I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a bride Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg, bri Egg, Fridagg Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course. Welcome to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison and my guest today is Angela Moser. Angela was the lead associate for the construction of Pinehurst Number ten. That's a Tom dok design that opened in
early April. It's the first course that Pinehurst has built since the nineties, and it's the first project for what will be called Pinehurst sand Mines. This is kind of a satellite facility about a ten minute drive from the main hub of the resort, and the land is really dramatic in this area, really different from what you see on the first nine Pinehurst courses. So this is a
major project and a major opportunity for Angela Moser. Angela has worked for Tom Doak for about thirteen years at this point, but this was actually the first time she served as the lead associate on a construction job, so she was on hand earlier this week for a little media function that the resort held at the Number ten course, and after that I was able to sit down with her in the library at the Holly Inn in Pinehurst and talk a bit about the course and her career.
It's a really fun conversation and that's coming up in this episode. But first a word about our sponsor, Ores and Alps. Ores and Alps makes skincare products designed with men's needs in mind. They're built for an active, on the go lifestyle and they use clean, powerful ingredients, so I was very thankful for Orison Alps. During the media
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Angela Moser. Angela, how did you find out about the Pinehurst Number ten project?
So I was going to do a little road trip and play some golf and I was like, oh, perfect, where are you going. I'm like, yeah, I probably start in Pinehurst and then meander down. I really wanted to see what Brian Schneider and Blake Conan did at Old Bombwell and then also the tree farm that Kai Golby and Zach Blair shaped. And he's like, okay, well I'll meet you in Pinehurst. And that was just after our Renaissance Cup in Ireland at Sam Patrick's and turn out
he caught COVID. Yeah, and I was going there by myself. When You're like, I'll send you a map look at the map and I'm like, okay, well this looks pretty cool. What is this? I was like, well, they approached me to build Pinehers No. Ten and I want you to go there pitch it to them, and then you know, you would be the lead associate. This would be your first lead job for me, and what do you think? And I'm like, that's you know, that's pretty heavy. That's a big, big, big project to start as a lead
associate for Tom. There's you know, I don't want to say there's pressure. Yeah there's pressure, but it's so heavy because this whole town just loves and lives golf, and you know, you just want to do a really good job.
And then of course it's not just the town. It's like it's a cradle of American golf and then there's you know, everyone from Renaissance Golf that I just felt like, I really want to make this a special place, and you know, I want them to be proud and want them to come back and say like, oh, yeah, this is this was really cool and this was really very enjoyable and turn out really really good. So I don't know if I make myself a lot of pressure, but yeah, there was there was a lot of a lot of that.
Pressure can be a good thing, right.
Yeah, it keeps you going for sure. Yeah. Absolutely.
What did you think when you first saw the property out there?
Really grand? Like the topography is just nothing I've seen on any others course, and you know, it was undeveloped for such a long time, so that you had a lot of different vegetation out there and a lot of wildlife and it was just the sanctuary out there in the middle of nowhere, and I thought it was so beautiful. So yeah, I really really liked it. And the rolling hills of Pinehurst in North Carolina are just, you know, perfect for golf, So it was beautiful.
Was there anything about the site that when you looked at it, some some detail of it that made you think that might make it a little bit tricky?
The gas.
Of course, Well tell me about the gas line.
So there's there's a gas line that's crossing Hull one. Used to Crosshold two as well, but we avoided that. It crosses whole six, seven, eight, and eighteen, and you know you're not allowed to basically even drive your normal truck over it because you know, you don't know how deep the gas pipeline is, and yeah, you don't want to blow up.
So you don't want somebody to take a bulldozer in there and hit the wrong thing.
You don't want to get the bulldozer close to it. And then you also want to you know, we had special crossing points where you know, we built up dirt to have like a dirt bridge over over the gas line, and those were the only points where you could actually access from one side to the other. Yeah, so it's a bit more complicated, but I think we managed our way around.
Well. You have this big kind of straight cut through the property where this gas line is, and you can see it if you're looking for it, but if you're just playing the golf course, you might not notice it. And I think that's probably a credit to the routing of the course and how the course gets across it
in a variety of different ways. So, like, how did you and Tom manage that when you were, you know, coming up with the routing for the course, how do you think about like working your way around the gas line and across it in ways that didn't feel like repetitive.
So basically Tom's trick is that you play over the gas line always you know, you don't have a landing area anywhere close to the gas line. So on Hold one, you have your drive and then you over it to the green and you just walk over it, and it's actually a fair way that's split up between your drive and you know, the second landing area and approach. So we renaturalized that so you don't really trying to hide
it as much as we can. On Whole six, it's the same same idea, like you have your drive and your second shot is actually playing over it. And what we did is again renaturalizing the area and actually make it more looking like not like ravene is the wrong word, but like a little washy, like a wash out type of thing with native plants in it. And because it the topography on Whole six is actually you know, everything washes onto the gas line, and we didn't want the
gas line to wash out. We had to just you know, slightly change the shaping of the area without you know, getting into the gas line. So there was a little bit of work to be done there. But again, you your second chot plays over it because you're crossing the hazard and the hazard, you know, is kind of part of the the gas line.
What was the basic timeline for the construction of this course. It was pretty quick, right, yeah, it was.
It just yeah, it just went down so quick. We normally calculate with about ten months of construction. It really depends on the site, on the soil, and you know how much help we have, you know what kind of if you have a contractor if you have the whole team behind you shaping. You know, there are a lot of things that in ful lens like the outcome on how quick you can be, how efficient you can be.
And over here there were a lot of resources, you know, with the support of Pinehurst, and then we had our contractor was Labarg Renovations, So they put up a lot of people just to help and you know, get this turfed and finished as quick as possible.
Was it about a year?
It was less than a year.
It was.
So we normally calculated.
It opened in the I mean it's it just recently opened now basically.
Yeah, sorry, yeah, And so construction started on January seventeenth. I got my visa on January sixteenth because I need a work visa since I'm from Germany. So I got the email, Yes, you can pick up your passport in the embassy on January sixteenth. So my mom drove me to the embassy, picked up my password, and she drove me straight to the airport. I took the next flight, and the next day it was you know, on a bulldozer.
Wow. And there was already I remember there was already kind of publicity going out about the project too at that point. I think it was in January twenty twenty three when I first heard about it, when we were kind of first reporting on it, and so it must have become real really quickly.
Yeah, it just you know, from walking the side. I think that was I was over here in October. I was here in October and just walked the side, and then in in January. Yeah, trying to get my visa as quick as possible. Yeah, I've been here in December to just you know, meet Tom, and we had like one site visit where we both were here and looking at like, okay, clearing corridors, like how far are we
clearing these holes? And then you know, all of a sudden, it's January and eighty percent of the golf course was already cleared. And I think that's kind of when they announced when Pineers announced. Oh yeah, and by the way, we're already you know, we're already clearing and you know, construction set soon. And everyone was I think everyone was taken by surprise and excitement, I think, and and yeah,
it was it was amazing. And you came from Germany out of nowhere into like this excitement and it was it was just yeah, go, go go.
And you were finished with shaping. Grass was going on the course by win last year November October.
No Tom pointed out he approved the last green in June. Oh my gosh, seriously, seriously.
Yeah, I mean, now that I think about it, usually grass doesn't go down to that late in the year. But that's amazing. So it was like a like a five six month just dashed to get everything shaped.
I mean, you had most of it shaped, but then they're still sure that those were greens. And then you you know, you have a couple of bunkers that you want to touch up, or you have a couple of tea still to build, so you do that. And that's after June obviously, So you know, by September we were playing all eighteen holes, and you know, if there was anything that we wanted to change or we wanted to
add a tea box or something. We were able to do that still because it was September, you can you can sow it until November December, no problem.
So this is your first time as a lead associate on a project, and that comes with a number of kind of managerial responsibilities. You're you're overseeing a lot of aspects of the construction. Tom Doak is on site a good bit, but is not on site all the time.
You were actually living here and supervising this project. And so that seems to me to be a really different kind of role than a lot of what you did before, which was, for the most part, as I understand it, shaping, serving as one of the kind of creatives of the projects that you were doing on a bulldozer out there, focusing on features. So for you, how is being a lead associate different than being a shaper?
I think I had a lot more input in terms of the architecture. It's funny, you think like, as a shaper you have a lot more you know, a lot more leeway and a lot more influence on the shapes. And you know, to some extent, yes that's true. But then sometimes I felt like, Okay, what's the overall plan. Well, I think I have a better understanding leading a project
what the overall plan is. And you know, if someone else is leading and you just help out as a shaper, you're just focusing on an area and you're asking the lead associated what's the bigger picture here? What is the plan? What you know? And being that person on this job was just really cool. I so enjoyed it. It was amazing because you see so many facets of the profession that you know, yeah, we're completely completely new. I don't know.
I dip my toes into you know, a little bit of supervising and leading before, but obviously not to this extent. But it was fun, and yeah, I can't wait to do it again if I get a chance.
You want to do it again?
Sure?
So? Is there is being a lead associate? Do you think less creative than being a shaper or more creative or is it a different kind of creativity?
M It has a lot to do with organizing the next steps and preparing, you know, like for example, I knew exactly when Palm would come into town, and I knew which holes he wanted to work on, or you know, I decided like, okay, this makes the most sense to work on these, and I would communicate that with him and really make sure that everything is prepared to you know, he wanted to see that kind of cut, or there were like two or three more trees that needed to
be cut, or you know, you name it. I try to make sure that the site is prepared for him coming over and that we get the most out of his visit. And also his visit always comes with getting help from the senior design associate. So having Eric, Brian and Brian and Blake come over and help, you know, you want to have something prepared for them to shape the green or you know, whatever needed to be done and whatever holes we wanted to get shaped and done.
You want to have those ready. You can't have that, Oh yeah, we still need to clear like some of the root zones or grow up something. You want to have it already so they can just here's your bulldozer, go to you know, Hold ten both the freaking amazing green and you know, and that's what they do. And they're so fast and quick and it's inspiring, like how how greative they are, and yeah, it's just really cool.
That's one of the things that's interesting about this project, and really about a lot of Tom Doak's projects. The shapers on the construction site are a variety of architects who have been working with Tom Doug for a long time. So you mentioned Brian and Brian that's Brian Slonik and Brian Schneider. Eric that's Eric Iverson, Blake Conant. All of these really experienced architects were coming to this project and shaping greens on the construction site that you were supervising.
Tom Doak also shaped a couple of greens out there.
Yep.
Is this you know, you've worked for a couple of other architects, but not like a lt you weren't. You haven't gone all over the place to a bunch of different architects. Is this a fairly unique way of working? Like do other architects do this where they're bringing in really experienced people like this to just shape a couple of greens.
So I worked with Gil Hans for a little while and it was it was slightly different, I want to say, in terms of Gil and Jim Wagner have a really big pool of young talented architects and shapers, but you know they don't always get the chance to both the greens. Jim McGill take big pride in shaping those greens. I don't want to say that you never get a chance building greens with them. That's not absolutely not true. I shaped a couple of grains with them and it was fun.
But they really like to be on the machines themselves. So it would be similar to Tom wanting to shape like ninety percent of the greens. And I think it's fair to say he's saying that a lot. I don't want to put him on a spot, but he keeps saying, like you know, Eric Iverson, Brian Schneider and Brian Slonik, they get the vision into the ground so much quicker that and so much cleaner that it is so much easier working with like experienced shapers to get something into
the ground rather than doing it yourself. Now we're talking about these guys have been working with Tom for such a long time, so they we have some kind of you know, similar lingo.
Right, they know what he likes.
They know what he likes and if they're talking about it, what the green should do. They know exactly what he wants. And you know, part of part of the job is also and this is the fun part. It's like if you travel a lot, you have seen many places, and you know, you can only hope that you remember like oh, that really cool kicker slope on this green, or like, hey, why don't we build like you know, the green of
National you know, Whole five or something. And and the thing is that you know, we know what that green does, and so do other shapers, Like we look at those shapes and whenever Tom gil Jim or looking at building a green, you have those greens in the back of your head, I want to say. And a really good example is Holly eleven out here on course number ten. You know, Tom took the inspiration from Crystal Downs the ninth hole, which is a part three uphill, and you
know it's not the same hole, but it's similar. And you know that's the thing, Like you're not copy pasting, but there might be similarities. And maybe you change something or you have like you know, different bunkers, or you have like a cliff like we do, or you know, whatever it is, you're just making it unique to this place. I feel like every golf course in every site that we're looking at have their own identity and their own feel and you know this sense of place, like you know,
what's growing here? What are we looking at? What's the vibe? There's so much that goes into it and just honoring that and yeah, so it. You know, we're taking some ideas of greens and off wholes, but we're making a unique all right.
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on event day. And that's the key thing is some trust in your tournament management system. So to check out golf Genius Tournament Management, go to golf Genius dot com slash TM. All right, let's get back to Angela Moser. So far, whole eight at Pinehurst, number ten has gotten a lot of attention, and I actually want to swerve away from that at this point because I think that there's probably enough content out there about the eighth hole
at this course. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's the hole that goes over the big humps and bumps and has a green kind of in a natural or you know, somewhat shaped punch bowl setting, and it's a unique and pretty thrilling hole. But it's been very much discussed so far, so I'm wondering if there's another hole that you think will be the second most discussed.
You know, it's funny. I always thought eleven will be great, and there were you know, doubts because it's slightly uphill and you can't really see that much of the putting surface, and there were a lot of doubts about how that hole turns out. I think it turned out fantastic. Well, why don't I not start on Let's start with hold one. Hold one is very cool. I like Hold one. It's like a little bit of homage to Pineer's number two. How you know the green is perched up, it's like tilted.
I really like how you know some of the bunkering, the native bunkering on the right eats in and it's very strategic. I think Hole three has such a beautiful green that Blake Conan shaped. It's so it's sitting on the ground. It's it's beautifully done. And you know, this is a very good example. Actually, I was standing with Tom and Blake on on the green side for Whole Free and Tom directed Blake's like, you know, make it
a little bit like garden City. So it sits on the ground and you have, you know a couple of contras, but it's falling away. I think he nailed it. It's beautiful how the bunker are coming into play and making the whole squeeze in the right place, And you know, I think that's pretty cool. And then whole four or five, four, five, six, I think seven, eight are a really strong stretch. I really like eleven and twelve and fourteen.
So the answer to the question, which hole, aside from eight do you think is going to be the most discussed is every other holes? Here's my take. I think the answer to this question, and not that this is the right answer, this is just my sense of it. I think the answer to the question which hole is going to be the most discussed aside from the one that everybody is discussing right now might be seventeen Part three across the water to a pretty unique and wild green. Now,
a lot of the greens here are pretty subtle. This one is more bold. And you shape this green. I know this, and so I'm wondering if you could give me any insights into the thought process behind this hole and what you were going for with that very dramatic green.
So the input that I got was I'm picturing a grain that's sloping left to right, and there might be like a bunker here or there and we'll see what you come up with. That was the input that I got, so pretty broad, pretty broad, I think, yeah, and then you know you have the pine tree in the back, and I thought like, okay, to get to a degree where the greenest fairly up from the from the lake,
to be safe, you know, not building too low. The back was still going to be more for like like a punch bowl type of thing, like it has a it's not punchable, it's a it's a slope that you know you can kick in on the left and then you know the back is actually bringing your ball back, So there's a slope there that's more it. And you know, I was just playing with it, and I thought like, yeah, I really like this bunker in the front and having like a little plateau behind it where you can pin it,
which is really really tough to hold it. I really liked how you had that slope in the back and you know you could feed your ball back in. And I just went down to like this front right pin location, and you know, at some point I thought like, well, we'll see what Tom thinks. It's that is a pretty tough pin. And I think the only part that he made me. Change was that plateau in the front was not deep enough. He pasts it off and it was just a couple of feet short of like what he
would approve. So I had to adjust that slightly to make it work so you can hold a ball and not just always end up in that bunker. But yeah, besides that, he really liked it, you know, I remember Brian Schneider walked up like this is pretty cool.
So high praise from Brian Schneider.
That is high praise. I take it any time seriously.
So you spent a lot of time in Pinehurst. You probably played the number two course at least a couple of times.
Yeah, I played. I think I played one and a half rounds.
And a half rounds, okay, perfect. I think that's enough to give a take on the course. Obviously, EOS Open is coming up, it's going to be at Pinehurst number two. When you look at Pinehurst number two, what is the thing that impresses you the most?
The conjuring around the greens is exceptional. You know, you don't see a lot of push up greens that are so well conjured, so well thought through and challenging. And I could go on and on like there's they're magnificent, seriously, and the greens are the defense basically, and it depends what you hit into the green, how you hit it, where the pin is. You might have like a tiny spot,
you might have, you know, a really awkward angle. So you have to be smart to you know, accept to take the bullet, lay up, use a potter, you know, whatever it is. You have to be very smart here and have a good sense of how you want to play this golf course and then good luck executing it. If you miss something, you might end up in a really tough spot. So there's a lot of defense around
the green. And it's not always like a bunker. It might be a contour that you're not aware of or you didn't really see if you play the first time. So you know, there's a lot that don't rust it absolutely right out here.
So did you and Tom think about how Pinehurst number ten might compare in contrast with the number two course.
Well, if you're building a golf course, you know, the second, third, tenth course for a resort, you always want to be slightly different. You don't want to get mixed up with other courses, so you want to have your own identity and your own I don't want to say, look, that's not right, but you want to get off the golf course and then remember, you know what was whole seven again. You know, there's some some kind of remembering recognizing the
holes you just played versus everything blending together. So there's you know, there's a lot of that. And we looked at what can we do on our hilly, very big topography site on course number ten versus a fairly flat number two. What can you get away with? Would it wash out? And you know, in terms of greens, I mean you played a couple of Tom's courses. I think one of his bests and biggest strength is that he
puts a lot of different greens in the ground. And it's not just him, but the variety of greens is just one of his biggest strengths. And you know part of it is, you know, it comes through the routing because he finds the green sites and you always have, like you know, already a pitch like I said on seventeen that left to right was already naturally there. I just had to, you know, uncover a little bit more
of what you see now. So he is very very good at that, and then of course if you have shapes like Eric, Brian and Brian, all of a sudden you create some cool, very very either low on the ground sitting greens or you know, pushed up and like a turtle back green of number two. And I think again like just having not the same green all the time and have different areas us on a green. That's another thing that we have on course number ten is there's sections of a green that is just slightly different
than the other section. So there's a you know, there's a lot going on in terms of variety, which I think adds to the interest of a golf course.
So changing topics a little bit here. You mentioned before that you're originally from Germany. You know, just to begin with golf in Germany, I don't really know a lot about it, But how would you say it's different from golf in the you know, in America or in the UK.
Well, first of all, we kind of missed that window of the golden age of golf course architecture. So yeah, we do have a couple of Harry Cole golf courses, but you know, some of them did some work to the greens, to the bonker is, to sometimes everything and just the only thing that's left is for the most time, like the routing. And yes, sometimes you can see like some some of the Harry Colt's genius there, but then you keep walking and you're kind of like, okay, and
now what's happening now? So you're you're at a dead end and something happened there. I heard a golf manager at some point say, if it comes to golf and golf architecture, we're more like a world country like to go and that I'm sorry for tog but you know, I think, you know, that's the thing, like we were very very proud of, you know, what we know about golf in Germany, and we're trying to achieve. But it's also about, you know, let's look outside of Germany and
what's there and why is it good? And hey, let's just reach out to someone in America and see what they would suggest, you know, and this is a long way to answer your question. I got in touch with Tom because sitting in an office and designing golf courses out of a library wasn't really cutting it for me. I didn't feel that identity of the place. I didn't feel, you know how, how is the topography of the golf course or the future golf course, and I need to
sense what's happening on site. And I didn't sense that when I was sitting in front of a computer screen. So you know, at some point I was pretty desperate, looked up the best golf courses in the world. Mackenzie was dead. Shit, Ross was dead, damn it, Cold was dead. And then at some point I crossed Corn Crenshaw and Tom Doak and checked them out and on their website Renaissance Golf, and Tom Doak has this amazing opportunity of
the internship program. And I remember that I was writing that email straight away that I saw that, and I send that email straight away oft like I want to do this, please please please please answer my email. And this is where I'm at at the minute. But how you describe golf course architecture and how you do it and what you do makes so much more sense to me, and I want to be part of that. And you know,
they replied and called me back. And I waited two years to to get the opportunity to get that internship. But for me, it was clear, I have to give everything, I have to continue and That's what I tried to do to use that opportunity to stay with them.
So you did this internship back in twenty eleven. Right, Now, by that point you were already working toward being a golf architect. I guess you had become interested in golf architecture long before. I believe you played competitively when you were younger and a little bit, So how did you first start noticing golf architecture. Just to go back a little bit further, how did you go from playing competitive golf to being interested in golf courses?
So I played golf every weekend somewhere else, right, So you for the very German you know, it's not a tour, but you play your age group and every weekend there's a different tournament and if it's like you know, a team event or a single event, whatever it is, it's on a different golf course. So you travel there, you play, and I'd be honest here, I don't really care how
I play. For me, it was just interesting to see all these different golf courses because that's the coolest thing about golf course architecture and golf is like every golf course is different, right, So you have this endless variety of like yeah, let's I really like this place, Let's go and you know, go to Abandon or let's go to whatever. Like there's there's so many golf courses out there that you can discover, and and for me it
was like I remember that it was four. I was playing somewhere close to Hamburg and there's like a part three and had like a kicker slope in the green and you know, maybe maybe there are a lot of people out there, me included, until then that thought like, okay, there's the pin, it's that that yardage. I got to shoot that like this straight and that's it. But you know, if there's a kicker slope and you have a lot more room, it might be a lot easier to just
use that to get funnel to towards the pin. So I played and I thought like, well that's pretty cool, Like.
Well there's more to it than just yeah for the hole, and right, there's a there's a whole golf course that kind of exists around the target.
Yeah exactly, it's not target golf. It's like, you know, you play slopes and you you be creative. And again, like coming from Germany, I don't think there are too many slopes. So if you if you go you know to the UK and you know, play Saint Andrews or something, you know, some of the really cool old original golf courses, you have so many slopes that you can use to you know, funnel back a golf uh, you know, your
golf ball and be creative. And that was the first time I saw this, and I thought, like, that's pretty cool. Didn't anyone actually think about this, not just as a golfer, but like like and it was a light bulb moment. And from there it was like, wait, is there like someone who's thinking about this seriously? Like someone built that? What a genius and you know, and it basically started there. And back then, you know, there was no book about
golf course architecture in German. I didn't it didn't really cross my mind that I'm looking too much into like English books. Google was fairly new, I think, so, so you know, it was an age I want to say, where it didn't really cross my mind to you know, look further. And you know, by the time I studied landscape architecture, you know, my professors were all saying, like, that's incredibly stupid to you know, go into golf course architecture.
We don't have the nineties anymore. And I basically told them like, who cares about Germany, Let's look outside of the box, you know. And I did. In scholarship in England where had professors, that was the first time that they were like, oh, that's cool, okay, why don't you go and travel and see golf courses here and then write about it and that's your essay for this course,
you know. So you know, I did that and it was cool and it was different, new, and I felt like taken serious, you know, like that that is something that I want to do, and you know someone's actually listening and not shutting you down straight away. But there when I got back to Germany, I had to finish my degree just like a normal landscape architect and worked then in an office just like as an intern, to
design golf courses from the computer. It was my first day in that office that I looked up, like I said, it was my first day, and I was like, I got I got back into my room and I was like, I can't do this the rest of my life. I love this, but I can't do it this way. So I needed to find a different way, and and that's when I found you know, Tom and the internship program.
And yeah, what courses did you see when you were studying in the UK. It sounds like you did a little a little tour.
Yeah, yeah, I definitely, you know, I saw North burk I saw Royal Dornic, I went to Hillside and World Burkdale. So most of the time, I for some reason I thought like Scottish golf is what I needed to check out. I saw, you know, I saw the old course of course. I was there during the Dunhill actually, so I saw all of the courses and that was that was just so neat to see like a historic place like that and how it plays and how it just stood the test of time. You know, it was just fascinating. I
think that's the right word. It was fascinating to me, And yeah, just outstanding. If you're coming from a country, you know, again like Germany, it was just fascinating to see those golf courses and how they work and how creative they were. So that was pretty cool.
What did it make you think about what you wanted to build in golf when you saw those golf courses? How did they kind of change your frame of reference for the kinds of golf courses that you wanted to build.
Well, to put it frankly, like if you're if you're putting on the putting green in Germany, it's flat. If you're putting the ladies putting.
Green and Saint Andrew's, you know flat, you have the opposite of flat, and you have a lot of fun and it's so cool, and you.
Know, it just blew my mind and I was like, well, this is different, this is so different, and why don't we do this? And where where did this get lost? Why aren't we building something like this anymore?
Do you have a hope at some point to do more work in Germany? I know you've done some you've done some projects in Germany, but is there a part of you that you know just wants to completely revolutionize golf golf in Germany, like turn it, turn it in a different direction.
I would love to, Yes, Germany stays my home. And you know what I would really love to do is restore a Harry Colt golf course properly and just really put it back to the glory that you know Harry Harry Cole golf course is I don't know if there's ever going to be a possibility to build a new golf course in Germany. There are a lot of restrictions, and there's also the problem of a lot of the land that is owned. Most of the time those are
too small for a golf course. So it's not like in the US where you have like a big area that is available, you know, and you can build like one course or two or three. So, you know, I think it's pretty tough. They're not many golf courses getting built in Germany anymore, to the point of my professor back then. But you know, if there's an opportunity, I wouldn't say no. But just again, like I learned from someone like Tom Doag, how important it is to get
a good piece of ground. So there are a lot of things that would dictate that narrative.
So most recently, I believe just before you came back to pine Hurst to do this whole function at Pinehurst number ten that you and I were both attending earlier today you were working in Scotland. So what's what's going on with Cabot Highlands. This is that this is at the facility formerly known as Castle Stewart, which started with a gil Hants course purchased by Cabot and now a second course designed by Tom Doak is going in. What what did you do at Cabot Highlands And how's that project going?
I think it's going to be outstanding. My colleague Clyde Johnson is leading this. It's also his first time that he's the lead associate, and I think he's doing a fantastic job. You know, shaping looks outstanding and really cool. It was this falls right into his alley building links golf courses, so there's a lot of fun shots there. And what did I do? You know? I told him just tell me where you need help. You know. That's that's the thing.
Like it's kind of like how the the Brians and Eric and did you on your project here?
Exactly? Like you know, they were amazing. They came over. It's like, okay, where do you want me to work? And you know, if I had a you know, something that I really needed to figure out, you know, I would just say like would you mind doing like this area here? And I know how how big of a help it is to just you don't care, you just help whatever needs to be done. If it's a T box, if it's a bunker, if it's just native area somewhere, if it's a green, fantastic, sure. But whatever he needed,
and I think there was what I did. It was like I did a little change on one of the greens that he built, and then did big for fair way moving, a movement fairway shaping. And then what else? Did I do a cut through, like you know, one area so you can see it from the tea box so it kind of looks natural. So yeah, a couple
of things that I did. But you know, again, whatever he wanted me to do, I was happy to just help because I I understand like how helpful that is to just send someone over and know that, okay, they're going to figure it out, and after that I can just cross it off my list. So you know, yeah, I was just happy to be over there.
Do you have a preference between shaping greens versus shaping bunkers or doing some other kind of work on a golf course? You know, there are some architects out there who really specialize in bunkers. I'm thinking of Jeff Bradley who works for Corn Crenshaw. He has really owned this bunker shaping thing for for the past couple of decades. There are other architects who really enjoy get a lot out of shaping greens and feel they have some sort
of expertise in that area. Do you have a preference along those lines?
I think that's another area where I would say we were taught differently, you know, we grew up differently under Tom.
So this is maybe a difference between Coren Crenshaw's operation, yeah, and Tom Doak's operation. It does seem like, you know, that's a good point. It seems like a lot of Coren Crenshaw shapers start to specialize in some aspect of the construction process. Not not all of them, but but there you know, yeah, there are certain shapers who really do focus on bunkers, and there are others who really do focus on greens.
Right, Yeah, I don't I don't think that really that aspect really fits us, Like, you know, whatever needs to be done basicly and you know out here Eric I was in shape to a couple of tea boxes. Took him no time. But you know, this child's play for Yeah, okay, sure, I'll vote you some pease, which is super nice.
All right, Well, Angela, thank you for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate it. Congratulations on the work at Pinehurst number ten and looking forward to seeing what else you do.
Thank you so much, Garrett, what a pleasure to be here.
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