Michael Clayton

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 frid Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Friday Egg, Friday Frida Frida Egg bride Egg.

Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Friday Egg podcast. UH with us this morning, bright and early and UH Florida Here and late at night in Australia is Michael Clayton.

Uh.

Michael had a long playing career. He was a professional on both the Australian and you European Tours. He won a few times and he has now become one of the games pre eminent golf course architects with his firm of o CCM. So, Michael, thanks for coming on.

Thank you any look forward to it?

Yeah, i'd uh. You know, I think the it would be great if you could tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into golf and you know, so the reader or the listeners that don't know a ton about you can get a little info on you.

Well, I grew up in Melbourne, which is the best city to play golf in Australia, as well as Sandbog courses. But I grew up on the other side of the city from the Sandbolt Radio. My parents bought a house in the back of a place called Easton Golf Club, which is now then dug out for housing in the midst of cutting rides through it and building houses. But I jumped the fence and started to caddy, and then I just started to play, and you know, I got

Peter Thompson was from here, so I spent a lot of time watching him play. And my interest in design, I suppose was you know, I grew up watching golf and.

Playing golf a bit at Roy Melbourne and kes Nathan Metropolitan and Victoria, saw all the great causes in the sand belt. So it was really how how I got to where I am now, I suppose. But I started as a caddy when I played, and I love to play with it was like, you know, I guess you meet kids the same age and used play golf all every day, so that was what we did.

Ye sounds a lot like my childhood. I feel like for somebody, you know, everybody kind of has like an architectural enlightening when they play, like a real the really great golf course, when you see like this is you know what golf is supposed to be.

Like.

Do do you feel like that is kind of the case with you?

Yeah?

I think I I thought, well, I watched Torments at Royal Melbourne before I played there, so I was aware that it was a really good golf course. I wasn't probably aware of quite how good, but you know, I started playing there in the mid seventies.

I suppose I.

Watched Torments there in the earlies. The World Cup was there in nineteen seventy two, so I you know, I guess you instinctively.

Know that it's a good course. You read about it being a good course, and golfers would come out.

Gary Player and Tom Weiscoff played that World Cup and they would come out and say what a great golf course it was, and you kind of, I suppose you're aware that it's a special place. And then I watched Gary Player player at Kingston Heat in nineteen seventy and.

So you know, you're just a round good golf.

Most cities in Australia have one or two or three or four good courses, really good courses that Melbourne's got. Melbourne in the Maynten Peninsula probably has fifteen or twenty six so it's really the center of golf in Australia.

So I was lucky enough to grow up in the middle of it.

That's it's interesting, I you know, Australia in Melbourne is like on a my short list for places to visit to, you know, just go on a you know, golf bench. How would you you know, having traveled the world and you know, played so many of the great courses, how would you compare Melbourne to say, like a you know, New York and Long Island or you know a Scotland in Ireland, like in terms of concentration of you know, one of those you know metro areas.

Well.

The place I my best was London because I played in Europe for fifteen years and I lived we had a house about ten minutes down the road from Saindale for eight years, so that's the concentration of courses I know best. So if you threw the Heathland courses together with the sand Belt. I think Royal Melbourne's the best course of anything, and then Kenkstone on a par with the old courses, Saindale probably, but then if you run out the next ten I think could probably they nearly

Tremendous courses over there, you know. I wonder if.

It's a bitter case of already bringing a bit of contempt in Australia because I know them so well.

But you know, there's a concentration of.

Courses I think, I think London is pretty much unmatched.

I've played a little bit in New York, I mean the.

National and Maystone and I said Gina Kok and seeing those courses up there, but not so much in the city, but I mean Pine Valley, Mary and I suppose quite a way away from New York.

But for me, I always thought London was an amazing place to.

Play golf and not so far away the place that people don't give any credit to. But Paris has got some fantastic golf San Germain, Fontaine Blain, Lafontaine, Fronte. So so there's some tremendous courses in Paris. And as a country, I think England is an extraordinary variety of golf courses, great links courses, Ethane courses, I mean places like Knots and Ganton or Woodley. There's an amazing variety of golf in England, and in such a small space really, I

It's an amazing country for golf.

Yeah, I just need to convince the fiance that I need a six to eight week work trip right out in England.

Well, you can come to Melbourne for a couple of weeks, into Melbourne and Tasmania, which is really becoming the center of great public course golf in Australia with two new courses on King Island and the two courts at Bambougle and so Tasmania is really taking off as a great a bit like Bandon and Came at Length and Sam Valley marke Kis is.

Kind of remote golf in America.

It's Tasmania has become a bit sort of that modeln Australia where the building core is on places they're not hard to get to, but you've got to make an effort to get to them.

And people are finding great land and building great golf, which is a good thing for the game down here.

You guys have a project out there.

Correct, Well, we've got to maybe project in Hobart. There's a tremendous bit of land on a spit spit of land. Really it's just sand, dune and pine trees with water on three sides, ten minutes from Hobout airports. So how about's a decent size city. It might be the fifth or sixth or seventh biggest city in Australia. It's a couple of Tasmania it I think that's more than like it happens. So that's potentially a great project for us.

Now that'd be cool. That's I mean, there's so much good golf in the world that so you know, I want to transition here into your playing career, you know, kind of came up through the Australian ranks as a great amateur player and you hit the European Tour and professional golf kind of in the in the eighties. You know, you get obviously got to, you know, with the European Tour and Australian Tour, travel the world and play some

Well, Al he's when I first started, it was top sixty were exempt, so you just went over there and you played Mondays and if you made the cut, you kept going. So there was no way to plan what you were going to do like you can now. I mean at the start of the year you pretty much know now what you're in and what you're not. But over there was it was a matter of making the cut and playing and.

If you missed it, you went back to Monday. So that was a It wasn't much fun.

At the time, but I think it was a good system because I think if you if you kept playing well, you could keep going and make the cut. That way, So I played a few tomments in eighty two. Then I just missed the top sixty in my first full year, and then I won a tourment earlier the next year, so I was kind of exempt the rest of my time. And then they went to a top one twenty five system in nineteen eighty five.

But back then.

The tour really started in April and finished up in We would come home in the middle of September.

I mean, now.

Obviously it goes all year because they did what was the obvious thing, and they got outside of continental Europe and went to South Africa and the Middle East and now Australia and Asia, and so it's really become the World Tour. Well not the World Tour, but they will tour. You know, it was a time when I think, you know, the greatest privilege really was to play with sev you know his time, because I mean, for me, he was the He was the best player ever to watch play golf.

He wasn't the best player, I don't think. I mean, you know, Nicholas and Tiger and those guys were clearly better players, but to watch someone play golf, there was no one like that. He was the most charismatic.

And and it said an overe his word. But he was I adored watching him play golf. He could hit incredible shots. He was great fun to watch. He was incredible theaters.

So I think all of his contemporaries, I mean, you know.

That the lower RCK players like like like we all were sort of we're in awe of how he played. But I think too, you know, if you spoke to Valdo or Langa or Sandy Lyl or was he r you know, his real contemporaries, they would all tell you.

That he was the he was the main man.

And you know, he was the first European to.

Show that they could compete in America and play in America and win the Masters and when the Open Championship, and so you know, playing his time was really incredible.

I don't think there's anybody sens who's I mean, Roy's you know, his own man and great to watch in his own way.

But I think they'll ever be able. Well, I suppose Palmer.

I saw Palma play when he was an old man, really in the opening or when when I say old. I saw him playing in the open it Millfield in eighty seven and he played down here in Australia. He played at my club at Metropolitan in ninety seventy eight. But you know, for me, Sebbe was the guy to watch. He was incredible. Really, I thought, do.

You feel like in a certain way, I really think, like I think back to my my childhood and unfortunately I'm too young to have like, you know, really seen Brian Sebby. But you know, Tiger Woods was you know, the guy that led to you know, kind of my

Well he said in Europe, I mean he brought that to it life. It was a pretty.

Stayed tour really set it around England. I mean there were i mean probably half the tourments for in England, and I mean Tony Jackham was the big star, but he really gone to America and just went to America. So I was, you know, in the seventies it was really I mean Bob Sheer and Jack Newton and the Bobby Cole and the I mean, they were the big stars of the the European Tour until Sevee really came

You know, he lost his game really in the mid nineties.

And of course the difference between then and now is that he didn't just up and leave and go and live in Florida and play golf in America when none of the leading Europeans we play in European well that they play a few torments there, but he said he played the European Tour, which was because he's big fight with Bemen was it Beeman wanted him to play fifteen tooments in America when he was committed to playing you know, fifteen or eighteen torments in Europe and he played in

Is so at fight he had with Beman was really crazy that you know, what they're asking him to do.

But he carried that tour for he made that tour and carried it for fifteen years. So he was certainly, you know, a significant player in that sense, and I think he gave I mean, I mean, my generation had grown up. You know, every superstar and golf was American. I mean apart from Jack and really who won the Open in the US Opening the sixty nine and seventy I mean Nicholas and Watson and Miller and Weiss Golf and Trevino and suppose Gary.

Player was you know the foreign superstar.

Really, but I mean, I mean almost every big star and golf was American. And finally there was a player from an unusual part of the world.

Who showed his generation that they too could be you know, the preserve of the top of the game wasn't solely with Americans.

Yeah, it's it's interesting. I think, like all the great American players are you know nowadays or you know, you see a different type of player and thinking about it now is like, you know, Seve probably led to a

Well it did, but I mean Sevi was I mean already when he came out, there was I mean kind of Czaris and Panero and Garrido who were all kind of Madrid Bays caddies. I mean, they're already good Spanish players, and I mean, I mean Sevi's brother was a good player. I'm almost a decent player in the European Tour. So you know, Seve climb Out and I all knew he.

Was the big style.

But I mean, spine a Way has had good players. You know, it's that Latin kind of flair for playing the game, which was shared with Devissenzo, and you know so later Edbuarda Romero and Vincentno Fernandez and Angl Cabrero, who you know, they play the game much definitely than

Well, you know, the character of their country is really, I mean.

Much more easy going and let's try to analyze things to death and just go and play with passion and flair and get the ball in the hole. And I mean, Sevy was the best at it. But I mean I saw Divisenzo play when he was I mean, I say he was an old man. He was younger than I am now, but it was fifty seven when I saw him play it forfeit in nineteen eighty, and well he was still a great player. You know, was a pro

Really in terms of how they played.

The game, it's uh, it's interesting. So who you know? I always asked this question with architecture, but in terms of kind of European tour, like who's the best player that most Americans never heard of that was on the European Tour and like the eighties.

Uh well he was, he was older then, but Neil Coles was I think. I mean Neil Coles was a tremendous player.

He hated to fly. He was on that bad Ryder Cup flight that flew into Palm Springs. It was a it was a it was apparently it was a wicked flag turbulin stuff, you know.

I mean he he didn't fly much after that. But Neil Carles is a fantastic players second in the open to Wiscuff Tom with Miller in seventy three.

And I mean he won a lot of tourments in Europe and was a great player really so so probably Neil Coles. I mean, he was a beautiful golfer, I thought.

As I mean, if you're a player on the European Tour and you don't like to fly, you're in you're kind of in a tough bind.

Well you can why you can drive around Europe. I mean there's a guy whose name escapes me.

I shouldn't I think, German guy who won't fly drives everywhere. So obviously you're not going to have much Black team to the tournaments this week and do baile wherever they're playing abad w. I'm not sure where they're playing this week, but you know, that's a long way to drive to Australia, but you can easily drive the.

Continent now, uh huh. But but you're right.

You know, if you're not prepared to get into an aeroplane, it makes it a tough profession to really take full advantage of it.

Yeah. I remember there was a basket ball player a few years back, Royce White or something. He had like an extreme phobia of flying, and you know, it costs him getting drafted very highly to you know, moving back and I don't I think he's out of the league now. You know, it's like you gotta gotta be able to fly if you want to be a professional athlete these

Think it's a disaster.

I just think that, you know, every Australia doesn't have a long golf course anymore. I mean, every single golf course is in Australia is obsolete.

If the measure is how Alistair.

Mackenzie and Alec Russel and the great designers down here one of the golf courses to play. I mean I watched the final of the Australian Amateur on Sunday. Men Wood Lee, who's Menji Lee's brother, was in the final seventeen years old. So the argument that these guys are better athletes, I mean, here's a seventeen year old boy who played the last hole at Yariaa, which was always

It was a driving a four iron for me.

His kid drove it in the cross bunkers and then in a nine nine out of the cross bunkers twenty yards over the green.

I mean, it's a part five. The sixteenth old was it.

Well, they played them as pat forwards during the week, but they played off the back to you at sixteen.

Driving a wedge. So every golf course is obsolete.

And I can't tell me he's not a better athlete as a seventeen year old boy than Greg Norman or Sam Sneed or Jack Nicholas were as thirty year old men. So the argument that these guys are better athletes is, well, you know, partly it's I mean, sure they're fitter and stronger, but you know, there are two things that matter in terms of the R and a's job and the USA job.

I mean, I mean they had two jobs.

One was to protect or maintain the skillet took to play the game at the top level, and one was to protect the golf courses. And they've only failed at both of them. So that every kid who plays golf now who's half decent can hit the same.

Drives but thirty hours longer then Nichols and Norman and was he and sev hit And don't tell me they're more skillful.

No, I mean, every decent golf course is obsolete. So you go to a place like Millfield or shinner Cock. Can you look back at where those championship tees are. It's I mean, it's laughable whether some of those teas are on Millfield, and I I mean the worst you know, for me, the best golf course in the world is the old course.

It's Andrew's and.

The worst aspect of playing that golf course now is almost on every single hole you make the exact same walk back into the right and walk back sixty yards to these teas that are out of bounds or on the Eden.

Course or the New Course, or the out of bounds in the case of the tea on the oat hole seventeenth. So you know, it's just.

Beyond dismaying that they've let the ball get so out of control, and seemingly to me they've let the titleist company whose balls I've always played with and they've always made great golfers. But you know, it seems like the Buss Titler's runs golf because as far as I can tell, they threaten lawsuits, and the RNA and US terrified of lawsuits. So here we have a manufacturer controlling, you know, the way the great golf courses of the water played.

So you know, it was the job of the administration to protect those golf courses against the.

Ravages of the equipment. I mean, you can't protect them against small increases. And of course they will argue on the record, not off the record, because I'll admit they've screwed it up, but on the record they say, well, they're only small increases. It's not really noticeable. Or it's like saying a three year old kid who's three feet high, it's not really noticeable that he grows into a year, but he turns into a six foot six.

Man, so little little.

Sure, it's you know, the largue that while the distancing increases aren't noticeable, but in the end, you watched a seventeen year old boy played the last whole Yeah, yeah, with a driving a wedge is like, don't tell me the ball's not going for it. I mean, you know when Greg Norman was sitting five and six times and they're okay. I mean that was considered because because back in Peter Thompson's day, it was a drive and a

He had three iron five irons, so probably a little longer as a four hundred and forty out four.

But you know, if Mackenzie came back now, he would just go ballistic. The people whose responsive it was to protect his golf courses.

Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's you know, these kids now that are coming up, their swings are built where they you know, they've never seen. You know, I grew up and as a freshman in high school I was hitting the ball like two hundred yards. You know, these kids hit it three hundred yards as freshmen, and their swings are built around like you know, the forgiveness of the clubs, and they they never have a bad mess.

Well, the faces, you know, the face is so big, the shaft is so long and so light, and the ball goes straight because it once spins. So you know, it's all about how fast and how fast and hide you get the ball.

It's all about power.

So not only does it destroy the golf courses, it drives out the inventive shorter player.

So if you were in charge of golf, how would you deal with kind of the problem. Would you do a rollback or would you, you know, create a different type of equipment for you know, the touring pros or high level amateurs. How would you approach it?

Well, I think you have to bifurcate the ball. Of course they don't want to, but I mean we had that forever. I mean we were I mean I grew up playing the no ball. When the Americans played with the big ball, we played with the small ball. So so the game was bifurcated for the longest time, for forty or fifty years, and then we were as top level amters, chose to play the big ball because if we ever wanted to be pros, we knew we were

So it will say.

That, well you can't you know, change the ball and take this distance off the average amount player.

But when they've already done that much and no one really cared, and I mean no one, because.

I actually don't think that would look that much, you know, with the stroke of a pen. And you know, in nineteen eighty three or eighty four when they bound a small ball in Britain and Australia, in theory everyone that game lost twenty five yards because I went from playing at one point stateball.

So do you think outside of rolling back the ball, is there anything else you could do.

Well?

I mean, the argument is always going to be that the ambutters want to play with what the pros use. But I mean I would try and restore the skillet took to be a great driver, so you make a more ball that's more difficult to drive far and straight, and you limit the size of the club and on the driver, which of course they should have.

Done years ago but never did. So when the manufacturers figured out how to make a head like a frying pan and make it light and make itself didn't crack, then yeah, there was almost no limit on the side of the driver.

So I would I would try and limit the size that I would understand. So really the balls the thing to change. But I mean Savvy was.

An advocate of I mean, you could have on a wedge. I mean, it's never gonna happen.

But I would say that every bo use the Maszuo or some sort of blade two iron or one iron, I mean at least have one in their bags. Are essentially the guys who don't want to use it. You're making a thirteen type game, that a falling type game. But I think if you have one to be a professional player something you can get a problem too. I mean, this hybrid stuff is just junk for golf, if you know, for top level pros. But that's kind of pine the sky stuff, really. But the balls are easiest and the

There are no career.

Amateur players left anymore. I mean, I mean every a certainly in Australia and Britain. It's just a bunch of kids who want to be pros. So because the equipment has given them all the same set of skills, they all look like they're really good players because the equipment makes them look.

Like really good players. And some of them are, and some of them are just kind of faking it because the equipment makes them look good. So you know, what the equipment has done is throwing thousands and thousands of kids into the pile of you know, the same skill set.

Really Whereas you know, when I was growing up, the guys who could really drive the ball, well, you know the guys who could drive the Ballada ball with a per Simon driver, well, I mean Nicholas and Wisdom and severy des By what people think was a great driver, Norman. I mean they had a huge white goff a huge advantage because there was such powerful, long straight drivers and you know, you either drove the ball like the guys I grew up among them, Peter Thompson growing master Halo.

Now, well, something I've found just it just bothers me is the length of the driver. You know, where you look at the average length of a tour driver, it's gone up one inch over the last you know, fifteen years. And somehow club manufacturers, because you know, they've got a limit on their you know, how they can construct a golf club, they've decided to go after the average amateur player and do it by giving them more yardage by

Was a Jimmy Walker that went back to a forty two inch driver in Hawaii or something.

Yeah, yeah, I mean at the end of the day, like length is great, but you gotta be in a fair way to score.

Yeah, so you know what, you know, it sounds like we're a bunch of grumpy old men talking about the good old days.

But but.

I wish I was old that young. Yeah, I'm just grumbled.

And the average amateur player, I mean they were, you know, the guys like kdy For. They didn't very many good shots, but were the first bos like kd For were twenty five handicappers. But they ort the ball pretty straight, and I mean no one hit the ball. They would mishit it a lot, but they never hit it really crooked. I mean, now you see, the average amazate can hit

So yeah, So Caddy, you caddied this year in the Olympics. Tell us a little bit about that experience and how you know what it was like, you know, being a part of representing a country.

Well, I'm not sure I was representing my country.

I mean, you're you're part of the team.

I guess we were kind of Well, there's a kid at a club of girl who was Maria. Came to Australia when she was eight years old, didn't play golf and she played in the Australian Open when she was twelve. I can remember watching her plays. I watched her play for holes. It's this twelve year old. You know, she wasn't a little girl. She was actually you know, she was sort of five foot five or something. But she there was this twelve year old kid playing in the

She said, what should I do? I said, what I cady for you?

So I started to caddy for a little bit, and you know, we did sort of three or four or five touraments a year, and then last year she had pretty lowly.

She missed the top twenty five on there the.

LPGA Tour School in twenty and fifteen twenty fifteen, but she she had a number that gave her sons status, which was basically much.

But she was starting this train open and we did that and she finished fourteenth and she off her number and she finished fortieth there. Okadie four her there.

So she reranked really well and the finished second at King's Mill and eighth in the pj CO Web out of the Australian Olympic team. So she asked me to go K four beround there, which was it was a lot of fun. It was a really cool event. It was great to be a part of. It was fun to see her play in it.

It was great to Gil Hans walked around the course with us on the first practice run we did, and so that was interesting. It was anything but heard us.

See you know how he thought about how we designed holes, because obviously I was, I mean, I think, I mean, I'm not sure how many nineteen year old young women are that aware of the strategy of golf.

It's pretty much hit the ball where you're told to hit it and go from point A to point B. But so kind of.

Growing up in Melbourne and played knew there was more to golf and just see the ball straight. So you know, we had a really cool time Monday with Gill and walking around talking about the golf course and the angles and you know there's a great old George Thomas crote about So George Thomas Thomson wrote about the middle of the being.

The ideal line to the whole. And you know, Sami many PGA two of course is the object is just hit the fairway. It doesn't matter where you hit it. But you know, the Pharaohs are.

On line with high rough and it's not the sort of golf I enjoy much. But you know, wrong Melbourne and the Pharaoh's of sixty or seventy years wide.

But yeah, to play the golf was really ruddy for me.

So you know, she had a good understanding of playing for the edges and opened up the angles, and so it was interesting fun four days to play the golf where she played pretty well. She it was my she hit the rarely if ever is she hit the wrong shot and the wrong club when we got to.

The thirteenth hole on Sunday, was not an unreasonable chance to go.

She had to pass thirteen, four and fifteen and Bertie the last three. But Burnie the last three was very possible given the nature of those holes, and thirty it was the toughest hole, and she had a kind of a dodgy number. It was sort of between a five on and a lofted hybrid. Shoot the wrong club for letting you hit it because I kind of knew it was and I should have stopped at it, you know.

I shoot over the back of the green and got horrible in the bunker and made six and that was that. But but she played well, finished thirteenth and it was a really interesting week for her. It was a good confidence boost and it was she finished up the fiftieth on the maybe started the pretty much place at all, So it was the for me, it was a.

Fun Yeah, it's interesting you you talked about the architecture and you know how wits and being more about being on the correct side of the fairway as opposed to the you know, just down the middle is kind of your your belief.

I think that that is so you know, lost, and I think the angles is what, you know, made so many of these you know, Golden Age courses great, and it's something that got kind of lost there in the middle of Dese. I feel like you, along with a lot of the New Age architects, are trying to bring that back.

Well yeah, you know you can't have.

Well you can, but it's very difficult to correct strategy if you don't have any wits. So, you know, you look at the old courses Statis, which is basically two fairways wade with bunkers in the middle, and you know the National Golf Links and sand Hills and Nebraska, you know, the great the first.

Great modern course really and you look at what Mike cars has done at Bandon and out of Sand Valley.

And what Gill died it Castle Stewart in Scotland, and you know some of the courses we've done here. You know, I love playing golf when you've got to work and then you must sit the ball there and if you don't you get this, you get six inch ruff on the side of the fairway and six inch roff around the greens.

That's what you get.

So as Seve said, you know, it's very and he's finished way, very mechanic type golf, and it is, you know, it's why Sev.

He was He was the only man who.

Ever won it St Andrews Augusta and Roal Melbourne, and no surprise given that you know it was Mackenzie's over course and arguably his certainly probably two of his best three courses long with Cyperuspoint and perhaps Crystal Downs. But here was a you read the spirit of Andrews and.

He loved it.

Walla Hagen played golf and here, fifty or sixty years later it was, you know, Walla Hagen reincarnated in SEVEI Ballisterio. So they played golf with flair and carefree abandon but you had to give them space to play, and if you didn't, you kind of blunted their skills. And sure you could criticize Savvy for not being you're not having the game to win the US Open. But and that's fine because that was the preserve of something like Hale Owen,

Needed more space. Once you gave him that it was. Yeah.

So the great thing about golf is that, you know, different golf courses show off different skill sets and again, hey, equipment, that's what it's been, I'm sure, which pretty full one guy Simeline.

Yeah, it's the ball and you can't you know, usually aful player. Yeah, so the game is actually changed in the last twenty years.

Really, Yeah, I I completely agree. It's you know, the kind of art of working the ball and different ways of getting it done or diminishing every every year. So with with your design firm that you guys started, So it's O C C M for short, it's you, Jeff Ogov, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead tell us a little bit about how you guys got together and started. Was it kind of just like minds and you know how it got started? And you know a little bit about this company, Well, I.

Was like mine's well I started off, I started off a business.

Well I didn't start off to two of my partners in the original business, which was Michael Plainton Golf Designed with two superintendents in Melbourne, came to me and asked me if I was interested in starting off a business and design in nineteen ninety five, and we did that and we employed Michael and Ashley in two thousand, I think the two thousand and one pretty much around the same time. So that business survived until it didn't survive anymore in twenty ten, when.

You know, it was a sign of the times. It was the market really telling us that you did run your bit your business more. Yeah, we sort of fifteen years really and we won year where well, we can't pay the wages anymore, so we did what Well, the business went the way of the business. So I called Jeff and said, you know, this is a situation.

We need some money, and he didn't even think about it for well he thought about it for a second, I think, and said, I mean that's great.

You know. So Jeff came on board. He plant us some money, he.

Said, go start an office and let's keep going. So so so we kind of started in twenty ten and we picked up one really good job almost immediately the Sydney which was a big redo which we're about to we're about to open the stage three in about two months, which is we've got three holes to do it in stage four. So it was so we're opening sort of five holes in a month. So we got that job and we sort of bombing along and got a thing more. You know, we beat Greg Norman to get a big commission to beat.

H to read a broad camp, which is the best it's inland course in Australia. So that was a nice job to get. You know, we've done pretty well since. Really I think we've done some good work with I mean really Pine. If I think about our business, I mean that would underrate the tremendous talents of Mark and Ashley who were I mean Jeff one day a few years ago came to me and said, screwing these guys. So yeah, you look at every.

Really good design business around the world now and whether it's Skill Hands or Tom Dak or Bill Corn Ben Crunchaw, but there are really talented people who work for those guys who who make them and.

Us all look good.

So it'll be an incredibly simplistic thing to look at the names of the people at the top of the ladderhead and think they were the ones who were doing all the work and they were the ones that were.

Really responsible for the work, because it goes much deeper than that. Yeah, you know, if you spoke to Bill Coy, he would.

Tell you all the guys who make him look really good, and he's you know, I think you can make an argument that Bill is one of the great designers of all time, you know, if not the greatest.

You know, I think at this point if you were going to.

Put one guy up against Kenzie and telling Harson Roster and then it would be Bill core because he's a you know, look at the court the causes that he and Ben have done that they've really transformed the modern game, I think, and Santells was a breakthrough golf course.

It showed everyone what to do.

And you know, any modern arctor who hasn't studied the Santeless, you know, their educations to fish in one sense, and you know, I was lucky enough to pay Sam Valley, which is the new course I've just done out in Wisconsin. And you know, in some ways I was talking to Mike about Mirke Cocking about today, was you know, in some ways that's when you talk about con cruential courses.

They're just all great and yeah you can recognize that look and the type of golf they like and the type of golf they build. You know, if you were going to be critical of them, which I'm certainly not, you could say, well you've seen one, you've seen a few of them, but every single course you go to, well, well you can see that, Bill, I've done it. But they're all.

Tremendous golf courses. And you can say the same about Alison McKenzie. Really, I mean Augusta and people talk about, you know, there's this stupid line in Australia that such and such a golf course as Australia's Augusta, And it used to be raw because because it was Hellion, it had pine trees and it was There's a course in northern New South Wales that people called Australia's Augusta because it's got it's got green grass on it.

I think, but.

You know, I mean, you know, as Tom Doug said, Gus Royal Melbourne is the course Augusta wants to be, So Augusta is almost America's rural Melbourns.

That's the way I kind of look at it. But you know, the lessons of.

Golfers only got golf design a timeless. Really, I mean you look at Royal Melbourne or Gusta and Standrews and I think, people, you know, the guys who are doing really good work now look look at those courses and study them and understand them and try and replicate the things that make those courses great and the great modern courses of throwbacks.

To that era.

Really, yeah, I think I I echo your thoughts about Corn Crenshaw. You know, sand Valley was unbelievable. That's a great new golf course. And then I just got done playing stream Song Red and I thought that was fantastic. I mean the way they I just love the way they are able to blend playability. And then you know, I noticed like all the you know, it's all about angles, and you know, being the ideal line for somebody that's

Not I would be the first tom. I mean, this is not rocket science. This stuff a moment.

It's just replicating the sentiment color n All the road holes and Andrews or Yeah, it's not you know, it's not that they've discovered anything new.

It's just you know, they put it.

Beautifully on the ground, and you know, they choose projects where the land is great that they just build great golf and it's not anything genius or anything new. It's just you know, it's just beautiful golf they building and it's great fun to play in. Yeah, I mean, Fry's Heads a tremendous golf of course. I've payed there a couple of times, and it's a it's a beautiful place to play golf. And I wonder whether they really care about, you know, the modern young player, who's.

The both thrown twenty yards. I mean, you know, you know, I suspeak.

Bill Will throws hands up and say, well, I glad I'm not trying to design golf course with those guys, because you know, as Jeff said many times, he said, why would you want to design a course for us?

Becaus no one will want to play it? That's true. Who wants to play a golfer? Of course? That's going to test those guys because.

No one else can play it, and who wants to play a golf course, whether I have Tea's back there that are eighty yards back and everything's out of scale and nothing seems quite right because of these you know, where do we play from them? I mean, it's just, you know, again, it goes back to the disaster of the ball and what it's done to the game.

And you know, I kind of like the fact that Mike Kaiser and Bill and Ben and you know, Gil don't really care about how.

You know, the the young modern strong player plays the game because it's not you know, they're not designing courses for those, because they're designing fun courses for the rest of people to play golf. But but I wasn't the game would be more fun for the young kids if they could play the golf course is much more like the way.

We played them, but they can't because you got ready straining editor again, man, it was a it was a pitch and put final, really, so.

We got we got a ton of Twitter questions and I definitely want to get to them because you know, we just got a lot of great ones here, so uh and a lot of them are based around architecture, So I think it'd be good to dive in here and it can. Some of them are on your projects. So from Tony dear, what's the latest on seven Mile Beach and what's the schedule at Shady Oaks?

Well, seven mops is, of course in Hobo we're talking about. So you know, it's one of those things that you just kind of sit and wait and you hope that the guys going to do what's going to do it, And I think we're all pretty hopefully is so we're sitting and waiting and waiting for the client to say, yeah, let's go and do it. So that's where that one's At Shady Oaks, we're doing the Hogan's car little practice course, little nine hole course in the middle of the golf course.

Where Hogan used to go and practice, which was a really rudimentary part three course with one short Part four and just a little basic ground greens with shapeless bumpers, and so we did three holes last year.

As we speak, we're shaping the the six remaining holes. So it's kind of a there with some really cool I mean I mean nothing sort of flashy bunkers, some well shaped.

Bunkers and cool greens, some with the idea that it's still a nine hole Part three course.

But you can really go out and throw a bag of balls down anywhere and play great shots to any green. And you can play great holes from wherever you choose to play them from. So the knife was a kind of a path three across the across the kind of a gouged out, sort of creaky baranca thing in front of the green. But we're building a tea on the other side of the fourth fairway to create what is a really cool three and a sixty yard part four with a great you know, perfectly placed for a bank

Any six or seven or eight year old kid and teach them how to play golf.

Yeah, so you know you can.

There's no reason why you couldn't learn to be a tour class player playing only those nine holes. But because there will be every shot you can imagine to play. I think that a parts from playing shots out of long grass, which there'll be none of that, so you might have to learn how to play out of long grass by going somewhere else. But but you know, it's a it's a it's a really cool place to practice. It in a cool place to play. And then they close the main course to rebuild it in two thousand

That's cool.

So it's a you know, it's a cool place to work.

I mean Ben Hogan died, he left, he left every club he had to the club pro there, Mike right. I mean there are nine hundred clubs lying around that well not lying around that golf cup in in.

Racks and sitting around the pro shop. And it's such an.

Amazing place to go really and just look around at the history of that place is incredible.

So it's a it's a fun place to work in.

Bruce Devian's a member there who was one of my you along with Peter Thompson, he was the you know, they were my two heroes when when I was.

A twelve year old kid.

I mean you would go and watch they were the two guys to watch in Australia play golf and definitely would come out and play in Australia every year. And I watched him play a lot of golf and I played with him when I was an amateur. And the Austrain Open ten years after I first watched him play in this Train Open at Kingston Heathen, So you know, it's kind of cool to go back there and meet him as a I want to say, he's an old man. He's probably eighty years old, but he looks tremendous for

Yeah, I mean, that's so cool. I love the concept with the nine hole course. I think that is exactly what golf should be. I was talking to somebody who runs a first D program and I was saying, how you know their facilities should just be places with wall to wall fairways and a few greens bunkers and just let the kids learn how to get the ball in the hole and tee it up wherever they want and play you know, golf that way.

Yeah, and it's really the dream practice fell I mean, Susan member there and you know we from the seventh t You can hit straight so a seven nine shot, but you can you can stay on that tee and hit a long drawer into the second green and a long fade into the third green. One hundred and seventy or eighty yarch shots and ninety yuch shots, so you can stand there for hours and practice, you know, the three basic shots in golf, the straight shot, the drawer shut,

It's a beautiful environment and a tree.

As I said, there's no reason why, you know, a kid couldn't learn to be a scratch player just playing that nine golf course because they'll be every shot they want.

That's cool. So a question from Nick Mackie, what's the trend in modern design you'd like to see it go away? And what's your favorite course in Austria and as outside of Melbourne, So I assume that's Australia, right.

The trend in modern design you'd like to see you go away, Well, I'm huge on the on modern design. I think there's you could argue that Sint Sandels has been the most productive period of golf courses on ever, perhaps even better than the Golden Age from what nineteen thirteen to nine thirty augusta really, so you know, certainly I think it rivals it.

So I'm huge on the the quality of modern design. I mean, I think that in terms of modern television golf, the curse of long grass. I just I don't think that golf is best played out out of long grass. I mean, it's what to a prose want because they want predictability of punishment.

They want to know that if someone is the ball off line, they get the same punishment they do for the same shot. And you know, I mean, golf's much

So modern televised golf.

You know, if I was going to change that, I would change that the emphasis on fanness and the use of long graster, but to create an equity of punishment, because I don't think the best courses do that.

I think golf is much more random than that.

My favorite course in Australia outside of Melbourne, well probably I'm in the course of Bamburgle, the Bill Cause course of Lost Farm, and the course we.

Did with Tom Doker. Of course I've got a great fan affection four. Yeah, the courses outside of tricky.

That's a tricky question for me because we're actually we've been lucky enough to work in the best course in Perth, the best course in Brisbane.

And one of the best two or three courses in Sydney. So it's difficult to answer that question with that nominally one of our own courses. But yeah, let me pick a course in New Zealand apart from parap around Beach, which is a course.

I like Russell did there's a really cool course called Arrowtown in Queenstown. Now Queenstown has become a bit of a center of high end, expensive golf. I think the Jack's Point and the Hills are probably green fees somewhere between two three or four hundred. I think the Hills is five hundred dollars, but Jack's Point might be two hundred.

And it's a really you know, some much a word overused word unique, but it's a truly unique golf course in the you know, it's a course that everyone should see.

That's that's awesome.

I love that.

It's a great value. It's finding those gems are are the most fun. You know, playing the best courses of the are great, but when you find like a really great, little unique gem that nobody knows about, that's really great. Is the I think that's the most fun about discovery golf courses. Let's go with uh, which course would you most like to renovate or restore.

In Australia, anywhere, anywhere? Anywhere? Well, let me that's another interesting question.

If someone had asked me that question, Well, people did that asked me that question often, and always the answer was rayal camera. So normally my answer would be rayal camera, except that we did get the chance to do that and we opened it.

Jeff and I opened it the Monday of aus Train open this year, So that was always my stock answer, but we actually got to do that once. So it's a let me come back to that one.

I'll think about it over the next five minutes and come back with a better answer than Because you know, all the all of the great courses in Britain that I really loved. There wasn't one that you ever went to and thought, wow, this would be a great course if you could only fix it. Yeah, yeah, you know, there were many examples in Australia of courses that I thought it would be a really good course if you could fix it, And we've been lucky enough to have

But yeah, you go to Britain and you see.

You have many great golf courses are in England and I think you know, I never crossed that. I never came across the course there where well perhaps one went Worth let me throw and Wentworth in there because wow that was a you know, Harry Cult course that.

Got derailed. Yes, so we're not going to get the job that went with. But you know, I think if someone could for one of.

Use for a better clich they make Wentworth great again, that would be a pretty cool.

Job to do for someone. So someone's I'm not who's going to.

Do that, but went with but would be in terms of English golf courses, that would be right off the top of the list.

Yeah, it's you know, players don't even like playing there. It seems like. So here's a here's an interesting question from Chris. Why is it? And I know he goes down to Australia almost every year. Why is it that nowhere else can seem to replicate the Australian sand bunk belt bunkering and for those that don't know are familiar with it green, he says, greens bleeding right into the bunkers without fringe, and the faces of the bunkers are very hard.

Well, you can replicate that. I think the taking of the very edges of the greens to the bunkers. I mean, certainly in loss of places you can do that, not everywhere.

But the thing about SAMD bealt bunk I mean, I think it's a unique combination of the type of the sand and the soil that build out of it, and how the coach grass hold the lips together. But yeah, my answer to that question will be I don't think you want to. And I've seen people try and replicate SAMD belt bunkers in other places and it doesn't really work.

So so I think that.

You know, we don't try and replicate it anywhere else but in Melbourne, so we're pretty good at doing them, I think, so for other people to try and replicate them as not a great idea because it's very difficult to do and it never really works. Yeah, so you know, you know, I think you can replicate the principles of them, but trying to replicate the exact look doesn't really work.

Two causes of peninsula now and you know, the edges of the greens.

Go right to the very edge of the buckers and it makes it, you know, it makes it. It's a really cool feature and it works really well. But you don't see it anywhere else in the world really, and it's where it's possible to do it. It's really worth trying to do.

Yeah, it's imagine a lot of the soil. It's so much goes into that. So let's let's do some kind of rapid fire questions that are parts of all these questions we've got here. So how do you like the template hors.

H Well, I think every hole is a copy of something, you know, and if you're finding a really unique form of land.

I mean I enjoyed, you know, the National Golf things.

I suppose with the first template golf course, you know, with all those holes that McDonald went and copied from Britain's. So I think they work really well. You know, you know, if you do them well that they're tremendous to play.

Hole is replicated all over Melbourne. The fifteenth of Mertropolitan, the second at Spring Valley.

There are a whole bunch of holes in Melbourne, the replicas of the sevenenth at Royal Melbourne. So you know, I think if you're designing, I mean we're always thinking of holes we've played before and holes we like and holes that work.

And yeah, so I think in terms of what we do and what other.

Designers do, I think they're always replicating the principles of the great holes. So you know the road holds Andrews is you know, it's it's a dog into the right really with the bunk on the front left of the green. But you know it's really not much different from the you know to flip of the segment, well the segment that rule was the flip of the road hole. Really, you know, again it's driver it down the boundary line and every yard left of the boundary line you go

For me, I agree. I mean it's you get in trouble when you try and reinvent the wheel, right.

Yeah, yeah you do.

So what who would you say is the most underappreciated architect.

While in Australia, like Russell was, who was Australian Open champion. He was a wealthy kind of grazier really and he worked in politics a little bit, but he was he was Mackenzie's partner down in Australia. He did the East Course at real moment yarra yarra, like carrying up and power param in New Zealand's so he didn't do many golf courses. He was really a part time architect in a sense. But here's some tremendous work down here. So you know, Russell was great in this part of the world.

I heard there's a new book out about Simpson that's really good.

I haven't Yeah there is, Yeah, it's good. Yeah.

What of the courses you've designed, which are the most which are you most proud of? And that's from als Or.

Well, we did Bamboogo with Tom and Tom Doak, and I think, you know, that's been a pretty successful development and fun course to play.

But the course we've done on our own, that's I mean, mostly our work's been read on. We've done a couple.

I mean rand Feller was a new golf course and Royal Queensland was basically a new golf course. He lost six holes and we basically rebuilt the entire golf course on the original piece of land. But you know, it's easy to just to sort of alert to the last job you did. But I thought we did a great job at Royal Canberra. I think that was it was a very pretty place to play golf. It was a nice environment, the course was in good condition. But Inau I never thought it was much of a golf course.

And a friend of mine, who is a young kid but who lived he spent six Snat's University doing out of his engineering degree over there golf course.

Now he's thought about golf course of line and he played He played Rol Camber the other day and he rang up.

Driving out of the game and said, wow, it's really good.

So you know, it's always nice to get the opinion of someone who's sent it for the first time and who actually got it. And you know, I think we did a pretty good job. There's so I would say, you know, the worker. I think World Camberra was a really good job and turned out really well.

That's cool. It's always nice. I'm sure to hear praise from somebody that's got a good eye for golf courses. Yeah, yeah, last question I really appreciate all the time. If you had five courses that you could play the rest of your life, and you know, obviously location and the assume all fiver in your backyard, what five would they be?

Five? Of course, more Fontaine I would play, I would play Woking, I would play m I would play sand Hills, I would play the National Golf Links, and I would play Royal Melbourne. How is that for fun? I mean, that's kind of the unanswerable question. But you try and create as much vari Well, that's ridiculous.

Because I leave out the old courses, and I can't leave out the old courses. So give me six and the old course will be number one. But you know, I love playing golf at moll Fontaine because I love it. It's the most beautiful clubhouse in the world. And we have a drink in Australia which I never which I haven't had for years, orange juice and lemonade, and I was a drinker. I had a lot when I was a kid, and I played with Billy Lomia, great friend

It was a hot day and for some reason we went to this end of the bar and I said, orange and lemonade. The French lady who just to be behind the bar, rich down under the bar, pull out and Orange cut it in half hands, squeezed it and poured it with lemonade. And it's like the couple does that.

That's gonna be the best place in the world to play golf. So so more Fontaine the Old Course. I mean, I'll probably give you a different answer that, but more Fontaine the Old Course working because it's something I started, cool little golf course.

It's great fun sandals because it's the great modern course, the national golf things, because it was the first great course in America.

And I can't remember the last one because i've you know, because it was where I you know, I watched all the great players play there. I played a lot of tourments there.

I'm still you know, it's the one course that I played there last week and it's the one course I I can play after forty five years is too one. I'm in the golf course and I'm coming. I'm coming over the fact that it's in my backyard. Really yeah, And it's literally in Jeff Auguby's backyard.

If you hit a long hook off the fourteenth tee on the west coast, you land in Jeff Augulby's house.

So he you know, he's the luckiest gone the Willie.

I mean he literally jumps the back fence and plays the beck pettic at roll Melvine.

So there are not many cooler places to live in that.

Yeah, seriously, it's uh, I'm guessing you're still learning little things about the course every round around. It's uh, that's usually the sign of a great course, right.

It is it is?

It's all right, Well, you know, I want to get you out here. I know it's probably midnight there now, and uh, I really appreciate the time. A great guest, and we'll have to have you on again. I feel like we only scratch the surface about the things we could talk about.

Okay, thanks, I really enjoyed it.

Yeah, definitely, and thanks again. Bye.

Thanks mate,