Happy New Year, and welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Thanks for all the support in twenty seventeen. To kick things off in twenty eighteen, we'll have a two part podcast with golf course architect Jim Urbina. If you don't or haven't already, please subscribe to our podcast at iTunes and rate and review us. Now here's Jim Urbina.
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 Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Egg, Frida egg, bride.
Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today I'm joined by golf course architect Jim Urbina.
Jim, welcome on, Good morning Andy. Thanks for having me on wonderful day to talk about golf.
I don't know if there is a bad day to talk about golf.
Well, let's just say this is the best day to talk about golf.
Yeah, So, Jim, you do a lot of You've done just you know, You've had a great career so far, and you've been doing quite a bit of restoration work at a lot of high profile places, so I think you know. My first question is how do you get a club to buy in on a restoration?
You know, that's always tough because when I get that phone call, when somebody reaches out to me and asks me about a club, a particular club, a greens committee chairman, a club president, somebody who is associated with the club. They call me and asked me, what do you know about a particular golf course? Would you be interested in talking to us about it? I'm always skeptical. And the only reason I say skeptical is I'm always skeptical about what the intent is. What is your phone call about?
What is your goal? And so when you ask that question, how do I get a club to buy in?
You know?
The first question I always ask when we get into a roundtable discussion, or we gather as a group and a committee starts to interview me or ask me questions, the first question I always ask is do you embrace history? And the place goes very quiet. And so the reason the place goes quiet is because I'm not sure that they understand my question, or if they've even thought about the history that their club may be a part of. And so I figured that we ought to start with
the interview by me interviewing them. If that makes sense, It makes a ton of sense.
You know, you want to make sure that the committee is on the same page as you are, and you know, kind of thinking along the same lines. I think that leads me into question. I'm always curious it seems to be a polarizing topic with restoration. Do you believe in returning it back to the original place or restoring intent which might lead to moving bunkers into different places to adopt for technology.
Depending on the architect or as Pete Die used to always tell me, Jim or not, architects were builders, and I've kind of embraced that ever since. I always think about what the club represents, what the goals are of the club, and really, if this club or a club that has asked me to talk about their golf course, their history, is it's something that it lends itself to a restoration, because really, not all golf courses should be restored,
if that makes sense to you. And the reason I say that is because some golf courses just don't have the architectural beauty, the architectural strategy that would would interest me.
And so when I talk to clubs and I ask them about the history, the reason I asked that question is because if they want to modernize it, if they want to modernize, modernize it by moving bunkers around, by changing greens, by flattening them, flattening them out, I generally would say that I'm not the person you should be talking to, and I would excuse myself from the interview process because of that. So I tend not to think about a golf course i'm interviewing for as a modernization project.
But I tend to lean towards restoration. And I've enjoyed that the most and I've been the most successful at it.
Mm hmm. It's it's with us. I mean, the golf courses in the era we now are. I feel like Golden Age golf courses are more popular than they've ever been before. Why do you think that, Well.
I just interviewed for a Golden Age design last actually a few days ago, and one of the questions one of the committee people asked me was, well, Jim, what can you do to this golf course to make it enjoyable for the high handicapped player as well as the scratch golfer. And my answer to him was emphatically, I don't think I could do both on this golf course.
And that is the golf course that I'm interviewing for, because the golf course and its strategy and intent was different bunkers at different yardages off the t's with very ends degrees of a strategy involved. So if I was interviewing for a golf course that had bunker left, bunker right in the fairway at two hundred and sixty yards out, and they wanted to move bunker left and bunker right in the fairway to two eighty, that would be something
that has no interest at all for me. But if you have a golf course that has short bunker right, medium, distant bunker left, center bunker three hundred yards out, additional left fairway bunker at let's say four to ninety, and I'm talking about a part five in this sense, if you can think with me that each one of those bunkers offers something different for every level of player, and that's the golf courses I seek out because before I interview for a job before before i'm before i'm I
want to be considered. I want to make sure that the golf course has something for everybody. And if I could bring that out in the restoration, then I will have succeeded and I will have answered that gentleman's question that answered me, that asked me what can you do for all levels of players? And that's what I try to seek out. But very simplistic bunkering bunker left, bunker right,
as I said, does not interest me. And that's why McDonald and rayner a lot of ross courses, the Babble Ink Club that I just restored back in twenty fifteen and sixteen with Scott Povoco. Those are the golf courses that interest me because they have bunkers for all levels of players. But generally they get filled in because someone deems them uninteresting because they're only two hundred and ten yards off the team money, isn't.
It it is? I was. You know, those ones that are two hundred and ten yards off the tee provide you know, thrill and interest for the senior or the lady golfer. Now where they has to be you know there for you know, better players but that was something I was really impressed with when I walked around Babblink this summer. Was you know the par five that runs along the what is it the south property line that has you know.
Bunker left number five, a.
Center line bunker. And I think you moved to green there? Am I right?
The green had actually moved was moved by another architect in the eighties, I believe, and I simply recaptured the essence of Allison uh with that green site location, making it feel more consistent with the other sixteen greens that had not been touched since nineteen twenty two by Allison. So yes, you are correct. In that hole. It had several bunkers, each one at a different angle, each one
at a different yardage off the tee. And you want to talk about a hole that embraces all levels of players, that's it.
Yeah, A very very cool hole in terms of with
you know, restoring golf courses. And let's just say say, I'm you know, a member, I'm I'm the head of a greens committee at a you know, Golden Age golf course, and you know we want to start to you know, get interest in restoration and we were going to just take the first step, like what's usually what you see across courses, the smallest and easiest thing that most clubs could do to start to show what a restoration, how it could help the club and get more people to buy in.
You know, I wish more people ask me that in the interview process. One of the first things that I always look at when I walk onto a golf course. I mean, it's the very first thing I look at is the mowing presentation. And I've been doing that since my early days at the Valley Club of Montecito in California, which I started working on in nineteen. You know, ninety six,
ninety five, ninety six seems like forever ago. And when I look at the mowing presentation, I can tell that it has evolved, and we can go there if you want during the interview about the evolution of golf courses. But I noticed that the Valley Club of Monosita the way the golf course was being presented, and if we could recapture what it used to look like. And I used the term look like because I look at old
aerials and ground photos. For some reason, Alistair mackenzie loved to document himself on the golf course, and I'm thankful for that because I have great ground photos of the Valley Club of Montecito, I have great ground photos of Pasa Tempo with Mackenzie and Marion Hollins and Bobby Jones playing the golf course, so I was able to recapture
the mowing presentation. And I always tell the clubs the first thing you could do, the cheapest thing you could do, is just represent how you mow the golf course, and a lot of superintendents would be more than happy to try that and show the club what could be done to recapture the strategy and the intent of these Golden Age designs. Just mowing the grass. Is It's that simple?
Yeah, I agree. I mean that's one of the things you notice always when you look at an old aerial of almost every Golden age golf course that hasn't been restored, you know, in the recent time, is that you see that the mowing lines on the greens and the fairways are just considerably smaller. So, you know, say, in the case of like a Chicago area club where you have bluegrass rough bent grass fairways, what do you suggest how do you suggest you combat that if you wanted to extend out the fairways.
Every superintendent does it differently, and I generally defer to them with how they want to approach the recapturing of that different types of grasses Pola Rye bent fairways versus a bluegrass rough as you described. I've had the opportunity to work at two clubs in Chicago, the glen View Club with Brian Moore, excellent superintendent and as you know, the Bobbyling Club and Scott pavelkel Hey.
I actually caddied at glen View for like three years too, so.
You would be one of many caddies. They have an excellent caddy program and one of the greatest things about the glen View Club, not to get off track I apologize, is that they don't they there is peer pressure to walk by the membership, and there is peer pressure by the membership to take a caddy, and generally you don't take a caddy, somebody's gonna be staring you down wondering why you don't have a caddy on your bag, And
for me, that's pretty impressive. But that speaks highly of the chick Evans room that they have at the Glenview Club and how they support the Caddy program, which I think is fabulous in the Chicago area. But to get back to grasses, every superintendent does it different. Some just mow it down and let it mature and evolve into a tight grass a rye a poa. Some sowed them out, some sought out the lines that I have repainted. In
the case of of course, I'm that I'm restoring. In Long Island, New York, rockfille LYNX, the superintendent Luke Knutson, he uses the plugs from the fairways and spreads them out into the newly area, the newly prepared area for fairway, and within six months he's got the same looking fairway as he had prior to the to the restoration. So it's amazing how each superintendent attacks the situation differently, but really it's all grass, and each one would tell you
something different. He uses plugs to restore the fairways, and when you go back the next year, you'd never know where we expanded the fairways and where we took out the bluegrass rough So everyone does it different.
That's it. I would love to see more people do that. And obviously sometimes you have you have trees and poor planting in the way but you know you can. It makes such a difference because it adds so much strategy back to the golf course.
Do you and you know Andy it it can't be just the mowing presentation. We start with that, but really it's it's uh, it's making sure the trees are the trees that are planted too close to the fairways. As part of my what I talk about in the evolution of the golf course, trees that are planted too close, bushes that are planted too close, rose gardens that are
planted too close. All of those things are taking into consideration before we we we mark out and flag the new mowing lines and so that the the the new turf areas and the new fairways have every opportunity to grow healthy grass, much like the center of the fairway has done for years and years and years.
So we've talked about a handful of Golden Age architects already that you've you've worked on. I'm curious and it's a question I ask almost every hour architect that comes on here, who do you feel is the most underappreciated architect from the Golden Age.
I'm selfish in this statement, but it's someone that I just think does not get enough credit, and that's Perry Maxwell and his son Press. I think that Perry Maxwell was more than capable to be his own designer of record on many golf courses in the Midwest, which he does have his name attached to him, but it's always always seems to be portrayed the Midwest, or as the
book was written about him, The Midwest Associate. Christopher Klouser wrote Life and Work of Perry Maxwell, The Midwest Associate. But to me, he was more than that. He was helping Mackenzie create some of the coolest things in golf, Crystal Down, Augusta National, he was at Pine Valley. I mean, he was in a lot of places, helping a lot
of architects look good. And I just wish, I just wish that he would get his due or more people would talk about him, because I'm fascinated by his greens, and I'm fascinated what he did with the nine holes at Prairie Dunes and eventually what Press Maxwell did with the additional nine holes. It's one of my top five golf courses. I think everybody should see it, Prairie Dunes, and I think that everybody should get a chance to
see the famous greens of Maxwell. Perry Maxwell and his son Press, who had had a chance to interview before he'd passed away in Colorado. Press Maxwell, I learned a lot about his father, Perry, and I just wish he got more credit.
I can't remember who I had on the podcast, but they also mentioned that Perry Maxwell, you know, as the most underappreciated because his career was most hindered by the Great Depression. You know, when he really reached his height was you know, when the least golf course construction was happening, right.
And if just and just think if he would have been a few years earlier, the rowing twenties, what he could have done. And not that he doesn't have something to show for his name. He does. He has golf courses out there that have his name on it. But people tend to want to flatten out his greens and they want to alter his look of the golf courses. And I'm like, I'm trying my best to stand up for every Maxwell I can, as well as other architects.
Dave Axlan, who works for Core in Crenshaw, wonderful man. He has done a lot of work at Perry doing. It's a wonderful job, and I always consider him a friend and I enjoy his work. He has He has done his best to protect the look of prairie dunes, to make sure nobody messes with it because people always want to kind of flatten out the greens, and that really was the character of Perry Maxwell mostly mostly, and
appreciate it. But anytime I'm struggling for a style of green that i'd like to build, I always go back to my Maxwell roots and I create one or two inside roll greens. I did that at Sabotic and uh and Uh. It's something that I enjoy. I wish more people appreciated.
It's usually the external contours. The big bold external contours get all the kind of praise, and you know, they catch the eye. But I always am impressed with you know, the great architects. Like one that sticks out is like how SETH. Rayner used internal contours and he had these big, bold external ones, but these subtle spine and humps and bumps in the in the green were the ones that you know, really Wrecktavic.
I agree. I think Rayner and well, you're talking about one of my other favorite guys. Seth Rayner. But I think Maxwell's little inside roles we were underappreciated. I think the bold inside roles of Rayner which were much more apparent McDonald and Rayner, but Maxwell, just a little thing sometimes make a big difference.
So I'm assuming, say you're you could transport back to nineteen twenty eight, We'll say, and you could have either Robert Hunter working with you on the Mackenzie's other famed associate, or Perry Maxwell. Who would you choose? Maxwell?
Wow, great question. Nobody's ever asked me that. They always talk about the Lee guys, and for me, I think the the guys in the background are the forgotten ones. And luckily Robert Hunter was able to publish a book, The Links by Robert Hunter, which gave him credit and fame. And Perry Maxwell, certainly with Old Town Golf Club that Core and Crenshaw expertly restored, and Prairie Dunes and some of the other places that Perry Maxwell worked on, certainly
had credit. But it's the guys that you never hear about, and one of the one of the group of people that you never hear about. And again I'm digressing, going away from your question, but Perry Maxwell had a gentleman by the name of I can't remember his name, Woods Ray Woods. Woods was a guy that helped Maxwell create some of the best golf courses ever. And I remember interviewing Press Maxwell at the Pinehurst Club in Denver, Colorado,
that's where he was a member. Press Maxwell, I asked him how they built their greens and how they would go about the greens, and he talked about the Woods Brothers and how they would go out there and they would stand in the fairway and they would, you know, eyeball how they wanted the green to look, and they would build it and talk about it. And I asked Press Maxwell, I said, did the Wood brothers ever survey
their greens? And he said, no, they never did. All they did was just eyeballing, and if it looked like it wasn't too steep, and with the green speeds of that time, if they didn't look too steep, that they were good. And so Perry Maxwell had the Wood Brothers, Mackenzie had Robert Hunter. But who would I use. I'd probably use them both because the more the merrier, and if your common goal with Robert Hunter and Perry Maxwell
as our as my associate. If the common goal was the good of the golf course and building eighteen wonderful holes, not great holes, wonderful holes, that I'd use them both. And I'm sure that each one of them would lend their expertise at the right time, at the right place.
Perry Maxwell maybe on the greens, Robert Hunter on the bunkers, which I believe Robert Hunter had all, not all, but most ninety eight percent of the credit of the beauty of Mackenzie's bunkers because every golf course of Robert Hunter worked on. Those bunkers were pretty dog gone good and they're not just jigsaws, but the way they layered them, Robert Hunter had a lot to do with that. So I'd use them both. Is that fair or is that a cop out?
It's kind of a cop out, But you know, you at least gave what you'd use each of them for. So I think nobody, nobody would agree or nobody would disagree with the Hunter's bunkering and Maxwell's greens. I mean, you get the both worlds.
That's an all star cast right there. Wouldn't even me Jim or Beaner. You put those two guys together and be super duper well.
They you know, they got to have a CEO, which you know, McKenzie was the CEO.
So McDonald was the CEO. They were both based on everything I read, they were pretty egotistical. So you I guess you need that, don't you.
Yeah, somebody's got to be the boss.
Uh, somebody's got to be the boss.
So you know, and you've worked with worked on, you know, Pasa Tiempo, the Valley Club with with mackenzie. You know, everybody loves his bunkering, you know, the deceptions always talked about and the playability. What aspect of mackenzie do you think kind of gets swept under the rug is is? But was really great about his designs.
The beauty, which, as you know, he's been quoted many times in many articles. Any architect worth his salt, and I'm paraphrasing, any architect worth his salt realizes that the beauty of the golf course is as important as the strategy. And what better place to stand and say that statement than the sixteenth t at Cyprus Point, or the first tee at Pasa Tempo overlooking the peninsula, or the Valley Club of Monecito standing on the fifteenth green walking over
to the sixteenth t and seeing the Pacific Ocean. Easy to say that, but really, what I think that a lot of people think of a Mackenzie and I now know Robert Hunter bunker is they think if they just built a jigsaw bunker, somehow that's a Mackenzie bunker, and that is so far from the truth. One of the things I learned working at the Valley Club of Montecito is the way that Robert Hunter and Mackenzie layer at
the bunkers and what they did. And I'd love to take you back there someday with me to the Valley Club of Montecito, and that'd be a lot of fun. I'd show you the layering. And I realized that when I was restoring the bunkers, I thought, man, these bunkers are like fitting right next to each other, even though they're ninety and one hundred yards apart. And I started to when I was reshaping them. And so I don't forget I had very talented shapers helping me all along
the way. But let's go there. Sometime later in the interview, when I started to realize that these features, these bunkers, they weren't just jigsaws, but they were fingers that were layered on top of each other so that at the right angle and at the right location in the fairway, one bunker would look like he was on top of the other. And the Valley Club kept doing that over and over and over on thirteenth hole, on the sixth hole, on the fifth hole, on the seventeenth hole, and I
started to realize, this isn't just happenstance. They weren't just winging it out here. There was somebody standing there making sure that was the right elevation. And that's what I learned about a Mackenzie Hunter bunker, that they weren't just jigsaws, and they weren't just beautiful. They were intricate. They were integral, they were attached to each other, and in certain parts of the round of golf, when you stood in certain parts of the fairway, they were actually attached to each other.
And the best one I could show you is on the fifth hole at the Valley Club of Monte Sego, because it's got about a six percent grade going uphill, and so the bunkers at eye level just seemed to be layered perfectly, and a right center fairway bunker if you're standing in the right location, looked like it matches up to the right greenside bunker. And if you're on the other side of the fairway, that center bunker looks like it matches up to the left greenside bunker. And
I thought, this is beyond cool. This is so much different. And every time I would laugh when somebody would talk about a Mackenzie bunker and just show a jigsaw, I said, if they only knew.
Yeah, that's I feel like that's you know, with almost everything, there's so so many people try. You know, Mackenzie's obviously got beautiful bunkers, and what happens is people try and
mimic them. But you know, there's something about the original and there's so much that goes into something in somebody's head that's you know that nobody could really replicate that except for you know, people that really understand it at a at a very deep level and agree, hey, this is full of Mackenzie bunkers, but you're missing the point.
And a I think Bill Corr, when he was on on the podcast, was talking about how you know Pete Die changed golf course architecture twice and what happened was you know, after Harbortown, you saw a lot of courses look like Harbortown. But then you know the the those courses that looked like it weren't Harbortown because they were missing that, you know, the strategy and the subtleness of the die designs.
Yes, yes, And I totally agree with Bill cor One of my someday Andy, when I grew up, I want to be like Bill Corr. I think a lot of people, but the Valet Club of Monocito, I'll never forget. Standing on the fifteenth Fairway and I was restoring the upper level bunker behind the fifteenth Green Aposta Temple, I wish I had a photo you could put up and show because the Greens chairman at the time, mister Anderson, said, Jim,
why are you restoring that one? That's still a lot of play And I said, well, because that bucker is not really for the fifteenth hole. He laughed at me, and I said, come on, let's go over to the
eighteen tea box. And I took him over to the eighteen tea box and I showed him how the layering of bunkers going up the left side of eighteen at the Valley Club, layered in perfectly with the right green side bunkers and the left green side bunkers on fifteen and made the upper bunker above fifteen be a part of eighteen. And he says, I would have never noticed that, and I said, that's why it's here. And that's the beauty of Mackenzie. And you see it at Cyprus Point
whole number eleven. You see it at the Claremont Club in Berkeley, Oakland, California that I'm working on right now. You see it at the Valley Club, Montcito, you see it at Pasa Tempo. It's that layering on top of beauty that make Mackenzie and Hunter bunkers so wonderful to restore.
And you know, that was a life lessons and I'm so lucky to have been able to re store Posit Temple because it taught me a lot about scale, It taught me a lot about deception, it taught me a lot about layering, It taught me a lot about strategy. And I thought, this is my open book education on golf, just by working and restoring places like the Valley Club and Posa Temple.
Yeah, it's I usually say to people that if they want to get into architecture, you got to go play like a really great course and then you'll feel enlightened.
And not only play it andy, as you know, you have to walk it from side to side, and you have to you have to experience it from all levels. That's why I crack up. I just can't believe somebody can rate a golf course tell you all about it in one visit.
Yep.
These golf courses are way more complete. The Golden Age golf courses are way more complicated than that. And for somebody to stand on the sixteenth green at San Francisco Golf Club golf course, I had a chance to restore all the greens and some of the bunker, to stand on that green and say, oh, this green is you know, front to back or back to front, and you know, a pretty good hole. They don't even understand that the
nuances of that green. And until you've worked on it, and until you've played it a hundred times, until you've put it in all different directions, do you understand the increastacies, intricacies And for some way, for someone to look at a golf course and one day in a four or five hour time period. Say, eh, that's an average golf course. I just I cringe when I think that golf course deserves more attention than that. If that is a statement to say it deserves way more attention than that, that's.
I think walking a golf course you learn way more about it than I mean almost golf digest raiders or any raiders should have to walk courses instead of playing, because walking them, they'll learn way more. You know, walk it with a wedge and a putter.
You know, or a seven I are in my favorite club, Yeah, because that really tells you about what is available. And you know, every game, everybody's game is different. You know, some people tend to play the right side of the fairway versus the left, some people tend to stay on
the ground, and some people hitting up the air. And I just wonder, I just wonder if, as you said, if they walk the golf course, and a lot of people don't have that time nowadays, but if they walk the golf course, got it like of a kind of like a preview before they actually played it, how much better it would be? And I think people would appreciate designs more and not just think that it's just another eighteen holes with fifty bunkers.
I think if they had to walk the course, or say they had to walk the course twice instead of playing it, which would probably take about the same time, they'd have a lot less raiders.
Well, they may have a lot less raiders and a lot less people visiting. You know, how many people want to go around and see ten golf courses in a day. I know people who I'm going to play thirty six holes today or fifty four holes today, And I think to myself, why not just give that golf course that first one you have, give it fifty four holes of your time and it might be really, really good.
Yeah. I agree. It's like I've found myself, you know, more and more thinking like, you know, you need to really see a place a few times before you really pass judgment on it, because it's not fair to you, you know, like that's fair, Yeah, especially if you're trying to compare it to somewhere where you've you know, played six seven.
Times, Yes, and it's play you played Cyprus Point six or seven times because it's so beautiful, and you play the golf course Inland just from there from Cyprus Point once and try to compare the two. You can't do it. No, No, there's no way, because you'll always lean into the beauty and the six or seven times of memorable moments, and you give another golf course four hours of your time on the way. I don't know, man, it's hard for me to buy that.
It leads me into a question. You know, with with all your extensive California Mackenzie experience, and how would you split ten rounds between all the Mackenzie California courses?
Ten rounds? That's all I got.
Yeah, that's a tough one.
Do you it's not fair?
Do you want twenty? Uh?
No, I'll do ten. I would say that I would play Cypress Point twice. All right, yep, that's a good start. Everybody would I'll tell you what a lot of people would laugh and say I wouldn't play it twice. I'd play it ten times and forget the rest of them. But that's okay, you asked me, so I'm gonna tell you. I would play the Valley Club twice. I would play passa Tempo twice. I would play the Claremont Club. Once you got to see the Clermont Club, have you ever seen it. Yeah.
I had made my first golf trip to San Francisco this fall, so I got to get back out to San Francisco. I only had three days, so I didn't get out.
There go see the Claremont Club. It's a redo of a golf course by Alis from McKenzie and Robert Hunter. Some people Sean Tolly mackenzie historian who works at the Metal Club, would say that maybe more Robert Hunter at the Claremont Club than mackenzie. But they do have a photo McKenzie drinking a pint with Donald Ross on the ninth hole at Claremont, so he had to be there at least a little while. It is cool. It's a great photo. I have it up on my wall. It
looks down on my computer. It's Ross and McKenzie with a pint with all the workers and people at the Claremont Club. It's great. But you got to see Claremont for the crossing fairways, probably the only club in America that still has crossing fairways. I would play the Metal Club once. Wonderful golf course, great, a great walk in a beautiful setting. You know you gotta go to the Caw Club. Even though some people say Uh, well, it wasn't Arthur av McCann golf course, redone by Mackenzie, redone
by Kyle Phillips. But you gotta you gotta go to the cal Club. Green Hills has wonderful history. I don't know if I would stop there. You gotta go to north Woods to play the nine hole? Is it Mackenzie did up there in the in the in Napa Valley. But I would split between north Woods and Sharp Park. And you may ask why Sharp Park? And many people would say why Sharp Park. At that time when that golf course was built and it being a public golf course today, it was probably one of the coolest settings
in California for golf. You could almost walk on the beach playing the two holes going to the south before they were washed away. And I've played golf there with bowl Linx. I've played golf there with the group trying to restore it. I played golf there with Ron Whitten when we walked and shared a golf bag, and we've all stood there and thought what this place could be like, what it was like, I'm sorry, what it was like
before the dyke was installed. And I think everybody who's a Mackenzie or at least a Golden Age architect history buff should go see Shark Parking and stand there and think what it was at one time and it's and it's in the history of golf architecture. How cool it would be? Did that total ten?
I think yeah? I mean I think Northwoods you could since it's only nine. I've seen pictures of that place looks so cool.
Yes, you gotta go.
Too many places. I gotta go do just a pure Mackenzie tour of the West Coast.
It's yep. The so with that, So that's my ten. I'm sure everybody would tell you something different. Andy, you would probably come up with different numbers, but that's my ten.
That's the beauty of golf courses. Everybody has a little bit different taste, and everybody has a little bit, you know, different view on what what's good and what's what's great and uh, but all of them are are awesome. I was positive Tiempo God, I've I've told some people this, but you know, that place has got to be one of, if not the most architecturally sound course that anybody can go play.
Unbelievable place. And I've been lucky to be associated with Pasa Temple for twenty years. I'm actually going back there in January. We're going to continue to do some tea box work. And somebody would say, well, why is the tea box is so important? The starting ground is so important. And if you've ever read in Robert Hunter's book The Links, he talks about in a chapter how a golf course should start, and he said that the golf course should start and finish in the same manner, as close to
the ground as possible, and with the same intent. And that's again a paraphrase. But I working with the superintendent and the Greens Committee at Passa Temple, we're going to try to get some of that flavor back in the teen grounds again. Working there for twenty years with the Greens, expansion of the Greens, it's been a treat. You are right,
it's an architectural genius golf course using the barancas. Could I have put Pasa Champel in front of Cypress Point probably, I probably could have played three or four times at Pasa Tempo and twice at Cypress in the Valley Club, But I just you can't pass up the beauty of Cypress Point. But Pasa Champel has everything that any golfer would want in architectural design and strategy and what a place as you as you have attested to, Yeah, I.
Think I you know, you look at it. They get so many rounds a year. But if if you and it's and for that's another reason why it's almost unfair to compare golf courses like that, Like because if that golf course, if it was a really exclusive club that got ten thousand rounds a year, you could do you know a little bit more, you know, stuff that would probably make it one of the five to ten best golf courses in America.
Well, you know, there is a point in which you have to decide, and you're a point about being private versus public. I think the bonus about it about it being public is more people get to experience it. And for me, the more people that get to see Possa Temple and Mackenzie and the Hunter's genius the better. Maybe don't maybe there's just not enough exposure to other Mackenzie courses, But because Possa Temple is public, more people get to play in. So I think it's a good thing. But yes,
could you do something different? Yeah, you probably could not much different. You couldn't change much, but man the ability for the public to play Possa Temple what a place, and that we were able to keep the golf course open during that whole time of restoring it, which was a key point. That was the key point to this. And you brought this question up at the beginning of our discussion. You said, what was the what was the how you get the club to buy into something? Well,
the intent to Pasa Tempo. The statement says nothing will be done to this golf course. That doesn't represent what Pasa Tempo and Mackenzie's strategies, designs intent was. And I used the old aeriel, I used the ground photos and that was my intent from the beginning. That was the club's intent from the beginning. And when we go back and do the tee and grounds next year, we will add one more step to the restoration of Pasa Tempo and people will just love the look. They still they
already liked the look. You want am I kid myself, but we just add one more step to that to complete Mackenzie's dream where he passed away, where his house was located on the sixth hole, as you well aware, and it really is a Hall of Fame of holes for Mackenzie.
So we we've talked about a lot of great golf courses and I and we've actually touched on the on the idea of scale and design. Do you think it's a necessity for you know, really great golf design.
Scale yep.
Uh.
I would have said scale was important. Uh, the big scale was important because my favorite golf course, the National Golf Links of America, is big in scale. But there's something about having a border of of or a baranka or a tree line that invokes just a little more touch of strategy that I don't think you can downplay. So is scale important, Yes, if you were building big scale golf courses, I think they're phenomenal looking and fun
to play and look at. Do I discount golf courses that are maybe a little bit smaller in scale, maybe a little narrower and playing corridor with Yeah, maybe so. But I think that Pasa Temple on a little smaller scale offers everything that the big scale National Golf Links of America offers. I think you could have both. I think mixing and matching is important, opening up fairways in
between holes. I have a great old photo again on my office wall of the first hole of Pasa Tempo when there were no trees in between one and nine and it was one big open playing field. That's pretty big scale, and that's what mackenzie was working on when he was working at Pasa Temple. You know, trees evolve, they grow up. Narrow was the corridors. But I think you could have both. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, yeah, it does. I think it's uh, you know, it seems like with the modern new design, everything's going to massive scale, expansive fair ways. But at the same time, you know, it's kind of the pendulum swinging in each direction. It seems like with golf design, and I'm just you know, I think it could get too big.
You know, we built Old McDonald for Mike Kaiger at the Band and Dunes Resort. I was involved with Pacific Dunes as well. Pacific Dunes a little bit smaller scale, Old McDonald a much bigger scale, And I could only use those two points of references in my in my discussion with you for everything that Pacific Dunes off the golfer in beauty and scale and and and playability McDonald.
Old McDonald offers something different to play the first hole at Old McDonald upper right fairway, lower left fairway, center fairway with the Principal's nose on the double plateau. That's for me. Fun links golf at its finest. But when you play, have you played Pacific Dunes and Old Mac Andy, you know.
It's another place I got to get to. I worked too many years in tech and not enough years in golf.
Well you'll get there, and I know you'll. You'll you'll love all of the golf course. You'll love trails for when it speaks of beauty. You'll love Bannon Dunes for what David Kidd did in the beginning that allowed us to all work there. And uh, you'll like Pacific Dunes and Old Mac for different reasons. And I love the big scale of Old McDonald. I love almost five point five acres of greens similar to Saint Andrews in Scotland.
I love that scale. I think it offers strategy. I think it offers a different playing field depending on the way the wind blows. I think it offers every golfer a chance to make a recovery shot. But for everything Old McDonald offers in big scale, I think Cypress points. I mean, I'm sorry. Pacific Dunes offers in a little bit more intimate scale. Playing the seventh and eighth holes at Pacific Dunes, those are fun holes to play, a little more intimate, a little more guarded around the greens,
a little more interest. They're all different. Is big scale in vogue right now? Yeah? It probably is. I saw Corn Crenshaw's layout at the Sand Valley and I saw David Kids layout at Mammoth Dudentes. Wow have you seen those yet?
Yeah? Massive?
Wow?
I mean Mammoth Dunes is aptly named, because aptly named.
Can should every golf course be Mammoth Doones? You know? I don't know, But should everybody get a chance to play Corn Crenshaw's Sand Valley and David Kids Mammothdoons? Absolutely because it offers something that maybe a lot of golfers don't ever get to experience, and that is the array of shots you can play without restriction. And that's one of the things I learned at Saint Andrews when I
first went. There is a golf course without borders, and that has been my stable of design and the way I lay out grassing lines at New golf courses that I'm involved with and the way I lay out presentation, grassing lines on restorations. Try not to have a golf course with borders. It's so much more freedom, and I hope that people understand what I'm trying to say. Mammoth Dunes and current Cronshaw Sand Valley, they give you the freedom to play and that's so important.
Yeah, I think that's uh. I'm a big proponent of with you know, I think it's the But what you touched on I think is important is that the great thing about golf is variety, and having variety among design theories is really important.
I think it is. And I think that for one of the things that I think Mike Kaijer did so wonderful abandon dune'es was that he gave you four different golf course in the same setting. And that is variety. And I think Sand Valley is a little different than Mammoth Due up in Wisconsin, and a lot of the Golden Age designs, for example, my five favorite designs are have so much different variety. I go from the National Golf Links of America to Prairie Dunes. What a contrast.
I go from Pinehurst number two one of my top fives to Cyprus point what a contrast, And so I think about those golf courses being contrasting and having variety. And that's what the two golf courses I was involved with, Abandoned Dunes give you specific dudes, and Old Mac they give you variety. That's all you want. You want something different and not the same old that does it.
For part one of our podcasts with Jim Orbina, checking on the feed on Thursday for part two. Now you've been listening to the Egg podcast, we do the digging for you.