Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. In this episode, I am joined by up and coming golf course architect Andrew Green. In part one of our two part podcasts, we discuss how Andrew got into golf, his pet Peeves, his recent trip to Scotland, and much more. Look for Part two to drop after the fourth of July. I hope everyone has a great and safe holiday, and without further ado, here's Andrew Green.
The fried egg requires a different technique. What you need to do is actually square the face, so they'll dig down underneath that bad lie and propel that ball right out onto the green.
Here's the thing. Playing out of a buried lion of bunker is completely different than playing out of a night clean lion of green side bunker. You need to be aggressive on any shop weather it's sitting cleanly for its Friday Egg. Well, we've all faced it to the dreaded Frida Egg. It's not to be feared though. It's actually a pretty be shot to hit. What do you do in your free time?
So, and it's sometimes it's books about golf. A lot of times it's historical stuff, biographies, reading a great book about the Navy, seals.
Right now, you and Tiger.
Yeah, his training is a little more intense than mine.
Yeah, you're not doing the two to days.
No, no, not much time for that. Probably benefit from it.
Yeah, I think I would too. With travel, you know, how many how many flights did you do you last year?
One hundred and thirty three. It's a lot of legs. When you start recognizing flight attendance, you know you're probably traveling a little too much.
What h what's the uh? What's your pro tip for traveling? You know, do you have any tricks of the trade?
Uh? TSA pre check and if you know you have anything pseudo on the edge, get it out of your bag, you know, don't get caught.
Yeah. TSA pre check is like a complete game changer. I think when I travel with my drone and my mixing board and mics, people think I have like a bomb.
Yeah. So I'm doing a project in Jamaica. Sometimes I'd have to carry like machine parts or something to help expedite. And I know one time it was just a simple like a hydraulic arm, and they thought, based on the X ray, it looked like a some kind of weapon and it was like the culture security, the minute it went through the X ray machine. That wasn't fun.
So where'd you grow up?
So I grew up kind of a little north of Roanock, Virginia, kind of in the mountains, you know, a little bit out in the sticks, not in a city by any means, and actually learned the game from my next door neighbor. For the most part, my parents had golf clubs. They didn't really play. My brother played a little bit, but my next door neighbor, who was a dentist, played all the time, and he would hit like one hundred and twenty five one hundred and thirty yard shots in our backyards.
So in the evening I go out with him and hit shots, and then he took me to play my first full round of golf. I played with him. It was pretty cool, me and me, semi private club, real simple. You know, One thing about I was thinking about it that, you know, if I grew up at a real high level club, let's say, a top one hundred, and I went to a place like where I grew up playing, I don't think my appreciation for that kind of golf
would be there. But starting like at that lower level and then seeing the best it's like you still have an appreciation for the game I fell in love with. Was very simple. You know, the greens are pretty rounded, kind of pushed up, you know, architecturally, not lighting the world on fire. But I just loved playing there, and you know, I'd have a lot of wedges probably in my hand, but it was just so much fun.
And what was the first golf course that you played that you realized like there was like a different type of golf, Like there was like a you know that there's more to golf than what the golf course he grew up on.
So probably either between the Cascades, which was about forty minutes north of where I grew up at the Homestead, really cool mountain golf course Flynn, and then Harbortown played that. We used to go to hilton Head before it was hilton Head way back when, and playing Harbortown is like playing in a bowling alley, you know, but you could see there was more to it, right than just you know, a target, a couple bunkers. You know, there was thought put into it.
Harbortown, Tom Doak says, is one of his most influential courses. Bill cor says the same, and it's fascinating. A lot of people think it's kind of overrated.
Now, yeah, you know, it definitely puts a premium on shots right. And I haven't been back since some of the latest work. I played it in the mid nineties. I guess trees grow. Yeah, little trees become big trees. That's my deal. You know, if you don't manage them, they get out of hand.
The course I grew up a meuni. I grew up playing at it, like all these trees were tiny when I was a kid, And now when I go back, I'm like, whoa, I can't just like blast it over these trees anymore.
So that was the course I grew up playing. I went back. I did an interview for Buffalo Golfer that written thing, and they saw it and they'd gotten a new owner, and they said, you know, would you come take a look, And I was like, absolutely, I'd love to go see it. I was like, my only thing I want to do is play it. Like I don't need a fee to come, I just I just want
to go play. So I went out and played. And you know, there are all these white pines that in the you know, late eighties nineties were obtrusive, but now they were just like massive. It was mind boggling. And that was like my number one thing to them was, listen, we got to work on some of these trees because there's just so many of them and they're just snuffing the views of the mountains, the lines of play. Yeah, it's uh are they taking them out? I haven't, I
haven't been back. I don't know how much. I know it's on the list. I told them they could probably get a pretty good deal on lumber.
I feel like in in more rural areas tree removal, you could almost just take them down and put them outside, Like I know, in cities that it's so expensive to get them out, you know, right and like you know, don't necessarily like some places you can sell the lumber or some places, but some places you could just put it out on the corner of the property.
And getting picked up right for sure. Well then you get you know, between all different ordinances and depending where the clubs is, it makes a big difference in what you can do. But some clubs have made pretty good money taking trees out and selling them.
That be nice if they all clubs could make money taking them out. I think more people.
It would help balance things, wouldn't it.
Yeah, how did you get into you know, like, how when'd you decide that you wanted to do golf architecture and golf construction for a living.
I was probably a junior in high school and I was thinking about political science, chemical engineering, and you know, I was like a lot of kids sitting in high school class drawing golf courses, you know, on the corners of your paper, and not the best golfer in the world, but just a real appreciation for the challenge of it and the problems that golf present. And I went to talk to some folks at Virginia Tech, and I knew the turf grass agronomy professor pretty well. I talked to him.
I went to talk to the landscape architecture department, and they, probably to their credit, looking back on it, we're very concerned about a narrow focus. You know, here's a junior, senior in high school. He wants to come study golf architecture. When you look across the spectrum, you know how many people make a living doing that, right, So you know, how are you going to allow a kid to put all his eggs in one basket and say, you know, I'm going to be a golf architect and here I go.
So they actually probably discouraged me a little bit. But I'm the kind of person that, you know, somebody tells me no, it only makes me try harder. So, you know, that's what I decided I wanted to do, and I went to Virginia Tech. Landscape Architecture was a five year program, and I decided in five years I was going to get two degrees. And it was a little crazy, you know, eighteen hours or more a semester for five years. Last two years, I did, you know, over twenty credits a
semester to get done, and really fortunate. My last summer before I graduated, i'd met Chip McDonald in ninety seven at the US Open at Congressional. He'd done the renovation work and he hired me the summer before I graduated and worked for him, and then before I was done that summer, he pretty much offered me a position full time. So I worked my last year on breaks and stuff for him, and then once I graduated, I started. Within a week. I was in the dirt, you know, building,
designing stuff. It just almost seems like it was destined to be.
I mean, two degrees in five years. I struggle to get one done. I wasn't the best student.
Yeah, you know it's I I like to win. You know, I'm not an uber competitive athletic person, but I still like to win.
You know. I think like when you look at like becoming a professional golfer, like a PGA tour player, like there aren't a lot of spots, and there's a lot of people trying to do it. And with golf course architecture especially now, there's even less spots. There's a lot of people trying to do it. I mean, you have to be competitive. Like, there's no way for you not to be competitive, and.
If you don't have a drive, you're not making it. I think it's really with a lot of things in life.
I don't think there's many professions where if you want to be really good and yeah, especially architecture, really, I don't think you can be mediocre and really be really good, you know, and get the kind of where you want to be without being super competitive. So you work for McDonald and sons for a number of years, and you started got out on your own and started your own firm. You know, unlike it's kind of a non traditional path. Do you think it helped.
You, Oh, definitely. I just there's no more stress in life than designing something and having to build it yourself and having no finger to point right. So you can't blame the contractor, you can't blame the architect, you can't blame anybody but yourself. So it's got to be right. And I think Chip, to his credit, he you know, had a background in maintenance and as a longtime superintendent, he put a lot of pressure on me to excel and make sure things worked and make sure every line
that I drew had purpose. And I think that it was really important that there wasn't someone to fall back on or someone looking over my shoulder constantly. I feel like I make better decisions, I see things, I can react to things better because of that pressure and understanding that as I went and then you can't be any more invested than as you work in that fashion. And I really liked the idea that I I didn't learn
a system. You know, there wasn't a recipe. It was you know, get on the golf course, find out what the golf course needs, listen to the client, and respond and then I really liked the idea that every course is different and they all shouldn't look the same. And because you know, I wasn't working under an umbrella of a bigger name, I had that freedom.
I imagine you get to work with a ton of different architects too, and you got to pick up things that you liked and also things you didn't like. Is there anything you know that you learn from you know, specific you know situations, like specific architects that you like really picked up and embrace, Like is there something that some an architect that you work for that you've picked up and are like, this guy does this really well?
Yeah? I think so. I think watching the hardest thing to do in golf, period, whether you're a superintendent, a golf professional, general manager, wherever you are in the game and in the industry, learning the political spectrum and learning the dynamics and how each club is different, and even even from a daily fee perspective, and so watching other architects interact with committees and some we're a lot better at bending minds. I guess to see it their way.
Some people it was my way or the highway, and if you don't like it, go some guys were more thoughtful, and seeing that spectrum kind of helped allow me to kind of figure out the way I wanted to proceed. And I think there's a balance. And look, I think one of the cool things about what I do is that I'm constantly learning, you know, whether it's history stuff even in the dirt, but the political thing. You know, you're you're always learning. Okay, who do I need to
convince to see it my way? How do I teach people what's good architecture and what isn't? You know? We talked about that a little bit yesterday, and so I think that was probably the biggest thing I picked up. I was very cautious when I worked with other architects, and I didn't work with a ton of them. I saw a lot of projects being done, but as far as hand in hand working with other guys, I didn't spend a lot of time in the field with them. But you know, you see, you see rhythms, you see
tendencies of those things with guys. But it you know, some of the big work we did with McDonald, some of the you know, the Bethpage Black even Congressional Oakmont Marian the first time you just it's complicated, very complicated.
People want, you know, want it to be simple, but living this life, it's there's so many different things that are happening, and I guess maybe learning from some of those other guys, maybe the best way is just to plow through and and be, you know, the the dominant personality and just kind of shove it down the road. But sometimes that's not a great way to live either. You know, there's a balance.
I imagine working with committees, it's it's got to be so tough because everybody is, like everybody processes information differently. Like some people are like visual learners. Some people are like you know, they need everything explained to them verbally. Some people like reading and like some people like you can't explain something until you get out in the field.
So do you when.
You're you know, kind of pushing new ideas? How how do you present all all of it? Do you try and do a combination of all.
The It's it's a struggle, I really. What I learned, I guess at some point was that you can stand up and tell anybody you have a great idea, but if they fire question back at you, and your only response is you know what do you do for a living, or you know you don't know what you're talking about. That's not a great way to try to get your
point across. You're much better served to say, well, this is what I was thinking, this is why I think it's important, you know, talk get through, don't talk down
tons of mileage out of that. And then you know, if you want to see if you want to see something amazing, go to a club and talk about a subject to each administrator, so general manager, golf pro, superintendent, I mean even assistant superintendent, assistant golf pro, you know, clubhouse manager, and then go talk to the club president, you know, members of the board, golfers you want to
find out. I mean, I've worked with clubs before and I've heard, you know, twelve different perspectives on something very simple, just from all those different people, and it's kind of mind blowing. It's like, you know, you're all on the same team, but the perspectives are also different. And so you know, that's where I really find that if you have good ideas, you explain them, well, you're going to get ahead.
Yeah, And if you can when you're just talking to those different individuals, if you can curtail.
Your messaging just a little bit.
Yeah, so that because you can understand what they want specifically and kind of tweak it so that they understand exactly. I mean, it's crazy how many people you have to get on board exactly because the vocal minority in clubs is just toxic.
So I used to say I like to have the squeaky wheel on a committee because I always like to know where that person stood. And I still like that to a certain extent. But I also have found certainly that there's some people no matter what you say, what you do, what you tell them, you know you're not
going to convince them. But I tell you one of the things that's most satisfying is working or hearing from those kinds of people and then doing the project and then coming back and say, listen, I was wrong or wow, or you know, that's pretty good.
So you're you're forty, and when you look at the landscape of golf architects, people like think Gil Hans is like a young guy. He's in his fifties. It's why is the takes so long in architecture to get established, and because I feel like you're you're just becoming like established house the whole name, right, and you know it just well.
I mean, the whole reason I went out on my own really was that after two thousand and eight, most guys in their thirties were kind of washed out or you know, there wasn't a ton of work, and some of those guys were making a good amount of money with bigger names, and they you couldn't sustain it. And it's so hard to break out of the shadow, you know sometimes when you're working with a big, big name guy.
And I just saw that there was this great opportunity that there was a wake behind the really big name guys from the you know, the boom of the nineties and two thousands, and you had this really cool group of people that are doing amazing work now, like Gil and Doak and those guys. But that all of a sudden, there's kind of a gap. So I needed to get off my butt and try to fill that gap or
get in line. I think the reason it takes so long is no matter how much you learn in a classroom, no matter how many golf courses you see, no matter even how many projects you oversee, Like I said, you're constantly learning, and it takes a long time to get enough experience to handle the dynamics right, because it's more than just drawing a pretty picture or having a great idea.
It's selling yourself. It's creating a plan that responds to what people are looking for, you know, something people want, and then you've got to bid the project, admit, stir it, make it happen in the field, you know, and produce,
manage it. And doing that as a young you know, the most frustrating thing for me was right out of school, ended up managing a couple million dollars new project, and I was assawed off, you know, twenty something year old working with guys that are in their fifties and sixties that had moved dirt their entire life and trying to convince them to do what I wanted them to do was hard.
I bet, yeah, thank you. They were probably like, what's this young schmuck you know telling me how to do my job I've been doing for thirty years exactly.
So the easiest way to do that is beat them to work, So they get there at five or four point thirty and drink coffee in their truck for an hour and smoke cigarettes. You know, you better be there before them, no matter. You know, you're in instant credibility by not you know, not being the quote unquote pretty boy. I guess you know, show up, work, work with them, so you know it just it takes time. I think
there are a lot of talented people out there. I think perseverance was a huge part of my life and help me. You know, that idea of no matter what gets thrown at you, you know you're constantly trying to do better. Those things really help in life and in architecture.
What would what would you do differently if you could go back and do say you could you could do something differently in college or you could you know, right out of school, you could do something differently.
Yeah, I think the biggest thing I would do different is I would appreciate the journey a little more. You know, you always want to get to the end or you always want to get you know, like you know, five years attack, you know, I wanted to get done. I wanted to go make money, I wanted to go build things. I wanted to go design and and and you know, travel the world and do what I wanted to do.
Thinking back on it, and just the other day we were at a set I think with my wife at an alumni thing, and uh, they were talking about medieval times and Game of Thrones and stuff, and I was so enthralled of man. I wish I would have appreciated all the extra things like in school and uh, the life experiences other than just what I wanted to do, because I think the perspective, all those things teach you things about what you want to do and it's really
exactly yeah. So that's probably, you know, probably the biggest thing is just trying to appreciate that more. But I used to lose a lot of sleep over like bunker lines, like you know, painted a bunker line and then it would keep me up at night of you know, is that the right bunker line? I mean that's crazy, right, I mean they're bunkers, right, They're hazards there, you know.
But I was hanging on probably evolve over oh yeah.
Right, I mean the minute you leave, you know, you know, a summer kid you know, hits it with a hand pro or something and it's completely changed from what you've done or you know, the you know whatever. So I think having kids and a wife that that we have an awesome team at home gave me great perspective on that that, you know, the important things are the important things, some of those kind of smaller detail things of stressing
over it's not worth stressing over. You still want to, you know, excel at them, but you know, don't lose sleep over it. Like I sleep really well. I mean, maybe it's because I work so much and I don't sleep much, but I don't stress like it's you know, it's okay. So you know, I think that stuff you learn over time.
You're in the design contract school of thought with a little bit of build.
Yeah. So look, I did design build for fourteen years, and I think there's a good value in it. What I struggled to find was that, you know, I like to operate equipment. I'm not the world's greatest shaper. I can run equipment good enough to get my idea crossed, you know. So if a guy's struggling trying to get my vision, I'll ask kindly, you know, let me get on there and show you what I'm kind of thinking, and then you can clean up my mess kind of thing.
So I think there's there's an awesome connection and doing that. But what I really struggle with is that if you're going to be a world class builder, then you need to be a world world class builder. And if you're going to be a world class architect, then you need
to be a world class architect. And I wouldn't trade my time doing design build for anything, but I think the creative freedom and the time that I might dedicate to some other piece of the design build I can now dedicate to you know, being a better architect is kind of where I settled in my head. And maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong.
I mean it's a hard thing. I mean it's like what we just talked about, like managing, and like I even see it, like I ran this by myself for so long, and now I have some people that help write stuff. I have some people, I have an intern, and like now like all of a sudden, like I have to manage also, like and I have to read other people's stuff and I have to give feedback and I can't. Like it's not just all like what I do.
And I think that it's takes different skills and it requires different skills and you can't be all wrapped up in one aspect of it exactly.
Yeah, So you know, I've really got to be good with my time now and I couldn't imagine running that extra opponent myself, at least at this point.
What's your pet peeve when you go to a golf course, like like.
Like in existing or when I'm working myself.
Say, we just went down the street to golf course, Like, what's one thing that that you just immediately catches your eye.
And oh, you're going to love this, right? The trees, you know for sure, I know you're big on that, but uh, it's just there's such an emotional attachment two trees and they're beautiful, but they got to be in the right spot. And I think, uh, you know, golfers, especially in the States obviously, right, you know, they they feel like it's we talked a little bit about this. You know, it's the way it's always been. Well no, you know every year the tree is changing. You know,
it's not the way it's always been. And you see the trees from rarely the way so exactly right. So you know that's that's kind of a pet peeve. It drives me nuts when I see properties or places where people want to be like somebody else and golf and I guess I've said this a lot. I guess Golf's the only game solely, you know, defined by the ground that is played on. And for me, what makes it so cool is that every golf course is different. There are no two golf courses the same, not even close.
So why why do you want to take all the things from your neighbor or the last place you went to travel to play and put it on your property. Now you might find concepts or themes that it works, but why don't Why don't you embrace what makes you special? You know? And so sometimes you see people really trying to force their golf course to be something that isn't and that that's painful.
I feel like that's especially the case with like following the big name club in a city. So if you're in Chicago, if the way it used to be, if Medina does something.
You got it right. You got to get in line right. Yeah. I did a talk for superintendents a couple of years ago. It is like the top ten things you can learn from the top ten, And it wasn't about how to
be like the top ten. It was well, if everybody, you know, they watch the Masters and the next week they're after you to do X, Y and Z or whatever tournament, Well, why don't you turn that around on them and say, well, these are the things we can do, Like at Augusta, you know what, forty four bunkers or something now and twenty two originally, then let's look at making our bunkers more efficient. That's a great thing you can say from Augusta. You know, clubhouses, some of the clubhouses,
good clubs are pretty simple. You know, they're not these monstrosities that cost a fortune to run and you know, have all these moving pieces. They're pretty simple. Use that, don't don't you know.
It's like the clubhouse I saw in Palm Strings. They're spending like eighty million dollars on a clubhouse out there. It's like, what eighty million dollars on a clubhouse? Like do you think people are going? Is it a hotel or people living in there?
So one of the first courses over the first course I helped design and build as King Carter in eastern Virginia, you know in I'm kind of middle of nowhere, northern Neck, really cool spot, like really relaxed. But one of the owners was convinced that he could build this little golf shop and instead of getting a trailer, he built this like golf shop that's about the size of this room, you know, like fifteen by twenty or something. And it was like incredibly simple, but it was spectacular. It was
all he needed to operate. You know. He wasn't wasting money. People were there for golf, you know, and he had a grill that he cooked hot dogs on and you know, place to get a beer or whatever, and you know, what else do you really need if you're really there for golf.
It reminds me of the Dunes Club, And uh, it was like Mike Kaiser's first thing. It is first it's like a private club. It's got probably like one hundred and fifty members, but the pro shop is a closet like literally just like it's like you walk in and but then the you know, the clubhouse might be a thousand square feet. They have a grill. They grill something different every day. Yeah. That that to me is what it's about. Like it especially you're you save so much
money and that and it's like to be honest. In today's landscape, like with the way the game is, I think parents spend a lot more time with their kids than ever before. Like then when I was a kid. I feel like when I was a kid, I just like i'd like go figure out what I was doing every day. Now like parents are with him, Like there's way more travel sports. It's like people don't hang out at the club all day anymore. You know that that with the you know, next generation of golfers, like our
generation is something that doesn't happen as much. Like you know, more people are living in urban areas, like we a my old apartment or my old apartment, we had a pool, Like why would my wife ever drive forty minutes to go to a pool when we have a pool on our rooftop that like overlooks like Michigan.
You know, Well, that's why I'm struggling with some of these fitness centers that clubs are doing. I mean it's great, right, It's it's a member members can see maybe value by having that. But you know, are they better serve or you know, are you better serve going to Gold's gym or you know, to your club. Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out.
The dues end up probably being about the same, Like I don't I always think people get in trouble when they do something.
That they aren't, you know, totally agree.
Like if you you're a golf course architect, you know, if all of a sudden you decided, well, I'm as start an offshoot business being a turf consultant too, Like you're not going to do both of them at a world class level.
Yeah.
So, And like a country club, like you're a country club, you do tennis, like golf, well like not necessarily, you're not as good as a gym, absolutely unless like you're a living facility like a community, you have a standalone gym, right.
The one of the cool things. You know, took a trip to Scotland a couple of weeks ago. I was going to ask you, and those clubhouses are spectacular. Number one, those clubs are really good because they're in a community. They're like in town, right, so that that really helps. But their clubhouses are so they're so versatile, but they're so simple. You know. It's like all of them like to kind of face the eighteenth green or out onto the golf course pretty much. And I don't I don't
know enough. They might have all been designed by the same guys, and you know, I just I don't know enough about that part of it, but you know, they had a couple rooms. The best ones seem to have maybe three rooms with like dividers or doors that they could combine to do a big event, and otherwise they were three separate spaces but just incredibly efficient. It was just it was like, you know, why do we need you know, why do we need the space for a
three hundred people? You know, I know that weddings are huge. I mean, some clubs make a ton of money doing that stuff and it helps drive the rest of the train. But you know, there's also things like use a tent to host big events and then take the tent down. You know.
It's I think a lot of clubs end up getting in trouble now with like the especially when they get old. You get big club clubs as they get old.
You know, probably the number one challenge in golf right now is how do clubs sustain themselves knowing that they have to reinvest. Yeah, and for single operators, especially once you get twenty thirty years old, and there are a lot of golf courses that are twenty or thirty years old. It's a big number just to get not even to make huge improvements, but just to get up to date. I worry about all the clubs built in the big boom.
Yeah, like the seventies, eighties.
Now, yes, I mean, what are you going to do when it's a million and a half dollars for an irrigation system and that's not really something you can live without and it's something you bury, you know, you dig a hole, put it in the ground, you bury it, but you have to have it.
What would you do with those like your quintessential dark ages course? What would you do? Like what I mean, like, I know it's like a blanket, but like what kind of things can you do with you know, the small corridors, lots of water? Yeah, I mean some some imaginative. You know, moving dirt is very difficult in those spaces, so you got to be very efficient with how you think about that. You know, it's totally different than building a landscape and
putting your golf course onto that. If you're doing that, or taking a really good piece of ground and making it happen. You know, when you're playing between two sets of houses, you know, what can you really do? I think it's trying to make those courses as strategic as possible, as interesting as possible. Make you think as much as you can is great, but at the same time it's going to have to fit within pretty much what was there.
It's a heck of a challenge. It is, there's no doubt. But you know, how do you how do you reinvest in your self and get better but not completely mess yourself up where you know that you're not going to be able to sustain yourself then because.
He can't invest too much and then not be able to you.
Know, and there are a lot of clubs that are in the black barely or just a little in the red. Now you put this massive either debt service or whatever, now you know you're on an even bigger uphill climb.
And so we talked a little bit about, you know, golfer IQ and having golfers understand more than what they're looking at or what they're used to, and then how do they how can they learn from some of those things that they see outside and then make good decisions because you see clubs make a popular decision, but maybe not a good decision, do you know what I mean? Like popular meaning everybody's doing it, but this might not be the thing we need to do. But it's like the trendy thing to do.
It's tough, it's too It's like making decisions within the context of a bigger plan because like, God, I was at this place recently, and I've I've been there a ton, like when I was younger, and it's a cool little place, but it's not. It will never be a world beater golf course. And it's got a single owner now, Like it's got a situation where it could be really good.
The guy is spending money, but he's doing it with like no plan, and like you think about, like, oh, you just did this big drainage project on the side of a green and you know, you install this car path, but like did you really think about like how you could you know, have done all that and build the tea at the same time right there that could make the next hole way better and move the path somewhere else.
So it's not like in the line of sight, like and it's like if you just had a little bit of foresight, you wouldn't have spent any more money and you would have gotten so much more done.
Absolutely, it's back to kind of that pet peeve thing. A pet peeve of looking at past work is how something was done and it just a little different execution would have made it so much better without costing another penny. Yea, Your car paths are famous for everybody wants new car pass because they don't like the bumps or the brakes or whatever, and they'll pave over an existing path that's in a horrible spot, maybe to save a penny or something.
They'll build a dam that won't allow something to drain because of that, it'll be flashed to the players. So you're staring at it. You have golf balls bouncing.
You know.
How about the car path where trees have been removed, but the car pass still does the s curve where the trees. Gosh, that's tough. I hate that. But yeah, I mean, why can't you make make good quality decisions, do all the work in the area, check it off the list, and move on to the next thing. You know, That's what I really and look phased work is really hard.
It might be the hardest thing to do because no matter what, when you come back even a year later and you're trying to replicate what you did the year previous, it's like starting all over. But you gotta do what you can do, and you can't sit still, it's like the white pines. Those are never going to get better. You might as well get them down. You know, if a tree is failing, it's not going to get better.
It stinks that. You know, it might be the stately tree that you know has been at the club for forever, right.
Yeah, for the last forty years, yeah, right of two, it's one hundred plus year history.
But if the thing isn't leafing out, and you know, you gotta take it down, I'm sorry.
And then there's like a really nice oak tree that four of them surround. That's what drives men's It's like the best tree on the property is just covered in trees around it. It's like, just let that guy do all the work that all these other trees are doing.
Yeah, let him breathe.
Yeah, it's so let's talk about good golf. H O. You were just over in Scotland. Was that your first time?
It was? Yeah, I can't believe it took me so long.
What you know, what were your thoughts? Where'd you go?
So played more golf than we should have. A couple buddies played nine times in six days. It was I'd played four times total in twenty sixteen. And seventeen of like golf other than you know, playing with my kids or something. So my golf game actually is worse after playing more because I used to kind of Bruce Letzkit. But it was a ton of fun. We started on the west coast, went all the way north and then came back to kind of the east coast, so it
was it was a little stupid. Actually. The guy that helped me put the trip together is like, you're you're insane, and I was like, yeah, but I want to see as much. I don't know when I'm going to come back. Well, the crazy thing is after I got back, it's like I want to go next year. It's like I really should have I don't know, I should have thought it through it better. But a couple of things that struck
me the simplicity of the game. I wish more people could experience it because I think it would give them better perspective on what's important.
Raise their golf.
For IQ golfer IQ absolutely, just the brilliance of using the ground, the differing problems. The community or golf is a community lifestyle over there. It's like everybody's a member of the club. It doesn't cost that much money to be a member. They love the game, they love their course the best, the most fun I had from an experience standpoint at Taine, which is just a little south of Dornic, and then at North Barrack, the caddies were
complete like locals, like members. You know, they were like called off the bench to come caddy, and their perspective on their course, like the pride they had and the stories of their club championship, and man, that was so cool. It was great. It was more than just you know, give me a yardage and telling me you know what line? You know was that experience that was great. The level of maintenance is different. But I've struggled ever since I got back to understand how how can we do better here?
Part of it is golfer iq that what people see on TV is what they think golf should be. So everything's lush and green and look, we're doing a better job of down and brown and you know, firm and fast. We're doing better. But golfers still think the best golf courses are green to a certain extent, right.
I mean at Trinity Forrest, like CBS was saturating the golf course right because they you know, that it's crazy because like the brown golf courses like are almost proven to not show well on TV and people like lose interest because they don't have the perspective. But it all, I mean, the thing about it is like, it's not the course's fault. It's the golfer iq problem.
Yes, And it's not the superintendent's fault by any means. And I think golf course superintendents are the most innovative, creative guys that I work with.
Love.
I love how much you can learn. Go spend a day with a superintendent and just at any club, even the lowest level, all the way to the top, and you'll learn something. The guys are they're awesome, and they are doing the best to meet their clients' expectations with the resources they're given. And I get really frustrated when clubs start to want to compare maintenance budgets. It's not about what your maintenance budget is versus the guy next
to you. It's what you're trying to present as a club. Okay, what level you're trying to present, what level of experience the clients, either whether it's daily feed or club members, what they expect, and then how that relates to the quality of golf, and then you're directing the superintendent to say, listen, these are kind of the things we're hoping to do. Help us do that. Those guys are going to find a way to do it okay, and they're going to give you the best advice of how to get there.
But I think from a golfer IQ perspective, clients, you know, whether it's daily fee golfers that are demanding things to get in the door or club members, they're constantly pushing their maintenance staffs to do things that you know, they can be tough. Whether it's from a resource standpoint, labor is huge. Laboring golf might be the number one issue to work on, you know, throughout the United States. But everything that a member demands or a daily fee golfer
expects takes effort time. And then depending on where your golf course sits, so where it is in the country, what kind of soil it has, what its water quality is, how many trees, how much internal drainage, how good the golf course was built the first time, all totally relate to what it takes to maintain it to the level that people expect.
I told you a little bit about this yesterday. I wrote about it in the latest Bang for the Buck for your buck by side at Michigan, I played this place, Champion Hill, and it was built by the owner, which usually you think, oh God, this is going to be a disaster, and this guy like it was sandy. It's an unbelievable piece of ground and he just he didn't do anything really dumb, like nothing was you know. The greens are in good just made at work. It could
be routed better. The bunkers are are like hand like they look like they're hand dug, like I've hand dug a bunker with Jason Way, friend of the Pod but before and like they look like the bunker I dug. But they're in good spots. And one of the things that I thought at walking like it was they had gravel paths and single cut everywhere. Love it and like that to me is like so smart, Like I don't know why more munis don't have single cut.
Well it's again everybody thinks they want to be what they see or what they think they know. Golfer I Q. Yeah, so you know back to the UK stuff Scotland, you know down a brown thin lies I mean, it was awesome golf experienced. Ball runs are along the ground, and I'm sure their maintenance inputs aren't nearly what we do even at a maybe even a municipal level, you know here in the States. And it's just, you know, we've got to work to educate golfers on what is good
golf right. How do you know golf can be anything. I played a sand greens course in Salem, Virginia a little bit as a kid. I mean, it's it's golf, right. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but it's golf. But it's you know, there's decision decisions that are being made in perspectives that we could all do a better job on and I think it would help the game throughout and the municipal courses. You know, it
really depends. Let me back up. I think any great golf experience, great golf course, even if it's not at the highest level, has someone that has a incredible sense of ownership. So like here at Inverness s p. Germaine, was the driving force of getting this club off the ground. Tremendous impact. But you get like in the modern day, you get a lot of places where they're either people involved that it's a job there's not a sense of ownership, or there's a lot of chiefs but not a good voice.
I think all of these places, especially maybe municipals, would benefit from a good voice, you know, somebody that has a vision, understands and can help get aligned and it's.
Empowered and not like I think like is allowed and given like that, like yes, you know somebody that might keep them in check on like hey, like we can't afford this right now. But somebody that when they say, hey, we should do this, they don't. The immediate response isn't no.
And I think if you look at I love looking at old aerols and you guys, you guys have done a great job with your sliders and things of looking back and forth. But you can really see clubs of any level that it's like chasing a squirrel. You know, they start after a one direction, then the squirrel runs over to the next tree, and then they're chasing that, and then you know it's not even somewhat linear. I use a I've used it before, like a family circus,
you know, Billy goes on the adventure. I mean some clubs are like that, right, they're like all over the place where it would be so much better if if they just kind of picked a direction and went. Even if there's mistakes along the way, you know they're headed in a good direction.
There's very few places that have just like been content with doing nothing well, and some of the best spots end up being the ones that were broke for a really long time because they didn't have any money to do anything.
Yeah, Film in Philadelphia had struggled for a while trying to figure out how to keep going, and they're kind of still working through some of the management stuff. But that golf course, there was some debate whether it was Flynn or who designed it the north especially there, and we kind of uncovered it was Willie Park Junior. But because they didn't do a lot along the way, it's so well preserved. You're exactly right. It's it's pretty amazing when there broke well.
Yeah, yeah, you've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do the digging for you.