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 Friday Egg, Friday, Frida Egg brid Egg, Frida Egg bride egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday eg Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Johnson, and I am joined by a fellow co host here, Garrett Morrison. We are going to continue our architecture mail bag. We recorded a podcast earlier this week that kind of centered around golf architecture. We talked about the rankings, we talked about our event courses, and we did a mail bag where we got to
a few questions. I think our conversation about the top one hundred rankings recently released by Golf Magazine went a little bit longer than we anticipated, so we got to fewer questions. So thus we're we're going to dive into a lot of questions in this podcast and get to those reader and listener questions. So Garrett, welcome on, Thanks for joining big week here of mail bag questioned question pods.
Good to be here. Thanks for having me on. You want to dive right in.
I was going to talk about our friends over at True Golf first.
Oh yeah, of course I got to do that.
Yeah. You know, they make this stuff possible. If you're into golf architecture, if you're into playing golf courses, True Golf is something you can do during these winter months. They have a product called launch Box, and it is a launch monitor is a poor launch monitor and golf simulator from True Golf. It seamlessly connects to your PC or iOS device, and it makes it super easy to play golf courses or improve your golf game year round.
I would love to just get really dialed in on Wedge practice go DJ style with my with my Wedge game, and I'm thinking that the launch Box will be perfect for that. A couple of things that the launch Box offers simple setup, instant shot registration, accurate measure data, and easy and easy Wi Fi connection. So one of the great things about this product it can be used inside, So if you want to set up like kind of
an in home setup, you could use it inside. If you want to convert a part of your garage to this or your basement. You could do that inside or if you're in a more temperate place where outside practice is feasible at this time of year. It works off mats side, so this could be even an outdoor setup where you find a part of your backyard, put a matt down, put this baby out there and get a net and it can be that. So it's really versatile.
You can obviously can take to the driving range as well, but one of the neat things is you can play golf courses. So it is a way to stay fresh. It's a way to scratch that golf itch, especially these winter months. If you want to learn more about True Golf's launch box, go to True golf dot com slash egg. That's True Golf t r U g o lf dot com slash egg. All right, let's dive into the architecture mail bag. We got a ton of questions, so let's
just get cooking here. Let's talk about LINEA Withthikam ask Michigan and Yale excluded. What are some of your favorite university owned golf courses architecture wise, now that Yale is under renovation, any courses you can think of that should have work done?
Great question? I haven't played all of these, but the list I came up with when I saw Lenea's question included the Iowa State Course Vinker Memorial I think.
Is what it's called, Perry Maxwell.
Perry Maxwell Golf Course could use some work, probably some restoration work, So that would be, like candidate number one, probably the course that I'm most interested in seeing and finding out more about. Certainly, Stanford Golf Course is a classic George Thomas Billy Bell designed, I think mostly Billy Bell. I'm not sure of the history there, but I've played this course and it was years ago. But a lot of cool holes out there and some great land.
I have too. This is definitely a high potential one where you could it could just get a lot better. I think like they have an awesome practice facility for the team, and I just imagine that they will continue to upgrade. You know what's an interesting fact about Stanford. Do you know what the most popular or the hardest class to get into at Stanford is? No?
What is it?
Intro to golf?
Seriously, there's an intro to golf class, Yeah, that you take for a grade.
Heard this the other day. Hardest class to get into at Stanford.
Because everybody wants to do it. It sounds like a like a fun little schedule filler.
I think two people like realize, hey, this would be good for my career if I, if I am, if I at least have some basic golf skills.
All the budding entrepreneurs and tech executives who go to Stanford want to make sure that they can play some rounds at Cow Club and Metal Club and Sam Francisco Golf Club in such places.
Well, I just I think it makes sense to have, you know, a good, good place to play for the students. It is a good place to play today. It could be it could be better though.
Yeah, definitely could be better. There are some issues with the property that have emerged over time, but also just basic design stuff. I think they could take a look at that course and consider what would Billy Bell do here and make it a bit better. Certainly, Ohio State
Ohio State University. The Ohio State University has has some Alistair mackenzie work that has perhaps not been particularly well preserved by one of their alumni, Jack Nicholas Duke University golf course Robert Trent Jones course that actually looks pretty cool. I've never been there myself. But nineteen fifties Trent Jones.
I think that I think that one is a candidate for a big renovation.
Yeah, well you like, like do some Trent Jones stuff there though, right, don't, don't just blow it up. I want to see you know, this might be a radical position these days, but I'd kind of want to see some restorative work. Maybe improve some things here and there, but go for the feel of the nineteen fifties Robert Trent Jones golf course in a modern vein and yeah, I mean maybe with some modernizing touches, but take it serious what he was doing.
You need to move some bunkers around.
You know, I need to move some bunkers around. Yeah.
That's like the hard thing with his style is it was so so based on Carrie distances.
Yeah, Kerrie oriented, Yeah, protecting par Yeah, you know that kind of stuff is u is. It's hard. It's hard to age that stuff. But there are what are a bunch of others too? What other ones?
What about Dennison Golf Club?
You know, Okay, I don't know much about this one.
So don ross. Yeah, I haven't played been there. I send people there all the time, who asked me for recommendations. Really it's yeah, it's it's supposed to be really cool, really cool property. Years ago they did like a kind of a stupid project that like they moved, they went up and they they kind of dis they got rid of the original eighteen holes and they have like this property up high that you go up to and it's like a housing development for three holes, but there's fifteen
original Don Ross holes there on. Like a really nice property. And yeah, I think Don Ross's work in Ohio, you know, I've seen a lot of his work in Ohio. It's really outstanding. Like I think, like his work in Ohio and Michigan's probably his best work. So that one is really high on the list. I believe they have a renovation plan and in the works there they have they have maybe he could say, concepts of a plan and the works with a with a very high profile architect.
So that's one that's that's pretty interesting.
I've maybe heard some rumblings about this. I think people can probably guess the architect who might be involved. But in any case, what's what's actually starts handalizing about university courses is that often the universities have the ability to restore or renovate the courses because they can draw on these endowments that have over the past you know, twenty years or so, really grown at a lot of these universities.
So that's why Yale is doing the work it's doing now, and hopefully, you know, the University of Michigan gets its act together sometime soon as well and takes a look at it's Alistair McKenzie course.
We haven't mentioned, I mean these college the college stuff. I think this is something we haven't really talked about very much from like an architecture standpoint, that is actually pretty fascinating. These college facilities, the college golf programs are some of them are spending in insane amounts of money, like insane amounts of money on practice facilities and golf courses.
You know, if you think about, like right now, University Alabama is about to open a facility that I believe I saw was like one hundred million dollars.
It did. It did open, I think, and the course was renovated by Golf Design.
Or love Golf Design okay, I don't know, was Jase No, it is love Golf Design, okay. Also being renovated is the Carston Creek Course.
Yeah, that's right.
Oklahoma State their golf course. Andrew Green's doing a renovation there, Like Vanderbilt just opened. I think it was like a fifteen million dollar practice facility. I mean it is. I do think like there is like we talk about golf design and a lot of vain for like the retail golfer. If if these college programs get to the point where they're designing golf courses for their college program, it's kind
of a fascinating topic. Like how would you build a golf course for a men's and women's college golf team? Would do you build it? Like? To me, you're never going to play NCAA's at that course. Do you build the golf course to test like a wide like the widest range of skills to like, do you build it with different styles? Do you have like super narrow holes, wider holes, greens that like maybe the greens over eighteen holes don't fit together, but they offer a lot a
wide range of variety. I just like, I think it's a fascinating topic because I think like the exercise of if you wanted to purely build a golf course for a college golf team, to practice at and play at and to qualify that one of the most important things is qualify at Like these court they this is the course that deems who goes on the road for your team. For the most part, I don't think you build a golf course in the traditional retail golf sense.
Might be more of a test of skill as opposed to maximum playability.
I think it'd be more of a test of skill, and I think you would want to have like supreme variety in the way you test the skill.
On the other hand, these courses also serve students and alumni.
Some of them. I think some of them are becoming.
More and more becoming more like training facilities. Yes, yeah, And I think that's sort of a bummer, because you know, it's a really great addition to your college experience if you can go out and play a great golf course for cheap, I think that's a wonderful thing to offer students.
So I also think it's great as a potential academic exercise. Right, you could take landscape architecture students out to this wonderfully built golf course and have like an infield lesson about some of the things that the architect did I think that would be really cool. You know, I've always thought that Yale's course had such potential in this regard, but
the university never really used it in that way. Right, This is a university that really prizes its building architecture and uses its building architecture for pedagogical purposes all the time. But it has this classic SETH. Rayner golf course, unbelievable golf course that's completely unique, and never really took advantage of it as a teaching tool. And I think that
some of these golf courses can be that. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration for some universities with the golf courses that they have have, but certainly a Perry Maxwell course at Ohio State could serve this purpose. I don't know Michigan for sure.
Well, the thing that's interesting about the Ohio State thing
is they have thirty six holes. That's right, Like they could make the scarlet they could build into like a you know, Mackenzie inspired I don't think there's real there's like I think there's a lot of questions about like how much time he spent there, but also like the idea of like, Okay, I don't know how well you could put it back right, but like having a Mackenzie inspired championship golf course on one side and then that great course the other course that's like short, it's on
really nice land, Like it's a really nice piece of property that could be just like super fun, beginner friendly campus golf.
Right, Yeah, I love that idea. Yeah, well I can I shout out a couple of other University of University golf courses before we move on.
Yeah, I was gonna throw out the forgotten Michigan course, Raderick Farms. Yeah right, it's like super early Pete Die. It's awesome.
Gu this Yeah, yeah.
I played it. I played it years ago, probably about eight years ago. It was so fun.
Anderson talks about this one a lot. A guy who shapes for Tom Doak and was on the podcast a while back. He studied it at Michigan and yeah, loves loves Raderick Farms.
Radrick is really cool. It's a cool piece of land, some really neat holes, super fun place to play golf.
Nice all right. Other great ones the Warren Course at Notre Dame. I don't know how closely associated it is with the university. I think pretty closely associated right Arry, But yeah, so it's there.
This was like the early uh that golf course is different moment for me. I played a high school uh like a national junior event there when I was like fifteen or sixteen, and I'll like, never forget the greens. The greens were unlike anything I'd like ever put it on. They're really wild core Crunshaws greens.
Yeah, they went for it because the land is like not quite sand Hills, you know. Yeah, so they went for some things.
It's got some decent parts. It's got some decent moments in the land, but for the most part is flat. I played there a few years ago for the first time since since then, it's that's one of the best values in the world.
Yes, well, that's another thing about university courses is that often they have a mission beyond just making money, and so that means that they can sometimes offer affordable access to the public, which is great. Tacnic Golf Club near Williams College up in the up in the Massachusetts. We'll always wanted to see that place, very cool place. I actually played it when I was in college. The course at Sawani nine hole, gil Han's golf course that you
seen that. I haven't seen it. It's it's pretty close to Sweeten's Cove, Like it's within striking distance of Sweeten's Cove, so it makes for like a good double.
I think it's absolutely insane that people are, like so many people go to Sweetens and don't go to Swani.
Right, as long as you're out there apart and golf course, you're not gonna you don't have to spend an extra day.
You know, well, you could do a day at Swane and a day at Sweetens. You could do a day at Sawane just like you do a day at Sweetens. It's super fun.
I really I heard it's like a cool university too.
It seems cool. I mean, it seems like a very beautiful place. I do look place to go to college. It makes me feel it's one of those places. I now that I'm almost almost forty, I think about all the places. You know, you don't have this regret as you went to a neat place to go to college. And I love Illinois. I'm not you would die.
Illinois is awesome. Champagne or Banna is a wonderful college town.
What are you talking about?
Really? I don't think that that was that was my perception of it.
No, No, it's Central Illinois. I like Swani's like an inspiring place. It's like up in the mountains. It's beautiful.
It's totally different. Like that's a university.
I see these campuses of other campuses. Is like, why did I spend five years of my life in Champagne.
I honestly think that's a pretty cool college town.
I mean, I saved a lot of money. I didn't spend any five years of my life in Champagne.
So yeah, yeah, so that's a that's a big deal. Well, if you want to see a cool college campus, Williams, which is where Taconic, what Teconic is connected to, is one of the one of the coolest college campuses out there.
If you could do it over where would you go to college?
I'd go to the same place.
Okay, that's amazing. Yeah, definitely, See this is impossible. You do this and then your entire life would change if you If you did it over right, I would be doing this.
I'm not sure, Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure what other choice I would have made. I don't talk about it on the podcast much, but I went to Yale College for for my undergraduate and I don't introduce this information much to people because they start to think I'm a certain kind of person. But uh, but I loved my college experience, loved that, you know, four years that I spent, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I don't think.
Yeah, I gotta ask this. This is off topic. We've we've served off topic here.
We definitely have.
What How do IVY leaguers feel about the term public ivy because Illinois is the public IVY, but it.
Sort of seems like what has been deemed a public ivy Illinois University of Illinois. I believe that it's a great university, but I think it's maybe a little bit Isn't it a little bit insulting? Isn't it? Like? I don't know, why does the University of Illinois need to compare itself to anything?
Well, that's what we do when we're just a humble Midwest state school.
I think it's sort of like poor Man's Pebble.
Beach Pacific Grove, right.
Whereas I think that Pacific Grove is, you know, wonderful in its own right and in a lot of ways better than Pebble Beach. I don't know that that's sort of a harsh take, but uh yeah, I feel completely fine about whatever people want to call their universities. I mean, I think, having had the experience of going to one of these colleges, I know that there are no great mysteries about the education that happens there. It's just as good and just as bad as the education that happens
everywhere else. There's no magical thing that occurs at these places. And so yeah, I'm completely fine with somebody calling themselves a public.
Ivy back to colleges. Of course, that I may never see, that I really do actually want to see is the Naval Academy, which Andrew Green did work at. Oh Will.
That's a good shot a ton of great cool college courses.
I think there's also probably an interesting if you dove into the military based courses, there might be a couple interesting ones.
Yeah, I'm sure I think there's a cool one at West Point, but I'm not quite sure what it is. You know. The one that also came to mind for me is the Hotchkiss Course. This is not a college. This is a private boarding school and in New England, and it has it has a rainer course that really needs to be brought back to life.
That's uh. There's this other place in New Hampshire called Grand Leiden. It's like a neighborhood course. Have you heard of this. It's a little off you never heard of Grand Leiden. No, I might be mispronouncing it. It's like in a neighborhood, but it's not a private club. But it's just for people that live in the neighborhood, I believe.
And it's like super scruffy, but like some of the most that I've seen some pictures, and there are some of the craziest Walter Travis Greens I've seen, right, And it's just like sitting in this neighborhood. It's like a private neighborhood course. Awesome, and it like, I mean, it's barely maintained.
I don't think I've ever heard that before. All right, I'm let's move on to a new topic here. We could talk about college courses, it seems like in college life for another hour and a half, but let's let's take a little bit of a turn here and talk about the best bang for your buck golf architecture trip. This is from Dan Golf's three to five Rounds within decent, decent driving distance of each other. Now, we've talked about some of these trips pretty extensively, and so we don't
need to like rehash all of them here. But I'll obviously just throw out Grand Rapids right away. Yes, the Mike Dereese Trail in Grand Rapids we always always point people to. Maine is a good one. We have a whole recent podcast about that Ventura County where you can go to Rustic Canyon. This is in California, Rustic Canyon,
Seoul Park. And then you know a couple of kind of fun Ventura municipal courses called a Leavis Links and and Boinda, Ventura, which don't have the greatest architecture in the world, but they have a variety of golf holes, they're fun to play, and they're really affordable. I think that's a cool one too.
Nebraska sand Hills, YEP, which we have an entire podcast.
You can hear more about that from about Matt Rusius and Andy Johnson on the Friday Golf podcast.
What about Maine or what what about Boston?
So Boston is the other big one that we need to let people know about. Franklin Park, George Wright Highland Links out on Cape Cod and then go to Old Salem Grains in Salem. That is a hell of a trip. I'm not sure it like gets much better than that in terms of cost and quality.
Yeah, I mean that one's incredible. I think there's also we talked about it a little bit here. It's it requires a little bit of driving. But you can do this Sawanee Sweetens in Chattanooga. You can go see the course. That's the first everybody give. Everybody talks about Tom Doak and Bill course. Starting the minimal is a movement. Uh Mike Young at the Fields, Oh yeah, built the first minimalist golf course. So you can fly into Atlanta. You could go down to the fields, or you could go
up to Swedens. But then you come back down to the fields and it's a bit of a haul. But then you're driving over and you're playing ach and golf club. And I mean, if you get there, you can fly in one place, fly out of the other. A lot of times I fly into one airport and fly out of the other. On trips, you don't always have to do round trip. I don't know if I want to if I want to put this out into public airwaves.
But most of the time some rental car companies do not, Like if you return it somewhere else, that's not a big deal.
Are you eventually going to get arrested for this?
No, No, they just are. They'll just charge you one way, right, some times it's sometimes you get jammed. But on that, like you that's four really good golf courses you could throw in, like old Takoa Farms is in that area, which could be another one you hit. And then obviously there are some ways to garner access at places, especially like right now, Like I know, like Broomsedge has some like times that you can get if you want to go see that that's in in the Camden area of
South Carolina. So that one requires a little bit more driving, but you know it's pretty neat.
Yeah, yeah, that's I mean a lot of amazing golf courses. Maybe not always bang for your buck, you know, strictly define but the Fields for sure is bang for your buck.
Sawani's bang for your buck, and and Aiken is like the bank for your buck twenty five dollar. Now I gotta find, you know, I like to use like recommend a restaurant recommendations. I was talking with someone this week about this, and he was like, you know what, the way I like my golf courses are the way I like my restaurants. I either want to have like the best taco from like just a taco stand or the best burger from just a burger stand that's like ten bucks.
Or I want to have and like so the golf version of that is like Ach and Golf Club twenty five dollars and you're just gonna be like smiling from year to year, all day long. Or I want the very best. I want the like awesome architecture, great playing surfaces. And he's like, I don't want anything in the middle.
I kind of get that.
I think I I kind of align, Like I love places like Ache and Golf Club. I would play like Aching Golf Club over the quintessential high end public golf course in City X designed by Regional architect X. For the most part, these are we're speaking of generalities here, but I do kind of agree with that. Another one you could keep going to is you could go play the Muni in Charleston. It'll kick your ass if you can you can break part at the media.
Not an easy golf course by.
All means you it's gonna test your precision in short game. There.
All right, I'm gonna throw another topic at you, and I'm gonna kind of swerve on it. We got like a few questions in a row about how do you get started in appreciating golf architecture without completely overwhelming yourself. And the way I wanted to maybe answer this question with you is by asking you about how you how you got started. Maybe this would help people to you know, kind of no more about how you got into it, and maybe they could do something similar.
When I think about it, I caddied, Yeah, I think that was like how I got into it was like a means of wanting to be good at caddying and understanding the way where the way different players had to
play a golf course to maximize their talent. Like I used to, you know, like I worked Tuesday afternoons at the at the club that I caddied or caddied, I worked backroom on Tuesday afternoons and I carried every Tuesday morning and Tuesday morning was ladies Day, and it was the most I think it probably had the biggest impact on me being into golf architecture because if you caddy.
For lower trajectory players, you have to understand how to use angles, and you have to understand the give and takes of hitting it here or hearing it there, and then being shorter hitters makes them much more precise, like
the ability. I always used to say to my mom, like, you don't have to aim fifty yards away from bunkers, Like you're not going to hit it in that thing, you know, So like understanding how to get around a golf course, I think is like the first the easiest thing to understand is looking at a hole and looking at the bunkers and look at and then getting on the green and feeling the green and understanding why bunkers are certain places and how they influence like where you
might want to be. I think that's the easiest way, and then you can dive into like read.
Yes, right, most people would want to start with the on the ground physical knowledge of how golf courses work. For good players, this can be complicated, like you were introduced to it through watching different kinds of players play
the game. Because you were a good player, you would have played a golf course a certain way, but then you saw other people who are very different playing the golf course in a completely different way, and that starts to give you an appreciation of what good golf architecture can do.
I had a regular loop on Ladies' Day, and it was incredible to see how you could improve someone's golf game just by getting them around a golf course. It was super power. It was super interesting because like it was about like just like laying up to certain areas, like, hey, there's a fronting bunker the course. Nowood Club has really deep bunkers Charles Allison Charles Allison course and tilted greens, like pretty severely tilted greens. So a lot of it was just like, hey, I know you can hit it
on the green, but you can't hold the green. It's elevated into the air and you have to carry over this bunker. Let's just like lay it over here, short left and chip up and get out of here. Like just understanding that stuff, like if you're not in position, get back into position. I think that's like I think
that's the stuff that like people don't think about. With the understanding of golf architecture, that helps every player, Like every single player can be so much better if you just understand what you're looking at and it helps you. Like I think like this is where the analytics community
will say, oh, golf architecture, Understanding golf architecture doesn't matter. Oh, it absolutely does when it comes to like seeing a golf course and understanding where to leave shots when you're out of position, more so than like getting it up the left side to get an angle. You know, that's you know fractions better than if you're in the on
the right, the other side of the fair away. Where you save the most shots without a doubt, is understanding where to leave balls and under and that there are slopes that if you leave in the right spot, you can get yourself to where you're chipping back into a bowl or you're not not on the wrong side of a really severe contour, even though it's like wide open
green space and short grass. Like just an understanding of what you're looking at and what the architect's trying to do to you, you know, where they're trying to get you to hit it because it looks nice and it might look really nice on Google Earth.
Yeah, I agree with that. I find it frustrating when people assert that it doesn't help you in any way because clearly a lot of great players. The greatest players have had a very sharp understanding of golf architecture, and I think that it can it can help you be more aware out there. That's not to say that every great player understands architecture intellectually, but I think most great players have at least an instinctive grasp of it. Right.
I think this is like an interesting example in you know, some day maybe I'll ask him this at an event.
But I do think that like if you look at Rory, he I think he he got it, really started to get into golf architecture in like twenty nineteen ish, but his performance at like majors that he used to you know, people said he used to not be able to play firm courses, you know, And if you start to look at how he plays some of these golf courses, like he has he understands the architecture a little bit more. And it's not necessarily about like whether he's hating driver
or three iron. But if you watch like a lot of times, like where he leaves or like his shots around the green, like he's always seemingly in these positions where on like you know, if you think back to lacc or Pinehurst number two, he was always in advantageous places to chip or pitch from versus you don't. I don't know. I think it's I think it's just a fascinating thing. But I do think he's gotten more consistent at at majors since he's kind of dove into golf architecture,
and I don't I have to ask him. He had to answer to one question at Pinehurst that was like, it's all about the arc, Like it's all about setting up you know. I can't remember exactly what it was. It was after the second round, but it's, you know, I think that you're totally right, like the highs there in like it's just understanding where to leave it in the contours. So much about that and what you can use and what you can't use, what you can use, and what's going to hurt you.
Well, I'll tell you how I got into it, and it's basically from the opposite direction compared to the way you got into it. I got into it by reading, and the book that introduced me to the idea of golf course design was The World Atlas of Golf. My dad just brought it home one day, thought I would find it interesting, and it's this wonderful book with great writing from great golf writers, but also extraordinary illustrations of
some of the best courses in the world. And I just became obsessed with this book, and that's how my interest started, and I went from there to other kinds of golf architecture books. I remember when Spirit of Saint Andrews was republished and how that was kind of exciting, right, this is the lost Alistair McKenzie book. Turns out it wasn't really that lost, but whatever. I read that and
I started getting into it that way. I started reading some things online when I was younger, and that's how I created a kind of knowledge base about golf architecture. And then what I had to do after that was try to apply it to what was on the ground on golf courses because I didn't play that many well designed golf courses when I was a kid. I played basically the public courses in the town where I grew up.
But I found ways to get onto the best regarded courses that I had access to in Santa Barbara where I grew up. That was the Valley Club of Monecito. I had no means of getting on that course. But for one summer I joined the Santa Barbara Junior Golf Tour, and one of the stops on the Santa Barbara Junior Golf Tour, just basically the local junior league was the Valley Club of Montecito, and that's why I joined that little league for that one summer. So I got to
play that golf course and it was really exciting. And then my dad and I went up and played Pas Tiempo and Santa Cruz one year. That was sort of a special trip and a wonderful experience, and so that's kind of my path to it. I started with reading and then I went to just trying to find access to the best courses that I could, and it wasn't much access, but I think I was able to make the most of it because of some of the reading and knowledge I had acquired through the World Atlas of
Golf and other books. And so there are many ways into it, but honestly, like for somebody who's just starting out and just getting interested in it, I would recommend the World Atlas of Golf. I think it's a great way of orienting yourself. Whether you're forty years old or ten years old. You know that that book has appeal across ages.
So readily available, too readily available.
You know, the new editions, A lot of people don't love the new editions. I think the new editions are fine, but the old additions with the green cover, those ones have the really great illustrations in them, and also writing by pat Ward Thomas and Herbert Warren Wynd and some true heavy hitters of golf literature, so those ones are pretty special. But I think any edition will really do. And you can find the old editions very affordably on Amazon through the used channels on there and everything.
Let's take a quick break and then we'll get back to the mail bag and talk about Stripe. This is a partnership that I am really excited about. Stripe has been part of our business since really the inception of the business. As soon as we decided to start taking payments online, we started using Stripe. They made it seamless for me to create a way for people to pay online and have it go right into my bank account.
It was really really a something that was super easy, and without it being really easy, it would have been probably prolonged. Me getting an online store up for a while. Stripe works with businesses as small as we were seven eight years ago, but they also work with giant companies such as Alaska Airlines, Hertz, Toyota, WordPress, Zoom, Door, Dash, BMW, a lot of these companies that have tons and tons
of transactions every day. You know, Stripe in fact powers one percent of the global GDP is powered by Stripe. So the way they work is they work in a variety of ways. You know, you can just do your standard checkout. One of the things that's nice about their checkout is they accept a really wide range of payment options, and it's super important to do that so people don't
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Yeah, I had a problem with that screening too.
What do you think Bandon should do about the Poe invasion? The answer could be nothing.
This is an impossible question to answer. It's such a hard situation for context in case people don't know. Basically, a lot of the courses that Bandon Dunes are currently undergoing a transition from being maybe mostly fescue or in some cases partly fescue originally different blends.
They've grasped things differently over time.
They've gone to like more and more fescue over time. But on the greens especially, there's just a natural transition to poa turf. And anybody who's on the West Coast especially knows about poa greens. They don't have a great reputation, you know that. Think of Pebble Beach's greens on a late afternoon at the US Open. They get a little bit bumpy, But poet can be a great putting surface. It's just different from fescue, and it's not quite at
Bandon Dune's. The courses just become slower over time. Let's bouncy overtime because of this turf transition. But there's basically no stopping it.
Yeah, it's an extreme, it's an invasive like you're if you choose to fight it, you're gonna fight it all the time.
I think they just have to roll with it, right, I don't know, are there little things they could do? Could could they do like occasional projects, just like regular projects year to year close down parts of some courses.
So I think like it's a it's a I think like it's a big question of like what do you want the court the courses to be if you want them to play in their original lessence. You could think of this as a once every It seems like like twenty years is kind of the ticking time bomb. Maybe it's fifteen years of when when the rubber hit meets the road with the poa and you you can't keep
it out. Just based off of the clock of all the courses, I think one of the issues is the poe does not hold up to winter well, and that then causes problems into your you know more into your prime season.
Well, especially because they play rounds basically year round.
There exact pact.
Even when the weather's really bad, even when it's really wet out there, people are trampling all over the greens.
Yeah, I think that's the It is like people go to Bandon and they're going to play you.
And they have my expectations.
Understandably, I played in the worst weather I've ever played in my life with you because we're abandon and what else were we going to do? We're gonna go out there.
We're going to play abandoned trails. Yeah, we were basically in a monsoon.
That was insane. The fall. The fall is going like one hundred and ten yards off two.
It was. It was crazy. I mean there was one moment during the round when we all just like stopped and took shelter.
We on what is it on? Uh? On eleven?
Yeah, after we eleven get one that goes down.
That's the one that goes down, uh to the to the lake.
Right, yeah, with a little lake by it. And then I think I.
Hit driver threewood three wood. It was into like sheeting grate.
It was no, yeah, it was. It was pretty wild.
But anyways, like I think this is like part of it is like the winter. It's now a problem because of the winter.
Yeah, But so if.
You wanted to fix it, if you wanted to go back to fescue, here's the issue. You have to regrasp every course, and you have to take the golf course out of play, each course out of play for a year. And if you take each golf course out of play, for a year. You lose your powerful marketing message of we are come to abandon dunes and tell us which course you think is the best.
Rank the courses. That's what everybody wants to do. Everybody wants to go there and have their ranking of the courses.
If I were the Cizar abandon, which I'm not, that would be Mike Kaiser, I'm not going to be. How I would approach this is I would start a plan and understand that this is how we're going to maintain the golf course. I would want it back to fescue. That's my personal opinion. I think it's just like the essence of what it is. It's links golf on the coast, and it's American links golf on the coast, and the
fescue is the best surface for that. And what I would do is I would start closing one course every other year for the next ten years, and I would get the greens. And you probably don't even have to do it at Sheep Ranch at this point.
Yeah maybe so.
But like I would just bite the bullet and I would start a plan, and we're going to do this, and I'm gonna know that I have to take a course out for a year every fifteen to twenty years. Yeah, and that's just the way if.
We want just continual cycle. Yes, it's just just hard to accept that.
You know, it's just the ongoing it's an operational cost of it. And you know it's too bad because people but like if they add the sixth course, it's gonna be really hard to play all the courses abandon.
That's true. You'll have to stay there for.
In like shorties, shorties, you know, yeah, and preserve like there's a lot. It's hard to do that all on one trip as it is.
Now, right, Yeah, Well, it's it's a tough situation. It's inevitable.
Is similar to the pebble situation.
It is, right, And and you have kind of similar climates, right, not exactly the same. Oregon's is much harsher.
Are you but are you suggesting that that that that uh, Monterey in north is part of the Pacific Northwest?
Just walked right into that one just walked right into it, damn it.
For those that aren't familiar, I have a long standing belief that that uh, particularly just north.
Yeah, yeah, And and he has his own geography of the he believes that I don't know what you believe that's that it's all Central California.
And we're all Pacific.
We're a Central California is part of the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, I forgot what I was gonna say.
Oregons we have similar climates.
Or Oregon's wet, you know, Monterey can get foggy and cold and wet. You know, it's they're not great places for avoiding POA. You're just gonna get it right. And and so you're fighting against nature. And I guess if they want the ideal playing conditions, that's what they have to do. They just have to go to war with nature.
But we're just learning. I guess that fescue doesn't do super well in a coastal climate like the southern coast of Oregon, Whereas if you go to Gamble Sands or Sand Valley, the fescue there is doing amazingly well.
Right, Sand Valleys, sand Valley's playing might be the best playing surfaces in America.
They're unbelievable, truely unbelievable.
You know, Like just I do think like a course that goes way under the radar. And I was I had conversations this week about this like just how intertwined maintenance and golf architecture are. The Loop at Forest Students does not get nearly enough respect because it's got like incredible design, but the playing surfaces are as good as you're going to find. It is firm and fast rescue like it is.
Michigan and Kingsley's playing surfaces are well regarded as well, you know.
But like Forest Students, like the Loop, the ball just rockets and they have these awesome contours. It's relatively flat like that is to me, probably the closest to playing in Scotland that you can get in America on like really crispy, firm turf. Is is Force Students. I think like the Sand Valley's a little bit different golf because you get more elevation out there, you know, it's a little bit more dramatic golf than your Scotland Scotland golf.
But like to me, God, yeah, Sand Valley and Forced Students, the fescue is amazing.
Remarkable, And these courses are starting to age a little bit and we're seeing how they age, and I think it's probably going to start to inform some future decisions about where big developers build golf. Courses right, because do you really want to build a links like golf course in a setting where it's so difficult to have links like turf. I think that that's going to be a real question that the Kaisers and others have to answer in the coming years. How are you going to make
the turf great fifteen twenty years from now? And that's something that we've seen kind of proven out with Sand Valley. Well, at least so far. Sand Valley's not that old years old. Yeah, so they demand it's much older. We should keep that in mind, but it is. It is such a different experience and it gives that resort kind of a new status.
An interesting other turf course in Turfin and great architecture that I always think about is Gray Walls. Yeah, and they they.
Have an extreme setting right extreme.
North and in a ton of car traffic. It's like a you can walk the golf course. I walked the golf course. I was fine. I didn't I wasn't sore or anything. It's a big walk, but you can walk the golf course. But they have a ton of car traffic. But what they have they have a bluegrass fescue blend
and all their approaches. So the most important place to have fescue to me is in the approaches, because there's nothing worse than having like a green that's firm and then an approach that doesn't receive a running shot.
Well, it's like what they do at Rustic Canyon that's so smart, where they have a different grass in the approaches so that you can the shots. The architecture is making fun. Yeah, yeah, it's not Cocullar you it's what Riviera should do, but they're too worried about aesthetics there.
But anyways, so at at Gray Walls they have the fescue and like, this is something I'd wonder with Bandon, could you get fescue in the run up because Poe's causing problems in like you can't hit link shots because it's getting into the approaches.
Yeah, you know, it's an interesting idea.
Because could you get that. I just started Childress Hall, a new tom Doak course in Texas. They're doing fescue approaches and they have the I think they have Bermuda. I think they have bent greens. If I recall fescue approaches in Bermuda, fairways.
Interesting and that's in an odd setting for grasses too, right, they're pretty much in the transition zone there, right, the transition zone between warm season and cold season grasses. Yes, and so they can kind of have that combination.
But like thinking about like what grass is like, Okay, fescue is going to be hard to do to fight on the green. Maybe we give up the green as poa and everybody can, but let's keep our fescue approaches so people can hit the link shots into the green. Yeah, Because that's what you want to go to abandon and do is you want to hit the shots that land short and bounce up. You want to have the ability when you're off the green to hit that seemingly frictionless six iron, bump and run you know.
Yeah, Yeah, that's what you really want to do at Old McDonald. Right, that's the whole course there, and so if you lose that, it's it's sort of a bummer, all right. Can I ask you another question here? Yes, this is this question kind of made me laugh. Bricky Legumes, in your opinion, what is the worst golf hole on a superb slash top twenty US course.
Man, I'm going to make some enemies here.
Should we go nice on this? One.
No, no, I let me see, do you what do you want?
I think you want my immediate immediate idea that comes to mind. And I want to state for the record that that I lived in Pebble Beach for five years, New York, and I loved it, and I love that golf course, and I truly think that it is and can be. Not that it is, but it can be a top twenty golf course in America. And those holes
along the ocean are extraordinary. And you know, arguing that if the ocean weren't there, it wouldn't be as well regarded a golf courses pointless because the ocean is there, and there's so many wonderful things about that course, and it is truly near and dear to my heart. But the fifteenth hole at Pebble Beach.
I thought you were going to go with, what about five?
Well five is more like I'm disappointed in you. You know, you wasted an opportunity, You hired the wrong architect, you had the wrong idea, you ruined a great routing sequence on the course. There are all those reasons, but ultimately five, the hole along the cliffs that Jack Nicholas added a while back, you know, it used to play inland now plays along the cliffs. Is not really on its own a bad golf hole, and it's it's certainly right next
to the ocean and all that's kind of nice. But the fifteenth hole a Pebble Beach is just there's nothing going on there. Can you tell me something that that I should like about the fifteenth hole at Pebble Beach?
I got nothing.
It's just I mean, for a course of that stature, I think a whole like that is just it's just, you know, objectionable.
Yeah, I can't think of anything I like about it.
It's really just nothing going on. I'm not even sure what it was originally. I'm not sure that it was a great hole originally, but certainly none of the changes that they've made since then have have improved it any So that that holds a problem.
I'll just go I'll go differently. I've kind of like, I'm kind of just tired of her dance.
Are you tired of like pale imitations of the Dan or just do you think it's like an overused concept in general?
I think I'm just tired of them.
Don't even like the one at Chicago.
No, I like that one. That one's really good. It's fine, I play it well, everybody hates it. I also have like an epic chip in from right this year, so I think I like it.
You know, it's not a very good reason.
It isn't it's a terrible reason, but like I'll never forget the shot. It was like the best shot, maybe the best shot hit all year.
Well, you're tired of ra dance and where you go?
So I'm going to go with the second hole at Fisher's Island. I think it's the worst hole on the golf course.
Interesting choice.
I think it's just like not a good radan. Yeah, it's it's just like kind of there. I love Fisher's Island, all right. I love the golf course, and like here's the thing I'm I'm like okay with, of course having a hole that might sting now.
And I'm actually kind of okay with a whole like the fifteenth at Pebble if it if there weren't other problems with the course, if you're transitioning from one great hole to another and you kind of have a chill hole in between, okay, that's fine.
And the second spine it's I think like one of the things I think I'd like to see a golf course that was built with just eighteen par fours.
This is uh, you know, your your par five trutherism is a real twist in your golf philosophy. You said in the last podcast that you just you either don't think par fives exist or don't think they should exist. Now we're talking about all par fours. Are we applying the same thing to par three's? We should? I mean to take them out of the equation.
No, I like par three's. I do like like they're they're like, but they're just execution tests For the most part. I struggle with the idea of like is their strategy in Part threees.
Well, I think the strategy is different pin positions and how much you take on right. The design virtue of a good Part three is that it creates interesting pin positions where you can make risk reward decisions about what line you're taking at the green.
Yeah, there are execution tests, right, and.
I think so I think there's a choice in there. You're choosing the line that you're taking, right. If you take on too much then you might get punished.
Yeah, I think it's like I think you can. You can be a little bit more bold too, because it's like you're hitting from a flat lie off a T right. So some of the stuff you can do on a par three you can't do on a part four because you are you You're you're giving a player a flat lie off a T right, So that immediately allows you to have a little bit more going on in the
approach around the green with hazards everything. But I mean, like par four's I think like a part three would be fun if you could use the entire tea box, Like if I had the option to use the all
the way right or all the way left. I'd like to think that Like one of the things I think that I can gain an advantage of over a lot of players is just like the right place where I tea up on every hole I think, I think about where I'm going to put my tea in the ground to best get to a hole or best get to a spot in the fairway, best to you know, help shape the shape of shot that I'm hitting on a daily basis. But like with a par three, So anyways, what I like about part fours is like that nature
of it. There's like this and that like par three's are such a guided like you're here and you hit it there, and there's so little optionality in it. Right, So I guess like I think, like as I've started to think about it, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Is that like I think like par three's are the least dynamicals in golf but in general, but they're the hardest ones to build dynamic nature into because they're like you're hitting off a tee and you're hitting this spot.
Well, you know what what?
Part three are revered? People take pictures of them because they're.
Popular, right, they're well, it's it's the best opportunity for an architect to create prettiness on a golf course really is a par three because you're just creating one picture. You're creating one one painting there and and so you you can have some control over the composition in a way that you don't when players are just sort of going where they go on a hole. And so yeah, they're they're shallower maybe in that way and not as intricate.
But I think the main argument for them is just strategy, because I'm imagined I didn't mean to say strategy. The argument for them is variety. Yeah, because if you're hypothetical golf course with eighteen par fours, the danger of that course is that it that it feels repetitive.
Well we should try threes, break away, should try it?
Why not, you know, just for the sake of variety across golf courses as opposed to within the golf course.
Argue, my favorite golf course in the world has sixteen par fours.
What's that?
Oh?
Sure? Yeah, Well, you know, this is something funny that about like pre twentieth century architecture is that par three's weren't a thing really. I mean, I guess kind of a thing. Maybe they had really short holes. But you know, if you think about Saint Andrews, for instance, there are two par three's there and the rest of the holes are just long holes.
That's one of my favorite courses too.
Go maybe you just don't like threes.
One of the best part threes in the world, I think is the sixteenth at Cyprus. There's actually a real consideration. Yeah, right, Like I think if I like there's you get there and there's like the novelty of going for it. But I think if I played there a lot, I would just start laying up. Yeah, and unless it was like a calm day and I felt like I was swinging really good man, because it's just like such an insanely hard shot.
Yeah, but you can't convince yourself to lay up. Maybe maybe that is like a playing playing once in your life kind of thing where that's what I'm saying. I cannot lay up. But if you, yeah, if you played there regularly, I don't know if I would. Even even if I played there regularly, I wouldn't be able to restrain myself from going for it. It's so tempting.
I played at a club that had a crazy green. It's it's a public course now it's Calium at country club. It's on the south side of Chicago. I mean it had so many different iterations of routings and what number it was, but it was the fourteenth hole when I played there a lot, and it was like so severely sloped front to back that if you got anywhere pin high,
it was like a disaster. You were you were going to have to like hit in a miraculous putt to two putt because the green had so much pitch in it. And I would regularly lay up. I would lay up, I'd hit a club. I literally would hit a club that would get me, that would, by no means get me past the front edge of the green.
Right, didn't Billy Casper do something like this at wingfoot? Yeah?
Yeah, he did on the third hole, okay, right, yeah, And and so like to me, that's a par three that has some strategy in the sense of like, yeah, like it's funny. I played there like a million times. It was the only hole in my life I never burdied.
Yeah, I will say this, most of my favorite par threes are either really short or really long. Yeah, They're the ones that push at the edges of the category. Because just a one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy yard par three, it can be really cool. But if you're just hitting a mid iron, or if you're a stronger player a short iron, I'm not sure how much can really how much how much excitement there can be in that.
Short par threes I do have like a slight As I've thought about them more, I think they're I think a lot of them kind of stink in terms of playability, Like a low trajectory player has like no chance.
Yeah, because the way they're often defended is by having a small green surrounded by hazards.
Yeah, and like there's no way to stop land it on and stop it close.
M Yeah, I kind of agree with that. But I mean, if you look at the Sandbox for instance, to go back to sand Valley, those are basically all kind of shortish part threes. But there are so many different versions of the short par three that they found in that course, and maybe those can be kind of some more models for how you could make a short part three interesting.
So I guess I'm jokingly asking should par fives or par threes even exist? Should we just go to just a straight par four game.
Let's put that out there to the listeners. They can they can discuss. They can discuss it on Blue Sky.
Or I Take It or Instagram or anywhere.
You want the social media platform of your choice. You have. You have choices into society.
I don't. I can't do all of them. There's too many of them.
I know. It's way. It's it's you have to make a choice, you do. Yeah, what kind of person are you? Andy?
Oh, that's a terrible person.
It's a yeah, how about just withdraw YouTube.
Comments PJ in his in our comments, YouTube comments.
PJ loves the YouTube comments. That's that's his that's his natural environment. In this discussion of the worst holes on the best courses, By the way, I think Riviera got off easy. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I think there's some candidates at Riviera truly a top twenty golf course. But oh boy, with oh god, I don't even know. Maybe maybe maybe the current state of eleven. I mean, come on, that's a great golf hole. But my goodness, they have they have abused that poor thing.
What about if you combined one fair away with four green surrounds green in the surrounds.
Okay, let me think about this.
If you took one fair away, you hit a t shot on one, and then the pro shot was the approach into four?
Okay, yeah, four being the ridan actually another another another, and that with the sticky cocillo approach that nobody can get through in the overly fast screen that nobody can hold. That would defend it.
To be fair. I didn't say I disliked for Dance. I'm just tired of them. I've reached I've reached a tired point.
Andy Johnson, Dan hater. Are we going to wrap up with that?
I think that's it. I think this is this has reached its conclusion. Mark. Thank you to everybody for the questions. Garrett, thanks for jumping on, of course and doing this. This is a fun week of pods. It as always PJ Big thanks to PJ Clark editing producing this podcast. He's a he's a rock star.
Listen, we're recording this kind of late right now, so honestly, send PJ a nice note, like we love you, PJ.
If you haven't yet, check out Club TFE. It's our membership. We uh put a lot golf course architecture stuff up there. Garrett's Garrett's a maniac there. He's writing like sometimes like three thousand words a week and there regularly regularly above a thousand about golf architecture. And then we have, you know, we just released our events slate, as we talked about in part one of this podcast. If you're a clip
TFE member, you get early access. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year, and it really helps us continue to grow and continue to do more architecture coverage, which I think I think everybody wants more of so thank you guys, and thanks for listening to another episode of the Friday Golf Podcast.