Brian Schneider

Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today I am joined by Brian Schneider. Brian has been a longtime associate for Renaissance Golf Tom Doaks Design Firm. He's worked on a number of high profile projects there as well as consulted with many of the country's best clubs. He has also done some individual design work. He and some other Renaissance associates which we talk about, designed Stoton Bray and recently he's done a redesign of the front

I miss a 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 bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg egg egg Frida egg bride egg lie, I'm about ready to run.

Off the gump stuff looks cool at North Jersey.

It's a neat place.

Yeah, it's a really neat place, and they've got i think seven original greens left.

Which are all gorgeous, pretty wild, you know.

The other eleven have been rebuilt at various times and aren't so interesting. But the club has been looking to put that stuff back, so there's a lot of work to do there eventually.

But we just got into a little bit of bunker work, which was fun.

Yeah, it didn't have any It only had like twenty bunkers to begin with. It's a rocky, hilly piece of ground and didn't need much, so he didn't build any bunkers there. So they've got like fifty five now. Most of what we'll do with the bunkers just taking stuff out.

Is it hard to convince people to take bunkers out?

It hasn't been there, you know. But I'm not exposed to the membership in a hole.

I mean, there may be a bunch of people behind the scenes saying he's going to make it too easy, this is gonna be boring, But the people I'm dealing with are really excited, and you know, the superintendent is obviously excited that he's going to have fewer bunkers to take care of. It just doesn't need them, you know. A lot of the stuff is just clutter at this point there. They're really unnecessary to the bunkers that were put in originally or plenty, and some of those.

Might even be necessary, you know.

Yeah, but like that where it's rocky and you've got good topo, it really doesn't need bunkers, you know. And we've added some short grass around the probably more difficult for better players than if they missed in a bunker. So it's a great set of the originals are great greens, and it's it's got enough topography to be interesting.

It doesn't need a whole lot of bunkering.

Do they have a lot of photos old photos of the non original greens.

Not really, No, that's the hard part. I've been digging. My green chairman Ken Feren, has been doing a lot of digging and he's come up with some great old picks. But unfortunately, you know, they didn't host any USGA events or any important events back in the day, which seems to be the key to having a bunch of ground level pictures taken. So we're struggling to find old stuff. And the golf course evolved a lot early on, so pinning down a period we want to go back to

Is that is that basically what you do when you don't have you look at the courses you visited and say, hey, you know, I love the screen from here, let's do something similar to that.

I think, so, you know, I haven't been in that situation all that much.

You know, most of my consulting clients still have a lot of their original greens, so North Jersey's unusual and that they've lost more than half of them. But that's my approach there, you know, I first just try to find out everything we can about what was there, including talking to members that might remember how they used to

What, uh you I know, Hollywood was a big influence in your love of Travis. What are some of your other favorite, uh, Walter Travis courses that obviously a garden city and Hollywood you've worked on, but that you've seen in recent years.

Yeah, Hollywood was was the one that really opened my eyes. That in the country Club at Scranton. You know, I saw that probably ten years ago for the first time. And I don't know if you've been up there, but they've got fifteen original greens that are as good as any set of greens in the country, and they are phenomenal, you know, from pretty subtle rippolice stuff on the ground to really wild severe you know, some fallaway stuff. But it's a beautiful set of greens and the routing is

So between that in Hollywood, those are the places that really lit the fire. You know.

Cape Rundle's an amazing place. Chruce Hepner has done a great job of helping them restore and preserve that golf course. You know they've got you know, that one's really well intact as well as any I would.

Say, that's what everybody can go see, which is you know it is.

It's such a cool place, you know, it's it's packed into a really tidy grage. I don't even know what power is, but it's a tiny golf course, but there's plenty of golf there for anyone.

You know, that's that's America's North Barrack.

It's just funky and quirky and fun, you know, and such a cool vibe. And you're right, anybody can go play there and run into a president.

Maybe.

Yeah. I come up with like a list of five courses I want to see every year, and that one's been on it for three years. It's just like I just have to get up there. And now, you know, with what's going on in the world, this is uh, this year might get washed out of it too. So yeah, it's uh, that one, I guess is high on my list of places to see. I'm curious about. You know, everybody, Oh,

Why?

The key features or principles of what makes in your mind a great set of greens at a golf.

Course a couple of things. You know.

The first thing that pops into my mind is, you know, just the shots around the green when you miss agree, you know, the shots into the greens. You know, a lot of people talk about strategy and how the green

I think that's important to me.

One of the big things is variety throughout the set of greens, so you know, it's not eighteen of a type from beginning to end, that you come across a little bit of everything. And when you walk off the eighteenth green and are driving home afterwards, you can remember a lot of the greens individually that they don't just blend together as a set.

I'm trying to think.

Of places like that, you know, Indian Wood, the old course of Indian Wood in Michigan. I remember going walking around there years ago. You know, you get to the first green, Wow, this is really cool green. The second green, Man, this is a really cool green. By the time you're halfway through, I sensed a pattern, but this is a really neat green. It's so cool that they did it

Yeah, so you're talking about maybe a set of greens that they're all, you know, severely sloped back to front, and you know they and I think obviously certain construction methods would lend themselves to certain types of slopes, like the you know, the the push up, the kind of the big bold features of a Langford Barreau green. The big edges make it tough to have fallaway greens. Yep, And that might be a criticism of of of theirs.

Yeah, you know, wing foot's another example that pops into my head the West Course. It's you know, that's a great set of greens really, but you know, if you miss short eighteen times there, you've done pretty well. You know, you can't be missing right or left at wing foot all day long and you're in for a long day. Seminoles kind of the same way. Yeah, And to your point Langford Moreau, you know Banks rainer to a certain degree.

Yeah. I think the best sets.

Of greens have more right in that and where you want to miss, including long. Garden City has a handful of greens we're missing along is the good miss and that you don't see very often.

But that's really cool. Yeah.

I think the thing that is cool about that is it's that idea of counterintuitiveness and also tricking like it where it doesn't reveal itself upon the first play. A lot of times you learn after you've played it at least once, maybe a handful of times, where the best place to miss, like you know, certain greens is missing short. Something that jumps to mind is like the Stonewall North

Sometimes, yeah, the majority of amateurs miss short unintentionally. You know that they rarely get past the hole. You know that applies to prose to but to a much lesser degree. But most amateurs never get past the hole.

So making past the hole the place to miss is, to your point, really the counterintuitive and probably uncomfortable for a lot of people, which is why people may have an aversion to fall away.

Greens or one of the reasons.

But you know that the original Dan at North Barrack, anytime I play that hole I'm taking an extra club and trying.

To pull it long left.

If I don't hit the green, I've got a reasonable chance of getting up and down from back there.

You miss anywhere else in your debt.

I think, But I think that's interesting and a lot of times I feel like people will label greens unfair that are ones that require thought and sometimes multiple players to understand how to play them. Do you do you feel that as an architect?

Sometimes yeah, I think you're right, and you hit on the problem is that a lot of people, especially nowadays, a lot of people when they're traveling to play golf, they're traveling somewhere once and then going somewhere else the next time, and somewhere else the next time, and apart from the place you play most often, you know, you're not getting a chance to learn the nuances of a lot of the places you play when you're just balancing around from one to another.

And you know, a place like St. Andrew's takes dozens or hundreds of rounds to really reveal itself and to be.

To allow you to get the most out of the playing experience. You know, I feel bad for people that go to St. Andrews once and their caddy points at something in the distance top every tee and tells him where to hit the shots, because it's such a complex place that only gets more interesting and more fun the more you get to know it. But that's not the

People.

Demon Green's unfair made me think of a around. I played at Hollywood a couple of years ago.

Have you been there? I don't know if you've bet I haven't.

Also one of my one of my courses on my list.

Good good, hope you got a big list?

Well, I do five. I set up five because I feel like that's a reasonable number that I could actually achieve in a year. And then, you know, five means there's a bunch around the five.

Yeah, the five you finally said thirty more.

Yeah, exactly, it's like five, but then it's the surrounding area included.

Yeah.

I played Hollywood a couple years ago with with a great amateur player too really but a great mid am and a great junior player, and we got to the seventh hole, which is a really good mid length Part five, which those guys played essentially is a mid length Part four.

You know, both hit long drives, both had mid irons in if I remember right. But the green is really.

Kind of deep and narrow and angles from front right uphill to the back left and it's like four tiers. The back tier is really tiny, and they'd put the pin in the back that day and it probably falls I don't know, six or seven feet from back to front, like if you missed long.

You're dead.

And of course the mid am kind of blocked his t shot out to the right. It did a really good shot from over there and ended up in the rough past the hole and was debt, you know, had nothing, and proceeded his next shot kind of loosely trickled off the front of the green and was pitching back up the hill with his fourth and walked off just shaking his head, like, you know, what a stupid green. You know, I really liked the golf course so far, but that great is stupid.

That whole sucks.

You know, It's like number one, it's apart five you just hit six or a seven iron into and number two you missed in the one play place you couldn't miss and if you ever played it again, you would know, can't be.

Above the hole on that on that hole. But you know his.

Judgment was that green stupid. They should blow that up. I hate this course because of that kind of thing. You know, it wasn't his fault at all. It was the Gulfs. But it is interesting how people find something else to blame as opposed to thinking about it for a second and realizing they couldn't missed anywhere else.

It's I think it partially stems from, you know, the how America the main format of the game's stroke play versus match play.

I agree, Yeah, I think that I don't keep scoring ever, But I think you're right.

I think you know, if you would have just.

Lost the hole there and it woul a you know, it was a casual match and was competing for anything. But yeah, if you're in a match with somebody and you have to take a seven when you're hoping to make a four, it's a little harder to swallow than if you just lose one hold of the move on to.

The next one.

Yeah, like in that situation.

Different in America than in the UK certainly that situation.

Yeah, if he makes a six and is the guy's playing makes a four and he realized that, you know, it was going to be really hard to get up and down either way from back there for four, and it's a completely different feeling walking off the green. And that's you know, one of the things that I always say, Oh, it's a great match play course, it would be a terrible stroke play course, Like what does that even mean?

You know, I'm curious about that too.

You know, there's a I haven't been to a Hoopie yet, but you know it's certainly marketed as a match play club in a match play golf course, and I can't put the life and me understand really what that means or what an architect would do differently if it was if it was a stroke play club, for instance.

You know, I don't know what that means.

I think designing for magic play in general makes is a worthy goal that we shouldn't be designing for stroke play to begin with. So I'm curious what he did differently there that he wouldn't have done if it hadn't been labeled to match play course.

So what he said to me was that he felt he could he had a little bit more freedom on the greens, which is kind of exactly what we're talking about, where he felt like he could he could build a little bit more boldly, with a little bit more severe contours, because nobody's gonna play ping pong and write and aid on the card.

All right, I'll buy that.

That's that's what That's what he said.

At least. Okay, so that makes sense.

You know, you brought up the Old Course earlier, and I was I was curious to say, you were with somebody that knew nothing about golf ark attacture, beginning golfer, and you you were gonna you had the budget, you could go to five courses to show them, you know, kind of introduce them to the game of golf and golf architecture. Where would you go?

The Old Course is certainly number one.

For a million reasons, but mostly because I think it's still the most fun and interesting place in the world to play, which to me is pretty remarkable.

You know, there aren't many things in.

This world.

That you can point to the first example and stay, you know, six hundred years later, that's still the best of its type. That absolutely nailed it. The first time around, and I feel that way about the old course. I think it's magical that way, and it's it's such a different style of golf that even six hundred years later, no one else has quite been able to match the style of golf do you find in Saint Andrews and it you know, it's a million so called rules of

Now it's a little tough, you know.

The National obviously is probably my favorite golf course in America and another place where you know. I wrote years ago that you can learn more in the first six holes of the National that you can learn on any golf course except for Saint Andrews, and I think that's true. I mean, if you go through the first six holes there, you've got really a little bit of everything, and a bunch of stuff most golfers had never seen before, and

This is the scariest green.

It is, it's not. Yeah, it's great.

Each little target is really tiny, and the penalty for missing where you want to be is can be pretty severe, especially on the green in the wrong place.

That's that's an example of the green many people within is unfair.

You're probably right, you're probably right. But it's so much fun. Oh, it's so much fun.

And I can get your buddy when he's on the wrong side of the wrong side of the green. You know if he's on the right side and the holes cut left. Just watching him try and get it anywhere close, it's a.

Lot of fun.

The last time I played it, I uh, the pin was right right in front of that bunker and I came up like two yards short and it spins it down and I'm in the front and I had this. I looked at it. I looked at the putt and I'm looking and I'm like, if I try and make this, if it doesn't go in, it's going into the bunker. And I ended up. I was like so happy. I was like, I have to lay up, and I like laid up to twelve feet and made the twelve foot but I it was I was so I had so

Yeah, trying to make the best score doesn't always mean trying to make the next shot.

You know.

It's like, where can I leave this to give myself the best of making a good score as opposed to a terrible score. And on that whole you know, who knows where your your opponent was. But odds are good. They were in a tricky situation too, and and there aren't any easy up and downs on that hole or easy two putts.

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a great green it is.

It's such a great place.

And that's another one that you just have to play your walk over and over and over and over to try and pick it up.

I'll never forget the first time walking it.

Just trying to take everything in in one trip around is absolutely impossible.

You know, the first time I played it was US Open week a few years ago, when it was that shinnakak and I played it, and you know, my buddy, a couple of my buddies were like, what did you think. I'm like, you know, honestly, like I don't even know what to think. There's so much going on. And I was supposed to leave town on Friday morning and I got invited back out for Friday and I originally turned it down. This is like a thing I do. I

Now, yeah, I'm sure you know what's brilliant.

One of the brilliant things about the National that a lot of people don't talk about is the way he used the ground contours in affecting your t shots. You know, there's a lot of you know, sixteen is the obvious example. There's a lot of potential blindness if you drive in

Well, that was the thing is I'd always heard about seven, you know, like everybody, oh, seventeen's greatest hole, and for the modern golf like pro or high level amateur, it's it's not the greatest hole because the t shot, you just hit it as hard as you can up the left, and all of a sudden, I have this Hickory. I saw bunkers that I hadn't seen the first two times I played, Like, all of a sudden, I'm looking. I'm like, holy, Like,

I felt like, that's cool that you did that, and yeah, it's just such a fascinating place. Regardless of hop aar you hit it, there's there was just a lot going on there.

And that well, and that's kind of the thing I think when you look at the what's going on in golf is with with all the distance gains and and everything, the best way to defend against an assault of wedges is with greens with some slope in them. And it seems like we're our society is kind of pushing away from that.

Yeah, it's ironic even well, especially at the elite level. Do We had a chance to work with the tour down in Houston last year and and they're very strict about how much slope they'll accept in their pinnable parts of the green.

You know.

They they're reluctant to go above two percent slope, which you know, to us isn't steep at all. But the best players are rarely playing whole locations that are located in the spot where if you miss the green to one side or the other, the green's racing away from you faster than you'd like it to be and to make it difficult to stop a ball, you know. And and when you put whole locations in flat positions where

You know.

It's it's something that a lot of golfers have to deal with every day at their clubs or at the courses they play often.

But the best.

Players in the world, apart from you know, Augusta and you know, if the US Open is at Shinnacock or Oakmont or a handful of places.

Or the Open Championship. You know, the best.

Players in the world are rarely encountering whole locations and steep spots where you can't miss the wrong side, you know,

And that was one of the most amazing things watching UH Royal Melbourne. It was like evident from the very first t shot of the first day that this was going to be a little bit different. When when the guys drove it up near the first screen on the composite course, Yeah.

What a great hole to start with. You know, it might be my favorite hole in golf course, one of my favorites in the world. It's such a brilliant little hole and where you landed matter, I mean, Richard forsythe is an amazing greenkeeper, and you know, he does a brilliant job with that golf course from day to day, and the way it was set up for the tournament

It totally. It was you could see it happening as like day by day the America, like you know, the first day Internationals really took it to them, and just day by day it seemed like the Americans were just figuring it out a little bit more each day.

It sure felt that way.

Yeah, I don't know if it was coincidence or if that was reality, but there was one American that had to figure it out from the get go, and you know, he's the best player in the last four decades. And that's the kind of thing. As a golf viewer, which I frankly I don't watch the tour.

Much these days anymore.

But that's the kind of thing that we're losing out on the spectators, you know, watching great players face challenges like that where they have to think and they have to position their ball, and they have to work their way around the golf course and think the way around the golf course as opposed to just smashing as far as they can and hitting short irons.

In you know, the I miss.

You know, I've been watching a bunch of the old Shells Wonderful World of Golf matches that have been put up on YouTube somewhat recently, and you can't watch one of those matches without somebody hitting a long iron or fairwy wood into part fours. You know, when's the last time you saw that on TV in America? It just doesn't happen anymore. And it was such a different skill set that the players needed to have with them and

They're just not asked to do it that often, and that's unfortunate.

And that's one of the things is one of the most memorable shots that I can think of in the last decade was at Bellery. Brooks Kopka hit you know, it's like a two hundred was it sixteen or seventeen? The part three, it's like two thirty forty. He had a four irons, just flagged it and it was just

You know.

It was that Donald Ross book. Golf has never failed me. I'll never forget reading the quotes. You know, long irons is the true like separator of good and great players. And I think that obviously over the years, You've worked on a ton of great courses from you know, and you've built a lot of new golf courses with Tom and also on your own. How I'm curious how your thoughts and beliefs in golf architecture have evolved since you know, you're young, and.

I think they're always evolving.

You know, it's hard to think back and put myself back in my own head twenty years ago. But you know, I think when you're starting out, when you're exposed to architecture, you're attracted to the books you read. You know, you look at Thomas's book and they're all the cool diagrams of alternate root holes, and you get a pretty quick feel for two dimensional strategy. And those things look really neat on paper, and you know, it's a little harder

Hey, we didn't get through the five.

Oh yeah, I don't know how many I got to.

Well we'll go back. But keep talking about contour. It just jump popped into my mind.

Well, the one place I'm gonna cheat on this one, I'm gonna use a time machine and keep talking about contour, but also including another golf course. I'm gonna go back to nineteen thirty four to Augusta National and was first built. You know, there were twentyunkers or so somewhere around there, twenty two bunkers, nothing but short grass, you know, two heights of cut probably, and it was all about contour and short grass.

You know. The greens were.

Really wild and severe and had a bunch of interesting whole locations, and the way you played the whole varied from day to day, and the way you played the whole very dramatically if you missed where you wanted to hit your t shot like the old course. I mean, it was very much inspired by the old course. And a lot of the holes even are almost templates of

Marian's a great example of that.

You know, there's a lot of side slope in Marion and especially across the road, and when they narrow the fairways up for the US Open, that just kept more players closer to the center of the hole.

And if you mowed that entire.

Golf course short from wall to wall, I think it would be a harder golf course because balls would roll into places that you don't want to be. But the rough keeps you closer to work, keeps you closer to the ideal lining into those greens.

And Augusta was very much that way too before they added the rough.

Do you feel like there's any examples as Augusta exists today, really good examples of contour that you're talking about.

You know, I touched on that with the National. National also has three hundred bunkers, whatever they have. There are places, and there aren't many places that have twenty or fewer bunkers these days, and a Memorial Park is one of those. But it doesn't nearly have the fair way contraur that Augusta has.

I'm trying to think of something off the top of my head.

That's that level of simplicity.

Old Town would jump to my mind.

Yeah, you know, and I haven't seen that, even though it's a couple hours from me, and that's been a quarantine. Goal of mind is to try and get up there and see it at some point. Yeah, I'm sure that's a good example. That looks like a piece of property similar to Augusta. Yeah, I mean Augusta's hilly. You know, it's hilly, which obviously a lot of people have talked

What makes building a great golf course with that type of elevation difficult?

That's a good question, you know, just attacking attacking the side slopes in a variety of ways, I think, so that you're not just going straight up and straight down the hill. Downhill holes are fun, uphill holes not so much. And avoiding holes like eighteen in Augusta, or you just climbing straight up the hill to get back to the clubhouse. There are many great holes in the world to do that, So I guess clubhouse location is important part too. If you put the clubhouse on top of the hill, you're

But it's hard to know.

Every property is different. It's hard to generalize about those things. But I think the more variety you can get in holes to play along and across the slope is supposed to up and down.

It kind of reminds what you're talking about. Reminds me a little bit of what you guys did at Stoton Bray with that knob on the back nine.

Yeah.

Yeah, you might be right, because he plays incorporate that, Yeah.

Yeah, trying to incorporate that.

That feels as much like what Mackenzie did at Cypress Point or the Valley Club, where there's a few prominent features in the property and he jammed as many greens and t's on him and as he could, you know, and Royal Melbourne's got a bit of that.

You know.

Cypress is a great example that that kind of large central dune in the middle of the property that three plays up against you know, four ties are there, six comes back to it, seven plays off it, eight plays around it, nine plays onto it, you know, ten plays off at eleven back to it, twelve plays off it. He cramps so much golf into that one central feature and he did the same thing he did too. Yeah,

And that was one of our goals at Stone Bray.

Yeah, before we get to number five on your list, talk about Stoton Bray and the experience. You know, you have been a long type associate at Renaissance Golf and and this was a project where you and and Brian uh Slanik, Eric Iverson, Don Plaisk and and also Blake helped out. Blake Conan helped out designed that golf course. How was it like? What was it like? Was it drastically a different experience than what it is like on a on a Tom Doak designer or was it you know,

Yeah, that's a big accept.

Yeah.

Stulton Bray is a really special place to me, and particularly right now, you know, when we're working for Tom. You know, Tom's always a parachute in a certain way that that when you've got a great editor coming behind you, you can push things a little further, and you can you can do dare to do something different and do something wild, do something severe, knowing that if you pushed it too far, you've got a brilliant editor coming to make it right.

And and Tom gives us.

So much freedom to be creative, which makes it a real pleasure to work for him. But it's also really comforting knowing that if you do something stupid, he's going to fix it.

And at Stulton.

Bray, you know I had Eric and Blake and see Brian and Don as well. We all hit each other to be that sounding boy, which was really important. But yeah, you're you're accept.

It is a big deal.

And having to make the final call feels a lot different than than just building freely and pushing pushing your boundaries and trusting that Tom is going to make the appropriate edits and and you know, and and which isn't to say that Tom is merely an editor.

That's not the case at all.

But the way Tom allows us to work gives us a lot of freedom to to experiment and mess around and and eventually get it a really good final product. So Stonebury was cool in that regard, and you know it really had to learn to trust myself and my instincts, and you know, I caught myself thinking a lot, boy, what would Tom have to say about this? And that you know, I've got enough experience with him now that I can have some idea of how he might feel

Talk about the collaborative aspect of that project is something I'm kind of fascinated with thinking about, is how, you know, we don't see that. It almost was like a throwback project where you guys, you know, you don't see as much. There's so much solo design ever since it became a profession. It's solo design, and this is an example of really a group of designers.

Yeah, and that part for us isn't any different than what we typically do. You know, there there are four names on the listed after designer for that golf course.

But he's responsible for a lot of that.

And in the case of Stoton Bray, it was a collaboration between Brian, Eric Don and I and the routing process we all had the maps, and we all messed around with them and then shared them with one another and and picked the bits and pieces of everyone that worked best, and we kind of cobbled that together and

How drastically different were where everybody's routing.

All over the map, all of the map, And I'm sure we all came up with a handful of routings we liked, but frankly, you know, the.

Key to.

Coming up with the routing we did was squeezing as many holes into that portion of property you talked about the far end where the big hill is. Squeezing as many holes as we could down there, number one, finding interesting holes that take advantage of that cootal topography down there, and then creating as much space as we could in the flattered round to give those holes a little bit

So you know, I think it was Brian's loonic that.

Came up with the idea of running the twelfth hole across the far end of the property, which was a really big ridge before we started, and that took a lot of earthwork to create that hole, but that allowed us to get one, if not two, more holes in that end of the property than most of the routings had, thus freeing up more space to let the other holes in the flatter part of the property breathe a little bit more than otherwise. So that was the trick to

Yeah, it's a cool, cool golf core. It's really neat greens and I love that back section of the property. But the first few holes are great too. You get those. You got a great mixture of greens out there. What we were talking about with green contour applies definitely there where there's a wide variety of greens and you know, different slopes and different questions each of them.

Ask. I appreciate that.

Yeah, we had fun building them, and I think we all contributed ideas to that part of the process, and John Scott did too.

You know, John was out there a lot.

With us, and great guy, really smart. He was very involved in the process and even encouraged us to dial things up a little bit to make the greens more interesting, more exciting. So it was a real pleasure working with John and his family and being a part of what they've created up there. It's a really special place.

So let's get to number five.

Number five, Okay, Yeah, I mentioned Garden City already. That would be a place I would take people almost for the opposite reasons of you know, it's kind of the opposite of the National in some ways, in the opposite of Augusta, and that there's very little ground contour there.

The greens are pretty.

Subtle, the hazards are totally different, but really unique in American golf. And you know, Garden City reminds me a lot of Walton Heath, which is one of my favorite places in the UK.

And Woodhull SPA where we've.

Been really lucky to work. There's a simplicity about all of those places. You know, the property of Woodhall Spot is really quiet, very similar to Garden City, but there's great texture there.

Walton Heath is similar.

You know that most of that property runs to the road that separates the clubhouse from the golf course, and the greens there are largely just laying on the ground. There's not a lot of contour in them. But so many of those greens tilt subtly towards that road, and that's rarely back to front when you're playing. The golf

In some cases, that's a shot you don't see very often.

There's just a beautiful simplicity to approaching the hole on you know, the tenth is one of my favorite holes. You know, the green falls away left to right, front to back, and you really have to think about where you want to miss again, and and that's another hole

And there's that deception aspect of it, and until you know the hole, you don't know that the ball is going to take a bigger bounce forward than you're used to because it doesn't look like it.

Yep. Yeah, And you've got you know, and a whole like that too.

And there's Superintendent Mike McLevy does a fantastic job and he's he has really firmed that place up and it's playing better and better every year that he's there. You know, as much as any golf course in America, the thirty yards in front of some of those greens matters a lot because that's where you need to land your ball in some days. And he's done a beautiful job of

To do in the UK all the time.

When it's windy and the ground is firm, and if the winds at your back. You know, you can't fly ball out of the green and expect it to stop. So you've got to consider the contour in front of the green and oftentimes hit a shot that takes advantage of that contour and negotiates it somehow. And golf's a lot more fun when when the balls on the ground and rolling and you've got to you've got to think through the contours over a much broader area than just what's on the green itself.

Something that makes me that I love most about Garden City is that in a way, you know, the Augustus topography is just astounding and and same with National where you have this this amazing site. Is the thing that Garden City kind of screams to me is that, you know, great architecture is attainable almost anywhere.

It is, Yeah, it is. There are a handful of places like that.

Chicago melfb is another one for me that you know, people call that a flat site.

It's not. It's not a bad site at all, but it you know.

There is simplicity about it that most of the holes there, well maybe all the holes there, and none of them are great because of the topography, you know, and you could say it's the same about Garden City. It's just the architectures are really shines at places like that, and the architecture is really simple at Garden City, and it's

Yeah, this is another perfect example, and I think Stote and Bray in a similar veins example of that, where you know, you can have really good architecture on you know, not the best piece of land doesn't have to be sandy and dramatic.

No, you're right, You're right, and we you know, I don't know that we would have moved a lot more earth if we'd had a bigger budget, but the budget was limited and we really had to focus on spending money wisely, and that included bunkers.

I mean, there aren't many bunkers.

Of Sto'te Bray either, and frankly I don't I can't think of anywhere where i'd add more, and probably a few I would take out at this point if anything, but yeah, it had to be Yeah, it had to be designed with budget in mind, both from construction and maintenance. And I think that that gave us a really good product.

Uh and a project that has really kept my attention through the Chicago Winner and now through this virus that i've I constantly find myself seeking out photos of is uh. I hope I pronouncing it correct. I've seen the name so many times, larnek, Nope.

You're close.

I've heard a lot of different different attempts. Lanark Atlantic It's it's a Welsh word. Most people don't get it right the first time around, but it's Lanark.

It's it's funny. Something the other Greeks can be emailed me years ago about it, and it's just amazing to see how it's coming. And something I wanted to ask you about is you know, the first thing that you notice is the striking style that you even Blake went with there, and I wanted to ask if that was, you know, kind of an intentional move to you. It's very different from the in vogue, you know, rugged exposed look that we see all over the place in most new projects.

It's a different look, certainly and it was intentional. You know, it evolved a little bit, and you know every project we do kind of goes that way.

You take a few holes to sort out what the style is going to be.

And but yeah, it was it was my intention to build some above ground features as opposed to building a bunch of bunkers. You know, it's fifteen Lantark is fifteen minutes from Maryon and surrounded by a ton of great golf.

I mean, I love that that idea because I feel like most a lot of times what happens is in that situation as well, this is what the clubs around here do, so we should probably do that too, And it becomes almost a group think versus the idea of creating your own unique identity as a golf course.

I think you're right. I think you're right. Atlantic is a really different project for me. You know, all of my other consulting clients are you know, have clubs of courses that were built by Travis or Ross or Banks, great architects, and they're really really good golf courses, and there are important examples of that architect's work, and I feel like restoring them is the best and only option.

And I really really strict about that. You know. I don't like taking liberties if I say I'm restoring something.

And I don't tend to take work unless the club is behind a pure restoration.

So most of the work I've.

Done in places like Hollywood or Round Hill or the places i'm working now, our strict restoration. I want to put back with what the old guys did. But Landark is a different thing.

You know.

I spent a lot of time researching the design history of the place, and that golf course evolved a lot over the years from the very beginning at various times. It's been twenty seven holes, you know it started. You know, it's divided by a road, and you know, the chunks of property the club owned were developed at different times, and what they owned now is different what they owned

It was Atlantic in the fifties.

So we've got a bunch of bold photos, but I just you know, there was nothing there that screen. Boy, we really need to put that back. That was really cool, and the club was okay with that, you know. So this was really the first opportunity I've had to do something drastically different, really kind of change the character of a golf course without going back to something that was there.

One hundred years ago. And that's been really fun. You know.

Restoring is great for a wide variety of reasons, but having the freedom to do something totally different Atlantic has been a lot of fun for us.

And Blake's been great too.

I mean that he's such a creative guy, and we've just had a lot of fun doing wacky stuff out there and trying to trying to make one another say wow, I think, yeah, it's It's been a really fun process. And Brendan Burn is the superintendent as well as a general manager, and he's been a fantastic client, as has the club, so we've had a great time there.

Yeah, I highly recommend people going checking out his photos on Twitter. He posts them all the time and it's

Well, you know, I think the you know, going back to what we talked about earlier with Brooks and Memorial Park, bunkers different players differently, obviously, and the best players at Land or the most clubs don't really struggle with a typical green side bunker shot, whereas a lot of the handicapped players, beginners, older players, that's a really hard shot for them. And I think building a burm or a mound or something above ground tends to have a less

We built are pretty severe. There are a few that you should definitely avoid at all costs.

There's a lot of room to play around those, but you don't want to miss right of the first green, for example, or long.

On the eighth.

But I think those are going to be really difficult shots for everybody, not just handicapped players. But we put a lot more short short grass around some of the greens, but just rough around a lot of the greens with some funky, interesting contours can get a weird lie. And in the fairways too. We built some mounding and some other things instead of bunkers that will offer a different type of recovery and a different degree of penalty.

Without beating up the handicap player too much. I hope.

I'd agree with I think they could. Uneven lies for a good player from rough are going to be a lot more difficult than a very predictable bunker shot yep. And they are easier for the regular golfer from Yeah, my experience cattying it was always easier when somebody was in the rough chipping, you know.

I agree, And you know, when we started at Landward, I think I think there were like fifteen of the greens fourteen fifteen, sixteen, and the greens were kind of bunker front right front left almost every hole.

So you know, again the.

Average player never misses past the hole they're going to miss right or left, and nine times out of ten you had been recovering from a bunker, and we tried to undo that completely. You know, there are holes where you there's a bunker left or a bunker right or neither. But I don't know that we have any holes left where there's bunker's right and left.

Is it? You know, for the last few years I noticed things with just Instagram, and I feel like the fascination with people for it, with Seth Rayner, you know, Langford, Moreau, the and then you know that that more trench style bunker and more geometric design features. It's at like a fever pitch, but it's I've always it's been interesting because from a new design and you know, renovation standpoint. Until you guys were doing this, I hadn't really seen any

Maybe maybe?

You know, I can't say that we were channeling the Rain or Langford at Landard necessarily, you know, I was thinking more of places like.

Hunter Combe and Myopia and Brookline. But yeah, I think.

I think there may be a bit of fatigue from jagged edge, flashy bunkers. You know, it's ironic that, you know, the reason we're working at Lantic right now is because Brendan at Lanark loved our work at Hollywood, where they have one hundred and eighty bunkers of every every shape and size, and and at Lant we're doing almost the opposite. But I do think that there's there's a growing reaction to a lot of what's been built over the past decade or two.

And and you know.

The blowout style bunker is beautiful, especially in a place where it fits naturally. You know, the sand Hills probably started that trend. And you know, if you look around the golf course at the sand Hills, you see blowouts out in the distance on land that's been grazed for hundreds of years, and nobody's ever stuck a shovel in the ground to build them.

In places like Pacific Dues in barn Google, and.

You know, anywhere somebody's working near the ocean and sand, you're going to have blowout bunkers, and.

And it fits those locations.

But importing that onto a bunch of inland sites in Illinois, Wisconsin or every state in the Union at this point it probably gets little anonymous, and people might be able the idea of something that looks a little bit different that the new south Course at Arkadia Bluffs is certainly a rest of that of that theory of yours. And I played that last time. I really enjoyed.

It, not necessarily because of the aesthetic. You know.

That's the funny thing to me about, you know, the kind of the current infatuation with Rayner and McDonald is that everyone's focused on the look of their work and the templates as opposed to just the really cool, interesting gulf that they created.

You know, it's it's much more than an aesthetic. And and I think people, you know, I think that's.

The current bunker craze or the kind of the phase removement of the jagged edge blowouts. You know, when minimalism became a really popular thing, it quickly became identified with an esthetic and and people associated that bunker look with minimalism, so that, oh, if we build jagged, natural looking bunkers, we're minimalist too, And you know, completely missing the greater point that minimalism is as a philosophy or an approach to construction and design.

It has nothing to do with aesthetics.

And you know, some of the places where minimalism was first and most notably practiced happened to have that aesthetic. But the aesthetic doesn't make the doesn't make something minimalist. You know, it's a philosophy of design and construction more than anything.

The ironic thing, too, is from a maintenance standpoint, those above ground features that you're building at atlant Eric are more minimal in terms of maintenance than a bunker.

We'll see.

I look forward to hearing Brennan's thoughts on that, but I think I think they should be. There's certainly a lot cheaper to build.

You know. Part of what.

Initiated the work we did there, or the style of work we did there, was the fact that you know, construction always generates a lot of stuff you need to get rid of, whether it's old greensmans or drain tile or sod. You know, there's a lot of sod that get stripped when you're doing work, and you got to put that somewhere. And they don't have a lot of space. It's a really compact property. They don't have space to

Do something with.

And if we were going to dig bunkers, we were just going to generate more material and we'd have to lose. So instead of building more bunkers, we turned all the material into the above ground stuff that we created.

So there was definitely an economy of construction building those things.

We were losing material that we had to lose somewhere and we got to bury a bunch of stuff, so particularly that you know, would have cost a lot of money to haul off site.

In a way, it has been a hale. It wasn't as the animalist construction.

Yeah, absolutely, And you know there's no associated cost for bunker liners and bunker sand and the things that go with building modern bunkers now, which is getting you know, that is getting extraordinarily expensive, especially in that part of the country. You know, things are really expensive in the Northeast. Shipping costs, materials costs, bunkers are getting really expensive, and

Yeah, and that's the way the old guys did you know. That's that's one.

Of the things that we're building some we're restoring some mounting in North Jersey now too. And again the construction process. And they built that calf course. It's a it's a rocky place and they generated rocks for years there. For the first five years or so of the golf course's existence, members carried a little bag with them as they played golf, and they would pick up rocks in the fairways as they played and dump them in piles adjacent to the fairways.

How neat is that?

That's pretty cool? That's pretty cool.

I mean in evolving, you know, like the more the more years up, and the more mounds and more rock mounds and more. Yeah, it's just kind of a neat little thing.

Yeah, tells me how crazy golfers were back in the day, how badly they wanted a golf course and they were willing to pick up rocks for years.

I'm not sure many people would go for that today.

It's almost more more adventurous, right, absolutely. So the thing you said about Rayner, you play out of James Hall, and that strikes me as a perfect example where people are fascinated with the templates and everything. But you know, when you the most the kind of crescendo of that golf course where it hits the great Land is filled

Yeah, it's funny.

I mean eleven is the Maiden and that you mentioned fourteen is the knoll, but you know the fourteenth and ya, this doesn't look much like the knoll at Piping Rock or Scott's Craig. You know, it just it's just they tacked that label on because the green is jacked up in the air. But you know, from t to green, it doesn't really resemble many other Knowle holes. And you could say the same for the Maiden hole, which is a great hole.

Yeah, I think that was Rainer's to me, that.

Was his most amable quality was that dude could route of golf course. You know, he found the places for his templates, and which is a totally different routing process, I think than just trying to find the best golf holes on a property. When you're looking for fifteen or eighteen or twenty two template holes on a property, it's a different mindset than just laying something out with no preconceived ideas.

But he did it really really well.

You know, he found his golf goals on his properties in a way that they just lay beautifully.

On the ground.

And obviously he did a bunch of construction work around his green side, but Tea de Green his courses worked really well and he didn't have to do a lot to build that.

Yeah, it's uh so, you know, given the circumstances, and you're the first architect on that I've talked to since this you know, virus and pandemic has kind of broken out in America, and I'm curious, how has your business yet or is it to be determined, been impacted by and by the coronavirus.

Oh boy, that's.

Way above my pay grade to try and analyze. I'm sure it'll be impacted.

You know. Right now, we've got a lot of things that are temporarily temporarily on.

Hold from a you know, all things standpoint. Have you seen anything with clubs.

Everyone's just leary right now. You know, there's so much uncertainty that I think everyone is. Everyone is is hesitant to move forward before we know where we are, number one, and know where we're going. And you know, I feel the same way personally. It's you know, travel is a big part of our job, and I don't see myself getting on an airplane anytime soon. I love a road trip. I'm happy to drive anywhere in the country for work,

And maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe we can stop wasting money on a lot of the things that really aren't employ and the golf course maintenance and focus on the things that are and and maybe that'll lead to more affordable maintenance. Therefore more affordable golf. You know, the standard of maintenance has gotten so high in this country to its own detriment. Really, I mean, there is certainly a point of diminishing returns, and I think a lot of clubs went beyond that years ago.

That can break. So I hope there's a.

Little bit of a a little bit of an effect and raining in some of the excesses if we've taken to accept as now standard equipment, standard procedure.

But I don't know.

I think people in general, not just golfers, tend to forget quickly, and I think as soon as golfers will get back on their golf courses, they'll they'll quickly start looking at the things that superintendent has been doing for the past three months.

As opposed to just being happy they're back outside again. But hopefully that's not the case.

Yeah, I'm hoping for like a no rake movement from this.

That would be great. That would be great.

And yeah, if you could trust every golfer just to smooth out their tracks with their foot and leave about the left, that would be great.

Good talking about that possibly being a PGA tour thing, no rakes, I like it. How would you compare the feel of this with the eight financial crash from like just a purely a business side of things, like the way you feel with you know, golf courses on a business front. Oh, sorry, this is a question.

Yeah, that's beyond my pay grade. Again, you know, I have a hard time comparing.

I mean this.

That was that was scary to me in a certain way, that revolved almost entirely round finances, you know, and this is something completely different. You know, this is something completely different, and it has massive financial impacts obviously, but first and foremost it's about people's health and and.

I like to think that golf can be an important part of.

Getting people back outdoors, getting people back socializing safely. I think golf has always had done a poor job of emphasizing the health benefits of getting outside and taking a walk for four hours.

And you know, I've seen a.

Few clubs that have reopened lately that are apologizing for the lack of carts and and I wish they would take a different stance and celebrate it. I'd love to see more people walking as a result of this. But you know, this is this is a massive health crisis first and foremost. And I don't know how you compare that to a strictly financial crisis like we had in two thousand and eight.

Strictly is the wrong word.

I mean, obviously any financial crisis has massive associated health impacts as well.

Yeah, this is a this is a health a massive health crisis that is having massive financial implications.

Yes, yeah, I think that two thousand probably the other way.

Yeah, I completely agree with that. So you know, we uh, before we get you out of here, it'd be remiss to you know, I think we the future, we'd hopefully do a Langord Bureau pod with a few junkies, you know, But I gotta I gotta ask you, you know, in terms of from your standpoint, you grew up pretty close to Lastonia, and I remember you saying when we were on when we recorded Near bel Air that uh, you know, that was kind of one of your first Aha moments

They were nuts, They were crazy. The scale of their features, Like if I go to the Sonia now or Culver.

You know, Harrison Hills, the scale the features those guys built with the equipment they had back then, it was insane.

You know, it's it.

They moved a lot of material and the boldness of the stuff they built it is pretty remarkable. You know, Pete Dye would be the one guy who's probably approached that level of boldness since. But the depths of the bunkers and the size of the bunkers and the movement in the greens is just big and wild fun and I love, you know, their best courses. Again, going back to where we started to have brilliant green complexes.

You go to a place like.

Kanka ki Elks, some fantastic greens there, and you know, that's what I'd love to see restored.

You know that.

Unfortunately Langford's courses have suffered so much neglect over the years, and in a lot of cases that's helped preserve them. But there there's still kind of a shell of what they once were, which makes places like the Sonia all the more special that it's presented really really well. Yeah, there's just a kind of a daring and a boldness to what they did that it's just it's fun golf, you know, it's fun golf.

A buddy was doubted Harrison Hills the other day. He sent me some picture. There's they've done a ton of tree removal.

Oh that's good to hear.

Like, you know, the was it the fourteenth hole, the one that goes down in the bottom before the short part four up that had that green that had all the trees on it. All the trees are off it nice.

That's a beautiful green.

Oh my god that if you restored that green, yep, that would.

Be that's a great set of greens. Yeah. I love seeing this stuff.

I wish there was more of it around, you know, it's certainly there's none of my part.

Of the country.

But yeah, that's that's the thing is spent a I love going down to Kankakee or up to Valley. It's it's sad where they're at but still it's refreshing that you know, so little of it's changed that it could you know, when if some if the right thing came up, they could be brushed up and every bay'd be like, whoa wait, this place was just sitting here.

Yeah, it's a blessing. They haven't had the money over the last hundred years to screw them up. You know, I'd much rather have them in this day right now than humming along financially with a bunch of extra cash in the bank. That that's something got the wrong idea with. So yeah, Spring Valley's another one. I tend to forget about that place, but it's there's a lot of cool stuff there.

Yeah, you got that. It's got for being forty five minutes from Chicago. It's got topography you see nowhere else in Chicago.

No, it's it's cool. Yeah, it's very cool. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of good golf there.

Yeah. So, hey, I appreciate the time. You're you're a new new favorite follow on Twitter. You've you've delve into the platform and just become become an all star there.

I don't know about that, but that's what being in quarantine does for you. I guess it gives you a lot of time to waste your time on Twitter.

It's fun. There are a lot of people on there sharing a lot of really cool so it's it's easy to get It's easy to go down a rabbit hole on Twitter, certainly.

So you're Bee Schneider one two six there is it the same on Instagram?

I haven't the slightest idea.

Yeah, it just look up to Brian Schneider. We'll include in the show notes. But I I appreciate the time and and uh coming on. It's been long overdue.

Yeah, it's been Funydie, thanks for having me.

Yeah, well we'll talk soon. Hopefully. You gotta get out to Old Town during this. When you got there, you're gonna be driving through there all the time.

It is a goal.

Yeah, I drove past I drove through North Carolina yesterday and considered making.

The detour, but I don't know if this is the time. Yeah, we'll get there soon. No, it's it's at the top of my list. HM.