Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Part 1: Becoming Coore & Crenshaw

Nobody's getting This is the fire Pit with Mattinella. The sixth episode of the fire Pit is part one of the people, places, and things that had an influence on what Bill Core and Ben Crenshaw have become as architects, How and when they met, who was involved, and why it works. We start with Sue Corp, Bill's wife. I say, Ben Crenshaw. You say, because that is my connection, Ben, But I really think of Bill and Ben as brothers.

I swear they came from the same mother, because they are so similar in temperament, They're so similar in graciousness they are. They don't pay attention to things together. They pay attention to things together, and I think they make each other better. Next, we hear from Julie Crenshaw, Ben's wife. I say Bill Kore and you say genius. Reminded me a lot of Ben. Very quiet, very polite, soft spoken. I can see why they have a lot in common.

They are kindred spirits. I can tell you that in this era of golf course architecture, I believe cor and Crenshaw are the most consistent and thoughtful builders of the fun and fair adventure we seek. As avid amateurs, they move very little dirt and yet extract so much soul from the land that they leave behind. I've been fortunate enough to chronicle the development of almost half of their portfolio.

I've heard them preach restraint, celebrate strategy, and I've watched them walk raw land in search of the ideal routing. Bill is always out front, while Ben tends to fall behind, stopping on occasion to ask questions and flush out the options. As they build their thirtieth course in their thirty fifth year of being partners. Their body of work includes sand Hills, Friar's Head, and Colorado Golf Club. Some of my favorites

are Lost Farm, Cabot Cliffs, and bandoned trails. Some of their restoration work on iconic venue whose includes Cypress Point, Seminal and of course Pinehurst Number Two, the Sheep Ranch, the sixth Course, Abandoned Dunes, and their third for Mike Keiser's Oregon Resort opens on June one. Julie and Sue will be used throughout this episode, as well as Rod Whitman, a longtime associative Core and Crenshaw, who has almost ten courses to his credit, one of which is cabint Links

in Nova Scotia. We also hear from Scottie Sayers, Crenshaw's childhood friend and the one who makes sure this partnership is also a business. Did you ever think you'd be getting together on Skype to have a conversation reflecting on your career in the beginning of what has become Core and Crenshaw. If he weren't for Julie and my wife Sue, we wouldn't be here today. I'll tell you that Julie Crenshaw confirms they're like brothers. They how they think they

both don't have emails. You know that, Um, you can get them to call, you can't get them to text. Um. But they do it the old school way. Everything about them is old school. Bill Core was an only child raised by a single mom who worked multiple jobs to support the family and any of young Williams dreams and aspirations. Sue Corp shares some perspective. I think that he had the most amazing mama on the planet. She just encouraged him to be the best at whatever, whatever he wanted.

He came home and said he wanted to be an astronaut, she'd support that, be the best that you could be whatever he wanted to be. Um, I'm just sorry that I never met her, because she raised an incredible man. As for designing backyard golf holes, if his mom was home, he told me routing tended to go around the house. If she wasn't home, he often went over the house. Well,

if you're right. I grew up at in rural North Carolina and my next door neighbor played golf and he introduced me to it, and they were he was really the only close neighbors. So we would play around through the higher backyard to his backyard, to the to the mailbox, and out across the dirt road where we lived, and even in through the corn fields when they were cloud under, so we'd make up our own toles and things, but I would caddy for him and uh, on some very

special occasion, uh, he would go to pine Nurse. So he is the one who introduced me to Pinehurst. And then later when I was in high school and then of course in college, I'd go there far more regular basis. But they were they were fun times and they were, you know, the cornerstone of what I my introduction to golf and my introduction to what interesting golf architectures. All

of that. Sue Corp shares some perspective. Bill wasn't raised with a father, and his parents were divorced when Bill was quite young, and there were lots of men who took over that that position and really cared for Bill and really nurtured Bill. And his mother was smart enough and confidence enough to encourage all of that. As for Ben Crenshaw, he grew up at Austin, Texas, navigating Lions Municipal and the old Austin Country Club, which was a

Perry Maxwell designed. The places where I was playing started me on I kind of thinking about golf courses. One of my first sort of road trips was brack and Ridge Park in San Antonio to playing the Texas State Jr. It's old tilling Hands course, very tight. I mean there were a couple of holes there. You had to threaten the needle, big boundaries. But it started me thinking about different golf holes. And then when I started traveling, I said,

I've been treated to some wonderful example. So I just always I was always kind of fascinated about golf courses and how they were laid out. And then when I went to Boston when I was sixteen to play in the National Junior at the country Club, it just blew my mind. I wanted to know who built the courses, who was my friend, you know, the organization's history of the game, the players. I just from then on, I

just started studying everything I could find. Although Bill Core was intrigued by the concept of golf course designed, it was Pete Due who inspired more digging. I knew I like certain courses and certain things, and I tried to figure out why, but I really wasn't that much into it. And when I saw what Pete was doing, a little public course called Okla in High Point, I just said, gee, this is different. I wonder how you do this. And obviously about to get out of the army, that was

single Um, I didn't need any more money. Fortunately working for teach you weren't going to make much. But um didn't. Whatever it took to you know, myself alive. And so yeah, that's how you get to that that. Uhum. I began to basically just badge or pete. I thought I'd like to see how this is done. And in the beginning it was with the intention I just like to see how you actually create one of these things. And I was always thinking after that, I'll go back to graduate school.

Well obviously that didn't happen either, but it's uh for my whole my whole career has been a very circuitous, almost in so many ways, unplanned journey. As for meeting Nicholas at the seventy one U s Open and Marian Ben Crenshaw had what you'd call a spontaneous plan. I was changing my shoes in the locker room and somehow Jack walked in by himself, and I said, oh my god, here's my chance. I gotta gotta go to meet himself. Followed him upstairs and it was a restroom up there,

so I said, oh, I got him there. So I went the wrestle so I stuck out in my hand and said Jack, I'm John. He said, well, I'll leave with him just so. But that was my first meeting with Jack. I admired the way he played everything else, but I knew at that point he was just starting to get into golf course architecture. So I I thought, well, that's that's pretty neat right there. And he ironically, you know, he worked with Pete Died at the heart at Harvard Town,

although minimally there. Yeah, and then he sort of knew that he was he could do both uh jobs as a obviously world class golfer and and then obviously pursue architecture too, and he had a true love and a passion for it. But Jack was you know, that's a lot to take on in a career business wise and playing. But they seemed to juggle it, like Arnold Palmer did too.

After chasing down Pete Die a few times in the early seventies, Bill was watching the local news which reported I was going to be building the Cardinal in Greensboro, North Carolina, not far from where Bill lived. They were talking about that Pete I was gonna be in town. They were going to start this golf course. So I'm thinking he didn't even call me, you know, tell me

he'd tell anyway to drive out there. And he he's with a guy named John Gray who was eats construction foreman there, an associate, and uh, he just finds finds something for this guy to do. You just want to get rid of me, you know. And you're right, mad, I started with a verry hip waiters and a chainsaw. Well, Ben Crenshaw was having success on the course. Core was going course to course with Pete and Roy Dye, which

is how he ended up in Huntsville, Texas. Is Waterwood the course that that Pete kind of left you at and said, you know, you'll be the superintendent here? Is that? Yeah, Matt, that's a very kind way of putting it. He got rid of you. Beach sent me to work with his brother Roy supposedly to help Gary Grandstaff, who was the golf course superintendent and worked for Roy um to help Gary uh Spanish water with Nation. Well. When Huntsville, Bill met Rod Whitman, who was a Canadian going to school

at sam Houston State. Bill quickly became a mentor and a friend. Well, I didn't have any money, so Bill always bought the pizza, and uh, I mean we played golf. I just got to hanging out with him on the weekends at water Wood, and you know, Bill was out there seven days a week, and uh, you know, over time we just got to play a little golf together and then and hang out and and I just loved being around him, and he would talk about golf course design, and you know, I was just trying to play golf

at that time. I had no aspirations to become an architect, but the subject fascinated me, and he was very passionate about it. So that's uh. He has some old books that I could start to read and some notes that he had made when he worked for Pete, and uh, I became fascinated with the subject. And then certainly just talking with Bill, it was it was inspired to think about the old courses and golf of course design in general, which I had never, you know, paid much attention to.

Now in the early eighties, still in Huntsville, Bill gets a call from Pete Die He needed a guy in Austin and he needed him. Now. All we were wrout doing some work I think on the Ninth Green, and uh, he got a call from from Pete Pete wanted somebody to go to Austin. And you know, as he said later dump trucks, you know, was he watched the dump trucks dump and tell him where the dump when that sort of thing. He took the phone call, came back out and asked me if I wanted to go to

work with Pete. And I just the damn nervous I could hardly talk. And uh after a little bit, I I certainly agreed to it, and he made the arrangements, had to rent me a car, and I and I drove out to Austin that day. It will all happen very fast. So Rod is now working for Pete Dye. Bill had worked for Pete Dye, and Ben was keeping an eye on Pete Dye. You know when I was saying Austin at the Austin Country Club, Pete would come to town and then you know, he would have visitors.

I mean Tom Kite would come out there, and Ben Cranshaw would come out there, and they'd walk around and try to hang out with Pete a little bit and and and just watch him work. And uh so when he did come out there, I mean, obviously I got a chance to meet him because I was part of that entourage. And uh, you know, Pete told me says, you know Ben's coming out here. He says, just just listen to him and do whatever he wants. He said,

So it was sort of an interesting time. I was told by Rod Whitman, who was Pete Day's foreman, and I've gotten to meet Rod, and I'm really interested in what he was doing. I saw Pete many times. They both ment and he said, you know what, you need to meet Bill Coorey. You need to you need to meet Bill core I really think that you'd like him. I would go back and forth to uh Huntsville every now and then and talk with Bill and I and

I told him that I'd met Bannon. I thought, man, this guy is is is just a really nice guy. He's really cool guy. He's interested in design it and uh, you know, I just I just know that talking to Bill that I mentioned that, you know, it would be nice if he if he met him. The seeds had been planted, but before they met, a man named Dave Kerry helped get Bill his big break down on the Gulf Coast to Texas, four hours south of Huntsville. He said, look,

we've known each other now for a two years. He said, Uh, I know you're the superintendent here by No, really what you'd like to do is being the golf course design business. He said, this may be the chance, and he took me down Rockport Country Club and interesting enough, was in the middle of building their first nine holes, and for some reason, and I've never known what happened, but there were some as they say in Texas, of falling out between the the owners and the golf course architect. And

so they just dismissed him on the spot. But here they are, they're digging lakes, they're doing it, they're working on this nine holes and they've got no one in charge of their design. I guess Dave carried for water with you this. He takes me down, they're introducing me, and so they're on the spot. They say, well, you're supposed to know something about this. We need somebody. This is the maximum you can spend and if you want the job, you want to and figure it out, it's yours.

I guess I was so naive inside, as they say, walked into the deep end of the plume, paddled around. Even with his raw talent and ambition for architecture. Bill Core couldn't go it alone. He called upon Jerry Clark, a k A. Scrooge, who had been helping him with coursework at Waterwood. And so when Rockport came along us and Scroogey wanta you wanna go? You wanna go? Let me and try and see if we can make some

of this. Yeah, I think I'll go with you. And and so we the two of us, go down there and and we we start working on this basically just

to us start with. And then another guy who lived there named Mike McKay who ended up working with Vann and me for years, and it actually became the nucleus or the cornerstone that you're the guys that we have today because you're Jerry Clark and Mike McKay trained like Jimbo right and and and Dave Accellent and these guys who have now gone on to train all these other guys. So you can trace it right back to that. But yeah, we we finished the nine holes in the Rockport. It

turned out, you know, they thought it was good. We actually did a second nine holes there immediately after. So it was eighteen. The guys and I were kind of tiptoeing along, but we were I guess, uh, I guess you could say we were officially in the golf course design. I asked Rod Whitman for his thoughts on Rockport, the first original Bill Core design. I love Rockport. It was a great little setting in a small town, and uh, yeah, every day you get up you just want to play golf,

and it was. It was a lot of fun. I can see where anybody looking at it, knowing it it was new, I'd say, man, that's pretty classic. Rockport was good enough to get that team some attention, but according to several potential clients, they were missing something. One most memorable story, at least to me, happened in Houston, Texas. Uh with the man who was a very successful real estate developers, had a nice, beautiful office and I guess what, at the time was the tallest building in Houston. He

goes Bill. He said, I've seen your golf course in Rockfort. It's really good. He said, it's really good, he said, but nobody has ever heard of you. Nobody knows who you are. This business is about selling real estate. This is not so much about golf. You walk in here tomorrow with late Travenue on your arm or Tom Watson or you know some somebody like that. He said, I'll hire you until then, and he walked over to the window of his high rise office. We looked down on

the street. He said, until then, until I can walk down there on that street and call out your name and people stopped to look around to see where you are, you don't get hired. So well, I don't do that, and I said, I just haven't really felt like I said, how did John we got another job? We hopefully we'll get another one. I don't know. I just it's just not something that I'd really given much thought to. He said, what if he did, who would be? You just referred

to it man. Ben had just won the Master's nur and this probably was happening maybe the month after that. But I didn't know Ben. But I just I had read the articles in the magazines where Ben's talking about golf and golf architecture. And I said, well, I guess I guess there're gonna be anybody be Ben Crunchhaw. The guy who looked at me, and he just goes, God, don't mighty Bill, He said, I'm no Ben romantic and naive as you are you guys together be his master.

So then along comes Charlie Bellair, another wealthy Texas businessman who had land on the Gulf Coast. He wanted to have Bill core and again a well known player, take a look, and although he still didn't know him, Bill floated the idea of Ben Crenshaw again. But Bill's first visit to that land was by himself. As for his first impressions of the potential project, Man, it wasn't gonna happen. It's just one of the worst sites you'd ever see. It went underwater, salt water, so, I mean, it wasn't

gonna Bill had seen enough and he left town. Charlie calls me back and he says, Bill, can you come down here. Ben Cranshaw is gonna come down here. I don't want you guys to look at this. He was still hopeful. I knew I got down the Gulf coast. Ben comes over. Ben looked at the sight in a nano second. You know, Robin Williams would say, no, we're not building the golf course, but that man did, at least from my side of the equation. He's the one, uh who who got us together that day. We you know,

we met for the first time. We ended up that afternoon going over to Rockport. It was really close. And then I walked the holes. I mean, I'm walking with Bend Crunch, the Master Champion, and I'm not saying I think that this is just I hope you worked the course. And I looked at that golf course and there was there was something totally different about what I saw. It

was interesting, it was natural. It looked like it sprang right out of the ground, and it had a put It had a particular appeal to me, and I thought, Wow, this is this guy has a really sense of feel of the atmosphere or where he's working. About this time, Crenshaw had just left i MG and had hired his childhood friend and business partner, Scotty Says as his manager. Says recalls seeing Ben when he got back to Austin UM.

He walked into the library at his house after spending the day with Bill and Julie was in there, and I've seen him excited, but this was one of the most exciting times UM for him, just because he really didn't have a partner or didn't have a plan on how to get into the business. They had met, there was interest, and in Ben's mind it was a done deal. It was It was just unbelievable. How this happened is when Wade decided to make a go at this, and that was the year I married Julie. So I made

two really good decisions. Remember Julie, when I came back, and you know, I was god us playing. He was still going to play tournaments. I said, Julie, I made a decision. I said, I'm gonna Bill Cournan get a former partnership. And she said, what in the world are you doing that? You're so you're a player, And I said, you don't have to trust me on this, Julie. And I was thinking, Wow, what are you kidding um? And I was like, are you sure you want to do this?

You know, because what he was struggling with his health, struggling with this game. We just got married. We weren't even certain he was ever going to play competitive golf again. In Ben Crenshaw missed the cut in thirteen of his first nineteen tournaments. He was eventually diagnosed with what's called

Graves disease, an overactive thyroid. He could not break eighty, could not put, could not Chip could not just play terrible golf, blamed it on stressed, lost like thirty pounds instead of Sports illustrated, putting him on the cover for whenning the Masters, they were like chasing him on the golf course because he was shooting eight and missing cuts and it was horrible, horrible, poor. It was sad and horrible, and I mean he really we had no idea if

he was gonna ever compete. And so when we got married November, they did a blood test on him and checked us. They were like, your thorro is huge. Well it was off the charts. So they gave him radioactive iodine to kill it, and um, they said, six weeks later, you should feel better. Six weeks to the day, he finished tied for six at the US Open at Shinnecock and we skipped around that place like he had one a tournament. I remember Raymond winning and then we were like,

well we won, you're back, you are back. Four weeks later he won the Mule Open and then he was off. So he took you know, took a gamble on getting married to me, took a gamble on Bill, and you know, didn't know he was going to get better. But it all worked out and he did get better, thank goodness. So who end what gets credit for this chance encounter? P die of course, But they couldn't have done it

without Rockport Country Club. I mean, there's no question that the routing there very traditional and not much distance between the going from the grain to the tea easily walkable course, very interesting, good bunker work, and and it was it was early Bill Kore, but you could sure see what was gonna be in his mind in the future as he designed courses, and sure that's where it been. Really really was hooked on Bill Core. And they probably wouldn't

have met without Rod Whitman. They just seem like they would become pretty good friends. You know, they're they're both at the same sort of age and and and mental stability, if I can call it that. You know, they just uh, they just there. I thought that they'd get along very well and and uh, you know, I could talk architecture on a level that that made some sense and and just had a feeling. And apparently this doesn't happen without

some perseverance by Ben Crenshaw. And I'll confess I was the one who pursued Bill in the elite Bill was not interested in partnering up with any one, and I think I don't know much. Maybe three went by and I it got to when I may have tried to talk him into it, and he wasn't really interested. You know, I I kind of you know, I can understand that. And it finally it came around and he said, you know, maybe maybe maybe we could give this a go. This

beginning to sound like a fairy tale. You know. We met in eighty four, um, and then over a period of over a year, I mean significantly over a year, we would just occasionally get together or we'd have phone conversations about golf architecture. Ben would call sometimes have you ever seen this or that? You know? Of course, and and think, but there was never really this great game plan to make this happen, and it's been has been said he he um he. He likes to take the blame,

I guess for us being together. I think he pursued it. It was often something, uh to say that I don't it was just such a natural evolution. But at some point in time, man, and I can sincerely say, there wasn't this great dinner, there wasn't this great whatever. There wasn't too many beers out someplace and then said let's do it. It just evolved and we said let's try some of this together. F A t In retrospect, I looked back on it, and Fate had effectle hand in

all this. I've had some nice things happened to me in my career and this this is one of them. In Part two, which will go live in a week, we're taking this partnership all the way to send Hills and the Brown Esca, the sand based trampoline that vaulted

these guys into another atmosphere of architecture. Are you looking for good value on great golf apparel as a listener to this podcast, my friends John Ashworth and Jeff Cunningham at Link Soul in Oceanside, California are offering you a discount on all future orders of what I Wear all day, every day, on and off the course. Whenever you go to link soul dot com, just use promo code matty G M A T T Y G. Thank you for listening to the fire Pit. It's produced by Alex Upeggy.

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