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 fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida Egg, fridagg Bride egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run.
Off of the hump. Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host and Andy Johnson.
Uh.
This week, I'm excited to be joined by one of golf's young, bright, up and coming golf architects, Blake Cone. Blake has been on this podcast a few times, but with me a long time ago, and since his career has really progressed. UH, He's done some solo work on his own. He's continued to work a lot with Tom Doak, and he was a co designer of Old Barnwell, kind of one of the big courses in the last five years that opened. So I was really excited to chat with Blake and kind of just chop it up about
golf architecture. We discussed a ton of stuff, some on topic, some off topic, but it was a really fun conversation. Our flew by. We'll have to have him back on another time, but before we get to the Blake interview, we are also going to add I think most episodes will do this. We're going to add a Q and a segment at the back. We're fielding questions for this through fridagg Golf Club, who is also, you know, the sponsor of this episode. Friday Golf Club our community, our membership.
We have a forum there where we have a kind of a standing post asking for questions, so we'll get it through there. Friday Golf Club's a awesome, you know, community for people that want more from us. We obviously you get early access to our events, but we do heaps of content, mainly golf course architecture content in there as well. There are weekly course profile write ups and then we have a pretty vibrant community in the forums
that discuss all things golf. So if you're interested in getting a little bit more from us, supporting us, it's one hundred and twenty dollars a year and you can join at the Frida egg dot com. All right, let's get to Blake Conant. All right, welcoming on for the first time in a really long time with me. At least you talked with Garrett, I think before more recently
than me on this feed. Blake Conant one of my favorite people in the golf architecture community, and I'm just happy that you could carve out time around, you know, appointment viewing for you now in January, which you know, I didn't expect to utter these words appointment corn Husker Nebraska Cornhusker basketball.
Top five matchup. No, I I appreciate your flexibility. You know, the bandwagon was nearly full when I jumped on, but there was still just a little bit of room left. So so yeah, I'm able to I'm able to follow along here.
I mean, you got Hoiberg. It's that's fun. I mean, he was so he was so good when he was at Iowa State. You know, he figured it might have translate to success in Nebraska. But I find it humorous that now Indiana's a football school and now Nebraska's at basketball school in the Towy Twys.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's uh, the parallels are almost a little scary, and it's it's particularly demoralizing knowing that for basketball to be good, the universe says that football must be bad. So so here we are, you know, thirty years since the national championship. Still still plugging away. I'm sure Kai Golbi will appreciate starting starting this chat with a Husker football and Husker basketball mentioned.
Well, yeah, it's always nice to warm up on something. Some people get frustrated with that, but it's like, you know what, if you go for a run, you warm up before you go for a run. We're warming up before we get into get into the meat and bones of meat and potatoes of this chat.
Ied the podcast warm up for for for for the record.
Really, yep, why I want?
I want to just dive right in or whoever I'm listening to, I want them to dive in. I don't I don't want. I don't need to hear what you had for breakfast. I don't need to hear like how much butter you use? Like no, I'm listening to this podcast to find out about politics or tech or Husker football or whatever.
I'm listening to. Like, just just jump right into that.
All right. Well, you know I'm gonna start seeking your your golf courses. If you ever have a hole that that starts, that's a gentle handshake. I'm gonna say, Hey, wtf uh? I wanted to dive into the craziest stuff your your first hole better be the craziest stuff every time.
Oh that's a good Uh yeah, all right, I'll put my money where my mouth is. See who what was the was it Walt Whitman? It said, you know, do I contradict myself?
Yes?
Uh something? What's the quote? Something like that? But yes, it's like, yeah, no, I contradict me. I contradict myself a ton, So so I'm sure I'll start every first hole with a gentle handshake.
Well, you know, old bar Well one of one of the courses in your design profile. Uh, you know you and and Bridesteiner Co. Designed it. The first hole is relatively gentle. I would say it's a short Part five. One of the things I'm curious about with it is
the mounding, the fronting mound. So for those that haven't been there, which is probably the vast majority of this podcast, there are like these mounds I've never I've never really seen it on an American golf course before, where you have these two mounds that cut in front and it kind of obscures your view off the first tee. But then there's a little hole, a little like slot in them that you walk through. What was the idea of
those mounts? It just curious off the top question since we're talking about first holes.
Yeah, they were, you know, they were a product of like the the scale being so big, of like where do you start? Fair ways? Where do you where do you end? And stop grassing lines sometimes and when it's so wide open sometimes that's hard to do gracefully. And I don't know, we were sort of okay with not being graceful. I think it was it was it was an honest thing to be intentional about what we were doing out there. So part of it was just like, yeah, we want burms to be a bit of a theme.
Why not do that right on the first t Let this burm be the start of the fairway in a way to start the fairway and then also you know hard, you know, initiate sort of a theme that we're going to have throughout the golf course. And that one's more like aesthetic and provides a glimpse into what you're going to see later on. But a lot of the berms out there are functional as far as like steering storm water.
So I'd say fifty percent of them serve a purpose for you know, functionality of storm water or for strategy of golf.
Yeah, I I kind of liked it. It felt like I was like entering the gates of the golf course in a way symbolically, like you walk through and you're walking through this little hole in the you know, the berm is about as tall as you know, a human being, maybe a little shorter than human.
Shorter waist high, yeah, waster belly button.
Hi.
Maybe I think it's a little taller that it could be my it could be my memory. The but you know what about you know, I guess like one of the things that stands out about you got your guys' work there is that we've been in this era of of like naturalism, the idea of making everything kind of
blend in. What was the thinking, uh, you know, obviously you just alluded to the the function of the burms with moving storm water, but the use of these berms and the you know, they they look, they appear and are band made and they kind of cut against that. Was that an intentional decision?
Yeah?
Just stylistically, like the variety of styles of stuff we have out there and sort of the not trying to hide what you're doing type of thing that was certainly intentional. You know, it's like we had a good site, we didn't have a great site. I think if you were you know, if our site was through sand dunes or something like you know, Childer's Hall or Sandhills or wherever, you might not have made as many of those choices.
But for us, you know, that was something where we were like, it was a way to be honest of hey, we're.
Going to.
We need to make the golf work. We want to try to make the golf strategy cool. There's no excuse not to have a great hole if you've got a blank canvas. So oftentimes we're you know, we're doing a lot of heavy shaping. I wouldn't call it earthwork, and you're and you're moving dirt around you. You're you're cutting two feet here, you're plopping it over there, and a lot of times the goal is to like blend that in and make it look natural. For us, it was, well,
let's PLoP it here. It's going to serve a purpose for the golf strategy, but we don't necessarily need to like blend it into nature. So that that was something that we're you know, it was just like we've seen that tons of great golf courses we've been to of you know, the theme is there is no theme, there's
no bunker style. And a lot of these great golf courses like places Brian and I love so much, like National Golf Links or Garden City or you know, even old photos of pine valleys, so that kind of gives you permission to It's like, well, if they can do it, why can't we do it?
You know. Yeah, Somewhere somewhere it got lost that like bunkers are are hazards, and you know, I think it probably came with the you know, technical precision that that modern machinery gave people that you could have that like that succinct style of bunker throughout a golf course, or you know, sometimes what the sites gave them.
Yeah, and that's you know, That's what's kind of interesting, is like there's this intention to have like a sight wide prescription of we want all flash bunkers or grass face bunkers, and what you find out is like within each site there's little micro sites where hey, a flashbunker doesn't work here, Like this is way better off being something that's grass spaced, because we're really fighting surface drainage, and we'd have to do a ton of work to steer the water away from it for it to be
flash faced, or hey, a bunker doesn't even belong here. We can achieve the same thing with mounds. It's way less expensive. It actually tends to challenge the better player more if you've got something in place of sand. You know, it's like you guys who are really good, don't like hitting out of awkward stances, out of rough You want to be able to control your ball, control the flight
of it. And that's the thing where it's like hitting a shot out of off for a fifteen handicap sometimes is welcome, you.
Know, yeah, absolutely, I you know, it's like one of the things you grow up. When you grow up caddying, you realize is like sometimes having like a little bit of grass in the ball sitting up is a good thing for a lot of golfers. And the since we talked, you know, it's a number of years have passed, but you've gone from where I think you're you know, you're still in this process of becoming like a full blown solo architect, but you've gone from a shaper to where
you have a substantial amount of your own work. What's what's the transition been?
Like pretty easy because it's just.
You know, there isn't a lot of like cold calling or me like trying to level jump. A lot of a lot of stuff that's come my way is just come my way organically, and it's not forced, you know. And I think that's a product of just like finding, you know, finding the part of this profession that makes you happy and wanting to do that and like steering yourself towards that a little bit. So for me, that's
that's the creative side of it. It's like it's the planning of a golf course, of a new golf course, or master planning for what you're going to do for renovation or restoration, and then like executing the work, like
getting in the dirt and building the features. So for me, it's in an industry that is very dependent on what, like the economy is doing, it's good to kind of have that that that baseline of like Okay, no matter if the economy is you know, up here or down here, if I enjoy doing these things, I should always be able to find a way to do them when the
economy is going goods. Maybe that means I'm like getting solo design work on my own, and if things are slow, maybe that means renovation work or I'm helping Tom with something, you know, dope with something either shaping for him or running a job. And so that's sort of like I'm in that transition now of I'd be happy to live in that you know, quote unquote purgatory forever because I'm just I'm happy doing what I'm doing because I have the opportunity to build cool golf and the credit is
like a secondary thing. But you know, I've always said like, as long as Tom keeps working and keeps wanting to have me around, like I'm willing to keep learning from him and keep working with him. It's a the people he surrounds himself with are really cool and he's, you know, one of two guys getting the best projects the world. So it's just an opportunity to to build golf and
learn from him at a really high level. So right now, it's just like purgatory is a very negative way to put it, but yeah, it's this like transitional phase where I'm getting to do stuff with Brian, I'm getting to do stuff on my own, I'm getting to do stuff with Tom, and it's all really fun because I'm just working with cool people.
Uh. PJ would say that, you know, you know Ball, knowing Ball and working closely with Tom. What what's something about him and his work that kind of blows you away that maybe isn't recognizable to the regular golfer.
It's you know, I think one of the cool things about uh, you know, Tom's known for his routings and his greens, and I don't think a lot of people can comprehend like how those come together, you know, but he's he's given glimpses through his books or through some of the podcasts that you guys do about his process for both.
One of the cool things of like.
Building a green with Tom is is the way he views it and edits it, which he'll go, you know a lot of us when we get on a green, we're looking at like the internal contours and what the green is doing. Tom will walk the perimeter and like look at all the recovery shots and he's trying to diagnose like is it impossible from over here? Am I okay with that? Like if I miss here, what shots do I have to these pins? And so so his editing sort of like takes place through through that process,
especially when building greens. And you know, the first time I saw it, saw him do it, and then working with him and doing it, it was just like, you know, it's a really eye opening way to build because then you you just sort of like you broaden the scope of what you're looking at and you start to you know, Clyde Johnson, my good friend who's over in the UK, talks a lot about like the thirty yards in front of the green, like that should be the most captivating
part of the golf course or as captivating as the green, And when you're building, agree with Tom, you start to realize, like the surrounds and the recovery shots are what makes it so interesting.
Yeah, it's kind of like I think a term in golf architecture that people, you know, maybe a novice wouldn't really understand is like when you talk about the green complex, it should extend probably twenty yards around it, right, would you agree with that, Like would you consider things that you're building in front of the green as part of the overarching green complex?
Yeah? Totally.
I mean we're thinking about when we say we're shaping a green, like you're you're doing all of that and typically you're you're shaping the tie ins to the next tee or you're even shaping the next tee too, because all that sort of blends together is one green complex.
And yeah, whether.
It's twenty yards out or you know, I typically think of like wherever your grassing line is going to be. Sometimes that's nine paces out, or you know, a head that's on the green that throws out can throw seventy five feet, so that'd be twenty five yards out from the green sometimes that you've got to shape. So yeah, all that, all that goes into it. It's a it's a big job to build to you know, to have a completed green complex.
When you're when you're working on these projects and you know to this, you you just completed a renovation project on your own, so you can you can speak to this now sure Haven versus you know, working with Tom uh You know, when you're working with Tom, you are are together with a number of associates that are building greens. Or at Old Barnwell you and Brian Schneider are both
building greens. What's the different dynamic when you're working by yourself versus when you're working collectively with a group, and what you know are the things that you like or maybe don't like about either.
Yeah, you know, working with Tom, one of the things that I picked on picked up on quickly is he's willing to hear ideas from everybody and filter them accordingly. So when I was an intern at Dismal River, we you know, one of his something he wanted to do is drive around with every intern and spend a day with them, and so he was constantly he was like picking my brain for things that I would do, and
most of them were flushed down the toilet. But that was always that was a good reminder of like, yeah, man, like a good idea can come from anywhere, So the process of building a green or the process of doing the work doesn't really change. And then that's something that like, Okay,
the roles are reversed. But I had shaping help up there from two younger guys who have worked with Doglott and Brian Scheider, Andre Buchco and Great Carlton, and you know, asking what they would do, or you know, trying to get input from them of what we should do, or you know, a lot of it's me saying like, Hey, I'm trying to do this over here, and sometimes I have a really clear picture in my head and sometimes
I don't. And you know, that's that's the fun of building golf, whether you're the one whose stuff is being edited or you're the editor. You know, having that process in place of like a good idea can come from anywhere is important. So as far as me building greens, it's like sometimes when you're a Tom, you're willing to like take a chance. It's because he's a safety net, so you can build something wacky and he can come
around and just be like, yeah, that's stupid. You know, when you're doing yourself, you kind of got to be your own safety net, or you've got to like you've got to be editing in the back of your head too, or just realizing like yeah, you know, sometimes it's like what would Tom say about this, Well, I'd probably say lower at six inches, and it's you know, the golf's going to be the same, it's just going to be
that much more accommodating for the higher handicapper. So yeah, sometimes his voice is in the back of my head, or Schneider's voice in the back of my head, or Iverson, But yeah, it's nice. You know, it's nice being able to like, yeah, be the person. Then who's you know, providing mentorship or tutelage to other young guys.
In your career? You know, you you're still young by you know, golf architecture standards. You're you're very young. You know, are there architectural ideas that you've grown less interested in as you've gained experience, like you know, kind of take us on your journey as as an architect who thinks about this all the time. Are there things that you've drawn less interested in and likewise more interested in?
Yeah, so this will probably ruffle your feathers. But I I used to love Langford and think he was like the best architect in the world, and I he's the more Langford stuff I see in the older I get, it's like the less I appreciate it. I shouldn't say less I appreciate it, but more I'm like coming back down to earth, you know, like that Sonya is not a nine, you know what I mean? Where I originally thought it was.
So that and I think what about it has you know, kind of like as you've seen more what about the Langford work? In particular, you have have you just cooled on Not that I don't. It's not that you hate Langford, you just aren't as high on him.
No, And a lot of it is just the raised green pads. I think the shapes are really cool. I think some of the strategy that he was evoking was really it was like really provocative, and it was harkening back to some of the stuff that see bing McDonald was doing, but he was doing it with his own little flavor, and so I think like the bunker strategy and the style that he did it was really cool.
But but a product of how he of his process and of his technique is just like a ton of raised greens that are only received through an aerial shot swich is kind of cool because in a way I can like I can put that into my brain and say, Okay, what like what if Langford built a punch bowl or if length you know, it's like, how would Langford have built a punch bowl? And then you could just like I'm going to try to build a Langford punch bowl, you know, where I'm gonna try.
To raise up frau that a big ball.
Yeah yeah, or just yeah, So there's there's things like that that you you know, as you refine your taste and see more golf, you just start to it's you know, it's like it's like placing stuff in order.
You know.
It's like, if what I had seen twenty golf courses, Lasonia might have been number two, But now that I've seen you know, four or five hundred golf courses like Lasonium, it's not number two anymore. So though, you know, it's that kind of stuff that's like it's, uh, it's it's fun to pick on him a little bit because I know you guys are such Langford lovers, but I mean.
As similar a boat as you.
Like.
You know, law Sonia was a course I played as a kid, and I was like, this is the most one of the most amazing courses I've ever played in my life. And you know, I think for given public golf in America like los Sonia, for the price they charge and the quality of product, has got to be a top ten facility if you combine price and product. Yeah, it just you know, part of golf is you know, it just you know, there's a lot of other places that are really cool. What I find fascinating about it
is like, you know, there was the Perry Maxwell. I think there was a Perry Maxwell Langford beef. You know Maxwell who you know he had basically the complete polar
opposite style of Langford. For those that don't know who we're talking about, is like, you know, William Blankford and Theodore Moreau built really like manufactured, big feature stuff, as Blake hinted at, like everything kind of goes up versus Perry Maxwell was like extremely economical and I would say pretty pretty naturalist type of off architecture where you know, he's he's trying to move as little earth as he can and if he's doing that, he's trying to blend
it into nature. But they you know, there was a lot of There was some Perry Maxwell writing about like how you know those that use steam shovels are just you know, don't don't have skill effectively, is what he was saying. And if you think about it, they were working in the same area at the same time and oftentimes renovating each other's courses.
Yeah, yep, I will a hot take on Perry Maxwell is I don't I can't think of a course he worked on that he's well known for where Dean Woods was not his shaper. Dean Woods helped build Dornic Hills and he was the point man at Crystal Downs. And yeah, if you start to like pull that thread a little bit, you'll realize, like Dean Woods was everywhere that Perry Maxwell is most well known for. So it's one of those
things to lining. It's like, you know, everybody wants to like glorify the shaper and you know, make a big name out of that person who's like, oh, it's like, well who Tom who shape your greens? You know, it's like but you start to, yeah, you start to look into Perry Maxwell a little bit, and it's like, yeah, maybe Dean Woods deserves a little bit of credit. You know, maybe he's like seems like he was like the Eric iverson to Perry Maxwell.
You know.
I think that's an interesting part with like Langford and Moreau, Like if you go play William Blakeford course that Moreau wasn't involved with, you're kind of like, uh whatever, And and I think it probably is underrepresented. And I mean I know that there's a lot of that with with Donald Ross too. It was depending on the shaper, you know,
the or the construction Foreman effectively. I think a lot of times it was referred to, you know, the golf courses like you know greatly, you know, even stylistically can change from from course of course.
Yeah, I mean, I mean we could. We could go down a rabbit hole too. Of Like you know, Mackenzie's six weeks in Australia, it's like, god, he just like you walk into Markham right, like if he if he's a dud, then what what becomes of all this stuff?
You know?
That's I mean, same thing with Hunter and Maxwell to a certain extent. I was just reading a thing that Josh Pennitt posted this week about like how Mackenzie came back to look at the Metal Club and he was really thrilled with Hunter's work. And it's like he left and he would just he would just come back and the course would be done and he would like you know, you think about like that's the way certain sub architects
work today. You know, there's an infamous story of Nick Faldo gant gloss on opening day at one of his golf courses, driving to the golf course because you know he had been there. But that is the way some people people still work where it's like, hey, here are
your plans, go build it. But the era we've gotten in, you know, is much more of a craftsmanship, you know, era of golf design, where you know, the the InVogue popular golf architects are the ones that are either doing the work or or pretty attuned to the work and the people that are doing the work.
Yeah, I think so. And it's something that's like it's been said for well before this era, but it's it's just really hard to draw plans for every golfer and every detail of every golful and just like nail it on the first try, you know. And and the guys who are design bid you know, just they draw plans. They know that they spend a lot of time like visiting site and editing stuff. But you know a lot of times when that's the process, it's like, oh, make
these edits and I'll be back in five days. And then it's like you're either there's either like a latency with that or you're kind of twiddling your thumbs just like waiting around, or you're you're going and working on other stuff. And so it's like it's nice to be able to a like be building the stuff, be there every day, but also like not have that lost in translation moment or the like playing the telephone game trying
to relay an idea through four different people. So it's I think there's there's an efficiency that you see when it's like a design build product project that the clients maybe really like if they're just like if they're touring through and you know, Gil hands on a dozer building a green and there's like three excavators around him, It's like, man, it's fuck, Like work's happening, Like this is awesome, Like
I'm getting my money's worth here, you know. So I think it's got that appeal more than anything I've.
I think that there's just a power of interests aligning as well in the design build, where like you're you're more I think you can run into issues, and I think there are like great contractors and they're mediocre contractors
and bad contractors, like any any industry. But one of the things that you know, architects and that you know you've obviously worked mostly in the design build, you know, set up, but one of the things is like the architects if they're contracting the shapers, you know, and working with the shapers regularly they are going to be aligned on the product, and the architect aligns with the club
or course that they're building. Where it gets tricky is like, you know, and this is just you have to use contractors for stuff, regardless of you know, like you're building golf course, you're going to use some contractors. But the contractors are just trying to get the thing done for the most part, and they aren't as invested in the architecture or the finished product as they are their budget timeline. And I know I'm generalizing. I don't want any contractors
to get after me. I'm like I said, there are good ones, at bad ones and mediocre ones, but like, just in general, inherently a contractor enters a different set of kind of goals and variables to a project.
Yeah, yes, and no, I generally agree with you. So I'm not going to you know, I'm not going to like rebut what you're saying. But also I do think there's this bottom line of like everybody answers to the client, and then whoever is representing the client on site every day kind of like has the final say. So a lot of it, a lot of the decision making is
driven from the top down. Like if the client has you know, empowered Brian and me with agency and autonomy to do what we please and just make the best golf course we can, then whether the contractor is good, bad, or indifferent, it's they're they're going to fall online because it's like, well, either like that that's the mandate coming from the top and if I charge more like the client is okay with that because it's all on an
effort to make the golf course good. So I think they're you know, I've been lucky to to not be on a lot of like horrible projects where it's just gone haywire. So maybe my perspective is like a little bit of rainbows at sunshine and I need to Yeah, I need to get in the real world a little.
Bit, or you you guys, get outside your bubble.
You should have been.
Able to back in ninety six when there, you know, it's like, yeah, I didn't. I don't have that perspective. But you know, for the most part, it's like even going back to like twenty thirteen when I that was like the first renovation restoration Jabozon with Brian at Medina and just you know, contractors of that era and then even like ten years later, like they've gotten a lot better.
And I think there was some pushback because back then it was still like shaping was still a thing that they did and budgeted for, and so when you took that out of their nut, that was like that was maybe that's where a lot of their margins were coming from, and they didn't know what It's like, well, shit, now we have to build our margins in you know, drain pipeer, gravel, you know, whatever it is. And it's like so I think there was always some animosity and friction when when
that was the case. And I think contractors are just like a lot of them now like working in the design build way because you know, they're it's not a hobby. They still need to make money, right, It's like they're not they're not doing it for the love of putting in drain pipes. So everybody understands it, like they need to make money. But they've figured out their business model just just through time and through trial and error, Like, Okay, what's the best way to work with design build guys.
It's like, well, a lot of us are just prima donnas who want what we want and like we don't want to grease the machine or fuel it up. And it's like they're just cool doing that because it's a little line item that they can build for and like everything's great and copesthetic on site and it's like, yeah, whatever you need. So so I think a lot of them have gotten like there's a ton of really good
contractors out there. And I will say just to you know, like I know Trip Davis has He's got his own shaper who travels around with him and builds all this stuff. I think Andy Stables had uses his own shapers.
So even like like er Green and works with McDonald's sons everywhere.
Yeah, so I think even these guys who maybe work a little bit different than Doak or the way we work where we want to shape everything, it's like they still exercise their control over like, hey that I want my guy building the greens because we have a language that we speak that makes communication easier. May you know, it's going to be more efficient. He knows what I like. So I think I think a lot of those guys do have people like that they travel around with and they work with.
Uh. In that answer, you know, you hit on a subject I wasn't planning to get to I didn't realize that you were a part of the Madida one project. That that is. I think it's the most underrated course in Chicago.
It's the most underrated factory and camel in Chicago. And yours truly built the bunker.
So yeah, you build the camel bunker.
Yeah, I rough shaped it in and my man Raffulio finished up Brian. Brian might give her a Fulio a little more credit than than than me, but yeah, and then.
Uh, we had a dinner.
They put on a dinner when Tom was in town, and they you know, I was lucky enough to get an invite. It was like it must have been like the Greens Committee or something. But I sat next to a gentleman who explained to me the difference between a Dromedary and a Bactrian camel and why they chose to have a bactory and camel for uh, for the for the camel at Madonna number one and Dramedary is one hump bactory and is two hump. You can remember that because Bactriyan is a sideways b Laying down.
This sounds like information that's gonna be really valuable when your kid asked you about camels. Yeah, and maybe not this podcast.
Oh yeah, no, no, this is very useful information anyway.
I will say obligatory take a picture of the camel bucker every time up there.
Yes, no, so that that project. I finished grad school. I had jury the after graduating, and then so my last thing I did in Athens, Georgia was jury duty, and then I drove up to Medina and helped finish up there. Mike mccarton had done a lot of like the work under Brian who was running the job, so there were only a few bunkers left to build, and then it was just like finishing greens and doing finished work and stuff.
All right, I've got a couple, you know, just kind of general golf golf architecture questions for you. What's the golf locale that you think in all of your travels you alluded to seeing four or five hundred courses. What's the golf locale that every golfer should go to in their lives if you had to pick one, I.
Had to pick one. I mean, I guess it goes without saying like the UK, like you just go to see St.
Andrews. It's like everybody should go do that.
So maybe take that off the board because that's kind of like that's that's sort of like everybody's pick.
I feel like that is the answer. And what people need to realize is you can just go and you could go and sit there, enter the ballot every day and if you don't win, you play on an old Tom course, the new course or the course, the Harry Colt course, Like just do that.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know if there's like this hesitancy to like to rent a car or to just be just be free over there. But it's like you can got like you just go rent a car and you could like you can just have your own wheels and drive around. And we're so used to driving far in the United States, like you're like the road warrior when
you drive your own car over in the UK. Like I remember, I played Press in the morning and then I drove to cruden Bay and I played cruden Bay in the afternoon, and then I drove back down to Saint Andrews and I was I was talking to somebody at the pub and they were like what the like, are you fucking kidding me? Like you did all that? And I was like it's like four hours in the car, Like this is nothing, so you can you can get to a ton of places when you're over there, you know.
The the other I haven't.
I haven't had a chance to like see golf around Paris, but I really want to. The trip around London or the Australian sand Belt would be my other two. Like there's just so much golf in a dense area that it's worth seeing.
Yeah, Melbourne's like and it's gonna you know, so many people have invited me down for various things and it's not it's not the invite that's it's just me getting and leaving for you know, ten days is kind of holding me back. But like, to me, the Melbourne one sticks out as probably the one that I most want to do along with like New Zealand's the other one.
For me. Melbourne there's something about like being in a world renowned city and it being so close to all this world class golf, Like the combination of like, yeah, and you can go do nice stuff at night. You know, you're not just that that's something that you know, on its face appeals to me.
Yeah, I'm I am out of I am not doing like ten day golf trips where you're fitting in thirty six holes a day, Like I'm I'm over it, I'm done with it. It's it's done. I would be much happier doing a ten day trip where I see seven golf courses that are great and then have some time to like, yeah, go experience the culture.
You know.
It's like take takes some time to just have a really nice, drawn out dinner, just like walk around the city a little bit, like yeah, I don't need to.
I don't need to bust.
My hump for you know, a week straight and then just like be sore for two weeks afterwards.
This is You've just explained why I keep balking on Australia or New Zealand. As I continued, like every time I think about it, I add another week to the trip because it's mostly non golf stuff that I want to do in the area. But yeah, I think those are great answers, and it's I'm kind of with you with the packing the golf in I did a trip to Saint Andrews last year and we just had one round of golf every day, but I had the mornings free because we did it so people could win the
ballot and play the old course. But like having my boardings free, it was like a delight. It was like, oh, I went out and played golf in the afternoon, came back for dinner, and my boarding was wide open. And it allowed me so much optionality into terms of what I wanted to do. I could go play golf if I wanted to. All right, we're gonna try this, uh, this rapid fire segment. This is a new thing that
we're gonna try on architecture pods. Here. I got to give you a place or a person or a you know, and you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when I say this, let's start with Riviera.
Oh that's it. That's the that's the way you're doing this. Yeah, let's start with Riviera. It makes me think of KURBYR. Enthusiasm.
Yeah, the Black Swan episode, Yes.
Yes, Disgruntled, Yeah, all all the times that Riviera. You know, it's like, well, it's not Riviera, but it's Riviera. People who know know that it's Riviera's Larry David's club. It's like, so every time golf is introduced in KIRBYR. Enthusiasm, and I think of Riviera, And then I think of Michael Yamachi,
who that character is based on. And I played golf with Michael Yamachi at Dos Renaissance Cups, and he's like the nicest guy in the world, and he loves talking golf architecture, and so it's just this funny little like yeah, six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Yeah, all right, let's go Alistair Mackenzie.
Oh yeah, probably somehow underrated. Yeah go on, yeah, I just yeah, I I you start to like look at the list of stuff that he's done and then he's worked on, and you're just like, man, that's that guy had a good run there in like a short period of time, Like you think of you think of these like these great runs throughout history that people have been on, you know what it crosses, you know, sports or architecture or any field whatsoever. It's just like that's pretty good.
I you know, it's I don't think like, I don't think most people would say like La Hinch is the best course in the UK or the UK or in Ireland, you know, but it's like definitely of like a top tier, you know, it's it's very high on people's bucket. Lists, and I'm not saying it's the best, but like you know, if somebody told you in all of Ireland in the UK, La Hinch is my favorite place, you wouldn't be like
that's crazy, get out of here, you know. And you to think like he conceivably did that over four continent with you could make a case for a couple of courses in America, South America and then Australia. It's mind blowing.
Yeah.
It's like when you talk about Tiger Woods, you know, and people are like, okay, if you only take what he did at the US Open, like that's the eighth best career of anybody, you know, whatever it is. It's like, oh yeah, he had all that work in the UK in Australia. You know. It's like mackenzie's work in the
US is like unbelievable in itself. It's you know, I've seen hardly anything of his in the UK, and I'm so eager to because you know, my friend Clyde who consulted a lot of these clubs in the UK that are McKenzie courses and consults a Titterangi down in New Zealand.
It's like all these places look incredible, and it's just it's like, man, it's just like banger after Bank, you know, like they're they're U. Yeah, there's so much great stuff that he did, but even the stuff that he isn't well known for should be better known.
So I should put published at some point my list of like the places that I haven't gotten to that are like kind of obscure that I really want to get to. Near the top of it is that Cavendish place. I think I pronounced it correct. It's like the fifty four hundred yard Alisair McKenzie course in England, and it looks delightful, like I dream about playing there. I don't know what I'm ever going to get there.
But right, you know, yeah, I mean that would be a fun trip to do, just like all right, I want to see the mackenzie UK stuff and I'm sure it would blow me away.
I wanted to do that. I talked to a friend of mine, you know, kind of runs our concierge. I was like, hey, can we do like an Alistair McKenzie UK trip? And he's like, Andy, that is so illogical and you end up driving by so many great courses to do this that it's a terrible idea, and I'm like, no, but I think it would be cool, right, Like, oh, I just I went I'd only played Alistair McKenzie courses for a week.
There. Certainly there's enough sickos in your community that you could get like eight people or twelve people, you know, whatever you need to make it work. Like they'd be willing to pass by all these great places in an effort to do this thing.
Right, I think like I kind of side with of those like if you're there, I always like because it's like the idea of like, you know, how many people went to NCR in the seventies and eighties when it was ranked as like one of the greatest courses in you know, in the country, and right next door was Moraine and nobody went to Moraine, you know.
Yep.
Yeah, And that was kind of flipped, which is which is fascinating, all right. Next up Pine Hills.
Pine Hills loved it. Second best golf course in Wisconsin.
What's the best course in Wisconsin? Yeah, yeah, I think that's.
It's really good. I know people hate on it. No, it's the Pine Hills question. Yeah, Harry Smead, I was really impressed and a lot of the work that they've undertaken, especially like you can tell that the tree work is really good and there's still more to do, but it's like, you know, you have to chip away at trees. Trees
aren't a thing that just like happen overnight. But you know, for any golf course, if you get the trees in the grassing lines right, like you're eighty percent of the way there, you know, it's it's it's the detailed stuff that everybody wants to spend a ton of money on. That's the last like fifteen to twenty percent. It's like, no, it's spend a little bit of money and get the eighty percent right. I think Pine Hill has done a really good job of that.
I I think that's like one of the worst things going on in the industry right now is like two may places aren't content enough with being eighty percent, which like the amount of money you have to spend to get to ninety five is insane, and the vast majority of golfers don't even know. And the cost, the cost gets passed on to everybody.
You know, yeah, how and how you know? Have you seen that there's a video of the professor who's filling up the big jug. And he starts with the biggest thing first, you know, it starts with like pingpong balls, and it's like is the jug full? In the classroom says yes, and then he puts in like marbles, you know, and they fill up the void between the ping pong balls.
It's like, well, is it full now? And everybody says yes, and he keeps feeling it with smaller and smaller things, and it's like, you know, it's like the point is start with the base of the most important things, and then as you solidify that, work on the stuff that is more and more detail or less important. And so often it's like people have the they've got the pyramid turned upside down.
You know.
It's like, oh, we need we need new bunkers, the new bunkers sand and you know, we need new grass here. And it's like you need new grass because you've got like ten trees over there that are casting shade on the green. It's like, so you're just gonna regrass it every year until you cut those trees down. It's like, just cut the fucking trees down, and you could spend a tenth of what you know, you could spend ten cents on the dollar to what you're spending. But you know,
the average club member doesn't want that. They want like flat tea boxes, and they want fresh sand and good sand, and they want fast greens. And so that's where a club is going to spend their money.
Consistent bunkers, consistent bunkers, consistent Yeah, fast greens, and yeah, god forbid, a tea box is like a two percent, you know, instead of like the point seventy five percent the laser level.
You know, it's you know, I think about it as a kid, like I grew up like like such slanted tea boxes, you know, because it's actually like that era design. They get built up and then the drought kind of settles and they settle like this, and you know that was a great, you know, skill development moment for you.
It's like, you know, you're on the fifteen. It's like, well, this is a hook, lie, so I got to choke up on the club and aim a little right to hit the fairway here all right, next to the rapid fire. Charles alson boring.
No, he's you know, he's just like, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that there's a lot of stuff of his. It's like it's well routed, it's really good work, but it's just like, oh, it's a lot of it's the same, and a lot of it's just big broad slopes. You know, we're uh, yeah, yeah, it's uh. I think he's I think he is a good golf architect, was a good golf architect. He knew what he was doing. This is me like backtracking now, and like I'm going to backslide
on my comment. I just don't think he was great at building greens there. I think that's where I want to land the plane. Not a great greens builder.
I think that almost every Alison course in America should just do a greens renovation.
I don't know, you're gonna screw more stuff up if you do that than just like accept the fact, like like you're saying, why aren't people good enough with eighty percent, it's like accept the fact that you're just like a six or seven, and you're a really solid six or seven like they're so you know, it's really hard to go from a seven to an eight, and or go from an eight to a nine. And I don't I don't know if there are any Allison courses in the country.
That are you know, a nine or an eight.
But like Davenport, you know, like I love Davenport, it's great, But there's a lot of those greens that are just like they don't do much for me. And that's okay. I think if you tried to rebuild them, maybe you'd make it worse. You know, more often than not, you would make it worse than you would make it better if you had ten tries to do it.
I think about I grew up Caddy, I got at Alison in course, and like I could go back there tomorrow and I would know every read on every green
like the back of my hand. Like to me, there, I agree with you, is like they you know, and for people that he built just tilted greens, right, they just tilt one way and there's a lot of slope in them, and you can get challenging spots by having to put cross slope and they break a ton or you know, downhill putts are really fast, but for the most part, you know what's going to happen every single time you're on the green, like okay, this one breaks
this way. I always remember as a Caddy, I wouldn't even have to get behind I had okay there for so long, I wouldn't even have to be behind the person putting's ball to give the read, you know. And I think that's maybe, you know where where he misses a little is like the zest of of of the green. And maybe it was just he was a bad putter and he wanted he wanted to reward his ball striking more.
It could be.
And I'm curious to you know, I've never done the trip to trip to Japan, and I would love to. It's like maybe the highest on my list of golf slash culture trips. I think that's like my number one place I want to go. And I've heard his stuff in Japan is different, and I would like to see it, and I would like to give him a chance and be an open book, or you'd be a yeah, be open to receiving what he did over there.
And I think he's just happier over there and that's what led to better work.
What's that?
Do you think maybe he was just happier there and he built more exciting greens.
Maybe yeah, I could. I don't know it.
And maybe it harkens back to like who was running the jobs for him was building stuff over there. Maybe they were just better.
What do you do you see any of your personal golf uh, you know, leading to bias in your work.
No, No, because I'm yeah, I don't play enough golf and I don't have enough I don't have enough knowledge about my own game to create any type of bias of like what what I should build? Yeah, there's there's there's nothing going on up there. It's uh yeah, you know, if anything, it's being Actually, no, I have to be. There's one thing I'm biased about, and it's it's my height.
Oftentimes when we're looking like from a tea box or you're trying, you know, you're really trying to get that last like foot of elevation change down of like can you see over this bunker? Can you see the green surface? I'm always the one in the group that's like, yeah, we're good, Like we're good, let's move on. And then you know, I'll look over at somebody who's put shorter than me. It's like just like kneel down to my level and see what you see. It's like, okay, that's fair.
And then it's like kneel down another six inches and see what, Like Grandma sees, you know, and so I'm constantly reminding myself of like having to do that. So it's not something that's my game, but it's something that's like I'm six foot four, and yeah, visually I need to like understand what it's like to be five foot four for visibility purposes.
When you're does your mood impact how you shape stuff? Like if you're in a bad mood, does that day's product come out differently than if you're in a good mood.
Maybe if it's really bad, I might decide to do something different. You know. It's not like there's only one thing to do any day that I wake up. So if I'm like, I don't think I've ever been so pissed off that I'm like I can't build this green or I can't build this bunker. But maybe it's like there's some dirt that I know we need to shove over here by Thursday, So may I'll just go shove
the dirt, you know. Or sometimes it's like if I know I've got to take a phone call at a certain time, it's like I'll want to be doing something that's like mindless rather than hey, I'm trying to like get the grades right and put the finishing touches on
a green. The only thing, you know, it's like otherwise, I most of the time, I like, just like my first pass, I go as quick as possible, and it's super messy, and I want to just get the idea in as quickly as I can and then just go back to the tea or to the approach and see
how it looks and then start refining from there. And so a lot of time that lends itself to like being rushed or being you know, being in some type of mood of like, all right, I'm just gonna get this done, like hog this dirt out of here real quick, like as fast as I can.
But for the most part, man, I don't know.
My disposition is usually I'm usually pretty, I'm usually not too fired up.
I just was curious if you notice anything, you know, all right, last last thing. We'll get you out of here so you can go lock in for the Husker game. Here. Last last question. I you know you're you guys are currently building gil Roy at uh at Old Barnwell.
Uh.
Obviously Old barn Well has gotten you know, tons of praise.
Uh.
You know, been a kind of a smash hit. You're building second course there, tell tell us a little bit about like what's going to make this one unique from from the original course, and and how you guys are going about building a second course at a facility like you know, on a Ruis piece of land.
Yeah, I think you know. Part of it is the land is different, and the way we're using the land is a little bit different. We're there's a big valley that cuts through the first course, and we're down the second course is downstream of that. The valley like in a broad sense, sort of opens up a little bit more, and those slopes, the side slopes lay back just enough that we can play off of them and on them and down them and up them a little bit more
easily than we could have on the first course. The first course was more like you know, it's not quite straight up sixty feet, but it was something that we didn't want to tackle. It would have been a ton of earthwork. And and the valley down here where the gilroy is going to be is not that so we're able to use it a little bit differently, which will just lend itself to feeling different than the first course.
We've found some different kinds of green sites, some on purpose, like intentionally, so like hey, we want like we want to have this green more smushed into the ground over here, even though we know there's like a cool ridge line that could be like an infinity type green or something.
So making conscious choices like that during the routing process and then you know, aesthetically, how we treat that stylistically, how we treat that, which is you know, right now we're in the early stages of building golf and that's like it's a really fun time for Brian and me to be on site together because we just like we sort of have an idea what we want to do.
But until you start tinkering around in the dirt and like you know, getting in the excavator, it's like, okay, this is like we could do this, or we could do this. You start to get a feel for what the site wants and like how you're going to treat the other eighteen holes, you know, the different things we could do. So that's kind of where we're at right now.
So it's it's fun. It's like there isn't there isn't an answer to that question stylistically of like what it's going to be we know, we know it's going to be different because we want it to be a little bit different. Just as far as how I'm not really sure yet.
All right, looking forward to seeing that I lied. One last question, uh dream dream locale to build your own golf course. End of your career. You look back and if there's one place you'd like to build a golf course, you know, it doesn't matter who you know, it could you could be anywhere.
Uh Omaha, Nebraska, so I could sleep in my own bed.
Figured that would be the answer.
Yeah, yeah, anywhere in a city.
Please.
Just you know, Tom talks about putting stuff out into the universe. It's like, I'm going to put stuff out of the universe. If there's like a defunct golf course that is on a decent piece of land and it's surrounded by city, like, let's save it. Let's like the people have money, Like, let's let's not invest in the next like private destination, Like invest in that piece of land and then let's like build a really cool golf
course on it. So then it's in a city and everybody can access it, and it's really like, you know, you can drive there instead of having to fly there.
Be really great.
Uh not turn into a Ryder Cup venue. All right, we'll leave on that, Blake, big thanks for coming coming on. People can UH check in on UH on what's going on you on your website dundee goolf dot com. Uh. They also can follow you on h on X or on UH on Instagram. So look forward to seeing your new work and UH it's always fun to chat golf with you. Thanks Andy, all right, big thanks for Blay joining in giving us his time sprecious time probably helped
the time pass before the Huskers played Michigan. We'll know the result when you're listening to this. I'm hoping they keep the undefeated run going, one of the great stories in college basketball. As I mentioned at the top, we're gonna do a little Q and A segment. I think we might just do one queue here this week, just because it's already an hour. Nick Nelson had a question.
States like Wisconsin, Nebraska, and the Carolinas have enjoyed a huge explosion of exceptional golf course development in the past few decades. Are there any states ripe for the same level of new development in the next ten years. I would say that one state missing from this is Texas and the explosion has kind of just started to happen.
You obviously have new courses Luling Children's Hall, you have the Kaiser's Wild Spring Dunes, you have David McClay kidd did a course there in Austin called uh I think it's uh Laura Loma h. So you're starting to see a ton of development in Texas. There's obviously the Big Covey, which one golf digests best new course. That's a ton of big development area. I think just in general, when you look at golf development, you need states that have
ample land and uh, pretty lax regulatory situations. So when you think about that, like the western part of the United States, one of the issues that they are going to confront all the time is water. But they have a ton of land, So it's kind of like a trade off, like, are you going to see some great projects come out of the West. That's like kind of like a maybe because of the issues with natural resources,
although they have a abundant land. Am I going to see a bunch of new projects up in the in the northeast of the United States? No, there's no land, you know, trying to find two hundred plus part acre parcels. That's it's expensive and it's going to be really challenging and you're gonna end up being pretty remote with short seasons. So I think like where you see a lot of this happening, you know, the unlock of the Carolinas is like it's a twelve month season. It's a realistic like
people play golf twelve months a year there. I think that's where you see that. Nebraska I think is like kind of quasi you know, it's just not you know, the season's really short and it's going to be the sand hills, and like one of the challenges of building like you go find great land to the sand hills tomorrow. Like you know, there's if you go look on land sites, you can find great land for golf. Now, one of the tricky things with Nebraska that nobody thinks about is
it's hard to staff NOSCA. A state that might be ripe for development could be looking in Oklahoma. Oklahoma. I think there's some areas of sand in Oklahoma which people like to build golf golf courses on. But I think the other kind of sneaky thing about Oklahoma, it's got a really nice playing season I you know, I went down and played Dornic Hills right after it opened back up after their renovation, which is about an hour and a half north of Dallas or more, Oklahoma. But I
went and played there in mid November. It was seventy degrees and sunny, so you get those like much longer seasons there. And I think that that could be an area where you might look in in the future and say, hey, there could be development there. I think if you look in, you know, Georgia could be a state that you might see more development. And but I think, like overall, you got to look for places that have a lot of available land and you know, population nearby. That's the other
big thing. I don't think the Kaisers when they built Sand Valley had really thought about like the population within four hours of it when they when they started. But what became abundantly clear about like a public golf resort is that population within a driving distance is hugely important to the success. And you know, with Sand Valley, you have Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, you know, Iowa all within like an easy shot of of the of the golf and and I think that's like a huge part of
their success beyond delivering a great product. So I think like the the most important things to look at are you know, resources in terms of land and water. Uh. And then you know the the laws like are they going to play ball and want to you know, build golf. And then then the back half of it is like depending on what type of facility you want to build, population nearby uh, And that's how you kind of I would triangulate finding places that you want to build golf.
So UH. Anyways, we'll do more questions. We have a lot of like different golf course golf questions from PGA tour to golf course architecture and we will loop in PJ for them. He didn't want to join this one. He didn't feel like he was going to add to that, but he probably would have. We could have asked him where he would have liked liked golf to go. But thanks for listening. We'll be back next week. You know,
I don't want to jake to myself. I'll say it here and if if he doesn't come through, UH, that is you know, he blood's on his hand. But what schedule is our first chat with Trevor Trevor Immelman next week? Uh, look for looking forward to talking a little bit of golf with him. It's been a while since we last talked. I think we haven't talked since since the Open. So look forward to chatting with Trevor and we'll catch you next week. Thanks for listening.