Jaeger Kovich - Part 1

Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at b dratty. It is approaching winter. I'm hearing reports of snow on the ground and much of the Midwest, and it's getting really chilly. So what better way to stay warm than with the b Dratty's Willy Kruneck tea. This thing is super comfortable. I've sung its praises before on this podcast, but we are offecially in the long

In a frid Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Friday Frida egg egg Frida egg bride egg.

Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course. Let me ask you a question, and thinking about this all day.

That's my favorite fruit.

No, no, no, much more, much more personal question.

Oh really more than that. We were talking about bananas the last time. That's pretty personal.

If did when you bought your car your club man, did you think that by buying a clubman that you'd become more clubs man? No? Uh.

In fact, all I've got is uh ship about the car I drive on repeat from uh you name it, Jim Wagner, Crazy, Dave Cardos, the super at Burning Tree. Oh my god, they just never it's it's not you know, obviously you drive a mini. Now I've downgraded from the SUV and it is just a never ending ship storm from all these guys that like their their big trucks

So clubman's great. Man fit the clubs in the back.

It's perfect. You know, Well, why do you need to pick up?

That's what we have sit vehicles for. I don't need to drive my own car out on the site and ruin it on a you know.

That's what you know.

Walking's perfect. Park kind of anywhere, you know, and up at the clubhouse and then just walk out to the machine. There's all sorts of great things you can think.

Of, little details that you notice walking around out there. You know.

That's see, I need to I don't need to drive like within feet of where I'll be.

Working for the day. That's yeah. So we have site vehicles, you know.

That's why.

So you'd say that pickup trucks are overrated in your industry, I mean, they have their purpose, but I wouldn't want one for myself. It's great that the clubs own them that like contract have them. I mean, there's like a U two.

I don't own any equipment, man, I don't need that. It's got to show up.

So I didn't have anything to do with the name.

No, absolutely not, all right zero.

I wonder if it was like the subleminal sales point. You know, I drive a club man, because I'm right clubs man.

It's it's occurred to me.

I did actually bring my golf clubs with me to the dealership to make sure that the clubs would fit properly in the back of the car.

But uh.

No, that was that was not the deal. It's just fun to drive, man. It's just like a little BMW for a fraction of the price.

It's perfect.

So you grew up in New York City.

Yep, the city, Yeah, upper Upper east Side.

I grew up on a seventh and second. Yeah.

When how'd you get into golf? How'd I?

Well, we had the Uh.

You could get the shuttle to the Randalls Island driving Range on eighty sixth and third, So when I was a kid in the summers, you could get you know. All we to do was where we crossed two streets, me and my best friend who lived across the street from me, and we could go over there, get on the bus and go whack balls with my dad's old clubs.

What was your favorite place to play as a cat?

Our favorite public options around here, so Split Rock for sure, which is in the Bronx. Then you know, we'd go up to like there was like a newer modern course I guess up in like Austining. We'd go through that was kind of further away, you know, probably wherever they'd let like to kind of high school aged kids probably drive a golf cart.

At that point.

But so We really just kind of went everywhere. We'd go play, you know, we went out to beth Page pretty early. We'd go all over Rockland County, Westchester. You know, my parents me like a couple, like little guide but you know, with like a list of different courses, and we just start picking things off as I'd read reviews or whatever and just go to different things.

But eventually someone.

Gave me practice round tickets to the four open at Hinnacock and I was walking around out there on a Wednesday. I didn't I knew it was supposed to be this incredible place, and I'd really just started playing golf like maybe two years before that, just walking around walking around, didn't even know where it was, but random we stopped on the seventh tee there and I just just happened to sit there for like an hour and just watch group after group after group come through and no one

Hit in the hole the thing, and I was like, what the hell was going on?

We went home that night and I'm like dad and turned on the golf something crazy is going on out there, and like they're talking about like I don't know, obviously it turned into this like insane thing. So that was like a real big sort of eye opener into like, man, these golf course things are pretty cool, right.

That was like here first this is that was like a real.

Big aha moment.

Yeah, and then you know, after that, well, I ended up talking my way into being like a free intern for Muncheon Cornish golf design when I was in college.

Still we had this like that was pretty funny, scout what not?

No, that was you know, tough security here at the Renaissance Hotel here, no free ad no.

Sorry, pardon uh what in the world?

So you you talked your way.

So we had this this internship internship abroad program. I went to Hobart. I'd really become fascinated with the golf course stuff pretty quick, and I did some like big like year long projects in high school trying to design a golf course on our campus, and then went to college and studied architecture there and eventually so.

It was the O two open. What what years you grad? Four? Open? What do years you graduate? High school? Five? Okay?

So college nine?

So so that's when when did when were you Did you really start to get into design? Was that before that? Oh four open? No?

No, No, it was really uh in in college, you know. The So I got that internship. I got to spend the year or spring semester and Cambridge and worked at uh in Mark's office off up above the flower Shop in Uxbridge. And I knew from the first day I walked in there that this is what I wanted to do. So I went back to school the following fall and just did everything I could, just sort of gear everything

There were you the guy in the caddy shack that everybody wanted to hang out with when you were read in those architecture books.

Probably not.

In terms of like going so you realize you want to do this and you're at Hope Art, I how did you go about pursuing it?

So when I was patting, so we read uh.

I read Tom's Minimalist Manifesto, right, someone had told me about that when I was there, so read it instantly, ordered the Anatomy of a Golf Course the next day, finished that within you know, another day or two, and I found out Tom had this internship program, right, so I applied for that and I made it through to the finals and I went out to band Into to interview, and so it was pretty cool. We got to spend the day walking around on McDonald under construction, and.

You know, it was pretty crazy.

There was like this random happenstance where Bill Corr and Tom were on site up there at the same time, and so we kind of all had dinner together a couple of other perspective interns, I guess, and Bill and Tom, and I guess.

George Botto was there. Eric Ivers, so there. It was.

It was pretty cool.

But Tom and Bill were both talking about these projects they had in China or upcoming at that point, and so I kind of always had that in the back of my mind. When that first internship with Tom ended up. Fu you know, I graduated No. Nine, like we just said, so the world ended right there were no jobs in golf I could write. I wrote hundreds of emails after I graduated looking for jobs. You know, Jack Nick the Nick was coming wrote back, like, listen, we just fired

So everybody's saying, no, yeah, there's no jobs right now, you're figuring out.

I'm going back to Caddy and keep you know, studying the great golf courses in the mad area and keep writing letters like I would. Wrote hundreds of letters to people all all across the world, Like I just to do anything, whether it was maintenance, whether it was construction, whether it's work for an art like, anything I could do that I thought could help.

Well.

So I was talking to this contractor that I ended up working for, but so I want to meet him. He's like, well, great kid, you know, I'm so glad you can tell me all this stuff about golf courses. But what can you do that can maybe can you get on the tractor and do anything? I was like, uh no, you know, I grew up on eighty seven second right, Well I know about that. So I went to this heavy equipment operating school for like six weeks.

You know.

They taught me how to run at least basically the you know, how to run a back hoo and a skid steer and a dozer and things like that. And I actually, in the meantime took a I was going to take a job at the Southern Hills maintenance department. I actually ended up I got rid of I dropped off a deposit, I let it go, bailed on that, and Tony hired me within like three days of finishing that. So I went to work for Pablock Brothers for like two years and then I always so the.

Let's talk about this heavy machinery school a little bit. Okay, what did you go to? Like class was, yeah, we had class in the morning. And what with class like getting on these so they.

Teach you a little bit about like you know, some of the safety stuff and things like that. And then but also it's like you know, how to check grades on site. So it's like a lot of guys with you know, looking to get just any kind of beer bones job they could with like you know, not golf contractors, like a road yeah, or like some sort of union or anything. But so these guys are like, you know, they're trying to learn how to do fractions and then do like tens of you know, measure slopes and like

I don't know.

I never really did. You don't need them to do any of this. It's just crazy.

But do you think do you ever look back on that and think that that experience did anything differently than ahead you got into like a job right out of right out of school, because you went and it's a little bit more different path than most.

That was different.

But then I actually I think, well it was.

There's a pattern. I think.

I suppose the word is like grits. I suppose I'm a very driven, like single minded person because what I did next after working for Tony or during while working for Tony, knowing that Tom and Bill, who I had both interviewed for jobs within the past, they had these jobs in China. So while I was doing the construction for Tony Monday through Friday, I'd go still Caddy Saturday Sunday at Quaker. But I taught myself Mandarin on Rosetta Stone enough and kept telling Tom that I was doing that.

So so that's I mean, you knew both these guys had this project. Yeah, and you and so.

I learned how to run all the equipment, got experience during the construction, and then I was like, what I can at least, you know, say a few you know, enough to at least prove that I was a lunatic enough that you know, it might be worth sending this kid to the other side of the world to it.

We just give it a shot, right, So it worked.

So it works.

So Tom hires you. Yeah, like two years later, and it was it was cool. Actually the first thing we did was the we worked on his Olympic proposal, which was pretty cool. Spent some time up in his office, and then ended up at Disweal River in the meantime for like five months on that crew, and then spent probably almost to the better part of two years in China with Eric.

And what was that golf course called in.

China, Yeah, Simipo Island.

It didn't ever open, right, Nope, So no, it.

Was completed, and then.

It was like, I guess they had that like presidential change during the project. So Sizek Pink came in a power of kind of halfway through it, and the politics really flipped in terms of being pro golf and new things like that. So no, it was really never permitted to open, and we knew like not long after we

To be honest, Well, now that you've been a part of a ton of projects, m hm, what how I mean, what were like the emotions like when that happened? What I mean, it was weird because where you kind of pour your soul into something especially well.

I guess it was like probably a good lesson that weren't early on, but at the same rate, it's not ours, and you know, pretty quickly, right when you're in China, right, how many times are you going to come back to China to the play?

You know, we were kind of.

Just like, well, maybe we'll come back for one victory lap when it's over, play it and uh, you know, feel good about all the struggles we went through to get it done, and you know, if we see it again after that, it would probably be something else that pulled us back, you know, happened to be there for a reason. It's not like make a singular trip all the way there for that, just because of the difficulty and stuff.

But the course didn't open either. Oh, it's very much open. It's still okay. They had one in Mexico that didn't open, right, I can't.

Tom did that Baha, I forgot which one it is.

That's funny. Actually builds the guy that grew in Saanching Bay Bill's course and Hainan we became.

Very very friendly with, and he'd actually done it growing in Mexico and he probably played that Baya Dreams course more than anybody in the world.

So he's got to play a couple.

Of those that like no one else has ever ever even stepped foot on.

Chris christ is a good guy. He helped us get through a lot of those.

Difficulties, uh, culturally that go on with working in China versus here.

But no, it's not it's not your golf course. It never is. It's never ours. We don't own it.

We come and you know, I like to kind of joke, you know, we make love to their dirt and you know, we kind of give it our best, but it's it's not ours. So you learn that it's you know, you don't always get back to them nearly as much as you like, right even when they're in your backyard. Uh, you know, I've been lucky to do some projects around here and you just don't get back as much as you like. And then the chance is that it's going to be exactly as you envisioned it. You know, even

Along the way that it's going to have the best chance.

You work as a contract, you do your own work. You've got you know, you've got a handful of clients. You also do work with Gil and Tom as a contractor.

Yeah, most mostly Gil.

It's really been pretty much Gill only for like the last five years or so. And then when I worked for Tom before that, it was you know, actually, you know, it was mostly as his employee, which is a really unique thing. I think that was part of because of the China stuff and the visas. But I did a little bit independent after that, but it's mostly uh mostly I founded the my little company really after I got back from from China.

But yeah, it's been.

Nice transition to sort of five years with Gil and now a little bit on my own since then.

What what's it like not knowing where you're going next? Like, you know, you're on one job and.

You were complaining about the anxiety of the weather this morning. I'm like, it's like, I wish my anxiety was geared towards the weather. That would be quite a delight.

I mean that's a small anxiety. I got a lot more big anxiety, I think, I hope. So there are many many big anxiety things that No.

It's tough, it is, it is.

It is really difficult, and you know it's sort of.

You know, the site work.

Shaping, you know, when you're just sort of being you know, once you're there and going, that's sort of almost the easy part. It's so hard to sort of continuously set things up and you just really have to be flexible and trust and really kind of you know, you have to have a lot of sort of you're juggling a lot of things at the same time and hoping sort of the dominoes fall right. It's it's it's really really tough to really break out and to get the projects going.

But that's that's what it takes.

And you know, it's it's been kind of cool to learn a little bit more about that the last couple of years and going with the trial and error strategy over here.

What what was the first solo project you you got? Oh, the first one was actually the Village Club of Sands Point. That's uh.

That came off a recommendation from Tom right on the heels of starting my own little company after China. That place was originally the private estate of Isaac and Solomon Gugenheim back in the roaring twenties, when you know, why wouldn't you have a nine hole golf course on your private estate and sail your boat into the city for work every day and then.

It becomes like a life, right, you know, we're.

Not quite there yet, So then it became IBM Country Club for quite a while when it was really changed around a little bit with the Trent Jones in that and still nine holes, and then.

Who desired it originally telling has don't know.

There's been like some suggestions of like a local kind of golf pro from one of the early clubs out there as well, but to be honest, I just don't know. There's still like a lot of a couple of features here there that remained from it, which are pretty cool, but it's really at this point what we see is an early Tom Doak course. Tom turned it from nine

But the obvious thing sort of the whole.

Time was put the clubhouse up at the old mansion that they have. It was way up on top of the hill. It looks directly into the city skyline on one side and then out to the Hampstead Bay on the other.

So he kind of didn't.

He was busy dealing with you know, other stuff like I probably stream song and things like that were starting to come online after that, so he recommended me as someone you know, still living in the city at the time and young and eager, and we've been slowly chipping away at things over the time. We looked at doing that.

Difficult, difficult politics.

But a good learning experience for you know, you know, at that point, I was like orobaly twenty five or twenty six when I first started what we completed the bunker project.

It's probably five years ago now.

So we did a little bit last spring to trying to get a little bit momentum to the full master plan.

But at place has so much potential. I bet the you know, going back there, the way the way you view the whole industry is so much different than when you got that right right off of China.

Oh Man, Like yeah, absolutely, yes. The uh, my proposals and just way I go about things now is certainly very much different than the I will be ultra fiery twenty five year old that they were deing with at the time.

I'm from New York and it's still there.

But it's good.

I mean they're they're like that to you, right, they're tough Long Islanders. You know, if they're not giving you ship, something's wrong. So it's it's it's great.

I I you know, it was a classic New York relationship.

Of course it still is. It's I would be hurt if it was anything, but it's.

They ever tell you you've changed, you know when you come back.

I don't know, probably fatter and have less hair.

But how hard is it? Recently? You were in France, right, and meanwhile you're trying to build your individual business mm hm and like wig, I mean you're gone, Like how do you interview? How do you pursue jobs and say America when you're in France? Like what? How's is that a really when you say you're gonna go do a job, say for Gil, how do you still try and win jobs back home? Or does it? Do you feel like sometimes you might cost yourself stuff?

Uh? I don't know, I mean it sure I could have instead of spending five months there, I could have been pounding the pavement every day at home in that time, I guess. But you know, that was such a unique, incredible opportunity to go over there. I just really didn't want to pass that up. I had the opportunity to work in France for like a month before, and I heard about that that was a potential.

I sort of.

Knew that's what we want to I wanted to go do that because it was such a unique opportunity and in such an incredible place. But you know, it's not like we're there five months continuously. You know, we definitely have to come back for things here or they and I don't know, somehow it it managed to work out.

Well I imagine too, like a club probably doesn't want to hire somebody that's just like not around, like that's just I'm not not saying not around, but like not working like you know, that's like yeah, and they're being.

By you know, the clubs that work at they we pretty much buttoned up a lot of work in the in the fall heading into Christmas, and you know, they weren't going to be digging or anything. So if you know, two, you know, a couple of regular consulting visits through the spring or the fall were easy to sort of work around. And when I came home, you know, the poor you

So, you know, it just with fiance, not girlfriend.

It was girlfriend at the time. Now fiance, I was very very careful about that. I'm sure she would have corrected me within minutes of you releasing this.

I nailed that one. You can check the tape.

We'll let her check the tape. You know, I've just loick it out. No funny editing here Now for a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode is powered by tdum Or Trade. Whether on the course or in the market, it helps to have a second set of eyes to keep you on your game. That's why tedommeor Trades Trade desk is here to help gut check your strategies so you always feel confident teeing up a trade. Visit tdomortrade dot com slash fried Egg to learn more about what

More, but go to different places.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, you.

See plenty right.

You've been incredible about going to all sorts of different places and promoting things that people have never really heard of. So I give you a shit about not going across the pond because you're but yeah.

But but anyways, Tom Simpson, I'm a namor read his book What did you pick up this summer? Getting to see all those Tom Simpson courses that you you otherwise wouldn't have had, Because I feel like that's you know, it's the lifelong study architecture and and what are maybe one or two things that you learned from seeing all that?

I think, so there's there's two real things I think that sort of set him apart from is the the way he was able to I certainly had a couple of his courses, the Natural Greens and keep.

The Greens so far down.

He's so good at getting his features, especially the bunkers, but mostly the greens, just like at Grade is perfectly sunk into the ground where you know, we just spent the you know, we've been walking around tilling half stuff for like six hours already today and every all the greens you see, you know, they're all pushed up. And but what I loved about Simpsons is like you couldn't tell where the fairway stopped in the green and it was just really just that seamless blend. And to be

He's got all these kind.

Of colol holes, so he would dig out.

He must have, because if you go walk around like Shantie, you can see all these like cinder like stone sort of popping and exposed through the bunkers where they're kind of a little more burnt out in the road, and like you can see what's under the greens. But the greens are at perfect natural grades, so the you know, foresight be able to you know, see all that stuff go way down, fill it back up and layer it beautifully as so it's like you couldn't tell that anything

And then talk about you know, people throw around us GA greens and being somebody that's built a lot of greens, like what what what constraints do us g A greens create that that non USGA greens don't?

You know, I don't know about.

The constraint stuff, But I think you just have to be really really take the time and be conscious of is you you create these wells right, so to get the cavity to go with the drainage, the four inches of stone, the twelve inches of mix, all that stuff. You know, you kind of get the if you build a landform and it looks really good, well now you've got to drop six thousand square feet at sixteen inches, so all of a sudden you're gonna end up with all this extra dirt. And it's easy to just raise

There's no reason.

Why you you could have a USGA green that does exactly the same as any sort of push up native soil anything like that.

You could build this whole thing in native grade and.

Then have someone come core it out and just paint the lines at the end and pull all the extra but you got to cart it away and stuff.

But there's there's a lot of different ways.

It's more about the attention and the time and the effort, because it's easy to just it's a lot easier to not do that stuff if you don't want to with the methodology, I guess.

Having work for Tom and Gil, But say you were gonna if you could just you know, take one you just like you know the monstars in Space Jam and how they sap the the NBA player's power superpower. Yeah, if you could just take one skill from each of them, right, and it's yours, now, what would it be?

I don't know.

Well, like the sort of the way I kind of describe it as well. Tom's sort of.

Like he's like Bill Belichick of the golf art Like he's just like the like, you couldn't try to be Tom, right, there's only one Tom, Like, you can't do that. But there's so I love his golf courses. He's so good at always making things different. They always people try to you know, oh he's the guy with the crazy bunkers or whatever.

You know a lot of times it's wild, wild greens, But that's not always the case.

He's just so good at constantly reinventing his style from course to and that's that's part of the brilliance. Obviously the routing stuff as well. And but so it's got to be one of those two things. Whether it's the it's he's just the mad genius, right.

It just seems like he gets if he had to build the same type of course all the time, he'd get bored and he wouldn't want to do it. So he's always trying to do something different.

Of course, and I totally buy any of that. I don't like doing the same thing over and over again, you know, I'm constantly looking to I'm just sort of like trying to shake things up and always chasing something different.

You know. It's there's a lot of sort of us sort.

Of younger shapers like man, you know, we've all built, like, you know, a gazillion blowout bunkers.

You know, I don't want to do that.

So that's why going to France was really cool because we got to do it was a flatter site, you got to really sort of do some unique things that you know, it's way different than restoring to It's way different than you know, it was a new challenge to try to do that sort of stuff. So I really that's what I you know, I like them. But so I suppose it's the the routing stuff with Tom or the rive to always create something different, and you know

And it hasn't turned into.

Like you know, they trust us to you know, do a lot of the editing and things that are and edit ourselves and kind of work as a team, but to still be able to go out there and do all that as well as continuously route and get the jobs and stuff like that. You know, And it, like I was saying before, it takes the drive to wake up. It it's you know, insane amount of insanely early and then do all that and then shape and then chase.

Couldn't have worked out better, I guess.

Yeah, Yeah, it's uh. Would you would you say that tilling Hass has been the architect, you know, Golden age architect that you've been influenced by the most, maybe you know early?

I guess so definitely. I think you probably have to.

I'd probably have to say yeah, just because I've seen such a huge amount of his work.

I live pretty close to a lot of the best stuff. You caddied at one of the best. Yeah, you've been part of a bunch of restorations. Yeah, your your work, it's suburbon and it's right.

So I've had a lot of those sort of dream come true moments, which is pretty cool.

Right.

So he was certainly my first architectural hero. But then when you know, Gil asked about doing the project at Ridgewood, Oh, like, you know, I got to caddy there in the med Open, you know, when I was in college. So getting to go there and like restore all twenty seven holes ahead of the tournament. Was I mean and live at home at the same time, right, I could I sleep my own bed twenty minutes away. I mean, this is this

The Creek project, which is how that came out of.

But you know that was you know, getting to work down the street from Quaker, you know, the famous street here with four top one hundred twing house courses, I

So just another sort of the talk about Tilly style. If they were just you know, somebody who's listening who's lived in Los Angeles who's never seen a Tilling hast what what what do they? What would you? How would you kind of if you were going to just distill it? And sure there's the is.

He really adapted his style to the sites, which is pretty pretty incredible. You know, they're all they all have this thing where you can kind of tell they were all designed by the same guy. They all have something that draws you to them and you like, you know, but they all can look very different. The bunker styles can be drastically different the Greens.

I mean, you walked on wing Foot.

Screens this morning, and then you walked on Fenways a little bit later here this, and they're they're very, very different, and they're just down the street from each other. Quaker is physically in the middle, but it also it's stylistically probably in the middle as well.

It's much more subtle.

And then you just go down the street again to another and it's again, it's it's a total you know, Somerset Hills is so different from wing Foot, is so different from balt as well, not just in the Greens, but the bunkering right Ridgewood has these crazy fingers and things like that, and it's super artistic and flashed.

And then you know, Fenway was very simply.

You kind of rolled down a lot of those sort of figure eighty kidney Bean type things. But then all of a sudden, we'll just throw like a you know, that giant's hair complex like on three, and it's just like, oh, okay, well I've seen that's the hair. Okay, well he does that Hell's half Acre things right like Quaker. You'll see tomorrow, Beth Page. I mean, they're they're all over. They're all over the place, so it's they always have. There's little

It is like you couldn't just do the green.

You had to also you know, move the the material around with you, like up into the approach and tied into something. And maybe that's sort of how it developed, I don't know, but I feel like that's pretty consistent all the way through. And then you get little things like you know, he definitely had a tendency to and he loved like holes with sort of water features and things like that too, probably a bit more than most guys.

Like you know, there's a yazillion of.

His courses that have like those little creeks or ditches that are like, you know, maybe at one point held water, but you can't kind of figure like they had some sort of function and uh a like strategic form value as well. And then uh, you know, he saw dishes at wing Foot, we saw ben Way, They're over Balty there,

But you know, beat Eye's the island green guy.

It's you know, it's kind of funny how some of that guests lost or whatever or sort of falls out, but that's that was very much his Uh he loved that sort of stuff, I guess, but you know, a lot of people to talk about like the Duffer's headache thing right where he was very famous. We would have changed his style where you know, maybe early on he would have had that stuff and then on his big tour through the country took a lot of that stuff out. And he probably did a lot of good for golf

Yeah, just visiting courses every day, racking up more miles than the two of us. Probably how many bars do you think he visited during that time?

I don't know.

Maybe he's just getting looped up in the back of the Model T or whatever. He didn't have a club in.

He didn't have a club man. Yeah, he was every clubs man, no man.

At that point.

Yeah, the conversation comes full of circles, you know, just.

Tie it all together. Tians matter, man, Tians matter.

Growing up in New York, Yeah, everybody always asks me where should I play public look off in New York?

Yeah?

You probably know public GoF in New York as well as anybody. Uh maybe, Yeah, how would you what would be your recommendations on the island Jersey and north of the city.

Well, the island, everybody's going to tell you go to bed Page, right, that's the obvious one black, but also the Red's awesome. I suppose there's lots of theories of whether it's Twig Hast or Burback or whatever, but either way.

You think, what would your opinion be if you had to there's.

I don't know if you look at one eighteen as it the fifth or sixth, at the part five that climbs up the hill on the Red and then they've got that really crazy hole out there kind of somewhere around like nine or ten with this crazy central hazard bunker complex and fairway left and fairway right to those just scream tilling. Has to me, I've seen Tilly built a very similar hole to that, just without bunkers at Quaker you're gonna see tomorrow on the eighth.

It's about San Francisco twelve, right, So you know, maybe the other guy did it from his plant. I don't know, But you know, how did you know I've gone out there to play what was it the yellow course with the reef hole? Well, how did Burbeck come up with the reef hole. You know, Tilly's writing about it all the time. You know, there was there's an awesome one in Suburban. There's an awesome one at Quaker. There's Southward Hoe on the you know, I don't know, I don't

Through the endless documents and like what is at a certain point, how much does it really matter? It's still an awesome golf course, and I would go play the Black Blue Red Red before blue, but there's some cool stuff on that one. But either way, there's there's like other public stuff out there. There's Eisenhower Park right, has the a met court, the old Salisbury right that was the famous uh you know, garden City before Garden City, Right.

It's cool.

The property is amazing, but it could really be something super incredible. But it's still worth your time. But it's way way, way, way way out there, so it's hard to send people. But as you know, just recently I've been telling people instead of you know, you could go

I guess it was.

I don't know if it was Mamouth Parks first or it was an army base actually, so there's still army barracks on it and has recently been purchased. But that golf course is freaking amazing. They're greens there that are even more severe than what you walked across today at Fenway or Wingfoot, And I mean, that would be another dream job place to help them get that thing back in order. It's outrageously good. So they're nineteenth I believe

They were heading up somewhere else in North Jersey.

It was either.

Ridgewood or Wingfoot there and they were asked to pros and Sun Eagles or I guess back then it was going by a different name, but they said that was the harder of the three golf courses. So that just tells like there's there's a lot of other public and even municipal golf in the met area that has gone from private and is now publicly accessible. So you've got rock Spring which just went there. You've got Francis Byrne,

But the thing with those, I mean, how with these public golf courses that I think like one of the things that they they just it seems like they think they have to go and do everything all at once.

Yeah, it's tough because like sometimes with I guess the public funding stuff is like, you know, the way a lot of people will get is like we only get one chance to ask. They're not we're not able to go back and ask for more again, right poetically, that just doesn't work. So they I guess it's like, Okay, we're going to ask for one thing, you know, one chunk of capital, and so I think a lot maybe stuff gets packaged into that.

That makes sense. But I mean, couldn't you in a way just tack it into like a budget on an annual basis, like X amount of dollars, especially somewhere that's.

Doing yeah, like a yearly capital release sort of. Yeah, absolutely, But you know so much too is right, You've got to get the trees out before you can even do any of the work. So I definitely stole the phrase from a friend, but you know, I call it the

You know. You know, some of these trees around here are like three thousand dollars a pop to get out.

You know.

I know you're like, h put them on the side of the road. But you know what, it doesn't work around here, no, so you.

Know I've dried.

Yes, it does not work around here where you can't even find an organic dump that'll take stuff anymore.

It's really really difficult.

So like, you know, if you can slowly go through that process over time, everything's going to get better in the meantime, but then you have the room to do the stuff after.

If that makes sense, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, because that's the thing I always think about it is like, how do you get somewhere on like a twenty year plan, because so many clubs do it that way where you go back every year and it's like, oh, this got a little bit better, and then twenty years later you're like, whoa, this place is really good now, you know, And it's like, to me, that's where they need to go because they can't afford to shut down. And a lot of clubs can't afford to shut down

It's tough.

But you know, it's funny as I was asked this question in an interview, right, it's like a week ago, like, well, you know, if this process, if you know, if this takes us twenty years, are you okay with that?

I was working. I'm like, well, I'm young enough. I see the potential in this property.

You know, if it takes us twenty years, I'm totally cool with that.

Are you guys cool with that?

Because if we can get it, there no problem, you know, certainly, you know, maybe a one you know, you might get too caught up to do something when you know it's going to be tough to schedule that.

You know, not everybody even bored to, like.

You know, to do. But what are you doing in August fifth and twenty thirty five?

Oh man, you were talking about what do you get your the st anxiety of not knowing what you're gonna do literally next week?

You know, So that's a little right.

No fiance is listening to this, just cringing, and she can't get me to kneel down a wedding date right now, and you're.

Talking about twenty years down the road.

You need to do that. Happy wife, happy life.

We got it. Yes, yes, it'll be It'll be done very very shortly, I promise.

I'm siding with missus or missus soon to be Missus proper golf.

Right, Yes, that's that's a wise move.

Yeah, I wish we had more time. We're gonna have to do this again. I mean we haven't even scratched the surface. We haven't even talked about you know.

Raider McDonald or you know Langford. Right, you got Tom Simpson in, but you didn't get old Bill Langford.

And so that's okay, I don't you're you've seen Simpson. I haven't seen anything of Simpson, so I'm genuinely curious.

It's good, it's good. I'm glad. I'm glad.

We we got at least perhaps one of the if not the greatest architect of all time, got it least to mention on here.

So good for him.

Yeah. You know the thing i'd be to come enamored with is Perry Maxwell. Yep. Essentially you know, writing, you know, vapid statements about who I believe to be lank from a row. I mean they were, they must have pated each other. He talks about the steam shovel, he just bashes the steam shovel.

It's writing, Well, those little micro contours and rolls that he got, it's you know, I guess it's like the same thing now.

You know.

I use a bulldozer and an excavator with a knucklebucket for pretty much all the shaping. But there's other guys out there that use skid steers and it just drives me nuts. I don't I cannot possibly understand how you get that machine to make the same shapes that I can out there. It's just I don't know how you do it, at least without rolling the thing over on top of yourself like thirty times in the process. But so maybe that's all that is, you know, it's like, yeah,

Maybe it's just like that.

No one likes the person in your group chat that's got the turns the whole thing green, Right, that's the worst?

Are you a green guy?

No?

Come on, the great that's the worst. And then all you can't do like the new like thing where you like, you know that shows up as a text of them. It's awful. The great news is we got more time Jager and I. He went out and shot some more photos at wing Foot and he wanted to miss traffic, so Jaeger came back and we recorded about another hour.