Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at b Draddy. It's cold in the Midwest and there's nothing better for me than staying warm with the Russell quarter Zip.
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You can make it dressed up as much as you want, like you could do business casual with it. You could wear it on the golf course, stay warm on a chilly morning or you know, brisk day, or you can just lounge on the on the couch watching you know, golf on Sunday afternoon, like your favorite hoodie. So you can get the Russell quarter Zip in our pro shop at the fridagg dot com or from b Draddy directly at www dot bdradty dot com. All right, today's episode
is with legendary golf course designer Bill Korer. So Bill and I talked in Scottsdale. We talked about a number of topics, including his work at the Sheep Ranch, a little bit about Pete Die and much more so. Without further ado, here is Bill cor I miss the green.
For example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker.
I'm really upset and when I find my.
Ball in a brid egg, Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, fridagridagg bride egg.
Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the.
So if you, if you, uh, if you could go and say, like a race time, there's this movie yesterday, the Beatles movie.
I don't know if you've seen.
Yeah, you know, so like how they forget about the Beatles, right, and then society just like nobody has any clue.
And we're talking golf here.
If you could, if society could wake up one day and have no clue this existed, one of these things? Would it be the rangefinder, like the yardage gun, the the big headed drivers, or the lobledge? Which one would you get rid of?
Oh?
Gee, I thought you were going to ask something about golf course.
Which one of those three?
And this is from a design pre well, I.
Think the rangefinder.
I think I would probably eliminate that because at least I am now. I am now such a dinosaur and old enough that I remember easily before rangefinders, and I thought it was a fascinating part of golf, trying to make distance judgments by sight and often by feel. And yes, I actually remember when we played golf even without yardage books. I guess, you know, Dean Beaman I think was the
first or one of no built. You know, Phil Rogers I think was the first professional who did the yardage books, and Jack Nicholas got that from him, and I think maybe Dean Beaman was doing it at the same time, Nicholas of course being the one who's the most well known for doing it when they made their own yardage books. But I even remember prior to that it was judging distances was really an integral part of golf.
Yeah.
And then also the deception of bunkers and stuff that it has been lost a little bit, where you can just shoot the top edge of a bunker.
Well without question.
I mean Ben and I and the guys that we work with, and lots of other folks who are in this profession too, still are very enamored of the bunkers that are set short of the green surfaces but appear to be right at the green surfaces. Generally, if you can get the top line of a bunker, even if it's thirty forty yards short of the green, if you can get the top line of the bunker to match the same visual line of sight into the front edge of the green, that bunker will appear to be right
at the front of the green. And as you say, in days gone by, when you use visual judgment, that foreshortened everything. It made the green look closer than it really was because you didn't see that ground that was between the bunker and the putting surface, and your mind would automatically tell you it's not you know, it's one hundred and seventy five yards. It might look like it's a one hundred and fifty, one hundred and forty five something like that. So even if you knew the ground
was there, your mind was telling you something different. Now today, with the accuracy and the detail of the yardage finders, the rain finders, I think we can all overcome what our what our site impressions are just because we know the mathematics behind the numbers and Okay, it may look like one fifty, but I know it's one seventy five.
So with that is using the horizon lines to match for that deception. In terms of deception, how are there other ways that you can deceive players with visual tricks, whether it be with features or different You know, do you have different tricks where you can maybe appear make bunkers appear to look further away or closer than they are.
Well they obviously scale is one of them. Anything that's the bigger it is, the closer it's going to look to you. But angles, you can use angles that that seem to set ups certain ways you want to play. Uh, we're we're still pretty much fond of the types that help you.
In other words, if if if.
The ideal shot going into the green is right to left, if you can set the bunkering in such a way that it visually that it seems appealing to play or right to left shot, that's that's a that's a type of bunkering I guess you might say is positive and is is reinforcing. Now you can do it the other way and set up bunkering with angles that make it appear you want to hit a shot a certain way when in fact you want to hit the exact opposite shape of shot.
That's uh, I think, yeah, deception is interesting. And then you know, with with those visual those angles, it's oh, this shot calls for right to left, like you can just see it in there with those the way, it's a good point about those. So what you got to lot of new projects? What have you been working on since since we last talked.
Well, it's been a long time, Andy, since we talked. I gush.
I think last time we talked it was at San Valley.
So it was colder.
Oh. I was so grateful to you that day.
I was freezing out there, absolutely freezing, and when you offered the chance to come inside and sit and talk to you, I remember you said something like, well, Bill, it won't take very much of your time.
And I've made some response. I recall like, Andy.
I'll stand here as long as you want, as long as we stay in this warm room, and somebody will bring me some hot chocolate.
So we sat there quite a while.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I've gotten a lot better at producing audio, so that's good for the listeners.
So I guess your big.
Big opening this year is a sheep ranch, and I guess to kick things off the you know what everybody's going to be talking about is the decision not to have the traditional sand bunkers, so she branch abandoned dunes.
What went into that decision.
When win Primarily as you would walk on the site and it it like the Old McDonald's site at Bandon Or very likely the most exposed to the wind and sheep Branch, possibly even more so than Old McDonald's. So as we would walk the site and study it, thinking about routing of holes and how golf could be played out there and the emphstis being on played, not just photographed, we just realized that wind was going to be such a factor that we thought, well, okay, bunkers would be
extraordinarily beautiful. They could be off the chart spectactuor branch. But it's not a sandy site. Andy, it's you know, it doesn't have dunes like some of the other courses Abandon. It's basically a red shot clay type on cliffs and spectacular landforms and setting for golf, but not a sandy site.
And if we put if we created artificial formal type bunkers, we just felt like the maintenance of those was gonna be a nightmare with the wind constantly whipping the sand out, trying to water the bunkers to keep the sand in.
And the more we thought about this and we thought, you know, Ben and I talked some but we've remembered an old photograph that was in Robert Hunter's book The Lynx, and it was an old black and white photograph and it had a caption underneath something to the effect of, one day there'll be a site with undulations good enough that bunkers will be unnecessary. And we just thought about, if we're ever going to do a golf course with
no formal sand bunkers, maybe this is the place. The contours are good enough at the Sheep Ranch, the natural ones, the ones that had been manipulated through the years with you know, by by equipment and men. But you put all those contours together, they were so good for golf and they're just their basic presentation. We thought, this is probably the site that we will just allow the contours that exist and the ones that we will create to determine the golf without any formal bunkers.
So great contours, and then you also get that that wind that you're round about, which you know that added external factor that you probably are going to challenge players enough with those two, right.
I think so Andy. I think we just felt like the wind in the and the fantastic contours would take care of all the interests for golf and and any you know, type of defenses. The course needed, because those those would be there through the contring on the ground
and through the wind. Now that doesn't mean people say, oh, you're not you have no bunkers at all, Andy, There's some we create, some scolloped out areas and some hollows and things, and that probably will appear to be a bunkers that had been abandoned, you know, for twenty or thirty or forty or fifty years, just because of the their shapes and landforms and the fact that they collect balls. But quite frankly, we decided where we will we will do these, and we will make them.
More like just wispy fescue type areas, abandoned bunker type things with some scrapes of sand in them, but just would not be any formal bunkers.
How do you think those areas will play differently for players than a traditional bunker.
Well, I think for the you know, for the average to hire handicap or they're certainly going to be easier because you.
Know, we all know how those of us are.
Our handicaps are up there, so to speak, more often not struggling bunkers, and particularly in bunkers that are severely impacted by wind as well. And I think in this case, people will you know, they'll see their ball lying there, maybe in the taller, wispy fescue, but generally that abandon that's very thin. So I think they're just going to feel more comfortable. There's my ball, I can hit it. I'm going to go I've got a chance at this. And yet perhaps for the very best players that play,
they're going to find them. So since some of these scolloped that areas or what might have been old bunkers from at least from a perception standpoint, but they might prefer to actually be in sand where they could play their type of sand shot and spin the ball enough to get close to the hole.
Yeah, for the really best players, sand is a very predictable place to be.
It's interesting, Andy, I remember I learned something so interesting. We were working at Chennecak Hills in Mike Davis and you know, the executive director of the USGA, and I remember we were out there walking and we were talking about potential situations where a hole, say it like number fifteen or even number thirteen, could be set up in such a way that the players could drive. The players in the US Open could drive the ball to the
green under certain circumstances. And I remember thinking, like the fifteenth hold, just surrounded by bunkers, and I remember talking to Mike.
Mike, why would anybody ever try to do this? You know, to do this?
They almost cannot get a ball on this green, you know, from the tee, because it's surrounded by bunkers. And I remember Mike Stentners and Bill probably what they would like more than anything is to be in one of these bunkers right here, to have a perfect lie in the bunker. For these players of that skill level, it's such a predictable shot that they would much rather be there than offen the rough someplace, or perhaps even in the fairway with a more with an awkward angle or lie.
Yeah, you know, there's because that sand, if you hit it a little fat, it runs a little bit more. If you hit a little thin, it grabs a little bit more.
And and there's.
Just such a you know, for that high level player. You look at some of the percentages these guys get up and down from the sand over the course of the season, and you're like, they get up and down that often. It's really unbelievable.
It is. It's amazing.
And the consistency now for the tournament courses, the consistency of the bunkers and the conditioning of the bunkers.
Is so.
Perfect, and it's so again consistent that the players are, you know, it's it's certainly the bunkers are not the hazards they were when when being introduced into golf all those years ago.
So with with the routing there at the Sheep Ranch, it's a smaller site, I believe, right, you know, it is eight bridge. You had to be very clever and like what you said, you know, taking advantage for the golf. How did you guys kind of come up with that? And did you find it more difficult with there being golf holes out there already?
Did you have to almost unsee golf.
Holes without question? Andy?
I mean because Tom Doak and Jim or being a had had built greens out there. There were a very few I guess you would say tea placements, but they had built let's see, I think it was thirteen I believe greens out there that they could be played from different angles and sort of the cross country type golf
that Sheep Ranch had been through its existence. And I just remember the first times going out there when there were still flagsticks in those greens and looking at it, and it's hard not to be your eye to be drawn to those. And it actually became a lot easier when we just ask them to take the flag sticks out and you'd walk out because you know, the greens.
It wasn't of course, it was highly maintained, so it wasn't like the greens just stood out like beacons, you know, themselves in the rest of the type of vegetation and landforms and colorization of the vegetation. So once the flag sticks were going a little easier to start to visualize that site as more natural type contours or contours highly conducing to golf without being predisposed to think we need to play there, we need to play there, or we need to play there.
In terms of the small site, what type of challenges did it present? And you know, what were the solutions that you guys kind of figured out that you hacked around with that you know, maybe some things that you struggled through before finding a solution.
Well, I think the biggest solution was getting eighteen holes
on it. I mean the biggest challenge not solution, but the it that and the fact that Phil Friedman and Mike Kincher and the owners of the Sheep Ranch, they would very good naturedly, but at the same time and you seriously remind us regularly that had some of the most spectacular coastline of all the resort at Bandon, and how could we use every linear foot of it and in some way in the golf and need to say, that was a bit of a challenge, but so that
was that that's where we started. We started saying, Okay, yes, it's a small site, how do we best utilize the coastline here and with holes that play certainly alongside it. But if you did that repetitively, you weren't going to
get very many holes on the ocean. So we tried to come up with a routing that you could literally play from promontories over the ocean to fair ways other holes more or less alongside the ocean, but then holes that went to greens right on the ocean, and then the holes that played from tees right on the ocean more inland. So trying to utilize it in different in different ways and make that certainly the ocean holes the
foundation of the golf course. But then how do you work in from there and fit the puzzle pieces together. I think the big there was certainly a lot of concern about the fact that the holes, because the size of the site, the holes were going to have to be in reasonably close proximity to one another. And then given the wind the influence that you know, we certainly had some concerns about balls that might travel from one
golf hole to another. And I think and time will only tell how well this worked.
But our solution to that was to.
Try, in several instances cluster teeing grounds together. For example, the second and the eighteenth tees are right together. They play at different angles in different directions, but the teeing grounds themselves are very close together. That's the case on to an eighteen's case on five and fifteen, it's the
case on eight and ten. By doing that, getting the team getting two teen grounds in a small area, and then playing at angles that radiated away at different angles from those teeen grounds, it enables us to make the fairways wider. So like a piece of pie, I guess, or a piece of pizza, if you play from the tip out to the wide part, you can put two tips together and the pizza edge is much wider and the pieces of the pizza are much wider when you get away from the tip. So that was in essence
what we did. We clustered some teeing grounds in order to make the fairways, the areas where you were going to actually be hitting a golf ball and playing golf wider, and that gave us, that seemed to give us more room to work to get the eighteen hole routing in there.
You're you're also working on Terry D's second course, which is ocean front. When you're when you're working on a big body of water and you're routing, oftentimes you see with water, the ground a little bit back of the water is the best ground for golf because of just the way the you know, the ecological the way ground settles, you know, where it used to be wider or bigger.
How big of a challenge is it to not just you know, to figure out the best way to use the water front, but also you know, have those holes inland really you know, I guess more so is it frustrating sometimes where you might think like some of the best holes are the least talked about because they aren't on the ocean.
Oh, I think so, Andy. I mean, I can tell you a prime example of that that we're just now beginning to work with is with the Cabot Links folks with their new project down in Saint Lucia on the.
Super spectacular site.
Oh my gosh, it mest be the visually spectacular of any site we've we've worked with us. It's saying quite a lot, actually, and uh, but the holes right on the cliffs on the ocean, and we're able to, like at the sheep wrench, to work right to the edge. So the holes that are right on the edge of the ocean at cab at Saint Lucia will be the ones that will without question be the most talked about
because they are so visually stunning and dramatic. But the holes that are actually a bit more inland, on some on ground that's very very interesting for golf, even though it's not on the ocean. I think they're going to I think they're going to hold their own in terms of golf interest. Dave Axlan, who's worked with us for so many years now, so many places, and he and I were just there and I remember that after I'd
walked Dave through the eighteen old routing twice. I remember he looked at me there a few days ago, just said, Bill, and everybody's going to talk about the ocean holes. But he said, I'm not so sure we're the best holes, aren't the inland.
Yeah.
It's funny I find myself when I think about like my most like my favorite golf holes. Like you know, obviously ocean holes or if they're on the lake, are stunning, but then you think about that contour that comes you know, the contour of a hole is in the in the slopes, Like the eighth hole at Prairie Dunes is one that always just jumps to the top of my mind, and it's like, if you put that hole on a course with an ocean, nobody would.
Ever take pictures of that hole.
And it is one of the most you know, intriguing holes in the world in my mind.
Yeah, well, I mean Prairie Dunes in and of itself is a marvelous example of extraordinary golf that you just expect the ocean to be over the next dune and it's never quite there. And so if you can build holes, it is a challenge. If you have a seaside site and it is a challenge to try to build holes that either play away from the ocean or that play inland,
you know, in different directions. But the ones that are not looking directly at the sea, it's a challenge to make those have enough inherent interest and appeal to golfers that they can be memorable as well.
Yeah, and you've got like, as you alluded to with you know, Mike Kaiser and Phil Friedman with the you know, they want to use that ocean front land if they have it, because that's you know, to the you know, that's the you know what they know, the retail golfer is going to just soak in and everything, and sometimes I just could imagine that's that's a tricky thing to deal with.
Yeah, well, and for good reason. Yeah, I mean they've been looking at that land. Phil Friedman, it was his sanctuary. He was like his and his family's personal sanctuary out there to go play golf and then friends go out and play you know, the sheep ranch and and so he's been so personally connected to that site for nearly twenty years. And of course Mike as well too, being co ownered with Phil the of the site. So it's
understandable why they wanted the holes on the ocean. I'm reminded of Mike Kaiser when we were about to start what became Cabot Cliffs, because I remember Mike asking me there before we started, said, Bill, can you lay out of course with six par threes? Mike loves par three holes. But my first response I remember to Mike was, and I suppose you want them all to be facing the ocean and it goes.
Well, of course, and it was.
It was kind of an inside joe, but yeah, there was a degree of seriousness about it. You know that he said people never tire of looking at the sea, and and that's that's true. So to your point, to get them engaged and appreciate holes that don't look right at the sea is part of what If you can pull that off, then generally speaking, your course, if you're on a site by the ocean, your course is gonna be pretty dark good.
I really I wonder what you'd have to do to have like the most photographed hole, of of course on the ocean, be a hole that isn't on the ocean.
I don't know if it'd be possible.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know we.
All I know is that between working at the g branch, now just beginning a cab at Saint Lucian on this extraordinary spectActor site by the ocean on the cliffs, and then about to start down that it's going to be called t R. E Lynx down at Tara Edi in New Zealand in the dunes next to the ocean. I don't know we're going to have We're everybody's going to say, oh, you guys, it's unbelievable. How in the world did you
get those? Some best sites in the world kind of stuff, And yes, that's true, But there is that challenge that you brought up, how do we how do we make the entire golf course measure up? Because the only way you're going to have every hole in the ocean is you're going to have to helicopter people back. I guess after they play, they just play out down the ocean for a mile, you know, miles, and then you bring them back.
But you're going to have to have some inland oath.
So to speaking of that, what's your what's maybe your favorite hole that you've built at any course that almost nobody or nobody's brought up to you. It's like, you know, to ask you a question about a certain hole. I'm sure people ask you about holes all the time. So what's a hole that you love? But nobody's ever talked to you really about it?
See, And I don't know that I've ever given that thought. I could probably go course by course and think of, you know, a hole or something. I mean I can, I can quickly, for example, think of a hole like a Cabot Cliffs the thirteenth hole, which plays straight away from the ocean and goes because there then a sort of a semi punch bowl type green set in behind a natural hill. It was there and you never hear anything about it. And yet Ben I both love that hole.
I mean, we just thought it was just the neatest.
Natural landform to use to play golf. But it comes after playing holes in the ocean, and it's and it precedes that stretch of holes it finishes on the ocean, So it's just kind of lost in the conversation.
Yeah, Garrett, our managing editor, and I always talk about publishing a piece about you know, we want to put together what we consider if the least talked about holes like that are really brilliant, Like one we always talk about seventeen Aposta TFO. People are like, oh, that fact nine's so great, except for seventeen.
It's like, that's pretty cool.
You know.
Well it's like the eighteenth hole Cypress Point. Yeah, I mean that the poor thing just gets.
Maligned all the time.
And I guess maybe it was Jimmy DeMeritt who said, you know, all those years ago, it's the best seventeen.
Whole course in the world.
Well, of course that type of stuff sticks and people you just hear people say, oh, it's just not good.
It's this. It's that.
I find it to be an incredibly fascinating hole. It's set through those magnificent wind swept you know cypress trees that Mackenzie and Robert Hunter used, and how they routed the fairway through those with in that serpentine fashion to take advantage not only the beauty of those trees, but the strategic value of them.
That you got to put it somewhere on that hole.
You're going to have to play once, if not twice, really close to some trees to have any hope of being successful.
And it's you know, but it.
Plays directly away from the ocean after of course fifteen sixteen seventeen.
It's also something I took away from it is that that hole asks you a distinctly different question than almost every other hole out there, where you really have to be precise on that t shot and it's the last hole, and if you don't hit a really good shot there, like you were talking, playing close to the trees and hitting at the right yard, hitting it on a line, and I remember you talking about this with Trinity Forrest, hitting it on a line and the yardage as opposed
to just a line or a yardage, And that hole really requires you to answer those two questions to have a good second shot.
In absolutely, plus the psychological aspect of you just played fifteen sixteen seventeen right on the ocean. You're coming off that, I guess you would say an emotional high, and then you turn. You're going directly inland. You're going through these trees, and if you're not careful, the mental side will waiver right there. Even if you're so highly skilled, you could just say you could play that hole most of the time,
you know, say successfully. I think there's that mental aspect that comes into play as well.
Yeah, you also I have when you play somewhere like Cyprus Point, you have that sadness that the rounds almost so exactly exactly you gotta contend with. So you've brought up Ben a couple of times. Obviously your your design partner. I'm curious, as you know, everybody that listens to this pot for the most part, works with somebody, and a lot of times in a business with a business partner.
How does Ben.
Look at golf courses differently than you do?
Andy?
I would say the differences are minor. It's one of the reasons I guess we've managed to enjoyed doing this for thirty plus years. Our personalities and our philosophies regarding golf design are very very similar. Ben, I would say, could be even more conservative than I am when it comes to, you know, what is considered to be the
most interesting elements of golf. Ben Ben is a very strong believer in detail, in detail on greens, like you know we've talked about with Perry Maxwell with the conjuring
of greens. But I think the thing that I've learned so much from Ben through the years, but also the watching him focus on so much, is that detail and how it influences play, and not just for play for those of us who are out there, you know, just playing for fun, but how it influences play for the very best players in the world.
He's convinced that, and I am.
As well, primarily from working with Ben through all these years. But it's the small things that can make the biggest influence to the most delete players. The the alignment of the axis of the green, how a green is his positioned to open the entrance into the green into what on what angle relative to the slope of the fairway, the width of the fairway, and the way the wind blows, and those things combined can make all the difference in
the world. If you if the axis of the green is is aligned in such a way that you have a distinct advantage being in a certain spot in the fairway that aligns beautifully up the axis straight up into the entrance of the green, then that begins to dictate thoughts of play. I know, if I get to that spot, I have the best angle to play here. That's We've talked about that countless times, you know, through through the years.
So I would say it has to do more with that and the and the fact that a small counter, what's a contra and a green that's that's three inches high, or it's the tilt of the green, tilt combined with the wind directions. Those are the things that he focuses on so much. I remember him years ago talking about the little hump, the little mound that's in front of the fourth green at the old course at Saint Andrews. Thing, just that infuriating little mound that kicks balls all sorts
of ways. And once you know he was talking about, even as one of the most elite players, once you knew where the pen was and where that little mound was, it just influenced your thought all the way back to the tee. You didn't want to if you could help it. You didn't want to be in a position where that little mound trying to play, especially trying to play a shot just at the front of the green where that thing could cause something really unpleasant to happen.
Yeah, the contours in front of greens, and it's just especially on shots where you got to land at short is just.
Interesting. One that jumps to mind.
One of your courses is that fifteenth hole at Sand Valley with those two mounds right in front of that green, and it's one of the longer par fours out there. I want to just put a launcher out there and watch shots kick off them all day.
And that was a natural contour and it really, it really was. It was what it was though it wasn't two mounds. It was one sort of a hot dog or a hot dog bun sort of a ridge that went just at a slight angle in just short of
where the green was. And we kept standing out there and looking we could do something here where you just carve a little trough right in the middle of the hot dog contour to encourage somebody if you can get right there, if you can get a ball to come on the ground right through the little trough, it's going to feed right to that front pen, which is all but impossible to get to if you're trying to get it there.
Area. Yeah.
Yeah, that's something that sticks out. Something that sticks out to me about that golf course is the green sites out there. There are just some magnificent ones set into dunes, you know, dramatic greens playing off of due where you're playing off of dunes, two greens, and then you know the combination of these subtle ones that are just laying the ground. Talk a little bit about the natural features at Sand Valley that you guys had to work with.
That was, you know, in terms of, you know, amongst your other great sites.
Well, Andy, I think first of all, the greatest attribute to Sand Valley was in its name. Sand is the sand sites are therefore drainage and earth moving, and the ability to create interesting contours or discover naturally interesting contours was the opportunity for that was great there, as it is on most sand sites, particularly sand sites had been
influenced by wind. The interesting thing to me personally there, which one of the things that I am very proud of about the course we did at Sand Valley was the fact it was a tree plantation, as you well know, and been you know, planted in pine trees for timber pulpwood purposes. And once those trees were cleared, it became apparent almost all the contours were valleys or ridges, pretty
big valleys or pretty big ridges. And I remember early on we were trying to lay out the golf course and go, how do we do this in such a way that these holes don't become so repetitive in their appearance. Or the end of way they play. How can we find ways to lay the holes on here in such a way that the contours will be different from one hole to another. You don't just feel like you're playing a whole series of holes in the valley, a whole series of holes over a ridge to.
Low or something of that nature.
And I remember talking to Jim Craig, you know, who worked with us so much, and then Dave Accent all the other guys that were there early on. Once it was cleared and you looked and you go, many, this crown just looks the same. How do we come up with some concepts and some visual presentations that give each whole individual.
Identity in character.
So I think that turned out okay, but it was a concern.
I find it to be endlessly compelling. And one of the things that I love most about it is that I've the advantage of the climate there where it's conducive to the fascue and the speed at which a play is. When you're building, knowing that you're going to have a golf course that's going to play very firm and fast, do you approach contour a little bit differently than say a place you know we're here in the desert, or where you're where Bermuda, where you're dealing with the slower grass.
Oh, no question, Andy, I mean it's if you're well. Certainly, if you're by the sea someplace on sand and where it's windy, all all things change. I mean you you just simply can't go bunker greens for example, for all aerial type approach shots, you just can't do it. There some days, particularly the days when holds play down a strong wind, that that would be.
Impossible to play.
So you have to in situations on sand with fescue where the ball roll and depending on the direction of the wind, particularly the wind varies, there are days that you just have to start to visualize shots that could land fifty yards different from what you just played the day before on the same hole. And in that regard, the conjuring has to allow for that, and if you can create or take advantage of existing contours that enable
people to play those kind of shots. To say, there's no way today down when I can hit this ball to the green in the area, it won't stop in the next county. I've got to land it far short of the green and use the ground to access the putting surface. Then that's when those contours become so not only interesting, but valuable from the sense of how the most successfully play.
Yeah, it makes the contour so much more of a factor. It's really an amazing thing. One course you people are gonna be very familiar with. They just watched it on television, Kapalua. You just uh finished a refinement of the golf course.
And one of the things, obviously weather did not and the newness of turf did not conduce itself well to is regaining that speed that had been lost over the you know, thirty years that it was you know, in existence, and that's a natural thing to have obviously have happened.
But what what did.
You kind of think after being out there watching golf for a week? Did you learn anything watching the PGA Tour players and you know what and how you approach that process obviously with the tour in mind.
Yeah, No, we were pleased Andy, Ben and I were both there as well as our wives Julie.
Yeah, exactly.
We don't go there without without Sue and Julie, that's for sure. I remember they had called the true golf management people called one enough would go out there this year, and uh, you know I didn't I wasn't necessarily expecting that, but they won't know if we would do it. And my wife Sue said yes, you know it was yes, we are going and so, yeah, it's such a wonderful place to go. And it certainly has so many special
memories for Ben and Julie. They were married there, you know, years ago, and and so and of course for Ben and me to go back, and but we were very pleased. You know, we walked the holes, we we we we walked and studied all the greens now that they were obviously completely grown in and playing under tournament conditions. We were very pleased with the refinements we made to the greens.
Ben Ben numerous times referred to it as calming down some of the aspects of the greens, trying to create a few more pinnable area is but also reduced some of the slope in the greens that today's green speeds.
Yeah, I was going to ask how much have green speeds changed from you know, the early nineties when you when you guys did that golf course.
Oh, I actually don't know, because I don't know that I don't have any idea of what the green, the stemp peper so to speak, you know, readings were then it's significant.
I wish I could answer the question. I don't know.
They had the greens had gotten to the point they had gotten smaller through the years, but they had also gotten to the point that the tour was concerned about the number of pinnable areas, and the tilts on the greens were severe enough that it just felt like you couldn't use areas of the greens that you would that you would like to or were able to, you know, twenty eight, twenty five years ago.
It's it's interesting because there's this, you know, constant talk of especially when you get in tournament golf. More so if really any kind of golf, if the fair and unfair, and the idea of you go to these classic golf courses and what you alluded to it in our first podcast of wing foot and how how close to the line it is with being it's a it's a it's brilliant because of how close to the line it is and and how difficult it is because that line is
so razor thin. With with green speeds continuing to increase, do you think do you feel like.
In a sense, we're losing a.
Little bit of of the magic of green contours.
Well, if you if you put any value in the sense that green should represent natural conditions or or conjuring that you find in the in the world on nice sites. Yeah, because the green speeds to the point that the green speeds dictate the contours instead of so many of these courses that we all revere the contours dictated the green speeds, we've kind of reversed this. The engine have become the cart,
and the carts become the engine. So you know those courses that you referred to wing Foot or Shunnacaker, all these these magnificent mary and these wonderful, wonderful places, they're right on the line. I mean they are right on the line. They're still artistic. Oakmont maybe the most so of all, just an unbelievably artistic putting surfaces. But to be able to conduct, you know, championships today with the green speeds that are expected, it's it's difficult.
It's and I think to extent it's cheapening the game because when you get them fast with the less slope, you're never inside of ten feet, you're never putting a putt that you have to play outside the hole.
Yeah, it's you know, it's just a different perspective. I guess it's.
You know, I don't know, Ben and Ben and our prejudice. We still we still like playing golf in in in arenas and on surfaces that that you just truly feel like could have been natural in the in the gift of nature, and not something that's been created due to mathematics.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So another golf course that the tour visits training for us, and obviously, you know, there's news that it was moving, and there's a lot of reasons that it's moving, not necessarily all all because of the golf course, but because of infrastructure and many different things, you know, location.
Do you feel like.
The players gave it a really gave it a chance to embrace it, because I you know, leading up to the event, I remember, you know, there was a lot of negativity coming from players who hadn't even seen the golf course.
Oh Andy, I think they I think they probably did.
I think they were. I mean, certainly we heard some of those same comments. But you know, really I think once they were there and the experiencing the golf course. I'm sure the players, we know that some of them would not appreciate it. Anything that's different is sometimes not easily accepted, and in all forms of life. But we knew that there would be, you know, there would be some players who would really like it and really appreciate it, and there'd be others who who wouldn't. But I don't
personally think the players were the driving issue there. You know, it's interesting you just referred to couple of the Plantation Course. Plantation Course was very controversial when it first opened and the touring players played there because they had to use the ground, they had to use the wind. You didn't play point A to point B in the air. You could do it on some shots, but there were many
you couldn't. And it was a different form of golf than most of those players were used to experiencing on the tour, and so it had its own years of people trying to come to grips with it. Do we accept this and do we like it?
Do we not? Now?
In more recent years, that's you know, it's that seems to have all gone away. Everybody's so accepting in the Plantation course grass too, yeah, and saw grass too. I wish Trendy Force would have been afforded a bit longer period of time in which to prove itself because mother nature intervened so dramatically so far in the two years they played, so wet and rain and horrible weather. And of course that's pretty that's not uncommon in Dallas in May and then. But it was a tough marriage from
the beginning. Indy, I mean the tour playing, playing a tournament that was used to attracting very large crowds, and playing on a landfill that.
You know, wasn't for obvious reasons.
The cap could not you know, water was not allowed to percolate downward to penetrate the landfills.
So there were obvious issues that were going to come up.
If the weather turned bad and there was a lot of rain, particularly in the areas where the spectators, not so much where the players were, but where the spectators would be working, it was going to become soggy and messy. And that and the fact that again the landfill dictated there can there be no trees.
You know, it's against the law. I have plant trees on a landfill.
Where the root structure fractures the gap of the landfill, so there were no trees. So if it were a bright, sunny, hot day in Dallas, which can easily happen, as you know, then there would be the issues with well there's no shade. So there were a lot of things going on there, the accessibility meaning there were always some folks who said,
well it's on the more disadvantage side of town. You know, it's not quite as glamorous an area you know there too, So there's just a lot of things went together probably to say it was an uphill challenge from the beginning.
To change gears.
You know, Pete die passed away last last week, and we we talked at length about Pete in the first podcast about fifteen minutes or so about how you got, how you how you met, and how he got started. Because of seeing his course in high Point, North Carolina, I was really interested to hear, you know what it was like learning that design build methodology from Pete and the importance of it from him. Obviously, that is one of those lasting legacies that's bringing that style of construction back.
And you guys, Tom Doak and many other architects have have really brought that where that has become a dominant style in architecture today.
Yeah, it's I mean, yes, Tom doak a lot of us, you know, or or it's our preferred way of going back creating a golf course, and that is there's a direct link, I would say, through Pete going on back much further obviously, but in in Tom's and my case particularly, it was that personal, uh experience of seeing it done on the ground, that evolutionary process of starting with the concept and then refining that concept through the activities and the work on the ground through you know, through the
process of building the course. That it's the it's the way. Certainly for me, it's the it's the only way I would know how to do it. And it was just given my basic I guess nature and inclinations and and the fact that it did work. With Pete and Alice uh uh, it was a huge influence not only the way we work, but my life.
Yeah.
And obviously a lot of that was you getting to do work, you know, and while you were working, you know, it was you were given almost a leash to do the work. And I imagine that's the case with your associates.
Now.
Something I've found interesting having gotten to know some of some of your associates, is that is that some of your associates come from like a non golf background. What what have you guys learned from, you know, having people that you know the advantages of having somebody that maybe comes from something a background outside of golf that's not a huge golf not when they when they start working.
For you, well, you know, handy, I mean even that you could I can personally link that back to Pete. I remember him saying. I asked him one time many years ago, mister die, why don't you why don't you have people, more people that work building your courses that are really actively involved in golf. And he was pretty definitive about He said, I don't want people to have to unlearn things, you know. I want them to think the way we're thinking and do the way the concepts
and things that we're doing. Not come with all these preconceived ideas because someone else did them differently. I'd rather have somebody's never done it at all and then train them from the beginning to work through it. In our case,
it's more andy. I think you just get a sense of almost all these guys have worked at the well, quite frankly, at the very bottom of some of our golf courses in the beginning, some starting as labors and some equipment operators and things, but then watching them work through the years and just realizing that these fellows each have extraordinarily extraordinary I would say, night and learned talents for what they do, particularly the ones you know that
I think you're referring to most who are creating all the landforms, the shapes and the concepts that so characterize the courses and give them the identity. And Jeff Bradley, you know, the bunker Guru as he's called by or is Arnold Palmer, I guess called him the bunker Guru.
Jeff's a prime example.
You know, he worked on the maintenance crew at Hot Springs Country Club in Arkansas, and he was a laborer
working on the maintenance crew. And when we did work back there in the early nineties, and he ended up up being sent over by the Rusty Mercer who's now the director of agrotomy at stream Song, but Rusty was the superintendent at Hot Sprange Country Caub Jeff worked for him, and Rusty sent him out to work with Dave Axlent, who's worked with us now for over thirty years, and Dave was doing the bunkers at Hot Springs, so Jeff
just went out to help as a laborer. And I remember Dave telling me toward the end of the job. He said, Bill, this guy can see it. He's got a feel for it. He can He's just got it. It's one of those almost indefinable things. Some people can see something and you can talk to them about it over and over and over, and yet when they attempt to do it, it just doesn't quite happen. And that's in all walks of life, all professions. Dave was convinced
to Jeff Bradley. He said, he's for whatever reason, he can see and visualize what we're trying to do. He said, he's he's got it, and that intangible, and I remember distinctly Dave left right toward the end of the job. I went back to walk through with Rusty right as they grow in was being completed, and I remember looking at bunkers on the last couple of holes that were grasped and I said something to Rusty Mercer. I said, Rusty boy, David a heck of a job. On those bunkers,
and Rusty looked at me. He said, Bill, Dave didn't do those bunkers. I said, he didn't do Who did those? He is Jeff Bradley, the guy that's been working with Dave. So that's one example. You could repeat something similar to that story for each one of the guys that works with us. They've come from different backgrounds. Some people say,
what an eclectic group. Some people say, what a weird group of guys that all come together from such different background and still form this this group of super talented artistic people.
It's neat, I mean, and you think about It's I think about this all the time. It's like, how many people are like world class it's something that they never have tried in life, Like you know, how many people are like great singers that were always too shy to sing.
Yeah, Oh, it's it's just you know, in all walks of life, it's just that.
Oh, it's it's that.
Coming together of preparation and opportunity and talent, and you can have all the talent in the world, you can have all the talent plus preparation in the world. The opportunity doesn't come, it doesn't happen, or you can have not much talent or not much preparation and you're given an opportunity and not much comes of it.
It's good advice, good life advice. Yeah, so last question. You got to get out of here. And we talked to Tom Doak at length about the stream Song project and one of you know, one of the things he said is he if he could have one hole from the red course. Obviously, you guys, it was a very collaborative process with routing and then you were building the golf course at the same time, which is pretty neat.
If he could have one golf hole from your golf course, he would take the seventh, is what he said.
If you were able to just take.
And you get nineteen holes instead eighteen, take on one hole off the blue course, which one would it be?
And why?
Well, interesting enough, when we laid those holes out there, holes on our course that Tom visualized and routed on the ground, and their holes on his course that I actually visualized and route it on the ground. So do you want me to pick one of those or just what.
You don't know? Me has to know. But you got to pick your hole.
Oh, can I have a moment how long can I have.
To get You got to leave in ten minutes, so you got Yeah.
Okay, I'll try not to take that long.
I try to, you know what, I think I would take Tom's third hole.
And I say that for two reasons.
One is I I saw that hole on the ground.
If if if we.
Had not been collaborating, you know, on the on the two routings together. I think if if Ben and I had just done eighteen holes on that whole, you know, that whole cycle the two courses are, that would have been one of the holes. I just found it to be an interesting circumstance for golf and with its landforms. But having said that, I think they did a better job than probably what we would have because the detail work the interested, particularly up near the green and the
t shots fantastic. But the second shot I think is really really good. And I used to kid Tom's guys because again we were working literally side by side out there. So once i'd walk over the hill one of a mon ago, you know, guys, I know it's on your course, but this is our hole, this is my whole, so don't mess this up. So with all that good nature's joking and stuff around. When I went back and looked at the third hole of it's free damn good.
That competitive?
You know, is that unlike any other project that you've ever done where you've built at the exact same time next to you know, another group of architecture team.
Yes, we've worked, you know, building a course while they're building another course, maybe at the same project or something. We just did that. It was Arts National there in Branson, Missouri, the Tiger Woods Courses has been going on while we were building our course. But to collaborate literally hand in hand on the on the site with holes that intermingle, yeah, that's the only time we've done it. It would be very difficult to do with most, I think people in
our profession. The fact that we've been on you Tom for so long. We knew the guys, his guys, knew our guys. We knew this was you know, this was gonna be We knew it'd be interesting. Well, we felt like it was gonna be fun. It turned out to be more fun than we and than we even imagine.
Yeah, I have all these half written articles and right after the President's Cup with Royal, Melverne and I started the thinking about American venues that should host the writer or the President's Cup, and I landed on the one that I was most intrigued by was a composite course at stream Song, and I have like eight different routings. Yeah, yeah,
and it was really fun to put together. It was really tough because if you went out and I think these are the holes that you kind of had to create a little but if you go out one through five or six, I always ended up having that central piece of ground be kind of where all the holes were housed on my favorite ones, but somebody else would have different fague route.
Now it is interesting and stream Song it's it's sort of like places at Pinehurst that if you're not careful, you could start playing on one course and if you weren't pretty observant, you'd end up.
On the other course.
You know, it could happen abandon even at Tom's course and david Kids course there at number eight.
So uh yeah, well.
We're about to not do the same thing but at Tara where Tom's gonna do the second public access course there and they're going to be building at the same time we're building ours. So they don't intermingle, but they they come so close together you could almost claim they touch.
That's that's called Tom told me that because he got the ocean the first time.
You got the ocean.
Oh, Tom, He's unbelievable. I don't know if I should say this publicly, but I will. Tom. So I was talking to him on.
The phone and he told me he wanted to go first with his course. And I said, why is that time? I thought, maybe we do these at the same time. He says, Bill, I think we should go first. And I said, well why, He said, because you took all the best land, he said, so I got more of the inland land, you got more of the ocean land. He said, our course should open first, so then yours can come along.
After he's working.
He's working, he's constantly.
He's never at rest when it comes to analyzing and figuring out the best way to do things.
Yeah, well, thanks so much for your time. You know you got to you gotta get out of here. So we look forward to our next time. Hopefully it won't be you know, two or three years apart.
Thank Andy, you've been listening to the fried Egg podcast.
We do the digging for you.