. 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:43.160 That's true, and you know, in a way, I don't 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.280 think philosophically our work was that much different. I mean, 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:51.200 artistically it was very different, and he was he was 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:59.400 more interested in creating something that looked wild than with 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.160 you know, keeping it closer to what the land was. 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:06.680 But but then again, some of the pieces of ground 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.720 he had were pretty wild to start with, so that worked. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:16.160 But you know, I think for sure, if if he'd 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.840 kept working, you know, he would have had a lot 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.439 more influence on what other people were doing. But by 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.600 the same token, you was kind of a unique talent. 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.480 I mean, he really was an artist, and there aren't 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.960 that many real artists in our business to try to 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.720 take that direction and do it themselves. And he you know, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.000 he had a really small crew of guys that worked 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:41.160 with him on all those projects, and since he passed away, 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.400 they haven't really picked it up and run with it 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.920 at all, too bad. 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.319 Something I always kind of think about because it was 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.840 it was almost like he was the evolution from from 0:11:54.880 --> 0:12:00.240 the Fasio school, but that evolution kind of halted and. 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:01.600 Now, like you said, nobody picked it up. 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.480 Yeah, so this is from chill Gannon. Are there any 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:09.720 average courses that could be great with a green renovation. 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.520 It's a hard question because you know, great is like 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.920 a pretty vague term. Now, I don't know whether that 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:22.560 means sixth the Doakes Gale or an eight. You know, 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.880 taking a course that's a four or five and renovating 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.040 the greens and turning it into an eight is pretty unlikely. 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:37.560 Although you know, one of the great examples from history 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:42.400 is Woking in England that John Lowe and Tom Simpson, 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.160 who are members, kind of did. They took. They took 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:51.120 a Tom Dunn Heathland course, which everybody thought was pretty dull, 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.240 and every summer while the members were away up north 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.800 in Scotland or wherever, they would renovate one or two holes. 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.680 And it wasn't exclusively agree's renovation. They also did some 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.199 fairway bunkering connected to it, so that the all the 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.160 wild stuff they were doing on the greens. You know, 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.959 there was strategy to that, and there was a bunker 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.040 back in the fairway that enhanced it. But you know, 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.040 over the course of five or six years, they just 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.120 transformed that golf course from fairly dull into the talk 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:24.240 of the town in London in the early nineteen hundreds 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.160 when there was a lot of other cool stuff going on. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.280 That's the golf course that it inspired Simpson to actually 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.280 become a golf course architect, you know, and it inspired 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:38.440 Cole and everybody else watching around of wow, you know 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.640 you can if you take risks, you could do some 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:47.920 pretty wild stuff that's really cool and got a lot 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:52.560 of other people interested in art what architecture could do. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.640 So I think there is the potential for that, but 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:02.320 you know, it helps if you've got the skeleton of 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.120 a good routing in place. You know, if the greens 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.120 are in the wrong place, you're not going to fix 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.199 that just by renovating the greens. 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:10.720 Yeah. 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.360 I like think about Champion Hill where you've got just 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.080 that tremendous land up here, but you know, the owner 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.320 who built it, he didn't do any shaping around it, 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.120 on and around the greens it's just like a basically 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.720 like almost a homemade golf course. And I think, like, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.240 you know, that land's so good, it could be pretty 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.600 pretty dark good, and it is pretty good as is like, 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:33.880 and that's one of the things. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.600 It's it's thirty bucks like for what it is. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.840 It's great. And you know the thing about that is 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.240 if it had a great set of greens, it should 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.720 have still cost thirty bucks. You know, I mean building 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:51.280 a good set of greens, assuming you're building some you know, 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.360 USGA greens or native saw greens or whatever you're building. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.920 You know, putting better shape in him to start with 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.560 shouldn't really cost anything more. You know, it's just having 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.640 a good shaper and having some imagination about what you're doing. 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:11.040 But there's not a lot of people that build great greens. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:12.120 There never has been. 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:17.040 That's something that Mike mccarton said once on the podcast 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.040 that stuck with me. He's like, great architecture doesn't cost 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.200 any more than average architecture. 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:23.920 No, it really doesn't. 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.040 Thinking about this, and you know, you talked about Tom 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:29.880 Simpson and John Lowe and we've recorded a lot of 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.040 podcasts and I'm curious if there was one historical figure 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:34.960 It could be an architect, it could be a writer, 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.880 it could be anybody. If you could listen to like 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.880 a podcast from one figure in golf of yesteryear, who 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:43.400 would it be? 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:51.440 Oh, Bernard Darwin, no question, both to see if all 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.520 of that beautiful writing just came out of his voice 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.360 straight away, or you know, how hard did he have 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.400 to work to be that good a writer? You know, 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.960 was it just like everything he said was genius or 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.040 do you really have to grind away at it to 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.840 get it to that level. I'd be curious to know. 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:12.600 But you know, I still think if the way he 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.520 described some of the old golf courses that he saw, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:22.800 and think about how much we've lost. You know this 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.520 he just makes the spira of golf back then sound 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:30.480 way different and and kind of cool. And you know 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:36.360 he would he would critique golf courses pretty strongly without 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.360 comparing them to Hamburger Helper or some of the things 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:45.200 that I've done over the years. You know, it's one 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:51.920 of the one of the descriptions I'm thinking about is Blackheath, 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.040 the old the old course in London that was you know, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.440 played a lot played across common Land that's now like 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.640 in the city of you know, it's it's down near 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.560 Greenwich actually, but very much. You know, they were playing 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.120 across you'd be hitting across busy public roads now into 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.679 the park kind of. And yet you know that was 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.080 that was the best golf club in London in the 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:23.000 early days before the Heathlin courses started coming. And it 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.760 was only seven holes, but it was really hard. There 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:28.760 was like one part three and most of the holes 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.600 were long and longer to the point that you know, 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:38.040 he described one of them as I wish I had 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.879 the exact quote. I should go grab grab one of 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.520 my bucks and get the exact quote. But it was like, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:49.399 you know, he remembered hitting several long shots before getting 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.119 within the range of the green. You know, it's like 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:55.800 driver three wood, three wood five iron type hole, and 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.159 then the next hole after that was the same, but 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.960 not quite as much. And you think, well, there's nothing 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:06.600 even close to that now, I mean, nothing like that. 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.119 So you know, there are a lot of great architects 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.159 who I would have loved to meet and pick the 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.199 brains up a little bit. But but to listen to 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.440 them talk, Bernard Darwin had to be uclassed by himself. 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.600 I mean, he could do a couple hours just on 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.520 the Walker Cup that the first Walker Cup they had 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:33.199 to play in as a sub beat fountains in the 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:34.680 singles matches. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.840 And tell us what National and Leedo are really like 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:38.800 in the early days. 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:40.399 Yeah, he had away with words. 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.400 I read an article that he wrote about when they 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.960 outlawed the stymy the first go around. You know, he 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.359 was very upset about removing this you know, skill of 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.800 the game, the way he described it, and it is 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.240 really interesting because then they brought it back and then 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.240 sure enough a couple of years later it was removed. 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.560 But his his case for the stymy was just the 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.760 way he wrote it, the language and the the clarity. 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.320 And I think that there's something about my era, like 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.239 especially with photos the digital where you could put as 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:16.200 many photos as you want, an article online and video 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.400 you know you can show people, But especially then where 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.920 you only had the words. You to be a great writer, 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.200 you had to really be a great writer. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.240 Yes, And have you ever tried to play a match 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:33.800 with Steimy's in play It's unbelievable. I've done it two 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:35.879 or three times with guys that work for me, just 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.360 to just so they understand it a little bit. But 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:41.760 but it was it wouldn't come It usually wouldn't come 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:43.760 into play more than like a couple of times in 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.560 eighteen holes. But when it did, you know, it was 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.399 rarely ever a matter of luck. It was like, you know, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.560 we're both playing a part four or part five, and 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:59.600 we've we've kind of hit the same you know, we've 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.680 kind of played it the same way. But but I've 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.920 been just a little sloppier than you have. So I've 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:10.639 left myself too far from the hole, and then I 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.359 don't hit a good approach pot, and you have the 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.680 chance then not to just you don't have to make 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.560 your putt to beat me. You have to either make 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:23.520 it or just leave your ball in a place that 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.919 I can't make mine, which you've got a lot more 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:31.880 chance of doing. And that's my punishment for being sloppy 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:33.920 on the hole. You know, I can't just make us 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.920 six or eight foot or and save myself from being 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.879 sloppy all the way through. So it was, you know, 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:46.000 it would anytime a steiny happened, it would almost always 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.040 be to the advantage of the guy who played the 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.800 hole better. Yeah, you know, and you know it just 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:55.240 if you try to explain it to somebody now it 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.280 just seems like, oh, that's completely unfair. I mean, you 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.879 can't you can't block it. And obviously everybody going to 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.359 stroke play as the main form of golf. It doesn't 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.480 make any sense in stroke play, so you had to 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.480 get you know, once stroke play became more common, it 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:12.639 was hard to leave it in because people were so 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.439 used to putting everything out and that's the game that 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.720 having this element of match play just didn't make any 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:24.240 sense to them anymore. But but I think it was clearly. 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.239 It clearly rewarded the better player in match play, and 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:31.960 that's why all the old guys thought, we don't want. 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:36.440 To see this go the I think that stymy one 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:42.800 of the things that it just allowed somebody. It kind 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.080 of captured the essence of golf where it gave somebody 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.679 one last opportunity to make a truly great shot, you know, 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.240 to get a ball to stop right in somebody's line. 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.119 It is not very easy to do, no, it's not. 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:56.560 That's the other part of it. 0:21:57.359 --> 0:21:59.960 And it gave that last opportunity to hit a true, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.160 really great shot that could swing the match. That's the 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.240 the interesting thing about that. Darwin in the Walker Cup 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.280 against founds. I mean it was like the most like 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.000 heavily favored match maybe of all time for founds. So 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:18.240 you know, they really and I remember reading he was 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:22.760 down three or four through four and the match turned. 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.760 He stymied founds and found Founds lost like four or 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.160 five for the next seven holes, and it totally had 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:32.399 to be the I think he stymied him on the 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:36.480 radan and and that swung the match because there's a 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:37.840 mental aspect of it too. 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.360 Oh definitely, definitely. I mean you just you think you're 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:43.640 playing better than the guy and you just got screwed there. 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:49.400 It's uh, stimy's are everybody should go out and play a. 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:51.960 Match with stymies. That's it's fun. 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:58.080 So with forward thinking ideas, is there a space to 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:02.840 combine combine golf and environmentalism? 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:07.119 There's space to combine golf and environmentalism. Yes, I mean 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:13.760 there's the Golf Environment Organization based in Scotland in North Barrack. 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:18.080 Great place for them. It has been around for about 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.879 ten years now. I kind of volunteered to help them 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:26.440 a little bit at the beginning, and I still am 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.320 like an informal advisor to them. But they're like the 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:35.239 only you know, there's there's lots of organizations in golf that, 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:43.240 you know, preach how they're saving the environment, but most 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:47.280 of that sounds very self serving to environmentalists and doesn't 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:50.320 have much credibility. These guys do have credibility in the 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:59.520 environmental community. And and I said to him right from 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.000 the beginning, you know, the only way you have credibility 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:05.919