Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: I apologize to everyone for the long hiatus from this podcast.
Speaker 1: This fall has been very busy with the launch of
Speaker 1: the Shotgun Start and then a lot of other stuff
Speaker 1: including ton of travel, So just been a little bit
Speaker 1: of a break. But we are going to be coming
Speaker 1: back strong now with at least hopefully weekly podcast for
Speaker 1: the remainder of twenty eighteen and then twenty nineteen also,
Speaker 1: so expect a lot of new interviews to come up
Speaker 1: in the near future. Today, I'm really excited for the
Speaker 1: first part of a two part podcast with Colin Shean.
Speaker 1: Most of you probably won't recognize his name. He is
Speaker 1: the Yale golf coach and a former prolific golf writer.
Speaker 1: He played at Yale, also for a golf magazine in
Speaker 1: the late nineties and early two thousands, and also published
Speaker 1: a book about the US Amateur in the mid two thousands.
Speaker 1: So Colin is a great golf course architecture mind, college
Speaker 1: golf coach and also a founder of the Outpost Club.
Speaker 1: So we had a great discussion. It's going to be
Speaker 1: a two part podcast, and part one focuses in on
Speaker 1: the Yale golf team his coaching there the Yale Golf
Speaker 1: course and then amateur golf and the USM. So I
Speaker 1: hope you guys enjoy. Part two will be up either
Speaker 1: later this week or for Monday of next week without
Speaker 1: further ado. Here is Colin I miss the.
Speaker 2: Green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my
Speaker 2: ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I
Speaker 2: find my ball in a Brida Egg Friday Egg, the
Speaker 2: dread and Friday Friday, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Fridagg brid
Speaker 2: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off with the hup.
Speaker 1: You graduated Yale in nineteen ninety seven, how would you
Speaker 1: say that college golf has changed since then?
Speaker 2: Like all int of athletics, probably getting more serious, taking taking,
Speaker 2: sort of following the lead of revenue generating sports. We're
Speaker 2: very lucky in the IVY League. We're not part of
Speaker 2: the machine that is the NCAA. We're in the NIT,
Speaker 2: We're in the we're amateur athletics, and we remain so.
Speaker 2: In some ways we're closer to D three, where the
Speaker 2: kids pay to come to school, and yeah, they get
Speaker 2: a little bit of support in the process. They don't
Speaker 2: let us support unqualified candidates, but they help, they help.
Speaker 2: It does help sort of, you know, help grease the
Speaker 2: skid for the for the applicants. But the kids in
Speaker 2: at least in terms of golf. The beautiful thing is
Speaker 2: they take it so seriously and it's not any it's
Speaker 2: not getting covered on Sports Center, and it's there's very
Speaker 2: little attention. If it wasn't for the occasional parent or girlfriend,
Speaker 2: that wouldn't be any spectators. And yet the kids play
Speaker 2: their hearts out. They put it all on the line.
Speaker 2: Very lucky. It's one hundred and twenty two year old program.
Speaker 2: We had twenty one nation old championships, calling the Hickory
Speaker 2: Crafted era, but uh, it's it's truly amateur athletic in
Speaker 2: the best sense of it. And you know, academics are
Speaker 2: the top priority, but their sport is a close second,
Speaker 2: and they're dedicated to their craft. We face we face
Speaker 2: some sort of headwinds of academic rigor and or an
Speaker 2: academic threshold and the recruiting pop protests, and we are
Speaker 2: in the Northeast.
Speaker 1: You touched on a little bit being student athletes. Uh
Speaker 1: no scholarships. Uh, I imagine the class riggers of an
Speaker 1: IVY league university have a you know, a large effect
Speaker 1: on practice time. How how much less would you say,
Speaker 1: in terms of hours at the course or hours practicing
Speaker 1: do IVY League players spend then your Power Conference players.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question. I wonder how much Illinois practices.
Speaker 2: There's an NCAA limit to twenty hours on six days
Speaker 2: of the week, but I know the kids can voluntarily
Speaker 2: practice more than that. I mean, we're lucky. We start
Speaker 2: at the end of August when classes begin, and the
Speaker 2: kids go pedal to the medal for about five six
Speaker 2: weeks and by then they're running on fumes around around
Speaker 2: the time of midterms and when classes are really starting
Speaker 2: to really ratchet up. So we'll practice during the week
Speaker 2: three to six. We're very lucky. The Yale golf course
Speaker 2: is only twelve minutes from campus, and in that time
Speaker 2: you go from sort of a downtown area of New
Speaker 2: Haven out into the sort of forest where you don't
Speaker 2: see a single house from anywhere on the course. It
Speaker 2: really is a on its own. Just leaving campus at
Speaker 2: two forty five, getting to the course on some beautiful
Speaker 2: day in September, did balls for half an hour and
Speaker 2: then play like a twilight nine with your teammates or
Speaker 2: some of your best friends. Like it's a pretty good
Speaker 2: three hours on just some weekday. Afternoon, you come, they
Speaker 2: come back to campus around six fifteen, go to the
Speaker 2: dining halls, feeling refreshed, feeling wonderful. Yeah, seriously, but we
Speaker 2: don't you know, we don't have that. I don't have
Speaker 2: that conflict of interest about the about the sort of
Speaker 2: performance of the team, about having that sort of be
Speaker 2: It's never a job for the kids. You know, they
Speaker 2: don't need to be motivated. And I don't suspect I
Speaker 2: don't begrudge any kid who goes to a major conference
Speaker 2: and maybe even accepts a little scholarship money. I don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm always impressed with the kids that do that.
Speaker 2: They have a sort of vision, and but you wind
Speaker 2: up working for the program, you know, they sort of
Speaker 2: own you. And a lot of coaches like they want
Speaker 2: their kids eligible, but they need them maximizing their practice,
Speaker 2: and and you know, the kids don't. I don't find
Speaker 2: it hard for them to have a quality undergraduate experience
Speaker 2: trying to balance a series serious athletic commitment in addition
Speaker 2: to being a student, in addition to having an addition
Speaker 2: to sort of taking advantage of it was four years,
Speaker 2: should be four wonderful years of your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So you've won Coach of the Year a
Speaker 1: couple of times in the Northeast saw Yeah. And you
Speaker 1: guys have won a bunch of Ivy League championships since
Speaker 1: you've been there, a bunch of McDonald Cups, a lot
Speaker 1: of the ternaments that you play regularly, you guys have won.
Speaker 1: How would you say that your approach to coaching these
Speaker 1: kids differs from either, you know, the coach you had
Speaker 1: at Yale or and also other coaches you see around.
Speaker 2: Well. I had a legend when I was at Yale,
Speaker 2: Dave Patterson. He was there thirty three years born in Paisley, Scottish,
Speaker 2: Emma Gray. He was there from nineteen seventy five to
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight. He was he was wonderful. I
Speaker 2: don't want to compare. I definitely do not want to
Speaker 2: compare anything that I did to him. He's he's amazing,
Speaker 2: or any of the other coaches in the IVY League.
Speaker 2: I just my own approach. I try to be relaxed.
Speaker 2: I sort of have a degree. I have a serious
Speaker 2: degree of sympathy for the kids and as they navigate
Speaker 2: being an undergraduate, being in college, being eighteen to twenty two,
Speaker 2: trying to play golf. I do my best in the
Speaker 2: recruiting process, try to get try to get some really
Speaker 2: good players. The team's success helps helps that, and you know,
Speaker 2: I try to have them just be in in just
Speaker 2: a sort of positive mindset, try to have it, try
Speaker 2: to have his little stress and drama. On the team
Speaker 2: side of things, we never focus on winning. We go
Speaker 2: to tournaments with with with a team that's always pretty good,
Speaker 2: but we you know, we just focus on being the
Speaker 2: being the smartest team out there, the fewest unforced airs,
Speaker 2: like hedging and playing the odds, knowing when to attack
Speaker 2: and when to be smart, and when to lay back,
Speaker 2: and and things you might do on your own when
Speaker 2: you're playing tournaments in the summer. Don't aren't really sort
Speaker 2: of maybe always appropriate for for the you know, for
Speaker 2: a situation when you're when you're playing on behalf of others,
Speaker 2: there's we kind of we kind of look down on
Speaker 2: stupid choices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never really thought about that. But the playing
Speaker 1: team golf with the five five. So in college golf,
Speaker 1: five scores, you have five players and four scores count,
Speaker 1: like a quadruple bogie from one of your players, like
Speaker 1: is devastating.
Speaker 2: And team golf, yeah, like they're going to have bad days,
Speaker 2: they're going to miss shots, but like you can't ever
Speaker 2: let your score be any higher than it should have been.
Speaker 2: And I've got certain players who love to attack and
Speaker 2: take risks. You know, I got to give a shout
Speaker 2: out to Johnny Lai class of seventeen. I mean, the
Speaker 2: guy just you know, he you know, he was he
Speaker 2: was like Maverick out there. It was dangerous. But but
Speaker 2: I've had a few others Henry deserves a shout out.
Speaker 2: Sometimes just hating driver being aggressive and I'm not going
Speaker 2: to stop that. I you know, I sometimes I and
Speaker 2: sometimes enjoy watching that. But you're right, you can't. You know,
Speaker 2: there's just there's just an entirely different element played on
Speaker 2: behalf of others. That's the most beautiful thing about it.
Speaker 2: Like you you sacrifice on behalf of your teammates to
Speaker 2: sort of be prepared for that tournament. You sort of
Speaker 2: you get work done earlier in the week. You don't
Speaker 2: necessarily go out a certain night. You you know, you
Speaker 2: spend an extra half hour being you know, a dress
Speaker 2: seen sort of aspects of your game that needed. And
Speaker 2: then for to have five guys go out over a
Speaker 2: fifty four whole tournament to sort of compete under pressure
Speaker 2: down the stretch, to have those scores sort of add
Speaker 2: up to a team went after the fact is just
Speaker 2: it's fabulous and for the and for the for a
Speaker 2: player to be the one that sort of drags the
Speaker 2: team across the finish line is just There's there's nothing
Speaker 2: more gratifying than that.
Speaker 1: Johnny Laie all time uh golf name. You've mentioned the
Speaker 1: Yale course a couple of times, so it's the top
Speaker 1: rated collegiate golf course in the country. Do you think
Speaker 1: it has like an impact on recruiting? Does it help
Speaker 1: you get kids because you play a better golf course
Speaker 1: than most schools.
Speaker 2: I think it has to. I'm very so all all
Speaker 2: all all conversations about the Yale golf course, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: must include the sort of disclaimer that I'm biased, that
Speaker 2: I think it's fabulous, and I actually I have to
Speaker 2: defend it a lot of times to the other coaches,
Speaker 2: particularly you know, Michael Hugh's up there at Brown and
Speaker 2: Will Green down at Princeton. There's sort of there's a
Speaker 2: lot of Yale course haters. There's a lot of blind
Speaker 2: shot haters, you know McDonald. There's people that don't see
Speaker 2: the light. But the facility is incredible. Like I said,
Speaker 2: twelve minutes from campus in and it feels like you're
Speaker 2: in a nature preserve. You could be in western Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: It's like you're up in the Berkshires. When you're playing,
Speaker 2: it's it's like, yeah, it's it's It gives you that
Speaker 2: sort of just feeling of being away. It really was.
Speaker 1: I having been there recently, I can attest to this.
Speaker 1: I was, I was in New Haven, I was staying
Speaker 1: down there and I was looking around when I got in,
Speaker 1: I'm like, God, it's so flat, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what everybody talking about with this, you know wilderness
Speaker 1: that is Yale. And all of a sudden, the next
Speaker 1: morning I'm driving up and it just like transforms about
Speaker 1: five minutes outside of the course and you're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: these are the hills and everything, and then you're there.
Speaker 1: It's just so secluded and it's a it's an incredible
Speaker 1: golf course. I found myself midway through my first round
Speaker 1: telling the guy I was playing with, fellow podcast guest
Speaker 1: Riley Johns. I was saying, God, I need to move
Speaker 1: to New Haven. I want to play this place every day.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, so smart guy.
Speaker 2: You're a smart guy.
Speaker 1: So in terms of you know, everybody always always says,
Speaker 1: you know, the Yale course, what it could be versus
Speaker 1: you know what it is and what it is now
Speaker 1: is a great golf course. But what do you think
Speaker 1: the ceiling on the Yale course if it ever, you know,
Speaker 1: reached its full potential and got back to it's you know,
Speaker 1: original self. So say with with great conditioning.
Speaker 2: Right, So you know, I'm very blessed. I get to
Speaker 2: play some good golf around you know, here and there.
Speaker 2: And I don't think there's a course in America that
Speaker 2: when I come home from playing it that I don't
Speaker 2: think Yale stands shoulders shoulder with. So it's in a
Speaker 2: it's in a it's in the peer group of the
Speaker 2: first order whatever that is, first twenty five courses. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to suggest it's top ten, but you know,
Speaker 2: like if even at some point it whatever, whatever Chicago
Speaker 2: Golf is rated, Yale better be ranked higher. Whatever you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's in the twenties it's in the low twenties,
Speaker 2: it's in the high teens. That's a restored Yale. I
Speaker 2: think the date it opened it was in the top
Speaker 2: ten in America and now it's one hundred and ninety nine.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting story. But it's you just you can
Speaker 2: tell that it's it's ceiling is at some point this
Speaker 2: course is that conversation are just so good. It's just
Speaker 2: you know, you're splitting hairs. You're splitting hairs among the
Speaker 2: sort of grade eating whole courses of America and Yales
Speaker 2: in that conversation.
Speaker 1: Having been around it so long and so many times,
Speaker 1: what's the aspect of Yale that and the course that
Speaker 1: you love the most.
Speaker 2: There's no question it's challenging, but it's wide. It's come
Speaker 2: back to the field in terms of difficulty in the
Speaker 2: modern age with equipment. I think that the idea of
Speaker 2: the golf course it presents it has a sort of
Speaker 2: a deceptively playable, fair, sort of straightforward strategy of sorts
Speaker 2: like it's it's not a complicated course to solve, but
Speaker 2: it's challenging. And I think like in that era of
Speaker 2: McDonald's golf, like they didn't every client had a different request,
Speaker 2: and Yale came along, brought McDonald out of retirement essentially
Speaker 2: to build his design, his last course. And on the
Speaker 2: committee that Yale put together included an undergraduate who was
Speaker 2: Jess Sweetzer, who had just won the US Amateur that
Speaker 2: fall at the country Club, beating Bobby Jones, and you know,
Speaker 2: among others. And I think that was the course that
Speaker 2: McDonald and Rayner built that was intended for the highest
Speaker 2: caliber of golfer in the country. It was the closest
Speaker 2: thing to essentially a building someone trying to build a
Speaker 2: US Open venue from that era. I mean, that's really
Speaker 2: what it was. It had to be essentially a standard
Speaker 2: scratch score of like seventy eight when it opened in
Speaker 2: the Hickory era, with wound balls and wearing tweed jackets.
Speaker 2: Even the drive on one alone, I mean, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was not a course for everybody. Even though there
Speaker 2: were three sets of teas and they did promote three courses,
Speaker 2: there were just certain bunkers that I can't imagine your
Speaker 2: average person would have could have, could have could have
Speaker 2: recovered from.
Speaker 1: I think it's like an endemic, like a problem with
Speaker 1: American golf, with like where a bunker people feel like
Speaker 1: they have to be able to easily recover from nowadays.
Speaker 1: I remember during the US Open, people were appalled when
Speaker 1: guys were missing in a bunker at Shinnakok and couldn't
Speaker 1: keep the ball on a green. And it's like if
Speaker 1: the ball, if that was a water hazard, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody would ever complain about it, you know, and the
Speaker 1: guy would be dropping and hitting his third shot or
Speaker 1: his fourth shot instead of having a chance to make
Speaker 1: a bunker shot and you know, make a birdie. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to me because like a really deep bunker
Speaker 1: at Yale, say, like the second, you know, if you
Speaker 1: hit it in there, it's essentially like going into the water,
Speaker 1: right and.
Speaker 2: You can play that shot. You know. It's it's not
Speaker 2: an the way the sort of I'm fascinated that those
Speaker 2: bunkers predate the sort of bounce the Saracen wedge. You
Speaker 2: would have had to just open up a sort of
Speaker 2: thin soled niblick in the old days and play a
Speaker 2: play a really sort of clever h picked bunker shot
Speaker 2: out of the out of the out of the sand.
Speaker 2: It must have been. It must have been so hard.
Speaker 1: When when you guys have the McDonald Cup and all
Speaker 1: you know, you get this year you had Illinois there,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of tiers. Years ago you had
Speaker 1: Illinois there with you know, they have now four or
Speaker 1: five guys from that team that are on you know,
Speaker 1: either at the web dot Com PGA Tour or European Tour.
Speaker 1: What did What kind of shots are they hitting into
Speaker 1: the greens now versus you know this golf course that
Speaker 1: when it opened and was like a par seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just it's unfair the loft of the iron
Speaker 2: they're hitting into the greens like seventeen for those for
Speaker 2: any good college kid, you know, the longer hitters on
Speaker 2: my team, it's drive and pitching wedge. The Principal's nose
Speaker 2: is an is an afterthought. There's there's a number of
Speaker 2: bunkers on the course that my players are never going
Speaker 2: to be in. They're never they're never in the right
Speaker 2: trap on seven. They're no longer in the bunkers on eight.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just that those shots, those targets used
Speaker 2: to ask you to sort of approach them with the
Speaker 2: loft of a four or five or a present day
Speaker 2: six iron, and it's just it fundamentally alters the sort
Speaker 2: of the difficulty when it's a nine iron or eight
Speaker 2: iron or sandwich. That's that's unfortunately, you know. I think
Speaker 2: the hole it plays the most differently today from from
Speaker 2: in the nineties is eight. I tell this to people,
Speaker 2: it's become a birdie hole for the for the good
Speaker 2: college golfer. They rip driver up on the ridge, they've
Speaker 2: got an attacking wedge, they see the pin, they see
Speaker 2: the green, they've got the bank on the right to help,
Speaker 2: and they're generally disappointed if they're not ten feet with
Speaker 2: like a good luck at Bertie and the old days
Speaker 2: hit a spinny driver with like the original great big birth.
Speaker 2: We're a big Bertha and have one sixty seven and
Speaker 2: a crosswind in early April, with the approach was blind hitting,
Speaker 2: hitting like a six iron and praying not to miss
Speaker 2: an either bunker. I mean, that was how you played
Speaker 2: the eighth hole at Yeo. You tried not to make
Speaker 2: a nine. And now it's like a birdie hole, you know. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: that's the reality of where we've let the ball and
Speaker 2: the game go. I'm so disappointed that a game of
Speaker 2: tradition let itself let itself get sort of run rough
Speaker 2: shot over by the equipment by a sort of a
Speaker 2: sort of a compliant regularly you know, governing body and
Speaker 2: and uh technology companies run amook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, it's crazy that like uh businesses that
Speaker 1: profit off the game or have more power than the
Speaker 1: governing body in a sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a shame that, like, you know,
Speaker 2: even though for as much as baseball changes, Wrigley Field
Speaker 2: and and Fenway Park and are the identical dimensions and
Speaker 2: they're still using sort of you know, ash bats and
Speaker 2: and the ball might be changing a little, but essentially
Speaker 2: it's the same game. Like I can't believe we weren't
Speaker 2: able to stop it at some point. But and so
Speaker 2: I don't think I don't think a course has been
Speaker 2: more has been more adversely affected, more adversely affected than Yale.
Speaker 2: Just do you the The NCAA said they love to
Speaker 2: bring a national chance being shipped. Yeah, we've offered it
Speaker 2: would be a wonderful place in late May, early June.
Speaker 2: We'd have we'd be able to have these amazing events
Speaker 2: for the field on campus. And yet we need to
Speaker 2: add we need to add four They've told us we
Speaker 2: need to add four hundred yards to our golf course.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Minimum minimum, I mean minimum, it's us. So
Speaker 1: I played there a couple of days and it was funny.
Speaker 1: I was playing with you. I ripped a t shot
Speaker 1: on one with a regular driver, regular ball, had a
Speaker 1: wedge in, and then I pulled out the hickory shafted
Speaker 1: driver with a ballotta ball, and I barely carry the
Speaker 1: water by like three yards. I mean I carried the
Speaker 1: water hazard by three yards. I would have had like
Speaker 1: two twenty blind shot into the first green, and instead
Speaker 1: I had one hundred and thirty yards with a and hit.
Speaker 1: It gives a little pitching wedge into the green, and
Speaker 1: I mean, it's madness to me.
Speaker 2: There's in the original in the original description of how
Speaker 2: the first hole was played, they reference if you didn't care,
Speaker 2: if you didn't hit your drive far enough, you'd have
Speaker 2: a blind shot. They're implying that it was they They
Speaker 2: projected that people would be on the upslope of the
Speaker 2: fairway and have a blind shot from two ten into
Speaker 2: the green. Think about that hole right out of the blox.
Speaker 2: That's already a that's already a four point five, that's
Speaker 2: already a par five out of the Blox in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty six. Yeah on want yell alone, and now yeah,
Speaker 2: now they just now the guys sply driver and they
Speaker 2: get a sort of kicking a forward into the right
Speaker 2: sort of kick to the middle of the fairway and
Speaker 2: down below and it's it's a nine iron or wedge
Speaker 2: or whatever. It's Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so, if you could make one change to college golf,
Speaker 1: what would it be.
Speaker 2: Well, everyone would wagh if you could wave the magic
Speaker 2: wand you'd have golfers would play in four hours and
Speaker 2: threesome would it would be done in four hours and
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes. I understand why pace of play is an issue.
Speaker 2: You're trying, like we mentioned earlier, you can't shoot a
Speaker 2: stroke higher. You don't want to shoot a single stroke
Speaker 2: worse than you you could have had. You know, you
Speaker 2: have to take your time on short putts. That really
Speaker 2: is it. It's it's the putting that sort of is
Speaker 2: a is the sort of is the speed bump. But
Speaker 2: if I could change, I wish that clubs would also
Speaker 2: make themselves more available. It's a shame. The majority of
Speaker 2: the college golf schedule is uh is Monday Tuesday events
Speaker 2: with a Sunday afternoon practice round. It's understandable why it's
Speaker 2: when the facilities are made available. So, but that's a
Speaker 2: lot of class being missed. I know, maybe you know,
Speaker 2: even the sort of major programs that's that has to
Speaker 2: add up trying to race home from a tournament flying
Speaker 2: on a Tuesday night. Nothing can go wrong in the
Speaker 2: in that process trying to you know, or else the
Speaker 2: kids might miss another day of school. I would love
Speaker 2: to see a culture of of of architecturally significant courses,
Speaker 2: private clubs voluntarily contributing their facility to a venue and
Speaker 2: may and and and and maybe even doing it sort
Speaker 2: of on a Friday, Saturday Sunday event with a Friday
Speaker 2: practice round. And so maybe that's wishful thinking, but that's
Speaker 2: one thing I would change.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I agree with that we have in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Theo CDGA runs our tournaments and like in recent years,
Speaker 1: I remember when I was growing up, we played, they
Speaker 1: played a lot of really great golf courses. But these
Speaker 1: recent years they've you know, you can just tell that
Speaker 1: that they aren't getting the access to the great clubs
Speaker 1: that they used to. And I'm I'm thirty two. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if I play, Uh, you know, a state
Speaker 1: amateur at Olympia Fields versus you know, uh Okay golf course,
Speaker 1: Like that doesn't matter. But I think, really, when I
Speaker 1: think about it holistically, what it matters for is the
Speaker 1: fifteen year old kid that qualifies for the State am
Speaker 1: you know, and it's his first real championship golf experience.
Speaker 1: And it's like if that kid's playing at Olympia Fields
Speaker 1: or you know, Chicago Golf or Shore Acres or in
Speaker 1: those championship conditions as opposed to playing, you know, a
Speaker 1: a course that never was a championship golf course, when
Speaker 1: he get when he qualifies for his first USGA event,
Speaker 1: he's going to be so much more ready for it.
Speaker 1: And that's where it matters. And it's the same thing
Speaker 1: with the college program, Like playing great golf courses helps
Speaker 1: your kids. I imagine when they are trying to get
Speaker 1: to the next level or when they're playing those USAM
Speaker 1: events and all of a sudden you step it up
Speaker 1: a step up into a USGA event. It's a whole
Speaker 1: different beast than playing you know, your local you know,
Speaker 1: County Open at Joe Blow Public Golf Course.
Speaker 2: It's it's different, and they get excited about it. And
Speaker 2: imagine that fifteen year old kid and he's like he's
Speaker 2: got his eyes on qualifying for that event, and he's
Speaker 2: going to treat it. It's going to be indelible in
Speaker 2: his memory of like of being in those early you know,
Speaker 2: when kids play that the first time they ever play
Speaker 2: a course that had a major or anything in that
Speaker 2: type of echelon, Like that's such a major milestone for kids.
Speaker 2: And then you know, and that's turning them on to
Speaker 2: sort of architecture and and seeing just sort of right
Speaker 2: measuring themselves against you know, adults, and absolutely you know,
Speaker 2: Ran Morset recently had some list about the custodians of
Speaker 2: the game and and I understand his his list sort
Speaker 2: of focused on architecture, and but I I remember very
Speaker 2: clearly thinking immediately like it should be custodians of the
Speaker 2: game are that that term is for the clubs that
Speaker 2: answer the question like what did you do for the
Speaker 2: junior golf this season? Did you make yourself available for
Speaker 2: an event or a qualifier or a women's, a girls junior,
Speaker 2: an amateur event? Like what who do you let play
Speaker 2: your course? Do your how often do the caddies get out?
Speaker 2: Is it limited to mondays to do the sort of
Speaker 2: female members have equal sort of representation at the club.
Speaker 2: What did what did your course do to grow the game?
Speaker 2: And you know, we're very lucky here at Yale that
Speaker 2: you know, they've got clinics and they're trying there and
Speaker 2: they've got they're constantly introducing grad students to the game
Speaker 2: and undergrads and the New Haven sort of first t
Speaker 2: projects like that's a custodian of the game, and host
Speaker 2: the Junior PGA two day thirty six hol you know,
Speaker 2: section event winner that goes on to the Junior PGA.
Speaker 2: Like we need courses to have to in clubs to
Speaker 2: feel that obligation that it's you know, and they did
Speaker 2: a lot, do you know a lot? Don't you know? Nothing?
Speaker 2: Nothing annoys me more than a club, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of this concept that no one plays there, there's no
Speaker 2: one ever on it. You know, it's like, who's what
Speaker 2: good is that? What? You know? Of course that's their prerogative,
Speaker 2: but are they are they what are they doing to
Speaker 2: serve the game. And that's to me when I think
Speaker 2: a lot of courses, and I have a lot of
Speaker 2: respect for the courses that go out of their way
Speaker 2: to do that, I really do, and and that make
Speaker 2: themselves available for those section events and and host charity
Speaker 2: events or whatever. It is like, you know, have that
Speaker 2: have where the pro has a thriving junior participation, where
Speaker 2: they've where they've you know, really dedicated themselves towards towards
Speaker 2: having the sort of the juniors at the club sort
Speaker 2: of engaged and playing and competing in inner clubs and
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What what amazes me too, is like, you know,
Speaker 1: we had this one event and it's like we had
Speaker 1: two guys reached the final of this like our state
Speaker 1: match play tournament. It's like we had two guys that
Speaker 1: reach the final. That are two guys that play in
Speaker 1: Crump every year and they're two of the best midams
Speaker 1: in the country. It's like, it is that a big
Speaker 1: hassle for your club to like have, like to the
Speaker 1: twenty five best midams playing a thirty six hole final
Speaker 1: on a Thursday, Like what did you want that? If
Speaker 1: you're if you're a club, like when you want to
Speaker 1: go watch that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: It's just it's kind of nutty to me. It's like
Speaker 1: you don't want to have like the best players in
Speaker 1: the state. Like I get that it's a pain in
Speaker 1: the ass, and not being able to use your club
Speaker 1: is one thing, but like you know, it's it should
Speaker 1: be more. It should be looked at as an honor
Speaker 1: all a lot of these things. And that's the way
Speaker 1: it was, you know when when these courses were built,
Speaker 1: it was an honor. I mean that's what this was
Speaker 1: all centered around. Like you look at the Philly School,
Speaker 1: like the Philly School of Architecture. Those guys did that
Speaker 1: so they stopped getting their ass kicked by New York
Speaker 1: and Boston and the Leslie Cup.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That's why they started building Marion and Pine Valley and
Speaker 1: all those other great Philadelphia golf clubs. Is like they
Speaker 1: did that so that their amateur golfers could contend.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you wrote a book after you graduated college
Speaker 1: about the history of the US Amateur Golf Championship outside
Speaker 1: of you know, CB MacDonald's exemplary start to the US
Speaker 1: am Who did you find to be the most interesting
Speaker 1: or the most underappreciated amateur winner that kind of goes
Speaker 1: overlooked in history.
Speaker 2: Well, I just quick correction. It was published and I
Speaker 2: wrote it. I was hired when I was twenty eight.
Speaker 2: I wrote it mostly when I was twenty nine, so
Speaker 2: it was No. Four h five And by the way,
Speaker 2: I joke that I'll never know the experience of childbirth. However,
Speaker 2: book took nine months and weighed seven pounds, and it
Speaker 2: only got completed with an incredibly painful final push that
Speaker 2: would have been a whole lot better on drugs. It
Speaker 2: was also simultaneously the worst business decision I ever made
Speaker 2: and the most gratifying thing I've ever done. Mike Beckridge,
Speaker 2: the publisher, he offered me nine thousand dollars to do it,
Speaker 2: and I thought I was I told him he needed
Speaker 2: to throw in a complete set of the classics of golf,
Speaker 2: and when he said yes, I thought that I somehow
Speaker 2: pulled a fast one on him, like I was getting
Speaker 2: a deal. But it was a labor of It was
Speaker 2: a labor of love. I wrote it from West seventy
Speaker 2: second Street. I interviewed forty seven past champions. I didn't
Speaker 2: have a car at the time. I would take I'd
Speaker 2: get up at six thirty in the morning and I
Speaker 2: would I would take the Red Line from West seventy
Speaker 2: second Street to Grand Central or No To to Penn Station,
Speaker 2: and then I would take the sort of New Jersey
Speaker 2: railroad out to Far Hills and then I would hitchhike
Speaker 2: from the Far Hills train station to the USGA Library
Speaker 2: together at nine o'clock, and I would I was. I
Speaker 2: spent a few weeks just pouring through the archives and
Speaker 2: photocopying everything I could, and you know, and they would
Speaker 2: make me have to take twelve to one off when
Speaker 2: the when the sort of archives were closed, and I would,
Speaker 2: I guess I'd go outside and have a sandwich and
Speaker 2: read what I had already sort of worked on. But
Speaker 2: it was a it was a really great experience, Let's see,
Speaker 2: it was it was beautiful to track the history of
Speaker 2: the game. Of course, there was for the for the
Speaker 2: first twenty five thirty years, the US Amateur was sort
Speaker 2: of the more prestigious tournament. The amateur Amateur amateur golfers
Speaker 2: through the twenties were every bit that equal of the
Speaker 2: professional slightly better obviously with Bobby Jones, but there was
Speaker 2: a state, There was a slew of great players. It was.
Speaker 2: It was fascinating to watch how it evolved, how it grew,
Speaker 2: how it moved back and forth. In those days when
Speaker 2: it was basically there was a stretch when it was
Speaker 2: it was Garden City and Chicago golf, and there was
Speaker 2: a genuine rivalry between the East and the West, and
Speaker 2: real partisan nature of it with with the players. I
Speaker 2: found the h you know, and then I'd say, I
Speaker 2: you're probably you probably you probably too young to remember him.
Speaker 2: Maybe two of the most compelling stories in the US
Speaker 2: Amateur was Mitch Voges, who was forty one when he
Speaker 2: won in nineteen ninety one at the Honors Course. He
Speaker 2: was there with his family and his kids. As soon
Speaker 2: as he was knocked out of the tournament, they were
Speaker 2: going to go on a family vacation and go see
Speaker 2: the Black Bears. And the guy had been a great
Speaker 2: player briefly was at BYU. He was playing basically club
Speaker 2: events in southern California, and it was a totally amazing
Speaker 2: story and in how he made it to the tournament
Speaker 2: through match play blisters the size of half dollars on
Speaker 2: his feet and he beat Manny Zerman in the finals,
Speaker 2: you know, one of those sort of all American college golfers,
Speaker 2: really remarkable. And how he went on to play in
Speaker 2: the Walker Cup that year at Port Marnick, and two
Speaker 2: years earlier was an equally fascinating story of Chris Patten
Speaker 2: was three hundred pounds, an All American at Clemson, and
Speaker 2: he won the US Amateur at Marion. And I think
Speaker 2: his parents he grew up on a soybean farm in
Speaker 2: rural South Carolina. Real sort of great ass. Fleet was
Speaker 2: a sort of slugger and in in Little League and
Speaker 2: and with it got played once before Christmas one year
Speaker 2: when he was twelve, his parents got him a set
Speaker 2: of clubs and he went out and shot a one
Speaker 2: to twenty seven. And then by the following summer he
Speaker 2: was like a he was like a scratch golfer.
Speaker 1: That's nute.
Speaker 2: And then the last practice round at home before he
Speaker 2: left for mary and he made like ten birdies in
Speaker 2: a row on his way to go to Marion. And
Speaker 2: what was interesting is he was always presented as an
Speaker 2: oddity because he was overweight, He was kind of a
Speaker 2: it was it was kind of really easy to portray
Speaker 2: him as like a southern redneck. And he was. Of
Speaker 2: all the people I interviewed, I would always transcribe when
Speaker 2: I was transcribing them, you know, some of you had
Speaker 2: to edit more than others. And Chris Patten actually like
Speaker 2: spoke in these perfect paragraphs is and he gave the
Speaker 2: best answers, and I felt like either one of those
Speaker 2: guys could be, could could have, could are sort of
Speaker 2: ore have the material for a for a movie or
Speaker 2: a story or a book on their wins, fleshing those
Speaker 2: out like really great, really great struggle, and I think
Speaker 2: what the my one of my favorite takeaways from the
Speaker 2: book was that inevitably, in order to win the US Amateur,
Speaker 2: especially in the current format, especially, every single player has
Speaker 2: an inevitable moment where they're on the ropes where they
Speaker 2: in some cases it's surviving a playoff to get to
Speaker 2: get through the sectional qualifying, or to be in the
Speaker 2: sort of the match, the sort of group sudden death playoff,
Speaker 2: to be the last those on the number trying to
Speaker 2: get into match play, or being you know, two down
Speaker 2: with three to go in the second round, or one
Speaker 2: down with one to go. And I love those moments
Speaker 2: where essentially they were they were on the they were
Speaker 2: on the verge of elimination long before the finals, because
Speaker 2: you cannot win the Amateur without multiple scares. You know,
Speaker 2: look at Tiger Woods. He went to the finals of
Speaker 2: every final hole of every of every match he was in.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I always I always enjoyed those moments where
Speaker 2: someone felt like they they're sort of their their luck
Speaker 2: had run out and and somehow they sort of, you know,
Speaker 2: because of the vicissitudes of the game, they were able
Speaker 2: to chip in from the edge of the green and
Speaker 2: their opponent like three putts from twelve feet like things
Speaker 2: like that. I always love.
Speaker 1: That's that's the thing with that USAM. It's funny because
Speaker 1: like the PGA Tour has their match play tournament, and
Speaker 1: they've over the years it's become less and less of
Speaker 1: a match play tournament.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Now it's got round robin pool play to figure out
Speaker 1: the sixteen. And it's like they just can't seem to
Speaker 1: embrace the the underdog story or like the interesting story
Speaker 1: of you know, everybody always goes back to when was
Speaker 1: it Kevin Sutherland they had, Like Kevin Sutherland was in
Speaker 1: the finals. I forgot who he was playing, but it
Speaker 1: was like the sixty third seed versus the sixty first seed.
Speaker 1: Like but in the NCAA Men's basketball tournament, I mean,
Speaker 1: that would be revered if you know, if the if
Speaker 1: a twelve seed faced off against an eleven seed people
Speaker 1: would be going nuts in the final four. And it's
Speaker 1: it's so interesting because the US am nobody knows the
Speaker 1: players yet, so there isn't this problem that like, oh no,
Speaker 1: like if if Dustin Johnson gets knocked out, as bad
Speaker 1: for TV.
Speaker 2: Right. So, by the way, in j Siegel, well, who
Speaker 2: is like a reinstated amateur, you know, was a dominant
Speaker 2: amateur in the seventies and eighties. He wins twice in
Speaker 2: like eighty two, eighty three, and he's trying to be
Speaker 2: the first player ever to win the US Amateur three times.
Speaker 2: Before Tiger did it. It was a thing like Jones
Speaker 2: never did it. No one had come around to it,
Speaker 2: you know, Harvey Ward won twice and then was in eligible.
Speaker 2: It just it was it's unusual that no one had
Speaker 2: ever wonted three times in a row. And he makes
Speaker 2: match play in Oklahoma, I think at at at oak
Speaker 2: Tree and he loses to Rocko Media giant killer, this
Speaker 2: nineteen year old kid from like Western Pa, no one
Speaker 2: had ever heard of, and he sort of it was
Speaker 2: like one of the great upsets in amateur golf. It
Speaker 2: was interesting that he merely did it to Tiger at
Speaker 2: Torrey Pines. You know kind of yeah, you know, you
Speaker 2: know Rocko, think about that nineteen year old kid. He
Speaker 2: didn't know any better. But then again, you're right, that's
Speaker 2: the beauty of eighteen holes. Bobby Jones said it. There's nothing,
Speaker 2: nothing more perilous for the for this sort of favorite
Speaker 2: than an eighteen home match. Anything can happen. I really,
Speaker 2: by the way, I really a golfer who but all
Speaker 2: of the med compelling stories. But Vinnie Giles sort of
Speaker 2: Marvin Vinnie Giles kind of lost on the on the
Speaker 2: sort of on the sort of golf history scene at
Speaker 2: the moment he spent it. He had famously had a
Speaker 2: long career as an agent. He could have played pro,
Speaker 2: and he opted even in the mid sixties, the prop
Speaker 2: the sort of the there there was still sort of
Speaker 2: his reluctance to turn pro was like, you don't make
Speaker 2: any money. You stay at the holiday inn, you know,
Speaker 2: with the sort of with the sort of coarse towels
Speaker 2: and the and the little bar of soap like. He
Speaker 2: went to law school instead, he followed an amateur career.
Speaker 2: He didn't he even as late as the late sixties,
Speaker 2: he didn't see the sort of upside of of PGA tour.
Speaker 2: Living back then, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Do you think we'll ever see an amateur a great
Speaker 1: somebody stayed stay amateur and not turn pro and like
Speaker 1: the will we ever see another Bobby Jones Harvey Ward
Speaker 1: type player?
Speaker 2: You know, I thought maybe Maverick McNeely had that chance,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of I understand, I don't. I don't
Speaker 2: sort of second guess his decision, but he had the
Speaker 2: potential to do do just that. I think it's out there.
Speaker 2: You know, there was they, but the there used to
Speaker 2: be tons of those guys. Yeah, you know Robert Robert
Speaker 2: Sweeney who lost to Palmer up in Detroit in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty four. He was this fascinating individual. He like gave
Speaker 2: strokes to Hogan at Seminal. He was like the stylish
Speaker 2: Wall Street banker, like lived on Park Avenue and played
Speaker 2: at the at Sands Point and Seminal was like a
Speaker 2: plus two won. The British amateur went to Oxford flew
Speaker 2: for England before he and his brother helped fund like
Speaker 2: a squadron for England when it was still the Battle
Speaker 2: Battle of Britain, before like the United States even got
Speaker 2: involved in World War Two. It's like there's like types
Speaker 2: of characters out there used to be more common Willie
Speaker 2: Trenisa and his family. You're right, I would love nothing
Speaker 2: would make me happier than seeing somebody come along, you know,
Speaker 2: like you know, just like a better like Nathan Smith
Speaker 2: to like win the amateur and like and you know,
Speaker 2: sweet someone to sweep the US and British amateurs in
Speaker 2: the same year. And and I would love to see
Speaker 2: an amateur. I would like to see another amateur win
Speaker 2: on the PGA Tour. That would be good.
Speaker 1: I think that that's gonna that's gonna happen with one
Speaker 1: of these kids one of these days, right, that that
Speaker 1: all happen. I mean, yeah, Shane Lowry won the Irish
Speaker 1: Open as an amateur too, nine years ago. But the yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like it was amazing this year, Like Stuart
Speaker 1: Hagstad got to the round of eight and the U
Speaker 1: s am and everybody was like going nuts. It was like, right,
Speaker 1: It's like Stuart Hagisa is a is a great midam player.
Speaker 1: But you know, I remember he texted me once and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, like if Maverick stays stays am,
Speaker 1: I'm so screwed, Like you know, he's gonna win every
Speaker 1: single MIDAM. By the time when he's twenty five, he's
Speaker 1: gonna win every year for decades. What do you think
Speaker 1: about that at reinstated AM.
Speaker 2: I think they I think that they play like super
Speaker 2: ams for the rest of their life. And I think
Speaker 2: they're already very good. And I think that there's some
Speaker 2: aspect of those years when you were playing fifty two
Speaker 2: weeks of the year as a pro that that stay
Speaker 2: with you. They have to be allowed to come back.
Speaker 2: I have no problem with the process. I don't hate
Speaker 2: the players. I don't hate the game. You know, it
Speaker 2: is what it is. Maybe mid AM should be thirty, maybe,
Speaker 2: or maybe reinstated ams can't compete in the us AM
Speaker 2: for a certain number of years, maybe it's five. They
Speaker 2: can be amateurs, but they maybe I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't have a I don't have I don't have a
Speaker 2: strong hot take on reinstated ams. But I do like
Speaker 2: seeing I do like seeing though the story of the
Speaker 2: guy I'm forgetting his name, a guy who won the
Speaker 2: mid AM last year and he the firefighter from Brockton, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Personally, I love that.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that there's sort of a little bit the
Speaker 2: amateur scene is is wider than it used to just
Speaker 2: be a sort of you know, a sort of Pine
Speaker 2: Valley seminal crowd, which is which was great, but like
Speaker 2: you know, I'm glad to see that sort of elite
Speaker 2: kind of those sort of career amateurs that that really
Speaker 2: love to compete kind of. I like seeing sort of
Speaker 2: more and more of them coming out and coming out
Speaker 2: from sort of all over the place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we just we gotta we gotta get some
Speaker 1: of them in the U. S A M. Can't be
Speaker 1: just the mid am. You've been listening to the fried
Speaker 1: Egg podcast, we do the digging for you.