Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by golf course architect Tyler Ray. Tyler is
Speaker 1: one of the bright young architects in the golf industry.
Speaker 1: He has worked for Keith Fosser, Bill Cooorr and Ben
Speaker 1: Crenshaw and most recently Ron Pritchard. I joined Tyler to
Speaker 1: check out his work at Beverly Country Club in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Without further ado, here's Tyler Ray. I miss the green,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball
Speaker 1: in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a brid egg
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Fridagg frigg Frida Egg
Speaker 2: bride egg.
Speaker 1: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the golf course.
Speaker 1: How many Donald Ross courses have you seen?
Speaker 2: I have about thirty thirty two left to see, So
Speaker 2: there's you know existing. If there's three hundred and forty
Speaker 2: two I think left existing, you know, about forty five
Speaker 2: of those have been altered, you know, beyond recognition. So
Speaker 2: there's two hundred and ninety seven left that are in
Speaker 2: the flesh. Yeah, I probably have thirty or so left.
Speaker 1: How many of the say two hundred and ninety or
Speaker 1: that are in the flesh, are close to their original
Speaker 1: or you know, is there a percentage that you would
Speaker 1: say are close to what they originally were?
Speaker 2: There are probably, gosh, probably sixty percent that are pretty
Speaker 2: solid that are you know, that haven't had all the
Speaker 2: greens blown up and routings altered. So we're saying probably
Speaker 2: maybe one hundred and eighty to two hundred, you know,
Speaker 2: are really good and solid still out there.
Speaker 1: Ross is an architect that now I feel like almost
Speaker 1: every major city has like a public Donald Ross course.
Speaker 1: And whenever I somebody asked me for recommendations and different cities,
Speaker 1: I always say, I always look up like Ross courses
Speaker 1: in the area because it's usually a pretty sure bet
Speaker 1: that it's going to be decent, and you know, amazingly,
Speaker 1: it's always it always seems like those courses are also
Speaker 1: the most affordable ones in different cities. What are some
Speaker 1: of your favorite public Ross courses that you've seen.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good one. Triggs Memorial is really good
Speaker 2: in Providence. Wilmington Golf Club down in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: All the bones there are really good. Obviously, Newton up
Speaker 2: in Boston, and Commonwealth. Let's see rabis Low here in Chicago,
Speaker 2: I mean almost every town has something great, you know,
Speaker 2: something really good h Ross. Even if you go in Detroit,
Speaker 2: you know, rack them, oh you know, the highway kind
Speaker 2: of ruin, rack them a little bit, but rack them
Speaker 2: has so many good bones. And then and then gosh,
Speaker 2: you know, even in North Carolina there's so many great obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, all the ones around Pinehurst, they're all you know,
Speaker 2: Southern Pines is so underrated. You know, there's so many
Speaker 2: good part fours at Southern Pines. And then obviously a
Speaker 2: bunch in Florida that don't get any love.
Speaker 1: I'm going to Pinehurst soon and that's a definite stop
Speaker 1: is going to be at Southern Pines. That's I hear.
Speaker 1: Great Bones could be something really special.
Speaker 2: Yeah that uh, I've been politicking, you know for that.
Speaker 2: And I know Kyle Franz is the man down there
Speaker 2: right now, and he's a good buddy. I'm but man
Speaker 2: Southern Pines. You know, when I go play golf trips
Speaker 2: with buddies and we go down Pinehurst, it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: number two Dormy, you know, Pine Needles, Midpines. But hey,
Speaker 2: boys like come with me. I'm going to show you
Speaker 2: something in the afternoon that'll you know, rock your socks
Speaker 2: off for forty dollars and we can drink some beers
Speaker 2: and have fun and the architecture will really wow you.
Speaker 2: And then at the end of the trip they're always like, man,
Speaker 2: I think I had the most fun at Southern Pines
Speaker 2: because it didn't beat me up. The greens are really
Speaker 2: really interesting, the routings on you know, the routing is unparalleled,
Speaker 2: and the land it really gets hilly back there, you
Speaker 2: know on six, seven, eight, nine, ten, I mean it's
Speaker 2: hilly for Pinehurst.
Speaker 1: So it's funny that Zach Blair and I went on
Speaker 1: that that long San Francisco trip and the one that
Speaker 1: I mean San Francisco golf world class, cal club, world class,
Speaker 1: you know, Posa Tiempo, world class off course. But the
Speaker 1: one that sticks with us is like, just like, the
Speaker 1: one we talk about the most is Northwood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Northwood is really special. In twenty twelve, I took
Speaker 2: two months off and I did a California you know,
Speaker 2: just deep dive and I visited something like sixty seven
Speaker 2: clubs in two months, and Northwood up there, literally no
Speaker 2: one ever spoke about it, and the only reason I
Speaker 2: knew about it was because it was had Mackenzie's name attached.
Speaker 2: And I literally, I mean I get chills right now.
Speaker 2: The hair are standing up on the back of my neck.
Speaker 2: How good Northwood is. And you know, and then there's
Speaker 2: like Etna springs up there, which is great.
Speaker 1: What it closed though.
Speaker 2: I know it or is closing or has closed. But
Speaker 2: that was really cool with Doak and George Waters and
Speaker 2: Kyle Franz did up there. That was really inspiring. And
Speaker 2: oh but yeah Northwood, who.
Speaker 1: With those bunkers just sitting there. I mean, like, how
Speaker 1: much would it cost to put those bunkers back since
Speaker 1: they're just kind of grassed over? Like I always I
Speaker 1: always have wondered about that, like what, you know, being
Speaker 1: an architect, what do you think like just a general
Speaker 1: cost for putting that stuff back and time and materials
Speaker 1: so would be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Andy, that's a great question. You know,
Speaker 2: there's so many courses like this. You know down here
Speaker 2: south of Chicago, Kankakey Elks, you know the same thing.
Speaker 2: There are almost trees, you know, sitting in existing bunkers
Speaker 2: and saying same with out there at Northwood and maybe Wakanda.
Speaker 2: You know in Iowa, you walk around Wakanda and you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, this Langford and Moreau. I mean, the
Speaker 2: bunkers are sitting out there in the woods and it's
Speaker 2: just it's unbelievable, you know, all this stuff is sitting
Speaker 2: out there. Same with Northwood. You know those sequoias though,
Speaker 2: are a little larger there. But cost I guess really
Speaker 2: you would just be probably taking out six to eight
Speaker 2: inches of top soil on the bottom of those bunkers,
Speaker 2: putting drainage in, and then putting five inches of compacted
Speaker 2: sandback sand is expensive depending on you know, what kind
Speaker 2: of scene and you're getting, but really, you know, the
Speaker 2: shaping would be very minimal, you know, just a little
Speaker 2: bit of regrassing, you know, drainage and sand.
Speaker 1: So sixty seven clubs and courses in two months, what
Speaker 1: was your outside of Northwood? Your your best find in
Speaker 1: California that might not get talked about enough.
Speaker 2: Pacific Grove is really really special. You know. Monterey sure
Speaker 2: gets a lot of love now, but maybe in twenty
Speaker 2: twelve when I was out there, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of guys didn't understand how great Mike strands you know,
Speaker 2: vision artistry was so when I was visiting the shore,
Speaker 2: I was really blown away by his artistry. Yes, San
Speaker 2: Francisco golf is really really good, so good. Gosh, col Club, though,
Speaker 2: I was really just blown away. You know. Everybody's you know,
Speaker 2: talked about Kyle Club, but you know, like that seventh hole,
Speaker 2: I think it is the boomerang part four that they add,
Speaker 2: you know, that still felt really mackenzie esque. And the
Speaker 2: work by George Waters and Kyle on those bunkers, you know,
Speaker 2: for Kyle was really cool. But I think Cal Club
Speaker 2: blew me away. You know, it was so good and
Speaker 2: so you know, it was so close to the other ones.
Speaker 1: I think all the little details at Cal Club let's
Speaker 1: make it so good, and just the way it plays,
Speaker 1: also getting the fescue in there and getting it playing
Speaker 1: bounty and firm and fast, which is so rare for
Speaker 1: that area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, super firm, super firm, super fast. You know the land,
Speaker 2: the land has that charm back. You know, the ground
Speaker 2: is alive.
Speaker 1: Bobby Jones played the am out in California and that's
Speaker 1: where he started ran into Mackenzie. And had it not
Speaker 1: been for that, it was believed that Ross was going
Speaker 1: to be the guy that did Augusta National. Correct.
Speaker 2: Yes, he and Ross were buddies, you know, from his
Speaker 2: time at east Lake and all that. Ross was at
Speaker 2: east Lake in nineteen thirteen and Bobby Jones grew up
Speaker 2: on the course, so really all he knew was east Lake.
Speaker 2: And then Ross did in nineteen twenty six or seven
Speaker 2: he built Highlands Golf Club, which was Bobby Jones' is
Speaker 2: really like Mountain Golf Course and so, which still exists
Speaker 2: pretty much in its exact state. And so I think
Speaker 2: Ross had it. You know, Ross probably had you know,
Speaker 2: Augusta was what nineteen thirty nineteen thirty one, and yeah,
Speaker 2: he fell in love with mackenzie out in Cyprus Point
Speaker 2: and all that.
Speaker 1: What do you think a Ross designed how would it
Speaker 1: differ from the Mackenzie designed? I guess the National.
Speaker 2: You know, they probably would have had some of the
Speaker 2: same routing. You know, the routing is so good at Augusta,
Speaker 2: the way he utilized those creeks and the you know,
Speaker 2: the ski slope on ten going down there and eleven
Speaker 2: and twelve, how twelve so underrated, and so the routing
Speaker 2: probably would have been pretty similar. But you know McKenzie's
Speaker 2: flair for the extravagant and you know the buried elephants
Speaker 2: at Augusta which have been softened over the years, which
Speaker 2: is sad to see. But you know, I mean Mackenzie,
Speaker 2: those old Boomerang greens, like like, gosh, what is it?
Speaker 2: It was? I think nine, you know, nine was pretty
Speaker 2: much almost a boomerang green which been which has been
Speaker 2: totally changed. But you go at the Gusta like number one.
Speaker 2: Number one's green might be the best green out there,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's like beat you in the face
Speaker 2: when you when you show up, you know, you hit
Speaker 2: it out there, and then you get to one and
Speaker 2: you're like, holy smokes, what am I in for? And
Speaker 2: so that hell and yeah, that Plateau green. But no,
Speaker 2: I think, uh, I think Ross would have really done
Speaker 2: well there. But it's pretty cool, you know Mackenzie. He
Speaker 2: was on such a run there. I mean, if you
Speaker 2: look at the top five in the world and you
Speaker 2: have you know, if you had you know, I've heard
Speaker 2: Doolks say in the past when I was at Royal
Speaker 2: Melbourne two years ago, I think that composite course might
Speaker 2: be the best course in the world. You know, pv
Speaker 2: Okay Pine Valley. But the composite course at Royal Melbourne
Speaker 2: is so good when you take a couple of those
Speaker 2: holes from the East and put them in with the
Speaker 2: west down there, and then he has obviously at Cyper's point,
Speaker 2: which is you know, it's unbelievable. You know, the inland
Speaker 2: holes are so good there and that's what makes it
Speaker 2: so good.
Speaker 1: Now I got to play the Jockey Club and Argentina
Speaker 1: years ago. Like I went to Argentina with my now
Speaker 1: wife and we were visiting her friend and it just
Speaker 1: happened her friend was dating a member of the Jockey
Speaker 1: Club and he's like, do you want to play him? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to, yeah, because like I was, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it. I was like, I got to try
Speaker 1: and find a way onto this place and it just
Speaker 1: turned out it worked out. But like you think about Mackenzie,
Speaker 1: and he designed arguably the greatest course on almost you
Speaker 1: could some of his courses in the UK four different continents.
Speaker 1: You know, he had a course that was in the
Speaker 1: conversation for the greatest golf course and on four continents,
Speaker 1: which is it's mind boggling, Yeah, and probably three for sure, exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's he's something that everybody kind of always says
Speaker 1: that he's the best, but it's it's tough to imagine,
Speaker 1: especially given the time. And but he also had great associates.
Speaker 2: It goes to show, Yeah, Mick Morecambe down and you know,
Speaker 2: down in Australia, he was really his right hand man.
Speaker 2: When when Mackenzie went down in Australia, you know, he
Speaker 2: obviously got together with those superintendents down there, Alex Russell
Speaker 2: and and Mick Morcomb, and he taught Mick everything, you know,
Speaker 2: and just a whirl win I think sixty days or so.
Speaker 2: And and Tom Doak would know better than I would
Speaker 2: because he's consulting down there. But yeah, and then he
Speaker 2: kind of showed him his style down there and built
Speaker 2: the bunkers and this and that. Hey, this one looking
Speaker 2: for and then those guys ran with it and they
Speaker 2: really I mean, gosh, you go to you know, like
Speaker 2: Royal Adelaide and stuff like that. That place is divine.
Speaker 2: Kingston Heath, I mean that.
Speaker 1: Stuff first out in Karen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh that's really cool too. And nobody really makes
Speaker 2: that trek because it's eight hours from Melbourne, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's a brutal drive. But that's really really underrated
Speaker 2: nobody really sees that though.
Speaker 1: With Ross, what would you consider as his most underappreciated skill.
Speaker 2: Probably his most underrated skill. You know, everybody talks about
Speaker 2: his routings, and his routings are just so fundamentally strong,
Speaker 2: you know, his routings are just unbelievable. Is his skill
Speaker 2: probably was showing up, you know. And I've read so
Speaker 2: many of his site notes from Barton Hills and all
Speaker 2: over in America where he literally would would write to
Speaker 2: his daughter Lilian. Then it would be October first, they say,
Speaker 2: dearest Lillian, you know your birthday's October twenty sixth. I
Speaker 2: will be back, you know, in Pinehurst for your birthday. Okay,
Speaker 2: October first, I'm going to take the train from Pinehurst
Speaker 2: to d C. And then I'm in DC for three
Speaker 2: days and I'm at Washington Golf and this and that,
Speaker 2: then Congressional and then I'm going in Chevy Chase. And
Speaker 2: then October second, Lillian, I'll be in Philadelphia and I'll
Speaker 2: be at loulu and Ironomank and then I'm going up
Speaker 2: to New York. And he would literally write in this
Speaker 2: letter to her his travel you know, for the month
Speaker 2: of October, and say in nineteen twenty seven, and it
Speaker 2: would literally stop you know, d C Philly, New York,
Speaker 2: and then he'd go up to Boston and they'd take
Speaker 2: the train to the Rochester and visit Aronda Couiter Monroe,
Speaker 2: and then he'd go to Detroit and then over to
Speaker 2: Chicago and then in Minneapolis, and so then he'd come
Speaker 2: back and so in you know, twenty seven days, he'd
Speaker 2: be back to Pinehurst and he'd visit forty six golf courses.
Speaker 2: You know, like in one day in Detroit, he was
Speaker 2: at Western Golf in the morning, and then he's he
Speaker 2: was on his way to Chicago and stopped in at
Speaker 2: Barton Hills because the train went right by Barton Hills
Speaker 2: and he just showed up at two pm and went
Speaker 2: around the golf course. And luckily the secretary took notes
Speaker 2: from that day. It was like October, you know, twentieth,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five, and the have his site notes and
Speaker 2: it's like Donald Ross showed up and went around and
Speaker 2: wanted the four bunkers deeper, and you know, he was
Speaker 2: really happy with this and this, but he wanted to
Speaker 2: change one of the greens and then change the t's here,
Speaker 2: and it was just like so interesting to hear while
Speaker 2: you know, he just popped in on his way to Chicago.
Speaker 2: But long winded, you know, sorry to go on a
Speaker 2: long diatribe. To get back to your question. What was
Speaker 2: maybe his most underrated skill was how did he keep
Speaker 2: all these golf courses in his brain and keep them
Speaker 2: all you know, I don't know alphabetized them or what,
Speaker 2: but how do you okay, how do you know like
Speaker 2: Barton Hill's this green is supposed to be over here
Speaker 2: and this and that when you just show up and
Speaker 2: then you're on your way to Chicago and you've just
Speaker 2: visited forty two golf courses in a month, and you've
Speaker 2: gave directions to each one about what they should do
Speaker 2: with this, and you know, and he was so good
Speaker 2: with agronomy and grass types and soils, and he worked
Speaker 2: in so many different you know, like Northland up in
Speaker 2: Duluth as literally the worst red clay I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: And then conversely, you go out to Portland, Maine and
Speaker 2: it's beautiful sand and and you go down the Pinehurst
Speaker 2: and it's totally different as well. And so he had
Speaker 2: to be so agronically, you know, agronomically sound, giving advice
Speaker 2: to all these different clubs in different climates and know
Speaker 2: all the seasons, and you should plant here at Monroe,
Speaker 2: he gave directions that you should plant by August first,
Speaker 2: so these greens are grown in by next spring and
Speaker 2: you can open up the golf course. And it's like,
Speaker 2: it's just that's just I think. You know his knowledge,
Speaker 2: his I you know, his itinerary, and the way he
Speaker 2: travel was it's just mind boggling. Now where we fly
Speaker 2: from the you know, club, the club, and I might
Speaker 2: visit fifteen clubs in a month or twenty clubs in
Speaker 2: a month. But I get home and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: what did I tell these guys? Okay this okay, boom boom.
Speaker 2: It's really tough. And he was doing that on a
Speaker 2: much larger scale.
Speaker 1: He had to have a photographic memory and and you
Speaker 1: look past you know the architecture and the agronomy and knowledge.
Speaker 1: But he also was like a master club maker. He
Speaker 1: was a he had high finishes in the US opened,
Speaker 1: the British Open, or the Open Championship. It's uh and
Speaker 1: it's crazy to think, like this guy is probably the
Speaker 1: most well rounded, most versed man ever in the history
Speaker 1: of golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Andy to even top that off. He
Speaker 2: was affluent and could mix, you know, with high society
Speaker 2: down in Pinehurst and shake hands and and speak eloquently,
Speaker 2: you know. And he only had a eighth grade education
Speaker 2: and he was you know, his father he was a
Speaker 2: carpenter and everything in Dornick. And you know where did
Speaker 2: he get you know, he must have been a genius.
Speaker 2: And so when Ron Pritchert and I have these discussions,
Speaker 2: we're like, this guy had to be his IQ had
Speaker 2: to be through the roof. But to have all these
Speaker 2: all these assets, you know, and capabilities of being able
Speaker 2: to work with the foreman out out in the you know,
Speaker 2: out in the field and explain what he wanted and
Speaker 2: get what he wanted built, and then go in and
Speaker 2: speak with the gentleman, you know. Like one of his
Speaker 2: best friends was mister Ford. You know, he got all
Speaker 2: that work in Detroit because mister Ford would come down
Speaker 2: to Pinehurst and he was like, oh, you're the man
Speaker 2: down a Pinehurst, you know, Donald, we need you. We
Speaker 2: need golf courses in Detroit. Same with the White Bear
Speaker 2: yacht family up in Minnesota. That's how he got all
Speaker 2: his Minnesota work. That was his connection. And so in
Speaker 2: nineteen you know, early nineteen twelve, thirteen, fourteen fifteen, he
Speaker 2: was going up there every summer to visit the family
Speaker 2: from the White Bear Yacht Club. And that's how he
Speaker 2: got Cedar Rapids in nineteen fifteen, and that's how he
Speaker 2: went to Minnicotta, and then he got Woodhill and then
Speaker 2: he got Northland and interlocking, and so his connections were,
Speaker 2: you know, unbelievable. And so this gentleman was you know,
Speaker 2: just basic education, you know, and he comes over, he
Speaker 2: emigrates in eighteen ninety nine, and then somehow his brand,
Speaker 2: you know, he built himself from zero. I mean I
Speaker 2: remember reading you know, he hardly had enough money to
Speaker 2: get out to Oakley Golf Club when he first arrived,
Speaker 2: and you know, off the ship he basically walked the
Speaker 2: seven miles because he couldn't take the train car because
Speaker 2: he didn't have enough money, you know. And then he
Speaker 2: built an empire where he at one point had two
Speaker 2: thousand guys employed, you know, in nineteen twenty eight before
Speaker 2: the stock market crash. And I mean I just don't
Speaker 2: know how he had the capacity, you know, to to
Speaker 2: keep everything wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine he slept that much.
Speaker 2: No, No, but you know the only thing that I
Speaker 2: want to do. Want to say though, is when you're
Speaker 2: taking train, you know, when you're taking train travel, it's
Speaker 2: a lot different because what would happen is, you know,
Speaker 2: when he when his notes from clubs is you know,
Speaker 2: somebody would pick him up at the train stop and
Speaker 2: then they would take him directly to the golf course.
Speaker 2: And so he never really drove, and so that time
Speaker 2: he had all this time to you know, okay, what's
Speaker 2: your land, like, what's this? Okay, this is where we're going,
Speaker 2: and then he would have dinner and everything like that,
Speaker 2: and he'd have his site notes from the day. Then
Speaker 2: he'd get on the train and he'd have an hour two, three,
Speaker 2: four five where he could write down all his site
Speaker 2: notes and do his whole by whole drawings he wanted
Speaker 2: to do. The master plans. He'd send them down to
Speaker 2: or send them up to Boston to Walter Irving Johnson,
Speaker 2: who would delicately, you know, handcraft these beautiful master plans
Speaker 2: and ink them on linen. But Ross would send his
Speaker 2: whole by whole master plan or hole by whole you know,
Speaker 2: drawings with site notes and you know about the character
Speaker 2: of the topography, this and that, but he had all
Speaker 2: this time on the train to decipher that and knock
Speaker 2: out all the work. You know, say he was at
Speaker 2: Hinsdale and you know, then going up to oak Park
Speaker 2: or Evanston, you know, that night he would just write
Speaker 2: everything down about Hinsdale and then clear that off his book,
Speaker 2: then go to oak Park, you know, and then knock
Speaker 2: out oak Park for the day and knock out all
Speaker 2: those drawings that night. And I think that was really
Speaker 2: really special.
Speaker 1: That's with technology today. I think it almost makes it harder.
Speaker 2: A lot of times, exactly all the emails and all
Speaker 2: the calls, you know, Like we were walking around earlier
Speaker 2: and I have nine missed calls and four emails and
Speaker 2: it's nine forty five this morning.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like a lot of times the emails
Speaker 1: like they aren't like fast to get done. It takes
Speaker 1: a long time to answer a lot of these questions.
Speaker 1: It's not like, you know, it's like writing. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel like if I spend an afternoon writing emails back,
Speaker 1: it's like I've written like a whole article. It's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, and then one technology I'm excited for is
Speaker 1: a drivable car.
Speaker 2: Yes, that'll be almost like we've just talked about where
Speaker 2: ross was being driven around everywhere and sitting in a
Speaker 2: you know, sitting in a train car. You know.
Speaker 1: So, so what you've seen twenty five hundred golf courses
Speaker 1: to date, you've seen all these ross courses. What ross
Speaker 1: courses are you most excited to see that you haven't
Speaker 1: seen yet?
Speaker 2: Wow, that's that's a tough one. Really. The ones I
Speaker 2: haven't seen are the tough ones. Just to get to,
Speaker 2: like BAMF. You know, there's not much ross left at BAMF,
Speaker 2: but I want to get up there anyway because he
Speaker 2: was there. Gosh, what do I have? I have the
Speaker 2: one in Missouri? Yeah, I have, like the one in
Speaker 2: Kansas called Shawnee. I have Hillcrest, French Lick. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen a bunch in Florida. You know. Florida is so
Speaker 2: tough to get down to because it's like in the wintertime,
Speaker 2: everyone is down there. And that's my you know, from
Speaker 2: from Christmas until really February first or March first is
Speaker 2: my kind of time to get away. Go to California,
Speaker 2: go to Australia, New Zealand, go to Europe and see everything,
Speaker 2: But it's really hard to get to Florida because everyone's
Speaker 2: down there. And then the summer, I'm really busy, and
Speaker 2: so it's one hundred degrees down there, and nobody wants
Speaker 2: to be down there. So I literally have, out of
Speaker 2: the thirty golf courses, you know, thirty more Ross I
Speaker 2: have to see, you know, probably twenty or in Florida.
Speaker 2: And then the other thing is, I'm not really excited
Speaker 2: to see this stuff in Florida because it's so flat.
Speaker 2: The land is devoid of so much character.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it's been killed too right
Speaker 1: over time with you know, so many architects work down
Speaker 1: in Florida.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything's you know, cyclical down there. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's ten years later, we need to blow up our
Speaker 2: golf course. And so I've seen Seminole, and I've seen
Speaker 2: Sarah Bay and Tim Aquana and some of the good ones.
Speaker 2: But I just right now, I don't have the urge
Speaker 2: to see the rest of that, you know, I want
Speaker 2: to finish off the list. And I thought I was
Speaker 2: going to be the first guy to see every Donald
Speaker 2: Ross course, but obviously there's a guy from the Donald
Speaker 2: Ross Society beat me out. For that, and I sent
Speaker 2: him a nice email. I was like, man, how did
Speaker 2: you get to all these? Like there's some that are brutal,
Speaker 2: you know, there are some uh, you know way out
Speaker 2: in Nova Scotia and Halifax and stuff, Brightwood and Liverpool,
Speaker 2: you know, White Point which is way down you know,
Speaker 2: Nova Scotia, And I've made the rise up there and
Speaker 2: tried to see him all but you know, and then
Speaker 2: I have a couple, you know, up in northern New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: After see, I've seen everyone in Maine, everyone in New York,
Speaker 2: everything in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: What are the what's your top five?
Speaker 2: Who? You know? Top five probably would be I mean
Speaker 2: it was that's really really hard. But Glenn's Falls is
Speaker 2: really really good up in New York. I mean it's
Speaker 2: it's really good. And then right down the road in Rome,
Speaker 2: New York, there is to Usica, which is literally like
Speaker 2: going back in time and seeing, you know, what Ross
Speaker 2: would have done. He spent so much time there because
Speaker 2: he had a girlfriend there, Florence Blackinton, and it was
Speaker 2: after his first wife, Susie died in nineteen twenty one,
Speaker 2: so he was really up there in like twenty two
Speaker 2: twenty three. A lot and I think he had a
Speaker 2: really big hand there with the Walter p Hatch and
Speaker 2: Walter be Hatch was so so so talented hit one
Speaker 2: of his associates. Because Walter Behatch built Glenn's Falls, he
Speaker 2: built to Uzuka. You know some other ones that you
Speaker 2: know something that's so underrated that nobody knows about. It's
Speaker 2: called Thendara. Thendara is up in the Adirondacks. It's like
Speaker 2: literally almost like a rainer golf course. It's so bold.
Speaker 2: You know, there's like a box car on the ninth green,
Speaker 2: buried in the green where it's literally raised four feet
Speaker 2: above the rest of the putting service. It's unbelievable. But
Speaker 2: no wanna moist it. The greens that want to moist it.
Speaker 2: Every single one has character. There's not one flat green
Speaker 2: there and so wanta moist It is cool and small
Speaker 2: and the properties, you know, it's pretty tame, but wana
Speaker 2: moist of the greens are unparalleled for a ross golf course.
Speaker 2: And then you have Essex County, I mean the Crown Jewel.
Speaker 2: He spent so much time there. And then you know
Speaker 2: Ironomic is really special. You know that was JB McGovern's
Speaker 2: home course. He was the green chair there and built it.
Speaker 2: And that's why the greens have so much character at
Speaker 2: ironom Ing, and Ironiming is like everything about is about
Speaker 2: scale Ironoming. You know, the property is big, the clubhouse
Speaker 2: is big. The bunkering was big on the master plan
Speaker 2: that Ross drew, you know, and JB McGovern had a
Speaker 2: proclivity to build small bunkers. And then that's what gil
Speaker 2: Han's just put back is all JB's one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty eight bunkers or whatever that he split. He would
Speaker 2: split Ross's big bunkers in the small bunkers. But you
Speaker 2: know in Oakland Hills, Oakland Hills is really great and
Speaker 2: Northland the one, you know, you said five, I probably
Speaker 2: listened six or seven because I can't stop.
Speaker 1: That's fine, I've got I don't really like it.
Speaker 2: We're just yeah, we're just gonna keep moving, you know.
Speaker 2: But Northland might be one of the better routings and
Speaker 2: we're I've been so fortunate to work with Ron Pritchard
Speaker 2: on that, you know, and I'm actually going back in
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks to you know, to restore some
Speaker 2: more holes. But the it's sitting on Lake Superior, and
Speaker 2: it's on the side of this huge block, and Lake
Speaker 2: Superior literally looks like an ocean, and so it is
Speaker 2: an Minnesota golf course, but it feels like you're in
Speaker 2: California or on the Atlantic in Maine, and so literally
Speaker 2: you have cliffhanger greens that look like the waters right
Speaker 2: behind the green. And so Northland is unbelievably special and
Speaker 2: it's finally getting some recognition. And you know, that's one
Speaker 2: golf course though. That Ron Pritchard, I feel like he's
Speaker 2: seen every ross court, you know, golf course there is.
Speaker 2: He has stated to the membership that he thinks that
Speaker 2: could be top forty in America and I'm I was
Speaker 2: even like, whoa, Ron, you never give praise? You know?
Speaker 2: That is that's pretty cool? And he's like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: so when we talk about routings, that might be one
Speaker 2: of the best ross routings there is because it climbs
Speaker 2: this almost mountainlike terrain and then it loops all the
Speaker 2: way back down to eighteen at the clubhouse, and so
Speaker 2: nine is like the furthest part away. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like a British Links kind of style routing. And so
Speaker 2: he really went outside the box there and then it
Speaker 2: took three years for that course to be built because
Speaker 2: it's on such hard that red clay and the seasons
Speaker 2: are so short, so they would build like six holes
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty five, six holes in nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 2: and then six oles in nineteen twenty seven, and so
Speaker 2: it literally his master plan is from you know, I
Speaker 2: think it says nineteen twenty five on it, and it opened,
Speaker 2: you know, like July fourth, nineteen twenty seven. You know,
Speaker 2: so it's pretty cool that it took that long. And
Speaker 2: then the last one I want to mention a homer
Speaker 2: for is mountain Ridge in New Jersey. Everyone talks about Plainfield,
Speaker 2: everyone talks about Ironomy, you know, everybody talks about all
Speaker 2: these other clubs in the Northeast, but nobody knows mountain Ridge.
Speaker 2: Mountain Ridge has greens that are even cooler than Plainfield
Speaker 2: and aronom and combined. Then it's a you know, it's
Speaker 2: a smaller club, three inner members. They don't like their
Speaker 2: name getting out much. But if you go to mountain Ridge,
Speaker 2: it got golf digest restoration of the year I think
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven or twelve, and Ron I mean knocked
Speaker 2: out of the ballpark. It's so cool. But you could
Speaker 2: literally play golf at Somerset Hills with buddies and then
Speaker 2: go up the plain field and you're like, guys, I'm
Speaker 2: going to take you to Mountain Ridge and then you
Speaker 2: go play mountain Ridge and they're all like, I've never heard,
Speaker 2: I've never seen this. This place is epic. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm a softye for Somerset Hills. It's
Speaker 2: maybe my favorite. If I were to join anywhere but Bitterman,
Speaker 2: where I play in Wilmington, Delawroyd I joined, you know,
Speaker 2: if I ever had the privilege, you know, Somerset Hills
Speaker 2: has a sweet spot in my heart. But mountain Ridge
Speaker 2: is it's like this place that if you went and
Speaker 2: played Andy, you'd be like, why does anybody talk about this?
Speaker 2: But it is in the Golf Week top one hundred,
Speaker 2: so they do get it.
Speaker 1: So that's the best is finding those places that nobody
Speaker 1: talks about you. So you grew up caddying at Ironomic.
Speaker 1: How much of you know walking around that golf course
Speaker 1: every day as a kid, do you think played a
Speaker 1: role in you becoming a golf course architect?
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. I grew up playing Gap Golf
Speaker 2: Association Philadelphia with their junior tournaments in the late nineties
Speaker 2: and early two thousands, and we would go play Huntington Valley, Maryon, Lancaster,
Speaker 2: Aronomy Manufacturers, Lulu. I mean, the list goes on, you know,
Speaker 2: Lehigh Saukin Valley, even Scrinton Country called the Scrintons unbelievable Travis, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's the greens are like the moon. You know.
Speaker 2: Travis so underrated with his green building. But you know,
Speaker 2: so I would play in Philly Cricket and Rolling Green
Speaker 2: and Plymouth and all these flints, and so I saw,
Speaker 2: you know, when I was eleven and twelve and thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 2: fifteen eighteen, I saw all these great golf courses. And
Speaker 2: then I'd go back and play my municipal, you know,
Speaker 2: public golf course that I grew up on, and I'd say, well,
Speaker 2: this is very different. You know this, Why are my
Speaker 2: greens so bland? And I go up to you know,
Speaker 2: Marion and I put it off the green and it's
Speaker 2: not because they're super fast, which they were, but the
Speaker 2: contours are incredible, you know, and there's you know, the
Speaker 2: routings are great. And so I had this great appreciation
Speaker 2: from age, you know, seventeen of I was in a
Speaker 2: special place. These are special golf courses, you know, catting
Speaker 2: at Ironom and cattying at Wilmington Country Club, you know,
Speaker 2: seeing great golf. And so when I was at cattying
Speaker 2: at Ironomic, Ron Pritchard did the two thousand and two
Speaker 2: restoration there and I think, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: one golf digest restoration the year, I'm pretty sure. And
Speaker 2: that literally spun the golf world, you know, in Philly
Speaker 2: in the Northeast a little bit. I mean, Ron Pritcher's
Speaker 2: his phone run off the hook after that, and that
Speaker 2: led to him getting all these other unbelievable courses, you know,
Speaker 2: Charlotte Country Club and the and some of the bigger
Speaker 2: name clubs that he and I have worked with. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean just caddying seeing how these guys were, you know,
Speaker 2: utilizing these slopes on the putt and greens, and it
Speaker 2: was just something different, you know. And Philly is such
Speaker 2: a hotbed. I've been super blessed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh not last summer. The summer before I spent
Speaker 1: two weeks out there. I got I've played in the
Speaker 1: mid so I got to do a big tour and
Speaker 1: then my buddy got married out there, so I spent
Speaker 1: another week, and just two weeks was like just scratching
Speaker 1: the surface. It's I mean, there's so many, so many
Speaker 1: cool places to see, and it's it's definitely I think
Speaker 1: it's the clear number two city in America for golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know number two is hard for
Speaker 2: me to say, but you know, New York Metro area
Speaker 2: and Long Island, it's it's pretty hard to beat that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a different conversation. If you split Long
Speaker 1: Island off.
Speaker 2: And right, you delete Long Island out of seen Philly
Speaker 2: crushes you know, New York Metro I think, you know,
Speaker 2: New North New Jersey and New York I think it
Speaker 2: gets it. But then you get in Long Island and
Speaker 2: you got the Garden Cities and the Shinnies out there
Speaker 2: and the Atlantic and Maidstone and it can't compete.
Speaker 1: You got like a place like Southampton, nobody mentioned, and
Speaker 1: it's right next to National and it's so good, it's
Speaker 1: so pure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so yeah, Long Island itself has thirty on
Speaker 2: parallel golf and it's all sand, you know, the stuff
Speaker 2: on the sand, the ball, you know, the grounds alive
Speaker 2: that one, you know, the charm is back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that's the getting the ball bouncy again, the ball,
Speaker 1: the bounce.
Speaker 2: In the ground, the British Isles ground game took golf.
Speaker 1: It's so you you've mentioned you worked for Ron Pritchard
Speaker 1: a great deal. You've also worked for Keith Foster and
Speaker 1: then Bill Kore and Ben Crenshaw. What what is if
Speaker 1: you were going to say one thing that you've taken
Speaker 1: from each guy is what they are just so great at?
Speaker 1: What would it be?
Speaker 2: So Keith taught me scale. You know, when I was
Speaker 2: with Keith, we were doing Colonial Baltimore, five farms. I
Speaker 2: was doing the plans for Philly cricket, plans for Moraine.
Speaker 2: We were doing fresh Meadow up in Lake Success, New York,
Speaker 2: up on Long Island, Orchard Lake. We were doing that.
Speaker 2: And so you would walk Orchard Lake with all these
Speaker 2: weeping willows and all these smallways, and He's say, Tyler,
Speaker 2: you need to get back to Allison scale. You know,
Speaker 2: big bunkers, big greens, big fairways, you know, big roles
Speaker 2: of the land. The roles of the land at Orchard
Speaker 2: Lak are really incredible, you know, expose the depography. And
Speaker 2: so Keith taught me scale and you know, really how
Speaker 2: to run a business, how to be an architect, and
Speaker 2: how it's not just you're not just an artist. You know,
Speaker 2: you're not just some guy who shows up. You know.
Speaker 2: Keith is so good at talking the membership, educating the membership,
Speaker 2: you know, sitting down and working through the worst parts
Speaker 2: of a restoration or renovation, you know, working with a
Speaker 2: contractor in the field, beating the best product out of
Speaker 2: that contractor. Every contractor wants to show up and they
Speaker 2: want to be in and out, you know, in three
Speaker 2: months and make a ton of money. And that's their goal.
Speaker 2: And your goal as the architect and for the club
Speaker 2: and the honor of the club and honor of the
Speaker 2: client is to make enduring work, which Keith you know,
Speaker 2: talks about a lot. You want that work to last
Speaker 2: for fifty to one hundred year like Ross and all
Speaker 2: these great old clubs. You don't want to be some
Speaker 2: architect that comes in in the eighties and the next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, in twelve years, it's being blown up because
Speaker 2: that work didn't endure, you know, it wasn't great and lasting.
Speaker 2: And so Keith taught me that, you know, to really
Speaker 2: take a critical eye. You know, Tyler, your eye. Your
Speaker 2: eye is the most valuable asset you have. And you
Speaker 2: can go around with that Green committee and the superintendent
Speaker 2: and the contractor and you can work out every fine detail.
Speaker 2: You know. Oh, you know this back corner of this
Speaker 2: putting service is just off a little bit. Let's beat
Speaker 2: that down half an inch. Hey, this bunker, you know,
Speaker 2: I want this flashed a little more because I want
Speaker 2: to see a ribin of sand from two hundred yards away.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want that high lip in front
Speaker 2: of the bunker to block the viewport into that sayand
Speaker 2: so Keith really taught me about you know that A
Speaker 2: couple of things here obviously, Bill Corr. Same thing at
Speaker 2: Dormy Club when I was living with Keith reb and
Speaker 2: working with jimbo Wright and Jeff Bradley, who are like
Speaker 2: the most talented guys in the industry. You know, I work,
Speaker 2: I did all the bunker work with Jeff Bradley, and
Speaker 2: so I'd be in the bunkers every day. And then
Speaker 2: I did a lot of the peripheral work, and Keith
Speaker 2: red was doing the fairway grading and ts and and
Speaker 2: jimbo Wright did the bunkers and so I was mainly
Speaker 2: with Jeff Bradley every day, and Jeff Bradley taught me
Speaker 2: more about artistry and hey, like, look, it's got to
Speaker 2: be in the right spot. The bunker's got to be
Speaker 2: located properly, but it's got to be aesthetically pleasing fit
Speaker 2: into the land naturally, almost like that mackenzie style, you know, bunkering.
Speaker 2: And so I was in there with a shovel every
Speaker 2: day with Jeff and he's still one of these one
Speaker 2: of my best buddies in the industry to this day.
Speaker 2: And Bill cor would come out and say, Tyler, I
Speaker 2: don't want to see any beach balls over there, you know,
Speaker 2: And and you know, with his funny you know, his
Speaker 2: cool Texas twang a little bit, and and because I would,
Speaker 2: you know, I was such a novice in oh six
Speaker 2: oh seven, I guess twelve years.
Speaker 1: Ago when one of the voicemails I'll never delete from
Speaker 1: my phone was Bill Corkan Andy, this is Bill Core.
Speaker 1: It's just the way his voice is.
Speaker 2: It's great, but he's so you know, he's so mild
Speaker 2: tempered and ben and but they taught me about look
Speaker 2: the periphery, everything matters, you know, dormy. We worked so
Speaker 2: hard on the peripheral stuff. You know. It wasn't just
Speaker 2: about the greens and the tea's and the bunkers that
Speaker 2: get so much attention. It was about every fine detail.
Speaker 2: And Bill wanted you know, he beat me down about
Speaker 2: this bump, you know, and I thought I knocked it
Speaker 2: out of the ballpark, and he'd be like, make it
Speaker 2: more weathered, make it more natural, you know. And then
Speaker 2: Bill also taught me that, you know, I was an
Speaker 2: abrasive twenty three year old working with them their first
Speaker 2: intern ever maybe you know, since you know, up until
Speaker 2: the new guys who have started working with them, but
Speaker 2: this was twelve years ago, and all the guys were like,
Speaker 2: how did you How did you get on this job
Speaker 2: with us? I wrote a letter to Bill core and
Speaker 2: he actually called me. You know, I was like the
Speaker 2: first intern they had, you know, Jeff Bradley and those
Speaker 2: guys were like who are you and why are you here?
Speaker 2: And so they just kind of brought me under the wing.
Speaker 2: And but but Bill and Ben are so they're so
Speaker 2: just generous, kind, you know, mild tempered. I learned from
Speaker 2: them that you have to you know, like Bill Corer
Speaker 2: would would always say your name, Well, Tyler, I think
Speaker 2: we should do this. You know, hey, Andy, what do
Speaker 2: you think about this? You know, he always used your
Speaker 2: name through your interjected your name to make you feel
Speaker 2: a part of the conversation. And that's one thing that's
Speaker 2: maybe way overlooked, but it's just, you know, it's like
Speaker 2: a life lesson really, you know, treat your client, treat
Speaker 2: your friends, treat everybody the same, you know, interject them
Speaker 2: into the conversation and you're you're all looking for the
Speaker 2: best product here. And so Bill Bill Cour's you know, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: He's like the father of you know, architecture right now.
Speaker 2: And then lastly, uh Ron Pritchard is the consummate artist.
Speaker 2: And he taught me that look, you know, Ross never
Speaker 2: moved one tablespoon or teaspoon more than they had to.
Speaker 2: The economy of golf course can instruction was so tough,
Speaker 2: you know, in the twenties, with teams of horses and scoops.
Speaker 2: You know, everything was so so much more arduous than
Speaker 2: it is now. And he taught me that, look, look
Speaker 2: they didn't put all that fat around that green. That
Speaker 2: green was perched up and it fell right off from
Speaker 2: the green putting surface. There wasn't all this blown up
Speaker 2: extra mass because they didn't have the you know, they
Speaker 2: didn't have the tools to move that dirt. And so Tyler,
Speaker 2: when you're moving this dirt, or when you're building a
Speaker 2: bunker or tee, think really really carefully about why you're
Speaker 2: putting the dirt there, or why you're stripping the dirt
Speaker 2: away from there. You know, every piece matter, every little morsel.
Speaker 2: And so he really opened up my eyes to the
Speaker 2: phill pads being perched and you know, dirt movement through
Speaker 2: a sight, you know, horizon lines. You know, He's constantly
Speaker 2: still showing me, Tyler, look at Ross's notes. Here cut
Speaker 2: the bunker one and a half feet for the floor,
Speaker 2: and Phil three and a half feet for the shoulders. Aka,
Speaker 2: you're in the bunker, you're four and a half feet
Speaker 2: below those shoulders. Then you add in sand, so you're
Speaker 2: four feet below those shoulders. You know, so that's something
Speaker 2: like the details and the Ross notes. You know that
Speaker 2: Ron just has beaten into my brain that so many
Speaker 2: guys don't, I don't think understand, you know, like it's
Speaker 2: supposed to be a hazard, it's supposed to be a
Speaker 2: half stroke penalty. You're not supposed to reach the green.
Speaker 2: Sometimes from one hundred and eighty yards inside his bunker.
Speaker 2: Ross had a four foot burm. You're four and a
Speaker 2: half foot burm, you know, face bunker. So if you
Speaker 2: can't reach the green, you shouldn't have hit it in
Speaker 2: this hazard. So Ron is such a you know, historian,
Speaker 2: and such a guy who's you know, he's almost in
Speaker 2: the wrong era, you know, he deserves to be around
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty and you're.
Speaker 1: One of the younger architects. What's the biggest challenge.
Speaker 2: Well, well, you know, exposure, you know one. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've never had the stomach for self promotion, you know,
Speaker 2: so I really have never had a website until this
Speaker 2: past year, or you know, Ron Pritcher's never had a website,
Speaker 2: and so exposure a lot, you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: the Ross guys know us, a lot of Ross clubs
Speaker 2: know us or me. But I've kind of just taken
Speaker 2: this slow you know, slow stare, you know, stairways, you know,
Speaker 2: slow climb, you know, working with Keith for a couple
Speaker 2: of years back in the mid two thousands, working with
Speaker 2: Coren Crenshaw, working with Ron Pritchard, I've tried to slowly
Speaker 2: build my brand, you know, build who I am. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm like a design build guy, and I want to be,
Speaker 2: you know, and build my company like Gill Hants where
Speaker 2: I can come in and I can shape that green
Speaker 2: for you. You know, I can shape the bunkers for you.
Speaker 2: And you know, I've been shaping twelve years now. And
Speaker 2: I feel really really confident that I can come into
Speaker 2: any club and tell them this is exactly what's going
Speaker 2: to cost, and I'm going to you know, I can
Speaker 2: point to everything. You know, I can really feel really
Speaker 2: confident about, you know, my abilities and all that. And
Speaker 2: but to answer your question, I think, you know, I'll
Speaker 2: continue to get more visibility and higher you know, bigger projects,
Speaker 2: you know, the one like you know. The one thing
Speaker 2: that's tough right now is I've interviewed at Sciota and
Speaker 2: some big, big time clubs, and I've just come up
Speaker 2: short because I'm thirty two, thirty three, Whereas somebody who's
Speaker 2: in their mid forties or fifties, you know, appeases to
Speaker 2: them a little bit more because that's what the committee,
Speaker 2: that's what their age is.
Speaker 1: And it's a fascinating thing to me, is how golf
Speaker 1: course architects rarely retire.
Speaker 2: Right, right, you know we hit our stride from you know,
Speaker 2: thirty or thirty five or forty to sixty five to
Speaker 2: seventy to seventy five and so into their eighties, right
Speaker 2: Peter Die you know, gosh, I think he's ninety two now, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, And but no, it's really just it's really
Speaker 2: tough going up against a fifty nine year old, you know,
Speaker 2: Like if I go up against Gill at Aeronomy, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, how am I supposed to retain Ironomic? It's
Speaker 2: pretty impossible, you know. So you know, but I've been
Speaker 2: fortunate to get some top one hunder clubs like Monroe.
Speaker 2: You know, they're a new client of mine. Cedar Rapids
Speaker 2: just got in the top one hundred and ninety two.
Speaker 2: You know, Northland hopefully will be in the top one
Speaker 2: hundred soon.
Speaker 1: Skokey Beverly, that's uh so we're we're sitting here in
Speaker 1: Beverly in the clubhouse Great Chicago down Ross Course, and
Speaker 1: you've been doing work with x More and Skokee and
Speaker 1: Evanston in the area, and we talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about golf scenes, like how do you feel Chicago stacks
Speaker 1: up with Philly and New York and Long Island and
Speaker 1: San Francisco. You know, we'd kind of been touching the
Speaker 1: major metro areas.
Speaker 2: Right, No One. The one thing that you need for
Speaker 2: great golf is land, you know. And the unfortunate part
Speaker 2: with Chicago is it's so flat in so many areas.
Speaker 2: And then you know the golf courses that stick out
Speaker 2: in Chicago obviously that we talked about earlier, Chicago Golf,
Speaker 2: Shore Acres, all down, Beverly and Skokee, all five of
Speaker 2: those courses have really great land in some part of
Speaker 2: their proper. And even though you know, people may say, oh,
Speaker 2: Shoreykers is pretty darn flat with one nine eighteen, but
Speaker 2: the ravines are so on god, I mean there's so
Speaker 2: they come into play so well, like rain Or routed
Speaker 2: that thing so well. I think you ten eleven, twelve
Speaker 2: twelve is epic. Thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: The idea of him bypassing the lake, yea, going into
Speaker 1: those ravines, like everybody's like, how is it not on
Speaker 1: the lake is like, well, it's probably the one of
Speaker 1: the greatest routings of all.
Speaker 2: Time exactly exactly, So Chicago, it's just in my opinion
Speaker 2: I've seen. I feel like every time I'm in Chicago,
Speaker 2: I try to walk another golf course. And so yesterday
Speaker 2: I went and saw three other golf courses, you know,
Speaker 2: and and I have just a couple more on my
Speaker 2: radar left to sea. But it's just you're just so
Speaker 2: disappointed when you go onto a golf course and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: the land is so devoid a character. You know, I
Speaker 2: wish there were there was more character. And one thing
Speaker 2: that I won't go too far down the rabbit hole though,
Speaker 2: is Chicago was early Ross, so from like Hinsdale in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirteen to Beverly in nineteen nineteen. The lagrange Lagrange
Speaker 2: was probably one of his last in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 2: So in eight years there from nineteen thirteen and nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty one, Ross, did I think ten golf courses toned. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the only one knock is that there's a lot
Speaker 2: of back to front greens, you know, not a lot
Speaker 2: of them have supreme amounts of character. Because it was
Speaker 2: early Ross. It was teens, you know, Ross really started
Speaker 2: interjecting a lot of character and heavily bunkering his golf
Speaker 2: courses more in the twenties because he was he was
Speaker 2: you know, changing his practices and theories because the ball
Speaker 2: was advancing and the you know, steel shafts were coming
Speaker 2: into fruition in the late twenties, and so then he
Speaker 2: started more heavily bunkering his fronts of greens and putting
Speaker 2: more bunkers out there, and then adding more character into
Speaker 2: putting services. So unfortunately for Chicago is it's early ross.
Speaker 2: So a lot of them are pretty basic greens perched up,
Speaker 2: still really solid routings, but flat, you know, like oak parks,
Speaker 2: pretty flat, you know, but these they got these great
Speaker 2: perch screens, you know, and and h X more. You know,
Speaker 2: it has a role in the land. There a little bit,
Speaker 2: you know, a bluff where the clubhouse is, but it's
Speaker 2: pretty flat, you know, Indian Hill, you know, pretty flat.
Speaker 2: They have drainage problems, it's so flat. And uh, you know,
Speaker 2: Hinsdale has some rolls out there. Lagrange has a few rolls.
Speaker 2: But to to finish off what I was, you know,
Speaker 2: getting at is, you know, Chicago is such a great city.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite cities, and I live here tomorrow.
Speaker 2: But it's just the golf is a little flat you know,
Speaker 2: it's a little boring. Whereas you go to Philly and
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, the stuff's in your face. You
Speaker 2: go to northern New Jersey, New York, it's in your face.
Speaker 2: Boston really hilly. You know, California we just talked about
Speaker 2: even in La with bel Air and those great ravines
Speaker 2: and arroyos and you know, that thing's in on the
Speaker 2: side of a mountain almost you know, in Beverly Hills
Speaker 2: and and Riviera, you know with the golf you know,
Speaker 2: clubhouse way up on there, and you know, like l
Speaker 2: A CEC maybe one of the best restorations in the world.
Speaker 2: You know that guilded out there. It's great property, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's I always say Chicago, we we lack like
Speaker 1: the star power of that. And really what it comes
Speaker 1: down to his land, like we have so many great
Speaker 1: like second tier golf courses, but we just don't have
Speaker 1: like a plethora of top tier courses where like a
Speaker 1: New York you know, you you go down the list
Speaker 1: and you get to ten and you're still like this
Speaker 1: world class golf course. We get to three two. But
Speaker 1: I mean, so we're at Beverly and it's one of
Speaker 1: the core it's obviously constricted by by being inside Chicago proper.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're in the hub. I always joke it's
Speaker 1: the loudest golf course in the world. You got planes
Speaker 1: flying over you. But it's also one of the most
Speaker 1: unique in the sense of its history, the history of
Speaker 1: the land. How do you approach a project like Beverly
Speaker 1: where you have a rich championship history, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you looking at when you start to develop
Speaker 1: a master plan?
Speaker 2: What we look at, you know, is I came into
Speaker 2: the clubhouse and I got together with Kirkspeth, the superintendent,
Speaker 2: and I said, look, I need to get up in
Speaker 2: the attic, you know, I need to get in the
Speaker 2: clubhouse and find anything I can, you know, And like
Speaker 2: Ron Pritchard, he's found old Ross master plans, Like he
Speaker 2: found an old Ross plane at Country cub of Buffalo
Speaker 2: that they never knew existed. And so he's found I
Speaker 2: think four or five original Ross plans tucked away in
Speaker 2: the attics and in old lockers. And so we first
Speaker 2: tried to do that and try to find stuff that
Speaker 2: maybe isn't around or even known, you know, like at
Speaker 2: Mountain Lake, I found a nineteen thirty seven aerial on
Speaker 2: the Florida University of Florida's historical database and they they
Speaker 2: never had any aerials before nineteen fifty. And so it's
Speaker 2: things like that where we really make our you know, value,
Speaker 2: We bring our value where we try to find and
Speaker 2: research all the old aerials, any photography, all the old
Speaker 2: news clippings. And I have a couple of guys who
Speaker 2: I work with who do a lot of research with me,
Speaker 2: who helped me out. So we first tried to do
Speaker 2: a research period and say, okay, what did it look like,
Speaker 2: and then we try to get a timeline of you know, okay, Beverly.
Speaker 2: Beverly was a Georgia O'Neil from nineteen oh eight, and
Speaker 2: it's almost identically routed. Now, you know, Ross came in
Speaker 2: and just changed a few holes on the front nine.
Speaker 2: The back nine is pretty much almost O'Neil from nineteen
Speaker 2: oh eight. So when you see the nineteen oh eight
Speaker 2: on logo, it's pretty much in nineteen oh eight golf course.
Speaker 2: Ross came in nineteen eighteen, nineteen nineteen, and I have
Speaker 2: all the newspaper clippings, and so we show the club
Speaker 2: the George O'Neil routing, and we show them the Ross
Speaker 2: you know, changes in nineteen eighteen, nineteen nineteen. It opened
Speaker 2: in nineteen nineteen, and there's all these great newspaper articles
Speaker 2: about those changes. He filled in a pond on fifteen
Speaker 2: or on sixteen, and then he lowered the ridge on
Speaker 2: eleven that we looked at this morning. He rebuilt a
Speaker 2: couple you know, he rebuilt every green site. The George
Speaker 2: O'Neal greens were very flat right on the ground, and
Speaker 2: so Ross perched all the greens, and so he was
Speaker 2: not very heavy handed in a routing sense, but in
Speaker 2: an architectural sense, with adding the bunkers, perching the greens,
Speaker 2: putting the character in the greens. So then we go
Speaker 2: through and we try to unmask the layers. Okay, what okay,
Speaker 2: nineteen oh eight we have that. Nineteen eighteen we have
Speaker 2: what Ross did pretty much, you know, from the newspaper
Speaker 2: articles and everything. Then we see, okay, nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 2: we have all these great photos because they had the
Speaker 2: US amateur that Francis. We went one and Bobby Jones
Speaker 2: was here, everybody was here. We have all these incredible
Speaker 2: photos from nineteen thirty one. But we do know from
Speaker 2: nineteen eighteen to nineteen thirty one, some things changed. Chick
Speaker 2: Evans was local great golfer, and he came in and
Speaker 2: he had a proclivity where, you know, he loved tinkering
Speaker 2: with bunkers and putting these little noses on all these bunkers.
Speaker 2: So we see in the nineteen thirty one aerial that
Speaker 2: they're start to become these noses in you know, ten
Speaker 2: to fourteen of the bunkers where chick Evans was kind
Speaker 2: of tinkering out here. So then we kind of okay,
Speaker 2: we know what chick did. Then we see aerials from
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine. We have forty nine, fifty nine, seventy one,
Speaker 2: you know, all the way up to eighty five. And
Speaker 2: then now then the trees started, you know, encroaching. All
Speaker 2: the trees were planted in the fifties sixty seventies. Then
Speaker 2: the fairway line shrunk, then the green shrunk. Then they
Speaker 2: brought in Bob Lohman and a couple other guys in
Speaker 2: the eighties and they rebuilt Green number seven, number eight,
Speaker 2: and they moved to Green number nine because of the
Speaker 2: green irre because of the expansion of yeah, of I
Speaker 2: call it highway eighty seven because it's like a highway,
Speaker 2: but eighty seven street. And so we know that those
Speaker 2: three greens were rebuilt. And then we do know that
Speaker 2: Green six was rebuilt, but we think by Ross because
Speaker 2: we have an aerial that shows it mid movement when
Speaker 2: they pushed back seventy for the old lake Miss Chicken
Speaker 2: Bluff to come into play. So we basically know what
Speaker 2: greens were rebuilt, how the routing was and so then
Speaker 2: we begin to build our master plan with all that,
Speaker 2: you know, the foundation of all that stuff. We say, wow,
Speaker 2: well we got to do a lot of tree removal,
Speaker 2: you know, because we're going to try to open up
Speaker 2: the playing corridors. We're going to open up the widen
Speaker 2: out the fairways, put the bunkers back to where Ross
Speaker 2: had them, you know, rebuild the t's, lowered them a
Speaker 2: little bit. You know, in the eighties they brought in
Speaker 2: all this fill, you know, a contractor somebody did. All
Speaker 2: the t's are five feet in the air. They're all perched,
Speaker 2: and so we're going to try to beat down the
Speaker 2: t's you know, to six or six inches to a
Speaker 2: foot above grade, widen them out.
Speaker 1: Better workout.
Speaker 2: You walk up the help right right, every tea bucks
Speaker 2: five feet in the air. You know, it's like where
Speaker 2: did the caddies stand?
Speaker 1: It's funny, I came. I've played here in twenty ten
Speaker 1: for the stadium and yeah, I for I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about the tea boxes. But then we come out
Speaker 1: here and like it's like one of the first things
Speaker 1: that you notice, Like when you come with a different
Speaker 1: you're looking at it, of course from a different lens
Speaker 1: and different perspective. Now it's but god, it looks so
Speaker 1: much better with it with the tree removal. I mean,
Speaker 1: the corridors, being able to uncover all the different green
Speaker 1: sites and seeing them close together, and the layers and
Speaker 1: you know, having bunkers on other greens that deceptively look
Speaker 1: like they're on on other holes. I mean the routing
Speaker 1: was really good for O'Neill. I mean he, I mean
Speaker 1: he did a great job.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. I mean the routing at Beverly, the back nine
Speaker 2: is I don't know how you can do any better.
Speaker 2: I've tried to think about it, but yeah, it's it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean so now we're just detriating the property,
Speaker 2: trying to expose the topography because what you know, what
Speaker 2: we talked about earlier is why Chicago golf you know,
Speaker 2: why is it just lacking and why is it a
Speaker 2: little you know behind other metro areas because of the topography. Well,
Speaker 2: what is Beverly blessed with unbelievab topography. I mean, it
Speaker 2: is a roller coaster out here. It is like being
Speaker 2: in Philly or New York, or it's like being in
Speaker 2: San fran you know, and it has these big valleys
Speaker 2: and big high points, and so we want the topography
Speaker 2: to be the star here and the show, you know,
Speaker 2: expose that and we're going to add you know, light
Speaker 2: fescue throughout the golf course, so we have that aesthetic.
Speaker 2: So we have that pleasing you know, those different colors
Speaker 2: out here in the summer, and you know, just really
Speaker 2: expose its assets and get the golf course back and
Speaker 2: you know, and hopefully bring it back in the really
Speaker 2: top five conversation as you know, Chicago Golf Club.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's there. I I mean, I'm I'm biased.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a classic golf course lover, and my my
Speaker 1: top five is different than a lot of the magazines.
Speaker 1: So it's but this is this has always been a
Speaker 1: place that ever since I played here that back then.
Speaker 1: I just love this place. It's it's got so much
Speaker 1: and it is it's a aspect of the land. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's got some really interesting holes and it it
Speaker 1: it's got fairway slopes, it's got you know you have
Speaker 1: to hit over, it's got some blindness to it. It's
Speaker 1: got really unique green positions where they're perched on up
Speaker 1: on like little knoles where you you know, as what
Speaker 1: we've seen with the tree removal out here is it's
Speaker 1: bringing back these infinity style greens that you know, really
Speaker 1: mess with your eye and then mess with your mind
Speaker 1: when you're standing over a shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the best thing I learned from Mike
Speaker 2: Strands growing up and traveling with my father to go
Speaker 2: see you know, World New Ken and Caledonia and True
Speaker 2: Blue was Mike Strands would beat you off the tee
Speaker 2: before you even hit your first shot at Tobacco Road.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh my gosh, the fairway looks like it's
Speaker 2: it's non existent. And so the mental part of golf,
Speaker 2: you know, that is so underrated, where you're you know,
Speaker 2: interjecting that doubt before you even hit the golf ball
Speaker 2: on Beverly has that in so many locations where you're
Speaker 2: on seven and you're like, how far is how far
Speaker 2: is it to clear that bluff? You know, we're on eleven.
Speaker 2: Where is the fair way out there? You know you're
Speaker 2: hitting a blind t shot. And so it's these little
Speaker 2: things that golfers you know, take for granted or don't
Speaker 2: really even you know, have interjected into the game. You know,
Speaker 2: the doubt, the blindness, the the little you know, the
Speaker 2: scariness off the tee of Wow, the punkers look scary
Speaker 2: out there, like I better avoid these hazards.
Speaker 1: Who's your mount Rushmore of golf course architects.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a Flynn homer, which is funny because I
Speaker 2: work so much. I work so much on ross.
Speaker 1: But I think Flynn's super underrated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you take his top five. I mean
Speaker 2: you got Shinna Cock and you know Huntington Valley and Lancaster.
Speaker 2: You know, Lancaster Country Club has maybe the best routing
Speaker 2: in America, you know, and Tom Doak I think has
Speaker 2: hit on that, but Lancaster is unparalleled and routing. I
Speaker 2: think it's the best routing in the world actually, And
Speaker 2: so Flynn growing up in Philly, playing Hunton Valley, playing
Speaker 2: Philly Country. I'm in Flynn, Homer. You know Marion Marion
Speaker 2: is a Flynn golf course. I mean Flynn. Flynn redid
Speaker 2: Marion for nineteen eighteen, nineteen twenty four AM, nineteen twenty AM,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty open. You know, he tinkered with that all
Speaker 2: the way up until thirty two, and so he almost
Speaker 2: pretty much rebuilt Marion three times.
Speaker 1: It drives me nuts because here in Chicago there was
Speaker 1: an estate course called mill Road Farm that was a flynn.
Speaker 2: That the longest flynn ever. They called it.
Speaker 1: The Oakeman of the Midwest. And he had a running
Speaker 1: bet with professionals that nobody could break par and I
Speaker 1: think only Tommy Armor broke Parr, like one guy of hundreds,
Speaker 1: if not thousands of pros that came through broke Parr.
Speaker 1: And then he also did Pine Meadow, which is a
Speaker 1: public course here. Unbelieve it is a great piece of land,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately Joe Lee got his hands on it and
Speaker 1: now there's a bunch of lakes and a bunch of it.
Speaker 1: But that would be a really cool place to see
Speaker 1: go back because it's owned by a bunch of nuns. Whoa, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty neat. It's I think the Jemsick family owns
Speaker 1: the property, so yeah, or it has the long term
Speaker 1: lease on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But wow. Well to answer your question though, you
Speaker 2: know the Mountain Rushmore Flynn would be my number one.
Speaker 2: You know, I wish he just didn't live that long.
Speaker 2: You know, he died and I think in nineteen forty
Speaker 2: or thirty nine, and it was just a pretty you know,
Speaker 2: or maybe it was forty four, I think, but it
Speaker 2: was it was before the depression ended. And but it Flynn.
Speaker 2: And then you know, I love Walter Travis because his
Speaker 2: greens are so you know, I'm throwing a wild card
Speaker 2: out there, and Walter Travis because he.
Speaker 1: Got two wild Yeah.
Speaker 2: But you go of the Cape Rundle. I did that
Speaker 2: project for Bruce Hepner and Doak and bro Cape runnal
Speaker 2: of greens. It's like many Augusta greens. And then you
Speaker 2: go to a country club a trolly and and I mean, gosh,
Speaker 2: there you know country Clovis Scranton that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2: I mean the you know, Travis had such a great
Speaker 2: mind for greens. He was such a great putter. So
Speaker 2: Flynn Travis. You know, I gotta go with Ross obviously,
Speaker 2: you know for routings and just you know, the guy
Speaker 2: was a genius. I just don't know how he did it,
Speaker 2: you know, and and and then Mackenzie, you know, because
Speaker 2: McKenzie had that flare, you know, that sexiness. You know,
Speaker 2: he was just man, he was a wild drinker and partier.
Speaker 2: I've heard all the stories down in Australia, you know,
Speaker 2: like he would he would knock off work at two
Speaker 2: and man he'd be in the bar told midnight, you know,
Speaker 2: with his bottle of I think of a Scotch or
Speaker 2: whatever he drank, you know, whiskey. But uh, but so
Speaker 2: those five how many are my Rushan were four? Though? Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I gotta leave.
Speaker 1: You got you got four Ross, Flynn, Travis and Mackenzie.
Speaker 2: Boom, there we go.
Speaker 1: Gotta I gotta gotta leave a lot.
Speaker 2: Of Sorry Rainer, Sorry, I love those guys, and but man,
Speaker 2: when you knock them down to Ford stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. It's there's so many good ones out
Speaker 1: there and you're not even including any of the modern guys.
Speaker 2: You sorry, Martin, I'm sorry modern guys. I'm a homer
Speaker 2: for the old stuff.
Speaker 1: I am too. Yeah, there's nothing, nothing better than that.
Speaker 1: I think I've part of the best part of the
Speaker 1: why they're so popular now is that they were designed
Speaker 1: for championship golf now and it's perfect for every day
Speaker 1: golf now exactly. So it's all right, well, uh, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do some overrated, underrateds. So let's start with template holes.
Speaker 2: Overrated. Sorry, Yeah, they're there's a place for them. But
Speaker 2: you know, I've seen them all. They work, they're great.
Speaker 2: Old McDonald's really cool. But when you find that one
Speaker 2: golf hole, like you go to Woodhill and you're on
Speaker 2: the second hole and it's literally a two or twenty
Speaker 2: hole where if you hit the green you might make
Speaker 2: it two, but if you miss the green, you might
Speaker 2: make a twenty, like an engineer's you know, one of
Speaker 2: those two or twenty holes, and you're like, I've never
Speaker 2: seen a ross hole like this, you know, out of
Speaker 2: all the golf courses I've seen. So I like the
Speaker 2: ones where it's you know, the land is dictated the
Speaker 2: hole and it's like a one off and you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, how cool is this hole? You know,
Speaker 2: Like yesterday I was down at how you met in
Speaker 2: the sixteenth hole. There it's like this volcano par three.
Speaker 2: This green's way up on this bluff. It's the highest
Speaker 2: one on the golf course. It's like, WHOA, how cool
Speaker 2: is that? Part three? And I know they've messed around
Speaker 2: with that green and knocked it down a little bit.
Speaker 2: But now, I think when you utilize the land and
Speaker 2: you have a really unique hole, you know, like a
Speaker 2: seed of rabids. The ninth hole is five hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty yards, but it gently climbs all the way up
Speaker 2: this big valley to a punch bowl green and you're like,
Speaker 2: wait a second, you have a blind punch bowl green,
Speaker 2: like an alps hole at the end of this unbelievably
Speaker 2: big valley hole that's reminiscs in an eighteen green and
Speaker 2: you're like, I've never seen anything like this in golf
Speaker 2: and wow, You're just like this is cedar rabbits. And
Speaker 2: then like another hole of cedar rabbits. There's a they
Speaker 2: call an old burial Indian mound. There's a mound that's
Speaker 2: fifty two feet in the air on the fourteenth hole
Speaker 2: and you hit a drive out to this flat fairway
Speaker 2: and then this green's fifty two feet in the air
Speaker 2: or forty eight feet in the air that goes away
Speaker 2: from you, and you're like, this is so cool because
Speaker 2: it's unlike anything I've seen. And so yeah, the templates
Speaker 2: have their spot and they're great and they were Dans
Speaker 2: so great. And then you know beer ritz you know,
Speaker 2: but like how about the beerrits at Somerset Hills that
Speaker 2: you know, it's what ten eleven, twelve thirteen, you know
Speaker 2: that that Tilly put in there. It's like it's a
Speaker 2: par four burrits, you know, and that was nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2: That was pretty freaking early for you know, burrits. Really cool.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of the best architecture breaks rules, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like nobody would build a green on a
Speaker 1: fifty two f foot mound that runs away now a
Speaker 1: blind running away at green. But it's so neat that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like, you know, the most interesting
Speaker 1: routings are the ones that are very extreme, like you
Speaker 1: talked about with Northwood climbing up and then the ninth
Speaker 1: hole is all the way far away from the Northland,
Speaker 1: far away from the clubhouse. Like that's not an American
Speaker 1: golf traditional sense, and it's a different So yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you see with Rayner and McDonald, a lot of
Speaker 1: the greatest holes are non template holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're one offs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a Yamen's Hall and eleven at Shore Acres.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly what we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fifteen at Short Acres. Yeah, like probably the two
Speaker 1: best holes.
Speaker 2: On the golf two favorite probably, yeah, are.
Speaker 1: Non template holes. So that's That's something that frustrates me
Speaker 1: sometimes with Rainer is that everybody says, like, oh, the templates,
Speaker 1: so he just had the same, but like the holes
Speaker 1: that he found on each property were exception.
Speaker 2: He utilized the land so well with that surveying background
Speaker 2: of his. You know, he found he found the edens,
Speaker 2: you know, he found the dands, he found the burritz,
Speaker 2: he found you know, the prized dog leg and the
Speaker 2: road holes. He found them. So it took skill. Then
Speaker 2: Rainer was awesome.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. He didn't know anything about golf until mind
Speaker 1: boggling McDonald hired him for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just blows your mind. But like Yale, Like
Speaker 2: how good is Yale? You know that's a great land, Yeah,
Speaker 2: really great land, like almost mountainous land, like going up ten.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a skyscraper in front of you you know,
Speaker 2: and left of two. You know, it's like a forty
Speaker 2: five foot drop into that bunker. Yeah, Like, well I
Speaker 2: better not hit it.
Speaker 1: Left overrated, underrated professional golf.
Speaker 2: There's a place for it. There's definitely a place for it.
Speaker 2: But to answer your question, overrated in this time period,
Speaker 2: I think it was underrated maybe back in the day,
Speaker 2: you know, professional golf. They weren't paid well, those guys
Speaker 2: were like grinding awesome. Now it's just irks me a
Speaker 2: little bit that these guys just line it up on
Speaker 2: you know, and just bang it straight. I just I
Speaker 2: love the Bubba's and the guys who work the ball
Speaker 2: and the Freddy couples who hit the buttercut, you know,
Speaker 2: working the ball, I think.
Speaker 1: As a lost art both doesn't spend it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ball didn't spend and the grooves and all that,
Speaker 2: and there's just too much money, you know, involved, and
Speaker 2: there's there's just no you know, I'm a field player.
Speaker 2: I hit a cut fade, you know, I worked the
Speaker 2: ball around, and I just feel like there's there's none
Speaker 2: of that really left. There's just a couple guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I hope there's a Hickory revolution. I
Speaker 1: played with hickories in northern California, and it's just that
Speaker 1: it brought a lot of artistry and mid irons and
Speaker 1: stuff back into play. And really, especially when after you
Speaker 1: walk around a golf course like Beverly and you think
Speaker 1: about playing it from fifty yards shorter off the tee.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like, oh, all of a sudden, like
Speaker 1: this is a lot. This is a very difficult shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have to be really good. It just would
Speaker 1: bring so much balance back into it. But it's it
Speaker 1: is more structured now, and.
Speaker 2: The wind would blow that ball, that ball would move
Speaker 2: and drop suddenly. You know, it's almost like a knuckleball
Speaker 2: how the ball used to fly and it would just
Speaker 2: like come out of the air and just stop and
Speaker 2: you're like what happened?
Speaker 1: And then if you hit a really if you hit
Speaker 1: a bad one, it just it goes no.
Speaker 2: Where this hits. We're just tailing, you know, zero right,
Speaker 2: you know, left or right.
Speaker 1: Part of me though, thinks sometimes that that would be
Speaker 1: better for the higher handicap because they would go less
Speaker 1: off line. Like today, the ball just in the equipment.
Speaker 1: They high handicap players rarely hit the ball online and
Speaker 1: the ball just soars offline further.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it goes further and further away from the line
Speaker 2: to play. Yeah, like wow, I really hit that one
Speaker 2: at that time. But whoa, look how far right it's going.
Speaker 1: Like it's like I you know, growing up caddying for
Speaker 1: like really good women. They just kept the ball in
Speaker 1: front of the I'm like a lot of times they
Speaker 1: didn't get but you know, the end of the end
Speaker 1: of the day they shoot eighty two and it's like
Speaker 1: they did it by just keeping the ball in front,
Speaker 1: like keep it in playing. It's yeah, it's crazy, but
Speaker 1: everybody wants to hit it far. So last overrated, underrated
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties Donald Ross.
Speaker 2: I would say, oh, well we're finally getting to where
Speaker 2: they're you know, back in the limelight. So I would
Speaker 2: say twenties are over or nineteen twenty will be overrated.
Speaker 2: His his real his his unbelievable era. I was like
Speaker 2: twenty four to twenty eight, twenty nine. You know he
Speaker 2: went on a run there when where Ross did a
Speaker 2: ron him. Then they went up the Mountain Ridge Plainfield,
Speaker 2: then down the Seminole. I mean they had a run
Speaker 2: there of like four years from twenty seven to thirty one.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. You know, they were like on fire.
Speaker 2: This guy's his crew. Yeah, so late twenties underrated, early twenties.
Speaker 2: I think he was just coming into his real real
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: How old would he have been then? He would have
Speaker 1: been about fifty years old.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he was Yeah, eighteen ninety nine when he emigrated,
Speaker 2: he was I think he was twenty seven. You know,
Speaker 2: he was born in eighteen seventy two, so he was
Speaker 2: twenty seven when he emigrated. So yeah, twenty nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 2: he was fifty, so he was forty eight in nineteen twenty.
Speaker 2: What happened is in nineteen twenty one he really spiked
Speaker 2: up his work. But then that's also when his wife died,
Speaker 2: So I think he had a little he had, you know,
Speaker 2: from nineteen twenty to nineteen twenty three or four, he
Speaker 2: just wasn't focused, I don't think because his first wife died,
Speaker 2: you know, Susie or and she was or you know,
Speaker 2: I think that really took his his uh focus away.
Speaker 2: But in nineteen twenty one, he had like thirty nine projects,
Speaker 2: So nineteen twenty one was his busiest year, but then
Speaker 2: his wife was dying, So I think kind of from
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty three, it might be overrated,
Speaker 2: you know, and then he like got his focus back,
Speaker 2: and from twenty four to thirty one, when the you know,
Speaker 2: when the real effects of the Great Depression knocked his business,
Speaker 2: you know, to zero. I think they had like three
Speaker 2: projects in nineteen thirty thirty one, you know, Jeffersonville and
Speaker 2: PA was one of them, and it was a public
Speaker 2: golf course. But in twenty nine, twenty eight, twenty seven, woo.
Speaker 2: I mean they were really really doing some incredible stuff.
Speaker 1: So all right, Tyler, thanks for coming on. It was
Speaker 1: thanks fun talk. We'll have to do it another one
Speaker 1: for sure, you know, another subject. You got a lot
Speaker 1: of knowledge from those travels.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I love traveling. I mean that's all I
Speaker 2: do is go walk off course as much as I can,
Speaker 2: and I know it's addicting. I love it. It's my favorite
Speaker 2: thing to do. And thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, for the young guys in golf architecture,
Speaker 2: you know, the next wave, you know, thanks for exposing
Speaker 2: us a little bit. You know, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, and uh yeah, we can follow you
Speaker 1: on Twitter.
Speaker 2: You on Instagram too, I am, but you know social media,
Speaker 2: it's like I just don't have the time. And both
Speaker 2: at Tyler aid Design so people.
Speaker 1: Can find you there and then they can they can
Speaker 1: go check out your site too, So it's all right.
Speaker 1: Thanks again and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 2: Great, thanks Andy, but you've been listening to the fried
Speaker 2: Egg podcast. We do the digging for you.