I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball.
In a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Friday Egg, Frida egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg, Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Welcome to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we have a kind of two part episode for you. First, I'm going to talk to Joseph Lamania about the Golf Nacional, which is the venue for the Olympics golf competition this year. Joseph and I thought we would discuss how this course kind of represents the ultimate case study in course fit
and why course fit is important. Then in the second half of the episode, I'm going to speak with John wall who is the superintendent at shan Chin Bay in China, fascinating Core and Crenshaw golf course. And John has an amazing perspective on golf from the UK where he's originally from, to Asia where he currently resides. So I thought that would be an interesting discussion and I have all sorts of questions I want to ask him about golf in Asia.
Before we get to all of that, a quick word from our sponsor, Toro up and down, Ham and Egg. To the list of great golf pairings, we can now add the Toro Workman MDX and Electrification. For more than two decades, the Workman MDX has been the Superintendent's trustees sidekick, a rugged utility vehicle for whatever the job. And now it's the same except the Workman MDX Lithium is powered
by Toro's proprietary hyper cell lithium ion batteries. This means that the charger is on board, ready to be connected to any standard one hundred and twenty volt power outlet whenever, wherever. Less time checking batteries and more time getting stuff done with the same power and durability. That's another great golf pairing, A win win. Visit Toro dot com, slash golf and reach out to your local Toro distributor for more information. I'm here with Joseph Lamanya. Joseph, how's it going.
It's going great, Garrett. I'm excited to talk about the golf. How are you.
Yeah, we're gonna I'm doing well. We're gonna get into the Golf Nacional my favorite course. I think you're gonna try to convince me to have more respect for it by the end of this conversation. No, you're not gonna do that. It feels like you're going to do that.
We'll see. Well. In any case, the intention here is to talk about the Golf Nacy now and why it represents a kind of important test case I suppose for course fit, especially as regards the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup, which is one of the great events for understanding the dynamics of course fit. That is, how a golf course fits a certain type of player's game or doesn't. So you were at the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup. What are some of your memories from your experience there?
Yeah, and I guess I should mention obviously the reason we're doing this is with the Olympics. They're starting this week, so we have two weeks of the Golf National Maybe we'll get a little bit into if it's going to
play similarly, how it's going to play differently. But my lasting memories of the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup were that at that point, I mean, I was very into the data and predicting golf course predicting player performance and how that interacts with different golf courses back in twenty eighteen, Like I'd already been doing that for years leading up to twenty eighteen, and I believed that the golf course would play a significant role, but that Team USA would
likely still win that Ryder Cup and a lot of egg on my face because it ended up being a bloodbath in the other direction. And I don't want to overstate necessarily how much of a role that both the golf course design set up and also preparation played, but it was I think it had played a massive, massive role.
And if you just said, well, Team USA just didn't play well, I think you'd be overlooking the role that a golf course that was set up very specifically to prey on the Americans and to play into the hands of Europeans, especially in the way that they prepared for that golf course. Like that was a huge story from twenty eighteen, and I think it was a really important moment in golf history for understanding some of that.
Why did you think going in that the Americans were gonna win? Was it just because they were better?
Yeah, I mean they had a significant talent advantage on paper, and I think there are a lot of reasons why sometimes that doesn't end up materializing, right, Like we there was a similar story at Marco Simone in the most recent Ryder Cup in Europe where the Americans were favored again and lost. But I felt like going into that particular Ryder Cup, especially looking at the rosters, now, I mean, you didn't think about like you had justin Thomas Brooks Koepka,
Dustin Johnson was playing great, like Jordan Speith. I mean, there were a lot of players. Speith wasn't at the height of his powers, but there were a lot of really good golfers on the American side, and Europe just felt like it wasn't nearly as deep. So yeah, I mean I didn't think it was going to be a bloodbath that the Americans were going to clean up. But I thought the Americans would win and it was the furthest thing from that.
What were the aspects of course fit the e you thought were especially relevant as you saw the event play out in twenty eighteen. What should we focus on.
The biggest I know we've talked about this on this podcast before. People get way focused on narrow fairways, thick rough and stop there like that. Those are the defining characteristics of whether or not something is going to be about accuracy, and that is just way too reductive to understand what's actually happening with how accuracy is tested. Not only were the fairways narrow, but they narrowed at the length that players would be hitting driver, which basically takes
driver out of a lot of golfer's hands. And so if you have a huge distance advantage, as the American team did, you're not going to get to realize it because if you do hit driver, it's often the wrong play. Tightly coupled with that, there was a graduated rough approach
just off the fairways. The rough wasn't that thick way off the fairways, it was extremely thick, and I Team Europe specifically made sure that the fans were as far back as possible so that they weren't trampling rough that they knew the American team would end up in more often. And so that's a huge lasting memory. It was striking to see in person like that there was such a conscious effort on that, Garrett, and it played out that way. I mean, Team USA was in the fescue and off
the fairways constantly. I mean, Phil was taking less than driver and missing fairways like. It was a complete I don't want to curse, but disaster for the American team. And I also think this is part of why this event stands out so much. The golf world has changed so much since twenty eighteen, as have all sports, with how much more intelligent decision making has become. In the NFL, teams didn't go for it all the time on fourth
down in twenty seventeen. Now they all go for it on fourth down in the right situations quote unquote, like the optimal situations to go for it on fourth down.
The same thing has happened in golf. Like golf players play way more intelligently with their course management now than they did in twenty eighteen, so it was particularly exacerbated on a setup like this, And I do believe that the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup played a role in speeding up that process and making players much more intelligent, because it was so in your face that if you didn't, if you run Team Europe, you saw the payoff of what it looks like when you're well prepared and when
you understand some of this stuff. And on the other side, the Americans got completely humiliated by not believing in some of this course management not paying a lot of attention to it. I think it was an inflection point in how golf courses are played.
Well, how often do we see courses like the Golf Nacy now And you know, could a player conceivably experience the twenty eighteen Rider Cup and just say that was such an unusual setup that it doesn't really matter to me?
I think you could. But it's not black and white like the Golf Nationale versus something that's totally different like Tory Pines. I mean, every these concepts about when you should hit driver and like what your targets should be, those concepts are all pertinent. No matter where you're playing. They provide some level of advantage to you. It's going to be much bigger at the Golf Nationale than somewhere
like Tory Pines. But it does matter everywhere. So I hear you that perhaps they didn't find it as necessary to really dive into the Golf Nationale because nothing else looks like it, and I'm not going to tailor my game specifically to that type of setup that we never see. But I think the players who understand why this stuff is important have realized those advantages on many other golf courses.
So getting back to the aspects of the setup or the course the design that preferred accuracy at the golf nacy. Now you mentioned the graduated rough right, you mentioned taking driver out of player's hands. I think you refer to either in what you said or in your article that you published about this in our newsletter on Wednesday morning, variable fairway wis. So was there anything else out there
that was significant to prioritizing accuracy off the tee? And then in addition to that, are these the only things that can be done to prioritize accuracy off the tea and a golf course setup or design.
Yeah, a few things there. One thing that I think flew under the radar that I didn't have enough of appreciation for at the time, and the more I've reflected on it, the more it seems important in retrospect, was the way there are a lot of grass moguls lining the fairways that yeah, elevate and create good vantage points for fans Like I can remember sitting on a lot of those moguls and watching the action. But they also if you ended up on those moguls, you had uneven
lies in thick fescue like that. Just if those had been all flat, it wouldn't have been nearly as penal to miss wide.
But TPC Sagres does this.
Yeah, that's a good example. It's not as thick as the mounds are at La Gulf Nation now, but same thing, right, and it creates that stadium viewing. So that was something in retrospect that I think was super important. The other part that was more relevant in twenty eighteen than it
would be now. Players just knew which clubs to hit off of tees on the European side, and that's part preparation, Like they had more tools at their disposal and a smarter team behind them to understand like this is not a driver, this is a three wood, this is an iron. And I think Team USA was much less sure of themselves on that kind of stuff, which does exacerbate the
accuracy advantage. Right, if you stand up in bash driver on a hole that you shouldn't be hitting driver, then you have to hit that so straight and it may not even be on a hole that you're going to realize much of an advantage by executing it. So I think that was another massive thing. And to then answer your final question, is that the only way to test accuracy. No, there are a lot of different ways that you can
test accuracy. But I do think if your goal is to have accuracy at a premium, there needs to be a different penalty associated with a narrow miss and a wide miss. And that's the biggest thing that I think setups tend to get wrong, even as recently as like Winged Foot and Oak Hill, which we've seen in majors.
The narrow fairways that are super firm are very hard to hold, and so you saw it, Oh kill a lot of holes where you just couldn't really hit the fairway that had hit fairway percentages forty to forty five percent, and if you missed by a yard, it wasn't different than missing by thirty yards. And that's fine if we want to see setups like that every once in a while.
But that's how you get Bryson to Shamba Rory to an extent, Guys who kill the golf ball off the tee with driver and when they swing away they don't have to worry as much about hitting it particularly straight. So I think that those are important to contrast. There's not only one way to do it. But thinking that narrow fairways in thick rough test accuracy is not inaccurate. Sorry for using the same word there, but it's not an accurate way to characterize how golf courses play.
It's not the narrowness that prioritizes accuracy. It's the combination of elements that you've been talking about, the kind of graduated rough, the variable fairway withs, the various hazards off the corridor, off the fairway, the you know, the mounding and the bunkers and the water right, all of that stuff kind of works together at the golf nasty now to make it an unusual test of accuracy and to
bring players to the four who have that skill. You mentioned a couple of narrow courses that don't really prioritize accuracy and why they don't, right, So Oak Hill Tory Pines is a good example of one where there's not a big difference between a narrow and a wide myths, So you might as well might as well just kind of wail away a driver off the tee wing foot. Perhaps that would be a good example as well. Those are courses maybe that represent a misunderstanding of where the
accuracy test comes from. I wonder if there are any wide courses that you think are not necessarily a good test of accuracy off the tee, but present a good test of driving overall, you know, distance and accuracy and strategy combined.
To me, the easiest example, and I think it's the best example, is Augusta National, where every player I've talked to about Augusta, when I say like, I feel like this is much more demanding off the t than it's given credit for, almost unanimously agree. Despite it being you have to hit the ball relatively straight out Augusta. It's not the biggest premium on accuracy, but you can't go out there and just spray it. We've seen what happens when Bryson does that. I mean the first hole at Augusta.
It's one of my favorite opening holes in professional golf. I think it's a great example of this concept that a narrow miss gets penalized a little bit, a wide miss gets crushed. Right the first hole, there's a bunker down the right kind of at fairway. It's kind of a driver length if you hit a good drive, you have a reasonable look. Birdie's tough, but you're probably not making you're certainly not making worse than bogey, but probably
making par. If you miss a little left, then you have some trees to contend with, but you still have a shot. And if you miss way left or way right, you're looking at bogie or double bogie or worse like that. Hole is a great example of small miss is penalized a little bit. Wide miss is penalized a lot. So I think in general Augusta is a wide course that is much more demanding off of the tea that it's
given credit for. And the other component that we really haven't hit on is firmness, and I think firmness clearly plays a huge role in that because when you're coming from the fairway and you have spin, you can stop the ball. When you're coming out of rough it's not as big of a thing at Augusta, but trying to hit something in with not a lot of spin into firm greens, especially at Augusta with the tight runoffs like
it can end up in some hairy spots. So that's another part of the Golf Nationale test to the more firm that is, the harder it is to hold the greens from the rough, and so I think firmness needs to be mentioned as well well.
Truean also was a good recent example of there being a big difference between approaching those greens out of the rough and approaching them out of the fairway. That was something that that course and set up really highlighted and was unusual.
Right.
You just really saw the ball land and run out from the rough in a way that it wasn't as much from the fairway. So that was pretty cool to see. So getting back to the golf it's going to be different this week, right, I mean, it's not a Ryder Cup setup. And first of all, this sort of gets at why the setup was the way it was in
twenty eighteen. There was a motive behind that setup. There was a reason to push the fans back and to have that graduated rough presentation, and it was that the European Tour was setting up the golf course and trying to present a course that gave an advantage to their team. Usually there isn't that kind of motive behind a golf
course setup. Usually, the motive to bring fans as close to the action as possible is stronger than to present a test of accurate driving, right, And that's why we don't see fans pushed back very often because it's a more powerful reason to bring them closer. That fans get to see the action closer. That's a more powerful powerful reason to do that than to make sure that players are being accurate off the tee. And so I wonder how different this week is going to be because the
motives are just different. Right, the course setup team doesn't have the same set of reasons to try to make accurate driving important. So what do you expect out of that.
I don't think it's going to be nearly the test the accuracy test that twenty eighteen was. If you go and look at players transcripts, you're seeing players kind of say both, like some of the players who were there, like Tommy Fleetwood played and Rory also played in the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup and are playing in the Olympics.
I think Rory said something to the effect of like playing pretty similarly, maybe not quite as thick of rough for most of what I've seen, And Alex Norin made this point, like the rough is pretty uniform, It's not as much of a graduated rough. It's gonna play a little softer than it did at the Ryder Cup. There's been more rain coming into this event, and just in general, the course isn't bouncing as much. It looks like it
has a little bit of firmness to it. It's not gonna play as much of an accuracy test as it did in twenty eighteen. I'm kind of disappointed, and I'd be interested in what your opinion is of that, because I think you could in good faith make the argument that the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup set up is contrived and like the graduated rough looks bad and it's not how golf courses should play, and I think you could
go down that path. And I hear some of that, but I think it was such an iconic event that presenting it that way is a really cool way to present this particular golf course. Maybe if we we wouldn't want to see it every week, but I would have loved to see a little bit more thickness in a little bit of a graduated rough approach, sort of as a nod to the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup, and kind of in my view, like I know, they do the
French Open there every year. But I think it's kind of cool to present this golf course the way that it was presented in twenty eighteen.
I guess I mean probably to most people, the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup set up is not as iconic as it is to you. That's fair because people don't think about the same things that you do with regards to course fit and course set up and these questions. I think for golf nerds of a certain persuasion that the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup is clearly important for all the reasons that you've outlined, and it would be understandable to want to see something like that again, to see players
have to tackle that challenge again. But I don't think that in general people view the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup that way right, or place it in that high of esteem in the history of course setups or Ryder Cups. You know, I'm I can see both sides here myself. I like variety. I like different kinds of courses presenting different kinds of examinations to great players, and so having a twenty eighteen the golf every once in a while is really compelling to me. I like to see how
those different variables end up affecting play. That's interesting stuff, and it's what we want out of golf tournaments. We want every course to be different. I do think that twenty eighteen was interesting because of setup choices and not because of the golf course. I think that setup is what can make this golf course interesting, and without it, to me, it's not really much of a golf course.
I said this to Andy a couple of days ago, but it's sort of like a Pete die course, but without the personality, without the quirk, without that kind of extra shot of brilliance that Pete Die tended to bring to his designs. It's sort of like it's imitating that that stadium course format, but it does it in a somewhat more dull and rote way. And so I think in order to make this course interesting to watch that you have to set it up in some kind of
freakish manner. Otherwise I'm not sure it has that much to offer.
I don't.
I mean, I mostly agree, and then that's probably part of what's motivating me to want to see that kind of a setup, because otherwise this golf course may just not have the teeth that or the architecture to make it super interesting, like these greens aren't super creative. I don't know that there are many holes that stand out. I mean, the closing stretch kind of gets sighted a lot, and there's a lot of water. But like I hear you it referring to it as a less creative Pete
die design, I think is fair. But we saw what it can do when it is set up in a particular in a particular way, like it wasn't the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup. And maybe that's motivad my comments for wanting to see it that way, because it does play very interestingly that way, and some guys just get their
butts kicked like that. It's not going to do that this week, and so I think a lot of people will watch it and be underwhelmed, especially if the only other time that they've seen it is at the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup. I don't know that the French opens commanding like massive numbers the DP World Tour event that's there every year. So I think people will probably watch it and think back on twenty eighteen and it'll feel like a completely different experience.
Yeah, probably, But there's still going to be elements of it, right, Yeah. And so if you're handicapping this event, if you're looking at players who might do well, say just on the US team, my governing assumption would be that somebody like Wyndham Clark is not well suited to this golf course, whereas Colin Moricawa and to a lesser extent, Xander Schoffle and Scottie Scheffler, who are both sort of more all court players, but especially Moricala, seems well suited to this
kind of golf course. Tommy Fleetwood is playing for Great Britain and he obviously did brilliantly at the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup. Do you think we'll see some of the same players doing well that we saw in twenty eighteen, but just maybe having a little bit less of an advantage.
Yeah. Look to me, Francesco Mullinari. He's not playing in this Olympics, but he's a great example of somebody that in twenty eighteen was playing great golf. Not the longest hitter, but hit it dead straight and was a great iron player. I think that's the recipe here. So Scotti Scheffler, great example, Colin wri Kyle a great example. I think Corey Conners is a great example of a player who should do really well here. And then if you wanted like a
little bit more of a long shot tight name. Abraham Answer has always been one of the most accurate hitters on any tour, and I think he's somebody to keep an eye on, though again, he would benefit from more of the twenty eighteen setup than what we're gonna see this week.
Yeah, gotcha, Okay, any other last comments about the golf Nascy now, things that people should look out for, particular holes, What should people be looking for in Analympic golf competition.
I would just say paying a lot of attention to what happens when somebody hits a wide miss and when somebody hits a narrow miss, and envisioning twenty eighteen and just using it as a test case for like how this particular design can be a can be hyper focused on testing accuracy. It's not going to be that way this week, but it'll still test accuracy. Like the first hole is a good example where there's water down the left and if you go wait too far right, like
you're dealing with moguls and thick rough. If you hit it a little left, the fairway does bleed into the water, so it can bounce and roll into the water. It's not as firm this year as it wasn't twenty eighteen, so you're going to see less of that. But in the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup, guys were hitting it in the water, so I would pay a lot of attention
to that. I guess my only other parting thought is wondering, to you, does the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup stand out as one of the most iconic of the last twenty years or do you think that that's only applicable to a certain person that's very focused on course fit Because to me, I would think even for people who aren't, that's one that really stands out given the drama and the chaos around that event.
I mean, I guess when I think of the twenty eighteen Ryder Cup, I don't think of course factors as much, though I know that that was important and a big subject of discussion and a determining factor in the result
of the event. I think more about the way that certain US players just collapsed and the way that the European team came together you know, the Fleetwood Mullinari pairing was so amazing and effective and inspiring sort of, whereas Patrick Reid was out there calling New York Times reporters after the event and throwing tiger woods under the bus. I just thought it was the perfect representation of the way that those two different teams interact with each other
and deal with hardship, deal with difficulties. The European team seems to come together and the US team at the time at least seemed to have a tendency to split apart and point fingers and have conflicts with each other. And you know, of course afterwards also Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson apparently got in a fight too, And so there was all sorts of stuff going on within the team dynamics that I think was relevant to the outcome or at least interesting to talk about, and that to
me proved more memorable than the golf course itself. I think in general, at Ryder Cups, I'm not that moved by the golf courses, and it might just be because they're not really to my taste. I like wide courses where there's some semblance of lateral strategy and optionality off
the tee. And even if pros don't really take advantage of that these days, or aren't really required to take advantage of those kinds of options off the tee, I still like seeing them and I still like thinking about them, And of course, like the golf nacy and now, the successful play on that course is fairly one dimensional. You know, there are places where you could hit a driver versus a three iron, and that's some kind of strategy that that brings in a choice that a player has to make.
But to me, it's just a little bit less compelling because still the goal is to hit the fairway and it's a black and white kind of outcome. You're either in the fairway or you're in the rough. Now, what you're saying about the graduated rough and the difference between narrow misses and white misses, that gives me something else to look at. And that's why I appreciate that analysis.
You know that that really does become interesting if you look at the difference and outcomes between barely missing the fair way and missing wide and then apply that to a place like Tory Pines, then you start to understand why Tory Pines does not emphasize accuracy, but what golf does that's at least fun, and so I can start
to look for that kind of thing more. But in general, Ryder Cup venues and so far Olympic golf venues aside from Rio the first one haven't really done it for me, and so I focus on different things.
I guess that's fair. I think the only pushback at all would be that, given how it's a technology discussion, it's a lot of things, but optionality in professional golf is sort of a lost art in terms of trying to find better angles because angles just generally don't matter that much in professional golf. I think there are ways
that we can make them matter more. I'm not of angles don't matter at all, person, but the optionality that this golf course presents off of the tee is with club selection, and to me that's more compelling than there being no optionality at all. Right of it doesn't matter which side of the fairway you're down and you're pulling driver every time. So I actually think in a weird way, this golf course presents more optionality than maybe a lot
of other golf courses do. That we see week in and week out so maybe a little bit of pushback there, but your point is taken.
Angles don't matter. That's what we're concluding on Man. The Frida Egg podcast certainly has evolved over the years, Joseph.
You know what I mean. We've talked about this. Angles matter. They just don't matter very much.
No, I get it. As far as a pro strategy is concerned. I just like looking at interesting golf courses. That's a lot of what I'm after when I'm watching golf on television. I know that these guys are kind of doing their own thing and just bashing it, and their equipment allows them to do basically whatever they want to whatever golf course they want, and so that's that's to me kind of a lost cause. But I just
like seeing an interesting golf course on the screen. And so when when there's uh, you know, when when there's some dynamism to the golf course, when there's some width and some different possible outcomes, different angles into the green that are possible even if they aren't being chased, then I appreciate that. Whereas I get a little bit bored with golf courses where I know that the only outcome is going to be either you're in the fair way
or you're in the rough. That doles it down a little bit for me.
And to be clear, that's just angles could matter a lot more in professional golf. We just don't go to venues that make them matter. So I am with you on that, all.
Right, Joseph, thanks for coming on the pod. As always, should be a good time watching Olympics golf. You know, we we only get it every four years, so let's enjoy it.
Sounds good looking forward to it.
Before we get to my interview with John Wall of Shaanchin Bay, a word from our sponsor, Toro. Moving people around comfortably and efficiently is an important job for any golf property and for other sprawling places like campuses, event spaces and municipalities. The new Toro Vista is perfect for all of them. Available in gas or lithium ion battery, four, six and eight passenger models, this powerful people mover works as hard as a truck, but rides like a limousine,
sure to impress guests no matter the venue. It's polar white body makes customization a breeze too, so the Vista can pull double duty as a rolling billboard while getting folks from point a to point b on point. Visit Toro dot com slash golf and reach out to your local Toro distributor for more information. Okay, I am here with John wall the superintendent at and I want you to check my pronunciation right off the bat. Here is it Shaun chin Bay.
Huan Chin Bay. Yeah, that's that's close.
Okay, all right. I was trying my best. I was looking up all kinds of resources for how to how to pronounce this properly because it looks like shankin Bay, which is would not be a perpitious name for a golf course. I don't think shank and Bay, but but Shaun chen Bays sounds sounds a little better. How are you doing today?
Were very well? Thanks for in the midst of Sumner renovations and the Sun's outsode. All is right with the world perfect.
So you know, right before we came on, John, you let me know that you've actually played the golf Nassy now, which is what Joseph Lamania and I discussed in the in the first part of this episode here, what are your quick takes on the golf? What do you think of the course?
I think I like it more than most I think it serves as a different kind of golf course to what we commonly see. I think, you know, people find it easy to criticize a more penal golf course, especially when perhaps a Ryder Cup team has you know, taken a battering there, and so it's it's easy to part of it with a golf course that gave your team a lot of issue. But I think the especially the finishing stretch, provides you know, a lot certainly visual interest.
It serves as a binary between success and failure. So I think it actually makes a very good venue for competition.
So, as I mentioned, John, and I'm moving on quickly from the praise of the golf nacy Now as you can tell, I'll just you know, I'm not gonna I'm not going to give my stamp of a proval to that, though I do acknowledge that the finishing stretch is very nice. You are the superintendent in a very different kind of course. However, wide fair ways, this is a corn Crunshaw golf course.
Right, Yes, that's exactly it. Wh're yeah, a little less let's say manufactured. You know, that natural style of golf that Kor and Cruncher are famous for is exactly what you get here in spades perfect.
So you're there. Now, where did you get your start in golf? Where did you get introduced to the game in golf?
I mean I started first playing golf just as a schoolboy with friends, nothing too serious, ended up working on golf courses in England just for a small stretch, and then began an education in turf, which is possible in England, which led to opportunity to work abroad. You know, traditionally turf education is possible in England and America and the rest of the world. Yes, you can do it online nowadays, but traditionally you couldn't. And golf is a worldwide game.
So it made sense to me as kind of a young young man full of you know, adventure and Faustian spirit, whatever you want to call it, to see what golf was like in the rest of the world. And that took me to France, it took me to Hong Kong, Vietnam and now China. So I'm, you know, not deliberately staying out of England, but there's great opportunity. There's so much interest and enjoyment in just seeing golf outside of
what I think, you know, the media views. You know, Great Britain and Ireland, in America and perhaps Australia is the world of golf, but there is other fantastic golf out there.
Where'd you grow up in England?
About an hour west of London, so a place called Reading.
Okay, did you play much seaside golf when you were growing up?
No, Actually, I'm pretty my portfolio of British courses is fairly underdeveloped. It's you come to the other side of the world and you look back at where you grew up and you realize how much good golf was on your doorsteps. So I'm kind of kicking myself and not taking the opportunity to play more back when I had the chance.
Well, when you started learning about turf, did you develop some kind of respect for links agronomy or were you mainly focused on kind of the inland scenes.
I mean, when you first start studying turf, you you don't know you're asked from your elbow, to be frankly honest, So.
Well, none of us know are asked for my elbows when we start studying anything. Frankly I mean, so I think.
You learn to appreciate links more as you you know, gain education or you gain experience. I think to a relative novice, Links is kind of hard to grasp what the excitement is about. I remember going to an open in Rawson George's two thousand and three and being a little bit underwhelmed. I'd heard all this amazing stuff about Link's golf and it was a very you know, dull
brown golf course. And thankfully I've moved on from that and I can now appreciate just you know, the amazing land and architecture that takes place on a Links course.
Now, there are a number I know of turf students who listen to this podcast and trying to adopt their perspective for a minute. You know, you getting a turf education in the UK and you found your way to Asia. This is an opportunity, This is something that people could do. And so how how did this happen for you? How did you end up applying for jobs or looking at jobs in Asia? And how might a young turf student explore those kinds of opportunities.
Sure, the way in which I got to Asia was Hong Kong Golf Club were running an internship, six month internships, and that was how I got my foot in the door, and then a very short time after starting the internship and assistant superintendent position opened up at the same club, and so I just transitioned from there.
Very cool. So in addition to Hong Kong, where else did you end up going early in your career?
I spent a summer in the south of France at a resort called Terre Blanche, which is a play of Thomas design that chateau of course, and then there's a second eighteen there as well, So yeah, you know, being in your late teens in the south of France for
a summer is a good spot. Next year I spent in Paris at a hawtrey course called San Mamora Bretesh and then yeah, made my way out to Hong Kong the year after that, So it like, yeah, as I've kind of covered already, it a turf degree or just being in golf in general gives great opportunity to travel see the world.
How did you eventually find your way to Shanchan Bay? What was that? I don't know. Did you just hear about the job opportunity and applied and went there or was there some kind of intention behind getting to that course specifically?
I mean I was aware of Shansien Bay, you know, ever since it opened. It it opened to some fanfare, you know, eleven years ago, now, so I was I was always aware of it. I always you know, thought I would love to work at such a place. I'd been in I've been in Vietnam for seven years kind of, you know, fairly confident in what I was what I was doing. And I ended up in discussion with the
general manager at shan Chien Bay. They were looking for a superintendent they would, you know, towards the end of COVID, which, as you may be aware, lasted a little bit longer in China than it did the rest of the world. So I saw an opportunity to work at a dream course kind of by low kind of and with the intention of you know, selling high in a few years time.
Well, when you say dream course, that is the proper term for the golf course, you know. So for people who aren't aren't familiar with shan Chenbay or haven't seen the pictures, this is a ranked course, so you know, it's one of those that shows up in the in the top one hundred rankings and so on. And there are photos of it out there that are pretty widely circulated. But if if somebody has not heard of this course, how would you describe it?
It is, well, a corn creunch or course over dramatic seaside land on a you know, on a basically a peninsula. You've got you've got the sea on about two hundred and seventy degrees of the actual property. It's up and down. It's kind of a perhaps you could say, in evolved version of the Cappelloua property. It's it's very dramatic in its elevation change. So yeah, that would be the briefest synopsis I could I could give you. It's you know,
completely unspoiled. There are no towers, busy roads, airports. You know, right now adjacent to the course, you are in your own little world. It's a yeah, I don't want to say sanctuary because that sounds awful, but yeah, once you come through the gates, you're in a separate world.
Have you been to the Capealua resort before?
No, just just being a kind of a bit of a nerd and you know, watching the golf, studying it, and.
Well, you know, I've I've been to neither Capalua nor Shanshan Bay. But that comparison really resonates because you know, Shanchen Bay has it's kind of set on these seaside ravines. It looks like like this spectacular you know, heavy elevation change kind of land directly seaside, and you know, to see a corn crunch shaw course on that kind of
landscape is pretty stunning. They built it later in their in their careers than Kapalua, so you have a few of the more you know, signature corn crench shaw, you know, bits of style on shen Chin Bay more so than Kapalua. But an incredible looking golf course. I wonder are there are there any like agronomic challenges that are that are specific to chuan Chen Bay. And I'm not sure if those can be generalized out to agonomic challenges in China
or Asia. But you know, starting with the specific, like are there difficulties in growing grass at chan Chen Bay that are kind of specific to that location?
I don't think specific to the location, no, I mean, you know, any climate gives you a challenge depending on the grass you're growing. Most people know with past palam that it is kind of disease pro depending on the weather patterns that you're getting. So yeah, sure that that could be a basic answer. But beyond that, you know, we have a pretty good climate year round. You know, we don't get frost, so I am without major major agronomic issue.
Thankfully, that's pretty good. So I should have asked before generally where where in China is shan Chan Bay because as people know, a rather a large countryes.
China is a big place. We are on Hainan Island, so Heinan Island is a little island just off the south coast of China. It's in that little corner the Gulf of Tonkin with with Vietnam or Vietnam just to its west, so we it's kind of colloquially known amongst Westerners as the Hawaii of China. It gets, you know, good weather. It's not the stereotypical you know, people have negative connotations when they envisage China in their mind's eye
of gray skies, factories, lots of concrete. But I'm not saying that's true or false, but in finance case, it certainly isn't. It's a lot of greenery. It's as tropical as you can possibly get in China, is.
It kind of a vacation spot for Chinese people. Is this a place that they go the way that you know, say a lot of Americans go to Hawaii to get away.
Yes. Absolutely, there's a lot of domestic tourism that comes onto the island, especially during the winter months when you know, the northern the northern cities are much colder, whether it's just to escape the cold or you know, for winter golf. A lot of our members, you know, will play all their golf down here in the winter months when they're you know, there are other other courses are frozen over in the north.
Gotcha. Okay, who does your crew consist of? Like where where do you draw from? And what are the I would assume there are various nationalities making up your crew.
No, no, no, we're extremely homogeneous. It's really men and women from the local village. And that's wow, pretty much it without exception, you know, a few staff from a bit further afield within Hainan and China as a whole. But yeah, I am on the agronomy team, I am the superintendent, the one foreigner, and everyone else is from here.
So you're the one Westerner. In terms of languages spoken, I guess you've probably learned how to speak a few languages in your time and in Asia or is there kind of a Lingua Franco with with English among these?
Not so much. I mean I've become quite good at golf course language, as in I can you know, speak golf course, French, golf course, Cantonese golf course, Vietnamese and now picking up golf course Mandarin. If you put me in a restaurant and ask me to read a menu, I'm you know, I'm exposed as an idiot pretty quickly. But yeah, you learn through the is you know, to be very direct with your communication, which doesn't come across
as route. So you have to get over that because if you're not direct, then there's misunderstanding.
Sure, right, So you know people who come to work for you, do you see them kind of going on to turf careers elsewhere? Is there kind of a developmental pipeline coming through shan Chen? Because I think this is a this will be a good turf job. I mean that what a what a great course, and you know, what a what a chance to kind of advance in agronomy.
I guess here not so much. I think because just simply because of our location within Hainan Island, with you know, fairly remote. And I don't want to sound ridiculous in saying this, but it's nothing we do is too advanced and it can all be done by local people with training. And I mean, frankly, a lot of people see it as a job to work on a golf course and not a not a career, so they're very happy to come to work, drive the tractor, do some spraying whatever
whatever and return home. So whereas you know, other places do serve more as a springboard or you know, a stepping stone in people's careers.
What I mean, what an interesting job you have. Just I'm sort of fascinated by the details, as you can tell. But you are. You are way out there and very far from far from home for sure.
But sorry, it's not I don't find it. It's not like being an expat at a logging farm in the Congo one hundred years ago. You know, you can live very very comfortably. And yeah, sure maybe if you transition from you know, living your life in Toledo or something and you came directly to hear you would find the
transition very difficult. But you know, I started in Asia in Hong Kong, which is kind of a very gentle way of being introduced to Asia, and you get used to any cultural differences, cultural changes, and over time you kind of get introduced to the hardest stuff, let's say of Vietnam and now China. Just it's a I'm not here to carry water for any government, but it's a fantastic place to live well.
And one distinction between Hainan Island and say Hawaii is that there are some pretty big cities on the island out there right there. There's quite a few people living in this location. It's not it doesn't strike me as being remote in the sense that, like Fijis wrote, right.
No, no, not at all. You can you know, you go up to Haiko within an hour, and then you can fly to Hong Kong, fly to Bangkok. So yeah, like I said, I don't see this as a hardship post. It's very comfortable.
All right. So maybe we could chat a bit about the golf course industry in Asia. You have some broad experience in Hong Kong, Vietnam, in China. Vietnam seems to be one of the few places that's really booming and has been for a while. In terms of golf course development, it's not something that a lot of Western golfers know a lot about. I don't think like what the golf course construction industry is like in Vietnam. Why do you
think it is? It is such a healthy and growing industry there in Vietnam.
A few things, so I think as a whole, Vietnam has really come onto the map in terms of tourism in the last let's say ten years. In terms of golf, I would say most of the golf in Asia is quite exclusive, quite private. If you look at China, Japan, Korea, the vast majority of golf is either extremely expensive prohibitively so, or it's private. And so Vietnam and Thailand, and let's say Malaysia as well, maybe Indonesia to some extent can serve as a very good getaway for a lot of
other Asian countries. You can fly to let's say Danang, have it two or three days of golf, and fly back to Korea, let's say, and you can do that for less money than it would cost you to play once at a course outside of Seoul.
Gotcha? Okay? So what are some what are some other interesting places and golf courses that you've been to in the in the general region, whether Vietnam or elsewhere.
If we've got to cover Asia as a whole, my yeah, my personal favorite. I can tell you the brief story of how I found it. I was on a I went to Nepal on a little hiking holiday on my own a few years ago, and I'd done my hike around the mountains and I was in the town of Pakara and quite literally, a postcard in a shop window said him Alayan golf Course. And I thought, well, I've got a day to spare. I like golf. I might as well go and check this out. It would be
interesting to, you know, play golf over here. Had no expectation, and so I turned up and there's this golf course inside a ravine. There's this giant waterfall, looked like something out out of the you know, Journey to the Center of the Earth. There was sheep, there was a newborn baby goat near the first tee, which it was just this mythical place. The mist was lifting out the ravine as the sun came up and heated, you know, heated the air. And on top of all that, it's it's
a sublime golf course that is entirely unique. There was a there was a visitor book next to the next to the little Starter's hut, and Tom Doak had been a guest there, I don't know, six months prior, and his jokey little comment was that it was an eleven on the Doak scale. So I think his his word takes a bit more weight than mine. So take it from him that it's an exceptional place.
What makes the golf course so impressive? I mean, it's in this massive canyon right next to rivers.
This river running through it, which is just kind of white rapids. You're playing over it, along it down from the cliff edge, over the cliff edges. It is, it is. It's a very If a golf course can be a drug, it's an extremely strong drug that you know makes you makes your eyeballs widen.
Yeah. Interesting. Do you have any information about how that golf course was built? I mean, I've just seen a few pictures and I'm kind of stunned that it even exists there.
It is one of I think I know his name, Major gurung So in an ex Nepalese army. Uh well, Major obviously well owned the land. I probably should have researched. They should. So, yeah, he developed the golf course over over a number of years. That's as best as I can provide.
I mean, hey, that that that sounds right to me. It's not. It wasn't Tom Doak out there designing, designing the holes. So but yeah, what in what an interesting place? So I understand that you've also seen gil Hans's effort at the Leado in Thailand, and I was curious about your reactions to that. Not not a whole lot of you know, Western media have gotten out to see that golf course, but of course a lot of us have
been to the Lido in Wisconsin. It just so happened that gil Hans was building a similar concept around the same time near Bangkok. You've been out to see this, What were your impressions there?
Yeah, I think obviously the Leado that was built in Wisconsin kind of stole the thunder, and perhaps it's a larger scale than the one in Bangkok. But yeah, I think Aledo style golf course on a flat piece of land is by and large going to be the best possible use of that land. So to play these template holes and especially with firm turf. A lot of Asia. Anyone who's kind of played in Asia may agree that predominantly the conditions can be a bit softer than what
a purist would like. My experience at Ballysheer was the complete opposite of that. I've never played on such firm and bouncy turf in Asia, which really adds to the experience, you know, of playing such a golf course.
Now, they built this golf course kind of my understanding is in sort of a floodplain slight type area, or even like a low lying kind of area. Is am I right about that?
Yeah? I mean the entirety of Bangkok is a pretty flat place.
So yeah, so it's impressive that they've gotten it to be firm.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that again, I've been there once. I've played it once. Maybe I was there on a good day. Who knows what it's like after it's you know, been through a wet spell. So I can only speak to the one time. But if they can have it that firm and that fast, I mean, what a fantastic
place to play golf. And whether whether it's accepted by the people that play it, you know, it's a dramatic departure I think from what golf predominantly is across Asia, which is green, you know, nice white bunkers, you know, the stereotype. So it is a departure from that.
Yeah, you know, there is kind of an image of Asian golf courses that I have, and it's such a broad category that it's probably not right to make generalizations about Asian golf courses. Right, this is this is a massive,
massive array of courses. But you know, in general, what we're looking at, and you know, specifically maybe even the developments in Vietnam that are going in the new courses in Vietnam there does seem to be kind of a general style and you know what I would characterize as kind of resort golf, right the bright white sand, the
bright green turf and everything kind of luxurious. Have you seen the potential for like a counter trend I guess that goes against that or does there exist kind of an alternative to that type of golf in many places that you've been.
Yeah, I think there are certainly, Let's take Vietnam as an example, there are certainly golf courses there that are exceptions to that rule. So Dunang Golf Club, which is a Norman course where Harley Cruz was the main kind of on site architect during the construction. That's a very sand belt esque design, which was one of you know the earlier golf courses twenty ten ish I think in Vietnam.
And yeah, that is surprisingly kind of rugged in terms of in its departure from you know, the green stripee stuff that you might see elsewhere. Joyana just down the road, the Robert Trent Jones course is very similar because it's on you know, sand, They brought a lot of sand in for that project. The scale is massive, so that that is different as well. And then the Norman core in the in the south, the bluffs Ho Tram Again
it's dramatic, it's sandy, there's waste areas. It's not your kind of pond with a fountain style that that does exist in a lot of Asia. But I think it's it wouldn't be right to paint with too broad of a brush and saying that too many golf courses in Asia are of a forgettable style that isn't appealing to a purist.
So getting back to Shaunchon Bay where you're working, you know, just in terms of your your day to day job and what you're trying to accomplish out there with the turf, with the golf course. What excites you right now about your work, Like, what are what are you really trying to do to take that course to the next level.
I mean, the most basic crowd pleaser is is always green speed, regardless of club. You know, we're not trying to be silly, but there's an expectation of a good speed so that the you know, the character and the life of the greens is properly expressed, and that in a you know, past partement can be a little bit challenging at times, depending on the weather. But just getting on top of that, I'd say that's, you know, predominantly why I'm here. Ensuring that the course place is intended.
The the jungle here which surrounds the entire course, I call it jungle, but that's kind of what it is. Ensuring sightlines are maintained, kind of curated. Natural is again not a not a very poetic phrase, but unless we manage the jungle, it will eat the golf course. But if we manage it too much, then it doesn't look natural. So it's keeping that balance between the between the two extremes. And then look the golf course here. It was built.
Bill core only agreed to be the architect, and he spent one hundred and fifty six days on site here, by the way, which is I think a pretty extreme number of days given how far away he was from home. So he worked with landscapes unlimited to construct the course forward construction and so this place was really built exceptionally well.
And so.
Maintaining that infrastructure that is here is of high or critical importance. And yeah, just ensuring good presentation. I'm not here to most golf courses in Asia, let's say, are a six out of ten, and we're not here to be a six out of ten. And yeah, that's a very simple way of saying that's why I'm here.
Yeah, little a little bit of pressure. You mentioned, uh past palum right, which I have a vague understanding that this kind of turf has a has a varied reputation. Tell me about like maintaining this kind of turf, like what it takes to present it really well?
Sure with I mean we all we certainly strive to have firm and bouncy conditions. But with past palum. I think it's more of a binary between it can be too wet and it can be too dry, and finding that balance is very difficult. You, of course, you don't want it to be too wet because then it plays too soft. But if you let it get too dry, it kind of falls on its face, wilts and dies.
So getting that balance is takes a lot of attention, a lot of you know, moisture readings, daily measurements, being on top of irrigation practices, making sure staff understand why they're watering, how they're watering in order to get the best bang for their buck that way. Yeah, just keeping organic matter low in order to make sure that surface layer of soil is not too soft.
Gotcha. Okay, So you know, just kind of wrapping up here. I don't know how much you how much you know about about what you want to do next. But do you have any any plans or desires or no matter how distant, to eventually get back to the UK, or do you feel like you've you've put down roots where you are and you're going to keep going.
I have nothing against the UK, but I'm I'm seeing more opportunity elsewhere at the moment. Frankly, and this is a large topic, maybe a hot topic, but what course managers head green keepers in the UK are paid, I think is unattractive to a lot of people in America, in the rest of the world, it's I think it certainly needs to increase in order to attract outside talent.
Well, I mean, maybe leaning into the controversial topic a bit, this is something that I've I've gotten some kind of understanding of as I've gotten to know superintendents, but it seems like almost there's a different view of superintendents, or as it's put in the UK course managers, you know, as though it's a it's just a different kind of position there, at least in the way that it's perceived. Have you Have you gotten that sense too.
I think it varies club to club, But I mean, just to give some numbers as examples, I don't know what the average crew size in the US is, but in Asia, you know, I've got forty staff on my in my department. Here in Vietnam for third six holes, i had over one hundred staff, including hotel and some other stuff. So you know, there is that compared to UK,
where the crew sizes are much smaller. Yeah, us is it what fifteen twenty twenty five on a crew, So you know, the I think the budgets that are managed are a lot larger, and so whether the salary is kind of increases with not not directly and proportionally with crew size, the or the overall budget. But I think
that that could be a part. But then you look at the whole kind of picture of the economy in Britain and wages or salaries in Britain are just like the rest of Europe, a lot lower compared to the US.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's an interesting thing. But you know, you would think that it would be an enormously attractive job to manage a links course, but there are there are some I guess, sort of drawbacks there. So you know, when you when you think about turf students coming up, I guess what would be your what would be your argument for them to look at opportunities an agent, look for an internship.
But like you did, I think you can help you stand out. You know, I think a lot of turf students go through the Ohio State program, which by all accounts is a fantastic program. You can work at some of the top clubs. You get to go to multiple clubs, you go to Wealth of Experience, they provide extra education. I America is a great place I love to visit, but there's a lot of for the rest of the world that I think is as good, better, you know,
more interesting. Perhaps so you can stand out by you know, being a little bit more adventurous.
Yeah, all right, well, John, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This is really interesting and best of luck there in shan Chin Bay.
Garet, thanks for having me. Thanks a lot.
This episode of the Fridagg Golf Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you're enjoying the content that you're hearing on the Frida Egg Golf Podcast, I think you would love CLUBTFE. That's Frida Egg's membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars a year and you get
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