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Free at dreamgolf dot com backslash Giveaway. Today's episode is with Don Plaisak. Don is a partner at Renaissance Golf Design. Don lives up in Traverse City. I interviewed him in his office up there when I was on a recent stay in northern Michigan. This is kind of a free flowing conversation. We talk a lot about Don's art. It's world renowned golf art. He does all the routing maps for Renaissance Golf, Tom doakes projects, and it's becoming a
bigger and bigger part of his his daily life. So we talk a little bit about drawing golf holes, which is probably something many of you have done in your childhood slash adult life, as well as designing and working with golf courses. So, without further ado, here is Don Plasik.
I miss the 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 bright egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg, bride egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off the golf course. All right, let's just start there.
Okay.
Why Why is consulting tough?
Oh? I think I think consulting You got to talk into the mic though.
Okay, how's that? Is that better? That's better?
Okay, I'll try again. Why is consulting tough? That's a great question. It's it's a challenge because getting golf architecture right is not like solving a Rubic's cube.
There.
There's there's really no right, clear, black and white answer. It's just varying degrees of rightness, and you're dealing with decision makers and you're often interrupting day to day golf, which a lot of people don't care enough about the architecture as long as they get all their golf in when they want to play it. You know, geographically, if you're in a place where the golf season is short, you're you're already got one arm tied behind your back
because no one wants the golf course interrupted. They just want to play, and you have to. They're the members, they own the place. It's theirs. So you know, it's a there are just so many moving parts, and the idea that something could be better is an easy thing to say. What's really tough is getting the traction you
need to actually physically make it better. And over my years, in different contexts, I've found that, you know, if you're able to socialize what you're trying to do to the right people at the club that are that don't need to be sold on anything, they already understand it or they've they've learned it, and then they're they're internally getting that information around and inside the club. That's when you
can get the balloon off the ground. If you're always on the outside trying to convince people that this is better and this is why, but inherently they're just not that interested. You know that that can make things really, really tough, And sometimes it can be at a golf course that has oceans of potential, and that makes it a little bit frustrating, and sometimes you hang on to those challenges for a longer period of time in hopes
that you can eventually get there. I mean, the toughest part about I don't know if it's the toughest part, but one of the biggest challenges of getting something to reach its full potential is the pace that you have to learn that you're going to go at. And sometimes it's an inchworm pace. You know, one year you make a lot of progress and then you're not for several years. And it could be the economy, it could be a green committee, it could be the weather, it could be
any number of things. So I think as a consultant, I think you try and appreciate progress and then work at the pace that the club is able to work at and try to be satisfied that whatever that is, it's not really in your control. All you can do is move the needle when it's ready to be moved and hopefully do a good job when it does. And if you do a good job, maybe you can create some more momentum.
It's in a way, it sounds a little bit like sales. You know, you have to find your champion who pushes everything through. And I think, you know, I think anybody that wants change, whether it be at their local public course, their local club, you know, who's tried to push for things, you can become You can ostracize the group of people really quick and become you know, oh taboo and don't talk to that guy. He's you know, and I think
that's something that people can appreciate. And then, you know, you have to deal with so many different stakeholders, right and everybody, whether they will admit it or not, greens chair, club president, golf pro superintendent, all of them have different priorities and deep down want different things and getting them all to row in the same direction has got to be really tough.
Yeah, I think that's a that's an excellent point and really intuitive. Andy. I think you know that the list of players that you just named golf professional superintendent, every club's different. You know, the golf professional at one club may have clout till the cows come home and whatever he says has been and can quickly become gospel. Superintendents
at some clubs serve you know, that role. What they say really goes, and you know the pro is either less interested or just not that involved in that kind of thing and maybe doesn't want to be. And you know, it's it's like every club, the membership dynamic is different and as a result, the decision makers who are the employees of the members, you know, their ability to influence a situation, whether it's a tea or a bunker or a tree, or this or that or the other thing
is all different. And you as a consultant, I think if you're lucky enough to be in the business providing that service at clubs that have merit for a long enough time, you learn that the architecture is what your focus is. But what you have to learn to be good at, and there's different ways to do it, because every club is different, is how do you get there? You know, the architecture is foundational, but it's also finite. You know, the potential club has tea to green is finite.
And then it's up to you to try and figure out how much can we move this golf course in a direction that meets our priorities? And and how do you present as many holes as well as you can over time? And you have to decide how hard to push the people that might get ostracized, Like you just mentioned, how hard do you go there? Because if you if you break that mechanism, you could in quite possibly be
you know, finished there. And then and then someone else gets elected and now all of a sudden, the club's going in an entirely different direction. You know, we've we've had really a lot of our work at great clubs sort of reversing things that got started for the wrong reason.
And you know, in my opinion, if if you're if those decision makers are still active at a club, whether it's a green chair or committee or a board or whoever, and and and they started taking the ship in a modern direction and they're still around frequently, there's no chance of doing any good work there because they don't want to admit that they steered the ship that way, spent this money, interrupted play, did all these things and it
maybe it wasn't a good idea. Yeah. So you know, any club that goes that way and then has the wherewithal to go, you know, the learning curve is sharp, and we're paying attention and we've got something really good here. We need to reverse engines and slow the ship down and chart a new course which is really an old course and go back to that. And the clubs that are able to do that. I give a lot of credit to people that go, you know what, this was not good. We thought it was, we were told it was,
and everyone else was doing it. But the truth is, if we do our homework and do some due diligence. We've got something special here and we need to go back to that. And that's you know, that's really hard to do. People don't like to to well expose themselves.
That person or an organization that is uh, you know, it's really easy to say we're doing this and puff out your chests about.
What you're doing and how you're changing.
It's it's really rare and in a mark of I think, you know, just if you're talking about people at a personal level, the people that are able to admit, hey.
I messed up, this was not the right decision.
You know, that's those are the you know, those are the rare human beings.
Right, that's right, because that's not an that's not a trait. It makes you uncomfortable, and we invariably try and avoid that kind of stuff, especially in front of our peers, and especially with something as special as a as the golf holes at a at a private club. I mean, that's your that's your whole entire identity, are your presentation of your golf holes. And you don't want to be the one that that that blew it. So you're I
couldn't agree with you more. It's that is, and that's something that I've been involved with, but it's also something that I think can be very rewarding that you can do your job well enough to help a group make undo a decision that they that they made and and you know, for better or worse, we've gotten a bit
of a reputation. I think of being able to do that, not just physically to get bunkers back where they were, and greens and things in trees and all the physical stuff on a golf course back to what they were, but being able to help a club do it, because if the club isn't committed with its membership, it really doesn't matter. The rest of it is just noise.
You've got to be it's got to be a cool stage of your career at renaissance in the sense that you have been working with clubs for long periodiods of time, you know, ten twenty years, and you're able to go back to them and think back to when you started.
And I always I get this way a little bit with the Frida eg when we roll around to four or five year anniversaries where I think back and I you know, there's like it got to be a neat nostalgia factor when you go visit a club that you've worked at for ten plus years.
Yeah, there's no question about that, and it's that's really what's rewarding, especially if the golf course or the golf holes really deserved that kind of attention. And I think, you know, it's important as we age and do this kind of stuff for a while, it is important to look back and spend an appropriate amount of time reflecting
on the successes. Because the truth is, you know, we were talking earlier about how a golf course is never it's alive, and it's aging andvolving and always changing, and so the work is never really done, even though sometimes the best work is not doing anything at all. You're always paying attention to detail, and it is important to look back and reflect. And that's what I think can generate patience. And patience in consulting is it's a pretty
important factor. The question is how patient are you and when does it make sense to be impatient? And which battle should you fight in order to win the war or which one should you back off of so that
you're still in the game. And I think that's what makes consulting really interesting and it always sharpens your game because you're always thinking about the ideas that the core are pretty fundamental and not that different, but how you present them, how you you what how you frame them, what context you put them in to help decision makers understand better what you're you're trying to achieve and why is That's the part that you're just constantly working on
and that comes with age and experience and hopefully you get better at it as you go and you're able to speak speak a little more freely because you can lean on your experience. That helps you know. Credibility is huge.
Tom's a perfect example of that. You know, his credibility is at the very top, and when he speaks, people listen and he can speak more freely because he knows they're going to listen, and if, you know, if they don't, he can choose to take his wares elsewhere and go try and help clubs that want to move in that particular direction. So yeah, it's a I think consulting. As challenging as it is and always will be, it actually makes you better at what you do. Plus, every golf
hole is different. The more you can see, the better you get in Tom's you know, that's one of the first lessons of many that I learned from Tom is anytime you're around someplace, go see something else that's being built or that's been there for a century or whatever. Just constantly look around and there's always something to be learned.
What's one of your favorite diversions when you're somewhere and you went and saw something else? So do you have one that jumps to mind really off the top of your head where you went and down the street or you know, out of the way to see something when you're visiting somewhere else.
Yeah, I think that's one of the greatest simple pleasures of what we do is, you know, we try and be really efficient with our travel. Days on the road, days at home are precious, and days on the road can stay backup. Anyone that's been in this business knows all about that. So when you try and tack something on, you know, that can be a double edged sword, especially if you have a family and and you know you're trying to have a healthy relationship with a spouse and
all those kinds of things. But you know what I think is really interesting is the stuff. The first time I was to Australia with Tom, I got to stay a couple extra days and Mike Clayton took me around to see everything in the sand Belt. But there's always
you know, the great courses get all the ink. But if you go another five or seven miles out of the sand Belt, the stuff that's there that no one hears about because of all the marquee stuff in the sand Belt would be top fifty in a lot of other places in the world, and they just get lost in the shuffle because as you know, Shinnacock and the National.
You know, Southampton and a perfect example.
Yeah, and I think a lot of metropolitan areas that had the luxury of we consider now a name architect from the Golden Age that came in and did something because it was a big city and that's where the people were that didn't have golf, that wanted it. The stuff around it, if it ends up being good, just it just it just can't compete. And you know, a lot of the maintenance and presentation of those places is really the model we should spend our time paying attention to,
not the model of the marquee places. And so you know, the United Kingdom is there's just countless examples of just a little farther off the beaten track or on your way from here to there, at all the the golf tour stops that you got to make if you're going over there, that's when you find there's just countless examples. And it's not because that's a top hundred course, but it's probably got some top hundred holes on it, and the reasons for that are countless.
I was driving back.
From a trip with my wife once and we were driving through upper part of Wisconsin, and I knew we were driving right by Pine Hills, which is in Sheboygan Cohler and We're driving and I said to my wife, I'm like, hey, I need to make a stop. It's only going to take twenty minutes. And I could see my wife rolling her eyes because.
You know, it never takes twenty minutes.
So you know, it was late in the afternoon, and I stopped. I got off the road. I drove into the parking and they have like a long drive. I drove into the driveway, I just parked the car and I literally I had running shoes on. I got out and I ran around the golf course. It's like I must have run two and a half miles, like and I just ran just to see what was going on, and I was like, oh my god, this what's is unbelievable.
And it was even just doing that.
I saw it and I was like, Okay, I have to come back here.
Like you know, it's like the affirmation is, like.
I think, one of the fun most fun things, you know. I did a podcast with Tom a few months ago, and I was telling him about my drive from from Kansas to Nebraska. I was going from Prairie Dunes to to wild Horse and it was you know, Tom's obviously the world traveler, the explorer loves stopping at random places. I've told him how I like rubber necked in this little town in Kansas, Ellsworth, Kansas. I rubbernecked because I saw this golf course to my right and just the
way the holes laid over the ground you were. And then I you know, I was talking to a buddy on the phone and I'm like, hey, can you look up Ellsworth golf course? Like yeah, Like he looked at He's like nineteen twenty It's like nineteen twenty four.
So I like, I like, turn, I pulled a U, I got out. I want.
I just looked at it for ten minutes, but it was you know, I had to be somewhere.
But that is I think one of the neatest things about you know it.
You know, in a way, it's like when you find the great restaurant that nobody knows about. Absolutely, you find the cool bar that's tucked away in the in the corner of a town.
We all have that motivation for that pleasure in that discovery. I mean, it's there are a lot of parallels I think of Music's probably the easiest one for me, when you hear a track that you've never heard before from a band you've never heard of, and you know, music's that way when you hear it, it takes seconds and you know you dig it and you can't put your
finger on it. But that is one of life's greatest simple pleasures, is hearing a song you've never heard before that leads you down, you know, a path to learning more about the band and hearing another track and another track, and and it's endless and in new Music's all around us all the time, and that's one of the that's one of the most enjoyable things. I know. Music's a huge part of my life. So that's just an easy analogy for me. But it's a lot like that, and
it's just enjoyable. It's fun to discover a band. I mean, like we were just talking about earlier, the Revivalist playing two hundred yards from our office several years ago, and now they're you know, they've hit the scene. They've hit the scene, and it's fun to be to be able to say, you know, I saw them when.
Yeah.
And you know, like you said on your drive, if you're driving past something that looks interesting and then you learn it was built in the twenties, it's worth taking a visual listen. Yeah, very rarely do you regret making a stop like that, because there probably is at least a couple of holes that are like, wow, that's nifty. I'd like to have a go at that.
Yeah. And that's that's the thing I mean I think about.
I always think about, like, what's the number of bad holes that a course can have and still be great?
Like mediocre holes?
Yeah?
But then there's also like the flip side of it is like what's the number of good holes does a course need to have in order to be that?
You need to see it, you know, like that you should see it.
And you know, there's the there's a great little nine hole that I found called Eagle Springs in Wisconsin.
It's in the kind of it's kind of.
Like an hour or so from Milwaukee, but in the sticks and the first two holes are like knock your socks off.
Holes, right, And I say to people, like.
It's worth just going and playing the first two holes. You can decide to play the rest of the seven. But if you if you pay the I think it's twenty bucks. Those two holes are you know, out of this world.
Yeah, that was worth the seven fifty per hole that you paid to play.
Those exactly, yeah, exactly.
It's this is interesting to me because again it's it's music. You know, I'm way older than you. I bought cassette tapes and LPs for a time, and then CDs, and now music has evolved into this whole completely different way that we find new music listen to new music. But my metric for buying a CD to put into my collection was I needed to hear three tracks from the album that I liked enough to buy the CD. And
that was kind of my recipe. If it only had one, I probably wouldn't Two was kind of a push, but I needed to have three out of the ten or twelve and then I would add it to my collection. And I don't think that's any different than what you just subscribed. If those first three holes are really good, it's okay that the others aren't that great because you can go listen to the first three tracks again.
Well that's like the interesting thing too with music about when you see bands, Like it's so fun to watch a band rise up, Like, you know, there's this band, Lord Heuron that I saw in Austin that was tiny ooh, you know, and then they became bigger. But then I went to Cago show and Leon Bridges opened for them, and now Leon Bridges is you know, trending towards.
Superstardom, right, you know.
And it's so funny because like I found this little band. But when you go to a small when you go to the band early on, you go to a concert, there's really you're going for three or four songs, yeah, And then you realize the really great bands when you go see you know, Red like for me, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Sure they can fill a show, and you feel like, oh, they didn't even play these songs that
I love because they have the whole cash exactly. And it's it's it's really similar to golf courses where, like the really great courses, every single hole you're like, you just want more and more, yes, But but then with you know, the up and comers, it's like, oh, a couple holes here, a couple holes there, yea, and those are totally they're worth seeing.
For sure, you know, yeah, for sure. And and I you know, at the end of the day, I think anytime you see a golf hole you haven't seen, or even if they are in your estimation all eighteen or just mediocre, there's still something if you're plagued with the disease of being interested in golf architecture, that you'll find that you take away. There's always a takeaway, even if it's like, well, that situation is so bad, you know, that shouldn't shouldn't have happened at all, and you're still
taking away that you're still learning something from it. But maybe there's a way that three holes flow together, even though they're not great holes, the walk is just lovely. That's still something, you know, that's still a takeaway. And I think that's what we have all gotten over time. From Tom. And I'm not nearly as good at or willing or dedicated as Eric Iverson and Brian Slonik and Brian Schneider, who probably has seen more golf holes than
any other human being. What he knows and that's his that is his mantra. I mean, that's his that's that's his mission statement is to see as much as possible. And and I'm just fortunate the guys I work with, I get to benefit from the effort that they make because they bring that with them when they're working on something else. And I'm just lucky to be, you know, associated with them. If I'm being very honest.
You know, you used to work closely at Renaissance. I'm sure he's a friend with Bruce Happner. You know, I have to ask, oh, yeah, who's got the who's the deeper, who's the bigger music fan between you two?
Oh? Man, Uh, I think I think Bruce is he just knows more about music. He's invested more and understanding little lydiosyncrasies about bands and how they relate to each other. Plus he's you know, I think it's fair to say he's he's a musician, you know, he he's actually taken his love of music to the point where he's taught himself to play guitar. Well, you know, pretty well, Brian Eric Iverson and I and Brian Schneider love music till
the cows come home. You know, we can have endlessly long conversations about music, and that's one thing that really binds us together. But Brian Sonik's the exception of that core because he is a musician. He can play several instruments well, and he does it so matter of factly, and so I can't think of the correct word for how someone that talented is just so matter of fact
about it. But that just makes it even cooler. You know, the guys I work with are really really hyper talented, but not just in golf, and I think they're able to draw on their additional talents and bring that into the golf stuff, and it finds its way into our work, you know, whether it's shaping a green or you know. Most of the way I contribute is drawing. But I when I'm listening to music and it's the right track pops on when I'm drawing, the drawing is invariably better.
You can't put your finger on why it just the lines flow. It feels good. I like to say the drawing is talking to you or me. When I'm doing a plan, there's a point hopefully in anyone that I do that it starts to talk to me, and it just means it's pleasing to my eye. So I'm happy with it.
It's amazing how I think that people get such tunnel vision. I have to be so dedicated to my you know, I have to work, work, work, and we have this.
Workaholic doesn't stop.
But like one of the things that happens is a lot of times when you take a step away or you take a diversion, what it does is it leads you to better work shortly thereafter. I've been like you know, for me, I've got a one year old. You know, it's been a crazy year. You've had COVID, you know, you own a small business. It's been stressful, and like you know, I took a vacation last week. I did almost no work, and it's amazing how much more refreshed
and excited I was to like do work. And I obviously have a job that I love, and you know, I very rarely am not excited, but like just the the enthusiasm I felt through me this week because I got a chance and and things I thought about all you know, when I was going on hikes or doing different things. It just it's amazing how other interests can lead to better work in your field.
No question, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, you've really hit the nail on the head and and whatever that is for whatever you do. I mean, we're both lucky. We really enjoy what we do. And I'm even more fortunate I enjoy the people that I am doing my work with. If you can say that with a straight face and really mean it, you're light years
ahead of so many other folks, you know. They and I like to think that's what hopefully makes everything that we do that much better, is because we enjoy those those very fortunate benefits. And you know, we have all our own cliches about if the project is fun, if
the fun factor is high, the work's better. I think, you know, it's it's the same concept of what you just described, and not doing some work for a while makes you, if nothing else, it just makes you appreciate what you have a little bit more, and that makes things a little bit more enjoyable. I mean, we're all just trying to to sprinkle as much of that stuff
in our day to day existence as we can. And and I'm just lucky I've been able to do the lion's share of that for the lion's share of the time.
So you you touched on your your drawings.
I think everybody that's listening to this podcast has probably seen one of them. If if they haven't, we'll probably post some accompanied visuals with with this podcast so you'll be able to check it out.
But I'd love to hear how you got started with the drawing?
Was you know, were you really great artists as a kid, Like, how did this come about?
How did you you know? You you do all.
The drawings for all of Tom's you know, master plans, all of the Renaissance, you know, golf Desiyes, master plans, and you know, I think it's something that it seems like is very is a growing side of your business in terms of the drawing.
So how did it get started for me?
My parents? I don't think either one, if they were here, would say they passed on necessarily any art genes. But they were creative people. They had music on again, music, they had music one all the time, and they were creative. They just thought about things differently. And they, you know, myself and my two younger sisters, they we were always encouraged to try stuff. Swimming, lessons, you know, you name it, pottery, just whatever, make a mess, see if you like it.
And I one of the first things they put in front of me was just a big blank you're too young to know what a big chief pad was, aligned pad with lines on one side and a grid on the there and some blank pages in the middle, and a fresh box of colored pencils or crayons, the cool sixty four box with the sharpener in the back. I mean that with a big chief pad was it was just magic to me, and you could draw whatever you wanted, whatever inspired you. So I just liked drawing my whole life.
It just was. It seemed to come easy enough, and I've always always enjoyed it. So that you know, that's way back to the start, but fast forward to the to the golf world. Clients, especially if they're writing checks, like to see something that makes them feel comfortable that they have an idea of what they're getting for what they're investing in, and drawings are the very first thing they lay their eyes on. And it's been a fascinating journey andy for me working for Tom, because you know,
that's a that's a double edged sword. Tom doesn't want to be constrained by some artist's vision at the beginning, you know, to have to stick to that is just bad form. You don't end up with the best product at the end.
But I mean, what's the pet die The famous Pete story is he needed to submit plan, submit plans, and he submitted plans for another golf course that already had been built to get the you know all those things.
Yeah, and you know, and and the truth is that is the truth. Yeah, you know, the the the drawings you see from the twenties and thirties that I like to refer to rarely ended up. You know, that would look anything like an as built. They didn't even bother with that stuff. Then there was no need. The golf
course is done, Let's go play golf. But you know that's a that's a that can be a sticky wicket putting something in front of a client at the beginning and then for some reason, you you you diverge from that, and they think, well, what happened did you get it wrong? Is something out of place? Did you not study the ground well enough that you were really committed to that? And you know that's something that you overcome over time.
And I think that's something like you know, in the most for the most part, you're getting hired by business people or lawyers or doctors.
And and for the most part, indeed.
Their their job is they this is what we're going to do, and we execute it versus like anybody that's in any sort of a creative role, Like I have like five things that I wanted to talk to you about, and we haven't touched on any of them right till now, you know.
Because we went on a diversion. We get back.
When I set out to write something, it might start as one idea and end up something completely different by the time you get writing and your thoughts developed. And the same thing for your work, like you get working and you might see something or you might move dir one way and then all of a sudden something else becomes way more apparent.
Yeah, for me, that's a that's spot on. A drawing really can't evolve. I mean it, you know it's going to have if it's a routing plan it's going to have eighteen holes depicted in some form or another. But the way you depict them and how you orient them on the page. And for me, things that I get excited about are, you know, what's the north are going to look like here? And and how do I incorporate I like to sort of mush stuff together rather than have defined edges on things. I like to break the
borders of the drawing. You know, I like to have stuff meld from one thing into another. And then you know, we've had the good fortune of working on some logos on some projects, and you know, that process is very similar to It's not a huge departure from building golf holes. You know, you think you start with an idea and sometimes you're excited about it, and sometimes you're not excited about it, but you get excited because you're looking at
it all of a sudden in a different way. And you know, I like to look at the drawings that way too, And you know, so much of that is from how I grew up and being encouraged to be creative from my parents and friends and people around me. And you know, that's like finding a new golf hole. It's a fun process. Because you discover things. I had a professor in college and my color theory class at Colorado at CU that intentionally put a nice drawing on a drafting table on one of his lectures and dumped
coffee on it. And we were all aghast, why did you do that? That was a cool drawing. And then he turned it into something different. He incorporated the stain after it dried into clouds that looked like a perspective on what one of the building elevations was going to be. And I think that happens with golf construction too. You know there might be this native done that you really wanted to preserve and a contractor tracked over it or took a tree down that wasn't supposed to God forbid
or something like that. And you know, that's just life. That's and and if you can adapt what you're building on a golf course that way, you can do it with drawings, and you can you can do it with everything.
And do you do you look at other types of maps like absolutely? And if so, like what are some type of specific maps that you think back to a lot?
Yeah, you know it's not really the one. And I'm an instagram I follow classic maps, old charts. You know, there's a there's a there's a there's an instagram that's I think it's just called I E Fing love maps and and uh and and anytime you look at some way that someone cartographically, you know, took cartography and stretched it to show data in a different way, in a visual way. I mean invariably we're all simple humans are or we're looking for all of the data fast as
we can get it. And I like to think, you know, graphics have a way of conveying something perhaps quicker than a lot of other things. And I just try and do that with golf maps too.
Now with that, you know, you're trying to convey architecture in a you know too?
Is it one dimensional maps? One dimensional?
Yeah? Well to the third try to get it's like you say, trying to get that the third dimension to marry to the first two. There's lots of ways to do that.
There's trick like it's not you're not drawing.
I think you know one of the you're probably it's probably not identical the scale always of your You need to what are some hacks in order to that you use to convey because I think one of the things that your maps do so so well is convey the architecture and give you a sense of what you might see without being able to see any of the setting.
Yeah, that's a very high compliment, and I take it as such. I appreciate that. You know, I've learned over time that there are just things that your eye that appeals to your eye, and I'm really just trying to appeal to my own eye. And one of the ways is just you know, line weight patterns, hatching, stippling that create texture, and really what you're trying to do is demonstrate elevation change and where that elevation change hopefully is
strategic in the golf hole. But also you know, could create a feeling of something that's really high or really low that you're playing off of or around or up against or whatever. And you know you can you over time you kind of learn how to do that with with lines and line weight widths and you know, dark lines,
light lines, long thin lines together, spread apart. You know, the options are endless, which is another reason that is so fun, because I'm constantly discovering different ways to try and convey this is a subtle contour, or this is a monster contour and it's going to potentially affect your golf ball this way or that way. And the other thing is just you know, it's what draws your eye to a great photograph. If there's contrast, if there's engaging contrast,
your eye just picks up on that. The brain looks for the black against the white. And if you have that, that's a powerful statement. And if you can marry that to the more subtle stuff, then you can start to create a visual vernacular if you will, of this is a steep slope, or that fairway's cant it hard right to left? And you know, then hopefully you can start to see if that fairways can't it hard right to left.
That's clearly why you know, the front right of the green is protected or the front left of the green is protected as the case maybe because most people are going to end up on the right side. If you're good enough to keep it on the left, now you have an advantage on your ensuing shot. So it's those are the kinds of things. And I experiment a lot. You know, I've tried things that I thought really worked, and then I've had things that didn't. And but again
it's like seeing new golf. Every time you do something, hopefully you get a little better at it.
Was there.
Maybe an experiment that you a tweak that you did that really, you know, you feel elevated your maps, Like, was there a specific moment where you tried something a little different that that really made them take off?
That's a really good question, I think, Andy. My best answer for that would be, you know, if you if you go back through all the old architecture books that are available and look at the old the old guys and how they illustrated and graphically showed things, there's you know, there's ways to depict greens, there's ways to depict bunkers,
grassing lines and teas. But I think the thing that's maybe evolved the most for me, and it's still evolving, is you know, how do you The key in that is how do you demonstrate which way the hole plays and drawing the center lines, you know, the directional arrows. Here's the t shot, here's if it's a par five, here's the interim shot before your final approach. In theory, not that there are very many par fives anymore as far as everybody hits the ball, but there were lots
of different ways. Some guys just put an arrow from the tee pointing in that general direction and didn't even bother trying to show you where you're supposed to hit it. And so ways to have that information is on there, because I think the first thing someone does when they see a routing plan is they want to follow the path. They want to see where the holes go, where they how do they traverse over the property, and where is
the first part three? And you know whatever whatever golf language is in our mind, that when we look at that, like you say, especially if you haven't seen it before, that's important because that's what people are absolutely going to do. They're going to find the first tea in the eighteenth green and they're going to try and follow it all the way around. And it's it's kind of like finding a path in the woods. You know, we like those things.
It's just visually fun. So I've experimented a lot with that on how to get that information on the plan without it being the overpowering bit of data. And you know, sometimes that's more important.
If the probably a lot what you talked about the weight of your of your draw right, if if you're too heavy on that then that overpowers everything around it, so it almost needs to be lighter in a way exactly.
And and you know each plan that that the style you're using, you get to decide. That's what's so fun about drawing. It's all up to you. You know, how heavy is that going to be? What color is it going to be? I mean, color is just hugely powerful stuff. And black and white with one color can be incredibly
powerful and can convey an idea very very quickly. So you know, that's what's fun about it is interpreting what's what am I trying to convey and who's my audience and how can I best convey what's going on here? And you know, I guess the other thing too, is just putting a little flagstick that's waving on the green and you know everybody immediately can okay, that's that's where this hole is going. And if you have a flagstick
that that that is easy to pick up. And people like architecture, they I think, I like to think their eye goes backwards from there and they kind of try and figure out the strategy of the whole and that makes it. You know, that's fun too. The really simple things The truth is all the old guys did that too, if you look at it, and you know, I'm just
I'm just borrowing what I think are good ideas. I haven't really invented anything, Andy, I'm just maybe reinterpreting it a little bit and trying to add a little bit of style to it, you know. I think the other thing I like to do and try hard to do is make the drawings to age them, which is no different than the golf holes that were trying to build in the field.
Rough like if you're doing a restoration, making the bunk and not having everything look new.
Right, absolutely, Yeah, the older the better, all the way down to you know, the cyanotype blue background, right, Yeah, that's the Sir John Herschel in the eighteen forties was you know, that's when photography was just sort of being figured out. Before that, it was Da Vinci's camera obscure from the fifteen hundred, so that was revolutionary stuff at the time. But that goes back to the com because that really deep, meaningful ocean blue background with essentially white
line work. I mean, the contrast is tremendous and it and it ages it. I mean that that background is light sensitive, so over time those old cyanotype drawings invariably faded and stuff, and now they're sort of being discovered and paid attention to again. And that's that's a way I'd like to try and add age to the to the drawings that that I've worked on. And we did that intentionally with a of course, a course guide at Lanark Country Club where in my backpack. Yeah, that was
the intent from the beginning. There was someone in the nineteen thirties that did really rough versions of the holes there at the time, and the architecture is different and far more sporty now, but we took that flavor and tried to just make a direct trend to the yardage
book to make the place feel aged and old. There's just something about some you know, it doesn't matter if it's a pair of Levi's, if it's old and worn, it's just a little more comfortable and it's a little easier on the eyes, and plus it's just fun.
It's like wearing you're it's like when you wear your jeans fresh out of the wash versus the.
Second day out of the wash.
Very well said with the you know, with what you're describing in many ways it. I think it's what when you think about golf courses that really, you know.
Get you excited.
They have a lot of different things going on that draw your eye in different places and not necessarily distract you, but make you observe the entire.
The entire picture that you're.
Looking at, Yes, versus you know, when you think about like the public golf course that I grew up playing, it had rough, fair away green and trees on both sides, a very whole indeed, and you know that it almost tunnels you. Versus when you think of a place like say, I'm looking at a great painting of Pacific tunes right here that has so much texture and so as you said, contrasts and different things that draw your eye that and maybe that's you know, in a you know, beyond just
a strategy and everything. Certain golf courses make you so aware of everything going on around you, and that might be one of the things that's you know, but that's also what you're trying to convey with the drawings, is everything that's going on in the hole.
Yeah, to the extent you can, and you're right, you know, working in only two dimensions that can be tough, but you're spot on. Back to consulting for a flash. You know a lot of the places we've worked at for a while where tea to green stuff's in pretty good order. The challenge now is how do you enhance the golf experience?
How do you look, you know, past a green or what do you see as you're going down the fairway that you can reveal or offer to not just the people that play there every day, but they're guests too that help them remember that golf experience a little bit better because you know, humans, if you play well, you tend to like a golf course a little better than if you don't if you're only going to play at once.
But if what you're looking at while you're playing, other than t screens, fairways and bunkers is memorable, it just enhances the golf experience. And and you know, with a drawing, you don't you don't have that opportunity to look off site,
but you do have. You know, if you've got a feature on a property that is significant that you're really trying to take advantage of, like the Strabaklan no at at the Renaissance Club and in uh in Scotland, you know you can you can draw it in a way that tells the observer or someone who's looking at your plan, that must be something pretty significant because it looks different
than everything else. It's been called out graphically and it you know, sometimes it's it's just a cove or a cliff side, or maybe it's a really steep cliff side. If you can convey that to just a hole, not just playing along a natural water based hazard like you know, the ocean or the beach or the you know, a lake or a pond, you can graphically make it significant so that it helps someone understand that that might be pretty neat golf in your ball next to that thing.
And it doesn't even have to be water. It can be vegetation or elevation change or just you know, and in many cases it's just the rare eyes sore. Maybe it's an old mine or a barrow pit or something like that that's overgrown. Great hazard for golf, and then you try and convey that as best you can graphically, and that's what's fun to do. You learn little ways to make something look steep or rugged or rocky or
just steep and slippery. You know what, whatever you can do and you know, that's always that's that's a fun.
Aspect of it too.
Just drawing other stuff other than golf help you when you do you do that? Ever, do you ever draw you know, something else and then does that help you?
Obviously you do the logo stuff.
Is there stuff that happened when you do another activity that helps you know your your your drawing of golf GOLs.
That's a that's a really interesting question too, because I think the answer, the short answer is yes, I've I've done some some different things, not golf based, for my family, you know, different points in their life, gifts to commemorate different things, you know, I mean, and as digital as everything is now, you can get the basic foundational stuff for anywhere on the globe, a city street, you know,
building a landscape, view or whatever. It's all at your fingertips, So you can get that framework easy and then sprinkle in your family's experience in they're hopefully in a creative way. So and I do that too. I just I love doing that, I think, and it's fun for me because it's again it's not that different of what I'm doing with golf. When I was when I was in college, I had a reputation of that's the golf guy in
my environmental design landscape architecture emphasis area. Because I was constantly trying to integrate golf into whatever project I was assigned, people got up. My professors would just get tired of it, and they tolerated me that way. But I think it's funny because they tolerated it enough that I could do it. And that's really all golf just is just exudes itself and pretty much my entire life, my family, my friends,
my work obviously, and there's always the golf thing. It just seems to bubble up and find its way to the surface. And whatever I do, and back to your question about doing other things, it does seem to find
its way in there. I have a preference for just landscapes just because I you know, study it and think about it and a lot, and hopefully that finds its way into a routing or a consulting situation where the good stuff that can really assist the experience of golf, that has nothing to do with golf at all finds its way in there. I just I like to to try and integrate things together and mix things together that maybe you wouldn't it wouldn't seem intuitive to do so,
and it's fun. I'm lucky. I'm lucky I have work that lets me do those kinds of things. I think most people are creative in some capacity in their own way, and a lot of people might not be as lucky as I have been to be able to just tap into that they might be creative in a way they're
not even aware of. And I thank my parents for that, because they just they threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at us to try when we were kids, because they had the realization that, you know, you don't know what you're good at until you discover it.
I could relate.
I was, you know, it was in the business world, and when I started this, I was most worried about the creative stuff I find myself. I feel like, you know, when I have to do run the business side of it, it really hampers my creative you know, and it frustrates me. Yes, you know, so it's really you know, you don't know what you'll be good at until you try it, and then you know. That's I think that's really good advice
for anybody, especially people that are are starting careers. Like you know, you think you are supposed to do this or you want to do this. And really, as I look back on my life, like what careers are is like you know your different jobs are you just you just become an expert at these really random things.
Yeah, that's a really interesting point, and we talk about it a lot, you know. I think that's a thin silver lining of the global health issues that we're all facing now is that golf has benefited from that. You know, people are playing it that haven't ever, people are going back to it that got away from it for a while, like we were talking about earlier, and and I hope that you know that resurgence can can travel to places.
You know, that's that's an important thing that we all should be trying to do, is introduce golf to as many people, even in its in its rudimentary you know, form sand greens with one club, you know, in a desert somewhere for example. That's an extreme example. But I like to think everybody has it, and there are probably a lot of people globally that have the same potential to play the game as well as anybody ever has
that don't even know what golf is. They don't even know the concept let alone have a club in their hands and being able to stand on maintain turf and hit a white ball. And I'm always fascinated by that. Andy. I just wonder how many really great players are that will live their entire life out there there that will never even pick up a golf club that could have been just amazing.
I think about that with singing. How many unbelievable singers are there that a like, because it takes so much self confidence to put yourself out there in that aspect. Is like, how many great you know, like people with voices like Adele you know that are living that don't they have never tried it because they're afraid to put or they've never sung in front of people because they're self conscious. Like I think about that all the time, and it's it's, you know, it's like the same thing.
How many great golf.
Sites are there for golf courses that nobody's just come across that has the eye? You know, Like when I'm up and we're in northern Michigan right now, it's like I drive around and I'm just like.
Oh, yeah, it's a hot spot up here for that. There's no question.
Turn on your head and you see.
You see golf holes everywhere you look, and they aren't you know, they're just farmland. But you just see, oh there's a great golf ball right there. Yeah, you know, I'd like to build a golf course right here.
Yeah.
I was talking to a lady at a golf course the other day and she was telling me about, you know, how she thought this one place could be really great. And then she was telling me she had like, you know, they lived one hundred and fifty acres, and I go, it is a cool land and she goes, yeah, it's really we got some ravines and stuff.
I go, we'll just build something out there. Yeah.
Yeah, And I think, you know, the more of that that happens, the more people are likely to give it, give it a whirl. The Glen Way nine hole project
in Madison that the Kaiser family is involved with. Part of the recipe is to have a big public putting green yards away from a pretty busy city intersection in town and leave, you know, as I understand it, some golf balls and some putters out there, and it's just available to anybody to just walk by, pick up a club, knock the ball, and hopefully, you know, eventually get it in the hole. I mean, it's like, that's that's as important as building a great golf course in a lot
of ways. It's the first time someone puts the ball from distance and the ball goes in the hole. It's like when I was a kid, I lived in Nebraska and we fished a lot, and the first time, you know, you get live bait on a hook and a bobber in the water, and the first time you see the bobber, you know, moves, yeah. And then when it goes under it and it pulls on your your fishing pole, having a fish on That's one of life's greatest simple pleasures.
And you know what hooks you it is literally and figuratively.
And I think, you know, just being a lot less formal about golf, just introduce it anyway you can get it out there. I mean. One of one of the lovely things about my wife Elizabeth, when I first met her, when she understood that I was in the business of golf, not an avid golfer, but she was confident enough to tell me how she's played before. But she keeps score with emojis, so if she plays a hole well, she
gets a smile face. If she doesn't, she gets a you know, a frown, and then sometimes you have the confused look on the scorecard. And we've graduated to a hybrid now where if she really does make a good score, we'll put the number down, but if you have a bad hole, just put a frown in the square and
move on. You know. But I think we've figured out a way to enjoy golf together and thinking about it in a little bit different way and trying to make it accessible and keeping it fun is hyper critical, and we have an opportunity now with the focused attention on golf that has emerged in the last year to two years, hopefully, you know, the game will just become more intriguing and compelling to more people, even if they don't play it
in a necessarily a conventional card and pencil way. That's I think that's really really important.
Well, you're talking about Glen Glen Way and the putt and green. Something that went through my head was one of the you know, it's like you get these pictures that you always remember, these pictures of life, and I was leaving winter Park Golf Club, the Keith rev and Riley Great Little Community ninth to get there one day. It's super cool and it's divided by all these roads.
It's in the middle of a neighborhood. And I was driving away, sun was going down beautiful winter night there and I, you know, there's a stop sign and I'm looking.
I look right, and.
I look left, and they've got a great community putting green right by the ninth tee, which is you know, and I look left and I see a father and like a four year old walking like down the sun like you got that late night sky, and it was just in the four year olds Karen a little putter and you know, I don't know, it's like an emotional like it like that is just such a cool thing because like you know, it's just a h you know,
that's it reminds me of my childhood going. We had a big putting green at the public course that I grew up playing at, and I'll spend all day on it.
Oh yeah, but putting never gets boring. Shipping and putting, yeah absolutely, And you know, if you're good at that, you can play against anybody, you know. I mean that's one of golf's discoveries.
I think driving range almost hampers the I think youth development in a way, because if you become really good at at putting and chipping by the you know, like when you're young, you want to develop those skills because your body's going to change so much and your swing's going to change.
It's your body changes.
The obsession with the perfect swing because that video is created is like really detrimental. I think, like to like, you want your kid at at age ten just to know how to get the ball.
In the hole absolutely and enjoy it enough, and enjoy it enough that they can't ever fix that ailment. You know, they can only try and play more and just be
around it more. And I think, you know, my my my dad taught me my golf swing, and he was a golf professional in the Denver area at a Donald Ross course called Lakewood Country Club, And you know, we'd go to the range and he would always look up and down the range and and say, I can't imagine the purpose of everybody hitting a whole bucket of balls with their driver and never taking any of the other
clubs out of their bag. You know, I mean, you go to the range and it's all about how far you can hit it, and the focus is never really on the short game, and you would always say, Son, the secrets in the short game. You know, as long as you have that, you can play against anybody. And
he taught me a lot of things. I just I remember those that I was thinking about when you were talking about crossing the crosswalk with a dad and a four year old, and when you were talking about that, it made me think, you know, I hope we You know, short courses seem to be really gaining popularity. They seemed initially years ago they just seemed kind of hokey, like what you do with leftover ground. But for whatever reason, more people are playing, and the places you go, the
accomplished golf resorts have those short courses. In Man I was at in June this year, I was at sand Valley with Brian Schneider walking around on the lido and the short course they have there, the sandbox. It's like a firecracker in an anthill. It's jammed and people are laughing and having fun.
And I think that short course. I haven't seen all the short courses, but that short course to me, blows away every other short course. They that Bill and Bill and Jim Craig, I know Jim. It was kind of Jim's baby. They did such an unbelievable job.
That it's fantastic, so fun.
Yeah, and you know, I have a you know, we'll see when Lido is done. But I say to people, that's the best golf course on the property.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and the other golf course are really good.
Yes they are, Yes, they are.
And I think it's because it's the you know, for for most people, it's the easiest way to have fun. You drop your expectations, you drop your the tenseness of it. You know, this isn't where you give yourself a pass. This isn't real golf, or this isn't regular golf. So it's okay. I don't have to get all worked up about it. And you can play it with a cocktail and play it in your flip flops and and in
the evening. And you know, most people that have the ability to spend time at a place like Sand Valley, you know, golf fatigue can set in. You know, you're there for a while and you want to play eighteen more holes, but you're just beat. You know, you're just tired, you're eater, sore, and your hands hurt. But you can always go around the short course. I mean the one at at bally Neil. The Mulligan Course at bally Neil
is just an absolute riot. And I haven't seen the one at Forest Duns yet that Keith and Riley built, but it just looks really really fun.
Yeah.
And if if if you go on a golf trip and you don't play well, but you have a lot of fun on this short course, it's it's still a success. Well.
I think there's also something that underlying with the short course where the concept of fair oh yeah gets kind of dropped a little bit, and it's probably something that should you know, work its way over to big courses where this idea of oh this screen wasn't fair right, or this this screen was too extreme. And then but then the same people that say that go to the
short course and say, oh this everything's fun. Yeah, And it to me, in my head, it just doesn't compute because, like I know, in talking to Bill about the Sandbox, he talked about how he could do things he couldn't do on the big course there, and in my head, I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, And I think when we look back at like the Golden Age stuff and the iconic golf courses.
A lot of those greens are the greens that you find.
On short courses where it's okay to be to build stuff that's a little bit more extreme. Ye, that's a little bit on the edge, and you know, I think that's a big lesson. I think another thing that's magical about short courses is that it brings the skills gap close together, because that's what makes par three short, Part three so beloved. It's where, you know, the twenty handicap
can beat the plus two. I played golf, you know, and this was a time where I was playing a lot of amateur golf tournaments and I played on a buddy's bachelor party. There's this cool place Mcmenimon's in Portland. The next time you're in Portland, they have a course called the Pub Course.
And it's the clubhouse like it already.
There's a bar and they have great tap beer taps, great beers, and you go there and they've got I think it's a ten hole course and a twenty two hole course.
And we played and my buddy at.
The time, I must have been a plus two, and my buddy, who's like a twelve, beat me. When you shorten the course and you removed when you take driver out of.
The equation, absolutely all of a sudden's it, you.
Know, like everybody can beat anybody on any hole because all it takes is.
One great shot, one swing. Yeah yeah, And then.
Over the course of ten holes you can get beat by somebody that it would have no chance, right, remote chance of hanging with you for nine holes on a regular golf course.
Yeah, yeah, And I think it the magic's in the shortness. You take the driver out of the less accomplished player's hands and don't require that of them, and all of a sudden, there's just more opportunity for an interesting match.
And it makes sense why you know it's a great recipe for beginners is because it gives them the opportunity to have success on a on a single hole, even if it's just a single hole. If they can walk away making a three, they feel like, oh, this is what got me back, is.
No question, right, And and and golf's hard enough as it is exactly, you know, and and and when you're you go back to the tree lined, narrow course you were talking about earlier. Even a player that's not accomplished has the talent to chip a ball out from behind a tree back into the fairway. You know, I mean that that doesn't that doesn't take a lot of skill, and it certainly ain't much fun.
So yeah, I.
Think discovering that that one swing short course where you can do something memorable against somebody who's a way better player than you are, has a very redeeming, very strong gravitational pull to it because of that, because we all want to feel like, you know, we can compete. I mean, the idea of the handicap system was to take the less accomplished player and help them be a better competitor
against someone else. But but actually beating somebody on a whole is way more fun than just taking off three shots because your handicap said you could against that.
It's it's like a fake win versus a real win. Yeah, exactly.
And I don't want to say that it's a fake win, but it is a fake win.
Well yeah, and it's all how you look at it.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's not necessarily a fake win. It's a it's a it's a it's a different win than every other win in society would say, you know, it's a but hey, you know, we uh, running up on time. You know, it's my wedding anniversary. I'm going to get in trouble anniversary. You know your wife is fantastic to share you. You know, you know I she's She's gotten a nice, nice a lot of me time.
I think she probably is happy to be honest.
Everything everything in moderation.
Yeah, you know, I love I'm a I'm a complete hopeless artist. I uh, you know, when it comes to drawing a golf hole, I cannot draw a golf hole worth a lick.
I'm sure a lot of people I'd love to be able to do.
I I think about them all the time I have I can visualize them in my head. I cannot draw them. What give give us hopelesses? Some some tips to.
Be less hopeless?
Like I would love to enter the Lido contest, but I can't draw off hole that would be representative of what I'm thinking about.
I could write about it.
Yeah, well that's that's another good question. I think that the thing I would encourage you to do is do it anyway, Just keep going, just keep going, and that you know there there's no right or wrong way.
Get a big pad and just as soon as I know it's off.
Start over.
Yeah, and to the extent you're able, don't put any pressure on yourself to make something look like something you've already seen that someone told you was a good way to do this. Just do it your way. I mean, the truth is, that's how how I got where I am. I just had the blank pad and the you know, the sixty four Crayola box, sixty four crayon Crayola box. And as soon as it becomes fun for you, just
do that and experiment. Try all kinds of different things, different colors, different line weights, different ways to depict whatever, and mix and match and don't have any preconceived notions. And you know, I think drawings one of those things where you know, the muscle you're using your brain and obviously your eyes. You know, you're trying to convey what's in your head through your eyes onto the paper. But the thing that can be most inhibitive of about that
process has nothing to do with those two things. It's all the muscles that are communicating between you know, your head, through your arms into your hands, and if those are inhibited or not comfortable or relaxed or free, it's really hard to get what you're seeing in your mind's eye on the pay point.
Relax. Yeah, the same thing with the golf swing.
Absolutely, you know, like I think that's like you swing your best when you're when you're relaxed.
Oh yeah, it's infinitely impossible to get relaxed and comfortable.
It just and and and give it a whirl and tried. I would also encourage trying different mediums. You know, don't don't stick with a sharpened pencil and a pad of paper. Get a piece of charcoal, you know, a really rough than chalk, uh, things like that.
If it's less sharp, it doesn't show the imperfections as much.
Absolutely, absolutely, and and and it can also convey an idea much more boldly with contrast than trying to draw really sharp small lines. Just mix it up, you know, paint too. I've I've never really pursued painting because I just seem to have liked drawing so much. But some people that are amazing painters aren't that good at drawing and don't really even enjoy it that much. I mean they're that they're similar, but they're also that much different.
Just try it, Just try different things. It's uh, go play a golf course you've never played before and enjoy it, and you know, get some sidewalk, chalk out with with your toddler and just do some stuff in the driveway and see what what talks to you, because it's different for everybody.
That's my only my only hope, I think actually is probably you know, learning to draw with why well I watch my daughter.
To learn to draw. Well, you can do it together exactly. Who knows?
You may have an artist in making? Yeah, yeah, it's all about discovery.
All right, Don, People can find you on Instagram. Uh, Don Plasik, what's it is? A deep placic plac a golf, placic golf. You know, if I was more prepared, I would.
Have that right.
I'm still learning myself.
But uh and and uh and then they can they can find your work at you know, pretty much any renaissance golf property.
And I gotta I got a whole list of question I got four topics that we never touched on today. So maybe we'll do a part two at some point.
Andy, that would be lovely, be happy to great to talk with you. Thanks for stopping by.