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 brid egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is with Jim Wagner. Jim is a design partner at Hands Golf Design. He is obviously Gill's right hand guy, you know, deeply involved with every project that UH Hands Golf Design is UH is doing, which is right now, they have quite a few projects. We are going to go into great detail on today's episode about the park. The park is opening this week. It opened on Monday, and it is a new public golf facility
in West Palm Beach. It is a mere ten minutes from the airport, very close to Jupiter, Boyton Beach, Delray Beach, all sorts of vacation spots down there in South Florida. Obviously pretty close to Fort Lauderdale in Miami as well. The park is a new development which was an old course, so it was the West Palm Beach golf Course, which was a Dick Wilson designed from about I think it
was nineteen forty seven. It was a golf course that had gone out to pasture, so you know, it was losing the city money and it closed down and had been non operational for about five years. It was resurrected by Sethwah, who obviously you know, is the CEO of the PGA. He was doing this not as the PGA, but as a citizen. His real partner in this is a guy named Dirk Zif and a really neat model what they did. Dirk is actually going to be listed as a involved with the design, so it is a
Hans Wagner and Zif design. But they went around and raised thirty million dollars. And what the way they set this up is they have a long term lease with the city of West Palm Beach. I think they lease it for a dollar a year and obviously have a revenue share back to the city. And they also have effectively a nonprofit foundation where all this money sits in to maintain this golf course and continue operating it for
years to come. So the park is you know, it'd be really you know, remiss not to mention it's on a beautiful site. It is a wonderful piece property for golf. It was completely redone and it is brand new, effectively a brand new golf course on this great site in a city center. And I think, you know, from my perspective, it is one of the very best golf courses in
Florida full stop. I think that if you are going to compare it to golf courses in South Florida, I think the course that you're going to compare this to most is Seminole. It is in really elite company in terms of this golf course, and you know, it's a credit to all involved, and it really shows I think this is going to be a landmark mark golf course
in the next era of municipal and public golf. It shows that and hopefully we'll prove over time that public golf architecture doesn't have to be boring, that you can hire great architects to do public projects. You don't have to just hire, you know, the guy that did the course down the street. This is this is really an exciting thing. I think the thing that I personally am most impressed by is that they didn't take any shortcuts. They didn't water anything down. This is an experience that
you would expect to have at a private club. From a golf course perspective, it is a masterful design. Is super fun to play from what I gather talking to Seth and Dirk about the project. They kind of put together a group and they pulled everybody. You know, most people that invested in this are really into golf. They're super golf nuts. Dirk and Seth certainly are. They played a lot of the great golf courses and they wanted
this place to be fun and accessible. So they pulled everybody involved on what fund meant, what fun golf meant, and tried to, you know, put that into the design and the effort around the golf course and the culture. So it's going to be a welcoming place. It is going to be relatively affordable. I think the greens feeds run from sixty dollars for West Palm Beach residents to about one hundred and twenty for Florida residents, and then you know, if you're coming from out of town, you'll
get popped. But I think that's the right model. Let locals come play at affordable rates and it also has a short course, a lighted driving range, and a big putting green, a place that is going to be ideal for people to go learn the game. Along with the golf course, there's a comprehensive programming, educational programs, really different services to get kids interested in the game of golf. So what do you think about projects? What courses you should be most excited to go see? This is one
of them. I think there's obviously a lot of resort development and a lot of private golf development that's going to get a lot of headlines in the next few years. But I can't think of any projects that are more important in golf than the ones that are accessible, open and close to people. And that's why I'm really excited about this course and what it will do hopefully for golf in the future. I think that this is obviously a project that was undertaken by people with means as
well as people with connections. But it's not unrealistic for most cities to have setups like this and be able to invest in golf in a way that they can improve their golf course through their community. And and this is going to be a real credit to the community, a real landmark for the community, and I can't say enough about it. I'm thrilled that I got down to see it. I didn't. I was happy I could squeeze it in. I you know, I played this golf course
the day after Augusta National. I was really excited to play Augusta And you know, that was obviously a surprise on my trip, as if for anybody that listened to the last podcast. But you know, I was almost equally as excited to go see what they've been cooking up at the park. I've seen a lot of Gill and Jim's work over the years. I've seen most of their American catalog of designs, and honestly, I would put this up there near the top of their work. So really, uh,
really an awesome golf course. We're going to have more stuff to come on it. We will, uh, we'll have some visuals. We'll probably put together a video on the golf course on the YouTube page. I'm in the process of writing an article, and we'll have some photography and social content around it. So check that out. But most most importantly, book a trip down to the park. UH,
play the play that golf course. I would uh, I'd be hard pressed to find a place that isn't more you know, want to get back out and play more golf at It's it's one of those places you're gonna want to lap. And you know what a great place to go visit, especially in the cold months of the winter. It is a place that you can bring your entire family. So Westbalm Beach now has an amazing golf course that everybody can play that's better than the vast majority of
the private courses in town. So without further ado, here's Jim Wagon all right, So tell me about the when you first learned about the park and had you played the previous course, the West Palm Beach MUNI no.
No, I never actually played the original version. I had been down there several years ago when we first started
looking at moving down here. My brother owned a place and his son played a lot of golf, but he did not, so I actually set him up and him and I went, you know, just to get him at a deuced down to the park and took lessons with and I forget what her name is now, but she was an ex touring that had LPGA pro that had taken up residents or given lessons and so I had been exposed to it, but just not on the golf course itself.
What were your first impressions when when you guys started to plan out the park and what it is today of the site, I mean, the.
Site is unbelievable when you think about it, right, I mean when you compare everything to Florida. I mean we all know Florida golf right for the most part, with the exception of a very few, you know, courses, it's just it's fairly flat. There's not a lot of movement to it. But when you get to the park, I mean that's the first striking element of the property, is the amount of elevation change and the way the property rolls.
No water on the property, right, because I think it was at one point, you know, from at least kind of the rumors that we heard is you know, before it was a golf course. That's you know, during hurricanes, that's where a lot of the farmers and ranchers in the area took the their cattle and their animals because it was high and dry. And I believe it probably
sits on the same sand dune. It probably forms seminal, right, because it's a crow flies I don't believe it's not far from Seminal proper, but it's the same type of material, right, It's kind of a beach, you know, a beach type sand rounded sands that sit up on a on a little bit of a bluff. So it's it's nothing like you're used to seeing in the Florida mark with maybe the exception of Seminal.
How uh nice?
Was it? Was it?
I mean I have to wonder was it refreshing to build a golf course that's like for the people? I think? You know, obviously in America a lot of the new builds are are either high end resorts or you know, private golf courses. Was it was there something exciting or or different about building a golf course that's really you know, municipal and locally focused in the place that you live.
Well, I mean yeah, I mean for me, it's the excitement and the stuff because I think that all of our golf courses have, you know, the same thought process. We don't necessarily change it for public versus you know,
private or resorts. I mean sure we do, you know, add some different elements to different things on a level of who we think the client's going to be from a design standpoint, but when you look at it from the excitement of it to me, I mean, it kind of means the world to me because that's what I grew up on, right growing up in Philadelphia. You know, I wasn't exposed to the private club, you know, lifestyle, so it was public GoF and fortunately it was it
was really good public goth right with Cobbs Creek. You know, I lived what fifteen minutes from Cobbs Creek, so played a lot of golf on Cops Creek, which obviously has the charm and background and design from Hugh Wilson right at Marion. And then another golf course which is only about maybe five minutes from Marian called Paxon Hollow, which had you know, a huge and a lot of interesting and unique off course architecture elements is part of it.
And uh, you know, we're talking to Bill Kittleman, who does a lot of work with us and a mentor of Gill and I and was the pro marian for you know, every how many years, thirty thirty five years. Uh, you know, he recalls that Joe Valentine had spent some time over at Paxon Hollow, kind of helping them, you know, build bunkers and things of that nature. And you can kind of see that in the quality and the art
behind the architecture there. So you know, I was fortunate to be able to you know, grow up in that environment of great architecture. So bringing something like this to you know, to Palm Beach and for all the kids and everybody who you know doesn't have the ability to play you know, uh, you know, high end public goth or private golf. I mean, I think to me is really the essence of the game and and and the
start for everybody. I mean, it's awesome. It's awesome to be able to do something like that, whether it's you know, at the park or eventually we get to much McCall it the Cops Creek or even you know in DC there's stuff and we're doing with the National Links Trust. So it's all great stuff and very important.
I think you brought up seminoles as you know, similar land. Do you have any other comparisons to two courses that you've seen that it reminds you of maybe, I mean.
Yeah, there's a lot. I mean in Florida, I think Seminol is probably the only one. I mean, maybe some of the stuff that you know you see on the courses, stream songs just because of the elevation change there and
the whole sand aspect to it. But you can go around the world, you know, and if you look and you go to you know, some of the stuff in Australia, you know, which was kind of some of our conversations, you've got elements because there is some flatness to the property even though there's elevation change to it, right, So there's things on the couple of the opening halls that maybe feel more like a Kingston Heath which is kind of flatish, you know, exposed sand. You know, you kind
of get that that sand belt environment. And then there's aspects of it, you know, when you get to some of the elevation change hall, like the part three number eleven, that fels a little bit more like say Royal Melbourne. So there's definitely elements of it. So it's unique in that regard because it's Florida Golf elevation change, but you know, it does have this feeling of, say like an Australian sand milt environment.
When you went about the design process, you said, obviously you don't you guys have kind of the same ethos, the same design mindset for every type of golf course, but you know, you you kind of tweak it for unique sit you for each situation with the with the park, obviously it's a you know, basically thirty investors all you know, involved with it. How was that design process and environment different than say, you know, where you're building for a single owner.
I think from the single on a standpoint, and we've been very fortunate with a lot of the single owners that we've worked with. And you know, Michael, the HOOPI was great, Right, It's just you know, kind of turn us loose and let us do what that we do and create something fun and interesting. Right. That obviously was a little bit different because it was more of the
match play components. So that was kind of more of our you know, philosophy and thought process and kind of the vernacular that we were using when we did work at a Hoopie. Whereas when we got to the park, we're starting to look at and think about some other stuff, right, is that sure? You know, we wanted to be fun, that's always something that we use. We wanted to be challenging, we wanted to be thought provoking. Right, They're all the kind of the vernacular of the words we were using.
And then we kind of adopted one more, you know, element to that, and that was bold. Right. We talked a lot early on during the planning phases, Jill and I and Dirk Ziff and you know, some of the others that were involved, about the golf course being bold, you know, and there's a lot of definitions of bold. Bold doesn't need to be like, you know, kind of a Yale bold, you know, where you've got a lot of bold features. But bold can also mean taking chances,
you know, do things different. And you know, a small green can be bold, you know. So there's stuff like that that kind of changed our thought process. And also we wanted to use the park as a way to kind of showcase what good architecture is all about. Right, And I actually think, you know, maybe I saw an email or you know, some stuff that maybe you had said, Andy, and believe it or not, you know, it was actually kind of spot on, is that, you know? Why why
can't you know? Public? Of of course, architecture and public oth be and I guess I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but be you know, a showcase for what golf course architecture can be. Right, it seems like a lot of public goth is it starts out in a wad or down version, you know, to get people interested in the game and the move rounds through and for sake of ease of maintenance and all the other stuff that comes in. But why can't architecture that people are seeing for the first time,
or public architecture, that's call it. Why can't public architecture, you know, match that that beauty of private club architecture in the Golden Age architecture and all of this stuff that you know, all of us that really love and enjoy golf and golf course architecture like to see in golf, and that kind of you know, spearheaded us to be a little bit think, a little bit outside the box.
Yeah, that was my kind of takeaway from it. I mean, on this podcast people have heard me talk about this for years, but you know, where it doesn't make any sense that the people people's entrance to the game of golf, which happens at public and municipal golf courses, is the least interesting version of golf there is, Like, if you thought about it, with any food, any food variety, any you know, really like any anything. Like if I said,
you know, I always use the coffee reference. Like if I said to you and you say you didn't drink coffee, and I said, hey, listen, I think you should drink coffee. And I took you to like a gas station at two in the morning and poured you a cup of coffee and said, here you go. This is great. You're going to love this. You'd be like, this is this is awful. You know you and that's what we do with golf. And I think you know the thing that you hit on that I was super impressed by it.
I was curious. Is like to me, from what I've seen, I haven't seen all the courses you guys have built. I feel like I've seen a fair amount. The greens were reminded me a lot of the greens that you built at a hoopie match club where you where you and Gil have talked about how when you're when it's not a pencil in scorecard situation, you could felt more
liberated to build bold features. To me, the greens at the park like you go to the first green and you see this, you know, eight foot false front and or maybe not eight probably six foot falls front and you say, wow, like I did not expect to see this, like you know, right off the bat, it's it. It has you know, you use the word bold, but there to me like very adventurous greens from from start to finish, and oftentimes would say you can't have that at a
public course. Is is there anything with a hoopie and the praise that a hoopie's gotten over the years that's allowed you guys to feel more liberated on the greens at future builds.
I mean, I don't. I don't think so. I mean it could have a little bit in me. It was kind of funny because when I was thinking of what type of question you were going to ask me, uh, you know, it kind of got towards you know, the bold question and kind of what you just said, and the first the first green was kind of in my
mind right. And it's scary that you're thinking like I am or I'm thinking like you are, but it you know, I was thinking about that and you're right like that that is part of it, whether it ties into hoopie or not, you know, I mean it could in some in some regards but I think if it ties into hoopy at least from my standpoint on kind of the greens that that I worked on is that, you know, I like to think more about the recovery shot, right, and when you look at a hoopie, and if you're
going to kind of compare that fall process to the park, then it would be the same because the match play. The thought process at least that I had is that, Okay, what are the recovery shots, like, you know, the recovery shot or the guy who's getting a shot and he's playing you know, match play and he's not on the green, Like, what's the interest of that shot? How does he get
the ball closed? How does it then put pressure on his playing opponent who may have a fifteen footer for birdie, but he's not in the best part of the of the of the green. So that was kind of the thought process of the hoopie. Now it's kind of the same thought process at the park because you're thinking a lot about the average player, the higher handicapper, you know, the people who are first out at and it's the first you know, you know, experience on either playing the
park or golf in general. They're not going to hit a lot of greens. They're going to miss a lot of greens. So what's their recovery, what's their shot, third shot? What's the fourth shot into the greens? And what's the interest of that Being able to give them a place that they feel that they can play a ball off of, or a feature that can play you know around or need to play around, but just a really to get
them thinking about what that shot looks like. I think if you put all that together, I think it lends you to feel that you can be more creative, you can do some different stuff because it's a different thought process. It's not solely about the approach shot into the green, right, it's about the recovery of a mishit approach shot. And then I think that leads to an element of fun and a lot of stuff we've been hearing about the park is exactly what you're bringing up. It's the greens.
It's the fun on the greens, it's the fun around the greens, it's the green complexes. So I think that would kind of be the only parallel between the two, which is interesting and I'm glad you picked up on it.
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One question I was thinking about is, like, obviously, one of the big rebuttals to building interesting architecture at a like what we're talking about with greens, for example, at a public golf course would be immediately people would say pace of play. This is going to be a pace of play nightmare. How do you alleviate the pace of play potential issue by building into like, what are some some features of the park that are going to help move people around the golf course quickly?
Well, I mean think the pace of play, right, I mean, that's that's an interesting conversation because you know, if you look at public public goth and you talk about pace of play regardless of how the golf course plays itself. But let's talk about the use of carts and cart
paths and car pairs only on certain instances. Let's talk about the beverage cut, and let's talk about the time that people spend you know, you know, getting drinks and doing all that stuff that are knocked off related, right, I mean, that's probably going to add twenty minutes to a round the golf right there, you know, because you're stopping on the on the front nine and again on the back nine, So you know, there's a pace of
play issue right there that starts with it. And I think just from the way the park is going to be a run, you know, with having a caddy program and walking I think is mandatory before a certain time in the morning. I think those elements are going to help with the overall pace of play. But from a play standpoint, it's just it's relying more on ground features and contours as it is opposed to a lot of bunkering. Right you know, you played the park. I mean even
look at number one and you said number one perfect example. Sure, the left side of that green does have about a five or six foot elevation change that could have been fairway turf just as much it was as it was green and still pretty much play the same way. The rest of the green doesn't have as obviously as much contour as that, But the front of that green is wide open, you know what I mean. There's not bunkering
tight to the green. I think there's some bunkering off to the right hand side, a little bit onto the left hand side, which is pretty far out of play. It's probably about one hundred feet maybe one hundred and ten feet wide. The approach to that green, you know, it's fairly significant. So things like that, and if you make your way around the park probably you know, eighty percent of the greens are that way. They have a lot of interest in them, but they're very playable from
that standpoint. And on number one, since you're chatting about you know, from a challenge from a better players standpoint, they may try to get there into or if they lay up, but you do still need to hit a little bit of an exacting shot to get close to be able to make birdie on that green. But it's not penal for the average players, so they're still able to make their way around the property. You know, relative
ease as opposed to being in bunkers. Are relying a lot on bunkers, and you know, people playing ping pong and two to get out of the bunker then knocking it over the green. You know, So I think that helps significt with the pace of play.
Yeah, I think one of the other things about it, and I I played this, I played in a for like a thirty to forty mile our wind. I mean it was common. It was uh, it was not nice. It was uh. And like when that wind got off my left toward at the end of the round, I was getting tired. I had been you know, I gotten in late the night before. I was getting tired. My legs were gone. I started hitting these whitey fades. And when the wind was coming off my left, I mean,
the ball was going miles right. One of the things I quickly picked up on is this very hard to lose a golf ball out there. I mean, like I think that, yeah, I can't. We used to. I used to be before I started the Friday Egg. I used to play you know, uh, all around Chicago. But one of the places we would play is this course called
Harbor Side. It was on the South side of Chicago, and and you know, they had this this this rough and I have a buddy that was you know, it was a little bit wild off the tee and we I wouldn't play there anymore with him because like we just spend all day looking for golf balls, and it was you know, that was the time that we were spending, you know, and that's why it would pile up to a five hour round is because everybody on the golf course is looking for golf balls, and that it seems
like it would be it's very challenging. I'm sure everybody would be like, oh, you haven't seen me play, But it is a place that it is almost difficult to lose a golf ball.
Yes, yes, first two comments. First one, when you started this question, you talked about your your wipey fae with the wind coming off the left. The only reason why it wasn't a whitey faide on the other holes is because the wind was coming off your right. The ball out either way, it's still a wipey thing. The wind just helped you in a favorable manner in that case. But no, you're right, you know. So that's a great point, you know, is that it is hard to lose a
golf ball there. Right, The play courters are extremely wide. Even when you get into the exposed sandi aras out of play, there's enough vegetation to make the rough unpredictable. But yet it's in more of an open habit form where you can easily find your golf ball. You know, I don't know. I've played there a handful times, and I don't think I've ever lost the golf ball, and I can hit some of those whitey fades as well. But that's another important component that was part of our discussion. Point.
I mean, a lot of things that had happened prior on that property due to kind of the sugar rounded sands, is that there was problems with windblow because there was a lot of exposedand golf carts were getting stuck in the exposed end. The sand was so white and blinding that people were actually losing balls in the sand because everything bled together. So we took a lot of that into consideration, and that's why you kind of see some
of that natively rough stuff. We've actually planned in a bunch more native so it holds the sand in place for the most part. We're not going to have a lot of car traffic, so the carts are going to be minimal, and then it also helps you find golf balls. But that was all part of it, and we did and we removed and transplanted and moved a lot of the native material around the property and kind of condensed
in the areas that we're out of play. There's nothing worse in Florida golf than losing your ball and you know those palmettos. Uh, you know, they're just they're they're they're just it's horrible for the game of cough for you know.
With the uh with the fairway lines. One thing I was wondering about you talked about the kind of sandy areas. I was out there obviously a day it was wind windy. I saw sand moving in. Are you anticipating kind of a I think, of course people would be most familiar with would be like Pinehurst number two, where maybe those fairway lines kind of move with the with the environment over the years.
Yeah, and that's what we're open for andy, right, and that's why we did it. I mean, one, I think that helps some maintenance costs. And you're not hardlining it. You know, it's just kind of a golf construction architecture term, but you're not hardlighting the golf course that you see
in the desert where you're setting up irrigation. You're adding irrigation heads and you're throwing half heads to go ahead and control the water and and have this this line of fairway slash rough that stays consistent, you know, for the next twenty five thirty years. Whatever it is. You know, we're set up so that whatever mother nature does, whether it's the windblow moving things around, that's going to help
enhance the golf course. Whether it's you know, depending on the time of year, right where you get more rain, you make it some more run in the in the spriggs and the Bermuda grass and make it more runners that creep out, and then that turns into a little bit more of a rough area and you may get some areas that there's more die back. So yeah, we hope it kind of moves back and forth. Pinehurst number
two or four is a good example. You know, there's a lot of great examples in the warm season climates of that happening. Stream Song is kind of the same way, right, It's all the same thought processes. You know, we're focusing more on the play areas, right, greens, teas, fairways of being great, great condition, great from a play standpoint, but as you get offline, things become a little bit more unpredictable.
They're allowed to move and kind of you know, go back and forth really basically depending on what mother nature does. You know, any given year, any given month.
Is there a stretch of holes out there that you particularly think about or or you know a few single holes scattered about. Is there you know a hole that you love terms of you know what what was built into the ground and maybe you know, maybe it's something that's really loud, so maybe something that's really quiet from you know, the intricacy standpoint.
Well, you know, my case is always a little bit of a story behind you know, some of the stuff that we do. But to me, it's the watch McCall. It's the fifteenth hole, you know, part five uphill right, It's it's not a long hole. So we had to come up and kind of be creative on how we were going to go ahead and do something around the green that we weren't really you know, the premise wasn't bunkering, right, we kind of we kind of did that. Eventually did that on nine just so we could be a little
bit different. So nine has got a little bit more bunking. But on fifteen we're trying to come up with a concept. And you know, Jill and I were with with Dirk and we were looking at some uh, you know, some photos and we saw a photo of the Jockey Club right Brandness Areas and it was a picture and you know they used a lot of mounds in and around
the Jockey Club on creating their interest. So I was looking at this picture and it kind of, you know, kind of stuck in my head and then went and recreated or what I thought was recreating that picture that I saw. And that's how that big mound ended up in front of the green, which is kind of really a cool feature, right if you're trying to go forward into and there's a lot of interest in and around behind it. So that was really the premise for the
green side and how tied into the ridge. And then the average player probably on their third shot if they missed the green, they can miss it right, but then they're looking right up at the mouth of the green, and then they had the support of that big mound on the left, and you know, there's a lot of support for them as opposed to the guy who's going forward into. You know, they got to contend with that.
The green's real narrow if you try to carry that knot, and there's a little slot that you can play through, you know, to help for the ball to be more receptive if you're hitting a longer iron into it. So built the whole thing kind of had it set up and was kind of thinking about again and looking back, and I brought it up up, you know, the whole you know, the concept of the jockey club, and I forgot. I was talking to him like, oh, yeah, I've played
down I remember that golf hole. And then they started walking through the golf hole and lo and behold, like the picture I was looking at, which I thought from was from the fairway, was not actually from the fairway. It was from like the back left of the green. So the man in this case was not even like in front of the green. It was off to the
back of the green. So I had envisioned it, you know, probably my dyslexi is setting in envisioned it from a totally different angle, and we ended up building you know, the fifteenth hole, which ends up I think being really fun and interesting and kind of a cool way to handle a short part five. But you know, it was something that, you know, my inspiration was totally opposite of what was actually built.
So to be the fifteenth represents, like one of the themes of the golf choruses is what you can do with just simple green orientation and angles. Yes, you know, I think everybody thinks about like you have to have you know, obviously, like you have holes, you have a lot of variety out there. There's a ton of different stuff. You have a hole like nine where it's kind of on the flatter part of the land where you have
a ton of ton of bunkering that I love that hole. Also, that's a super fun shot in there if you're going forward and two. But then you have a lot of greens that are dictated by you know, just simple angles and and contouring. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what you can do when you just when you're just using angles to create strategy.
Yeah, I guess in this case we chatted about a little bit earlier, is you know, really not using a lot of bunkering other than just a few cases, is what the defining strategy is around each individual golf hole, Right, It's more along the lines of width. And if you get the width and bunkering is not the key to everything, then it comes down to when you're separating out the
better players and the higher handicappers. Right, the better players need to learn how to play the golf course and get themselves on the right part of the fairway where they have the best angle into the green right, and that's all over that golf course for the most point.
And number two has it well. One has it as well. Right, if you're gonna play down well and you're playing your second shot, you know you're gonna have to play it down the right hand side of the green in order to get the better role or the better angle into the green. You miss it left and you've got to come over that big bump. So angles were everywhere everywhere
on the property. It's on number two. Right. The way that green is long and narrow, you know, front left to kind of back rightish, you know, So playing down the left is a better angle. But the average player it doesn't matter, right, the average player, they keep the ball, They find the ball, they keep it in play, even no matter where they hit into the proach. Sure, the angle the green is tougher, but they can play away from you know, trying to be say on number two,
trying to get there in two. If they don't hit a good drive, they can play up to the left and be forty you are sure to the green and then they'll be looking right down the whole length of the green, you know what I mean. So there's a lot of things like that out there, but angles do help for sure. I mean it's all over in golf, right, you know, all the great old architecture. You know, it's
all about angles and fun. But more so I think in trying to create that difference for you know, public gofference, trying to open things up. I think you look at Augusta too. Augusta's abad angles, right, you were just there. You know, there's a lot of angles into those greens, and not so much maybe the angle, but the angle
of the shot shape that you hit in. For the better players, right, you know, you have to shape shots and I think that's probably the case at the park as well, Right, you have to shape shots of a certain angle to go ahead, to be more receptive into the greens. Yeah.
I think one of the things too, with with what you guys did there is like having like a lot of long, narrow greens yep, set on different angles. What it does I mean, like, good, the average player is probably gonna hit what six greens around.
Yeah, I probably average five.
So it's like okay there, It's not like you could design you could build huge greens and they probably might hit two more. You know, it's not making like a considerable difference, right, But when you set you know, so they're gonna be chipping most of the time, right, And for the better player, All of a sudden, when you create those like good players misspin high right, and when you have narrow greens set on hard angles, it becomes very hard to miss pin high right. Like then you
start to catch those contours. Like I think about the fifteenth. The fifteenth was like extremely disorienting. My range finder was ran out of battery, so I I was I was too lazy to go look at a sprinkler head. I just kind of was eyeballing everything, and it was so windy that it was like kind of an eyeball day, you know, where you're just feeling shots and I just I just shipped it way over the green, like you know, I thought it was way further obviously with the mound
obscuring it. But like that's the thing I think that kind of makes you want to keep going back there is like there's a lot of shots out there that are disorienting, and your eye leads you to believe one thing then that's different than from what is actually happening.
Well, you're right, I mean to take much McCall five. Take the Beer Rich for example, right, and Gil did a great job on that because it's a lot of different shots that you need to hit in there. If that pin isn't in the front or in the middle swale, you're not flying into the pin right that there says it's probably like what two fifteen or something to the middle of that green. But that's not the shot. You know. It's fine because at the front of the green is
wide open. The average player, they can hit a hybrid or a three wood or whatever they want out there. It's gonna end up somewhere in tight mo and they're gonna have an interesting, you know, fun you know, approach, recovery shot, whatever're going to call it into into that pin location. But the better player who's finally learned how to play, you're not going to know this right away, is probably not trying to fly the ball to the pin.
You're probably knocking the ball twenty twenty five yards short, right in to the bump that kind of comes off the approach and ties into the right side of the green. If you can hit a shot into there with a little right to left action and take a little bit of the heat off of it. You're most likely going to come to rest you in the front or down into the middle of that's whale, and it's going to be very rewarding for you. But it's gonna take a while.
So it's out there and it does help, and I mean that's kind of the beauty of it, I think.
Yeah, one of the unique aspects of this was you've mentioned him a couple of times. Dirk Zeff, who was a you know, part of your part of the investment group of the golf course, but also longtime golf architecture nut, who I believe you guys have kind of worked with at a few other projects before. Talk about his involvement with the with the project.
Yeah, sure, Yeah, So Dirk was one of the initial founders, one part of the foundation, you know, and and him and along with Dan Stanton and Sethwell and a couple of the other guys you know, obviously did a great job in raising the money. And Dirk's a huge architecture buff. You know, we've known Dirk for a while. I think Gil first met anyway where as a member you know, years back, and we were working there and they kind of struck up a relationship, friendship relationship, but also an
architectural relationship. Right. Dirk's extremely thoughtful, very knowledgeable, especially in the golf course architecture. And he's also a member of at the Vineyard Club. So when we did the work up at the Vineyard Club and kind of moved stuff around, you know, was he was out there with us, and you know, again from another set of eyes and just his knowledge and golf course architecture to be able to see things and understand I mean, I think it was great.
It's always good to collaborate with folks, right and just to get their their view and their opinion on stuff, especially when they've they've got a good understanding of what makes fun interesting architecture. And that's what Dirk does and that's what he helped us do at the Vineyard Club. And then you know, fast forward just you know, playing some golf with him and getting to know him as well, and then when this came up, you know, it was great,
and then his involvement was awesome. And again he's played a lot of golf at a lot of great clubs around the world, so helping you know, work you know through the routing, and he had a lot of great routing ideas and then you know a lot of the discussions and to me that that was kind of the best part about working with him, is just being able to have those discussions, right, kicking ideas off of other folks about what makes great, fun, interesting architecture because it
has to become thought provoking, right. I mean, we can all get set in our ways and what we do and how we look at stuff, and you know, to be able to have you know, other folks and you know, it's not just circu it's also all of our caveman guys that work with us, and we're all, you know, really strong architecturally, but just being able to have that network of folks that you can talk about and what makes cool architecture and another set of eyes sometimes, you know,
in life and just with what we all have going on. You get really busy, right, and you're working on other projects and you're working there, and sometimes you go out there and you know, you've got interviews with you know, the Friday Friday guys, you know, and it's you know, now you're carving out some time, which is all great stuff, but you know, you can miss stuff. So I think you know, Dirk's knowledge and you know, and his enthusiasm for architecture and his thoughtfulness and uh was was was
great for us. It was great for me personally, and I know I can't speak for Gil, but it was great for me. And I think it was great for the project to have those conversations. You know, he was one of the first ones we started talking to about boldness, right, and what does bold mean? Uh? And I remember we were, you know, we were playing golf and him and I had that discussion and it was great. You know, mounds like the mounds around eight Green and Augusta are bold.
Not only are the mounds somewhat bold, but the concept is bold. Right. The Jockey Club mounds are bold, right, which obviously would tie into Mackenzie, but it's all part of it, right, And to have folks like that his involvement, I think, you know, helped us make you know, the park a much better place.
I imagine it seems like to be you know, most of the foundation members are are just at their core golf nuts, and that probably allowed this project to have a little bit more of what you're calling boldness, where if you have a bunch of people that love golf. A lot of people that travel to play the greatest golf courses in the world, they're going to be a lot more open to ideas like the mounding of the fifteenth.
Sure, exactly. Yeah, you have to have folks have to have a little bit of an architectural IQ. We'll call it right on what makes fun interesting golf. You know, we've had in the past, we've had clients that, you know, maybe don't understand as much about that. There's members of clubs that we've gone in and restored and we built that don't have as much architectural IQ. Or I shouldn't say that. Maybe it's just the fact of what they're used to playing and what their projects or their clubs
used to be, right. And Bill Killman says it all the time. He's like, people want change, but they don't want anything different, right, And how do you give them that in the golf course? They want to change their current. Of course, you make the changes in there, and then they don't like it because it's different than what they're
used to and that kind of you know, makes people crazy. Uh. And the fact that we were able to blow this up and work with people that had the architectural IQ with a willingness to be different right and create something fun And what did that mean and take the time to understand and research it. I think I think is important. I mean, I think, you know, again, we're fortunate, uh, you know, and who we've worked with early on in
our career. You know, we had a guy who thought fun architecture was planning a lot of trees out on the property so we had a place to go to the bathroom. You know. So you get a lot of weird stuff like that. You know, you get a lot of guys that are more worried about the cost of
stuff or or what other people are doing right. And and this becomes a big theme to become big theme in our past couple of projects, whether it's in a whoopie with with Michael, or it was out at Lader or with Irving, or it was all the guys at the park and the foundation just really is you know, willingness to look at things differently, right, to do things differently.
It doesn't have to be about the marketplace. I mean some of the projects you know we heard of other people involved the outside of ownership was well, the marketplace doesn't want that the marketplace place doesn't want this in you know, Palm Springs, California. Well, you know what, you know, maybe that marketplace is old and tired, right, maybe we need to do something different and look at it differently.
And those three projects right there and really the park, you know, we're willing to do that, and that becomes extremely important in the success of the project because then our thought process out on the job when we're designing and making field changes in building is something totally different, and I think that's important to be able to create the interest that we did at the park.
Yeah, I think thinking outside the box is Obviously you're in an art form. If everybody's doing the same thing, it gets pretty boring. And being able to bring especially this is a perfect example, bring a completely different type of public golf course to the market than what exists there. Having lived in the area, I can assure you there's nothing like this golf course. Most have ponds all over the place. You're gonna lose you know, I made a
joke with somebody. I was like, you know, I don't lose a lot of golf balls, but when I'm in South Florida, I lose a lot of golf balls no matter where I'm playing, you know, the combination of wind and water.
Yeah, quite frankly. And you may you may lose more from a dollar I standpoint, more money and golf balls and you paid for a green speed, Yeah you should. You should do that. Do a little segment of different golf courses and everybody's hometown where it costs more money and golf balls, even even Kirklands from Wetchman call you can lose two doan Kirklands. What's that thirty five dollars? I mean that's some green fees for at some places.
Yeah, exactly. So it's a completely new golf course to be like the park, and and we'll see. I think it's set up to age extremely well. But you know, the park reminds me of going to like a dream song more so than playing golf at a municipal golf course in a city. And I think that's the special thing about it is that you're that you know, people that go visit there are going to be treated to a different type of public golf experience than they've ever
had before. And that's the it's really really exciting. Congratulations on on the great job, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your guys work down the down the road here.
All right, great, no, all good, nice chatting and when you can finally get out of California and make your way back down here, you know, well, we'll show you some more stuff.
Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Matt Ruce's Thank you, Matt, Yeah, thanks Jim for coming on. We will be back next week. This is a one episode week. I think Garrett might equing out, but we had some you know, Garrett had some travel, I had some travel. I've had a lot of travel lately, and we just needed a little bit of a week to regroup and we'll be back on
the two episode week schedule starting next week. In the meantime, if you're interested in more golf course content from us, we're humming in Club TFP. I just finished a write up for Chicago Golf Club. That's the latest course review. Last week was a hoopy match. Club next week is Belvidere. On top of that, we've got We did a Club tf hangout this week, which is basically like an hour long podcast. We talked about the new Dream Golf project in Colorado. You know the and what we expected from
Jimmy Craig there and much more so. Discounts, merchandise, early access to events, all sorts of stuff. Visit theffride egg dot com slash membership if you want to learn more. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the entire you're here, and that gets you a ton of stuff. So thank you guys for listening to another episode of the Friday. We will be back next week and thank you to Jim for joining