Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. In today's episode, we are joined by golf course architect Dave Zincn. Dave is an up and coming architect who's worked for the likes of Coren Crenshaw, Gil Hans and Arthur Hills while completing solo work of his own at Desert Forest. Before we get into it with Dave, we have a new limited edition New York City logo in the pro shop for the upcoming PGA Championship at Bethpage.
We have a small run of hats from Imperial available now and in the coming days we will have a few selected items from b Draddy, so be on the lookout for those. If you want a hat now, check out the pro shop at www dot Thefridagg dot com to get yours today. Now, without further ado, here's Dave Zincn. 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 Frida Egg, Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Fridagg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to.
Run off of them. What do you think of Todd hell Farm.
I had fun. You know, the biggest thing I came away with again with Mike Strand's course is how he makes it look more challenging than it really is. You know, the holes seemed playable for sure. Obviously we're in a wet stretch, so it's difficult, but I had a lot of fun.
Do you think architecture would be any different had he not passed early? Yeah, obviously there's a rising star in the two thousand and complete opposite end of the spectrum of what today's trying to are.
Really well, like we talked about up there on the course, you know, there was some width that you might not have seen from other architects at the time that he was doing that, and that gave it some variety, some options as for what he would have continued to do. Obviously, you know that with was fundamental to the kind of architecture he was producing, so you expect that to continue. As far as the contribution, you know, I don't know where it would have gone.
He's definitely on the maximalism scale of the spectrum versus what you'd see from you know, Bill Krer, Ben Crenshaw, Tom.
Doak for sure. Yeah, there's a lot of earth moved out there, especially in you know, right down the center of the fairways, which you might you know, not necessarily expect, although this ground is so severe that, yeah, a lot of there's a lot of places out there where you have to accomplish that to make it playable.
So you went to school at Cornell?
I did. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I loved it up there.
It was fun see the latest of the lineage of Cornell grad architects.
Yeah, I guess.
So.
It's funny because you know, when when I initially wanted to go to Cornell, it was really a combination of the fact that I could either choose to be at one of the best architecture programs or landscape architecture programs in the country, and then decide later once I had gotten into the architecture program, whether I wanted to commit to golf specifically or some other very form of design. But I always knew I wanted to do design, so that's what led me there.
What made you want to do golf?
For sure? Oh, I think it just calm. It combines my interests, certainly the golf side, but also design and the natural aesthetic. So it's just a perfect blend of those three things.
So as you do the Drear Award, there I did, So you spent The Drear Award is a essentially study abroad program that Tom doak gil Hans of john Osso where you spend a year and where'd you go to Scotland?
Yeah, I went to Britain and Ireland, traveled all over basically was able to see, you know, just about everything that was good over there. I spent. I went over late in nineteen ninety seven and stayed through almost the end of ninety eight and was able to start out in the south while the weather was pretty poor and visit a lot of heathland golf courses and that was
a real eye opener to get to see those. You know, I knew that there was some amazing stuff along the coast, but just to see what they accomplished on those heathland courses when architecture was really burgeoning was an eye opener.
So like that would be like Saint Endicott area right down there.
Well, I mean the prime section is southwest of London, so Surrey, and you know, I mean that in some ways it all started with Woking and went out from there. So that place is amazing.
Yeah, John Lowe, the bunker that changed golf, really.
It really did. And it's funny, you know, it continues that counterintuitive conversation that we've talked about in the past, where you know, maybe striking it down the middle is not always the best option the best choice, and I continue to believe that, you know, the most, the most diversity that you can give a golfer through the course of eighteen holes or however many holes you have to play with, the better off you are.
Had you been to the UK before.
That, no, no, So when I got to Cornell, I really knew that there, you know, as I said, there were a great architecture landscape architecture program and Rtij Senior had been you know, at Cornell, and that played into the whole conversation that Tom Doak has continued to talk about as his career progressed, about how Cornell provides you an opportunity to study anything, you know, it's part of
the motto. And once I switched to the landscape architecture program and began really committing myself to golf course design as my focus, then you know, naturally, seeing what Tom and gil Hans had done just meant it was the thing that I needed to try and accomplish, and so I made it a goal. I waited until my senior year and applied and was fortunate enough to receive it.
I was a little concerned about some burnout by the professors, but fortunately they were very open minded, and I went out of my way to research every aspect that I could leading into it, because I knew that I needed to put together a good proposal to to sort of be in the hunt with all the other varied interests that people in the horticulture and landscape architecture departments have.
So you did all this research beforehand. What were a few things that kind of jumped out to you that you didn't expect that you researched about the trip.
Well, you know, when you sit down and look at a map of Britain, obviously that's a pretty jagged coast line, and you start realizing that if you're going to visit great golf courses, that you are going to spend a lot of time traversing around to those remote places. So that was interesting, and obviously then once I got over there, I realized the value of the heathland courses and they were so readily accessible right there around you know, I
was stationed in Woking. I found a place to stay and woke, and that made it easy to get around to so many of the courses right there. But then, as far as leading into the trip, the big thing for me was to read about what Tom and Gil had written on their monthly letters that you send back as part of the you know, the arrangement with the committee, and to find out what they were learning.
You know.
Gil made comments about how anything goes, you know, and there's a quote out there that's kind of brought up every occasionally on the Internet about him saying that, and you know, Tom would talk about diversity of PARR, you know, and the fact that nobody gave a darn whether par was seventy two, you know, and some of these fundamental
things that I don't look at as important conventions. As a result of sending so much time there, you know, it really allowed me and anybody else who spent time over there to break away from convention and understand that, you know, those things are only important to a certain extent.
Yeah, I mean, convention is something that gets in the way of every you know, not every, but so many of American golf projects. It's like a and I think that's part of the part of the issue is that we're kind of raised on convention. You know, the every other sport is very conventional. There's very few that have like a changing playing surface or playing field. You know, football has always played one hundred yards, basketball course the
same same length, oops ten feet, you know, nothing. The only thing that changes course really is baseball has just different parks. But for the most part, golf's the only one that has really different stuff from course to course.
For sure. The freedom, diversity, and adventure that you get from a golf course is completely different than any other sport that I guess either of us can can come up with. So that's why in some ways I feel like the court or the the game is as strong as it is right now, despite the fact that it's had so many setbacks, and I feel like some of those setbacks were brought on by conventions that we adhered
to in the past. So moving forward, continuing with that adventurous spirit, I think is a real essential part of how the game can succeed.
Yes, so you're on the Polish side of defense, where you golf detractors will say it's it's condensing, it's struggling. Then you have some golf fanatics that are you know, say it's thriving. You know, if you think about the PGA Tour, they're always saying the game's thriving, it's never been more popular. You fall on the positive end of the spectrum.
Well, I would say that I don't necessarily have a take on where things are going relative to the tour in that perspective. But and you know, with the conventional golf widespread, you know, everybody's a golfer who plays, you know, I don't know how few times a year. If they're trying to add up those numbers, those numbers are probably
going down. But the passion and interest of guys like yourself and you know, just a whole lot of people that I didn't realize, you know, kind of naturally gravitated to the game that you and I really appreciate, is as strong as I think it's ever been.
Yeah, i'd agree with that. I think that we're the number of really, you know, the number of golfers might decrease, but I think what we're seeing now is a more passionate base of golfers that have more interests and more aspects of the game, which is a good thing, you know, like to have it because those are the types of people that are going to lead to growth, is having people that really love the game, because then their friends are going to be like, why why is this guy
like this so much? Or why is this girl like this so much? You know, I need to try it out if they like it so much? Like why is Andy getting up at the krack of dawn every weekend to go play golf? You know. I know a lot of my friends have gotten into it because of like that, you know, and then they get into it and they're like, I don't know, I was missing out for so long.
So you feel like you draw friends into the game.
Well I think I think, Yeah, they're more likely to give it a try if one of their friends is super into it, right for sure?
For sure you have to have yeah, yeah, any any of these interests or hobbies, you've got to have somebody kind of shows you the ropes.
Right, Yeah, it's hard to have somebody. And it's funny because like my friends, what I think is interesting is they you know, None of them are really golfers, and now the way they play golf is the way I play golf. They walk like they get mad when they can't walk, which is fascinating to me because if you looked at like the cross section of like you know, the type of golfer they are. They are traditionally writers. But because I walk, they walk, I think.
Well, they're pushed into that and then they realize, Wow, I get to have a nice walk, exercise, be outdoors, include all these things in a little golfing adventure. Yeah.
It's funny because like they'll ask me to play and I'll ask where, and they're like I'll be like, no, I'm not going to go play there. But if they know if they asked me to play and they're playing somewhere like Ravslow in Chicago, which is a dal ross where like I love going to play there, I'll be like, oh, yeah, I'm going to play, and they're like, the only place we can get Andy to play it is if we were going to play Ravislow, which is funny, and then we walk and I mean that's one of the best
walking courses in the country. So you after Cornell, did you start working for Corn Crenshaw right then.
No, when I got back, you know, I had a kind of a diversity of experiences before I went to work for Corn Crenshaw. I spent some time at Arthur Hill's office, you know, while I was in school kind of as an intern. I spent time working for Gil Hants And wow, I mean he's just gone on an amazing trajectory since I spent time working for him, And it was really enjoy able to spend, you know, be working under a guy who had that perspective that I gained in Britain.
So what years was that? Was that early in his solo career.
Right that was basically right around the turn of the century, just before that and right around there.
So those are you were working with him on some of his early projects in Philly and and.
Well, I spent time at tall Grass And actually I met my wife on Gil's job down in Alabama Capstone Club, which no longer exists, although I think it's untouched, it's just maybe not open. And it's funny. Gil received kind of a recommendation from Bill when Bill and Ben declined to take that Capstone Club job. So Bill always likes to tease me that He's the reason I met my wife.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah. Bill's good at finding ways to turn something into a way to rib Yeah.
What was that? What was the contrast like between Arthur Hill's office and Gill's office.
Or lack thereof of an office? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that that's a traditional way of looking at the business. I guess from from that era where you're designing in the office and you know, more or less contracting someone to build it out in the field, and obviously they're
making site visits. But to me, it became readily apparent that if you wanted to do the best work, and I didn't see much reason to get into the golf business, if I wasn't going to be trying to do the best work, that you had to have a presence in the field. Plus, if you're somebody who loves golf, loves nature, loves design, how could you not want to spend more time on a golfing adventure out there in the dirt.
Of course, you know that means your golfing adventure on the turf is going to decline rapidly, but I'm willing to accept that.
Yeah. Yeah, So you know, the more time on site. Obviously, you know the contractor there's there can be competing interests. But with it with building golf courses, how much of a thrill is it to really? Like? Are you more on like do you really enjoy creating something or is it more fun to see something and let the natural kind of landscape tape gets to the course.
Yeah, you're kind of hitting back on that question that Jason Way asked a while back in an article, And in some ways I worked to evade the answer to that because they're both so enjoyable. I mean, to go out there and have an interesting piece of land that's
inspiring is just that inspiring. But to be able to take a theoretical approach to a piece of property that doesn't have as much interest and maybe needs that beat into it is also, you know, kind of a great thrill so to me, and I would really like to continue on with the diversity of projects throughout my career and not really gravitate towards one thing. Obviously you have to she ate great land, but you don't have to have great land to end up with great golf.
Yeah, that's true. I think I always am when I look at an architect's work sometimes I'm more interested in their flat sites and what they're able to achieve with the less interesting land. I mean, do you do you think that's in some cases, you know, more telling of the architect is what they do with the less interesting sites or pieces of land within a routing.
Well, you kind of gain in a perspective on what their principles are and what they value. You know, the angles are still there on a flat piece of ground. You know, there might not be as much up and down, but a lot of what makes the game interesting is just that the angles along the lay of the land. When I was over in Britain, actually in our Irreland, I visited Portmarnock and this guy walks up to me and he says, what are you doing? And I explained, well,
I'm out here studying the golf course. And after a pleasant conversation, he turned to me again and said, well, I could sum up your what you're doing in one word, And I thought to myself, you know, okay, over the course of this year, I've had some interesting conversations with golfers, kind of impromptu situations. It'll be something else to hear what this guy has to say and his one word
was angles, and I could not argue with him. So you know, on a flat piece of ground, you still have that theoretical opportunity to create really enticing strategies.
For the layman. What would you when they're trying to evaluate golf courses that they play, how would you? What would you say is your basic piece of advice for looking at a golf course and determining whether you know it's a good course or and obviously it's not this black and white or a you know, uninspiring bad course.
Sure well, sometimes you have to say, okay, I'm critiquing this golf course and I don't know what the constraints are that the architect ran into, so you have to give them some leeway there. But you know, when you see repetitive aspects of a golf course that you either do or don't like, you know, obviously that plays into a theme. And as we were talking when we were walking around the course today, you know, I tend to
like to strike a balance and develop variety. So if you feel like you ran into a lot of different experiences over the course of the eighteen holes, or again would it whatever number of holes you're playing, then I think that's a winner. You know, there's obviously other attributes, and we can all critique principles, and we can critique maximalism and minimalism and the varied ways of looking at
the profession architecture. But to me, if you can create variety and either create a theme that feels like it fits, or create a golf course that feels like it has natural interest and perhaps a bit of flair, then you're on the right path.
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s I PC. Now back to Dave ZINCN. So you're you're working on a book, tell us a little bit about about that that process and it's gonna be a process. It's gotta be a self loving writing process. That's that's somebody generally, the process of writing. Yeah, you know, you see, uh you see these movies where there's a a writer trying to get through the winner or on such situation and uh, things go downhill.
Uh. It's a it's kind of a labor of love to me, because I think that you know golfers, and you know the people who are passionate want to read about it, and and and I think that golf course architects need to take time to educate golfers and help them understand why we're doing the apparently seemingly insane things that we do, so that they better have a sense of the rationale behind the principles that that press us
forward and that we get excited about. But the process of writing, for me as an amateur is very challenging. So I have high respect for what you do, having to write so much content and keeping it well, you keep it interesting, and but you've got good subject matter to work with, and you get around and and and create inspiration for yourself through that process. So I think
that's that's big. And and I've got inspiration for at least one book that I hope helps to display the principles that I think press golf past convention.
So what's the kind of premise behind the book? Really it's a you know, educating golfers about architecture and the principles behind it. What type of stuff are you are you hoping to achieve from it?
Well, you know, convention was that the ongoing aspect of this conversation that I want to try and help some people break with to the extent that I can. And you know, aspects of why fasted firm golf and the running game and stopping worrying about immaculate conditioning, you know, all those things that make golf more of what it was when the Scottish you know, first started playing it. Moving in that direction is appealing to me. And trying
to explain the reasons why that's valuable. You know, as you've talked about in the past, and I've always thought about, there's so many counterintuitive aspects of golf, and it's I think it's valuable to think about why those are the way.
They are, Like the concept of fair.
Like the concept of fair, I mean you look at fair and if fair is bunker left, bunker right, best player hits the ball down the middle and has nothing to worry about all day, and worst player keeps hitting the ball into a bunker on either side of the fairway or either side of the green, and just is you know, they they're just gonna break down. And if that's what fair is, then why are we even playing the game? You know, if we're out there trying to play some form of nature, there's going to be a
lot of asymmetry involved and angles and interest. And as a result of all that, then you you know, you find your own avenues. You know, doesn't matter what caliber of player you are, you find options and avenues on a really interesting golf course that that presses away from you know, the conventional view of bunker left, bunker right, fair way down the middle, something.
That I've been asked by a few people I obviously believe in, and I think you're in the same boat. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that golf of course, architecture should bring the higher handicap and lower handicap closer. But a lot you know, I'll get pushed back from people that say, why would why would that? Like, if you're reducing the you know, the skill advantage, why is that good?
Well, I mean, in a practical world, you can't expect everybody to be a scratch golfer, and even the majority of people who play golf and play it passionately will never be a scratch golfer. They're never going to be below a five handicap. And so having the ability to go out there and enjoy a course and make your way around in your own path, by your own choosing, creating your own adventure on a journey that the golf course, architect and nature have laid out, is you know, that's essential.
Yeah, I think. I also think that a golf course that brings the handicaps together to a certain extent, what it does is it it allows an average player who's a great putter to shoot better scores, you know, than so in a sense, it makes all the skill more equal in value. You know, a very penal golf course from tee to green is going to clearly favor the person that hits the ball very well.
Yeah, that gets back to that whole variety thing that is so important to me. Creating that variety makes for a more interesting round for everybody. But it also, like you're implying, it just goes ahead and offers the chance for a player who doesn't have a certain shot in his bag or does have a shot in their bag that is particular, to be able to take advantage of that or nullify the advantage that somebody else has because they do or don't have that.
Yeah, I mean, and that's why you want to want something that asks a variety and a great number of questions throughout the round. I think that's what the greatest golf courses do is they ask a lot of questions, and you know, they ask the good player to hit a lot of different shots. And if you don't feel good about one aspect of your game, it's probably going to expose that aspect of the game for sure.
It's not that you shouldn't actually sort of suffer the consequences of not having a shot. I mean, if you can't play a running shot and you get to Bandon and it's a windy day, you are going to suffer the consequences. And if all you can do is play a running shot and you play a parkland golf course
that's overwatered, you're going to be miserable. You know. So the more diversity that you can provide, it just seems to me like it naturally allows for not a level playing field, but an opportunity for anybody to strive or succeed.
What are your biggest highest profile projects is desert forests in the Scottsdale area, and that I think in many cases people have struggled with designing in the desert. What are the unique challenges and how you overcame designing in the desert and making something that was interesting given the constraints of the setting.
Sure well, when we built when I was working for Coren Crenshaw, when we built the Suarrow course at Wikopa out there kind of northeast to Scottsdale, I was told that I needed to go see desert forest. And when I got there, I immediately understood why. Because Red Lawrence created some an amazing routing. It's a very simple routing out and back out and back heading east from the clubhouse.
But.
He accomplished a tremendous amount with the fairways and how they just eight on the land and he built they worked with those natural contours and then they built perch greens and so being an early desert golf course. In fact, that's really the first desert style course in the world. Because there were parkland golf courses out in Arizona and out in the desert elsewhere, but there was never something that was trying to integrate itself truly into the environment.
But being that, you know, the fairways are narrow, the course was built on a fairly shoestring budget, and having the balance between those natural rippling fairways and then perched greens brought me to a point where I felt like, Okay, when I was the commission to put together a master plan, the best thing I could do was to bring those bring those fairways as far along as they as I could, knowing that they were already such such they're just glorious,
you know, lay of the lands sections aground, and as a result, balance what was going on with the perch greens out there. The perch greens that desert forest are so challenging. They are kind of that middle ground modern aerial target style golf. It's very demanding and does sort of take some people out of the game in terms of the challenge that they create, or at least at the very least, you know, just make it really difficult to get around the place.
You know. It's interesting. I think that's kind of the evolution in a way of you know, Rainer built the perch greens and banks. Obviously the perch greens very lay of the land fairways, they kind of moved the earth at the at the green site, especially on uninteresting land.
And then you had Langford and Moreau who did the did similar stuff where they and it sounds like, you know, in a way it was you know, of course that evolved more so from Golden Age principle than the residing principles that of the given time, right, would you say.
Yeah, Lawrence was really interested in shot making and he had a good understanding of that with his background, and he really took advantage of that in what he did on the fairways. And when I got there and I was trying to figure out, okay, there was early on there was kind of a push by a lot of the better golfers who felt like Desert Forest, which has not had much work done on it over the years, like it was falling in terms of its prestige because
it wasn't challenging enough to the better player. And in some ways that was true. It did need to kind of ramp up the test for the best of golfers. It was built in sixty two or open in sixty two and really hadn't changed much since then, so there
was definitely work to be had there. But when I looked at the golf course and I heard people saying, well, we really want to see you make this as tough as you can while you're here, I thought to myself, No, no, we need to keep this golf course exactly what it is right now in terms of the level of difficulty.
And as Brad Klein said to me after we finished the work, and we achieved the holy grail of golf course architecture in terms of bringing handicaps together and the better than as I understand it, when the analysis was analysis was done of handicaps. There people that were under a five handicap, their handicaps went up by half a stroke or they were scoring half a stroke higher, and people who were over five for a handicap, their strokes
went down by a full stroke on average. So you know, it was an effort to go at and make sure that when we did address the perched screens, we did so in a way that would accommodate, you know, the higher handicap er. And you know we did that in very limited fashion because we wanted to preserve the great attributes of the golf courses as already was. But that was a huge aspect of working on the green complexes.
What type of stuff would did you do it? Desert forest that achieved that? If there's maybe one specific example.
Yeah, well, contouring was the biggest thing, you know. I mean, there were certainly places where the bunker layout changed to introduce more variety in how the holes fit together as a collection, but supportive contouring, I mean, if you want to look at one big thing, it was really the
fact that the approaches gained more support. It looks in some ways if you've played out there in the past and then you go out there and play today, it looks at least as intimidating, if not more than it did before because of the esthetic and the rolls off of the greens, the rolls into the bunkers. But we actually widened approaches and supported the ground running up into the green in an effort to improve playability, improve drainage, and just make it a more fun place to get around.
And you know, when members got out there and saw the rugged new bunkering style and the roll offs that fall into those bunkers. You know, it kind of appeared like maybe we were trying to make the place more difficult for them, But in truth those were a little bit wider and a little deceptive in what they were actually accomplishing.
That I feel like deceptions of big aspect that sometimes golfers don't understand is a bunker that's, you know, twenty yards behind the green or twenty yards short of the green is there. And to a certain extent, how much does deception play a role with the advent of the rangefinder?
Yeah, that's good. Sort of takes a lot out, doesn't it. Yeah. You know, it's funny because guys like you and I, we play with a variety of people, including the the person who watches a rangefinder come out of your bag and says, put that thing away. You know, we're not
we're not playing with those today. And then you know, so many people are just constantly pulling them out of their bag and they don't have to take an extra you know, thirty steps and find ahead or or you know, just sort of figure it out on their own and it might improve the speed of play. But I I don't really have a great answer to that question.
A golf course on the kind of opposite end of the era that you've had a claimed work on as Old Elm where you were working on a Harry Cult Donald Ross course in my neck of the woods in the Chicago area. Tell us a little bit about the work there, and you know in that project in general, I mean huge transformation for sure.
Yeah, And you know that whole thing started when Curtis James, who you just recently had on and Drew Rogers and Kevin Marion. We're pressing forward on trying to take it, take full advantage of the heritage that that place has. So the heritage of buld Elm Club is a Harry Colt layout built by Donald Ross and at a time, you know, nineteen twelve, at a time when Donald Ross was there, you know, actually building those greens. So you know, when you look at the notes that Harry Colt left,
it's clear that Ross took some liberties. And you see that ROSSI and style green. You know a bit of that as people say, you know, Turtleback Green like number two out there, legendary, how difficult and demanding that green is and how slick those sides are. But you know, our mission became to take full advantage of that hybridization between Donald Ross's greens and Harry Colt's layout, and Harry Colt had left, you know, a lot of notes and
diagrams regarding the bunkering. Well over the years people had had the sense to leave the Ross greens into act, and since Harry Colt's bunkers were maybe not built exactly the way that they were imagined on paper and in Colt's head, those had basically vanished and some renovations had
eliminated eliminated those concepts. So we took his notes for those torn, rugged, jagged bunkers and the placements of them and used those to get as much of that hybridization of the Ross Greens, the Colt layout and the Colt bunkering as we could and really bring that to the forefront.
You know, one of the things that Colt is very well known for is his bunker placement in terms of not trying to place a bunker where people conventionally expect it, but going ahead and putting it where the ground and
interest dictates. And so you know, you get back to that diversity that I love and enjoy, and I know it's kind of getting off the topic, but you know, just thinking about that place and the ongoing work that I've had over there, you just can't help but love the opportunity, loving the opportunity to be involved with that hybridization of the two architects, and the chance to work with those guys. You know, it's been a great club
to work with. And Kevin's always been great. And Curtis is he's a go getter like nobody.
He's he's a wild man. Yeah he is, you could tell. He just he loves the loves the construction end of everything and transformation.
Yeah, and that's what a lot of those guys the business loop for is that transformation.
I mean, I played that place in high school, and I mean what it is now is unbelievably different than you know, the early two thousands. And the thing that's amazing is like how subtly great of a site it is for Chicago.
Yeah, you look at it from the street and you're like, oh, well, you know, that place must its reputation must be on its membership. But but it's as a golf course, it's a whole lot of fun. There's a lot going on out there. Once you actually get down hunkered into the into the terrain.
Yeah, and I mean where the way that Colt routed the course over that terrain to use the you know few the few really good features and knolls that Chicago just doesn't really have a lot of those, And and it has a few there, and you know where you're on one little ridge and there's five greens and four t boxes.
Yeah, And you know, I think people assume that you just need this dynamite piece of ground that has so much interest to it inherently, and the reality is that you've only got eighteen holes. So if you can really thoughtfully figure out how to lay out a course like Colt did there, or like Lawrence did a desert forest, you can get that diversity that you need to keep every hole interesting and you don't need to beat everybody
over the head anyways. You know, if every hole is intended to be fireworks and postcards, then I don't know that you're striking that balance in that variety of interest that I like to see in a golf course. You know, I want the next hole to be different than the last.
How much did your time in the UK help with that understanding Colt's work there?
Yeah? You know, my impression of Cult came to be in some ways very similar to my impression of Corn Crenshaw, where it's very thoughtful and very principled and at times somewhat conservative. But as a result, I know of them have ever really gotten themselves into all that much trouble, you know, and by trouble I mean just sort of overworking it and overthinking it and creating something that you just feel like, wow, that's that is really manipulated beyond something I expect to
see through the course of this round. You know, you do play some golf course, some modern golf courses, where you play a couple holes and you're just like, well, how does that fit into this round? And I don't think you find that on a Cult course or one of Bill and Ben's.
We talked a little bit about it today on the golf course. But like, it's that restraint, and yeah, it's got to be. One of the hardest things is when you know you can do something, but you're not sure if it's the right thing to do, and like doing it's you know, it's a lot of times as golf, you know, it applies to golf in general. Doing less is sometimes more.
Yeah, you know, there was that period of time. Actually, there were a number of American style golf courses everybody referred to them that had been built prior to my arrival in Britain, and they always struck me as very thematic.
And by thematic, I mean you know there was conceptually there was a constant effort to create sort of similar contouring and similar effects, and and just the Earth War got rep repetitive over the course of those golf courses, and you know, it happened over here a lot too, and I think as a result, you can get yourself into real trouble, Like if you look at the maintenance, just just the cost of maintenance on a course like that, that gets very thematic and is repetitive. You don't ever
have a chance to let off the pedal. You have to you know, you've got eighteen of those to take care of. Whereas if you have variety, Yeah, you might have some some big massive bunkers or sweeps of sand or you know, difficult greens to maintain slopes and you know, all these features that can be instilled in a golf course. But if you work with variety rather than kind of
keeping pressing the same key on the piano. You avoid that those maintenance issues, and again, like I've said earlier, you just create the variety that you need to keep interest, and I think that's more compelling than something that gets too thematic and is artificial.
Yeah, to a certain extent, I see this a lot as I travel and I'm looking at golf courses to play in different towns and to see it's like a lot of the more expensive courses are the ones that were built during an era and they were probably really expensive to build, and now they're really expensive to maintain.
Yeah. Yeah, And you know, I think there was a time when, and I heard this a lot back in you know, around my college days, where people said the budget is or was unlimited, and that might work for a few years, but you know, things are not always rosy, as we found out in two thousand and seven, two
thousand and eight. You know, things can go downhill. And just because you built something that is dramatic for eighteen consecutive holes doesn't mean that you're going to maintain those the way they're built for the next twenty thirty years.
Yeah. That's it. That's it. I mean, that's the balance too, and that's where restraint. I mean, like you said, you know, you have one hole that's got swathed of sand and you know and big, bold bunkering. But then maybe on another part of the prior to the land, there's a hole with you know, great contours that don't require really hazards and no bunkering. And then that hole from a maintenance perspective, is completely you know, easier to take care of.
But you know, you put together the whole thing. So what do you guys, what are you working on now?
Well, it's funny that you asked that right at the moment because we're well, for instance, Luke Donald and I teamed up to do some work and we are really about to sign a contract with the folks at Canal Shores, who I've you know, been talking to over a number of years. Has has Luke, and that's kind of how our relationship began. And we really see it as a cool opportunity to promote the game and give back and you know.
So be a community golf project. Yeah, do it for the kids. Yeah, ironically, that's what the golf course my grandfather grew up playing on. So nice. What types of stuff, you know, when you're designing for a community, and obviously there's a lot of unique characteristics to that course where you play up and down a canal, there's it's you know, pretty narrow corridors. What types of stuff are you are you going to kind of I have to achieve for a community project like that.
Right, Yeah, Yeah, you're limited on width on that property because as anybody who knows who's been there, you know, it's two strips of land, like two airplane strips of land on either side of a big cut canal that
was artificially built. And so we're constantly going to be trying to take advantage of the width that we have available and also trying to you know, one of the big things that I think is fun about that is you sort of touched on it earlier about where your friends want to play in Chicago on public courses and
your reluctance to go to too many places. And I'm not saying I don't I'm not trying to be negative about public golf in Chicago, because I don't really know public golf in Chicago, but I will say that, you know, there's a great diversity of awesome private clubs and the people that I know who are well versed in those say that, yeah, that's great, but there's kind of a lack of really great architecture on the public courses, so we really want to bring and draw some of the
inspired architecture from the private courses there and bring that out onto canal shores. I think that would be so fun to allow kids to grow up playing holes that are sympathetic to that kind of Golden Age architecture and also introduce them to things that they will see hopefully down the road when they're playing in amateur events at private clubs.
Yeah, that's the coolest aspect of you know you I think about this all the time and it's like, why it's important for you know, state golf associations to get
their championships at the best courses for the kids. Is like, you know, it doesn't matter for me as Joe Midham, but like that kid, you know, as I was a kid that grew up playing Lake Bluff Golf Club, which was a nothing public course, and I'll never forget when I would go to tournaments at a private club as a junior, there was always like, oh, these greens are so fast and you can't be above this flag. And I was lucky a caddie at some private clubs, so
I got over that. But then there's the big first shock when you play in your first State Am and it's like, well, this is way different than you know, what I was playing in junior golf. And then you get and you play in a USGA event and it's a whole nother thing. But if you have good design that's you know, available at a municipal level, that bridge
is the gap. There's one last big transition that the kid has to make if they want to play you know, golfing and also just from a regular per like even if they aren't a competitive golfer, when they get in life and they get to a nice club, they aren't you know, completely blown out of the water by the golf course there.
Yeah, And if you want that kid to continue to have interest in the game, you need to show them that variety that's out there, because that is one of the compelling aspects of our sport is all the opportunity to you know, tomorrow, when I go to the next venue and play, it is going to be completely different than the one I played today, you know, And it doesn't matter sometimes if it's you know a place that you stuff a few dollars into a box and go out there and play, and or if it's you know,
some of the fancies clubs. You know that diversity is appealing.
Yeah, that's that's right. And it's always goes back to what I say. It's like, if you wanted, if you wanted to get somebody interested in tacos, you wouldn't take them to the worst taco shop. Like, you got to take them to taco shop. That's good. It's like, so that's where the public off is the most. That's where it should be the most interesting.
Yeah, yeah, you want to see that diversity. It's funny, you know because when you told me that you wanted to get together and play and you would like to do the podcast, I thought to myself, you know, I'd kind of like to turn this interview around on Andy and ask you what was it that has gotten you to a point where you sort of appreciate a lot
of the things that I do. You know, fast and firm and and trying to avoid the sense of fair in architecture, and you appreciate a lot of the counterintuitive aspects and strategic variety that I'm into. You know, I know obviously with the opportunity to go over to Britain on the Dream Award that it had a huge influence on me. How did you end up getting to this point and in this philosophy that you have.
I think, I think the I mean, you read stuff. I read stuff. I've always was interested in it. I got the opportunity to play. I grew up in like Bluff, so I got to play short acres as a kid. You always knew there was something different, something that was special about that place. And I think the the when I when I got into doing this, like, what I started to really thirst for was different experiences. It's the variety.
And then you start to see more stuff and you start to you know, you think about the stuff that's really thrilling, like and it becomes I became much less of a you know, score dependent person, much less of a competitive golfer, and much more of just someone that was enjoying being outside walking and looking at you know, unique aspects of the game, uh and unique aspects of
a given golf course. And then you started to think about what are the features and the characteristics that give you the most thrill and they kind of not knowing where you want to hit it is like a great thing. Like I actually love one of my favorite things is when I get when I'm playing a golf course for the first time and you know, I don't use a yardage book really we got them today, but I opened
one one time. But like when I'm playing a golf course and I think this is where I should hit it, and then I get up there and I realized, well, I shouldn't have hit it here. I should have hit it complete opposite the other side of the fairway. Like that, that's the stuff that I really enjoy. So it's the counterintuitiveness, the you know, the blind that act like blind shots. I love. I love that idea of not knowing where your ball is going to be and where it ended up.
You think you hit a good shot, but that that walk, like, especially if you're going over hill, like you're walking over hill, Like what makes that walk over hill really nice is when you don't know where it is because like you're not thinking about walking up the hill.
Yeah, yeah, I.
Don't really know where I whether I answer your question, but yeah, then it's become like I've become much less about just grabbing the lab wedg around the greens is much more about like pulling the seven iron out and just seeing where to where to how to hit it. And it's not as much about trying to hit it close as it's more fun to seeing the ball use
the contour or run in there. I so for people that are pencil and scorecard people, that might sound crazy, but you know, I enjoy golf more now than ever before because I'm I don't care what I shoot. I may have a great time regardless of whether I can hit the ball, you know, can't keep the ball on the planet, or whether I'm playing the best round you know in weeks.
Yeah, yeah, Ben and I have had conversations about some of the things that you're talking about, and that mystery, as Ben would refer to it, is is a big deal. And that's you see that on a lot of great Golden Age golf courses, and when things got very conventional there for a few decades, you know, that mystery kind of went away. So it's always, yeah, compelling to go out there.
And he said, that's the thing is the game is so great because it's challenging. If it was easy, it would be way less of a game. Like it wouldn't. But one of the things that golf has that everywhere else, every other sport has doesn't have, is like golf has people that are just absolute nuts. Like my wife isn't a golfer. She thinks we're all just crazy. We're all batshit crazy. And you know the only reason why is
because the game is so hard. Like whether you shoot, whether you're a plus four handicap and shoots sixty seven or a fifteen handicap that shoots eighty two, those people get off the golf course after great rounds and they're thinking about, man, if I would have just made that putt, or I wouldn't hit that stupid web shot, I would have I could have shot this, Like what other sport
Like if you win by twenty five. In basketball, everybody's like, yeah, that was great, nobody belaboring, you know, as miss three pointer. But in golf, like it's this. It's so achievable yet so unachievable in the same sense for sure.
And you know, you can go out and play the same course tomorrow that you played today, and the worst hole that you had today may end up being the best hole that you played tomorrow, because tomorrow is a completely another day, and that's an enjoyable aspect to the adventure.
Yeah, it's like the interest of the best part about it is being is that thin line. And I think this is there's a thin line and design. Everything with golf is a thin line, but like the thin line of teetering on perfection and brilliance and success and just disaster. And the greatest golf courses force you to to flirt with the line a lot of times in order to reap the success. But you can play away from it, but you're never gonna you can't play away from it
all day. I think you know, Bill on the podcast he had when he was talking about the second hole at Talking Stick was great. He's like, you know, you can play left and you can play away from the trouble all day long, you know, until you know you can get it all the way up by the green, But eventually you're gonna have to hit that shot around the green and you got the trouble still, Like, eventually you're gonna have to face the trouble.
Yeah, And that's why golf on a flat hole can be very compelling.
I think about that hole all the time. It's so funny. I played that, of course, way before I was into this, and I always remember that whole like I was like, oh, that's a great golfle. Yeah, so I got we we got a tight window. We gotta do this. You're gonna be in Chicago more so we'll have to do this again. We'll have part two at another time. So, Dave, thanks for coming on. People can find you. You're not real active on uh on social media.
No, they can find me there though if they want to, if they want to rib me or they want to chat, they can find me there. But I tend to, you know, kind of concentrate on being a father and and work and you know, all the other things going on in life.