WEBVTT - How to Appreciate Golf Courses (feat. Geoff Shackelford) 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.160 One of the questions I get most often is how 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:08.520 can you properly appreciate a golf course while you're playing it. 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.080 A lot of people find this very difficult, partly because 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.200 they're trying to shoot good scores, which is hard enough. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.280 So it helps to have if you go to techniques 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.960 for understanding a golf course in the moment. And that's 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.680 what we're talking about in this episode. My guest is 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:30.440 the legendary Jeff Shackelford, the author of the Quadrilateral Newsletter 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.600 as well as many excellent books about golf architecture. My 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:44.040 name is Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf, all right, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:48.080 So today's big question, how can you properly appreciate a 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.800 golf course while you're playing it? I got this question 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.560 most recently in Frida Egg Golf Club. That's Friday Golf's membership. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:58.920 Go to the Friday dot com slash membership to see 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:03.360 what it's all about. A member named Adrian Mazarolo asked 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.240 it this way, how do you balance assessing the course 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.080 with focusing on your round? I feel like I struggle 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.960 doing one or the other. This is a challenge, you know, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.160 just kind of figuring out how to divvy up your 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.480 attention while you're playing golf. What do you focus on 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:26.600 if you're interested in golf architecture, What habits or patterns 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.240 of thought can help you appreciate a golf course fully. 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.080 That's what I want to talk about today. And I've 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.240 got two things that I do, two big things that 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.240 I try to do. At least I'm not perfect on 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.160 this stuff, but when I play a new golf course, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.520 I do two big things to help myself understand the architecture. Now, 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.880 before I get to the first thing, there's one big 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:57.520 habit that I think underlies everything else, and that is walking. 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.120 If you're able, I think it's I think it's just 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.960 difficult to take in a golf course completely. When you're 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.240 writing in a cart, you just see so much more. 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:13.240 When you're walking. You usually have more alone time to 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.799 be observational and reflective, and you literally feel the land 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.600 and the course under your feet. That to me is 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:26.320 very important. So if you can walk, I think doing 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.239 so has a lot of benefits for your appreciation of 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.280 golf course architecture. All right, So the first big thing 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.880 that I do to appreciate golf courses while I'm playing 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.799 is this, I think about each hole from the green 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:46.960 back to the tee. What this means is that I'll 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.520 I kind of take a moment after putting out on 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.080 a hole just to stand on the green, look at 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.880 the design of the green, look at the contouring, the shape, 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.040 the orientation, and just consider the relation of all of 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:02.880 that to the rest. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:03.080 Of the hole. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.280 This is something that my boss, Friday Golf founder Andy Johnson, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.120 talks about a lot, and he especially likes to consider 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:18.680 the different potential pin positions that a green has. Usually 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.800 golfers just think about the one pin position that happens 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.519 to be in use that day, but sometimes a hole 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:31.440 can change completely if the pin is in a different spot. 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.480 And actually one sign of a well designed hole is 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:41.040 that different pin positions produce different playing experiences. That creates 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.120 this day to day variety that I think is an 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:50.000 important indicator of strong golf course architecture. So an example 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:54.880 of a hole that rewards the practice of green to 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.680 tea thinking is the fourth hole at Royal Saint George's. 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.160 This is a links course in England and a regular 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.160 Open Championship host. I played it last October and it's 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.080 still on my mind. So that's part of why I'm 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.400 talking about it now. So say you've putted out on 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.200 the fourth green at this golf course. What you're looking 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:25.000 at is an elevated putting surface kind of draped across 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.960 a shelf right, a big shelf. There's a lower section 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.480 of the green at the bottom of the shelf, and 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.960 the green kind of swoops up on top of the 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:39.279 shelf where the main part of the green is. It's 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:45.960 very high up there, and everything falls away, or almost everything. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.120 It definitely falls away in the front, It falls away 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.880 on the right, and it falls away in the back. 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.640 The one bit of forgiveness is on the left, where 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:02.080 there's this big sideboard that kind of feeds onto the green. 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.919 So you'll realize when when you look at this that 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:12.120 if you use this funneling contour on your approach, the 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.760 hole becomes a lot more forgiving. But to use the 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.159 sideboard on the left properly, you have to be on 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.440 the right side of the fairway right, so that way 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.800 you'll be hitting into the sideboard rather than over and 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.719 across it. In other words, if you're on the left 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:35.520 side of the fairway, this contour actually hurts you because 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.880 your ball is going to be traveling in a direction 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:44.000 where this slope will propel it away instead of killing 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:48.760 it and kind of corraling it back onto the green. Okay, 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.960 so we know now looking at the green that the 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.800 right side of the fairway is preferred. Now we can 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.919 think back to the t Is there something about the 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.279 tea shot that makes accessing the right side of the 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.560 fairway difficult? And it turns out that yes, there is. 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:14.400 There's this massive dune standing in front of and completely 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:19.480 blocking the right side of the fairway. It's blind. The 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:21.400 right side of the fairway is blind from the tee. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.960 So to get into the ideal position in the fairway 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.520 to use the contours of the green to your advantage, 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.120 you have to hit your tea shot directly over the dune. 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:38.080 And that's just an uncomfortable, counterintuitive thing to do. It's 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.960 not actually that huge of a carry with modern equipment. 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.960 It used to be, but not really any longer. But 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:51.160 it is very intimidating and just mentally difficult to commit 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:57.160 to a line that you can't visualize. So that's how 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.599 you can understand the design of a whole Taking a 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.839 moment to analyze the green and think your way back 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.760 to the tea. All right, So what about different pin positions. 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:08.440 I mentioned that. 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.400 There is a possible alternative spot on the fourth hole 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.720 at Royal Saint George's below the shelf, in this little bowl, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.480 and this just makes it so much easier to hit 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.360 your approach shot close to the pin, and it really 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.280 deemphasizes position in the fairway because it doesn't matter as 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.880 much if you're on the left or the right side 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:35.040 of the fairway if everything kind of feeds to the pin. Now, 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.040 I will say that the club hardly ever puts the 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.000 pin there, at least that's what I heard when I 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:45.240 was there. And this you could say is maybe a 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:49.760 flaw of the hole. There really aren't that many alternative 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.680 pin positions on the fourth hole at Royal Saint George's 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:58.240 that are just as interesting as the primary pin up 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.040 on the shelf. And this is another kind of insight 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.400 that you can get by thinking from the green to 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:09.520 the tee. A lot of holes are not strategically sophisticated, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.800 and you can expose that fact by looking closely at 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.200 the design of the green as it relates to the 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:21.440 rest of the hole. Sometimes a green is just equally 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.720 receptive from all angles in which case the hole might 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:30.960 not have much strategic content. And this isn't necessarily a 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.440 bad thing, because there are plenty of other ways that 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.800 a hole can be fun or memorable. But it is 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.200 a useful data point as you're trying to understand and 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:45.000 appreciate a golf course. Okay, so that's number one, looking 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.320 at the green and tracing a line of thought back 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:53.280 to the tee. The second big method of appreciating golf 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.800 courses that I want to talk about is seeking out 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.720 different angles on a particular hole. This is something I've 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.880 discussed before with my colleague Cameron Hurdis. Cameron talks about 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.600 how he tries not just to walk down the center 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.400 of the fairway all the time, right, He tries to 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:17.719 take unusual routes to get different views and perspectives. This 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.880 is partly because he's a photographer and he's looking for 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.760 those angles, but it's also useful for the rest of us. 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.280 When we have a hole that is just where the 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.080 green is more receptive from one side of the fairway 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.320 than the other, right, like the Royal Saint George's hole 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:39.559 that we just discussed, it's good to see both perspectives, 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:44.040 the bad angle and the good angle. It's only through 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:49.200 seeing both perspectives that you can understand the different ways 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.800 that a hole might be played and the consequences for 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:57.160 finding one position or another. One way that I like 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:02.240 to do this is occasionally walking with a playing partner 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.720 to their ball and watching them hit their shot, ideally 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.680 of course after I've hit my own shot, because you know, 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:11.360 you don't want to slow down pace of play. But 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.560 sometimes it can be really informative to see how another 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.679 player approaches the whole, especially if they're a different kind 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.040 of player than you, if they're more skilled or less skilled, 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.440 if they have more power or less power. Watching them 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.840 on occasion and just seeing what happens to their ball, 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:37.120 trying to understand their shot from their perspective, can help 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:42.000 you grasp different dimensions of the course, dimensions that you 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.560 might not be aware of because you're playing your own 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.600 particular game. But a good golf course is much more 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.200 than just one experience, right. It provides a lot of 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:58.800 different experiences, hopefully just as good experiences for other players. So, 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:05.040 for example, if you're playing the second hole at Pacific Dunes, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:10.559 Tom Doak design, this is Abandon Dunes. It's a shortish 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:15.120 to mid length par four with a very wide fairway 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.439 and a bunker right in the middle of the fairway, 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:23.360 so you have a choice. You can play left of 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.400 the center line bunker or right of the center line bunker. 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.400 The left side is lower, and there's an additional bunker 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.400 to the left near the landing zone for drives. The 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:40.719 right side is higher, kind of on a plateau with 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:46.000 no additional bunkers up there. Now, if I'm standing on 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.400 this tee and I see these distinct options, I'm immediately 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.679 thinking to myself, I want to see what it looks 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:58.160 like from both of those positions. So either I'll take 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.360 a route up the fairway that allows me to see 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:06.080 both positions, or better yet, if one of my playing 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.400 partners is on the other side from where I am, 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:14.320 I'll walk over and watch their shot. And what you'll 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.400 find if you do this is that the high right 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.280 side on the second hole Pacific Dunes offers a much 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:26.800 better view of the full green. But because there's a 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:31.520 bunker guarding the right side of the green, the front 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.360 right side of the green, it can actually be pretty 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.280 hard to get to certain pin positions from this high 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.600 right side. So there are both benefits and drawbacks to 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:45.160 that right hand position. Right, you can see everything, but 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.360 that bunker at the front right portion of the green 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.160 is a little bit tricky. Then if you walk down 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.400 to the left side of the fairway, you'll find that, yes, 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.400 your sight line to the green is more obscured because 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.560 you're lower, but from a certain spot the view is 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.679 actually pretty good. If you're close to that left hand bunker, 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:08.960 you'll be looking up a kind of half pipe in 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.920 the land and you can see the green pretty well 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.520 from there. There are even some contours that will feed 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.720 your ball to certain pins if you're playing from that position. 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.760 So that's actually a good spot if you can get 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.320 to it near the left hand bunker and left of 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.040 the center line bunker. And again, you can only appreciate 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.840 these subtleties of the two different ways to play the 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.199 hole if you make the effort to visit both sides 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:39.400 of the fairway. Now related to this practice of finding 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.959 different angles on a hole is that when you hit 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.439 a bad shot, try to see it as an opportunity, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.960 because bad shots can show you a lot of interesting 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.960 things about a golf course. You can step back and 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:58.280 ask yourself, how did I get here right, and what 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.880 kind of predicament have I I put myself in, And 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.840 this way you can learn a lot about a golf course. 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:09.520 You can learn about the traps that a golf architect 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:14.680 has set for the player. So, for instance, last year, 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.920 I played Oakmont Country Club for the first time. This 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.480 is during a US Open media day, and you know, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.320 it was a tough day. You know, I wasn't playing 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:30.760 that well as expected. And we came to the twelfth hole, 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:36.240 which is a very long, downhill par five that sits 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.000 on a big left to right slope. I had a 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.800 great drive and a great second shot. I strung two 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:45.680 good shots together, which I hadn't done all day to 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.960 that point, and that left me with about an eight 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.280 iron approach, a seven iron or an eight iron, and 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.880 I pulled that approach left of the green, left of 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.600 the bunkers, left of the green, and I got up 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:05.080 to my ball and realized that I was screwed. The green, 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.320 like the rest of the hole, sat on a pretty 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:15.200 severe front to back, left to right slope, which meant 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.800 that everything was moving away from me where I had missed. 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.040 There was just no way that I was going to 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.920 stop my ball, almost no way that I could keep 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.400 my ball on the green, given how fast the greens 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:32.080 at Oakmont are and how severe that slope is running 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.400 away from me. So I thought to myself, how did 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.080 I get here right? Why am I in the worst 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:44.040 spot that I could possibly be? And I realized that 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.320 when I was hitting my approach shot, I was instinctively 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:53.120 avoiding a right miss because there's a little drop off 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.840 to the right of the green into a ditch. There's 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:01.400 an actual hazard over there. So that's what the design 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.880 of the hole was doing to me. It was suggesting 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:05.920 to me that the bad miss was on the right, 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.560 but actually a left miss is way worse on that hole. 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:12.440 If I had missed on the right, even if I 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.440 had maybe been in the ditch, which was a ways 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.600 off the green, I could have stopped my ball at 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.120 least on the green where I was. That was almost impossible. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:22.880 Now. 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.560 The only way that I could get that insight into 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.480 the twelfth hole at Oakmont was by hitting a bad 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:33.880 shot and taking it as an opportunity to learn something, 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.960 all right. So those are two big things you can 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.560 do during your next round. You can think from the 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.760 green back to the tee, and you can seek out 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.400 multiple angles on each hole. And if you do those 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.000 two things, I think you'll start appreciating the courses you 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.400 play on a much deeper level. And that's what this 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.880 is all about. Golf architecture is not about knowing a 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.600 lot of stuff that you can you know oh off 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.280 to other people. It's not about feeling superior that you 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.959 have all this knowledge. It's just about enjoying your rounds 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.360 of golf more than you used to, or enjoying them 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.160 in a different way than you used to. And that's 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.240 why I like the subject so much, appreciating golf courses. 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:21.920 So next time you're out on the course, try those 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.840 two things and see what happens. Now there's a lot 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.040 more meat on this bone, a lot more things you 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.800 can do to appreciate golf courses more deeply. So let's 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.680 bring on Jeff Shackelford to dig a little deeper into 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.359 the idea of golf course appreciation. Jeff is one of 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.439 the great living golf architecture writers. He is the author 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:48.000 of many books, including the recent Golf Architecture for Normal People, 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.960 which we'll discuss in this interview, and he also maintains 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.120 an excellent substack newsletter called The Quadrilateral so make sure 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.800 to check that out. It's a regular part of my 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.439 reading diet. Honestly, if you're listening to this podcast, you 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.960 probably already know Jeff, So let's just get to my 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:15.359 interview with him, all right, Jeff Shackelford, Welcome to the pod. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.920 Thanks Eric, good to talk to you about this interesting 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:20.560 layered topic today. 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.400 The topic is how to appreciate a golf course while 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.639 you're playing it. And I think you're one of the 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:28.919 best people in the world to talk to about this 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.720 because you've thought about it, you've written about it for 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.800 many years now, and in your recent book, Golf Architecture 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.119 for Normal People, you lay out what I think is 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:42.399 a pretty elegant system for appreciating golf courses. And that 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.840 system goes by the acronym r EED, where each of 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.000 those letters stands for a different question that you can 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.439 ask about a golf course that you've just played. So 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:53.920 I'll just quickly run through that and then and then 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:55.359 we'll get into the meat of it. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:56.000 OK. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.919 Are is for remember and the question is can you 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.960 remember something about each hole? E is for every day? 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.720 Could you play the course every day and never tire 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.560 of it? And D and this is very creative. Is 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.760 for dog friendliness? Is this a course where you would 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:19.560 gladly take a dog for a walk? So, first of all, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.399 what what made you come up with the red system? 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.800 What was the reason you decided that there needed to 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.359 be kind of a new way to approach evaluating or 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:29.600 appreciating golf courses. 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.240 I think a lot of the brankings and systems and 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:39.040 ways people have devised, I think are have really failed 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:44.160 golf architecture because because they often emphasize so many things 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:50.960 that are not important sustainable or what you'd want to 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.199 play in a in a in a course, and they've 0:19:55.920 --> 0:20:01.320 really eaten away at the fun factor. And we really have, 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.359 you know, finally are starting to get back to the 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.879 word fun. And I you know, I've shared the story 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.000 many times about uh so forgive me if you've heard this, 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.480 but you know when Rustic Canyon open, people would say, 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.160 and this was in two thousand and two, it's really 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:20.160 it's a it's a fun course, like a condescending. 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.080 If that's a bad thing, yeah, that's that's that's a demerit. 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.840 And that was really that showed how far we had 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.720 gotten away from what mattered. And and then that was 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.399 just driven by the obsession with course rankings, with course 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.440 rating and slope and numbers and difficulty, and golf's general 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:43.479 tendency to try to overcompensate for what is sort of 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:47.640 this defeat pastime by you know, manning it up by 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:51.200 making you work and be miserable. Well, but nobody, nobody 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:54.560 wants to play those courses on a regular basis. And 0:20:54.600 --> 0:21:00.520 so this was driven largely by by those two factors, 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:02.960 the kind of the way rankings had drifted and the 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.400 way architecture has drifted and it still does at times 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.640 quite a bit from the fun element and people seizing 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.040 on things that have absolutely nothing to do with their 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:16.400 enjoyment of the game. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.320 So, you know, how do you think your system addressed 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.200 some of those issues? Specifically, what were the new elements 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.359 that you tried to introduce through this system that would 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.679 kind of tackle the fun factor, tackle the things that 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.400 people actually like and enjoying golf courses. 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:39.440 The three main categories are designed to highlight the things 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.360 that I always would ask myself about a course and 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.399 the things that I think have the most resonance that 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.520 are the most sustainable in terms of everyday fun golf. 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.959 And I've been asking myself the first two questions for 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.679 a very long time. The dog one came along a 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.200 little bit later, as I you know, when we when 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:11.000 I just gained a greater appreciation for for certain elements 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.119 like scale and and just kind of the the underfoot 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:19.199 test and the feeling of walking certain places versus others, 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:23.120 and you know, hearing over the years, you know, you've 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:25.240 we've all heard it, we alls, we've we've all said it. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:27.520 You know it when you when, of course feels like 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:30.160 it's tour pro say this, it just feels like it's 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.719 always been there, which I've always found to be an 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.320 interesting comment, and it made me think, well, so what 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.560 what's driving them to to say that? And a lot 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.120 of people say that, and it gets back to elements 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.600 of uh, just kind of the way it's built and 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:53.120 the walkability and the feeling the scale, the drainage as 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:55.480 you know, which was kind of a weird way to 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:57.600 weave that in, but it really is, Yeah, I know 0:22:57.640 --> 0:22:59.800 from you know Andy, the first time I met and 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:04.280 Johnson at Austin Golf Club, he had to listen to 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.600 me go around and bitch and moan about all the 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.959 catch basins and Pete die you know, why is this 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:14.840 here right in the middle of the landing area. We 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.800 get you need to deal with drainage, But but from 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:21.440 the walk in the park standpoint, or from the golf standpoint, 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.800 when your ball is on this little side hill thing 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.639 with a bunch of divots around it, like, it's just 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:29.800 why why can't that be over there? Why couldn't you 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.240 have moved the water differently? And and those little things 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:38.280 do impact your overall enjoyment of a course, And so 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:41.199 I was trying to And plus for those of us 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.520 who just don't have a great memory, the concept of 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:45.480 a system was to just whittle it down to three 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.560 questions and have something that made it easy to remember 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.480 them by and and and I. You know, now the 0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:57.119 book's coming up on two years, and I still feel 0:23:57.240 --> 0:23:59.600 pretty good about it. I still have asked myself those 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:02.560 questions about courses. And you know in my newsletter, I 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:04.600 do it. Yeah, you do it for the major major 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:05.840 championship venues. Yeah. 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:08.560 I always think it's really interesting to subject the major 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:11.960 championship venues to this test of what would it be 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:15.320 like to play this course every day? Because often we 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:18.680 don't think about that with major championship venues. In fact, 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.760 the criteria that we usually have for assessing a championship course, 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:27.280 or assessing what makes a good championship course is contrary 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:30.160 to what would make it fun to play every day? Right, 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:32.359 And so actually thinking about what would it be like 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:35.720 to play Oakmont every day is actually really insightful. And 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:38.840 you've probably found that too, right, I think so. 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:41.760 Yeah. And of course some of these places, like Oakmont, 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.639 they enjoy the misery. There's that's kind of the theme 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:47.560 of the place, and that's just been the you know, 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:52.119 the relentlessness of the design, that's their ethos whatever. Fine, 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:55.879 but yeah, I don't know if that's always the case 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:59.720 with some of these places. And and and I think 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:06.120 the rushes help you. I think they help highlight changes 0:25:06.160 --> 0:25:10.639 to some of these venues that you wonder about, like 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:12.800 why did they do that? And is this something you 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:16.080 did for one week out of thirty years or is 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:19.320 this something that is a good change for the championship 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:24.159