WEBVTT - Renovating Cal Club 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.920 This episode is brought to you by our friends over 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:07.280 at b Dratty. Recently, Will Knights and I were watching 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:11.119 The Masters together and Will Knight never had one of 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:15.159 the long sleeve be Dratty shirts and he was watching it. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:17.319 We were watching and he turned to me in the 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.040 middle of the telecast and he said, hey, man, this 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:24.480 might be the best golf watching shirt there is, and 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.280 I totally agree. It's made with soft Peruvian pee mccotton, 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:30.760 and one of the great things about is it offers 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:32.879 up a little bit more dressed up, look like you 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.239 don't look like a schmuck like you would if you're 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.360 wearing a regular T shirt and you're somewhere. So we 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.360 have some of these T shirts up in our pro shop, 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.839 or you can get them online at bdraatty dot com, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.280 or hopefully you can get them at your local club 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.400 or courses pro shop and if they don't have it, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.240 ask for it. Now on to episode one hundred and 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.639 thirty three of the podcast. Today, I am joined by 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.480 Al Jamison and David Normoyle. Al is a member at 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.560 the California Golf Club and was club president in two 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.280 thousand and six when the club decided to overhaul their 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:12.800 golf course with Kyle Phillips. They underwent a restoration plan 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.280 on the holes that the original holes that remained of 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.360 their AV McCann and Alistair McKenzie designed golf course, and 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.319 then they renovated a few of the other holes that 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:28.120 were non original. The project has been revered among the 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.160 golf community as one of the most influential and ambitious 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:35.200 projects seen by a club. So the end product has 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.760 been a smashing success, and one of the things I 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.960 find most interesting has been the drastic culture change that 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.119 occurred at the club within the membership. So L comes 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.960 on to talk about the process, the highs and lows 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:55.760 of the restoration, and the end results. And after our 0:01:55.800 --> 0:02:01.320 conversation with Al, revered golf historian David Normoyle points UH 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.760 to give us some background on the California Golf Club's 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:09.760 unique history. He works with the club as a consulting historian. 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.800 This pod UH will lead with a line from David 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.680 before it goes into our conversation with Al. I just 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:22.359 love this line from David. I thought it would be 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:24.800 a great way to set the tone for the podcast. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.640 Hope you guys enjoy the podcast, And without further ado, 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.720 here is Al Jamison and David Normoyle. 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.440 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:36.800 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.600 And when I find my ball in a egg Frida egg, 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:44.280 the dreaded Frida egg, fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.000 ready to run off the golf course. 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.760 When we started working on all the historical stuff and 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.400 trying to find a way to use the past of 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.160 the California Golf Club to create its future, the thing 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.560 that I said to Al Jamison and John McGovern, folks 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.760 who are involved at the long range Planning Committee, was 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:34.000 how can you honor the name of your course? It's 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.640 the most ambitious name you can have, apart from the 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.040 national golf likes of America. It's the California Golf Club. 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.480 It's not San Francisco or Los Angeles or San Diego. 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.320 It's the California Golf Club. And so how can you 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.040 in everything you do from golf course to clubhouse, to 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:56.040 the quality of your membership, all of your principles that 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.800 you care about, how can you honor the name of 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:00.720 your club by offering the high in this private golf 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:01.720 experience you can in. 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.320 California, that might be a good place to start. So 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.720 you guys work with David Normoyle, who's a esteemed golf historian, 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.720 and he's been putting together for a couple of years 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:18.640 your history. What has been kind of the most what's 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:23.200 then the most shocking thing that he's discovered, And you know, 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.800 in terms of what is the membership as the membership 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:29.760 appreciated what he's doing. 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.680 He unearthed some aerial photos at the UCLA Library in 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.760 Los Angeles that we didn't know were around, and those 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.720 are very interesting. But I think what David has done 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:48.320 is articulated for at least the board members and all 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:50.720 the members that he's had a chance to interact with 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.039 the importance of understanding your history and how it relates 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.359 to the culture of the club and changing the culture 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.640 of the club is the real goal. Took fifteen months 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:03.680 to build a golf course, but it's taken us ten 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:11.360 years to slowly adopt the culture of commensurate with where 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.240 we are in the eyes of the rest of the 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:18.520 golf community. And David, he has good tastes, he's very articulate. 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:23.200 The pieces that he writes about golf in general and 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:28.159 us in particular, I think have been very informative and educational. 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.640 As I said, he can't discover things that weren't there, 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.200 that were lost to history, but he can put these 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:40.640 things in perspective and give some guidelines going forward on 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:41.640 what we need to do. 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:49.480 I think a lot of the critics of golf courses 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.320 your ranmore sets of the world would say that CAL 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.359 Club has undergone one of the biggest transformations, not only 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.839 with its golf course over the past fifteen years, but 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.440 also the culture of the club. You've been a member 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:12.159 here for forty two years, forty six years and were 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.040 instrumental in this transformation that's happened. Talk to us a 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:20.960 little bit about what CAL Club was like, say in 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:21.960 the late nineties. 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.240 I'd like to go back a little earlier than that, 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:31.479 because my perspective is when I joined in nineteen seventy 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.680 three as a junior member, many of the older members 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:39.400 they weren't that old at the time, but these were 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:45.160 greatest generation people the World War Two people, and several 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.880 of them took me underwing because I had been in 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.440 Vietnam and they appreciated that. In nineteen seventy three that 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:59.320 wasn't too popular and I gathered from them that if 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.520 you look at what's happened in America at various periods 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.800 in history. So there was the Roaring twenties, which we 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.760 call the Golden Age of architecture. Then there was a depression, 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.280 and then after World War Two there was a lot 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:17.920 of golf course construction that was sort of mediocre. And 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:24.200 in this particular area, all major metropolitan areas as it 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:29.160 relates to golf, seemed to break down into a club 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:34.200 that is very established, sort of old money generational clubs, 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.560 which would be San Francisco Club here, and then Olympic 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:44.440 Club was sort of the everyman's club and a large membership, 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:49.480 very active. And then in most major metropolitan areas you 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.000 had clubs that were founded in the twenties and thirties 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.960 that were primarily Jewish clubs, because in those days many 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.200 of those other clubs were restricted. It was just a 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:04.040 fact of life. And be lake merced here. My reading 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.960 of this club was that it had allegiances with San 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:14.160 Francisco at one time before my time. For instance, Eddie Lowry, 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.480 Francis we Met's caddie, was the president of this club 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.320 in nineteen forty seven and simultaneously was the club champ 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.920 at San Francisco Club, and he was also a cypress member. 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:31.200 Ken Venturrey told me many stories about regular games Tuesday 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.240 at San Francisco with Eddie Harvey Ward and others. Friday 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:42.040 would be here. There was a recession in the sixties 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.120 that was very severe around here in nineteen sixty eight. 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.760 I came to this Bay area in nineteen seventy, and 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.360 you know, fell in with people who played golf, and 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.000 so anecdotally I heard about clubs that had fallen upon 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.600 hard times. And it was in that period of the 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:08.320 early seventies that one could get into this club merely 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:13.800 by picking up somebody's dues and maybe paying two thousand dollars. 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:21.400 The club underwent a big transformation, and there were lots 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.760 of people who joined the club as their first experience 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:31.520 in golf or in a private club, and they really 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.880 weren't steeped in the game, didn't play it as kids, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:44.360 didn't play competitively, and their idea, my observation, was that 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:51.600 this was their country club. However, this location was never 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.720 conducive to country club activities. It's called in Windy In 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.560 the spring and summer, most of the members live a 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.480 few miles away, and with all the microclimates we have, 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.400 the weather is much nicer just ten miles south or 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.600 in Marin County. And so the club struggled in its 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:15.720 identity and the So these people who eventually became the 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:21.560 leaders of the club, in my opinion, didn't have a 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:23.520 lot of what we call golf i Q or what 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.760 I call golf i Q. So your first question was 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.359 what was it like in the nineties when we undertook 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.640 to gain control of the board of directors and try 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.920 to reverse the direction of the club. So by the 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:45.720 nineteen nineties there was the first tech boom that was 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.920 let's say ninety six to two thousand. All of the 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:58.880 clubs around here maybe tripled their entrance fees and accumulated capital. 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.600 There was one club down the peninsula where there was 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.680 no set fee. It was a bid and ask like 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.640 a stock. They had a membership trade at four hundred 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:15.120 and sixty thousand dollars. Col club went from thirty five 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.120 thousand dollars to one hundred and two, but some people 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.760 overbid at one hundred and twenty. I had been on 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.079 the board the first time in nineteen ninety two. From 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.720 ninety two to ninety five, and that was the beginning 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:36.040 of that period. The the problem was that most of 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:41.559 the other clubs around here undertook improvements to their facilities. 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.840 Lake Merceid brought in Rhys Jones in ninety six. Of course, 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.319 the Olympic Club, you know, always had resources and opens 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.880 and they were always doing work. San Francisco Club did work. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.480 The Peninsula Club in two thousand and one closed down 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:00.560 for the better part of three seasons and brought in 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.640 ron Force to bring back some of the Donald Ross features. 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:10.160 And so we had done nothing, and worse than that, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.080 the additional capital that had been accumulated by the rising 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:23.480 entrance fees had been squandered to subsidize operating losses. And 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.760 in my opinion and the opinion of my friends, the 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:34.200 outrage was that the directors of the club made no 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:39.480 distinction between capital and operating money, and they did not 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:42.880 want to raise the dues because they wanted to be 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.120 popular with their friends. That's maybe the nature of a 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.760 voluntary organization. And so they took much of the fresh 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.680 capital that came into the club and subsidized operating losses 0:12:55.559 --> 0:13:01.560 well by one to two thousand and three, through a 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.960 couple of elections. We organized some like minded individuals to 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.520 run for the board and did in fact get control 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:15.480 of the board and started down this path of being 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:21.360 more fiscally responsible, but also to address our golf course, 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:26.760 which showed the effects of what I call amateur tinkering. 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.040 In nineteen ninety one, there was some ill advised lakes 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.560 put in that were done with little architectural input. Not 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.560 only were they ugly, but they were completely out of place. 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:45.720 The place was a ribbon of asphalt. It was very 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.520 wet in the winter because the trees had overgrown the place. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.480 We took out about two thousand trees in nineteen ninety seven, 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.360 and that was because the USGA recommended it. But also 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.079 there was a Green's chairman by the name of Bill Zirkle, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.559 and you know, God bless him. He found a company 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.600 that would remove the trees for the salvage value of 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.160 the lumber and treework is extremely expensive and that's why 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.640 it gets neglected. So you have all this deferred maintenance 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.200 with trees around here. So that helped a great deal. 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.840 But that was long before we thought of the Kyle 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:34.440 Phillips restoration. In two thousand and three, we had Bradley 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.160 Klein from Golf Week as a dinner speaker, and Brad 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:44.440 had a wonderful PowerPoint press presentation about the restoration of 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:50.200 classic courses and the whole concept that we were trying 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.440 to imbue in the membership is to make them realize 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.920 what a gem they had and what it could be. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:01.720 And that was a hard sell because, as I said earlier, 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.840 many of the members just just didn't have that kind 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:11.560 of a golf background. Well, once we got that conversation going, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.880 then we knew that we were about we were going 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.640 to lose our greens because there was a chemical for 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.880 nematodes that was going to be outlawed by two thousand 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:27.080 and seven. And so we made the case that our 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:32.160 greens needed replacement, and most people said, okay, that sounds reasonable, 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.800 won't be too much money. And then of course I 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.600 liken that to dragging the voting public, you know, from 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.000 the goal line to the other end of the field, 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:49.320 and so, okay, we need new greens. And then you 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.960 say to them, okay, but you can't tear up a 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.000 green without doing the bunkers. Well, okay, so now you've 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.480 got them to the ten yard line. And then you 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.640 remind people that well, our irrigation system was done thirty 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:08.000 years ago and it's past its prime. And then reluctantly 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.560 more people say, well, okay, that sounds reasonable. Now you've 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.400 got them to the thirty yard line and so forth, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.720 and so because the other clubs with whom we compete 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.520 for members had all done something and we had done nothing, 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.000 there was that competitive thing too. It's like, you know, 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.400 how is the club going to be vibrant if you 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:33.520 don't keep pace. So in two thousand and five we 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.680 interviewed ten architects and the idea was to hire somebody 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.560 to give us a master plan and a proposal for 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.840 a Greens renovation. And that was the thinking. It was 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:53.120 pretty modest then, and we went through two rounds of interviews. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:57.800 We cut the field to five. That's a great story 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.680 in itself, and I think I remember most of them, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.400 but they were all interesting fellows. People you would like 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:09.359 like that. You've probably met Mike Devrees, Brian Silva, David Essler, 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:15.480 John Vote US Amateur winner, Tom Lehman, who spent two 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.840 hours with me here on Saturday. And Kyle Phillips, you know, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:25.639 clearly won the day with his presentation, his demeanor, his maturity, 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:32.119 his background, because when he was being interviewed right in 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.680 this room, it was evident to me, with my history 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.879 at the club, that he had the maturity in the 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.600 background to handle our members, because I knew that it 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.199 was going to get ugly, and it did, and so 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.240 he made us think outside the box. We in our 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:59.280 amateurish ways, had a rough idea of a part of 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.679 the golf course didn't look right, and that was the 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:07.400 corridor along Westboro that had been altered by Robert tren 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.680 Jones in the sixties. And I know Ken Venturi was 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.920 a great help during this period. He said the same thing. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:22.040 And so we asked all these architects to come back 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.840 with a drawing that we ordered, said what would you 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.640 do in this corner here? And they all dutifully complied 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.240 except for Phillips. And when Phillips came back for his 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:40.240 second interview, he wouldn't take the bait, and people said, well, 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.960 we're the drawings, and he as much as said, you 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:46.040 know what, you don't get to look behind the curtain 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.479 until you hire me. I'm the pro you're not. And 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:55.320 he had a wonderful PowerPoint presentation saying, look, this was 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.320 the old golf course it was wonderful, but this is 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:02.400 the land you lost, and you're never going to get 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:07.199 that land back. However, you guys are lucky because you 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.480 have seventeen acres in the middle of the property that 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.120 you never used for golf, which was true, was up 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.080 on a hill, was the highest point on the golf course. 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.959 In nineteen twenty six, they didn't do that. And so 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:25.480 when he walked out of the room, there was a 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.240 fellow on our committee who had played the tour, made 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:31.080 a lot of cuts. I was a member named Dennis Trixler, 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.920 and Dennis turned and said, is there any doubt this 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.280 is our guy? And Dennis was good friends with Tom Lin. 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:39.520 In fact, he caddied for him a lot on the 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:47.400 senior tour. So we hired Phillips. He came up with 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.359 the plan at the golf course you see today. He 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.600 did have some other plans, but we wanted to stay 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.159 as true as we could to the nineteen thirty eight 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:01.560 aerial photograph, and part of that was our consideration with 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.920 We had been on the Golf Week Classic one hundred list, 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:12.760 and I asked Brad Klein, how much can we change 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.000 and still stay on the list, And he said, well, 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.320 you know, you can't change the routing, and so our 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:23.119 goals were rather modest. In our wildest dreams, we didn't 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:29.639 think we'd be where we wound up, and so so 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:35.000 Phillips was constrained to that and he restored well. I 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.280 remember I went with Phillips to Ken Venturi's house at 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:42.720 Rancho Mirage. We spent a day with Ken, because you know, 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.560 Ken had offered to help. He came up here for 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.320 several meetings. He had been a friend of mine. I 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.080 coached his grand children in the Little League. His son, 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.679 Matt is a very good friend of mine. And I 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.760 knew that Ken's opinion would carry some weight with our 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.840 older members because we needed to get a vote of 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:06.240 the members to borrow the money and that's we needed 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:12.160 to finance this. And so Ken we went to his house. 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.520 We spent a day with him. Then Ken came up 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:19.720 here and along with Aaron Oberholzer, who I know you've 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:25.120 done a podcast with. And Aaron is he's just he's 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:29.040 like a son to me. And Ken loved Aaron because 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:35.320 Aaron was like him. Public course, Golfer self taught Santase 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:40.919 state and so Aaron had won the at and t 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:43.959 the year that we were going to take the vote, 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.919 and so Aaron and Ken and Kyle, we had a 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:53.920 professional videographer and they made a CD which we sent 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:56.920 to all the members where they he toured the golf 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.680 course and they looked at different spots and they were 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.119 down on what is our driving range today used to 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.280 be the eighth hole, and that was it became very 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.239 a bone of contention with the members of why are 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.199 you moving the driving range? They liked it close to 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:16.480 the pro shop and so forth and so on, and 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:21.360 of course they have a driving range like we do 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.520 that doesn't require any netting, is a bonus that I 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:31.159 think most members just don't understand. And it's forty by 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.680 fifty all grass, and our old driving range was squeezed 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:40.440 in between the first and second fairways with an asphalt 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:45.000 hitting pad and a slice wind. So that really was 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.479 a pretty easy decision, but it was just a huge 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.480 shock for people to hear that they had to take 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:54.440 a cart and drive four hundred yards down to the range. 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:04.719 So we then after those things, we had a dinner 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:12.840 here and Venturi addressed the members and at that dinner, 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:18.040 Overhoulzer gave the club his at and t trophy, and 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:20.640 of course we all thought it was the first of many. 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:25.600 And Venturi stood shoulder to shoulder with Kyle Phillips and 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:30.840 Aaron and he said, you know, folks, you get one 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.280 shot at this and you don't get a mulligan. And 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:37.240 to me that was profound because there were many members 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.880 that while they they would go along with it, they 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:45.960 wanted to do a piecemeal approach, maybe do nine holes 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.520 at a time, or just fix a few greens. And 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:53.040 of course it ken understood, and he explained to them, 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:56.760 what you don't want is cereal fixes that could go 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:01.840 on for years. Just close it down, completely, blow it up, 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:06.119 and do it right. And so that's what we wound 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:11.520 up doing. We the vote carried to encumber the property 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:15.040 with a mortgage, and the Board of Directors had a 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:18.400 great deal of leeway in what happened next. There were 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:25.280 no more votes to be taken about process. When they 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:30.680 scraped the whole place. It was actually it was frightening 0:24:30.800 --> 0:24:34.480 to me as someone who had been, you know, the 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:37.879 proponent for this, when I came out here and it 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:42.720 was all bare dirt, and I said, how, how in 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:45.840 the hell do you build a golf course in the 0:24:45.840 --> 0:24:50.000 middle of an urban environment. I just didn't understand. I 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:53.280 didn't understand it because I had never seen it, and said, 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:56.400 a lot of people, you know, just don't to this day, 0:24:56.440 --> 0:25:00.280 they don't understand that the place was just ground down 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:04.000 to bare dirt, big drainage ditches, you know, trenches, and 0:25:04.080 --> 0:25:08.000 every fairway pipe millions of feet of pipe underground. You 0:25:08.080 --> 0:25:09.760 never look at a golf course the same way in 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:12.119 your life until you've seen one built. And this was 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:14.000 the first time I had seen one built from the 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:17.040 ground up. Most people just thought, well, you're just going 0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:19.400 to give it a nip and a tuck. It wasn't 0:25:19.440 --> 0:25:24.920 the case, and the work went so rapidly it was shocking. 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:29.159 I think we were lucky because while we have neighbors 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:35.000 on three sides, we have no housing on the Westboro 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.840 Boulevard coming in from the freeway. And we brought in 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:42.680 five thousand truckloads of sand and so that wasn't a 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:45.240 big impact on the neighborhood. Just we created a lot 0:25:45.240 --> 0:25:49.959 of dust and a lot of mess. And you know, 0:25:50.000 --> 0:25:53.119 we went around to neighbors and we we powerwashed a 0:25:53.119 --> 0:25:56.520 few houses and we gave them, you know, free coupons 0:25:56.560 --> 0:25:59.400 for the car wash. And so forth. But they actually 0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:03.160 they started. We got a little bit of a late jump. 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:06.119 It was closer to May, but late April or May seven, 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:13.800 and by the last green was seated in December. We 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:17.960 did have some terrible rains in October and we had 0:26:18.000 --> 0:26:20.640 some setbacks there where we washed away some seed and 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:22.520 we had to do some things. It would have been faster. 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:25.760 So the longest period of time was in the construction. 0:26:25.920 --> 0:26:30.520 It was growing the grass, and so the growing period 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:38.879 was until July of eight when we reopened. However, we 0:26:38.920 --> 0:26:42.560 all know what was happening in the economy, and O 0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:48.720 seven Lehman Brothers blew up, and then but eight Lehman 0:26:48.760 --> 0:26:50.520 Brothers might have been owait. But the point is it 0:26:50.560 --> 0:26:51.600 was starting to go south. 0:26:51.920 --> 0:26:54.600 It was the worst time for a would have been 0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:57.080 for a golf course to open, or in your case, 0:26:57.320 --> 0:27:01.440 exactly just have Undertiken had taken a large sum of debt. 0:27:01.840 --> 0:27:03.879 Yes, and and plus we had a lot of older 0:27:03.880 --> 0:27:08.960 members who put themselves on the resigned list. And even then. 0:27:09.040 --> 0:27:12.600 Talk about the contention you guys face from. You know, 0:27:12.760 --> 0:27:19.000 obviously I imagine going from greens to greens and irrigration. 0:27:19.240 --> 0:27:22.679 There was there was some members that were on the 0:27:22.720 --> 0:27:25.040 other side of the fence of of we need to 0:27:25.119 --> 0:27:30.440 completely you know, blow it up and restore, slash, renovate 0:27:30.480 --> 0:27:34.479 a few holes of this. What what was that battle like? 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:40.880 When you have an equity club where the members own it, 0:27:42.840 --> 0:27:46.840 you know people obviously they're invested in it. And I 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:50.800 think our biggest bonus contention was that we were going 0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:57.639 very rapidly, and the people who opposed it most vociferously 0:28:01.000 --> 0:28:06.640 wanted more input. They wanted more voting. For instance, one 0:28:07.320 --> 0:28:10.360 one of the opposition's proposal was, well, have Kyle Phillips 0:28:10.359 --> 0:28:13.280 submit five plans and we'll vote on the one we 0:28:13.440 --> 0:28:15.760 like best. It's sort of like this rank choice voting 0:28:15.760 --> 0:28:21.960 they do in San Francisco. All of these objections, some 0:28:22.920 --> 0:28:25.919