Andy Staples

Willie Park Junior and much more. Thanks for all the ongoing support and for tuning in, and if you haven't yet, please rate and review the podcast and iTunes and subscribe if you don't already, Here's Andy Staples.

a lot of years, I think maybe still today. And you know, we didn't get the calls from the top clubs when I first got in the business, so I ended up seeing a lot of that side. So I responded to a lot of our fps, you know, really as long as I've been in the business, and so it was somewhat natural to me. But it was always known as this you faction of the business that you're like, well, one day we might graduate and not have to do this.

And and then the recession hit and the MUNI sector was hit as hard as anybody, and and I felt like it was something that was that was real to me and understood and and and then on top of that, it just felt you know, innovation in golf is not a word you hear a lot of, maybe in the equipment side, but not on the development side. And so I felt that there was some room for innovation. And I kind of I didn't like the word municipal, and

I thought community was a lot better word. And I said, you know what I think this is this is a place for innovation and a place to make a mark. And I thought it was also a place that a lot of my competitors weren't. It was upon that they weren't fishing in and and uh so I went full board and lo and behold, I find myself being pretty successful in front of a large group and comfortable in front of a large group and been able to kind

of bring people onto the side of golf. And it just has been something that I've stuck with and I think I'm passionate about it. And I think it's the value of a golf course in a community is not something that is really well thought of, and I think we should be thinking more of it as a value. And it's been kind of a mission of mine to stick with it.

up playing munique golf. And I mean it's so vital, Like I grew up playing Muni golf like without munich golf, you you know, the if you want to talk about growing the game, like if you didn't, if Muni golf keeps closing and on its pace that it is now like you're not going to have a game without it.

went down to the local municipal golf course. So I think it's you know, people don't realize that the reason why golf is the way that it is and the way that it was able to expand to the heights that it got expanded to, was because of municipal golf, or at least in part because municipal golf. Yeah, I was the same way. I grew up at a plan at a place called Wanaki and outside of Milwaukee was

in Wisconsin Winak golf course. It was a county Ushak County golf course, and I would meet my buddies down there after school and and we play on the weekends. It was the same thing. You know, four dollars or five dollars for somebody under sixteen, and you know, it's easy for the parents to drop us all off. So it was Yeah, I think municipal golf means a lot

to a lot of golfers. And I think, you know, in today's world, we're municipal golf is taking such a kind of a such a back seat and kind of a getting abused and in the media whether or not municipal municipalities should be in the golf business, and I contend that it should.

very beginning of a complete revitalization. And I don't I'm not quitting that with all kinds of people playing golf, but the golf course, municipal golf course industry, I think is just prime for a pivot, and there's just too many of them out there, and there's too many success stories and too many good models that are being followed today that I think it's just at the beginning of a new awareness of golf. What I like to call

community golf. I'd rather not call it municipal golf anymore, because I think we all think of that as a negative term. Because you can't have a great, you know, really interesting, strategic golf course and turns people through and maintain for reasonable budget, reasonable budget.

the game. And I think that, you know, when I was brought to the game, I actually learned on a bill Langford Golf Course, Langford More Golf Course, West Bend Country Club, a little blue collar club out suburbs of Milwaukee, and I remember hitting into these big, huge grass features I was I think I started at seven eight seven, eight years old, and by the time I was ten, I still couldn't get out of these things. I would ricochet off the grass bass and I remember thinking, gosh,

I better practice, I better get better at this. This is this isn't an easy game. And so I think there's a peer there's a part of that that we all as golfers liked the challenge. But I think that there's ways I think we went overboard. I think there's a there's a way to balance the challenge and the strategy and the interest to truly kind of defend the course against a better player, but let people play through it in a reasonable amount of time. So definitely an opportunity.

that that that's when you get separated, right. I had a better chance of drawing pictures of a golf course one day as opposed to playing them for a living.

was even possible. I thought golf courses just appeared. And at that point I said, well, how do I do that? And of course my dad said that I don't know, and so he did some calling around and told me that I should go study. You know, the idea at the time was to go study landscape architecture in school, and so I said, right then, I'm going to go

to school study landscape architecture. So as soon as I got into school, you know, everybody was trying to in my department of building buildings or designing parks or you know, working in urban planning, and I was the lone golf course guy, you know, at the University of Arkansas is where I went. So that was a team that I tried to walk on the golf team, but realized that you know, the coach at the time, said, He asked me what I was studying, and I said, I'm studying

landscape architecture. I want to be a golf course architect. When I grew up, he says, well, you realize that you either play golf or study architecture. You don't do both here. I'm okay, Well that's a pretty clear that's an easy decision for me. So, yeah, they were about twelve years old that there was such a thing and that that's what I wanted to do. I feel very fortunate for that.

a blind to sit in the water. I couldn't see it was a blind lake, right, and so me as a young golfer, well, I should have known that there was a laser, should have been able to see through that ridge. Well, the first time I realized that somebody actually placed the lake there, as a designer, it started that, you know, things started to go off in my mind, like why in the world would you put it there? Then, of course now you're blaming the designer, not not your

own game, of course. But yeah, it's certainly changed and involved as you educate yourself through the business and through the through through time for sure.

start in this business, go work in construction. So this was probably a nineteen ninety three ninety four, and so my first my first job was really working with Wadsworth Golf Construction. I started up in Green Bay, Wisconsin and then down to Texas, and so really my entree to the business was through the construction world. And then Jerry, once he saw that I had kind of followed his kind of his path, his preferred path, he hired me to become a draftsman. So I was drawing. My first

job was drawing plans by hand. It was before we had CAD or any type of computer. I remember helping him through the first computer we bought to try to get CAD in the office. But so that was in Tulsa. That's how I kind of broke in the business. So I like to say that I wouldn't have gotten that job had it not started on the construction side.

So let's let's talk about that for a second. You know, before we even go any further about improving your course, let's talk about is there support for the course and whether it should stay open. So I'm I'm one that certainly is not a not against any closures because there's a reason for why those those courses aren't making it. Yeah, I agree.

support the ones that really shouldn't close. And and and that's that's what bugs me is like some of these, like you're familiar with Detroit area, but like that Rackham course that was on the brink of closing, Like that's a course that you know, a ton of history, Donald Ross design, it's it's tied very closely to the city. That's that's a course that shouldn't close. It might need to be a little bit different of a concept than it is currently and have a little bit forward thinking concepts.

But that's a golf course that that should be helped and subsidized from Golf's governing body. Do you, I mean, what do you what do you think about the U s g A and and mini golf community.

And to be honest, I mean that the way they've showcased it is around their Open Championship. That's that's been the way you know, they've brought it to the public sector. They've they brought the you know, the US Open you know, rotation or courses to try to get you know, the golf under a certain you know message that it's open to the public. But you know, in terms of putting

money towards municipalities. And you talk about Rackham, I mean, you got some other issues there with Rackham that you know, and it's not necessarily unique to the City of Detroit. It's unique to just this idea that the backing and the ability to support public golf. There's not enough people at the highest levels of their government that support golf, and so I think unproper support. And the city has the ability more times than not to support and subsidize golf.

It's just they're choosing not to because of the messaging that's happening about the negativity towards golf. But when you start thinking about all the people that actually have a chance to visit a golf course, and that's one of my messages to my community golf messages that it needs to expand the user group so that it's not just about the ten percent to play golf, that it's more about walking trails and outdoor activities and you know, any

type of use. You know, it's not necessarily a clubhouse anymore, it's more of a community building. Yeah, if you start to pivot on those types of messaging messages, I think the USGA's role can help support that. But I think if we look to them to try to save municipal golf, I don't know that I agree with that, but there's certainly a powerful message there that needs to be in support of municipal golf.

to when you go throughout the world. You know, I studied, I studied in Denmark for a semester and I actually I actually or the study focus was on urban planning, but we had a chance to go out to all kinds of park plans and we studied throughout Scandinavia, including Stockholm and Sweden. And there was a a specific because it was part of my study, there was a specific park property called Woodland Cemetery. It was this broad open space.

It wasn't a golf course, it was a cemetery, but it basically felt like a golf course, and you would go through a series of trails and transitions from space to space. There was there was chapels, there was auditoriums, there were crematory as. There was open space too to be outside in nature. And I think when you people are drawn to that kind of experience, and for us as golfers, we happen to do that. We actually experience an open space with a with a stick and a

ball in our in our in our possession. And so to me, when you just start to think about the innate characteristics of being outside and playing sport, you know, golf, golf falls right in line with all of those things I think that we are drawn to and you know, so now it just tells me it's a messaging issue. It's it's how are we presenting it? And we should

be presenting it not necessarily across the board. I understand that, you know, golf has many different faces, but but from these particular community golf courses, they need to be presented and the messaging needs to be proper and needs to start from the very beginning, on the very top of government. And so I think, I think we just need to we have a we have a marketing and a messaging issue as much as anything.

You're you're spending time outside in a beautiful place. You know it goes back to the landscape architecture, like, I mean, there's so much you know, you can do with a beautiful green space, a big beautiful green space. And so your kind of rock Wind Links was, was is your big calling card for a community golf It explained to us a little bit about you know, rock Wind as a golf course but also a community center.

They called it the rock Callichi Rock. So it was it was a typical municipally on golf course that was, you know, deteriorating in front of everyone's eyes. They needed a new irrigation. They they had hard time, you know, having any quality turf. The soil wasn't great, and they kept coming up to the to the council to say, hey, we need to start putting some improvements to this, and each time, you know, they kept it wasn't as if they were saying no, but they said that there was

higher priorities before we started improving the golf course. So when I was introduced to the club, I was actually hired to do a little part three course. They wanted to do an assessment to say, hey, we see a lot of these beginner courses starting to say we have an eighteen hole golf course. We have a kind of sort of a driving range. It wasn't great at a net at the back of it was really short, but hey,

let's talk about putting a short course. So part of you know, my initial plan was just to build a little nine hole, twelve hole part three course. And I said, well, guys, did you think about this, you know, because it was really disconnected and went through a bunch of different ideas. I said, well, actually, what we need to be thinking about is broadly, how is this facility attracting golfers and training them and transitioning them from the beginnings through on

to the serious golfer. And I presented them the community links concept. I said, this is it isn't just about golfers. Anymore. Now we'll talk about developing people through life and family and those types of things. And the city manager at the time was listening to me and he's like, you know what, that's interesting. I can I can sell that and my my council will buy into that. So we went in front of council, said this is what we're thinking.

And it turned from you know, a sim irrigation project or a part three course, to now the golf course becoming a central component of their entire community. That Hobbs is oil and gas driven, so timing is everything. They were seeing oil prices on the rise at the time and in a very pro golf mayor and a couple of people on the council that played golf. Not everybody,

but a couple. So when we went in front of them and said, hey, before we go any farther, we want to see if you're if you're interested in this, and we're really proud to say that every time we went in front of council with what we tried to do, we got seven to zero votes in favor that this golf course should become a central part of the city plan and it and and that this idea that we're going to diversify the user group to attract more than just golfers. Was tangible. They saw that, So we have

a trail system. We've got an open We built a five acre affluent water storage that the golf course here uses for irrigation, which then has an open space adjacent to it. So if the trail system connects through the through the clubhouse, community center area and then has a spot where where golfers non golfers can actually watch people play golf. There's a par three real close across the water, so they can sit on a little seat wall. There's a nice big open green space next to the range,

so that we have you know, kids programs. SNAG golf is a big part of what they do. SNAG is now in all their schools as a part of this project. The community college plays there, so you know, they have expandable outdoor event areas, so they put on symphonies and you know this in Hobbes, this is this was the basically the middle of the city. Now everything happens at their golf course. And it couldn't have come together any better. We had support from everybody across UH there, their level

of government, government and uh. And speaking of the us J, they've they've now they've labeled it as the model MUNI if you will, for others to look at.

who here plays golf? And more than likely one or two out of seven or nine will raise their hand. I said, okay, well who here has played golf? And then a couple more people raise the hand, and so to me, I immediately go back to the discussion that if if we don't understand the value of what this golf course could mean to the city or for the minispet or the area, the community, the county, then we shouldn't even be talking about anything. I would tell you

that you should be considering closing this golf course. And then of course everyone's like, no, we can't close this golf course. You know, well, you know, we have a lot of people to play golf here. We'll ultimately only have, you know, a few thousand rounds a year. And so I start to say, let's start building pride. So that's number one is messaging and support of golf. And then almost always there are practice facilities, short tees, you know,

open space that you can carve out. It's really challenging this idea that an eighteen hole regulation course is what's right for for cities across the country. So not every golf course needs to be seven thousand yards sixty two hundred yard golf courses just fine for a lot of people. So we look at kind of carving out spaces within

the space to be able to do that. And then I also I talk about it in terms of a roadmap, So this isn't going to happen over a short doesn't always have to happen over a short period of time. It just needs to be the messaging needs to be accurate, It needs to be repeated over and over and then implemented at the pace that you guys feel is appropriate for funding. But if you're not going to fund it, then I would just tell you that you consider closing it.

that's where the practice facilities and driving range concepts. That's why top golf, I think, is becoming so so popular. It's it's it's providing something that that the that the rest of the golf community is not not giving everyone. And so as long as you can stand up and say that this is a course that's providing a benefit to my community in ways that the private market is

is not able to, then that's that's our niche. That's where the community golf starts to say, all right, then a two hundred thousand dollars subsidies starts to make sense because one, it's a smaller footprints, so we're using less resources,

less less dollars. Oh, by the way, you can play it much quicker, and and it's you know, it's it's it's able to attract an area that of the of the population that wouldn't necessarily go to that championship eight you know, eighteen whole seven thousand yard golf course.

tear up turf and dig holes. They would they would basically take a couple of swings and go out and play golf. That that entire mentality has shifted, and that I talk a lot about this myself. That's that's my life, That's that's what makes sense to me. I don't go out and play eighteen holes with my buddies. Anymore, I go out and play four or five holes with my kids.

I got three young boys, and then I'll take them to the to the range to hit balls, and then I might take them in and get a soda, right so that or maybe put on the green then Dennesota. So that to me is a shift in the and how we use a golf course. And I think that that is a real If you don't have that, if you're not trending in that area and the practice facilities of driving ranges, then then I think you're missing out.

thousand square foot putting green. So you we could do and you could chip and everything, and you we'd spend hours there and we'd never get tired with it. It wasn't a great green like in the sense of like

it wasn't like supremely interesting with contours. But what it was was it was free, it was open, and it allowed us to like, it was a place we could just spend time, you know, and I think exactly, and it's like you think about it, it's like we spent more time on that putting green, chipping and putting than we did playing the golf course.

golf says, well, I should charge them for that. That should be a five dollars putting course fee, right, And so this this is back to this idea of community golf. I understand they're doing really good things like down in winter Park. You know this idea that that it's not all about a green fee, and it's not all about you know, revenue. Sometimes it's more about an asset and the quality of life and spending time with your family discussion, and you know, those are the ways to do it,

and it's proven we just haven't. We just ignored it for twenty years. That's why I'm saying that I think that it's it's prime for a comeback.

or aren't any good. And you know, it also makes me think about the residential golf courses that just aren't very good golf courses. But we're built to make money, you know, with residential developments and and that kind of fits into this. And I think reimagining those golf courses are is what the future of golf course development is.

But I couldn't agree more. And I think I think that the idea that we're going to look back on courses like sand Hills and the development like Bandon dune'es I. You know, we talk a lot about the dark ages of golf, but I think those will be the facilities that really, you know, we'll look back and saying that's

where the golf industry turned to another direction. I can't help but think even some of these residential courses are going to have to then change away from just being a golf course, are going to have to be more park open space, because I just don't think those are those are the ones that aren't going to make it. I think everyone's proven that when you get out into open space, free of development and out in nature that's when we really really that's when we know we really love golf.

But this guy, you know, he just was offended by those condos, like and like, I think that's part of the assence of golf as being out and they open and getting to you know, disconnect from the world.

course by itself. It wasn't a great piece of land, and you ended up, you know, moving a lot of dirt, and you raised the houses on the outside and dropped the golf on the on the middle of the center. It just got to be repetitive and boring tunnels exactly. And it's still occurring there. There's properties that are happening. I mean, there's a big development here in Phoenix going and I was just that yesterday that you know, they're building houses all over the place and there's a golf

course in the middle of it. But but what I found interesting about it is is the clubhouse was not just a clubhouse. There was I walked in, the very first thing I saw was a bike rental shop. It was a clubhouse kind of built in a U and so they saw bike rentals, and then see kayaks because you could actually take it out on a big lake that they were building. And and then there's there's a whole open space that went off into the center of

the property. And the very first thing you see as you walk in the back of the clubhouse was a big open outdoor seating area and then the driving range.

So it was right in line with all the things that I'm talking about that the driving range becomes more of a social center and people are hanging out and you just go over, hit some balls and come back over here, you know, it was so So the residential part of this is I don't think is necessarily gonna go away entirely, but I think how we use some of these central spaces is definitely evolving.

really good at is or not. I mean they can be, they just haven't chosen to be good at doing other things like coffee houses, bike rentals. They don't understand it. So now, how do you position the economic there for these guys that actually can come in and diversify the user without having the risk of losing That's that's what's really that's an interesting part of this. I talked to a management company a lot about this and he says, well, Andy,

this all sounds great. I love the community links concept, but right now, no one's hiring us to do that. Well I'm going to change that.

Probably the biggest difference with the municipality. You know, the kind of the community golf perspective is just all of the other buy in that has to happen. It's it's just takes longer to make decisions and more people have to weigh in. And that's that's one of the things that I think that I've done well at and I kind of promote myself as I've got the patients that kind of go through that I'm not going anywhere. So

this doesn't have to happen in six months. It can happen in twelve months or I don't like to take too long. But and so the stakeholder buy in the meetings, to the town hall meetings negotiating certain aspects of the plan. You know, this is where you start to see, you know, if I kind of diverge a little bit to see

what a golfer really looks like. You know, when you're in a town hall of one hundred and twenty one hundred and fifty people and you have half golfers, half nons, you start to see how we as a group, as a golfing group react, And I gotta be honest, you know, the golfers are not very organized. They're not they They they come in, they say this is our golf course, and then if they're upset, they'll leave, a lot of golfers will walk out. They'll say that I'm never coming back,

you know. Whereas the mountain biker Mountain Bike Association or the equestrian, you know, they'll come up with a PowerPoint presentation, they'll present everything to us very matter of factly. And when you actually look back and you start to see how how the process is going, you know, I find myself defending golf just from a from a group standpoint, you know, not necessarily just me individually or what I'm

trying to do. And so, you know, managing all those different type of community uses is by far the the difference, the big difference. But I will say from a club from a private club membership is you still have opinions, but generally it's really driven by, you know, by being a member at that club.

the golfers are going to be upset. And you know that's you know, I find my I'm the golfer, right, that's I'm a golfer. But I also understand I'm looking at it from a kind of a you know, I think a bigger picture, and I you know, losing a

customer is a really difficult thing. And I think with all this discussion about technology in the game and the distances and all this evolution of the game, I think one of the biggest things we're going to have a question about is what defines a golfer, what is a traditional golfer, and and the challenges of this evolution. You know you mentioned about bringing your dog out to the course. I couldn't agree more. But I've also seen it where golfers don't like it when two dogs are barking next

to each other and in their backswing rights. That's the traditional golfer that doesn't want those dogs there. You know, we as a as an industry are our own worst enemy. Sometimes.

and how much people charge for a design. You know, for a young guy like me, my design you know, generally my design fee has to last almost two years because I've got twelve months of design and then there's going to be a permitting window and then we might get the whole construction done in six months or twelve months. And so you know the economic behind you know, how the dollars and cents of operating a design business. You know,

we we drop pictures. We're creative people and typically don't We're not really good at sales, and we're certainly not good at business by nature. So it's really showed me what I don't know more than it's kind of given me what I do know. So I keep trying to be better at that. Business is hard.

we went through a process of elimination. You know. That's that's the other thing about our business today is it's like it seems like you're either dealing with one or two guys or you're dealing with twenty guys. So this was one of the ones that you end up end up just kind of having patience and providing as much information as you as you can. And I made a few visits where I actually started to get to know

some of the people. The general manager, Joe Morine and I kind of kicked it off right from the beginning. We just kind of got along right away, and it narrowed down to five and we did a big interview and I laid out some ideas and you know, I focused a lot of about how I can sell a plan and be in front of them membership and all

my focus group, you know, kind of concept. I have a big portion of my master plan where I get in front of the members and get to know them and it it it escalated into a contract and it was my first project in Michigan, and and it was quite quite a coup for someone from Arizona coming to Michigan. You know, the state of Michigan's pretty pretty specific about who they worked with up there. They love their state.

And so I'm originally from Wisconsin, so I guess I could I could play off that I was a Midwesterner at by heart, but it could have been better. I can't imagine finding another club that I've gotten along with better and had a better working relationship, and probably more importantly, a club that really trusted me and let me, you know, kind of go through the process and then design a course that that I think reflected what we tried, you know, what the club needed and what we wanted to do.

It was a Willie Park Junior original design, but it was only six holes. Willie Park couldn't couldn't finish the rest of the course because of financial issues, so Collis and Deray ended up expanding it from Chicago. There they expanded it to eighteen holes.

There's always a permitting issue, there's always a budget issue, or there's something that goes into the process of why that golf course looks the way it does, and so one of the big things about Meadowbrook is you could tell that it had been expanded upon over a number of years and then they ultimately in the seventies did an Art Hills master plan with a couple hole renovation and Jerry Matthews was another one that had some work on bunkers and a tree planting plan, so they they

did a fair bit of planting through the eighties. So yeah, there was so yeah, there's a huge amount of history. But one of the things that I clued in on is obviously wondering what it was that Willie Park Jr. Really wanted it in his eighteen hole design, because there's an indication that he did eighteen hole design, but we didn't have any drawings for it, and so I dove deep into that. So I looked at his green design.

I tried to do as much local history. So yeah, there's a tremendous amount of research that goes into it.

and actually see. And so we.

You didn't quite you didn't quite relate. So it was obvious that the courses that he were building here, he was doing a lot of work. He came back in nineteen fifteen, back from from the UK, landed i think on tax day in April April fifteenth of nineteen fifteen, and you see all the courses he was doing at one time. So you know, the whole Donald Ross discussion,

how many times can he get to a course? And so the Huntercombe project really resonated with us, you know, so a lot more interesting green contours, a lot more diversity. You know, I think Willie Parks tends to do a lot of the same kind of greens. Hey that's a little you know obviously nuances, but you know, back to front,

a big deep swale behind. So he was always very specific about locating his greens and and uh and then a Huntercombe you know, he he did a fair bit of drainage ditches and grass bunkers that weren't always didn't have sand in them. Originally what they call over there Willy park potts, you know, park pop bunkers. And so I think we for us, we realized that it wasn't all eighteen hole, an entire eighteen hole Willy Park Junior at Meadowbrook, and that gave us some latitude to bring

some of this flavor from from from England. And then I had a committee that that a couple of them went with me to to England to see the work. And we came back to the US and said, man, if we could bring some of that over here, it'd be cool. And I said, let's do it. And so we started to kind of you know, so I would say it's a sympathetic Uh, I don't know if i'd use the word restoration, but it's sympathetic to parks work

that we saw. But you know, it was as much of our own interpretation as it was anything that we had any documentation on.

would have wanted to see. But you know, we went to Pittsburgh, went to the to Long Island, and so one of our members is very familiar with the North Course at Olympia Fields, and so, you know, it's incredible. It's very important. If nothing else, it's a team building exercise. You actually get a chance to go stand on a green. I remember we went and played Garden City Golf Club. We stood in that you know those greens. Okay, what

do we like? What we don't like? And that that's a really cool part of the job I believe is that you know, you get to sense what people are comfortable with. And I'll tell you that my committee was was really comfortable with doing something cool.

back the old course all the time. And then and then number two is you know, just understanding the impact that it's had on our businesses, the Sandhills Golf Club. I mean that that that one really started to show you that that that some of this this kind of ethic that you brought from that you had from from the old country of Scotland, that was actually coming over here and in such a beautiful place to do it in the sand dunes without an ocean, but you got

this ocean of dunes. And so I would say those are probably two of the ones that come right to mind. Mm hmm, yeah.

all I'm doing is just I'm taking it in. And I think a lot of my feelings of design and my philosophy on design is what does it feel like I'm visualizing hitting shots, I'm looking at the forms and

features are cool, but I'm just taking it in. And so one of the difficult parts that I've always I've always felt one of the difficult parts of what what we do is is not only looking at it for the first time and seeing it through our eyes, but then knowing how a membership plays it and understanding the differences between the better player versus the the average player. And and so I've been commented that people who just stop me and say, Okay, Anny, what what are you

saying now? What are you what are you seeing now? You're not saying anything like what I now. I've gotten to the point where I just warned them. I said, guys, don't think that I'm gonna talk too much. I'm out here. I'm taking it all in. But overall, it's It's one of the things that I like about the focus group portion of my of my process is that I get to know how these guys are actually playing it and

not how I would play it. And so, you know, to me, that's there's a lot of time just understanding what they how they play it, what they like about it, what they don't like about it, and then start to overlay my own feelings on top of it under through that lens. So that's that to me is so there's a lot of time, and when it comes down to the actual ideas, I always talk. I'm an eighty twenty guy.

I don't know what that with eighty percent twenty percent, I get eighty percent right or eighty percent finished, and then twenty percent you can leave open kind of and ended. And that's kind of where my planning always goes, is a you know, let's get into eighty percent, but twenty percent we can start to refine in the field. And

sometimes it's one hundred percent. Sometimes you start all over, of course, but but I always leave a little bit of my interpretation to kind of evolve when we finally get the construction.

word restoration. I kind of laugh on it because you know, it's one of those words that everyone loves and everyone gets it, but then it becomes so overused, like just the idea that someone's restoring something sort of gives it this connotation that that it must be exclusive, must be really good. And so so I I'm one that that that tries to, you know, to understand the logistics of restoration and understand if that's even possible, and even if it's if it's something they want to do. I'm working

with a club in California right now. We've had this exact conversation. We've got a really good aerial that shows some some the golf course in a state that that a couple of really famous architects have worked on it. And we said, hey, do we want to restore to this and and some of it's not possible, and and then you know, then we have those bunkers that are one hundred and eighty yards off the tee right in the right in the landing area of Missus Jones and

and and those types of things. So what what I've tried to do is I always try to go back in and restore the location of that bunker and give it the feeling that there was a bunker there. But I'll maybe soften it, make it rough, but make it part of the composition of the golf hole. Not necessarily put bunkers back, but then use mowing lines and try to do something in turf to actually accentuate that what that course was like. And not necessarily if that is,

if we're not going down the restoration tack. But I always like to pay homage to those old features, even if it's a little bump offen the rough that only me and the superintendent know about. At least we know that that's where it was.

around trying to trying to get speeds to a certain level. Uh. And then I would also say that, you know, one of my pet piece personally is this idea of designing courses for the better player while making them playable and interesting for the you know, the average player, and you know to me that that is that sounds so easy to do when you apply those to a particular piece of property, and especially a renovation that has limitations it.

You know, playing the right set of tease is so important and and so from a golfing standpoint, the idea that any man would ultimately move forward to us at a teas that aren't you know, in his wheelhouse, to me that that's a major pet peeve. But all of the things around length and and teeing teeing grounds is something that that that I probably would describe as a pet peeve.

group and he played way up. I mean he played under probably under six thousand yards fifty seven hundred yards, and like, all of a sudden, like this guy was a stick again. And it's like and I talked to him about it, He's like, I love it. Like I play like I used to play, because I'm hitting shots and I'm getting birdie putts when I hit a good drive. I've got a short iron end when I hit you know, on longer part fours, I've got I've got long iron mid irons. But I'm not just chipping up all the

time anymore. Like if I mean, he can go play at the back to he's and shoot seventy six, seventy eight, but now he can shoot in the sixties every time if he plays up awesome, and it's just more fun.

they thought golf was. And and when you start to think about that, that there's there's a whole generation of golfers that have not been able to experience the game the way that we talk about you know, the driver short end or a driveable hole. You know, they think of a driverable hole being a part three. It's crazy.

hundred yard mark. You know a lot of these even if you get the sixty six hundred yard you might have a little small, little back tea, but you know it's now when you go from seventy three hundred yards all the way down to four thousand, which is what I'm trying to do. It's trying to get this diversification. It's it's hard to make a golf hole look classic

and like it fits with all these little pads. So that's one of the things that I think we're really you know, we're really working hard to give that diversity. And you know, combo sets of t's are really popular in my world, where you can only you know, only have to build three or four sets of t's, maybe ones all the way up in the fairway so you're not really mowing that as a tee and then combo in between, so that you have the right yardage that

you're looking for, but you're only utilizing three t's. To me, that's that makes a lot of sense.

it now. And then there's a there's a twenty it's twenty seven holes and one of one of the nines is a kind of an open all mode together concept called the Links nine, and we specifically intended that course to be played from multiple sets of tees so that you could have a different feeling as you played it through. So to me, I never go back to my courses and actually play from the card. I will always take

my friends, especially if it's only one time. All right, guys, let's go play from this tea, because this is where it really based on who I'm playing with, this is exactly how it was meant to be played. And to me that you know, of course, that's a little inside knowledge from my standpoint, but the it's it's not very well accepted and not not not well no, not well practiced within our industry for sure.

a golf course. And when you actually use something somewhat technical like that, you start to say, Okay, you know there's certain limitations for actual abilities based on how you're swinging and how far you could actually carry the ball, because that's a lot a lot of what it comes down to is these force carriers are getting up to

the fairways. So yeah, but I couldn't agree more. They've done done a great job of you know now they even funnel everybody right to the sixty three or sixty two hundred yard golf course.

you know, some pretty good fun doing it. Where where the design contract starts to become uh, you know, more of a role and there's a lot of talk about design build and and how you know, in the in the twenty thirty years ago, architects would drop plans and then hand them over to a contractor. You know, I get that, and in a lot of cases I've been a part of some projects like that. But that happened

for I think a real reason. Even today, even when you when you're doing a design build, you're still having to have a contractor as part of the as part of the team. I've yet even today, you know, to find those That's what we did at San Hollo. We had all everyone on of time of materials, and we started the project and we didn't stop until we were happy with it. But that is so rare these days. Owners want budgets, they want time frames, certainly on a

on a renovations schedule. They only want to be closed for a certain part of the season or only one season and that's it, or else it's not going to pass. And so contractors start to bring the ability for architects

to meet those goals. And I think, to me, when you apply, then when you apply the actual business of design and being able to only have a certain amount of time in your in your schedule that you know to be able to spend one hundred percent of your time on a golf course, you know that limits you on a lot of other areas. So what I've done is I've set my I try to include design, shaping and part of my contract. I've got a guy that I've done a lot of work with. His named Scott

Scott Clem. But I've a great guy, great at architecture, geek. He understands it from what we're all trying to accomplish. But I've other guys that I've worked with. I always try to have somebody there to support me. But but I think as long as you're able to spend the right amount of time in the field, which is what I always try to do, even though I'm not on a piece of equipment. However, I have, I have operated. I just I just don't anymore. And so those guys

are a lot better at it than I am. And so you know, the designed contract works for me in the in the times that clients dictate it, and then I'm able to spend a lot of time in the field. So I don't know if I've answered a question, but that there's a lot there on that on that discussion. You know, I've always wondered for guys that are really promoting design build, you know, especially when you know the self operators. You know, I just think of it in

my own my own time. I've got a family, I've got three young boys are playing baseball, you know, So I I prefer to try to get it in a position where I where I work with contractors on a regular basis or shapers that on a regular basis, because you know, Scott goes you know, months of a time

at certain places when when it's the right project. But you know, the design build has its own limitations, and there's only so much time in a day that if you're going to want to do multiple projects, or if you're lucky enough to have multiple projects going on at one time, design build gets a lot more difficult when you when you spread yourself then.

And that's one of the things that I feel. You talk a lot about the dark Ages, you know, maybe a reference that before you know, a lot of it is people just didn't understand the game and you're now you're asking somebody to put a little curl in a green, a little wrinkle, a little little bump, and you know, Scott and I will shape it in and we'll try to get it in there right, and you know, I'll be out there with my rake and shovel and getting

it exactly right, and then the finished crew comes through and wipes it out because you know, the last ten FASIO jobs they've done, that was something that got wiped out. We removed it. Well, no, that was something I specifically wanted there and they'd never seen it before. And so to me, to me, what what the design Builds concept today is really doing is it's putting the focus back on understand the game of golf. And to me, that's that's what's really cool about it, you know, and I

think you can get you can get there. You know. Back to that eighty twenty year old we need to make it at least eighty percent right now. The question is how much of that twenty percent. I try to get as close to one hundred percent as I possibly can, and the only way to get one hundred percent is actually being there doing it yourself. Design building. But then again, if I'm there for the last two months doing that.

More than likely I missed out on another RFP. I wasn't able to, right, you know, make a visit to go inquire about this other project. And oh, by the way, I just missed three baseball games. And so you know, life happens in between there. And to me, that's where I wonder how the design build will stand up from a business standpoint, because the contracting happened for a reason, and that was to be able to do a lot

of golf over a very short period of time. Now we've swung back the other way to your analogy with the pendulum, I just wonder how much we're going to actually be able to you know, whether a design build will actually be a sustainable model for guys like me.

to be able to get this project done. I went back to Meadowbrook and I went to them and I said, you know, guys, if you're asking me how to do this right, we should design, build and get get a contractor to help support us, and bring in some some support staff and put everybody on the time of materials so that there's no there's no feeling of you know, of everybody but he getting you know, lost or or losing. And the president of the club at the times that Andy,

we just can't do that. We need a number, We need to go to the membership with a number. And I said, well, I can give you a number. Yeah, but we don't have a contract that says that it's not going to exceed that. Well, no, it's a time of materials. But yet you're gonna we're going to manage this. It just didn't fly. Now looking back, he looks at it, he says, oh, now I see what you're saying. That would have been some value there, But there's no way

I could have convinced Metalbrook to do that. They're just so we picked our battle and we designed contract at it. Scott and another couple of guys were shapers on it, and then we had a contractor you know, doing the heavy lifting.

He was a great router of golf courses and and did things in the depression that that is probably equal to her or greater than what we did through our own great recession. So I'm gonna say, Perry Maxwell, all.

rock walls. I love things that are able to make something look interesting and authentic and maybe old. And I think a good old fashioned chocolate drop does that.

the average guy could skip it over the wall. So so we actually piled up and ramped up the sand as if it was a dune that kind of blew over the wall.

So I guess I'll call cross bunkers underrated because they for a period of time they just all but disappeared on our golf courses. But slowly, with this restoration, you kind of you know where restoration has been going, and you're seeing a lot of them come back.

yet it still kind of gets them thinking. And so that fifty yard bunker off of the green, on the you know, off of the green, and the approach bunkers, I'm starting to see those starting to gain some really good traction, which I'm really happy about.

eleven clubs, something other than four team. So you get into the tweeter shots where you're actually hitting a seven iron from one hundred and forty yards, And when you start doing some of those things, those four bunkers really become interesting and you actually use them because you know why they're there. You just hit them over the top of it and it runs it out. So I love It's one of the things as a golfer, I try

to do more of it. You know, it's harder nowadays because it's rare when well, I shouldn't say rare, but it You know, a lot of golf courses don't well for the runouts anymore. We're trying to get that change.

That's one of the cool things I feel like has been lost with the way the games changed in terms of the aerial game, is that all these like especially when you go to these Golden Age courses, all these cool little slopes that are short of the green that just don't get it used anymore, or if they haven't been, you know, if the mo lines are off or just sitting there and rough.

You know. I had a guy the other day say, hey, and you have played Meadowbrook last fall. You want you want to know what I thought of it? So yeah, yeah, of course, he says, I thought it was fun? Is that what you? Is that? What you? Is that all right? That I thought it was fun? I'm like, heck, yeah, that's exactly right. And the guys who open their minds of those types of shots are just fun.

they go right down the middle of the fairway. And then what do you do next, Well, there's a path there, we better put some paving, or it might better put

some gravel. As opposed to someone saying, you know what, we don't want them to go there, we wanted to go over here, so we don't see the path, and so a lot of times you get to these old courses, the car pass are in no different place than where it was when they first got their first car pet, you know, first golf carts, and so you know, the one of our committee members said, yeah, and you talk about car pass but look at this place. This is

a Swinley forest. They're right in the middle of the fairway. So but I agree with you, the less you see a car pass, better would it be.

there's going to have to be passed. And I think if as long as we just you know, there's a way to do them well, and I think we It's one of the things we spend an examinant amount of time thinking about, probably more than we'd like to. I'd hoped one day not to do a golf project without car pass.

A pet peeve is this idea that that push carts or trolleys are are munique golf, that they're not, they're not worthy of the top clubs in the country, and and that I think that it all kind of goes to this erosion of of of the caddies and walking and and you pushing your card, carrying your bag, those types of things. So I think there have to be a concerted effort to be more, to be more health conscious and exercise and really utilize the fact of carrying

your bag is that I could workout. And that's what the only workout I get these days is carrying my bag. You got a cool little McKinsey bag. I just I'm not almost always the only one walk and whenever everyone else is on a golf cart and I'm like, well, this is my exercise. Yeah.

drive them everywhere. So that's where you have these issues. But I played a little part three course here. You know, they funneled us right into a golf cart on a Part three course and it was a four seater, and my buddies were like, yeah, a force seater, and we put all of our bags on there and I walked alongside of them. And so I think we do have

an opportunity to kind of look outside the box. I think if there's more of a concerted effort to do something other than just ram everybody in cards, I think I think there's things that can work.

of muffled in your bag. But headphones, I think it's an integral part, and I think it's just a matter of time before we start to see it everywhere. Yeah, I.

don't we do that? So I was thinking the next interview that I have, I was gonna try to figure out how to play and you know, enter Sandman from Metallica or something like that is my entrance music.