Ben Cowan-Dewar on Founding Cabot and Becoming a Golf Course Developer

it's a unique journey. Obviously, he's a younger guy in terms of a golf developer and an interesting story on how you become one. So, without further ado, here is Ben. All right, Ben, welcome on. You know, one of the busiest about in the golf big news obviously in the last week with Cabot Citrus Farm, which is the old Worldwoods, and I'm sure there's bigger and better plans for it, but talk a little bit about how Worldwoods came about, and.

access golf. And obviously it opened in nineteen ninety three and Tom Fasio had done you know, rolling Oaks pine barrens and you know, a circular driving range which was extraordinarily novel at the time, and that a nine hole part three before was short course, I guess it wasn't all par threes and a three hole practice loop, and you know, a two acre putting green, and it was sort of a you know, a smortess board of golf for the public golfer, which you know predated abandoned and

certainly I hadn't I hadn't yet thought of Cabot when I first went there, but was hugely inspired, you know, hugely inspired by it. And really I think the thing that for me Andy, which I've heard so many times

is it didn't feel like Florida. And you know, people when they said that, we're really saying, you know, looking at a lot of elevation change and at a lot of exposed sand, and you know, had mossy oaks, and you know, and really old stately trees and and so you know, I've long loved the place and had long long hoped we could acquire it, and have tried a few times over the years, obviously unsuccessfully, until we were we were very thankful that we were able to buy

it from the original developer and who had developed it with a grand vision thirty years ago, and able to take it forward today.

it's gotten easier to get to. But as you drive in there today, it's obvious that you know, in our model of building, you know, cottages, villas and hotel you know, they just never really caught all the way there on.

And I think there was the obvious opportunity for us, Andy, which was, you know, if we could if we could get the golf to shine like it did when you and I first saw it, and and build accommodation, and I think, you know, it's we love the land, we love the location, and and there's quite a bit of additional land that is undeveloped. But you know, they didn't they didn't get to building the accommodation, which I think

really allowed us that opportunity. I mean, I think it's existing golf and it literally is is operating operating golf today. And you know, but but Cape Breton, while you know, Mike Kaiser and I brought brought Cabot links to to life, you know, there have been previous iterations and you know a few golf course architects who had done routing plans. And similarly in Saint Lucia, it was a you know, it was a golf development that unfortunately succumb to the

financial crisis. So you know, I mean, I think it's it's hard to say that the were truly original ideas because there were people thinking about golf there before. But you know, I think being able to build on places that there is infrastructure and golf is is certainly certainly a lot easier than having to cobble together all the individual parcels as we did somewhat in Cape Breton.

thoughts on those courses are? Are you looking at you know, kind of some some tweaks, some major tweaks, or you know, just try to put them back to what they were originally?

might even be true. But since I haven't, since I haven't made up my mind, I know which ones are and which ones aren't, I guess, but you know, look it, and you know, I think the biggest thing that if you look at from when you first visited and when I first visited to today, what you really see is just a massive amount of tree growth, right and certainly,

you know, that has has impacted everything. It's impacted the turf conditions, it's impacted the site lines, and so you know, I think, I think it's clear to us that we need to, you know, to peel back some of that. I think where there's opportunities. Such a beautiful site, you know, it's you know, part of Florida's nature coast, and you really feel it when you're out there. It feels like

a real retreat to nature. And so I mean, I want to get it to a place that it's very walkable, which you know, in m times over the last over the last year, really spending a lot of time there, you rarely see anybody walk it, and it's such a great piece of ground to walk. So I think, you know, those are those are sort of the two obvious things

that that we need to do. And and I think, you know, I think bring it to bring it to the market with and you know, a fresh a fresh look, and and I think it's probably I don't know where you know, and where restoration renovation meet, but it's probably somewhere in between them.

see you know, Cabot Lakes and Cabot Cliffs. But you know, seeing that I haven't been there, I thought, you know, one of the things that I really wanted to discuss with you is is your journey as an entrepreneur, because I think that's one of the most interesting, you know, stories about you know, this, this Cabot is seemingly you know, you kind of hacked, not hacked, but worked your way into the golf space and worked your way into one of the most envious roles in the golf space as

a you know, a large scale now golf developer, so I'd love to go back to to the beginning, and you know, could you describe a little bit like, you know what drove you in your mid twenties when so many people were out at the bar being idiots to attempt to build a world class golf resort.

And you know that was all you knew about the Masters. And I mean I knew, you know, I was sure at you know, eleven, I knew how every putt broke, and you know, I just loved the game. But I really loved golf courses. And so I built a golf hole. And I guess when I was maybe eleven or twelve, in our family farm, and I had a whole bunch of teas and my drawings on golf, you know, which I don't at any of the great architects who are

mostly my friends. See, we're heavily inspired by you know, Pete Dye at his at his most you know, sort of do or died dramatic over water, you know, stuff a lot of split fairways and and all of those things. But so, I mean I loved I just loved golf, you know, from a young age, and that sort of got me into the business and at the beginning of the Internet, and you know, through a golf travel business, in golf marketing, I got to travel and play most

most all of the world's great golf courses. And so you know, I sort of had the best job in the world. And I'd created that for myself, and that was my you know, my early twenties and so having rose colored glasses on and having seen most of the world's great places. And but I've been looking at sites for golf, as any entrepreneur with not enough money to

build a golf course would be doing. And and I was at a dinner in Toronto, which is you know, his home and was home then, and I was seated next to the Minister of Tourism from Nova Scotia who was there playing the fiddle. And I was predisposed to loving Cape Bretton Island. I've been there and my wife's family for grandmother's one hundred and four and still lives in Cape Breton, so we'd been there in the summer.

But he said, I know, I know, good gene. So he said, you know, look, I've got this great site for golf. And I said, Minister, honestly, every farmer I've ever met with two hundred acres since they've got the next great site for golf. And you know I was, I guess I was twenty four, And you know, he thankfully didn't think I was too much of a jerk for saying that and got the jest, but said, no,

this is the real deal. And you know, Jack Jack Nicholas had done a routing plan, and you know Grand Cook, a Canadian architect, had looked at my cards and had called it one of the great sites left for golf. So again, it wasn't my original idea at all. And the town of Inverness had really thought about thought about golf as far back as nineteen sixty nine and had a very clear vision that the site was different than

a mile of ocean frontage and then the town. And it was because there was this old coal mine that was you know, had been dug down three hundred feet and went a mile out under the ocean floor. And you know, so it had been obviously very hard and nobody had been able to assemble all the land. And you know, the photos he had weren't great, they're pretty, you know, they were aerials, but you got a sense that there was a mile of sand beach and a

town called Inverness that was built. And I thought, in two thousand and four, where in the world are you going to get to build a links golf course in between a town and an ocean. You know, Dornic at four hundred years old and Saint Andrews a five hundre years old. You know, those towns start of grew up around the gulf. This was sort of the inverse and I just thought, seemed like, you know, the greatest idea

in the history of humankind. And I went and saw it on a December day and it was a beautiful day and the sun was shining, and I could see all these golf holes and it was a really really

beautiful sight. And I went back with Rod Whitman three weeks later and it was a less beautiful day and the wind was whipping and you know, Rod said he couldn't see it because his eyes were frozen shot, which was a bit of a tough way to, you know, to start, and he was he was joking too, but we got we got through those early days and then I had my first meeting, thinking it was such a great idea and was told it was the worst idea by this banker that he'd ever heard, and so, you know,

and so look, I mean it was. It was a very tough land. Assembly took me about three years, and I had all sorts of ideas of how I would find enough money to build it, and you know, I called Mike and I called Mike Kaiser pretty early on after seeing it, and he was about to help abandoned trails and Barnboogle had just dumpened, and you know, he said he was long remote golf, but you know, in sort of Mike's amazing way, he said, Ben, you know, wait,

you're you're going to be a huge success. And when you are, you won't be able to afford more land, so you've got to go get you know, land for the second course now. And I said, gosh, you know, Mike, you know pretty young, I don't have enough money to build the first course. I don't think I would need to go longer on real estate. And he said, no, no, no,

you got to do it. So while we were assembling all of the pieces that made up cab At Links, we started to, you know, look to the land at Cabot Cliffs and I think, you know, Mike, and Mike, like so many people, probably thought it was a long shot that I would be able to assemble the land, which thankfully I didn't, you know, in my naivety, I

didn't know it would be so hard. But I had time and you know, and a little bit of persistence, and as it became clear I would yet the land, I circled back to Mike because there was really no one else, I mean everybody else. When I'd talk about plans of walking only in Links golf, you know, they had visions of cart paths and you know, green checkerboard fairways.

So you know, Mike none of that stuff. Obviously, He's like well of courses walking only like you know what idiot would do anything else he would miss at that. But you know, basically his tone would have been and so, you know, I think I think he just got everything I was. I was sort of envisioning and and look, I mean, who who better? I mean, aside from having done bandon and and you know, sort of the obvious,

the father of remote destination golf. He really, you know, he really was just an amazing exemplar and and you know, a wonderful you know, friend, partner, teacher, all of the all the things you could ever hope for. So and so, if I am in an enviable position today, it's it's a lot of dumb luck and uh and more Mike Guyser than anything else.

is the worst idea in the world. Because if everybody says it's a great idea, somebody's tried and failed. So it's interesting because that's something that I think is smart. When I think back to be starting the Fried Egg, I was a horrible writer, horrible public speaker, and I started a business that centered around that.

old mining town. There had to be some interesting deals in that process.

know who had really fostered this dream. And again when they had been told it was insane, it would never work, a golf course would never work. You know, they were told to build a three star golf course. I didn't really know what that meant, but you know, like they sort of had, you know, they'd been through the ringer and they'd had their hopes, you know, rise and fall so many times. And these were all volunteers in the community.

It was, know, and the dentist in town, the superintendent of education, principle, you know, just people who had grown up in their community. And you can imagine a vibrant mining community one hundred years ago that had a population far greater than the town you know was when I arrived there, that had sort of lost its economic engine,

you know, fifty years ago. It would have been easy to be skeptical in particularly because they felt like they'd been on the cusp of success so many times, you know, So they were not just supportive of the vision. They had really had the vision that this could be transformative and a transformed economic engine. And I think had it

not been that, it wouldn't have been possible. So they and they were members of the Invernest Development Association, which owned a couple of parcels the province of Nova Scotia and some of the land at the municipality of Inverness, and there were two businesses that own the land and so but you know, it really was the bulk of it was largely controlled by this by this group, the Internet Development Association, and led by these town fathers who

just had a vision that they needed an economic engine. And my, my sort of if I have one piece of wonderment looking back on it, you know, seventeen years later, it's that we, you know, we were able to assemble that ocean frontage and and give you know, Rod and then laterally Bill and Ben and at Cabot Cliffs the chance to you know, to build golf on the sea

and in a wonderful community. And and I think when you know, there's absolutely no no doubt in my mind that when Mike agreed to partner and that was announced. I think you know that the town fathers would have thought their prayers had been answered. And then obviously the great to the Great financial crisis of eight you know,

sort of threatened to derail us. But we persisted through that and then opened and had had some early success and built on that with clifts and opened the Nastar Part three last summer, and you know, keep trying to come up with fun things to do there.

That's Meridian Grooming dot com and the promo code is fried egg no spaces with I imagine, obviously, Mike Kaiser, as you've alluded to a couple of times, coming on, was was kind of like your high water mark or in the early where you Okay, this is gonna work. Was there a point when you were really in the process, you had already poured so much time, energy effort into it, where you were where the opposite was, oh, this isn't

going to work. And it might have been, you know, a point where you look back so many times and think, God, if this hadn't happened or that hadn't happened, you know, you know, and now you laugh about it, but at the time it probably occupied your brain for weeks that end.

was three years of my life. And and it wasn't like there were you know, it wasn't sort of your your VC thing of five or six people were saying it was a good idea, and there's one, I mean, everybody was saying, like, this is a really bad idea. And you know, and I think I had a wonderful a wonderful girlfriend at the time who became my wife, and she was extraordinarily supportive and said, like, I think

you can do it. And I have two wonderful parents who both kept telling me, like, you're onto something, keep on it. And so I blamed the three of them probably for everything that transpired after that. But I mean, it was a very very very tough three years and I'd had a relatively successful you know, venture as an entrepreneur and sort of the golf travel space and the golf marketing space. But I was taking every penny I was making out of that business and plowing it into

this idea in Cape Brighton Island. And I would say, and you know, there was and I think from an entrepreneurial standpoint, and you would identify with it, as would anybody who's been through that. But I think there's a lot of fear, ince off loathing. And you know, seventeen years later, it's an overnight success and you know, we get to do things like this podcast. But you know, in those early days, and you know, if somebody had offered me a small sum of money to take over

the project, I probably would have said yes. I mean, you know, I was passionate about doing it. But it's like if somebody or and or Mike had said, like, look, you know, I'll buy you out of your position and I'll do it. I'm Mike Kayser, I've dunebanded dunes. You know what, do I need a pip squeak from Canada to help me? You know, I'd have said great, because I would have wanted to see the project go forward.

And I think that piece people probably haven't been on an entrepreneurial journey really missed, which is there's still a lot of you know, fear and self loathing even after you you know, even after you have success and after we built links and you know, and built cliffs. I mean, I bought an industrial service business, and I was, you know, half thinking that that would be my only foray in golf,

and I'd go into industrial service. And you know, I had a great, great, great, great Canadian entrepreneur and you know, Mike's would look at me funny when I talk about this other business, you know, but he was pretty quiet and pretty patient. And this other guy said, so, you know, you think he can build one of the best industrial service businesses in the world. And it was like, oh my goodness. Now, I mean, we're number three in Atlantic

Canada and m abible to get to number two. And he said so, He's like, so you built two of the best golf courses in the world, and now you're happy being number three in a you know, in a relatively small market. So he was probably a bit a bit firmer with his fingers in my stern. I'm saying like, look, do you not love what you do, And I said, I love what I do. But but yeah, I know it's been it's been remarkably fun. And I'm sure I couldn't get a job if I wanted to, so I'll just keep doing this.

which I've never seen. And I, you know, I loved Pete Dye and loved his work, and you know, I'd sought it out a lot in my travels, and so you know, and I knew what Pete had said about Rod, and you know, and and you know what he told me, and you know, and how much Bill talked about Rod, and and so you know, I would have I would have known, in a very loose term, you know, in sort of air quotes known Tom Doak and and Bill

Koor a little bit at that point. But you know, I was really focused on Rod, and you know, and I think it was his The quality of his work was so good. And you know, and you listened to Bill and Ben talk about his contributions, you know, whether it was to Friar's Head or or any number of other projects or Pete talk about you know, what he had done at you know, Austin Country Club or or onward. And so you know, I sort of knew there was

something special. And Rod is you know, one of the wonderful and one of the wonderful characters you'd get to meet, but very quiet, and you know, the absolute opposite of a of a promoter. And you know, and look, I think, and there's lots of lots of great golf architects who are great promoters, and lots of you know, promoters who aren't great golf architects. And you know, and Rod was just a great golf course builder and who really didn't

focus on selling himself. And and we've worked together on a number of projects now and it's just one of the great joys of my life. But in both standing on Cabot Links, I only thought of him, and standing on Cabot Rebelstoke, I called him from the site the first day I was there, about two hours in, I said, I've got something I want you to come up like,

you know the next day. And and then he's obviously built the built the par three for us with Dave Axelan, who he's now formed a partnership with and Dave had been a part of building Cabot Links, Cabot Cliffs, the Nests, the par three and you know, Dave was down in

Saint Luci in the early days. So, you know, another unbelievable character, an unbelievable piece of the you know, sort of the fabric that you realize to be able to accomplish the things we're trying to accomplish, we needed, we needed amazing people like that to do it.

are creating art. And you look at other other industries, right, and you know, the best music is usually produced when the band's in a garage by themselves doing it. The best art is done by you know, the poor artists that is in their you know, studio, apartment and wherever they are, you know, by themselves making it. And I'm I'm interested. You know, golf architecture is an art form.

Is is really different than most because these these artists don't get to create their their art forms in solitude by themselves. They do it in in tangent and in concert with a developer in almost every case, or a membership. So talk a little bit about your approach to working with these golf architects.

an intersection. I don't think they have to be you know, competing forces, and I think being able to and you know, being able to look at it through a business lens and you know, and some people would say maybe I wasn't a very good developer and some of the decisions I made, but you know, I think the best thing we could do was give them the biggest canvas to be able to do the art. And so rather than you know, and I'm not saying we were we were right,

and you know past plans were wrong. But you know, you might have seen a plan that had a clubhouse on the ocean, which meant you had to have an entry road, you know, come down to the ocean, and that would have meant you would have had golf play around the clubhouse, you know, basically behind And I guess my view was, you know, look, there were so many wonderful places that you could draw inspiration from where it was.

If we pull all of the buildings and you know that's our clubhouse and you know, our lodge at Cabot and the villas to the top of the property, everybody would have a view looking across the golf course out at the ocean. And if we put you know, building right on the beach, you know, you see the service trucks and the parking lot and you play behind it and your view would be of the ocean. But I

didn't think it would be a better view. So and I think similarly in Saint Lucia, you know, we had seen plans that had where we have golf holes at homes, and any real estate developer would tell you that, you know, that was valuable land that we let Bill and Ben

build nine greens on the ocean. But I think you know, my interest and the intersection I hope of the business in the art is is to be able to let them build the best golf course they can and then you know, we can figure out a business model around that. And and I think you know, certainly, I bet Rod and Bill, Ben would all wish they worked in solitude rather than with me lots of days. But I guess we've done a couple with each of them now, so

they must not must not bother them too much. But you know, I think, and what I know without a shadow of doubt, is I would not be able to route a golf course. And you know, to the level that I've watched Bill Kohor and Rod do it, I would not be able to do the tie ins and and you know sort of the little subtle ripples and you know, rumples that sort of cause so much delight. I have played an awful lot of the world's great courses and have not been accused of being shy with

my opinions. So certainly there's lots of things along the way that I'll say, what about this, or how about this, or you know, but I think ultimately they are the artists and they hold the brush and I marvel at it, and I think the only thing. You know, Mike told me this. We were having dinner at Pebble Beach after your Links and Cliffs had opened, and you know, we both long admired Pebble and you know, I was saying, it's so funny. The process of doing it is so

much more fun than I thought it would be. And I would have thought the process of like we've got a golf course and now we get to play it, like you know, as a kid, I thought like that'll be the greatest day of your life. And you know, and Mike, as he's done so many times before, sort of you know, he said, we'll stand on the first team.

We won't play on opening day and and you know the joy I get from doing and it's really special to be able to do Revelstoke with Rod all these years later, to do Saint Lucia with Bill and Ben, and you know, we were down, and we were down with a month ago, but you know, down a few months ago, Mike built Ben and I was just the four of us, and you know, we're walking around at Saint Lucia and as a kid, you know, I grew up loving the Mastress, as I said, you know, loving

Ben Crenshaw and you know, and sort of all things golf, and so it was easy, you know, in the busyness of Cabot Cliffs for that, you know, I was getting to build a golf course with Bill Koor, Ben Prench on Mike Kaiser, and you know, sometimes it was sort of like you're focused on Okay, we got to get it done, and we got a budget, and there's all these things, and so you know, I think, I think walking around with Mike and Bill and Ben and May, I sort of, you know, was acutely aware of just

how fortunate I've been, not just to you know, chase a dream and get to do it every day. And you know, I think doing what you love with people you love doing it with is the greatest luxury in one's life. And I certainly have that. But I think to watch, you know, to watch people who you may you may agree, and I certainly think of we're going to work with some of the grand masters, not just

of this generation but of all time. And and you know, so the best thing you can do is is not alienate them too much and give them a good canvas to work well.