Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a brid egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 1: egg Frida, egg Frida, egg Frida egg bride egg.
Speaker 2: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast.
Speaker 2: I am your host, Andy Johnson, and this is another
Speaker 2: edition of our Superintendent series. This one, I think is
Speaker 2: a pretty special one. Steven Beale the superintendent at Wolf
Speaker 2: River Golf Course in Northern Michigan. It's in bear Lake, Michigan. Uh,
Speaker 2: this is an incredible story. I've known Stephen for a
Speaker 2: number of years. We actually played golf before he made
Speaker 2: the move from Chicago up to Northern Michigan. He's a
Speaker 2: great guy, and I think he undertook and executed maybe
Speaker 2: the most remarkable project of the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: He did more with less than any any superintendent that
Speaker 2: I know of. And this is an incredible story. It
Speaker 2: is a superintendent that has gone above and beyond and
Speaker 2: really transformative property and is delivering an exceptional product at
Speaker 2: a very you know, budget, friendly and low cost. I
Speaker 2: think you know, we give a lot of praise to
Speaker 2: the great golf courses in the world, the elite courses,
Speaker 2: the places that have millions of dollars for maintenance budgets,
Speaker 2: But to me, the most remarkable, the most inspiring places
Speaker 2: are the places that do a lot for a little
Speaker 2: bit of dollars. And Wolf River is that Steven has
Speaker 2: did an amazing renovation with a small staff and a
Speaker 2: very small budget, and it is an exceptional place to
Speaker 2: play golf. And it's very cheap and very very friendly
Speaker 2: to all types of golfers. So he's doing an incredible
Speaker 2: job and excited for everybody to hear this episode of
Speaker 2: the Superintendent series. The Superintendent Series is brought to you
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Speaker 2: let's get to Stephen Beale. Steven, I gotta ask, do
Speaker 2: you would you include golf architect now on your resume.
Speaker 1: I suppose a few people would probably say I should.
Speaker 1: I haven't had to update the resume, so I haven't
Speaker 1: felt the need to do that. But I suppose with
Speaker 1: a scope of work that was done, I could make
Speaker 1: that argument.
Speaker 2: I you know, I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 2: have the context of what you've done. What you did,
Speaker 2: but you are the superintendent at at Wolf River Golf Park,
Speaker 2: which is in northern Michigan. It was formerly bear Lake
Speaker 2: Highland's golf course, and you guys underwent what I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people dream of is the idea of
Speaker 2: taking a golf course that a lot of people play.
Speaker 2: That's you know, it is what the golf course is
Speaker 2: and reimagining it. You you conducted a renovation that looked
Speaker 2: at the t's the green, redid the t's the greens,
Speaker 2: the grass. You know, you installed the new grass and
Speaker 2: uh and redid all the bunkers. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think where most people kind of lose that dream of
Speaker 2: doing that is when you start to look at the cost.
Speaker 2: I think what you've done is that you've kind of
Speaker 2: done it at a at a remarkable cost. What was
Speaker 2: the the budget that you guys completed this project eighteen
Speaker 2: hole real renovation and how did you guys do it
Speaker 2: at such a cheap price.
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to highlight just the project costs,
Speaker 1: including some cathol equipment, we bought a seater. It was
Speaker 1: probably around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars mark. The
Speaker 1: reason we were able to do that is because it
Speaker 1: was on a great piece of property. To begin with.
Speaker 1: We had fantastic soils. They drained well and that allowed
Speaker 1: us to just go in and put a bunker where
Speaker 1: we wanted. That allowed us to recontour the greens how
Speaker 1: we needed, and we could achieve an end result that
Speaker 1: was very playable because the soils were fantastic. It was
Speaker 1: a great site, a lot of great natural drainage that
Speaker 1: allowed for you know, just a little one off pieces
Speaker 1: of work. We didn't have to move a lot of
Speaker 1: soil to put in a bunker. We could just nestle
Speaker 1: a bunker into a hill. We could just recontour greens
Speaker 1: and match up with what existed outside the green surface.
Speaker 1: And so the costs were time more than money. It
Speaker 1: It just required a little bit of time to establish grass,
Speaker 1: move the soil, et cetera.
Speaker 2: One hundred and fifty dollars. That is a number that
Speaker 2: I think people will say, there's no possible way you
Speaker 2: did this, so l way you did this for one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And that's that's fine. You know that there are when
Speaker 1: people lump in project costs, they also lump in sometimes
Speaker 1: the big clubs that will lump in operating loss from
Speaker 1: the clubhouse, they'll lump in all in costs. And if
Speaker 1: if we're gonna putting the costs all the way down
Speaker 1: to property taxes, yeah that's that's a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But there's this cost of ownership of owning a golf
Speaker 1: course that every facility has. And we were closed for
Speaker 1: a year to do it. So again that's time. That's
Speaker 1: not necessarily money that somebody needed to complete it. So
Speaker 1: I say a lot that you can do anything you
Speaker 1: want to a golf course. You just need time or money,
Speaker 1: and if you're short on one, you need more of
Speaker 1: the other. You can accomplish a lot through you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of money, as long as you got
Speaker 1: the timeline to complete it.
Speaker 2: How do you I guess you know, so you're up
Speaker 2: in northern Michigan. How do you look at golf courses before?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you thought you could do the
Speaker 2: whole project for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, But
Speaker 2: how do you do you look at golf courses differently
Speaker 2: before and after this project? Just general golf courses.
Speaker 1: I've always felt like I looked at golf courses differently
Speaker 1: every place I go to. I'm always looking at things
Speaker 1: that I would do different Being able to actually execute
Speaker 1: the changes on it on a property that was fantastic
Speaker 1: to begin with. You know, you learn a lot and
Speaker 1: when you're doing it, but it also convinced me the
Speaker 1: ad it can be done.
Speaker 2: So you you went about this project, you guys did
Speaker 2: the whole all the work in totality and house. You
Speaker 2: would be the golf architect. You were leaving the chart
Speaker 2: a charge. How did it come to be that you
Speaker 2: were the golf architect on this project?
Speaker 1: When we were going through the planning process, we had
Speaker 1: decided that okay, we were we were going to do
Speaker 1: a project. What was the scope of the project is
Speaker 1: what we were looking at. We we talked about hiring
Speaker 1: an architect, perhaps a couple of people to come in
Speaker 1: and help, and you know, whigh in the way and
Speaker 1: the benefits of that, weigh in different opportunities beside that,
Speaker 1: and one of the one of the decision makers just
Speaker 1: looked at me and said, can you build a bunker?
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I built a bunker before he just goes, okay,
Speaker 1: you do it. And that was that. That's how it
Speaker 1: That's how it came to be. I think that speaks
Speaker 1: a lot of the trust they had in me that
Speaker 1: or or maybe maybe maybe the ignorance of what I
Speaker 1: was wanting to do. But I felt like I was
Speaker 1: pretty detailed and what the possibilities were on the property
Speaker 1: and what the possibilities were for a project, and uh,
Speaker 1: based on what they wanted out of it. You know,
Speaker 1: they wanted it to remain a community golf course. They
Speaker 1: didn't want it to be They knew it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be any type of destination resort. They knew that
Speaker 1: they wanted to They wanted to remain part of the community,
Speaker 1: They wanted it to be available to locals. So, you know,
Speaker 1: some of those aspects of what an architect provides you
Speaker 1: know we weren't going to get our return. An architect
Speaker 1: can certainly provide a lot of expertise in that they
Speaker 1: can you know, provide some speed as far as how
Speaker 1: quickly those changes get done. There's some marketing that you
Speaker 1: can put behind that. And when you add all that up,
Speaker 1: and the decision was made that we wanted we just
Speaker 1: wanted to keep it a place that that locals can play,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to keep it affordable. You know, that
Speaker 1: kind of kind of made the decision for us. I
Speaker 1: knew that we could make it a lot better. I
Speaker 1: knew that we could make it interesting, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think we've done that. And part of the you know,
Speaker 1: part of my plan for it is, okay, don't overdo it.
Speaker 1: You know, this is just going to be me shaping
Speaker 1: some bunkers and greens. We're not going to go crazy
Speaker 1: here trying to do trying to do some wholesale changes
Speaker 1: when I don't have the expertise to fit all that together,
Speaker 1: not doing a you know, not being an actual golf
Speaker 1: course architect that has done this before. I think the
Speaker 1: way to go is keep it simple. Just do one
Speaker 1: bunker at a time, just do one green at a
Speaker 1: time and and don't get out over my skis even
Speaker 1: though it probably already was.
Speaker 2: Again, I want to go back to when when they
Speaker 2: said you do it, yes, you do it. How did
Speaker 2: you feel like I? I you were? So to give
Speaker 2: people context, you got a double degree at Purdue. You
Speaker 2: you an agronomy like your turf degree, but you also
Speaker 2: got a landscape architecture degree.
Speaker 1: I started in both. So I had I had. I
Speaker 1: started as a double major landscape architecture in turf grass
Speaker 1: science to be a golf course architect. M h. That
Speaker 1: was that was my intent when I graduated high school.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a golf course architect. And uh
Speaker 1: so that was that was the plan. And after a
Speaker 1: couple of years, you have the tech bubble burst, and
Speaker 1: any type of golf construction just seized. I just kind
Speaker 1: of made the decision that I was going to go
Speaker 1: just into turf and I yeah, then just focused on turf.
Speaker 1: And and so I do have a four year agronomy
Speaker 1: degree in turf breast science for Purdue. And sorry about that.
Speaker 3: Okay, And and so yeah, I've always looked at golf
Speaker 3: courses with an architecture I I've always you know, studied
Speaker 3: golf course architecture on my own.
Speaker 1: And so when they say okay, you do it, I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: And as a couple of days later, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: wait a second, I guess this is going to happen.
Speaker 1: And so I just started taking tons of notes. And
Speaker 1: I'd been on the property for three years up to
Speaker 1: that point, so I had a good knowledge of the
Speaker 1: property and it has spent three years driving around and
Speaker 1: thinking of ideas. So now it was just a point
Speaker 1: of trying to figure out how to which ones to
Speaker 1: implement and which ones we're going to be best to implement.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about the creative process we talked.
Speaker 2: You know, you talked about how you kind of approached
Speaker 2: it as one bunker, one green at a time. What
Speaker 2: when you look at like where did you start and
Speaker 2: you know, you get on your start like you've never
Speaker 2: built a green before. When you look back, like what
Speaker 2: was it like building eighteen new greens and shaping them?
Speaker 2: And what did you learn along the way? What were
Speaker 2: the early greens? And do you look at them ever
Speaker 2: and be like I wish I would have done this,
Speaker 2: or do you look back and think like you know
Speaker 2: this like walk us through, just like shaping eighteen greens
Speaker 2: when you've never done it before, and how it how
Speaker 2: it went, and the thoughts that were in your head
Speaker 2: while you're doing them.
Speaker 1: I had quite a few notes laid out that when
Speaker 1: I went to each green, I had already mapped out
Speaker 1: an idea of what I was going to try to
Speaker 1: do with that specific green. We had a handful of
Speaker 1: greens that had surface drainage issues, so that's the number
Speaker 1: one priority. How are we going to shape it to
Speaker 1: improve the surface drainage. I had ideas mapped out of
Speaker 1: how the surface drainage was going to come off the green.
Speaker 1: So I had already ideas where I was going to
Speaker 1: try to put shapes to get the surface drainage off
Speaker 1: the green. And so it each time I went to
Speaker 1: a green and started and through the we stripped off
Speaker 1: the old layer. We stripped off a thin layer of
Speaker 1: the old greens, and then we tilled them up, so
Speaker 1: when I got there, it was just a tiled up
Speaker 1: patch of dirt, and so I already in my head
Speaker 1: I had an idea of what I wanted to do
Speaker 1: with the green. So then it's just a matter of
Speaker 1: going out and starting to move the dirt around. I
Speaker 1: started with a tractor with a loader and moved the
Speaker 1: just move the dirt around with a loader, and then
Speaker 1: went and started to do finished grading with sand pro
Speaker 1: and uh, and then just drug it smooth and looked
Speaker 1: at it for a day and said, okay, let's let's
Speaker 1: go seet it. Yeah. The the first few greens I
Speaker 1: did were fine. It was the first green was one
Speaker 1: of the first ones I did, and I could never
Speaker 1: I could never get what was in my head into
Speaker 1: the dirt. And so I ended up just saying I've
Speaker 1: got to get something. I got to get something going
Speaker 1: so I can get some seed on this. I can't
Speaker 1: just spend two weeks on this green. So you know,
Speaker 1: I just at that point it's like, Okay, that's good enough.
Speaker 1: I'll tie it in and float it out and seed it.
Speaker 1: There's certainly a couple of greens I wish I could
Speaker 1: have another crack at, because once you once you do
Speaker 1: several of them, you you'll learn a lot real fast.
Speaker 1: And uh, and so there's a there's a couple that
Speaker 1: that I wish I could have a redo of. But oh,
Speaker 1: in all, you know, I'm I'm pretty happy with with
Speaker 1: how they turned out, and yeah, so it's yeah, before
Speaker 1: I started, I had it, I had an idea, I
Speaker 1: had notes, and I would I would go around the
Speaker 1: green and I would place flags at the low point,
Speaker 1: place flags at the high point on the edges, and
Speaker 1: then just try to match up the dirt with that.
Speaker 2: What I'm I'm shocked that the first one was your
Speaker 2: first one, the first green.
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 2: No, it was the first one.
Speaker 1: So the ninth green was the first one I did.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, and then what was the what was
Speaker 2: what I mean? Where would you say you just like
Speaker 2: started you feel like? What green number were you? Like?
Speaker 2: I really feel great about this? And what green are
Speaker 2: you most proud of?
Speaker 1: I think the eleventh green turned out pretty well for
Speaker 1: for what it was before and what I was trying
Speaker 1: to do with it. It's benched into a side of
Speaker 1: a hill and just really difficult to get the contours right.
Speaker 1: There was a third of the green that was on
Speaker 1: a flat area and the rest of it just sloped
Speaker 1: off so hard to the left that you couldn't put
Speaker 1: a pin in it. And so the goal there was
Speaker 1: to you know, put a shelf in it so that
Speaker 1: I could get a level spot on the other side
Speaker 1: to add some whole locations there, but also try to
Speaker 1: match up this this shelf in the middle of the
Speaker 1: green to a valley that went off the front of
Speaker 1: the green. So there was a little low spot in
Speaker 1: the fairway, and so it was it was an effort
Speaker 1: to try to match up this little low spot that's
Speaker 1: in the fairway make it look like this. This was
Speaker 1: a valley that ran into the green, and that was
Speaker 1: going to be the little valley that separated the two shells.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it worked out. I had there's
Speaker 1: a few pen placements on the left side that work,
Speaker 1: and it drains well, and all the contours meshined pretty well.
Speaker 1: So I think the Eleventh Green was pretty ambitious for
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, but I think it turned
Speaker 1: out pretty pretty well.
Speaker 2: It's a memorable green. I mean, it's amazing. It kind
Speaker 2: of sits on the side of ridge. It's got that
Speaker 2: valley in the middle of it. It kind of kicks
Speaker 2: in from the right, everything left that if you miss left,
Speaker 2: is going to tumble down a hill. I was way
Speaker 2: down there, like twenty yards down, twenty yards to the
Speaker 2: left and twenty feet below the green. It is a
Speaker 2: really huge scale green and I think it did turn
Speaker 2: out well. What was the toughest part of the project
Speaker 2: that you didn't really expect going into it?
Speaker 1: Oh, just timelines.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was completely ignorant of how long it was going
Speaker 1: to take to do some stuff. But you know, find
Speaker 1: fescue comes up really fast and then it just sits
Speaker 1: there and it doesn't doesn't look like it's doing anything
Speaker 1: for a long time. So I'm sitting there, you know,
Speaker 1: just waiting for grass to grow in, essentially, and I
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't you know, familiar enough with seating
Speaker 1: on that type of scale too have the patience to
Speaker 1: just wait it out. So that was a that was
Speaker 1: a big one. And the biggest unexpected thing was probably
Speaker 1: our our pond project. We there was a pond that
Speaker 1: was bulkheaded with railroad ties all the way around it,
Speaker 1: and that was in the scope of the project. We
Speaker 1: were going to remove the railroad ties, rebuild the pond edge,
Speaker 1: and we had the permitting for that, and it got
Speaker 1: to a point in the in the year where the
Speaker 1: the plan to have a contractor come do that never
Speaker 1: came to fruition, and so I'm sitting here with a
Speaker 1: permit that's going to be expiring in a couple of
Speaker 1: months and a pond project that's not done. And I
Speaker 1: pretty much just said, okay, if this, if we're going
Speaker 1: to do this project, then it's got to be now
Speaker 1: or it's never going to get done. So we pulled
Speaker 1: the trigger to remove all these railroad ties four hundred
Speaker 1: railroad ties or something the bulkheaded this pond, and then
Speaker 1: rebuild the pond edge. And yeah, so me in the
Speaker 1: in the staff of five that we're doing it. I
Speaker 1: had another person on staff, but they were mowing the
Speaker 1: whole time. Just started doing this project.
Speaker 2: How do you even go about reworking rebuilding a pond?
Speaker 2: Like what did you know what you were doing? Did
Speaker 2: you have to do? You google how to rebuild a pond? Like,
Speaker 2: how do you how do you do that?
Speaker 1: Well, there wasn't. It was It was just a matter
Speaker 1: of rebuilding the pond edge and you know, reshaping the
Speaker 1: pond edge with with some soil and then re establishing it.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't drastic work, but it was a lot
Speaker 1: of work and it took a lot of time out
Speaker 1: of you know, some other project we could have been doing.
Speaker 1: On the golf course. But I'm so glad we did it.
Speaker 1: It's the result is is so much better. It's you know,
Speaker 1: there's two holes. Well each hole on either side of
Speaker 1: the pond plays a lot differ for now that that
Speaker 1: project is done. So yeah, the timeline on getting that
Speaker 1: grass established is extended. I mean, I think I don't
Speaker 1: know if you made it down there by that pod,
Speaker 1: but you can still see the grass is still pretty thin,
Speaker 1: but it certainly get certainly quite a bit better than
Speaker 1: it was last year. So little by little it keeps
Speaker 1: getting a little bit better.
Speaker 2: So what was the most fun part of the project
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 1: Shaping bunkers? Yeah, I learned. You know, there's a reason
Speaker 1: golf course architects get into this business because, yeah, shaping
Speaker 1: bunkers is a ton of thought and it's fun to
Speaker 1: get in there and just start digging and trying to
Speaker 1: you know, take what's in your head and put it
Speaker 1: on the ground. So definitely, shaping bunkers was my favorite
Speaker 1: part of it.
Speaker 2: What were you trying to do with the bunkers? Like
Speaker 2: when you're when you're in there shaping, what what are
Speaker 2: you thinking about? You know, Like while you're shaping, say
Speaker 2: you know, twenty five thirty bunkers. How what are the
Speaker 2: thoughts that are going through your head about them?
Speaker 1: Number one was getting them constructed in a way that
Speaker 1: the surrounding water does not drain into the bunker, and
Speaker 1: that was that was number one priority. Over the aesthetic
Speaker 1: part of the goals of the project were to create
Speaker 1: a golf course that was efficient to maintain over the
Speaker 1: long term. And anytime you get to go out and
Speaker 1: fix washouts is just a terrible drain on labor and
Speaker 1: it just it just wears the age of a bunker
Speaker 1: down really fast. If it's full of water all the time,
Speaker 1: and if you can shape it in a way the
Speaker 1: water doesn't run in there most of the time, you're
Speaker 1: not going to get water standing in a water standing
Speaker 1: in a bunker is the result of water coming in
Speaker 1: from outside the bunker. So that was the number one goal,
Speaker 1: is to shape it so that water ran away from
Speaker 1: the bunker, it ran around the bunker, and you know,
Speaker 1: you can you can get some interesting shapes when that's
Speaker 1: a goal also, and that's also what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: was to make bunkers that people didn't typically see. Our
Speaker 1: clientele is, you know, the local community golfer and there's
Speaker 1: some bunker shapes out there that that you know, they
Speaker 1: just don't see at any other places. And that was
Speaker 1: that was a goal of the project also was to
Speaker 1: create interesting shapes and give the bunker aesthetic, you know,
Speaker 1: make that a unique characteristic of golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they definitely they have a feel. It's
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like your run of the mill, local
Speaker 2: municipal golf course and makes you feel like you're playing
Speaker 2: at kind of like a new design that was designed
Speaker 2: by somebody you know. Of note with the the way
Speaker 2: they kind of sit into the land and are placed
Speaker 2: in place in strategic places when you kind of zoom out,
Speaker 2: is there a hole that you feel like was really
Speaker 2: transformed the most from something you thought was you know,
Speaker 2: it was fine, but I you know, maybe you're you
Speaker 2: even didn't see what it could be based off of
Speaker 2: the work that you guys did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a there's a couple holes that come to mind.
Speaker 1: I think sixteen is a lot different and a lot better.
Speaker 1: And all we did was remove a bunch of trees
Speaker 1: and redo the one bunker that was on the hole
Speaker 1: to begin with. It sits on some good land and
Speaker 1: there was just a huge number. It just choked out
Speaker 1: the playing lines. It played along a line of trees
Speaker 1: on the left side of the hole, and we removed
Speaker 1: thirty feet of that tree line, so the tree line
Speaker 1: got pushed back thirty feet and that opened up a
Speaker 1: lot of views and also opened up some playing lines
Speaker 1: into the green, you know, if somebody wanted to go
Speaker 1: for it in two. So I think that hole is
Speaker 1: plays a lot different now and it opens up a
Speaker 1: lot of it just it's just more open and opens
Speaker 1: up more views. And I think I think that hole
Speaker 1: was transformed quite a bit, and I think the third
Speaker 1: hole is a lot different. The third hole used to
Speaker 1: be just straight out. There was there was no bunker
Speaker 1: in it. The green was just kind of a raised
Speaker 1: up perch that was flat. And I remember that that
Speaker 1: image of the Eighth Green that Augusta National that goes
Speaker 1: around it was kind of like that. It is kind
Speaker 1: of this perched up level table that didn't have any
Speaker 1: contour in it, and water would run off the front
Speaker 1: and the front was always wet as a result of that.
Speaker 1: So I was just kind of straight out all with
Speaker 1: no interest that you know, it does run between two ponds,
Speaker 1: so that constrains a lot of what you're able to
Speaker 1: do there because it's not very wide on either side
Speaker 1: before you go into the water. But yeah, it added
Speaker 1: a small bunker in the fair way to to add
Speaker 1: some interest and decision making off the tee and just
Speaker 1: added a bunch of contour to the green, get some
Speaker 1: water to run off in a different spot, and add
Speaker 1: some pudding interest that that play. It plays a lot
Speaker 1: different and yeah, you can get a lot of different
Speaker 1: shots depending on how you played each day.
Speaker 2: You spoke about the clientele being like your local northern
Speaker 2: Michigan golf course where you get a lot of people
Speaker 2: from playing around town, maybe a little a little bit
Speaker 2: of tourist traffic from people that are visiting the lakes around.
Speaker 2: How have the regular clientele received the work? How was
Speaker 2: it when it initially opened, because it's a drastically different
Speaker 2: golf course, and how is it today, you know, a
Speaker 2: year plus in.
Speaker 1: I think there was some shock when they returned after
Speaker 1: we were open. I don't think they you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't have a good idea of what we were going
Speaker 1: to do. We essentially told them, oh, we're going to
Speaker 1: be closed, and we're gonna we're going to regrass and
Speaker 1: you know, redo the bunkers and greens, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of the communication we left it with. And so they
Speaker 1: didn't know what to expect. And I don't think you
Speaker 1: know that clientele doesn't you know, they don't really they're
Speaker 1: not exposed to that, you know, the private club industry. Oh,
Speaker 1: they're closing to do a renovation at this point, it's okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll check it out when it's done. It's it's not
Speaker 1: new to the private club industry, but doing this type
Speaker 1: of work on a golf course that is targeted to
Speaker 1: the to the local community is is fairly unusual. So
Speaker 1: I don't think they knew what to expect, and I
Speaker 1: think they were in shock when they came back. There
Speaker 1: was some grumbling there, some some people, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: didn't like what we were doing. They didn't like what
Speaker 1: they saw out there. But there was a lot of
Speaker 1: positive comments though too. And as time has gone on,
Speaker 1: the positive comments of have continued, and some of those
Speaker 1: some of those people that that grumbled about it early
Speaker 1: last year, this year, they're like, wow, you know, they
Speaker 1: they kind of as they've gotten used to it, as
Speaker 1: they've played it a lot, they I think they understand
Speaker 1: what what our goal was. And and some of those
Speaker 1: people have come up and given me positive comments now
Speaker 1: say they really enjoy the golf course. So I think
Speaker 1: it was I think it was shocked for a lot
Speaker 1: of the locals. But yeah, by and large, it's it's
Speaker 1: been very positive since then. And yeah, just a lot
Speaker 1: of good comments from it.
Speaker 2: I think I was, you know, I was still shocked
Speaker 2: at the dollar amount, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Was that the original plan to be in that kind
Speaker 2: of range. I assume that you kind of sold it
Speaker 2: in that you could do this for an affordable price,
Speaker 2: like not that much money. Was it always the plan
Speaker 2: to do it that cheap? And what, you know, how
Speaker 2: do you think courses? What do you think local courses
Speaker 2: in similar positions to to your course? Maybe they don't
Speaker 2: have the natural advantages that you have of sandy soil
Speaker 2: and you know, uh, you know, good kind of starting place,
Speaker 2: like great natural elements that you can you can work in.
Speaker 2: But how should how should local other local courses look
Speaker 2: at doing projects on a less expensive end?
Speaker 1: So it was it was not originally planned to to
Speaker 1: be as cheap as it ended up being, you know,
Speaker 1: we had we had outlined, you know, a variety of
Speaker 1: other other plans for it that just didn't materialize. And
Speaker 1: you know, we came to you know the middle of
Speaker 1: the season, and when those didn't materialize, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess we've got to finish this project. Is what
Speaker 1: we got?
Speaker 2: I mean a half friend of golf course, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what can you do but just keep going and
Speaker 1: keep growing the grass. So, and we had purchased the
Speaker 1: seed and fertilizer before the inflation really struck the golf industry.
Speaker 1: Seed costs. Find fescue seed tripled in price in the
Speaker 1: nine months after we bought our seed to do the project.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you know, if you're going out to
Speaker 1: buy that same quantity of seed now, you'd pay three
Speaker 1: times as much as what we did. So we bought
Speaker 1: some of our starting materials at a perfect time. We
Speaker 1: had no irrigation costs because all the irrigation had stayed
Speaker 1: in the same spot, so we didn't have any irrigation changes.
Speaker 1: That is a massive saving. We just bought a local
Speaker 1: sand so you know, twenty tons of sand is going
Speaker 1: to cost a six hundred box, and is there a
Speaker 1: few stones in it? Yep, there is. But our marketing
Speaker 1: is that the bunkers are hazards and we want to
Speaker 1: maintain as hazards and that's how that's how we do it.
Speaker 1: The sand is actually pretty white, so it offsets the
Speaker 1: green color pretty well. Uh in that. But so you know,
Speaker 1: we had set out to do it efficiently. We knew
Speaker 1: that we were going to do it in house with
Speaker 1: our own labor, with some rental equipment. Yeah, as the
Speaker 1: project went on, yeah, things things just never materialized as
Speaker 1: they as they were originally laid out. And yeah, we
Speaker 1: did the project all in house with six people. And
Speaker 1: again it's possible if you have the time to do that.
Speaker 1: As far as you know, other golf courses trying to
Speaker 1: mimic it, it's what we did wasn't hard. We didn't
Speaker 1: do anything that was impossible to do. I shaped all
Speaker 1: the greens and bunkers with a tractor with a loader
Speaker 1: and a sand pro with a blade on the front
Speaker 1: of it. Almost every golf course has got those two
Speaker 1: pieces of equipment, so that's possible. And again, it was
Speaker 1: sandy soil easy to work in. I didn't need to
Speaker 1: put drains in any of the bunkers, so obviously that
Speaker 1: was a big help. We did all our treework ourselves,
Speaker 1: cut the trees down ourselves, rented a stump grinder, ground
Speaker 1: the stumps out ourselves. So you know, that type of
Speaker 1: stuff any golf course can do. Now, we did have
Speaker 1: a lot of tree removal done before we actually started
Speaker 1: doing any seeding, which that's going to be needed if
Speaker 1: you if you want to if you want a good
Speaker 1: growing environment to grow the new seed, then you're gonna
Speaker 1: need to get the trees out. So some of the
Speaker 1: tree work was already done prior to that. But as
Speaker 1: far as as far as other local golf courses trying
Speaker 1: to do the same thing, it's it's not hard to do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Can can you go out and pick off one or
Speaker 1: two holes a year and do something like this? I
Speaker 1: don't see why you couldn't. If you're going to start
Speaker 1: to do, you know a renovation that you want sixty bunkers, Well,
Speaker 1: now you now that's a different that's a different scope.
Speaker 1: That's a now you're now you're bringing an architect, Now
Speaker 1: you're bringing in a contractor to do that work for you.
Speaker 1: We have seventeen bunkers. It's less than nine thousand square
Speaker 1: feet of bunker areas what exists out there right now.
Speaker 1: So having small bunkers is a big help in doing
Speaker 1: that also. And just don't just don't try to do
Speaker 1: too much. You can add a whole lot of interest
Speaker 1: in a golf course without having to do too much.
Speaker 1: You know, widen the plaine corridors, take advantage of some
Speaker 1: slopes and you can provide a lot of interesting shots
Speaker 1: without a lot of work.
Speaker 2: To me, a whole that would scream that at Wolf
Speaker 2: River is the eighth where it seems like you just
Speaker 2: took down some trees, exposed this great slope on the terrain,
Speaker 2: and you know, then you know, reshape the green that
Speaker 2: sits on this nice ridge. And it was like, I
Speaker 2: think that was the thing I was kind of shocked about,
Speaker 2: is how well the original routing was done. That you
Speaker 2: had like some holes that with a little bit more
Speaker 2: pizazz to it, with a little more short grass and
Speaker 2: some reshaped bunkers and greens. Like it's like, wow, this
Speaker 2: is a really great hole. But that eighth one, the
Speaker 2: eighth hole stood out to me. It's like it seems
Speaker 2: like you just got got rid of trees, expanded the
Speaker 2: short grass, and you had you know, a hole that
Speaker 2: has like world class scale and interest. You know, you're
Speaker 2: trying to hug it up the right side, and and
Speaker 2: you know if you don't hit it right up the
Speaker 2: right side, you're going to bound further away from the target.
Speaker 2: It was. It just seemed like a classic golf hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's and that's all we did. There were fourteen
Speaker 1: trees on that hole that we removed, and just saying
Speaker 1: that is incredible. Fourteen trees that were lying in the
Speaker 1: left and right side of the tree. There's a narrow
Speaker 1: shoot up that fair way, so yeah, remove the trees
Speaker 1: expanded out and there there was a bunker on the
Speaker 1: front right of that green beforehand, and I added that
Speaker 1: bunker in the back of the green just kind of
Speaker 1: dug into the slope that was behind the green. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to do anything. That's one of those
Speaker 1: areas where you know, don't do too much. You're just
Speaker 1: gonna start messing stuff up. Just let the hole sit
Speaker 1: in the land and be done with it.
Speaker 2: I know that you finished the big aspects of the project,
Speaker 2: but you know, as we played in one round, you
Speaker 2: talked a lot about like other things you want to do.
Speaker 2: Having done so much work for such a low dollar amount.
Speaker 2: What are the things that you want to add to
Speaker 2: the golf course as you continue, Like I imagine, your mind
Speaker 2: probably wanders and thinks about the more stuff that you
Speaker 2: can do to continue to improve the golf course at
Speaker 2: a low dollar amount. What are some things that you're
Speaker 2: looking at over the next you know, a couple of
Speaker 2: years as to what you want to add to the course.
Speaker 1: We still have some forward tees to build, and there's
Speaker 1: some other t's that I'd still like to level out
Speaker 1: more So it's just a matter of you know, rolling
Speaker 1: the side back level in the soil and then rolling
Speaker 1: the sod back on. We have one more bunker to
Speaker 1: rebuild on the twelfth green, so that that bunker was
Speaker 1: never rebuilt on the twelve so we have one more
Speaker 1: bunker to rebuild. And other projects more than anything else,
Speaker 1: was kind of cleaning up the brush outside the holes
Speaker 1: and just continue, you know, just continue nursing grass on
Speaker 1: overseating thin areas. You know, when you reseed a golf course,
Speaker 1: it's it's not a one year project. That's that's a
Speaker 1: that's a three year project too that that requires you know,
Speaker 1: revisiting thin areas for a few years to get some
Speaker 1: more eat in the ground. Yeah, still some more trees
Speaker 1: or we've got some willows that just are pain to
Speaker 1: deal with. So uh some willows that I want to
Speaker 1: take out. Expands some fairway area where these willows are.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's there's and those aren't those are still
Speaker 1: like look on my notes, Like those items are in
Speaker 1: my notes for the project. It's just when when uh,
Speaker 1: you know, when when the plan didn't stay on the rails.
Speaker 2: When you got when you're rebuilding a lake instead of
Speaker 2: working on the golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to pick and choose, and the focus was, Okay,
Speaker 1: we got to get right down the middle done first
Speaker 1: and then we'll start working our way out. So so
Speaker 1: those are still little projects that we're going to keep
Speaker 1: going on. And you know, we've got seed and we've
Speaker 1: got the cedar, and you know, I like I like
Speaker 1: seeding a lot better than sod. It'ser in and establishes
Speaker 1: better over the long term. So yeah, that's the plan.
Speaker 1: Just keep picking off these little things as time goes on.
Speaker 1: We're redoing some mowing lines. I know, Andy, you and
Speaker 1: Cameron both put your put your ball in the tall
Speaker 1: grass behind three green but I don't know if the
Speaker 1: lines were painted, but we're expanding that mow lineback, so
Speaker 1: there's gonna be more motor grass behind behind three. So
Speaker 1: just little things like that that you know, hopefully make
Speaker 1: it more fun to play.
Speaker 2: What what's been the most satisfying moment since you finished
Speaker 2: the project? What's what spend the you know, the time
Speaker 2: that you just you know, couldn't help but smile on
Speaker 2: the inside the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, driving around in the morning and seeing the finished
Speaker 1: product is is a lot of fun. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: you get the sun coming up, you can see it
Speaker 1: a lot more now off the hills now that the
Speaker 1: trees are thinned out, you can actually see the slopes.
Speaker 1: It's really satisfying. And then you know, hearing other people
Speaker 1: come off the golf course that have played it for
Speaker 1: a long time or played it, you know, when they
Speaker 1: were a kid, and they come back and are just
Speaker 1: gushing over the changes. You know, that's happened a few
Speaker 1: times now, and it's really satisfying that, you know, somebody
Speaker 1: that was very familiar with the golf course before we
Speaker 1: did the project really likes the changes afterwards, and and
Speaker 1: you know they have a similar excitement about it. Now
Speaker 1: that that that I did when I was out there
Speaker 1: building a bunkers. So I think that's the most satisfying
Speaker 1: thing is when when other people get to get to
Speaker 1: be excited about stuff that I I was excited about doing.
Speaker 2: Did you have like an inspiration for the greens what
Speaker 2: you were trying to do? Would was there set or
Speaker 2: certain types of greens that you had in your mind?
Speaker 1: There? When I started playing it out, I was trying
Speaker 1: to do that. I was trying to say, Okay, what
Speaker 1: what greens do? I like, can I mimic those greens
Speaker 1: in a way? And I learned pretty quick that that
Speaker 1: was going to be that was gonna be me falling
Speaker 1: flat on my face trying to do that. And I
Speaker 1: think the easier route was going to be, Look, just
Speaker 1: just get the surface drainage off and tie in the
Speaker 1: contours with those outside the green as best you can,
Speaker 1: and you know, the internal contours that kind of take
Speaker 1: care of themselves and you'll get some interesting putting. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, I thought about it quite a bit. But once,
Speaker 1: you know, once I got to it, it's like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's gonna I don't think that's going
Speaker 1: to work out for me. And it's it was easier
Speaker 1: and I think turned out better when I just take
Speaker 1: my cues from what's on the ground there to begin with,
Speaker 1: and it gets a better result. It looks better, it
Speaker 1: looks more finished. When, yeah, when I just kind of
Speaker 1: tie into the little contours around the green or tie
Speaker 1: in bunkers to the slopes, rather than trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: make make something that I saw somewhere else, I will
Speaker 1: say the bunkers. You know, what I would have loved
Speaker 1: to do with the bunkers is make them look like
Speaker 1: you know, the heathln courses in England, like the Berkshire
Speaker 1: or lip Hook or Sunningdale, Like I love the look
Speaker 1: of those bunkers. A lot of that has to do
Speaker 1: with the heather that's around him. But you know, some
Speaker 1: of the shapes that I saw in some pictures from
Speaker 1: those courses, like, you know, maybe I can, maybe I
Speaker 1: can attempt to mimic those shapes and the bumpers that
Speaker 1: I'm make.
Speaker 2: So so I think like your path to two Wolf
Speaker 2: Rivers interesting. You were in Chicago working at like big
Speaker 2: name club You had worked at big name clubs, you
Speaker 2: had since had offers to work at big, big name clubs, Like,
Speaker 2: what drew you to working at this small casino resort
Speaker 2: course in northern Michigan. What got you up there?
Speaker 1: Well, I I had lived in bear Lake. When I
Speaker 1: was at Perdue, I did an internship at Arcadia Bluffs,
Speaker 1: and after spending a summer at Arcadia Bluff, man this
Speaker 1: northern Michigan is pretty awesome. So that was my first
Speaker 1: time visiting northern Michigan and first summer, you know, first
Speaker 1: time spending a summer in northern Michigan. So I fell
Speaker 1: in love with northern Michigan then, and then stated in
Speaker 1: Michigan to do three more internships before I graduated Purdue.
Speaker 1: I did Wesco one Players Club down to Holland, and
Speaker 1: then I did an internship at Crystal Downs also and decided, okay,
Speaker 1: I want to find something in northern Michigan. As luck
Speaker 1: would have it, when I graduated Purdue, Arcadia had an
Speaker 1: internship available, so I worked for four years at Acadia
Speaker 1: and then went down to down to Chicago. So I was,
Speaker 1: you know, very familiar with northern Michigan, and I love
Speaker 1: northern Michigan, and you know, just wanted to find a
Speaker 1: way back. And I knew of bear Lake Islands. I
Speaker 1: had played it, you know, when I when I was
Speaker 1: living in bear Lake and interning at Arcadia Bluff, so
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, and I remember thinking, men, it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this place is kind of cool. But I hadn't been
Speaker 1: back in a lot of years. And I saw the
Speaker 1: job posted and did a little research and found out, oh,
Speaker 1: that this job was for bear Lake Islands. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool, and so I applied. And then
Speaker 1: when I came up for an interview, I toured the
Speaker 1: course and I was like wow, Like I was like
Speaker 1: blown away. The course was terrible shape because it had
Speaker 1: been bank owing, so there's just been no investment in
Speaker 1: it for many, many years. But man, the bones were
Speaker 1: really nice, like the contours and even the layout was good,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, man, this could be really cool. So
Speaker 1: I kind of just talked with them about what their
Speaker 1: goals were for the property, and they're like, well, we
Speaker 1: don't know. This has kind of happened really fast for us.
Speaker 1: We don't know what our goals are for the property.
Speaker 1: And they said, that's why we're hiring you. So it
Speaker 1: sounded like a good opportunity and I just I just
Speaker 1: took a shot at it, and it's it's been amazing.
Speaker 1: I never had any idea that it would, you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of snowball into into what it's what it's been,
Speaker 1: but man took a left turn and it's been awesome.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, it sounds like a job that provided
Speaker 2: you a lot of autonomy. And I think I think
Speaker 2: one of the things that probably is the toughest aspect
Speaker 2: of the superintendent life is the lack of autonomy the committeees,
Speaker 2: the you know, the idea of like, you know, all
Speaker 2: the layers of people that you have to work with
Speaker 2: and you know, in a sense for in in the
Speaker 2: in the at the high end club model versus the
Speaker 2: autonomy that a a smaller shop and and you know,
Speaker 2: relatively hands off ownership can provide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Yeah, and it and
Speaker 1: it was that way from the beginning. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've been in those situations and and you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're kind of an administrator of the strategic direction of
Speaker 1: the golf course, you know, and at those big clubs
Speaker 1: there's typically an architect that is on staff to make
Speaker 1: those directions for you, and then there's a green committee.
Speaker 1: You have to answer to. Sometimes there's another capital planning committee,
Speaker 1: and when you have all these different layers, any type
Speaker 1: of decision making for better or worse gets watered down.
Speaker 1: I think the best product, the best products of whether
Speaker 1: it's a renovation at a at a high end private
Speaker 1: club or or like the work that we did, the
Speaker 1: vision of one person or the vision of two people
Speaker 1: is what gets realized is what the best product is.
Speaker 1: And in my situation, you know, I didn't know it
Speaker 1: at the time, but yeah, they put a lot of
Speaker 1: trust in me, and they put a lot of trust
Speaker 1: in me leading the crew. And yeah, with without a
Speaker 1: lot of reason to trust me. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I gave them a ton of reason to
Speaker 1: trust me.
Speaker 4: But they exactly, they knew they wanted it improved, and
Speaker 4: I came to them with ideas and they, you know,
Speaker 4: they were they got excited.
Speaker 1: When, uh, you know, when I was presenting the plan
Speaker 1: for you know, if we were to close, what what
Speaker 1: could we do? You know, they kind of perked up,
Speaker 1: like they didn't they never thought about you can rebuild
Speaker 1: a bunker and you can plant new grass on the green.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you close, you can do those kind
Speaker 1: of things. And so they got excited and yeah, it
Speaker 1: just it just it just happened.
Speaker 2: When you think out now, I mean, I imagine that
Speaker 2: for you, with your interest in golf architecture, you're you know,
Speaker 2: at some point a large part of the point of
Speaker 2: large portion of your life, you wanted to be a
Speaker 2: golf course architect. You know, you've almost I imagine, opened
Speaker 2: up opened up a vein per se here, like you know,
Speaker 2: what do you want now? You know, when you think
Speaker 2: about your career before and after this, like, do you
Speaker 2: have more ambition to do more projects as in your future?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would, I'd love to do more projects. It's
Speaker 1: not I still feel like there's some loose ends on
Speaker 1: this one that I want to. I want to, you know,
Speaker 1: finish up, but you know, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know where it'll take me. It was it wasn't. It's
Speaker 1: not something that I was, you know, thinking about when
Speaker 1: I was doing the project. Doing the project, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well we're like I said, okay, we're going to rebuild
Speaker 1: this bunker. Let's rebuild this bunker. And and you know,
Speaker 1: it was, how can I make this bunker interesting for
Speaker 1: the whole and how can I make it fit into
Speaker 1: the hole, and it was. It was never a there
Speaker 1: was never a larger overarching view of what it would
Speaker 1: turn into. So you know, if if something happened that,
Speaker 1: you know, i'd certainly and there's still projects on the
Speaker 1: table here that are going to allow me to to
Speaker 1: scratch that itch. You know, we've got all the materials
Speaker 1: for a putting course. You've got some contouring done already,
Speaker 1: it's all cleared and yeah, so we've it's there. It's
Speaker 1: just a matter of getting to it. And you know,
Speaker 1: building up it's going to be about a two acre
Speaker 1: putting course and it's you just have some big, wild
Speaker 1: contours and yeah, so you know, I still get a
Speaker 1: I still get a play around in the dirt.
Speaker 2: So with the with the one of the things that
Speaker 2: stood out to be was the conditioning. I thought, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, you have a single cut of of fair way.
Speaker 2: And then what I found really interesting was the greens.
Speaker 2: The firmness of the greens. They were extraordinarily firm, but
Speaker 2: I would just characterize them. You know a lot of
Speaker 2: people there's this fascination with firm and fast. I would
Speaker 2: say they were more firm and slow. But I found
Speaker 2: it to be a you know, like I haven't seen
Speaker 2: many of my golf balls react the way that they reacted,
Speaker 2: Wedges bouncing, you know, five six feet in the air
Speaker 2: and really it by the end of the round, I
Speaker 2: was having to hit shot. I had was having to
Speaker 2: carefully approach whole locations with you know, thinking, Okay, where
Speaker 2: am I landing this with short irons in my hand?
Speaker 2: Something that's very rare, and you know, throw on top
Speaker 2: of this, It's not like I came in with two
Speaker 2: weeks of drought. There were there had been some substantial
Speaker 2: rain in the recent time, in the recent weeks in
Speaker 2: the area. How are you going about maintaining this golf
Speaker 2: course and presenting this and what are the advantages to
Speaker 2: presenting the greens in the manner that you're presenting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's uh, that's one of the goals is keeping
Speaker 1: slower greens. And our goal is not fast greens. Our
Speaker 1: goal was to the interest in the green would be
Speaker 1: from the contours, and some of them are contoured in
Speaker 1: a way that just won't allow for super fast greens.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I try to maintain them so that, you know,
Speaker 1: we can put interesting pins in some of these locations
Speaker 1: that you just wouldn't be able to if they were
Speaker 1: super fast, And yeah, that I think the firmness is.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how that's how they need to play,
Speaker 1: because that allows you to utilize the contours that are
Speaker 1: around the green, whether it's you know, trying to bounce
Speaker 1: something in off the right side of number eleven or
Speaker 1: run something up from the front of the green. I
Speaker 1: think that's it's the most fun to play that and
Speaker 1: I think people are starting to learn that. And you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the clientele that that you know, we
Speaker 1: we attract, they're not used to that. And it is different.
Speaker 1: Last year we were major drought in the spring and
Speaker 1: these greens were there were tabletops. It was it was
Speaker 1: extremely difficult to approach these greens. Last springs, they were
Speaker 1: brand new and it was a drought. They were really
Speaker 1: hard and you know, there were a lot of complaints
Speaker 1: about that, and so we tried to balance, you know,
Speaker 1: how we're presenting the golf course with you know, the
Speaker 1: communication of that's that's how we want you to play.
Speaker 1: We want you to try to play different shots into
Speaker 1: the greens and having greens that are a little bit slower
Speaker 1: allows you to run balls up onto the greens and
Speaker 1: get them to hold a little better. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not if you can get good surface drainage
Speaker 1: or you know, our native soil material drains well enough
Speaker 1: internally that you know, I don't I just don't have
Speaker 1: issues with excess water. It's if you know, you get
Speaker 1: the big grain, can you get the can you get
Speaker 1: the water off the greens quick enough to be able
Speaker 1: to maintain the firmness And yeah, so far, so far,
Speaker 1: we've been able to do that. And yeah, the fine
Speaker 1: fescue makes a fantastic surface and you know, find fescue
Speaker 1: seeded into you know, we didn't do any we didn't
Speaker 1: move any soil on the fairways, so that those are
Speaker 1: you know, still the soil that was there beforehand. So
Speaker 1: that added some cushion. And when you plant a new
Speaker 1: variety of grass that is more drought tolerant, that cushion
Speaker 1: gets really bouncy when it dries out. So the fine
Speaker 1: fescue can stay green, but if that cushion on top
Speaker 1: dries out, it gets really bouncy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's just a matter of yeah, trying to
Speaker 1: hang onto that, trying to hang onto those condition to
Speaker 1: give that you know, that playability.
Speaker 2: That's uh, it was I thought it was perfect. And
Speaker 2: obviously I think like the mowing, I imagine maintenance wise,
Speaker 2: you're you're saving a ton of time using the gang
Speaker 2: mowers to just have that single cut of of grass
Speaker 2: in the fairways.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, our fairways we have about sixty five
Speaker 1: acres of fairways. But we're able to utilize you know,
Speaker 1: large area tow behind mowers because there are large areas
Speaker 1: that we're mowing. So it's much more efficient for us
Speaker 1: to mow with these large mowers, and we can get
Speaker 1: a lot of grass cut in a little amount of time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's very efficient to mow the fairways, even
Speaker 1: though they're large. It's very efficient to moan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, congratulations. I I'm not sure, you know, if
Speaker 2: you know, one of the things that you think about
Speaker 2: is is how people decide renovation of the year or
Speaker 2: these projects, these awards, and it's you know, I doubt
Speaker 2: that many golf digests for Golf magazine raiders were visiting
Speaker 2: your place. But I think in terms of sheer accomplishment,
Speaker 2: you know, what what was done at the budget and
Speaker 2: the constraints of labor, and you know, a fairly aggressive
Speaker 2: time frame. I can't think of many projects over the
Speaker 2: last decade that have been as impressive, So, you know, congratulations, Stephen.
Speaker 2: I can't wait till my next visit up there. It's
Speaker 2: one of my favorite places in the world, Northern Michigan
Speaker 2: and definitely found another place that I will I will
Speaker 2: frequent when I visit up there. It's a to me,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of like the perfect place to go
Speaker 2: play golf when you're on vacation in Northern Michigan. Lots
Speaker 2: of fun and and it's affordable and I think probably
Speaker 2: pretty welcoming to all golfers of all skill levels and ages.
Speaker 2: So congratulations. People can uh, you know, follow you. You're
Speaker 2: on X at Wolf River Greens uh and then on
Speaker 2: Instagram it's Stephen J. Beal and Stephen Beale no no
Speaker 2: Jay in there, so Steven Beal on Instagram And if
Speaker 2: if anybody wants to reach out to you, those are
Speaker 2: probably two good ways to get a hold of you.
Speaker 2: But big thanks for coming on. It's it's amazing to
Speaker 2: see what you did up there.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me and you appreciate.
Speaker 2: It all right. That was a great episode, great story. Everybody.
Speaker 2: If you're in Northern Michigan. Go visit Wolf River. It is.
Speaker 2: It's really cool. Big thanks to Stephen for coming on,
Speaker 2: and big thanks to p J Clark for editing and
Speaker 2: producing this episode. Thank you, PJ. A quick reminder, if
Speaker 2: you're interested in more golf course content, more content in
Speaker 2: general from US, check out club TF. It is our membership.
Speaker 2: It is one hundred and twenty dollars for the year
Speaker 2: and it gets you a boatload of content. There are
Speaker 2: a couple articles every week I'm writing. I'm working on
Speaker 2: one on Clearcreek, a little talks about Core Crunshaw up
Speaker 2: in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It's a course profile. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it'll be a deep dive into the design
Speaker 2: of it. Check that out at the fridagg dot com
Speaker 2: slash membership. Thank you PJ, and thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 2: We'll be back next week with a couple episodes of podcasts.