Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Before we get into our episode, I just want to take a moment and thank our PGA week sponsor Greater Than. I have been drinking Greater Than for a number of years. It's really good stuff. I drank it before I started the Frida Egg and I'm really happy to be partnered
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to do something a little bit different. Obviously, you can always check out the Shotgun Start to get your golf news and updates fixed and Brenda and I did a expansive recap on the PGA there, so I had Blake Conant on, who you might remember from the Achin podcast. Blake is a young architect. He works as a shaper for Tom Doak and Renaissance Golf and he was texting me during the coverage, so I figured I have him on.
We talked a lot about course set up and challenging the pros and you know kind of how how Beth Page was presented and you know the leaderboard that came of it. So thanks for Blake for coming on, and without further ado here he is.
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 Frida egg and.
Dread and Frida egg, Frida egg, Fridgrida egg.
Bride egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
So, uh, what what have you been up to, Blake?
Been?
Uh been a couple of months since we talked a little bit about Acon.
Yeah, as I've been traveling back and forth to Houston and helping out with Tom's project there a memorial park gone, and helped on a couple other projects in h renaissances with with Brian Scheinder and Eric Ivers, snuffing Long islanded up in Washington Golf, wrap it up those two things. Washington just got hammered with rain, so their project is like extended over into the spring. But it's coming together nicely. That's a cool, little, cool little thing, and it sort of informed some work in.
Houston, so it was good to go back and see it.
Yeah it I was out there too in the spring. It's a cool place. It's that the property is crazy.
It's nuts. I don't understand how they fit eighteen holes on that clubhouse side of the property, you know what I mean. And then they added the forty acres. Did Flinn routed five or six holes that actually have enough room and those feel great, but the topography's wild.
Yeah, it's it's nuts. So you've been you've been off a little you uh. You caught a lot of.
The PGA this last week, huh? I did?
I had?
You know.
The great thing is when you're not working, you're you're not working at all. So I had plenty of time to watch the p t A and just get into it.
Girlfriends and face.
Now is at work, so yeah, congrat congratulations.
Yeah, that's also happened. You're not working, you can propose to your to your girlfriends.
So that's great, that's that's awesome. That's uh. Now now you get a Now you get a wedding plan.
Yeah, exactly, No, the.
Google Google docs have already started rolling in.
We're dealing with that.
It's your new part time job. So what do you what did.
You what were your what were your big takeaways from the weekend?
You know, honestly, it was it was a bit boring, and the first day sort of captured everybody because it's Tiger and Brooks going off in the morning.
I had.
They were the feature group in the morning and I was having watching them on my PGA app on the TV, so it was great. And then it's just I think Brooks has posted a number and everybody tried to get it the afternoon, that's Thursday.
Morning, they went off, right, Yeah, yeah, he just he just kind of he kind of just rushed the field, you know, blitz.
Yeah, and then it sort of went downhill for the air. I mean, there wasn't really much drama to be had until DJ and Brooks almost got tied on the back.
Nine on Sunday.
Yeah, it was.
Watching Jim Dance and Nick Valdo try to create drama.
Yeah, it was the I think that when I talked to Jeff Ogilvie before leading up the championship, he kind of laid it out. You know, you're going to see a long hitting, high ball hitter win, just because that's the way Bethpage is. You know, somebody who executes well and hits it far and high. And I think you know, given how much rain they had up in the Northeast, it played even more into the bomber's hands in the sense of the rough was just unbelievably thick.
Yeah, I mean that you could tell that right away, and they kept they kept mentioning that throughout Brooks' round of how he had said, I only have to beat a third of the field or something, and he's probably referencing that, well, Francisco Molinari, as good as he might be playing, had no chance. So he's probably not even worried about Molinari this week.
Yeah, it was everybody was talking about Tiger and the lead up, and because obviously his success at Bethpage winning in twenty twelve or two thousand and two and it's just like, you know, that was such a different Tiger Woods than what we see today where you know, he was he was kind of the Brooks Kopka then, where he had a you know, a physical and and huge
length advantage over everybody in the field. But but now he's kind of like the crafty veteran who who who gets it around and and I think that's That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk with you is that, you know, just from an architecture standpoint, set up standpoint, I thought, you know, the the championship, and this is one of the things I think is is it's okay
to have a championship like this. I think that the important thing is to understand that that if we have a setup like this, that this is what's going to happen more often than not.
Right, Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know, I was getting so tired of listening on eighteen of guys hoping the ball gets in the bunker.
It's just it becomes nauseating. At some point.
Those bunkers are all there, sort of the hallmark of the course, and they're supposed to be fears, and you know, it doesn't even it's frustrating after a while, arrow up the fairways, you grow the rough up the guys want to get in the bunkers. The most iconic thing about bet Page in the first place it is that you're right, that's exactly what you're gonna get. So if you're fine with that, then then keep running your tournaments that way.
Yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting.
And obviously I know the next event will be at at Best or at at Pebble, and you know you're gonna we're gonna see much of the same, but a much shorter golf course. You know, from from your standpoint, from an architecture standpoint, you know, these are two classic golf courses. You know, what would you say they were being when you narrow the rough? What are we losing from a from a standpoint of a viewer, and is there what are are we gain?
What are we gaining?
Mm hmm, you know, I think what you're losing obviously is different ways to play hoole like six if that page is a great example of fairways way too narrow to take advantage of some of the angles that are created there. So you you are one the same way, It's like you end up with allowing guys to get out of position but then still have a recovery. You know, part of that's predicated on having interesting greens and in positions, which I don't think that page has as much as pebbles.
So it's you know, if you're in the rough at that page, is you're not really the greens aren't asking you to be on one side of the fairway or for the other oftentimes. Yeah, so you're you're losing some of that.
And then what was the second part.
Of your question?
And uh, you know, what do you do you think we're gaining anything with the narrow fairways?
Is there you know, a way to play?
You know, I'm out obviously a with advocate. You know, I don't think anybody doesn't think that, But I'm curious, from a Devil's advocate standpoint, do you think there's any anything that you know, the general public gains from having the narrow fairways thick rough.
The general public?
I don't. I don't think so.
I mean, I understand it if if you're a club on a tight budget and you've got you've got to worry about dollars, but you know, for a tournament like this, it's you're you're making a conscious decision just to assume that the well will never go dry. So they're they're doing that for a reason, you know. The one if
if I had to play Devil's Advocate. The one thing I I think they think it tests is if you're gonna take on the risky play, you're going to have to hit it straight and you're going to have to hit a great shot, or you can lay back and it'll you know, and then you've got more options. You're just further away. But they really like to test these guys.
They're just putting the onus on them. I think there's different ways to test a good player, But if that's the way they want to go about it, then you're going to see more venues like Beth Page or so. Yeah. I mean, it's just how do you want to challenge these guys? And that's the way they've chosen to challenge them. And I don't necessarily agree that it's the best challenge, but it's certainly the consistent challenge, you know what I mean.
I find it kind of fascinating because to me, what Best Page did with it? When you're making when the fairways are I think on average, they were twenty six yards wide. You know, you're the average tour pro, say it's three hundred yards. They're dispersion from you know, right to left. Miss is about seventy yards right, And if you lay back with a three iron, you know, your chances of hitting the fairway are only marginally better because of how narrow it is, right, Yeah, and then you're
leaving a really long approach and do a green. A lot of those greens are elevated with with fronting hazards, so you're hitting you know, long irons in there's there was really no reason to lay back, you know, there was, and I think Brooks, you know, took full advantage of that. I mean that's what we saw. Brooks hit driver almost everywhere.
And you know, and then when he missed the fairway, he was fine because he was hitting the high lofted clubs into the greens that require an aerial approach, and he's you know, the one thing you can't take away is his strength was clearly an advantage with this type of setup.
Yeah. Absolutely, even even when he found himself in trouble, he's strong enough to get it out of that rough. You know, I think of HB three with his with his shot on the last day that just went forty five degrees left. And I think Brooks was over there maybe Friday, and it could have very well been a different live but it was in the same sort of stuff, and he's just strong enough to muscle it out.
You know.
And I think about six two when you say there's no advantage to lay up, that's a perfect example of they were asking guys to be really precise, even for their layouts, or even for even for yeah, clubbing down where if you just open up a little fair way to the right and make it thirty or thirty five yards wide, it gives guys more incentive to lay back and not take on that risk, which you know, like like you said, if you're if you're going to force
their hand, then they're always going to take the longer club.
Yeah.
Did you watch a lot of the Open at the US Open at Aaron Hill's when it was there?
You know, I don't know if I did.
I think I was working. What was that two years ago?
Yeah, two years ago, twenty seventeen. There's a have you been out there?
Though I haven't been out to Aaron Hill No. All I know is Tom talks about it. I think Tom did a routing out there and that it was a great piece of land. So that's about as much as I know about it other than what I saw on TV.
It's I've been looking into stuff and I'm trying to write a little bit of an article, but I don't know if it'll ever ever come to fruition. As you know, writing happens a lot of times. But the it's a I find all these compelling parallels with Aaron Hills and Beth Page, but like a starkly different setup, right.
You know, Brooks won.
Both of those titles, shooting two seventy two, and you know both of them. I think the general golf world had like the same takeaway from it is like, Wow, Brooks just overpowered the golf course.
You know.
And the big difference was, you know, Aaron Hills, we saw forty fifty sixty yard wide pharaways and Beth Page we saw we saw twenty six yard wide pharaways right right, And and what we saw at Beth Page. You know, Beth Page, nobody really had a shot except for DJ in the in the fleeting moments. But DJ is the
same style players Brooks, right. So, but then you look, you look at Aaron Hills and there were you know, Sunday going into Sunday, it was you know, long setup and a ton of guys had a shot and you know, including the likes. You know, you had Brian Harmon, you had a Headecki, Tommy Fleetwood, Bill Hass, you know, Charlie Hoffman as well as you know Fowler and JT. You know, you had a wide range of guys in that mix.
And I thought it was an interesting parallel because that was not the Brooks you know, finished seventh on the week and driving distance fourth and driving accuracy and first in greens and regulation.
Like he clearly just struck the ball beautifully.
But then you know you got Brian Harmon finishing runner up and he's fifty second in driving distance, And I just.
Thought it was an interesting difference. Is like.
You weren't seeing any short hitters thrive at Bethpage. And I think that those narrow fairways, it's counterintuitive, just like golf, where the narrow fairways just took them.
Out of it.
Yeah, and and so are you saying, I suppose I'm curious what you think the difference is. Do you think it's only the width of the fairways or that's the biggest aspect of it. That sort of made it more of a well rounded field on Sunday at Aaron Hills compared to bet Page.
Well, so it's a huge ballpark, right, So it was like, I think it was seventy seven hundred yards, Beth Page was seventy four.
You know, a lot of similarities. They both had, they had rain.
I think the big difference was beth Page got that wind on Sunday, but Aaron Hills never got really the wind.
That they expected.
But the thing about it is like, so Brian, say, take chez Revi, who was in the mix. He had a bad last day there. He was he hit ninety one percent of the fairways. He's one of the shortest hitters on tour. So he hit ninety one percent of the fairways at Aaron Hills. And like that's a skill that was allowed to thrive and and from the fairway. These shorter guys can can compete because they can hit long irons close. That's way, that's why they're making a
living out there, right. But if you if these guys, you know, and they're say they're dispersion sixty yards right.
The shorter hitters, yeah, they can't hit.
They can't hit ninety percent of fairways at at uh at a bath.
Page, No that would. But if you can't, I can't hit those four irons from the rough.
Though, you know, right, it's it's the four arms from the rough. And then it's it's also the uh, the fact that those fairways are wide.
Still.
You may be in the fairway, but you're on the totally wrong side of the fairway and you've got to pull off an incredible shot or you have to know where to miss on the green and just accept the fact that, yeah, I hit another fairaway, but I have no shot at its taking on this screen. I have to completely play away from the pin. And I imagine a player like Brian Harmon is really good at that. I think one of the things that Brooks kept is
really underrated at is knowing where to miss. The guy just very rarely short sides himself, and he is so he's so aggressive when he needs to be and never when he has to be, and he never feels outside pressure. It's almost like he's he knows where all seventy two pen positions are going to be, and he's mapped out wherever he miss is for every day, and he just
goes about assistance. And I just I don't think there are many guys in the world who are capable of having that kind of restriction and confidence in their game and restraint. So I think he's got to give him some credit to where it probably worked out that way both.
At Aaron Hills and his best page.
Oh definitely.
And and this is this conversations knows like whatsoever. I mean, I think he's the best player in the world. And obviously with like you know, uh with with hint, with power players that always have the ability to be the most dominant players in the in the world. And there's a reason why the greatest players of all time have all been power players is because, like you know, most skills in golf are very have high variance. Like you know, day to day, you don't know what's going to come
when you walk to the golf course. But if you have power, that's coming with you every day, you know. So if you are able to master all the other skills you know and you have power, you're going to be better than the guy that masters all the skills and doesn't have power.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, just teaching those guys with power to to not always lean on that, you know, and maybe it takes those guys a lot of time to learn, and the really good ones learning quickly.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's it's it's it's a fascinating thing with with Keopka, just because, like I think he's he's the first player we've seen since Tiger that really has like where you look at his game and you're like, he's he doesn't have any glaring deficiencies, right, you know, Jason Day had a great run, but you always were like, well, he gets a little squirrely with the driver, his iron game isn't that great, but he's you know, wonderful around the green speeth.
You know, he didn't have the power. You know, he doesn't have the power.
And then you got like Rory, You're always wondering if the putter is going to show up, whereas like, you know, Keepka. That's that's his strength, I mean, and that's it's why it's not surprising that we've seen him win at so many different types of golf courses, whether it be Shinnacock, Aaron Hill's, Bethpage or Belle reeve. You know that, you know, three distinctly different styles there.
Yeah, very yeah, that's a good way to put it. And and I guess every one of them. What I think it's underrated because rightfully so what what gets all the headlines? Brooks over powers of fields. But I really do think his ability to think around a golf course is underrated. And and maybe that's what a lot of golf courses that they play on tour are lacking. Is you're it's just the bombing gouge. You don't really have to think.
About where to min.
You know, you don't have to think about when to be aggressive or not to be aggressive. Those guys just hitting as far as they can, and those really good tests of golf always sort of bring out the thinkers, you know what I mean.
Yeah, it's interesting how the how the major championships, how they're so distinctly the leaderboard kind of separates differently, and you see different guys on the leader boards at majors than you would at your run of the mill Tour event. Now, let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsors. Today's episode is powered by tdum Or Trade. Whether on the course or in the market, it helps to have a second set of eyes to keep you on your game.
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Now back to Blake Conan, you know, kind of going on with thinking like a lot of people say that angles don't really matter at the professional level.
What are your thoughts on that.
I mean, I would tend to agree almost they just hit them all to fucking high that it. You know, if if you've got a green that's sloping away from at one and a half percent, but they hit their four iron or five iron one hundred and thirty feet high, they still have enough room to stop it. And you can't get green so crazy that you've got something sloping away from the line of play at three percent just to combat that zero point one percent of good golfers.
So you know, at some point you can't you can't design stuff to hurt everybody else or that vast majority of the field just to challenge that guy with with angles that you know, at at the end of the day, they're they're really really good and if they pull off a good drive and a good high four iron to get to the green they have a birdie putt, then you know, congratulations. And maybe that's maybe that's what the PGA Tour why they grow the rough up so high.
They've just been defeated for.
The past twenty years. They don't know how to challenge these guys anymore, but they know that rough works, and so that's that's their sort of defeat is mentality. You know, I'd be curious to see some I'd be curious to
see some sharper angles, something sharper than like twenty degrees. Say, you know, if you started getting like a thirty or forty degree angle, or I guess it would be like one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty degree angle if you look at it, something like thirteen at Augusta it is that's when you're starting to get the angles that challenge those guys. But just a slight dog legs isn't anything that they really think about.
I don't think that's an interesting thought, because, like I feel like most classic golf courses in classic design, you know, you saw very few sharp dog legs. Then they came in and kind of vogue in the sixties seventies that you saw a lot more dog tree lined dog legs. And you know the now I think we're going back towards that straighter golf design. Do you think, you know, if you were thinking about professionals that you know, it's just kind of modernizing those dog legs of.
Yesteryear, modernizing the dog leg because like.
You know, like Point of Woods for example, which was like the longtime host of the Western m I remember hearing that, you know, like they you know, Dustin Johnson's out there. He was played in one of the last ones there. They're going back this year, but you know he was just taking it over all the dog legs.
Really.
Yeah.
Well, and and I'm curious, was the turning point of those dog legs based on older distances or it's the turning point or the angle in which it turns more set up.
For a pro disting there.
I think I think what happened was it is a obviously it's an RTJ course and it was set at a former pro length.
Okay, so then.
He has to take off the corner or he has to clumb down to play it as the whole intended.
Basically, Yeah, and so he chose like, hey, I'm just going to launch it over the trees all week.
Yeah yeah, and.
I you know, what do you want?
What do you do for that?
How do you.
That's the crazy the crazy question because then like the I think that's where the tricky thing is with where kind of golf is going, is like, okay, so dog legs work, right, but then like, how do you design a dog leg for for brooks Kopka and you're eighteen handicap that plays on the weekend.
Yeah, I mean, I think the one thing you have to do is make sure the turning point are set for the majority of golfers. Now, whether it's a hinge turning point or whether it it's gradually been you know, you can't start putting the turning points at three hundred to make those guys think, because then you're gonna end up with ninety percent of the golfers you can't make it around the corner and are stuck behind a bunker, stuck behind trees, have a bad angle to the green,
you know whatever. I just think that that would be catering too much as a professional, you know, And the one thing that that makes the pros do is get into the decision of something like, uh, we're dust to dustan where you either have to club down and yeah you've got to turn over your five wood or you have to try to bomb your driver over the trees. Is it? Is it tp? Is it stagraph that has the limb that overhangs one of the back piece to force the pros trajectory down. Is that it stawgrass?
I don't know.
I don't think they have I'm not sure. I don't think they have one there. If they did, it would be one of those holes on the back line, right.
Yeah, well yeah, and I didn't know it.
Back line sounds right, But you know what what you're talking about, I think is one of the things this week Colonial does to a lot of guys, Like they have those dog legs out there, and I know Rom has been playing them very very aggressively, like you know, going over, But for the most part, guys all play to the corners of the dog legs. And that's why you see it like a really wide range of guys that win at Colonial.
Interesting. Okay, then it comes down of who's playing the best golf this week, not who's just overpowering the field and having the be yard closer to the pan every hole.
Yeah, do you?
I mean so so obviously with the Masters, you we get you know, at Augusta we get a very strategic setup, and the Open for the most part, we get one as well. You know, do you see do you think there's you know, like everything like golf architecture there. It's great to have variety within the design. Do you think do you think having variety in the Championship setups is good? Or do you do you feel like, you know, the setups should be in a manner which anybody can win, any style can win.
Yeah, I mean it should reward who plays the best golf and that includes all paths of golf shots right and clearly how to challenge those guys is the subjective argument. I'm I really love watching the Open Championship and linked golf and watching guys have to think around a golf course. I like when the wind can suddenly shift and not everything is a manicured surface. You're you're having to go around and play around of golf and the conditions that
are presented to you that day. It's you know, as far as the twenty five yards of fairway straight up the guts with six inches of rup you know, moan fifteen yards off of the fairway, it just becomes so repetitive and grinding. You can tell it's a grind to play, it's a grind to watch. It's just not a very compelling, not a very compelling product on So I don't know if that goes into their thinking at all of is it fun to watch or not, But that's sort of that's how I felt it.
This year's PGA.
See.
One of the other things thought about with it is the is the the surrounds of the green also played kind of into you know, if it kind of played into like hitting it far and not worrying if it was in the rough, because there was you know, with all the rough around the greens. If you as long as you hit it near the green, it was going to stop around the green.
Right, Yeah, there's that, you know. Justin Rose Off the back of floor had a bitch of a time from behind the green, one of the only plates where they had mown down short ground.
Yeah, that was like the only hole where we saw and I mean that that was such a cool hole with that green running away on the uphill approach and uh, and that's where we saw so many guys end up back there and it were rolls away. You know, it's like one of the few times we saw people the ball rolling away and there is like a discernible difference between a great and a good shot.
Yeah, totally and not you know a lot of guys not willing to take the most fun watching those guys who aren't willing to take their medicine when there's short grass around the greens and and that stuff is really compelling to watch when you have a guy get a little bit too greedy and then the ball comes right back to his seat because he didn't put enough on it and instead, you know, four, if you're behind the green, just pitch it out to the middle of the green
and leave yourself a fifteen footer and take your par and call it good. And that's the stuff that leaks golf does so well, or the Open Championship, because there's always an abundance of short grass around the greens and you know, the ball can roll out a little further, the ball can get stopped on a funky little knob behind a funky little knob, you know, whatever, just make
the recovery and the golf more interesting. You know. The one thing, I'll say, the one thing that Brooks has talked about in Houston because he's he's the one who's sort of like the PGA tour consultants or the pro consultants down there. And I haven't spent time with him, but his ideas have been relayed down the wire and he says they're challenged the most by awkward stances and rough around the green, or at least he is. So
I think there's room for that. I think the problem it poses the bet page is there aren't really that many awkward stances. You know, if your ball's in the rough, you usually have a pretty level lie or up to lie in the rough. You know that there aren't many places where you're totally sideways trying to pitch out. But that is the one thing that he's talked about that
does give them fits. And and maybe it's a combination of you've got to you know, ten yards or short grats around the green to let the ball get away, but then it gets into rough and some awkward lines in the and that the way to give those guys a little bit more of a challenge around the green.
One of the things I always think about with pros and I I don't know if you have a good idea for this, but like my one of the things I always think about is like what makes a PGA What makes most PGA tour players. One of the things that's like is they're irrationally confident. You know, they're like a great They're all almost for the most part, like great three point shooters in the NBA, where it doesn't
matter if they've missed the last ten. They like, you know, they're gonna pull the trigger, and they like with the same confidence every time. So something like that I think about a lot is the ability.
To kind of trick them.
You can't trick the pros when they're in the rough because like they they get they're in the rough and they get more cautious and and they're very they're actually extremely cautious players. You know, the best golfers are like you said, with Brooks, he's always missing in the right spots. He's because he's he's cautious. But if you're on short grass, they they then go into they kind of flip into
irrational confidence mode. Right, Yeah, so like that, that to me is one area where I have I think Shinnakok did it well.
Does that well? Where you know it is terrifying.
But because they're in the fair way, they they think they can hit any shot, right.
Yeah, just blindly believing that based on the cut of grass rather than thinking about the golf hole and the strategy of that golf hole.
Mm hmm.
And we we saw that too, because like you know, if you put water next to the green, they're gonna all play away from it all day long to the safe side.
But if if you get a bunker and.
Contours like some of the holes at Shinnacok, they're going to hit it into the bunker because they're going to get more aggressive because it's not water, they don't and that green can run away and they could be the worst spot than if you hid it in the water almost and yeah, and they you know, then they get frustrated because they can't you know, hole the green or whatever from that bunker.
Yeah, that's that's the problem. They're too they're too quick to hate something about understanding the reason why and how, and they've got a platform to speak up about it cause change really quickly, which is also frustrating from an architecture point of view, where you'd rather have a discussion about you know the fact that challenging you in a good thing, and here's why, and here's you know, here's
what you've been given to play away from it. You chose not to and you got stuckered into playing over there. Sorry next time, don't.
It was interesting I had that.
I had the economist on Ian Fillmore, who wasn't a golfer at all, but he kind of he talked about the technology change and the new breed golfer and and how he kind of believed it was on architects to make the next move. But you know, like you just kind of hit on, like to a certain extent. If the architects make a move and do something unique and different, then there's there's backlash and and in some cases, you know, the changes get remade to it.
Yeah, what's the course? Uh Gill tried to do something on Boston. Who at Boston. Yeah, it's a great example, and honestly, I think it's I think the locker room at PGA tour events is probably like a middle school girl girls' locker room where one guy hates something and sees something and it spreads like wildfire until everybody's infected.
And you know, even though they may not have even seen it, they hate it, and it's it's it's just hard to it's hard to, like you said, introduce something new or try to challenge them in a different way than they're used to and and have an open conversation about why it's good or how it worked or did it not work? And ultimately that's the problem with all subjective conversations. But there's there's got to be something that something that we can try.
What have you watched any of the Trinity for Forest uh coverage?
Yeah?
I watched a bit of it. Yeah, what what's what? What's picking your mind about that place?
I've just what did what did you think of?
Obviously, like I feel the thing that always gets me, it's like par I think is one of the big issues. Like and everybody's like, oh, it's so easy out of Trinity Forest, but I think we always see somebody like separate and in that place really rewards great play, you know, and if you let go of scoring, you know, I don't know what are your thoughts on Triny forrest and scoring and and what you saw from the stuff you watched out there.
Yeah, I think it's Teta Green. It's not a hard golf course, but that is set up in a way where there's short grass around the greens, and that's the stuff that challenges those guys. You've got to have restraints to missing the right spot, and even though the fairways are wide and you may have hit the fairway, you probably can't attack certain pins on certain days. So that's what I really like about that challenge of the golf course.
Like you said that, everybody it's up in arms because the winning score is twenty under, but you know who, if the par is two less there or one less there, then it's suddenly twelve or sixteen and nobody's complaining at all. So I think Trinity Forest is a it's a really compelling golf course and you certainly got to think your way around it and know where to miss, which again, if you saw any of Brooks's coverage, he hardly ever missed in the wrong spot there either, which gave himself a chance.
What with with Trinity.
And par like, do you ever think we're going to get to the point where somebody just says that, hey, this is a par sixty eight. I hope.
So I don't know if it would. I don't know who will do that. If there would one PGA, like a PGA Tour event that says this is the par sixty eight.
Yeah, like a Trinity might be a perfect example. I think it's par seventy one. What if they just said, hey, we're gonna be par sixty nine and the only par five next year is the uh is the fourteenth?
That like six hundred yarder up the hill?
Right? Yeah, that'd be great.
I'd love to see that.
Just to start, just to break the wheel.
A little bit.
And I, you know, I don't know if any I would think something like that would start at you know, say US Women Senior Am and I don't know if any of those tournaments had ever been hosted as a par sixty eight or sixty nine, but that would be you know, that would be a good place to test it out and bring it into into further further tournaments. I I have a hard time believing the PGH or whatever do it, but I think it would be awesome to watch.
Well you think about it, so like out at Trinity one and uh, one and seven are power fives on the front nine, and uh I looked at the numbers for seven, and you know, nobody, nobody who hit a good drive wasn't going for it in two, And the same with you know one, Guys are hitting you know, short irons into it sometimes some days. So it's like, you know, what wasn't there you know some writing about back in the day about what a par five constitutes a par five?
I'm sure there was one specific, no.
Just in general, like it would be like, you know, three well struck golf shots right would get you know, it's like that's like the way to play it. So like if that's the if, if we're applying this to the PGA Tour, you know, like shouldn't applied to the PGA Tour differently than Joe Schmoe golfer.
Perhaps, aren't aren't they? Like aren't they trying to not go down that road?
Though? Contend?
Is it that a delippery slope towards any type of five ucation talk?
But that's the thing I always like think about, is like they you know, like Brooks Kopka couldn't be further. I mean, if you if say the regular guy hits at two thirty, brooks Kopka hits it three twenty. You know, how can you even compare them with the same you know.
Par.
Yeah, yeah, I get your point.
I don't know, it's it's it's a it's a tricky situation because like I think that what technology has done is is it's gotten golf even further away from you know, the greats and the average guy.
Yeah, that's a whole it's a it's a conversation that's not dissimilar from any like wealthy quality conversation you have, which is totally not meant for this podcast. But yeah, like you, you do things to try to make things more equal, and what you've ended up doing is furthering the gap, whether consciously or or unconsciously, you know, which, like you said, that's what rough does to these long tournaments.
Maybe that's what car is doing to the average player, the professional So a way to you know, like you're talking about trying to figure out a way to even the playing field a bit, would you say?
Not even?
But you know, like how because people complain when there's width that it becomes too easy, right, That's that's what Then when there's when if we have with then it's too easy because of the scores.
They're shooting to par.
And that's the hardest. It's so hard talking to clop or for anybody that is like you're trying to evangelize them into a new way to think about golf course architecture, and it's the wi conversation that's tough.
It's and it's like I.
Remember Brian Schneider was working at a club within the Northeast and the better players were sort of against the restoration, and the restoration took you know, a group of seven high handicappers, and then a year after the restoration was done, had found out that the high and mid handicappers handicaps had gone down one or two and the scratch conference had stayed the same or even gotten a little higher themselves.
So you went back to him with this information of like remember all that talk about how with was wit was going to make the golf course easier and taking trees down, it's going to make the golf course easier, And there's like qualitative evidence towards the contrary. Yet they still didn't even accept that. So I don't know, you know, I don't I think that's the same issue that you would have on with larger scales.
Talking about the DGA.
Tour, it's just so hard to convince people that you know, adding with is not going to make the golf course easier, even with evidence right in front of them.
Yeah.
Yeah, because then because then with presents a different option or a different difficulty. Then it's like picking your line becomes part of the So I don't know, we're preaching to the gospel here, it's not.
I think that's not the right way to go about it. To work in cohesion with what you're doing at the green, what you're doing to the entire golf pool. You can't just start mowing random fairways wider and expecting that to be the light bulb moment. It's got to be a well thought out. You've got to know when and where to get wider relative to what's happening at the green and what you're doing at the green, whether you're adding short grass to one side or you know, adding short
grass all around it. Just yeah, it's got to be it's gotta be a little more well thought out too.
Yeah. Yeah, this, uh, this has been good. I know you've got a busy day.
You're the life of a young architect, you're just checking out golf courses.
I know, I'm well, I just got done. So Eric Iverson, one of senior associates he worked, did a little work on his own, and I just went and thought for the first time. Of course, he had done about twenty miles north of Omaha and Blair, Nebraska. He added like nine or ten holes, and they're really good. I'll send you some pictures. The holes he added are great, and it's it's one of those things it's like, yeah, it could be wider, and the greens could be mown out
to where the original pad is. They've done a pretty good job of keeping the green is pretty big. So it was really I was glad to find out that there's some good public golf somewhere around Omaha, because we don't have much of it. And now I've got. Yeah, it's called River Wild in and it's in Blair, Nebraska.
And the holes that he did.
It's different than what I've seen from any of these smaller parld courses where the nine he added was interspersed with the original nine rather than just tacking nine more holes onto an adjacent property. So it's kind of interesting. He added a couple Green did some of the existing corridors and then added seven or eighty two holes, so it's done in a different way than most.
Others around here.
Too interesting, That's that's neat. Yeah, that's h I got it.
We're I think I'm gonna do a big Nebraska trip for end of end of June, so maybe i'll get it added to the itinerary.
Yeah, don't you know if you're coming through Omaha, it'd be a place I got around into.
Mm hmmm.
So uh with the last question, what uh so Pebble, we're gonna we're gonna have similar thick, rough, narrow fairways, but you know it's a much shorter golf course.
Would you expect the long hitters to thrive again?
Or do you think we're gonna see more variety?
I think you'll see more variety. It's based on the link. But they're really small greens too at Pebble. I think the greens at that page were quite a bit bigger. So I'll be curious to see how that affects the guys. You know, maybe somebody who has a really good short game around.
Green will do well, Hey, you just broke your.
Gonna be a bomber.
Sorry where just you talked about short game and then that's where.
He broke up.
Oh yeah, just I think somebody with a short game in recovery. You know, I don't know how many greens and regulations people will hit. I'm sure it'll be less than whatever it was. So then yeah, who's got a good wedge game out of the rough? I mean, do you see it being the bomb and guy like well Brooks take driver off every t I can't imagine that.
You know, there's so many places he can't even hit driver. You know, like you think like one's not a driver hole, eight's not a driver hole, six is in a driver hole, four is in a driver hole. So you start to think about all the holes that aren't driver holes. You know, even like fifteen and sixteen aren't driver holes. So you're going to see I think it takes. It's gonna it's interesting.
Obviously they're narrowing the fairways because of par You know that you can't tell me any any other reason for narrowing them. But I think that we will see a a much wider range of players. I think you're you're I think the big thing is where it's not going to be a forty yard discrepancy between your shorter hitters and brooks every hole and and all of a sudden,
then that makes up for the long rough. Like you know, if they're both playing from one hundred and fifty yards from the rough, it's a lot more equal than if one guy is one fifty and the other guys you know, one ninety. Yeah, very true, but I'd rather see it wide, you know, obviously.
But it's just so weird when the bunkers are on an island of rough, you know, original bunkers. What's really scary is like what they've started doing at Riviera is when they start moving the bunkers to match these professional golf fairly lines and many start changing the architecture as a golf course place for everybody, which is very prostrating.
Yeah, yeah, there's the.
It's retrofitting golf for the absolute smallest percentage of golfers.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You end up windening that that gap even further. And Riviera is the most private and private club, so they're they're not comparable to that paid or anything like that.
But it's it's so funny because I played Old Elm with Zach Blair the other day and yeah, like it's you know, he was playing, we're playing, and and the thing we're talking about when we're going around we could you know, it's all the fallaway greens that we kept finding our shots just trickling off the green, you know. And that to me, that's like a perfect example of something that that the the eighteen handicap isn't going to notice.
But like if I catch a iron just a hair thin, it's the difference between having ten feet for birdie and chipping back up the green.
Yeah. Yeah, And the fact that every green out there crown and old elm. I mean I felt like a ton of those greens crown, which that'll do, Like that's what doesn't.
A lot of them were, I mean a lot of them are.
But then they have a lot of fallaway greens too, you know, where it just moves with the natural movement of the ground.
Blake, thanks for coming on you.
Everybody can find you on Twitter at Dundee Golf. You're working with Renaissance as a shaper and trying to do some of your own work I imagine in the near future.
Yeah, yeah, definitely, just trying to find opportunities and make.
Golf a little bit better.
Yeah, so we'll uh well, we'll have you on again.
One of these days we're going to actually talk about your life, you know, instead of just random times.
I like talking about golf better.
Anyway, So thanks for coming on and enjoy the rest of the day road tripping and the sand hills.
You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do the digging for you.