Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Fried Egg Podcast.
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Speaker 1: Hey guys, sad news in the golf course design world
Speaker 1: with the passing of Pete Dye. So Garrett and I
Speaker 1: wanted to do a little bit of a Pete Die
Speaker 1: tribute podcast. And what we did was, you know, Pete
Speaker 1: Die obviously had a profound influence on golf course architecture, uh,
Speaker 1: and he's been talked about a on this podcast. So
Speaker 1: what what I did was I kind of pulled together
Speaker 1: all of the different clips and architects talking about Pete
Speaker 1: Die over the years of this podcast, and we kind
Speaker 1: of built an episode around these clips, and we figured
Speaker 1: it'd be a great way to remember one of the
Speaker 1: most influential architects of in the history of golf. So
Speaker 1: here is Garrett and I's episode on Pete Die with
Speaker 1: the excerpts from many of today's greatest architects.
Speaker 3: I miss the green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 4: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 4: And when I find my.
Speaker 5: Ball in a brid Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 5: Egg Frida Egg Egg Frida egg Bride egg Lie, I'm
Speaker 5: about ready to run off of the.
Speaker 6: All right. So basically what we're doing with this episode
Speaker 6: is we are collecting a few clips from the podcast
Speaker 6: going back even a couple of years, where we have
Speaker 6: had various people, mostly architects, talking about Pete Dye and
Speaker 6: Pete Dye's influence. And I think that we were both
Speaker 6: surprised Andy, when we were going through these clips how
Speaker 6: rich they were and how much Pete Dye meant to
Speaker 6: How many different people would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you obviously hear it with everybody talking
Speaker 1: about how influential he was, but then listening to people
Speaker 1: like Bill Corr, Tom Doak talk about it, Jim or
Speaker 1: Bina talk about directly working with them, and the profound
Speaker 1: effect and impact that he had actually all the different
Speaker 1: stories and just getting it from the state of architecture
Speaker 1: before Pete Die to after is just unbelievable. And I
Speaker 1: think that's uh, I always, you always I remember those clips.
Speaker 1: I didn't remember Bill Corr's clip being so I mean,
Speaker 1: it's crazy because you know, you do the interview and
Speaker 1: I kept I remember him talking about Pete and I
Speaker 1: kept pulling on the thread, but I didn't remember all
Speaker 1: the stuff he said and really listening to it, it
Speaker 1: was it was pretty crazy, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah it is. It's a great clip. And and
Speaker 6: so this is basically how this episode is going to go.
Speaker 6: Where we're going to We basically have a batch of clips,
Speaker 6: and we're going to introduce them, play them for you,
Speaker 6: and discuss them a little bit. We thought that this
Speaker 6: would be a good way to reflect on Pete Die's legacy,
Speaker 6: his impact on golf architecture. So the very first clip
Speaker 6: we have is Bill cor discussing, among other things, how
Speaker 6: he got into working with Pete Dye, how Pete Dye
Speaker 6: changed architecture.
Speaker 1: How I mean, how he even wanted how he wanted
Speaker 1: to become a golf architect.
Speaker 6: Right, yeah, I mean it's amazing. So yeah, so here's
Speaker 6: here's the clip Bill Corr from episode fifty nine.
Speaker 4: But no, it was actually after I had graduated from
Speaker 4: Wake Forest and I was about to go to a
Speaker 4: graduate school of Duke and Uncle Sam decided that I
Speaker 4: should make a bit of a detour. And so I
Speaker 4: had spent two years in the Army and as I
Speaker 4: was about to get out, I saw a golf course
Speaker 4: near my home in North Carolina. Was in a town
Speaker 4: call high Point, North Carolina, and many Pete and I
Speaker 4: was designing a course there. And the course was it
Speaker 4: was called Oak Hall Public Health Course. And I had
Speaker 4: never heard of Pete guy, and I knew nothing about
Speaker 4: this golf course. And somebody said, oh, they're building a
Speaker 4: golf course not so far away. And I remember when
Speaker 4: I was, you know, I had a weekend away there
Speaker 4: from the from the Army, and I'd gone home and
Speaker 4: I went out to look at it. And it's when
Speaker 4: Pete was doing things very much like Harbortale, shorter courses, finesse, yeah,
Speaker 4: railroad sleepers, the whole thing people think about. And it
Speaker 4: was just fascinating to me. This was a course in
Speaker 4: the era of Robert trent Yale Senior. And when I
Speaker 4: saw this golf course, I thought, okay, that's kind of
Speaker 4: that's very interesting. And I think more than anything Andy
Speaker 4: that's when out there that day walking around the course
Speaker 4: wasn't open yet, but it wasn't too far away from open,
Speaker 4: and I just remember thinking, I wonder how you do this?
Speaker 4: I love golf. I think I know a good course
Speaker 4: when I see one, But how does this happen? What's
Speaker 4: the process? And you know, having been away from school
Speaker 4: for over two years, it's that decision back do I
Speaker 4: go to graduate school? And then I'm thinking, well, I'm single,
Speaker 4: I don't I don't need much money or anything I could.
Speaker 4: I might like to see how this is done. So
Speaker 4: I remember the guy who was out there watering. It
Speaker 4: was a little Sunday after the guy was at their
Speaker 4: water and of course asked him who did it. He said,
Speaker 4: I some man named Die. And again it didn't mean
Speaker 4: anything to me at the time. This was in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy one, and I said, do you know how to
Speaker 4: get in touch with you? He said, oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 4: His names and the superintendent's rolodex, and here he drove
Speaker 4: me back to the mainting the shop. We walked in
Speaker 4: there and he takes the old fashioned rollodecks where you
Speaker 4: turning around with it, you know, cards, flip cards with
Speaker 4: wooden names and dressing and phone numbers, and sure enough
Speaker 4: he finds it, finds Pete giving me his number. I
Speaker 4: began calling Pete, said badger him to say if I
Speaker 4: could get a job, just to see how this was deaf.
Speaker 4: So that was the moment.
Speaker 7: How long did it take together?
Speaker 1: Job?
Speaker 4: Quite a while? Actually, I mean I called Pete. He
Speaker 4: I remember, I blatantly made up a story that I
Speaker 4: was going to be in Florida, which I really didn't
Speaker 4: any reason to be in Florida, but as soon as
Speaker 4: I was going to get get my discharge from the military,
Speaker 4: and he said, well, if you're ever down here, you
Speaker 4: know calling, So I just I made my way down
Speaker 4: to Florida after I was discharged in the military, and
Speaker 4: I called him and he uh he interesting enough. It
Speaker 4: was another of all things on a Sunday afternoon. And
Speaker 4: and Pete he was a huge Miami Dolphins man. And
Speaker 4: this is in the time when the Dolphins were dominant,
Speaker 4: you know, the year actually I think that they went undefeated.
Speaker 4: She dodge you, larrysarka barber, these guys there. You know,
Speaker 4: it's just Pete was such a huge fan.
Speaker 7: Dophins, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4: I think so. So. I remember calling and Pete. You know,
Speaker 4: she had no interest whatsoever what I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 4: But I do remember. He said, where are you? I said, well,
Speaker 4: I'm at the whatever it is, I can't remember, some
Speaker 4: little hotel, hotel there beach and he said, sure, I
Speaker 4: can talk to you. He said, I'll be over here.
Speaker 4: But what he's gonna come over here? He wanted to
Speaker 4: watch the football game. He had a bunch of folks
Speaker 4: in his house. He came over there. I didn't know who.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what to look for. I didn't know
Speaker 4: I didn't know what he looked like or anything. I'm
Speaker 4: just asking people to walk in the door. Upe done.
Speaker 4: They all look him. No. Well then anyway, he walks
Speaker 4: in and he says, so you want to talk about Golfer?
Speaker 4: I said yes. He said, all right, let's go to
Speaker 4: your room. What and so here we go up to
Speaker 4: my room. He clops down in the bed and gets
Speaker 4: the TV face turns the football game. That's all he
Speaker 4: wanted to do was watch the football game, so he
Speaker 4: sort of absent minded. They talked to me while he
Speaker 4: watched the football game. So that was And then he said, well,
Speaker 4: we're eventually we're going to be doing a golf course
Speaker 4: up near all in North Carolina. Turned out to be
Speaker 4: the Cardinal Club in Greensboro. He said, you can come
Speaker 4: out there and maybe they will find something for you
Speaker 4: to do. It was another year over after that that
Speaker 4: they actually started a car whenever. He didn't remember me
Speaker 4: from anybody.
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, hey, you were I was persistent
Speaker 7: and he served in immedia media.
Speaker 4: You you fixed his problem.
Speaker 7: You want to watch the Dolphins, and you're probably a
Speaker 7: great excuse for him to get out.
Speaker 4: Of exactly he was able to sit there and watch
Speaker 4: the entire game. The game was over gone, you know,
Speaker 4: and so but it was. It was just one of
Speaker 4: those sort of odd things that happens.
Speaker 7: What you know, everybody talks about the railroad ties and
Speaker 7: then you know people remembering for the TPC courses he built,
Speaker 7: like you know, a regular fan, but like, what would
Speaker 7: you say is the most underappreciated aspect of Pete dies
Speaker 7: work as an architect.
Speaker 4: He changed the direction of golf architecture twice. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: no one else has ever done on that. I mean
Speaker 4: he started, you know, he first changed it with courses
Speaker 4: like Harbortown when Robert trip Jones Senior was doing the
Speaker 4: exact opposite doing, you know, par seventy two seven thousand
Speaker 4: yard championship golf courses. That was the thing, that was
Speaker 4: the motto, that was the selling point, and Pete went
Speaker 4: to the exact opposite direction. Shorter Fronest course was quirky.
Speaker 4: He had seen Ian Alice, had seen the railroad ties
Speaker 4: when they had played a lot in Scotland and thought,
Speaker 4: well that could work, we can do something of that.
Speaker 4: And it was just something that people in this country,
Speaker 4: unless they had traveled to Scotland or Ireland, they just
Speaker 4: weren't used to. So the fact that Harbor Town was
Speaker 4: so well received, I think the first tournament there was
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy and called Arno potter Wood. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: so the fact that was so well received instantly put him,
Speaker 4: you know, in the public eye as far as the
Speaker 4: golf course architect and pretty soon everything you saw started
Speaker 4: going in that direction. Well then when the TPC Jacksonville
Speaker 4: came in, which is many years later, but he changed
Speaker 4: it again completely there. So I know, I know no
Speaker 4: one else who's who's done that, who's actually changed And
Speaker 4: once Pete did Harbortown in the finesse course type type situation,
Speaker 4: and then when he changed to the more challenging, longer
Speaker 4: whatever you want to how you want to describe it,
Speaker 4: TPC type course, the next thing is almost everyone was
Speaker 4: doing the same. It was just he he literally changes,
Speaker 4: not just the direct but if you watch the progression,
Speaker 4: you saw many courses appear like like Pete's early course
Speaker 4: at Harbortown, But then after TPC you saw many many
Speaker 4: courses appear that suddenly looked like that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the architecture industry, your time has changed so many times.
Speaker 4: It's it's different.
Speaker 7: It's kind of crazy about for one man to do
Speaker 7: the life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I'm no one else done.
Speaker 7: So A lot of people say that he died of
Speaker 7: penal architect versus a strategic one. What would what would
Speaker 7: you consider.
Speaker 4: Being well andy? I think certainly I'm a bit partial
Speaker 4: to Pete's Harbor Town so speak phase or Finesse was
Speaker 4: a little more at the were stone on the golf course.
Speaker 4: And they think then they were extraordinarily strategic, playing to
Speaker 4: certain positions to get to other to get to angles
Speaker 4: and things. I think is Pete saw the game changing,
Speaker 4: meaning players eating involve farther and farther and farther, and
Speaker 4: the the I think is he then changed to try
Speaker 4: to challenge those those players at the TBC courses. They
Speaker 4: were still strategic. They were certainly strategic for you know,
Speaker 4: the best players. They still wanted to play to certain positions,
Speaker 4: usually right next to some very visible hazard. And you
Speaker 4: would always give you something to look at. There was
Speaker 4: always something in your eye as a player, and more
Speaker 4: often than not that you could play close to that
Speaker 4: you had an advantage in some way. But I think
Speaker 4: Pete and Alison in the work that they've done through
Speaker 4: the years is this is some absolutely fascinating, fascinating courses
Speaker 4: and and yet you do hear about was very penal.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of that depends on what team
Speaker 4: you you play from. I think a lot of it
Speaker 4: the situation is there's more the impression that comes from
Speaker 4: the tp C course type, famous of their of their architecture.
Speaker 4: So I see it as a strategic and penal book.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I agree. I I think I follow the strategic
Speaker 7: size because and I grew up playing.
Speaker 4: The Dia Corse in Florida like.
Speaker 7: All everyday family vacation, and you know, I still want
Speaker 7: to go there. It's all angles, and you know, you
Speaker 7: do have to see a little bit better at the player,
Speaker 7: but the strategy is so good and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's again Pete Dallas were amazing with that and
Speaker 4: the thing they were able to do too, I think
Speaker 4: Andy's they could do some really unusual type country and
Speaker 4: whether you want to call it the mounds or even
Speaker 4: the you know, the railroad ties along the water, and
Speaker 4: then the certain types of greens, shapes and angles and
Speaker 4: but it's really abrupt things that people were necessarily used
Speaker 4: to seeing and and yet they work. Yeah, it's very,
Speaker 4: very seldom l ever see a Pete Die golf course,
Speaker 4: even a whole on the Pea Die golf course that
Speaker 4: doesn't function from a playing standpoint. And the other people
Speaker 4: who then said, oh, that's what's selling now, that's what
Speaker 4: I'm going to produce, never I don't oftentimes didn't have
Speaker 4: the same insights as to how you truly played golf
Speaker 4: within the confines of the golf course, and so you
Speaker 4: would see some knockoff models, shall we say them, TPC
Speaker 4: courses that that probably were far too people because of that,
Speaker 4: there was just probably not that bit of insight as
Speaker 4: to how would this actually play, how this actually it
Speaker 4: looks like exactly visually, because they might have mounds and
Speaker 4: pot bunkers and or water down the side or certain
Speaker 4: angles and things always not the same. But when it
Speaker 4: came down to the ability to move your golf ball
Speaker 4: through the golf course and be successful, a lot of times,
Speaker 4: you know, other people just didn't have the same insight
Speaker 4: that Pete work.
Speaker 6: So Andy, what was something when you listen back to
Speaker 6: that clip, What was something that struck you that you
Speaker 6: didn't really remember that well from the interview itself.
Speaker 1: So I when I when I listened back to that clip,
Speaker 1: the thing that I forgot, you know, I always said,
Speaker 1: I always remembered him earlier in that same episode talking
Speaker 1: about Perry Maxwell and the impact that Maxwell had on
Speaker 1: his career. But I forgot that he said he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have gotten into architecture had it not been for seeing
Speaker 1: that golf course in high Point, North Carolina, which happens
Speaker 1: to be Oakallow a public golf course there, and and
Speaker 1: That's the thing I think that sticks out to me
Speaker 1: was something about what Die was doing made Core say
Speaker 1: to himself, well, I really want to be a part
Speaker 1: of this, when he probably had thought about it before
Speaker 1: that point, right, And and something about a different way
Speaker 1: that Die was doing the work, or the way the
Speaker 1: golf course presented itself differently, is what kind of made
Speaker 1: him have this light bulb moment that said I want
Speaker 1: to maybe look and see if I can do this
Speaker 1: for a career. And that's the thing that, you know,
Speaker 1: beyond anything else. And I think we have later clips
Speaker 1: that shed more light on different aspects of the things
Speaker 1: that Korr was talking about. But that's the thing that
Speaker 1: stands out to me is that Die's work in a
Speaker 1: way was inspirational and stood out amongst all the other
Speaker 1: work that was going on in that era, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, the most golf course construction work that we've
Speaker 1: ever seen.
Speaker 6: It's a very common story, in fact, where one of
Speaker 6: these architects that we're talking to goes and sees a
Speaker 6: Pete Die golf course and says, hey, there's something different here,
Speaker 6: there's something interesting here. I should look into this further,
Speaker 6: or I should go work for this guy, or I
Speaker 6: should design my golf courses differently. It's remarkable how often
Speaker 6: that comes up, just the act of somebody going and
Speaker 6: seeing a peate Die golf course in the sixties, seventies,
Speaker 6: eighties era. They were just different. There was there was
Speaker 6: something about them that struck people, took them aback and
Speaker 6: made them reassess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you often hear there's that idea of there's something
Speaker 1: more to it. And I think personally, I grew up.
Speaker 1: We would go see my grandparents every vacation growing up
Speaker 1: and they lived on a peat Die course in Florida,
Speaker 1: And whether I knew it or not, from the age
Speaker 1: of you know, six, when I would go out and
Speaker 1: hit plastic golf balls on the golf course like till twenties,
Speaker 1: I think I was learning about golf architecture without knowing
Speaker 1: I was learning, because you know, when I think about
Speaker 1: this golf course now, it's full of really interesting strategy
Speaker 1: and angles and there's plenty of space. And if you're
Speaker 1: in the wrong spot, you're in you know you're in
Speaker 1: the wrong spot because you're looking over the shot saying
Speaker 1: I really really don't want to hit this shot. And
Speaker 1: if you play the you know, if you find that
Speaker 1: line of charm, and I think that's a lot of
Speaker 1: with golf architecture. You just know there's something different about
Speaker 1: certain places. And that's the way I felt growing up
Speaker 1: is I always like going there, and I didn't. It
Speaker 1: took me a long time to conceptualize why. And I
Speaker 1: think that's with so many architects. What happens is there's
Speaker 1: just a place that's a little bit different than your
Speaker 1: status quo. This course on Floord was a lot different
Speaker 1: than the municipal golf course that I grew up playing on,
Speaker 1: and I knew that.
Speaker 6: And so the experience you're describing is the experience that
Speaker 6: a lot of different architects have had, a lot of
Speaker 6: different golfers worldwide have had. In this next batch of clips,
Speaker 6: we'll hear from Tom Doak, Brian Silva, and Jeff Mingey
Speaker 6: about their own kind of die related awakenings. So that's
Speaker 6: what you'll hear right now. Tom Doak from episode one
Speaker 6: of the Yolk with Doug.
Speaker 8: One of the very first courses I saw was Harbor
Speaker 8: Town when it was brand new, And the thing that
Speaker 8: got to be hooked on golf course architecture was this
Speaker 8: little booklet that Charles Price, the golf writer had done.
Speaker 8: It was like hole by hole diagrams. It's kind of
Speaker 8: like you for a yardage book today, except without yardages
Speaker 8: because it was nineteen seventy and people didn't play by.
Speaker 2: Yardage so much.
Speaker 8: But it had like a diagram of the whole and
Speaker 8: three really simple sentences about how to play it, like,
Speaker 8: you know, this is a short par five and if
Speaker 8: you're going for the green in two, you need to
Speaker 8: drive it left near that bunker, otherwise there's going to
Speaker 8: be a tree in your way for the second shot,
Speaker 8: you know. And it was something a ten year old
Speaker 8: could read and understand, and golf course architecture really isn't
Speaker 8: much more complicated than that.
Speaker 6: And now a clip from episode twenty six with Andy
Speaker 6: Johnson interviewing Jeff Mingay.
Speaker 1: If you were going to say, you know, what's the
Speaker 1: one thing that you would take away from Pete Die
Speaker 1: as an architect that you know, really kind of like
Speaker 1: that you admire the most, what would it be?
Speaker 9: Well, I would say the guts and the strength to
Speaker 9: be bold with your work. You know, the I deal
Speaker 9: with a lot of client clubs and I just find
Speaker 9: golfers and I say this to my committees and memberships
Speaker 9: that I work with. Golfers are soft these days. You know,
Speaker 9: they want the golf course to cater to them. You know,
Speaker 9: you do something bold, whether it be a deep bunker
Speaker 9: or a big contour or a green or something, and
Speaker 9: they're they're most of them are upset all the time.
Speaker 9: You know, they don't want golf to be golf. And
Speaker 9: you know, Pete, you know, and we all know, he
Speaker 9: actually gets a bad rap. I think because you know
Speaker 9: he got he got this reputation. At all he did
Speaker 9: was build hard golf courses. I don't believe that to
Speaker 9: be true at all. I find a lot of his
Speaker 9: golf courses to be really fun. But there's always bold
Speaker 9: features out there, you know, that that excite you to play.
Speaker 9: And I just get this sense all the time when
Speaker 9: I'm working at clubs and people want to tone it
Speaker 9: down because they don't want to. I mean, it sounds simplistic,
Speaker 9: but I often say they don't want to play golf.
Speaker 9: I mean when you go when you go to Scotland,
Speaker 9: you go to Ireland, you know, you you see stuff
Speaker 9: that is like bold and hard, and you know I
Speaker 9: got to I I talked to the Pete I one
Speaker 9: time at the uh I think it was two thousand
Speaker 9: and eight PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. I just happened
Speaker 9: to run into him and we were talking about things,
Speaker 9: and you know, he said, let me tell you something.
Speaker 9: I was all excited. He asked, you know, why do
Speaker 9: you think people play golf? And I thought I was
Speaker 9: going to get some philosophical answer, and he said, simply
Speaker 9: because it's hard. You know. Part part of the reason
Speaker 9: you play is because you always think you could do
Speaker 9: better next time, you know, and you know, and again,
Speaker 9: I really give him a lot of credit. I think
Speaker 9: he built his reputation on not being afraid to be bold.
Speaker 9: And that doesn't mean make every hole bold or every
Speaker 9: course bold, but you need you need some stuff that's
Speaker 9: going to excite people, want people to come back to
Speaker 9: play and come back to try and yeah thrills and
Speaker 9: try to try to conquer some things that are that
Speaker 9: are seemingly difficult, you know, or are difficult, and it's
Speaker 9: it's it's challenging these days, you know, I mean, especially
Speaker 9: for a guy like me. You know, I'm I'm still
Speaker 9: in the midst of building my career. I'm not a
Speaker 9: dog or a core or even a Hants or anything
Speaker 9: like that yet. But you know, when you're working at
Speaker 9: a club and you see an opportunity to do something bold,
Speaker 9: you know, your first thought is, okay, how you know,
Speaker 9: how is this going to be received?
Speaker 4: You know, am I going to be?
Speaker 9: Am I going to get fired here? Because I want
Speaker 9: to do something that's got some real character. But you know,
Speaker 9: and I follow through because I do think you guys
Speaker 9: like like Pete die and and other architecture, but you
Speaker 9: need those type of features and need those types of
Speaker 9: holes out there. But it is it's you know, it's
Speaker 9: it's a you're always thinking about the potential threat when
Speaker 9: you're when you're about to build something that you know
Speaker 9: is going to be controversial. But as you know, I mean,
Speaker 9: all the great holes in the world are are polarizing.
Speaker 3: You know, you either love them or hate them.
Speaker 9: If they're if they just shot in the middle, maybe
Speaker 9: no good.
Speaker 6: And here is Brian Silva from episode forty.
Speaker 10: Early on in my life, when I was teaching at
Speaker 10: Lake City and See during the summer when there were
Speaker 10: no classes, my job was to drive around the southeast
Speaker 10: and visit courses where my students were working on their
Speaker 10: summer on the job training thing, and I started to
Speaker 10: you know, Harbor Town and Well and even Seminole, which
Speaker 10: Pete didn't design but he was a member of. I
Speaker 10: started to think that his courses were a little bit
Speaker 10: different than other people's courses. And it wasn't just it.
Speaker 10: It was decidedly not the railroad ties or or pot
Speaker 10: bunkers or strip bunkers. There was something going on there,
Speaker 10: and and that kind of planted a little thing in
Speaker 10: my mind. I wish I had been bright enough to
Speaker 10: fully understand it. And then when I became a USJA
Speaker 10: agronomist up in the Northeast, I saw lots of golf courses,
Speaker 10: but I started to really like these McDonald and Rainer
Speaker 10: golf courses. There was something going on there. I wasn't
Speaker 10: quite sure what it was, but I knew they were
Speaker 10: different and they were fun to play, but they were
Speaker 10: still challenging. But I still was so stupid, I couldn't
Speaker 10: really boil it down to its fundamentals. And I'm going
Speaker 10: to tell you a story I never tell in public.
Speaker 10: But we used to close the office the first week
Speaker 10: in December, back when we had an office, and we'd
Speaker 10: go out to Lakitta, California. I had friends who worked
Speaker 10: for Landmark and we would play like Ryder Cup matches
Speaker 10: against them for a week. There had be four of
Speaker 10: us against four of them, and we would play Lakitita Mountain,
Speaker 10: Lakita Citrus, we'd play PGA West, we'd play the old
Speaker 10: Dinah Shore, we'd play the New Dinah Shore. It was
Speaker 10: a Pete Dye extravaganza. And again I felt there was
Speaker 10: something about his courses. And this is the truth, and
Speaker 10: I'm a little embarrassed about this. One night after dinner,
Speaker 10: I walked over to Lakinto Hotel and this was in December,
Speaker 10: about two weeks after they'd had the Skins game at
Speaker 10: PGA West, and I sat next to the fireplace, and
Speaker 10: in a little wicker basket next to the fireplace there
Speaker 10: were the program books that they sold during the Skins game.
Speaker 10: And I are you taping me? Andy?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 10: Yeah, okay, all right, then I won't use great expletives.
Speaker 10: In this wicker basket was a program and I opened
Speaker 10: it up and the centerfold. You know, only a guy
Speaker 10: interested in design can go nuts about a centerfold, which
Speaker 10: is an aerial photograph of PGA West. And when you
Speaker 10: look down on it from the sky. Immediately I said, oh,
Speaker 10: holy crap, it's all about angles. I could see the
Speaker 10: angles that Pete had put in, how a green might
Speaker 10: point down the point at the hook side of the fairway,
Speaker 10: and how there was one of his bite off strip
Speaker 10: bunkers that went down the right side, and the more
Speaker 10: you bid off, the more you aligned with the green.
Speaker 10: And I said, honest to God, I said, oh, you stupid,
Speaker 10: sob you were on the edge of this, but it
Speaker 10: didn't with the different little points didn't all go together
Speaker 10: to make you realize it. And that day what I
Speaker 10: thought about golf course design completely changed. So it was
Speaker 10: really Pete's angles hit me. I didn't fully form it
Speaker 10: in my mind or verbalize it. And then Raynard McDonald
Speaker 10: I saw more of that. And then when I saw
Speaker 10: this picture, it completely changed the way I thought. I
Speaker 10: knew my carter's for play had to be much wider.
Speaker 10: I knew we had to cut down trees to give
Speaker 10: people the width that allows alternate routes. It was really
Speaker 10: it was a interesting for me awakening. For if you
Speaker 10: said to me, Brian, what would you do different in
Speaker 10: your life? I would say to you, well, I would
Speaker 10: have gone to see all the golf courses I did
Speaker 10: when I was working at the college, when I was
Speaker 10: growing up, going to my dad's jobs, when I was
Speaker 10: a USG green section agronomous. But I would have gone
Speaker 10: and visited even more, and I would have stopped looking
Speaker 10: at the turf, looked at what I call the skeleton,
Speaker 10: the tops of the t's, the top of the fairway
Speaker 10: and the top of the green, and I would look
Speaker 10: at what angles are presented by that, because I think
Speaker 10: that that is ninety nine point nine percent of what
Speaker 10: allows a golf course to be strategic, but also what
Speaker 10: allows a golf course to be played by the average
Speaker 10: and less than average player, but what allows a golf
Speaker 10: course to still be mentally stimulating for an excellent player.
Speaker 10: To me, it's all it's angles and almost nothing else.
Speaker 10: And so this age of the Internet, Google Earth is
Speaker 10: my favorite site because when I get called, hey, this
Speaker 10: is so and so from such and such country club,
Speaker 10: I'm on Google Earth doing my homework before I get
Speaker 10: out there. And the funny thing is, you know, they'll
Speaker 10: they'll say to me when I'm walking, of course, so
Speaker 10: what do you think of conditions? And I say, look,
Speaker 10: I'll tell you what I think of the conditions, because
Speaker 10: I kind of you know, I have a turf degree,
Speaker 10: I have a master's training and plant in soil science
Speaker 10: as I was a USC at Grontos. But I said,
Speaker 10: I'm really not here to tell you about your turf.
Speaker 10: I'm interested in, if you'll forgive me, I think you
Speaker 10: should be interested in the design character of your golf course.
Speaker 10: Does it present angles, does it present alternate routes of play?
Speaker 10: And so on and so forth. So those are my
Speaker 10: influences in a long answer.
Speaker 6: Andy, So, Andy, I was telling you earlier that I
Speaker 6: actually remember listening to the Brian Silva podcast when it
Speaker 6: first came out. This is before I worked for you, obviously,
Speaker 6: and I remembered that particular story about seeing the photographs
Speaker 6: that I guess those aerial photographs of PGA West and
Speaker 6: having an awakening related to angles and about the logic
Speaker 6: of how certain greens encourage certain lines of play. And
Speaker 6: it was just so memorable because it was so clear
Speaker 6: that this was a really important moment for Silva and
Speaker 6: kind of a paradigm shifting moment for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this clip is one of my favorites, maybe my
Speaker 1: favorite in the history of the podcast for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One because he in the middle of breaking this down said,
Speaker 1: and this was, you know, thirty forty minutes into the podcast,
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that I was recording him right.
Speaker 6: Or was worried that you were that he would curse
Speaker 6: while you're recording him. It's like, yeah, okay, that's what
Speaker 6: we're doing here right where this is. This is a podcast.
Speaker 1: But then secondly, the content and just the overall message
Speaker 1: behind what he was saying. It was really powerful moment.
Speaker 1: And you know, this was before I had interviewed Bill
Speaker 1: krr And this this moment kind of ties really well
Speaker 1: in with what Core talked about and the influence of
Speaker 1: Die in the in the sense of how he he
Speaker 1: shifted and changed architecture twice, you know, and how you
Speaker 1: know he had he started to realize that work, you know,
Speaker 1: other people's work looked just like dies, but there was
Speaker 1: you know, there was a little bit different. There wasn't
Speaker 1: the full substance behind the work that the full substance
Speaker 1: that Die had. Because these people saw what Die was doing,
Speaker 1: they realized on the surface. A lot of times not
Speaker 1: I'm not saying for Silva. You know, some some people
Speaker 1: completely got it. But a lot of architects realized at
Speaker 1: the surface what Die was doing, but you know, they
Speaker 1: and it moved architecture in these directions and improved architecture,
Speaker 1: you know. But Die was still the best because he
Speaker 1: was the one that knew every layer of why he
Speaker 1: was doing this and that and this. And I think
Speaker 1: with Silva, it's a perfect example of an architect that
Speaker 1: had a great career going before this moment and then
Speaker 1: upon seeing this and realizing it and as he said,
Speaker 1: you know, you stupid, sob.
Speaker 6: Of course this is what it's about, right, It was
Speaker 6: kind of his idea that, of course, I mean, why
Speaker 6: didn't I see this before?
Speaker 1: It was a moment where you know, Silva planted his
Speaker 1: foot and his courses in architectural portfolio changed forever from
Speaker 1: that moment. And you see, you know, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of very very good Brian Silva independent designs now
Speaker 1: that happened. And it's profoundly, you know, as he put it,
Speaker 1: from seeing this aerial fully conceptualizing the brilliance of Die
Speaker 1: because he saw it for once from the sky. And
Speaker 1: I think that Silva wasn't alone in this generation of
Speaker 1: arc attacks that had similar moments upon seeing that and
Speaker 1: then you know from the dope clips, you know just
Speaker 1: it got. It inspired people to get into design too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and there are a number of ways that it
Speaker 6: could do that. Brian Silva was looking at his course,
Speaker 6: his PGA West course from the air. What jeff man
Speaker 6: Gay was describing was looking at his courses from the ground,
Speaker 6: I guess really is That's how you can see the
Speaker 6: boldness of Die's features. And that's another way in which
Speaker 6: Dies were kind of liberated people. It was so bold
Speaker 6: and at times just strange. Yes, there were bizarre man
Speaker 6: made features sometimes on his golf courses, and that had
Speaker 6: to be liberating coming out of an era when and
Speaker 6: I don't want to generalize too much here, but in
Speaker 6: era really when things were a little smoother, when the
Speaker 6: approach to golf architecture and specifically to shape being was
Speaker 6: to kind of smooth things out and make things kind
Speaker 6: of calm looking. Die was very different. He was He
Speaker 6: was willing to disrupt your emotions as you were walking
Speaker 6: through the golf course. He was willing to make people
Speaker 6: step back and say that's weird, right', what's that doing there.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it had to do with
Speaker 1: where Dye grew up too, because growing up in Central Indiana,
Speaker 1: he was exposed to, you know, one of my favorite architects,
Speaker 1: William Langford and Theodore Moreau Langford Moreau and they their
Speaker 1: work there. Some of those the courses around where Die
Speaker 1: grew up are some you'll see some of the boldest
Speaker 1: features you could find on a golf course. And I
Speaker 1: think that was a very important like Die in a way,
Speaker 1: I think the Great Depression in the World War what
Speaker 1: happened with architecture is there there was this stop, the
Speaker 1: evolution of architects had an abrupt halt, and we got
Speaker 1: this new crop. It was almost like architecture was starting
Speaker 1: over again. But Die his influences came from this Golden
Speaker 1: Age architecture what he grew up on, and you can
Speaker 1: see it early in his work. You know, his early
Speaker 1: work is very lay of the land. But then he
Speaker 1: would have these bold features, like bold greens, built up greens,
Speaker 1: and it would be very similar to that you see
Speaker 1: of Lankford Moreau in Indiana, whether it's max Entucky or
Speaker 1: Culver or Harrison Hills, all that Central Illinois or Central
Speaker 1: Indiana work. It just it mirrors a lot and I
Speaker 1: you know, I think Die with today's generation gets a
Speaker 1: bad rap because people think TPC sawgrass in that style.
Speaker 1: But there's a whole different genre of Die. The early
Speaker 1: Die is is really so much different than the later Die.
Speaker 1: And you know where the lay of the land stuff
Speaker 1: like Raderick Hills, the course up in ann Arbor is
Speaker 1: incredible golf course, like it's really fun. You know that.
Speaker 1: That's the thing with Die is the different genres of Die.
Speaker 1: And I think with any architect that lasts a long time,
Speaker 1: they go through evolution as an architect.
Speaker 6: Yeah. And one of the things also about Die is
Speaker 6: that while there are these identifiable phases of his career
Speaker 6: you were talking about early Die, there's a kind of
Speaker 6: middle period Die with the TPC courses, and then there's
Speaker 6: late period Die where you have some really bizarre stuff.
Speaker 6: But a lot of people have affection for early Die
Speaker 6: for obvious reasons. You know, you have the golf club,
Speaker 6: you have Harbor Town, and these are are wonderful courses
Speaker 6: and in quite a bit more subtle than a lot
Speaker 6: of his later work. And I think people have come
Speaker 6: to appreciate that now. But another thing that I notice
Speaker 6: about Die is that there is diversity within each phase
Speaker 6: of his work, right, he was he produced a different
Speaker 6: golf course each time. He produced golf courses with individual
Speaker 6: stamps each time. And again this was in an era
Speaker 6: when golf course production was becoming increasingly mechanized and corporate. Well,
Speaker 6: Die was really resisting that. And that's what we'll hear
Speaker 6: in this next clip from Mike Lee, who is the
Speaker 6: director of grounds at Whistling Straits or at the.
Speaker 1: The Coler properties. He's the headmen, but he's been there
Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety three, so very early. He saw black
Speaker 1: Wolf Run when it was in construction on independently. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a part of the resort yet, but he you know,
Speaker 1: oversaw construction of both straights courses and started working on
Speaker 1: black Wolf Run when he first got his job there
Speaker 1: and was in a lot of meetings with you know,
Speaker 1: Pete and and her Cohler and the Coler corporate team.
Speaker 1: So this was this interview has not aired yet, it
Speaker 1: is it is going to air in the future, but
Speaker 1: we had to pull this clip because it was it
Speaker 1: was really interesting inside look at Di's work and especially
Speaker 1: dies work with a client.
Speaker 6: Yes, okay, great, So here it is Mike Lee from
Speaker 6: a yet to be released episode of our Superintendent series.
Speaker 11: It's funny you say I haven't been around a lot
Speaker 11: of other designers, because that's exactly right. I just don't
Speaker 11: know any other way. I just in the other places
Speaker 11: I worked, we just made almost no changes. I have
Speaker 11: no concept of the way other people do things, and
Speaker 11: only the die way, and I kind of like that
Speaker 11: in many regards. But you know, the way Pete handles
Speaker 11: things is completely the opposite of the way Cooler manages things.
Speaker 11: As a company, they could they couldn't be more different,
Speaker 11: and that sparks a lot, a lot of conflict because
Speaker 11: on one hand, and I'm in the middle of this
Speaker 11: right on the one hand, I've got people telling me
Speaker 11: all the time how much things cost, when is it
Speaker 11: going to be done, who's going to do it, Whole
Speaker 11: schedules of events, on what day we're going to.
Speaker 2: Finish this, all those analytics and.
Speaker 11: Things you'd expect from a manufacturing company, which was really
Speaker 11: important to manufacturing, and Pete couldn't be the more opposite.
Speaker 11: I mean, we would go out and start looking at things.
Speaker 11: I'm thinking of Straight's eighteen, and I would bring my
Speaker 11: clipboard and my notepad because I start writing things down
Speaker 11: because this is my list. I gotta get these things
Speaker 11: done before you get back. And he would, you know,
Speaker 11: we'd get maybe a third of the way through and
Speaker 11: he said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm
Speaker 11: writing this stuff down. He said, we're not doing any
Speaker 11: of this. I said, what do you mean, because we're
Speaker 11: just talking here. We haven't figured this out yet.
Speaker 2: Put that away. You know.
Speaker 11: That was my small version of learning what they learned
Speaker 11: early on at Black Wolf.
Speaker 2: As you showed up a meeting with Pete and.
Speaker 11: You had paper with you or any plans under your arm,
Speaker 11: even of just the layout of the land. You weren't
Speaker 11: invited to the meeting you were, he asked you to leave.
Speaker 11: It's all in his head, and anyone with any kind
Speaker 11: of you know that it's going to interfere with his
Speaker 11: ability to not keep it in his head by putting
Speaker 11: it on paper.
Speaker 2: You're out.
Speaker 1: I'd never thought about it that much, that much as
Speaker 1: the the juxtaposition of you know, golf course architects like
Speaker 1: they're artists. You know, they're in their small shops, they
Speaker 1: you know, they do their craft and everybody's got their
Speaker 1: own unique way. And then a major corporation that manages
Speaker 1: the property, and there is so regiment of the world,
Speaker 1: a corporate world where you have your procedures, your policies,
Speaker 1: your steps and everything, and and golf architecture in general
Speaker 1: is just the complete opposite.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 11: It makes for some interesting meetings because I would spend
Speaker 11: the whole day with Pete, and as you know, when
Speaker 11: you spend time with Pete, it's really a listening exercise
Speaker 11: and you try to figure out the end of the
Speaker 11: day what you're actually supposed to do. And then I
Speaker 11: would get back to put numbers to this, which is
Speaker 11: my primary role as managing projects, and then putting the
Speaker 11: numbers together just for management to look at to see
Speaker 11: if we're going to do with this project. And then
Speaker 11: I get grill list to what Pete wants to do,
Speaker 11: and I really don't know, so I don't I don't
Speaker 11: know because I don't have notes, and Pete really doesn't
Speaker 11: want me to know because he wants to do it himself.
Speaker 11: He doesn't want to share that because he hasn't worked
Speaker 11: it out on his head yet. He probably is as
Speaker 11: he's flying back home or to the next job, and
Speaker 11: you know, all he's got to do is get it
Speaker 11: done by his next visit, and so then I was
Speaker 11: sitting in the meetings and basically have to make up
Speaker 11: what I think Pete's going to do. And of course
Speaker 11: it worked out completely different than I thought, and in
Speaker 11: almost all cases better than I thought.
Speaker 2: So it's got a good and happy ending. But getting
Speaker 2: there is pretty rough.
Speaker 1: Talk about the construction of Whistling Straits, and I think
Speaker 1: everybody is pretty aware. You know that it was a
Speaker 1: you know, bluff with you know, relatively flat land, and
Speaker 1: you can see it driving in and out, and then
Speaker 1: you know, you get into you turn into the entrance
Speaker 1: of Whistling Straits, it's like you're entering a whole different world,
Speaker 1: and you know, could you ever imagine what you started
Speaker 1: with and what you ended up with?
Speaker 11: So it'd be nice to sit here and chat and say,
Speaker 11: we had this great vision and we're all with this
Speaker 11: great team in place, and we all had the vision,
Speaker 11: and the leader was in front of us and all
Speaker 11: briefed us and what it was going to do and
Speaker 11: how great it was going to turn out, and we
Speaker 11: all fell in line and we're all on the same page.
Speaker 11: It wasn't any of that at all. It was exciting
Speaker 11: to be a part of Whistling Streets even before the
Speaker 11: land was purchased, because we were all looking at other
Speaker 11: pieces of property, even before they ended up with a
Speaker 11: property that Whistling Straates is on. Now, we went up
Speaker 11: to that piece of property because it was a blank
Speaker 11: slate and it was continuous. We had at least five
Speaker 11: hundred acres and with one landowner rather than having to
Speaker 11: deal with maybe twelve or fourteen landowners. And in the
Speaker 11: relationship between Pete and her was influenced by how they
Speaker 11: worked together at Blackwell Front. They did some amazing stuff here,
Speaker 11: but as you read in the stories and stuff, they
Speaker 11: really came to a lot of disagreements, and of course
Speaker 11: all of us operational they were caught in between that.
Speaker 11: So they got a lot of that worked out at
Speaker 11: Blackwref Front and when they started Whistling Straight. So they
Speaker 11: had a really strong understanding and respect for each other.
Speaker 11: And that really helped things because it gave Pete full
Speaker 11: authority and autonomy to do what he wanted without really
Speaker 11: anybody telling them how to do it.
Speaker 2: From Color Company's perspective.
Speaker 11: So we ran the project as a company. All the
Speaker 11: people in all the equipment were all fell on under
Speaker 11: Color Company. As the general contractor and paid Pete as
Speaker 11: the designer, and Pete had free rein as to what
Speaker 11: he wanted to do, and nobody us operationally really knew
Speaker 11: what was going on out there. We knew where there
Speaker 11: was a route, and we knew where the front nine was,
Speaker 11: in the back nine was. We could generally get a
Speaker 11: feeling for where the lab with hole was where we
Speaker 11: were standing because we could align ourselves with the bluff
Speaker 11: and the creek and stuff.
Speaker 2: Otherwise we had no idea.
Speaker 11: And we would look out there and there were be
Speaker 11: you know, you know, four trucks and three excavators, you know,
Speaker 11: working on a bluff area for six weeks straight and
Speaker 11: nothing changed, and we'd be like, what is this?
Speaker 2: Where's this goffle? How come is it showing? Yet?
Speaker 11: It was all locked up in Peacehead and his lead
Speaker 11: shaper or construction superintendent. They're the only ones who knew
Speaker 11: how things were going to turn out. The rest of
Speaker 11: us just waiting for it to happen.
Speaker 4: What was that?
Speaker 1: Were those moments when you're seeing trucks of dirt coming
Speaker 1: in and is that? Where is that a moment where
Speaker 1: you had the most doubt about what this is going
Speaker 1: to actually, you know.
Speaker 11: And I remember some of those conversations standing on the
Speaker 11: on these huge clay burms out there with our civil
Speaker 11: engineers and other people, and you know, at that time
Speaker 11: the talk was to charge two hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 11: around and we laughed at it quite frankly.
Speaker 2: We said, we're just this is money just being buried
Speaker 2: in the ground.
Speaker 11: And if you know the you know, we know all
Speaker 11: the rest of the story now, and it's just the
Speaker 11: opposite is financially extremely successful business.
Speaker 1: What would you say is most overlooked about? You know,
Speaker 1: Pete Die is our architect.
Speaker 2: I never thought about that before.
Speaker 1: The most overlooked or what what do you think that
Speaker 1: not necessarily the most what did you maybe overlook.
Speaker 11: I think maybe for your listeners standpoint, they may not
Speaker 11: realize what an amazing salesperson Pete Die is. I think
Speaker 11: the people that know Pete's background, he got into this
Speaker 11: business late, but he stayed till you was what ninety
Speaker 11: or eighty eight or whatever is still to some degree,
Speaker 11: I guess, or just recently retired to the health issues.
Speaker 11: But he's an amazing salesperson when he has to be.
Speaker 11: And so I was fortunate to be a part of
Speaker 11: some of those conversations. When Pete really wanted to do something,
Speaker 11: he was trying to convince Herb to do it. I
Speaker 11: would sometimes be the fly in the wall or sometimes
Speaker 11: be you know, around close enough to hear Pete go
Speaker 11: into sales mode.
Speaker 2: And it was phenomenal at it.
Speaker 1: It's a I mean, all the most prolific architects are
Speaker 1: all great sales people. You know, that's you see that
Speaker 1: across the board. But in terms of you talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about where Herb Cohler and Pete Dye wood
Speaker 1: Butt has is it was there one specific was there
Speaker 1: one spot or difference that consistently came up uh with
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of owner and architect obviously you
Speaker 1: know there's there's a little bit different viewpoints from each
Speaker 1: side of it. And I'm just curious if there if
Speaker 1: there was a specific, you know, kind of consistent one
Speaker 1: spot where they.
Speaker 11: But that one spot are trees all the way through
Speaker 11: from from the construction of block or front to whistling straits. Uh,
Speaker 11: Pete had to fight for every tree that one author
Speaker 11: None of them came easy and and uh to his
Speaker 11: at being a salesperson, he sold the idea to Herb,
Speaker 11: and Herb finally let him cut down the trees where
Speaker 11: he did. There's a few out there that are he
Speaker 11: never got.
Speaker 2: And he still remembers some of them.
Speaker 11: So a bit of a story on that is we
Speaker 11: we regrassed the Blackwolf Front in two thousand and nine
Speaker 11: twenty ten. Before we went to all that work, we
Speaker 11: thought we'd better just make sure if there's anything that
Speaker 11: mister Cole and Pete want to change on the design,
Speaker 11: we do that before we regress everything. So Herb asked
Speaker 11: Pete to go out on the golf course and say,
Speaker 11: why don't you look at some things and make some
Speaker 11: recommendations and I'll look at them. And Pete picked up
Speaker 11: off exactly where he left off during the construction. Everything
Speaker 11: that he didn't get his way on. He remembered everything,
Speaker 11: and he put it in a listen and he sent
Speaker 11: it to Herb, and Herb just smiled and laughed, and
Speaker 11: he remembered everything that he got on his list, and
Speaker 11: he didn't change a thing. So those guys went back
Speaker 11: and forth all the time on things like trees for
Speaker 11: the most part. The other thing I would say would
Speaker 11: be the location of hazards, but much lesser extent. Mister
Speaker 11: Cohler typically didn't get involved with major issues like routing
Speaker 11: and things like that. It was what land are you
Speaker 11: going to use a mine? Placing hazards from a few?
Speaker 11: You know, mister Coulder just had some opinions on the
Speaker 11: depth of bunkers, and usually he wanted it much harder
Speaker 11: than Pete is the way that went down, and then
Speaker 11: then trees for sure.
Speaker 1: So hazard's deeper hazards than Pete wanted, so more more challenging, really.
Speaker 2: Two feet above your head instead of chest high.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, okay, so that's interesting. So from mister Coler's standpoint,
Speaker 1: you know, Whistling Straits was always going to be a
Speaker 1: championship course.
Speaker 2: Absolutely without a doubt.
Speaker 6: Okay. And so I think I think something that comes
Speaker 6: out of that clip is how Diye's approach was sort
Speaker 6: of naturally ill fitted to a corporate structure. And one
Speaker 6: of the reasons it was like that, I think, and
Speaker 6: I'd be curious to get your take on this, is
Speaker 6: that he was a design build person. And we've heard
Speaker 6: this a lot and the days since he died that
Speaker 6: one of his huge areas of influence was on the
Speaker 6: process of golf architecture. Where he insisted on being on
Speaker 6: site more than many other architects were at the time,
Speaker 6: and he insisted on having his team building features in
Speaker 6: the field and personally crafting things. And I think that
Speaker 6: that approach came up against the Colar approach, but it
Speaker 6: sounds like they eventually found a decent middle ground. But
Speaker 6: is that sort of what you were getting from your discussion.
Speaker 1: With Mike, Yeah, totally. I think it's the constant battle
Speaker 1: of mass production, where you develop your specs, you draw
Speaker 1: your plans out, and then you meant and you know,
Speaker 1: this is what Cohler's business is. You know, they designed
Speaker 1: their sink, they draw it to spec, and then they
Speaker 1: build that sink and they mass produce the sink out
Speaker 1: exactly how you know it was designed. And you hear, especially,
Speaker 1: you know, with every single golf architect that that does
Speaker 1: the practices design build now is like, well, you gotta
Speaker 1: you can, I can draw your plans. You hear so
Speaker 1: many of them say this, I could draw your plans,
Speaker 1: but it might not look like this when it's done,
Speaker 1: because I might be in the field and realize that
Speaker 1: something over here works way better than what I thought.
Speaker 1: In so many decisions and iterations and improvisations of a
Speaker 1: plan happen in the field. And this was Die and Pete,
Speaker 1: Die and Alice Dye to tea like you heard when
Speaker 1: Alicetye passed, Like all the stories of Alice Dye coming
Speaker 1: over and saying like now Pete, like, don't you think
Speaker 1: that's a little you know, a little harsh on players,
Speaker 1: or saying, you know, maybe we should do this that,
Speaker 1: you know, like with the Island Green and seventeen at Sawgrass.
Speaker 6: Or maybe we should actually think about where we're putting
Speaker 6: the forward tees exactly.
Speaker 1: So you think about that style and you think about
Speaker 1: I think any sort of it. It was this idea.
Speaker 1: Die was this idea of artistic nature in golf design
Speaker 1: that it wasn't It had swung to the engineering mold
Speaker 1: of build the spec plan. And I think that's much
Speaker 1: like golf, where golf has an artistic side and a
Speaker 1: scientific side and analytical side. Architecture has this too, where
Speaker 1: you have the building the construction is very you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of science that goes into golf architecture,
Speaker 1: but then there's this artistic side. And Die was really
Speaker 1: the craftsman, the artistic craftsman changing an era full of
Speaker 1: guys that were kind of paint by the lines color
Speaker 1: withinside the lines.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that craftsmanship was really important and a feature
Speaker 6: of Die's work throughout his career and something that he
Speaker 6: insisted on repeatedly. You even hear people like Davis Love saying,
Speaker 6: you know, his peak Die anecdote is that I told
Speaker 6: him that you're not really an architect unless you get
Speaker 6: on a bulldozer. So it seemed like that was his
Speaker 6: consistent message, both publicly and within his design projects, that
Speaker 6: you had to go out and do it yourself, otherwise
Speaker 6: you'd turn out work that didn't really have much of
Speaker 6: an identity. And obviously we see that influence in the
Speaker 6: architecture that's being done today. And so the next batch
Speaker 6: of clips that we have here are from Tom Doak
Speaker 6: and Jim Orbina, who are two architects who studied with
Speaker 6: Pete Die early on in their careers, and here they
Speaker 6: are talking about Die's influence on them. Tom Doak from
Speaker 6: episode six of The Yoke with Doak.
Speaker 8: You know when I when I got when I started
Speaker 8: in college seriously trying to pursue this, and I didn't
Speaker 8: know anything in the golf business, so I just wrote
Speaker 8: letters to people in the golf business give me advice,
Speaker 8: which I do. Who should I work for? This is so,
Speaker 8: this is nineteen eighty. Every single person in a golf
Speaker 8: business said, work for Pete Dide. I mean there wasn't
Speaker 8: any Oh you should work for Trent Jones. Oh you
Speaker 8: should work for Mike Hurtzen, Oh you should work for whoever.
Speaker 8: Every single person. You gotta go work for this guy,
Speaker 8: partly because he was so hands on and partly because
Speaker 8: he was so passionate about what he did. But so
Speaker 8: I can't even you know, like, after I got back
Speaker 8: from my scholarship to spend a year in the UK,
Speaker 8: I mister Jones, Trent Jones Senior, who'd gone to Cornell
Speaker 8: at thirty sixty fifty years before I did, gotten too.
Speaker 8: He had been up at Cornell and they told him
Speaker 8: they had this student overseas, and he was like, I'll
Speaker 8: have him get in touch with me when he gets back.
Speaker 8: And he would have offered me a job to go
Speaker 8: work in his office in Europe. And fortunately I had
Speaker 8: already worked for mister Dye for one summer of construction,
Speaker 8: and I was hooked on the idea that it was
Speaker 8: about construction and it wasn't about drawing plans, so you know,
Speaker 8: so I so that didn't appeal to me at all.
Speaker 8: And if I hadn't had that one summer of construction experience,
Speaker 8: it might have been different. Even though, just like these
Speaker 8: guys have talked about, one of the most appealing things
Speaker 8: to me about this business and about golf in general,
Speaker 8: is spending your time outdoors. You know, sitting in an
Speaker 8: office drawing plans of this stuff does not interest me
Speaker 8: at all. I want to be out there doing it.
Speaker 8: I think it The work benefits from that. So if
Speaker 8: I'd work for anybody else at the time, I mean
Speaker 8: at the time, Pete Die was the only guy who
Speaker 8: was out there building stuff himself and hiring young guys
Speaker 8: that were interested in golf to help him build stuff.
Speaker 8: Now there's a lot because we all learned from Pete
Speaker 8: or you know, Billkore and I learned from Pete, and
Speaker 8: then a lot of other guys have learned from us.
Speaker 8: So there's a lot of people taking this approach now.
Speaker 8: But it was really rare that I can't imagine doing
Speaker 8: it any other way.
Speaker 6: And here we have another Tom Dope clip, this one
Speaker 6: from episode sixteen.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people are very critical of
Speaker 3: mister Dye, which to me is crazy. I mean, nobody
Speaker 3: that's ever spent any time with the guy would criticize
Speaker 3: the man at all. I mean, he's He's given a
Speaker 3: lot to a lot of people. He's always been very
Speaker 3: open about the game and what he thinks is right
Speaker 3: about it and what he thinks is wrong about it.
Speaker 3: He had me ghostwriting articles about how the golf equipment
Speaker 3: was getting out of hand thirty years ago. That more
Speaker 3: than thirty years ago. He's still sort of a role
Speaker 3: model to me, especially in the way he went about
Speaker 3: the work, how involved he was in it personally, and
Speaker 3: that you know, he made this visions out in the
Speaker 3: field and he changed it. He changed his mind on
Speaker 3: the fly to make something better. He wasn't afraid to,
Speaker 3: you know, do that. And you know, even if even
Speaker 3: if the client was nervous about it, and he's like,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be fine, I'm here, I'll get it sort
Speaker 3: of out. And you know, people see our work as
Speaker 3: being completely different because my golf courses don't look like
Speaker 3: his golf courses, but the way that they're built, and
Speaker 3: you know, and even a lot of the philosophy behind him.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm building golf courses that are challenging to people.
Speaker 3: I just put the challenge in different places. And I
Speaker 3: don't make it all about length, because I'm not building
Speaker 3: golf courses for the tour.
Speaker 6: And now Jim Orbina from episode sixty.
Speaker 12: Eight, I've never played golf. I didn't understand golf. I
Speaker 12: was like Seth Rayner, you know the famous that McDonald
Speaker 12: talked about Seth Rayner. He didn't know a tennis ball
Speaker 12: from a golf ball. That was me. And I'm very
Speaker 12: thankful to Pete Dye, who I got my career started with.
Speaker 12: He embraced the work that I was doing for him,
Speaker 12: the creativity that he allowed me to do as a shaper.
Speaker 12: I started as a shaper. I knew how to draw
Speaker 12: because I was a high school drafting trade teacher by trade.
Speaker 12: But I started as a shaper, and I didn't think
Speaker 12: I wanted to be in this golf business. But the
Speaker 12: more and more Pete Dye sent me around looking at
Speaker 12: his golf courses, Old Marsh and PGA West, all these
Speaker 12: golf courses he had done, the golf club on and
Speaker 12: on and on, the more I started to understanding the
Speaker 12: beauty of it, and his son Perry died, sending me
Speaker 12: around to other golf courses, allowing me to go to Cyprus,
Speaker 12: point the Dye sending me to Saint Andrews of Scotland.
Speaker 12: They hooked me, man, They hooked me time, and they
Speaker 12: hooked me because they showed me a different way to
Speaker 12: build a golf course, not that I knew any other
Speaker 12: way than just hands on. I realized that the only
Speaker 12: way to do it right, as Pete Dye told me,
Speaker 12: was to do it yourself. And because they taught me
Speaker 12: from the ground up, I understood it and I appreciated
Speaker 12: how these things were built. And to go on to
Speaker 12: work at Pasa Tempo and learn from McKenzie and the
Speaker 12: Raider courses yamens Hall. I did work at mid Ocean,
Speaker 12: San Francisco Golf Club, Garden City, the Bobelin Club, on
Speaker 12: and on. Recently sank it he had in Nantucket, Emerson
Speaker 12: Armstrong one off design. I started to realize all of
Speaker 12: these guys had the same passion, and it's addictive, and
Speaker 12: it's it's all encompassing, and it's funny when I send times,
Speaker 12: I send emails or text out at two in the
Speaker 12: morning because I'm thinking about golf. I'm all wrapped up
Speaker 12: in it, and you want you say, well, why are
Speaker 12: you wrapped up in it? You didn't grow up in
Speaker 12: the game. Well, because the way Pete and his son
Speaker 12: Perry shared their experiences with me, they allowed me to travel.
Speaker 12: They allowed me to see new and and and and
Speaker 12: beautiful places Cypress Point when I was a punk, the
Speaker 12: National Golf Links before I was uh, before I was thirty,
Speaker 12: before it was fashionable to travel and look at architecture,
Speaker 12: and it just became all encompassing. And because I like
Speaker 12: working with my hands, I like building things, it was
Speaker 12: a perfect scenario for me and for them to allow
Speaker 12: me to draw, do grading maps, work in the office,
Speaker 12: do drainage plans. It was all just a big uh
Speaker 12: foundation that I had no idea what I was doing,
Speaker 12: but I was doing the best I could do because
Speaker 12: that's what my mom and dad taught me in the
Speaker 12: little town I grew up in. Whatever you do, do
Speaker 12: it well, work hard at it, and uh the benefits
Speaker 12: will will reap and they have. And I've had the
Speaker 12: chance to meet some wonderful people, and all because Pete
Speaker 12: allowed me to seek out and look at different golf courses,
Speaker 12: and he embraced me, he trusted me, and he let
Speaker 12: me build and be creative. And who doesn't want to
Speaker 12: be creative? And who doesn't want to build something cool
Speaker 12: that they could stand and say I built that? And
Speaker 12: who doesn't want to be out in the open air
Speaker 12: and the open space and to travel and to see
Speaker 12: beautiful places. I mean, who doesn't want to do that? Well?
Speaker 12: I didn't think I did. And thirty seven, thirty eight
Speaker 12: years later, I'm still doing it and I still have
Speaker 12: that passion. And the day that it burns out is the
Speaker 12: day I'm done. But whether it's an interview a couple
Speaker 12: of days ago, or I'm working with Mike Kayser on
Speaker 12: some projects, working with new designs, working with restorations, it's
Speaker 12: the passion. And when that passion's gone, you know, I'll
Speaker 12: probably be done. But maybe sometimes it's too much passion.
Speaker 12: I can't sleep at all. That's how I got started.
Speaker 1: I end up doing the same thing I am.
Speaker 4: I like, you.
Speaker 1: Get you get crazed, but you get crazed the A
Speaker 1: lot of people say that we're in this second Golden Age,
Speaker 1: and something that seems to be to me. A common
Speaker 1: theme is Pete Dye with Yeah, I mean, and I
Speaker 1: feel like he doesn't get enough credit for what he did.
Speaker 12: Well. I think Pete Die was People always ask me
Speaker 12: about the Mount Rushmore of golf course architects, and Pete
Speaker 12: Dye should be up there, and you know you're going
Speaker 12: to say, wow, that's just because you work for him. Well,
Speaker 12: Pete Dye taught me about detail and taught me about
Speaker 12: being hands on. And look at how many people he
Speaker 12: spun off. Look how many people work for him, Lee Schmidt,
Speaker 12: Brian Curly, Bill cooor Uh. The list goes on and
Speaker 12: on and on. And I think about all of the
Speaker 12: people who got that chance to work for Pete and
Speaker 12: I think, wow, we all had that same attachment. Pete
Speaker 12: putting his hand on your shoulder saying, you know, this
Speaker 12: is what we're gonna do here, and trust in you.
Speaker 12: Tom Doak working for Pete Dye pretty cool, Pretty cool
Speaker 12: that we all had a chance to work for the man.
Speaker 6: Andy, is there anything that you'd like to pull out
Speaker 6: from that clip from Jim Urbina.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think Urbina's experience with Die where he was somebody
Speaker 1: that didn't know anything about golf. He went there and
Speaker 1: started working as he would say therect you know, just
Speaker 1: digging hole. That's what he was doing. And he became,
Speaker 1: you know now where he's a independent golf architect that's
Speaker 1: building like a pretty impressive resume. Die could take guys
Speaker 1: that didn't know anything about golf and teach him golf.
Speaker 1: A similar situation is what how coren Crenshaw approached their shapers.
Speaker 1: Keith Rebb would be one that falls under this bucket.
Speaker 1: He he got on a core Crenshaw job, but he
Speaker 1: was he was a he would build highways, you know,
Speaker 1: before he became a golf architect. And it's this this
Speaker 1: sideways where core Crenshaw talk about how they don't have
Speaker 1: any bad habits. And I think that's the thing with
Speaker 1: with Die is not only was he great in his
Speaker 1: own right, but he also had an incredible eye for talent.
Speaker 1: And you have to consider him a great manager where
Speaker 1: he empowered his employees to do things and knowing having
Speaker 1: the you know, ability to put the ego aside and
Speaker 1: say a lot of times, hey, this person might do
Speaker 1: this better than I do is one of the key
Speaker 1: traits to great managers. And I think that is something
Speaker 1: where you look at the success of people that you
Speaker 1: know worked under Pete Dye, and Pete Die was clearly
Speaker 1: attempting to create great architects. You know, I think I
Speaker 1: don't know this for sure, but I'm sure that he
Speaker 1: was very pro them going out and working for other
Speaker 1: for themselves and wanted that growth and regression from the
Speaker 1: guys that work for them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a generosity there. That's a feature, as you say,
Speaker 6: of good managers, good bosses, but also of great teachers.
Speaker 6: You know, he seemed to teach in a kind and
Speaker 6: subtle way, and he honored the artistic integrity, the artistic
Speaker 6: potential of the people who are working under him. So,
Speaker 6: you know, just shifting more broadly, as you've gone through
Speaker 6: all these clips, I mean you went back and listened
Speaker 6: to these podcasts again and pulled out these clips. What
Speaker 6: is one thing that you've been thinking about more than
Speaker 6: anything else in these past couple of days, about the
Speaker 6: effect that Day had on this discipline?
Speaker 1: Just in general. I think about him as an innovator.
Speaker 1: I think he was the guy. You know, you look
Speaker 1: at all the history of innovation in different industries and
Speaker 1: there's always one company or one innovation that bridges so
Speaker 1: many other you know, is a bridge to the you
Speaker 1: know greatness, and if you look at like the Apple
Speaker 1: computer for example, it you know, it led to kind
Speaker 1: of Microsoft taking dominance for a while before Apple came back. Right.
Speaker 1: But like there's a bridge there right with the computers
Speaker 1: and a lot of people like to bang on die
Speaker 1: some and I think it's very it's understanding that Pete
Speaker 1: Dye was pushing architecture in a different direction. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, he was working for developers
Speaker 1: who were all of the old guard, and you know,
Speaker 1: he was proposing ideas that were extraordinarily different than everybody
Speaker 1: else in the field and profession at the time. And
Speaker 1: he was proposing these ideas to the same developers that
Speaker 1: were listening to ten other architects come in and tell
Speaker 1: them this was the way. So you'd have to understand
Speaker 1: there was some give and take, and Pete Dye was
Speaker 1: the guy that got us to wear to the spot
Speaker 1: that Billkore, Tom dok could really thrive as golf architects
Speaker 1: and Gil Hants and you know this era today where
Speaker 1: you know, we have craftsmanship, we have you know, gold
Speaker 1: modern architecture that adheres to you know, these strategic principles
Speaker 1: and this design build craftsmanship that is really in vogue
Speaker 1: today is because of the groundwork that Pete Die laid
Speaker 1: and getting it to here. You know, a perfect example
Speaker 1: would be, you know, Dick Young's cap who was who
Speaker 1: is the founder of sand Hills. His first golf course
Speaker 1: project was Firethorn and Lincoln, Nebraska, and it was with
Speaker 1: Pete Dye. Pete Dye was there on site like he
Speaker 1: had learned. And that project doesn't go well, sand Hills
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. And if sand Hills doesn't happen, it's very
Speaker 1: unlikely that Mike Kaiser, who was a member of sand
Speaker 1: Hills builds band and dunes and who knows where we
Speaker 1: are today without that. So you start to think about
Speaker 1: it at a very minutial level beyond just you know,
Speaker 1: the architectural tree of dok and core working for Pete Dye,
Speaker 1: But you think about just that, you know, not having
Speaker 1: the client, to pushing the client the client. The thing
Speaker 1: is a big aspect of it is that he also
Speaker 1: pushed clients outside their comfort zone. Beyond inspiring younger architects,
Speaker 1: he pushed clients, you know, in a.
Speaker 6: Direction absolutely, Yeah, I think that we actually, I don't know,
Speaker 6: I guess I haven't asked you about this. There are
Speaker 6: certainly Pete Die golf courses that I've played that I
Speaker 6: didn't particularly enjoy, that I didn't really think were very
Speaker 6: good golf courses. I've also played some Pete Die golf
Speaker 6: courses that I thought were great. But there's some variety
Speaker 6: in my response to Die golf courses. But a lot
Speaker 6: of that makes sense when you consider, as you're saying,
Speaker 6: the clients that he was working for, the purpose toward
Speaker 6: which his golf courses were put, and when you think
Speaker 6: about it in that context, the fact that he was
Speaker 6: doing interesting work, that he was doing craft driven work
Speaker 6: within that business model of the residential golf course or
Speaker 6: of the what was then considered the modern golf course.
Speaker 6: It is pretty remarkable what he did. And if you
Speaker 6: want to understand the transition from golf architecture as it
Speaker 6: was practiced in the seventies, eighties, and for much of
Speaker 6: the nineties to golf architecture as it's practiced now, there
Speaker 6: are a number of things that you would look at
Speaker 6: right There are a number of different influences that drove
Speaker 6: change in golf architecture, but a huge part of that
Speaker 6: story is always going to be Pete Dye and his
Speaker 6: design firm and his collaboration with Alice Dye and his
Speaker 6: mentorship of these architects who were in his company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you could look at it from like
Speaker 1: look at rock and roll now, Like would Led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: have been like widely appreciated and loved if they had
Speaker 1: came out in the early sixties. Probably not.
Speaker 6: They have existed in the in the early sixties, everything built,
Speaker 6: But where would all the influence has.
Speaker 1: Been exactly and everything built, like you know, the the
Speaker 1: movement from you know, say the fifties style of music
Speaker 1: to seventies rock and roll. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: bands that came and went that pushed it a little
Speaker 1: bit further. And that's the way I always think about
Speaker 1: Die is that Die. He He's never going to be
Speaker 1: acclaimed as the greatest, like if you had one golf
Speaker 1: course to build like the greatest, But in terms of
Speaker 1: influence and importance, he's one that you could say would
Speaker 1: be on Mount Rushmore. I wouldn't put him on like
Speaker 1: my personal route Mount Rushmore. For like golf courses I
Speaker 1: want to play. But if you said, who were the
Speaker 1: most important and influential golf course architects. He would most
Speaker 1: definitely be on Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 6: And you you heard Bill Course say it toward the
Speaker 6: beginning of this podcast that Pete Dye changed the direction
Speaker 6: of golf architecture not once but twice. And how many
Speaker 6: golf architects can claim to have done that even once?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think Jeff Minge's comments about his boldness
Speaker 1: and is unapologetic about his architecture and even even to
Speaker 1: standing up to PGA tour pros, which we see is
Speaker 1: still an ongoing problem. Is you know, we need more
Speaker 1: Pete Dies in golf architecture that say screw them, like
Speaker 1: we see just this week with Trinity Forrest getting pulled
Speaker 1: from the schedule because you know, it's it's different and
Speaker 1: golf and golfers don't want to go. You know, great
Speaker 1: architecture is just like great art. Anything that evokes a
Speaker 1: reaction is good. You don't want it to evoke nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, whether the thing about Die's work was it
Speaker 1: evoked reaction, whether good or bad, and you have to
Speaker 1: say that's a plus. That means he's doing something that's
Speaker 1: different and unique, and that in itself is important.
Speaker 6: I'm always happy to see a Pete Die or on
Speaker 6: television on tour. I always look forward to that. I
Speaker 6: might not be the hugest fan of TPC Sawgrass in
Speaker 6: the world, but I look forward to seeing that golf
Speaker 6: course on television. And yeah, and that's that's a tribute
Speaker 6: to his boldness and and something we didn't really even
Speaker 6: talk about that much, though I hope it came through
Speaker 6: in the clips, is that Pete Dye's personality had an
Speaker 6: effect on a lot of people. And that was really
Speaker 6: important to the impact that he had, you know, just
Speaker 6: the way as you were referring to earlier, just the
Speaker 6: way that he was that he dealt with complaints from
Speaker 6: PGA tour pros. I mean a lot of the pros
Speaker 6: were actively hostile towards his work, right. You go back
Speaker 6: and look at some of these quotes from you know,
Speaker 6: the Peter Jacobson's of the World. I think Paul Asinger
Speaker 6: was in there too, calling him out. Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 6: you know from.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe not sorry, I'm sorry, Paul.
Speaker 6: And Corey Pavin. Corey Haven was particularly severe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he won that week too.
Speaker 6: You know, there was this was the case from TPC
Speaker 6: Sawgrass forward. I think the pros generally liked Harbor Town,
Speaker 6: though there was maybe a little bit of grumbling about that.
Speaker 6: But once Pete Dye entered that phase of his more
Speaker 6: difficult golf courses, his stadium golf courses, the pros really resisted.
Speaker 6: And you know, whatever you think of legitimacy of the
Speaker 6: pro's complaints, you have to have a regard for how
Speaker 6: Pete Dye reacted to them. Basically, he said, it's what
Speaker 6: I was going for. That's what you know. He wasn't
Speaker 6: defensive about it. He had a sense of humor. He
Speaker 6: just took it and he held his ground.
Speaker 1: And this is where it's so important to remember who
Speaker 1: he was building courses for. These were he was hired
Speaker 1: by the PGA Tour to build tournament championship golf courses.
Speaker 1: These golf courses that so often you hear that the
Speaker 1: retail golfer complain about, there are golf courses that were
Speaker 1: built to host tournaments, built to to test the pros.
Speaker 1: You know, these weren't golf courses built by Mike Kaiser
Speaker 1: to be for the retail golfer, as he likes to
Speaker 1: call it is the sole purpose of them. What Pete
Speaker 1: Die was going was to challenge PGA Tour players, and
Speaker 1: that's an important thing to remember with golf courses. And
Speaker 1: Tom Doak said it like, I rarely build golf courses
Speaker 1: for championship golf and tournament When Pete Die was built,
Speaker 1: every golf course that Pete Die built was for tournament
Speaker 1: golf with the intention of hosting championship golf. And that's
Speaker 1: an important thing. How Die's kind of career shifted wasn't
Speaker 1: I don't think necessarily he you know, what he wanted
Speaker 1: to build shifted. It was what he was building for shifted.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 1: His early work was you know, you're getting the jobs
Speaker 1: you can, and most of those jobs are focused on
Speaker 1: clubs like these are golf courses built for members, not
Speaker 1: for PGA Tour players. The later when you got pop,
Speaker 1: when he got popular, and we've seen some similar thing
Speaker 1: with Gil Hants, where Gil Hans is now the guy
Speaker 1: to go higher for a championship golf course. You know,
Speaker 1: if you want to, you know, refresh your championship golf course.
Speaker 1: It seems like everybody's hiring Gil Hans. That wasn't what
Speaker 1: Gil's original career was. He made his name by restoring
Speaker 1: some great classic golf courses that have no intention of
Speaker 1: hosting major championship golf.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, is Pete Die building a stadium golf
Speaker 6: course for just a membership? No, I mean, the idea
Speaker 6: is ridiculous. Obviously, he wouldn't build a stadium golf course
Speaker 6: unless there is, you know, a presumed crowd to fill
Speaker 6: the stadium. And he executed that idea in TPC Sawgrass.
Speaker 6: And I don't know if you've talked to people who
Speaker 6: have been to the Players Championship, but apparently it's the
Speaker 6: most fun thing pretty much that you can do.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's an incredible it's incredible viewing experience, like you
Speaker 1: can see, Yeah, you can see all kinds. It is
Speaker 1: comparatively to other you know, you go to a different
Speaker 1: US Open course every every year, and the the way
Speaker 1: the viewer experienced as a fan, the way you can
Speaker 1: see shots at Sawgrass is unlike anything I've seen at
Speaker 1: a at a US Open venue or really, for that matter,
Speaker 1: many other tournament venues.
Speaker 6: And that that was the intention, and he really pulled
Speaker 6: it off. And so there's so much to dig into
Speaker 6: in Pete Dye's career, Pete Die's work. I'm sure that
Speaker 6: we'll continue talking about it in the coming months, but
Speaker 6: in the meantime it was It was good to hear
Speaker 6: from some of these architects who have worked for him
Speaker 6: and to whom Pete Dye meant a lot. It was
Speaker 6: really cool to reflect on these clips.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was fun to ta