I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball in a brid egg.
Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday fridagg Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today. I am excited about this podcast. One of you know, something that made me really happy about the Masters was our creative director. I guess that could be his title. Cameron Herdis won the media lottery to play a gust National. Cameron's been with us for a few years now and is really responsible for making our long form videos on YouTube tick Our.
You know, the design to see on a lot of our merchandise is Cameron's work, and he is a very very talented creative and he has He's also a golf architecture nut. Cameron's won the Leado Competition, the Alistair McKenzie Society Leado Competition. He's won that three times in his young life. He's actually banned from the competition now, which is kind of a bummer for him. So he's been very into golf architecture since a young age, and for him to get the chance to play Augusta National the
Monday after the Masters was really cool. So he joins to chat about his experience, his thoughts on playing the golf course. For the first part of this podcast and then the second half, I'm joined by Brian Schneider, who's becoming one of the most in demand golf architects in the industry, and we talk about three golf courses that he's thinking a ton about right now. So we kind
of just chat golf courses. This is going to be a heavy golf course architecture golf course pod with Augusta National and then the three golf courses that Brian Schneider's thinking about the most right now. So before we get into this podcast, let's talk about our friends at Maui Nui. Here, speaking of something that I use a lot of at Augusta, Mali Nui was a go to. It is hard to eat healthy at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia, Maui Nui's
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secure your access. So that's Maui Nui Venison, m a u I n Ui Venison dot Com slash egg you can you can check out Maui Nui. This stuff's delicious and it's really good for you. I highly highly recommend it. All right, let's get to Cameron Heurdis on playing Augusta National and his thoughts on Augusta National. All Right, Cameron Hurtis, I would say you're our head of creative. I think that's your title.
I'm not sure.
We're not big on titles here at Friday Golf. You spend a week trucking around the golf Augusta National. I mean and when I say truck and you're you're carrying around cameras. You're out there for basically like twelve hours a day, up and down the hills. What are your what are your Well, let's start this you while you're on here is you won the media Lottery, you played
a guy to National on Monday. But I would love to hear what you've learned the last two years spending an immense amount of time at Augusta National with like just getting around in terms of like patrons and the golf course.
It's it is one of those things where the more I felt much more comfortable this year working the Masters tournament as a photographer. You know, the big thing with media is that you do not get inside the ropes access to the tournament, which I think is part of the fun part, that's part of the challenge, but it also means that you need to learn like the best places to get shots of players, especially when the crowds build, especially when Rory and Bryson are playing in back to
back groups or in the same group. So it's just yeah, I mean I felt so much more comfortable this year. You just figuring out spots to get to routes. And I think the most important thing too, is like and it it was important late and late Sunday, was just being able to get to certain points quickly if you know, like a group might be coming up seventeen and then for example, Rory's playing fourteen and fifteen on Sunday and you're trying to get places quickly, just like knowing if
there are shortcuts just getting around. I just I felt like I learned a lot the last the first year and then this year, just being able to move quickly from point to point.
Yeah, Like a great example of that is like sometimes you have to walk further to get somewhere faster, like the direct route is so often not the fastest route. But like to me, like getting to the if you want to watch fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and it's like busy, you have to get to the left side of fifteen because then you could watch every single one of the holes.
But if you're not on the left and it's hard to get from amen corner to the left side of fifteen, Like, that's a very challenging way to get place to get to and you can do all kinds of things and it you know, the key though, is getting across and waiting at the one place the you know, I find it's harder. It takes longer if you wait at the layup area of fifteen to get across then it does if you just walk around sixteen.
This is this is the big thing that I that I remembered when you move from practice rounds to the tournament days is the crosswalks and how important it is and how yeah in a lot of cases, because all of a sudden there's groups back to back to back, whereas like practice round days, a lot of times you have gaps and the crosswalks is open and it's easy
to get across the holes. But like even getting from say the right side of nine back to the press building, A lot of times I would just I would just hoof it around nine Green and the one te which is it's annoying because it's like a big hill to get up there, huge hell. But you know, if there's a group coming up nine and a group teeing off one, you might be sitting there for like ten minutes potentially, like waiting for both of those crosswalks to clear. So
it's just stuff like that. Like, yeah, a lot of times, like you said, you have to go around to get somewhere more quickly.
So you played Augusta National and we're not gonna go shot by shot here.
We don't want to.
Nobody, nobody needs that. Pj's raising his hand in the background. He wants that. But uh, we're you're very into golf architecture. I reference this in the intro. You've won the Leado Competition. We'll talk a little bit about that at the end. You've won the Leado Competition three times, you're banned from
the event, which I think is humorous. But what was I guess, you know, like I I had like some takeaways when I got to like, you know, you you've covered the event now two years, you spent a ton of time on site. What was the biggest thing that you picked up from being inside the ropes and playing Augusta National that you hadn't picked up outside the ropes or on TV.
I will start by saying, I intentionally haven't read your piece or Brendan's piece from the last two years, just trying to keep a clear mind. So if I like hit some things that you guys talked about, I apologize.
Brendan wasn't on this podcast talking about his round. Oh really yeah, Okay, so you know they had nobody has heard of this for two years since me and Garrett talked about my round, so this is kind of fresh.
It's uh, I mean, it's just a strange experience. There's a lot of spots on the golf course where you feel like you can get close to or approximate like an approach shop. But the there's a lot of spots when you're finally inside the ropes that it feels really strange. But I think I think the biggest thing I picked up on and I wrote about it was just how relentless the golf course feels from a golf perspective, and how you just constantly feel like you're on a razor's
edge of like complete disaster at all times. And I think when you're also struggling to hit shots, that gets amplified a lot, and the danger areas sort of they amplify in your mind. But yeah, it's just it's just like this constant, constant sort of fear, and it's it's tough to like relax and just like make a swing a lot of times because you see short, you see long, you see left, you see right, these these spots where you know getting down into is just going to be almost impossible if you miss.
As has Brandal Shambli Golf Channels brand simply coined it, sensory blitz creak.
Yeah, it really it is.
And the thing that's ironic about it is that it does all that and what you just said is perfect is like, you know, it makes it really hard to like swing the club freely, and it's like the the number one thing that you have to do there is play with freedom, because that's the only way you're going to achieve the shots. They're achievable shots, all of them
are achievable. But to achieve them, there has to be freedom in the swing because you can't just like guard against something out there because then when you're guarding against it, the margins are so so thin.
And I that's what I love about it is you can always see there's always a route to the hole, right, Like you can see the shot. A lot of times you're like, yeah, if I just get the ball to hear you, it'll feed in and it rewards great shots.
And we see that every year, Like guys shoot sixty five sixty six pretty consistently if you're swinging the club well during the tournament, like it is possible, but a lot of but and so you can see those shots, but it's just yeah, if you're not free, if you're if there's any doubt in your mind, it's just it's so difficult to find find those spots.
It's funny that that played out. So what you just said like explains the tournament so well in the sense of like so Rory and Bryson on Sunday, like there's probably just a lot more rattling around in each of their brains. Both of them are like pretty noted whether or not, you know, like Bryson talked about somebody asked him if he could do YouTube video at Augusta. What
do you do? He said, like the history and you know, uh, Rory McElroy's got an incredible history mind, Like he could probably like rattle off European Tour Player of the years for twenty five straight years. You know, incredible history mind. You think about like they they had this more more stuff on their mind and they're playing really pretty good golf.
Bryson obviously was struggling with approach but scoring, scoring incredibly well, and they go shoot seventy three, seventy five and it's just a matter of like probably just not being as free as they were the first two days or first three days. You know, it's an amazing thing. Was there a particular hole that stood out that you you hadn't you know, maybe given enough.
Credit to I would say probably the fifth hole. And I think part of that is because I actually it was the first hole I played really well and I did make a birdie on that hole. It's a great verd but it's like, which was like a top five have golf moment for me in my life? Probably, But yeah, that's a hole where a you don't you probably don't go to it a lot as a patron or even as a media member because it sort of sits isolated up on the ridge.
It's agree that I started a personal rule that I don't go to the fifth hole because I just don't want to get stuck back there.
Yeah. I think I think there was one day, it was Thursday or Friday, where I realized I just completely missed it the day before. I just never walked up to it, and like, yeah, it's kind of hard to get to and you get stuck, and there's really no reason to be down the right side of it unless you're entering from the south gate, I guess. But it's
a really cool hole. And and I think the benefit of playing the member tees on that hole is that it allows you when you hit, if you hit a good drive, to carry the bunkers down the left, which
I think is important. I think it's something they've lost from the Championship teas, Like I think I think the fact that it's supposed to set up more like a road hole, you should be able to access the far left side of the fairway because especially to that back right Sunday pin, it really allows you to hit more up the length of the green versus across the false front, and then the pin is like two paces from the
back edge. I mean, it's like this one of the scariest pins on the golf course probably so I think that hole. I haven't watched it as much recently, but it certainly clicked in my head more I think when I played it and hit a couple of nice shots on it as well.
That's I think that they did a renovation. It would have been maybe twenty twenty.
Ish for the fifth, yeah, some less, something like that.
And they obviously moved the tea's way back. That was part of their kind of moving a road, and it reintroduced the hill, which I think is great for the tea shot. It is, and I think the longest hitters can carry the bunker. But if you think about those bunkers in place of if you're thinking about the seventeenth at the old course, the you know, in place of the old course hotel and kind of the diagonal, like they just that's what they're those bunkers are supposed to be.
And the bunkers don't mimic that strategy very well. They're just kind of like there and very penal, and it it just it doesn't promote any sort of thought of like I'm going to try and get close to it, because there's no there's no reason to be anywhere near them because of how far I feel like, how far they eat in and how they didn't incorporate. Like, to me, the most interesting part of that hole is the ridge on the left. Yeah, and that ridge on the left is just not even in play people players.
It would be amazing to see players challenging the left side because if you miss left, like you're gone, you're gone down the hill, down the ridge, you know. With the current setup, and I think they kind of I think with the way they push the t back, it's sort of just straightened the hole more. And so guys just, yeah, you just play right of the bunker because from I mean,
those bunkers feel like they're about twenty feet deep. So in most cases they're so deep it's kind of just an auto layup probably anyway, So guys just don't even want to challenge them, so they play out to the right and then they've got sort of a mid iron in but it doesn't set up. But to me, like the green makes so much more sense when when you approach it from the left you can see sort of the strategy and how it lengthens the green for you on that approach out, which I think is really neat.
It is such a cool green. And one of my perchase is always I go basically from four, two, six, so I skip and I go behind six, which is a great place to watch golf. And I always think when I'm sitting behind six green of that ridge on five, because you know, it really just like sits right above the six screen, and how if that ridge was cleared and that there was golf, Like how amazing of a viewing place it would be to be watching five from down low up.
You know. And yeah, I love looking from six up the hill to five bunkers. I mean they're like so high up, like it's it's an impressive ridge, Like it's significant and it's unique to the property. It's the only hole that really does that, and it would be cool to if you could see that across there.
Yeah, I think that's like it also like obscures how cool the property is that there's this like back high ridge that you only play one hole on and.
If you don't realize it, Yeah.
Because it's so isolated the way it is like it it with the trees in the ornamentals. It kind of like you're kind of like in your own world over there. It's like it feels like a separate wing to the house. Yeah, but really it's just like it would be like if you put it in like a housing term, it would be like if you were on like a hallway above
your family room. You know, like if you had like a open hallway above your family room and there was like another room that like that you're looking down on, and now it's just like it's just walled. It's just a wall, right, and so you don't get that feel of like being able to look down.
And but it is like one of the cooler holes on the golf course, I sort of realized as I played it too, which so there's that there's aspect to.
It's kind of I think it's probably the hole that Mary's like dramatic topography with a with a super dramatic green. It's the only hole that kind of has like both the green and the topography amped up to like a ten.
Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, those greens are those pins are terrifying. I mean the back ones are terrifying you because that's the thing too, is the green is perched on the edge of that ridge basically, and it just I mean, I think there's maybe one or two times in my life I've seen someone actually missed the bunker and go all the way down the hill because it's I mean, it's you're basically gone at that point. So that Sunday pin feels like it's just hanging off a cliff essentially.
Uh So, yeah, that's a that's a cool spot.
In terms of shots, what were your three favorite individual golf shots out there? Not like that you hit that, like you enjoyed the process of hit from like the way you just looked at it and.
Saw it. I would say it's funny. The one that I was dreaming about once, uh once I got selected when I won the media lottery was the second shot into eight, I think, which is really funny because you can't see the green, like if you hit a good drive, it's completely blind. But I am a sucker for blind shots, and so I hit a Finally, I hit a good drive on that hole, which was nice. So, I mean, you can carry the bunker pretty easily from the member tees.
You're in the rory zone.
Then I was.
I was.
I think I was past the past the crosswalk. I think I had like one ninety into the like to the pin to that middle pin, which was a really neat pin. Also like I don't like right on that ridge, right on the ridge sort of like so I ended up about fifteen feet short and you're sort of putting across the ridge, so it's sort of like a double
breaker and it just it's right on top. But yeah, that for whatever reason, mostly because of the green, I guess that was a hole where I really wanted to hit a good drive and have a decent angle into that green, which I did. I set up perfectly. I was up the right and then you run up to the top and there's like one pine tree in the distance and essentially the top of one of those mounds that you can use to like wine up your second shot.
And I hit a great shot, and then I thought I pulled it a little bit too much, and I was really concerned that I was gonna miss miss the hills left, which like also would be a fun shot to hit. But my caddy Bussy was standing up on top of the hill and he gave me the thumbs up, which was very exciting because I knew I was gonna have an eagle putt on it, which was great. That was a good one.
You didn't make it, did you.
I didn't make it. I left it like I hit a good putt. I left it a probably six or eight inches short because it kind of runs away after the hole. It's a little bit scary. Uh, let's see what other shots well. So, I mean fourteen was another approach that I'd always wanted to hit and just had a harend. I mean at that point, I was like really struggling, and uh, fatigue.
I read you're right up. You have a righte up on the website. But I think you said fatigue was setting in. I mean, you've probably like I want to do this justice. If I had to activate, I would activate that. You walk with like twenty five pounds of camera gear, forty to fifty thousand steps a day when we go to when we go to the Masters.
That's the thing. And like you're so amped the whole week that you don't even you're not even tired, So you're not sleeping a whole lot either. No, And I think and I realized that, Yeah, my legs at that point I wasn't swinging the driver well, which is pretty common for me, but at that point my legs were completely gone, and I sort of I snap hooked it into There's those two big fire throat bushes in between fourteen and fifteen, like right right in the middle of
the trees. So I hit in the first one, took a drop, hit a tree. It dropped into the second fire thorn bush about fifty yards further up. So then I took another drop and at this point, like I think they were just going to pick up my ball, and I was like, I want to hit a shot into the screen, right like I've been dreaming of hitting a shot into the screen into this Sunday pin. So I hit a punch out. It just caught another branch. Of course, drops down about seventy yards from the green,
which is actually kind of a perfect distance. So I had like a seventy yard pitch to that Sunday pin which sort of sits in that bowl, and hit one of the best shots of the day. One hopped it onto the back slope and spun it almost into the hole to like tap in, which was for like my eight or nine or ten or whatever I made on the hole, which is great. That was a good one.
That's one of my big regrets about by round was I blue my drive on I'm thirteen into the trees right and had to lay up. And then on fourteen I blew it into the trees right and I hit the green, but it was like not the type of shot that I wanted to hit into the green, you know, like where I was like coming from in the trees, and just it's such.
A hard T shot. No, it's such an awkward T shot. Fourteen, Like.
Rory talked about how he had trouble seeing the lines on seven, fourteen, and seventeen all going that direction, and they like, if you think about them, they all play like along the side of the hill and you have the camber, and it makes it makes the fairways feel so small even you know, and obviously seven and seventeen are pretty small.
It's one of my favorite parts of Augusta And something I picked on picked up on the first time I went, was just how well the routing is constantly sort of working slightly against whatever the slope is. In order to hold the fairway, you've got to either take an aggressive line or work the ball correctly into that slope. Whether it's two, whether it's seven, fourteen, seventeen. Yeah, they all sort of work slightly one direction.
I think that's the thing that doesn't get talked about a ton about Augusta National.
Is that the.
The routing. How often you play along side hills, Like when you get a kind of I wouldn't call it a heaving, maybe a heaving site you could, you could probably throw it in that category. Thats you want is like so often you're playing up and down and over and there. The magic of it is that the topography allowed for so many holes to play along the slope like fourteen, like seventeen seven.
I would recommend anyone to just look at look at the topography map, the topo map of Augusta, of the property, and just you just to me, the holes make so much more sense when you see them on top of the topo lines because you can see how, hey, how the waterways were working down the property in these valley, these natural valleys that are created, like between two and eight for example, and how those both feed in two sort of feeds, both directions off the left and the
right as it works down the hill. But to me, you just see these subtle little movements one direction or the other, and how they just so cleverly like routed the holes along and against those slopes. What's your last shot that you oh man, let's see. I uh, I mean I ended up. I hit a poor drive on three and I had like one twenty five. I was left of the bunkers and I tried to get key with it, so the ball came all the way back down.
I was basically in the Scotti zone, which I feel like you kind of just have to hit that shot to realize how freaking insane it is, Like how hard.
I feel like they make it look so easy.
It's I mean, I think the Sunday pin on three like might be top three scariest championship pins in golf, like it's and to me, that green again, it's like I've walked around at a bunch now, like at the tournament, but when you're standing on it, it felt so much smaller to me standing on that green on the green than off the green.
I pretty much reave putts with my feet, and to me, the third green, my feet felt like on fire when I stepped on them because it's so severe too.
This was so severe. And that was one thing that I noticed this year was and it's not like I did notice it, but when you're standing on say four t or you're walking down the right side of four and you look back at three, I mean you can see the entire third green just facing you, and you realize how much it's pitched away from the approach shot. So yeah, so you feel like you have about a half an inch spot to land your chip shot on three,
which I didn't quite do. And then I will say, actually, as a follow up, one other shot was I ended up on the middle tier on nine to that front left pin. I'm Bussy. My caddie, who's like a local legend and is an amazing green reader, gave me a pretty fantastic read. But that, honestly was probably one of the best shots I hit. Was that lag put to nine, which still went about two and a half feet by, But uh, yeah, that was kind of a cool one as well. Yeah, that.
You had a good caddy, huh.
I think Bussy was great. Brendan had him. I don't think you had him, did you. I didn't have them. You didn't have him.
Paid worth his weight on the greens I hear.
I'm one hundred percent. I like shudder to think about what it would have happened. Hey, if I had been reading those greens by myself and be if there had been some I mean, I'm sure there's a few guys out there that can read the greens well. But it was pretty clear. And the interesting thing too, was that he was clearly struggling to read some of the new greens,
like fifteen. He knows the greens so well in his head that he gave me a read on fifteen and it just like didn't quite do what he thought I was going to do. And I mean that was a green that got rebuilt last year, which was kind of an interesting little note that I had from that round.
Also, that's fascinating.
Yeah, they were, and they were sixteen was was quite firm too, like, so I was sort of I was picking his brain a little bit on that green too. What it what it changed?
But the leather was he got breezy, breezy hot that had to be die, that had to be intense.
It was hot, and it was blowing like a steady twenty from the south, which meant that six was straight down wind, and I will tell you I hit a good Yeah, I hit a good shot. It was right at the pin, landed about two feet over the green, and shot forty yards basically up between the tea's on seven And normally, like during a tournament, there'd be patrons there to like stop the ball, but there was nothing to stop it, and I ended up about forty yards
over the green on six. Yeah, where'd you end up after that?
Uh?
You know what, I hit a phenomenal chip and yeah, I kept it on the top tier maybe about twelve or fourteen feet, which was actually a really good shot from there.
I think if I were playing from forty yards over that green to that backpin, I think i'd play for like, just like if you're thinking about it directionally coming from back, I'd play for like short left fringe, just like be like yeah, playing to just like barely like creep it into the fringe so I could put the next one.
I knew that it was like one of those shots. I mean, you're out there, I'm assuming like, hey, this might be the only time I play. I'm going to try these shots, and I know that if I don't pull the shot off, it might end up forty yards down the front of the green, but I hit it perfectly and it like just had the right amount of spin and kept it on that top tier, which was which was huge.
All Right, personal question, who's the first person you called after your round?
You know what? With the time difference because my parents are on the West coast too, I think the first person I called was my girlfriend Jess actually, but she was very excited. She actually, I mean I was out. She was texting me Sunday because she was I mean, everyone was watching on Sunday. So she even she was at home, home alone and she turned the golf on Sunday and was watching, So she was very excited about that.
It was wild how many texts I got from like random people that don't watch golf that watch Sunday.
It really I know you and Brandon talked about it already, but it really hit and Trevor hit a nerve. I think, yeah, it just like sort of hit hit everyone. So it's cool. It's been cool to just like I've seen some friends since then too, and it's just been cool to talk about and relive all the moments Sunday and Monday.
Yeah, I was I was talking to a random dad at my town's Easter egg hunt about it, and I mean it was just fun to chat again about I think it'll be a tournament we talk about for a long long time. What any grand takeaways from this year's tournament? Yeah, You're always a take factory, you know. Yeah, You've got the most takes at the company that nobody hears.
Nothing but hot takes. You know.
It was.
It was tough, like you are working, but like I'll admit, I'm a Rory fan. It was incredibly emotionally exhausting, and I mean there are points where I'm just like looking at other fans and we're just like shaking our heads, right, I wrote about uh yeah. I mean Brendan talked about after he hit the T shot on twelve like it was like an exodus. Everyone was just like walking up the hill, right, And my mind was like thinking, should I just go try and get a spot on eighteen? Now?
Should I just like set up camp and like get an angle as he's coming up eighteen because he's obviously gonna win. And watched him hit his T shot and lay up on thirteen, and then when he dumped it, it was like just had to throw the entire game plan in the trash and like figure out what to do. I will say I think Rory got jammed by a catch basin on thirteen, if I'm being completely honest. There's, like he said he was on an upslope. Yeah, so there's I found the spot. It's right near Raysed Creek.
But there's like this big drain that sits right down there, and I think his ball just collected into it and he ended up on the front of it on the upslope, which it was kind of yeah, I mean it's like kind of an awkward shot. I think he kind of got jammed on thirteen.
Not gonna lie, I don't think he had a good shot whether or not he got jammed by the catch facin, but it could say the shot a little more difficult.
It is, And like that's the thing about Augusta is in the back of your mind and you're thinking, if I pull this a little bit, I'm gonna have forty feet down the hill and like I'm gonna have to hit the most incredible two putt like to get out of here with a par right, And so you just start to maybe like, yeah, shade a yard or two right, a yard or two right and then all of a sudden you make, yeah, like an uncommitted swing, and that happens.
I think the frustrating thing about it is like if you the greens are I think, like what make Augusta so amazing and and in the pinnable locations they are very pudtable, but the slopes are so severe. And what drives me crazy is how like people don't take away that, like, okay, like if you have heavy contouring that creates these great like locations on greens that then in that combined with
some width, is going to make some really interesting strategy. Yeah, nobody takes away that the greens, Like we end up with people softening, Like I mean, all the clubs in the Northeast are just not all I'm stereotyping. So many historic clubs in the South is in the Northeast are softening their greens for green speed because they want to
have fast greens. And it's like, but the heavy contouring is what makes the greens special and dynamic and creates that like what you just said, where in the back of your head you shade because you know what if I miss this left, like all of a sudden I'm going to you know, have this really hard to put.
That's the thing. And you and Trevor hit on it and it I think you have to play it to realize it. But like you hit a hit. I was back left on four, I was on the green, but I had like, you know, forty five feet from the top shelf to the bottom shelf. I hit an incredible lag putt and it went six feet by, and it's like, yeah,
I just hit a great shot. And you but you're just constantly grinding, like you know, you rarely ever have tappens, which I think Trevor said that it just like doesn't happen out there.
That I think that's the thing. Cameron, you play tournament golf as a kid. To me, the most important thing as a tournament golfer is like stress management. It's one of the especially when you play a four day tournament like it, you know, when you can keep stressed off you and like stress generally comes in the form of when you're trying to save pars and four to four to eight, four to ten foot putts really are like
huge like areas of stress. Yeah, and Augusta, it just feels like you always having those whether it's for par or bogie or worse, especially.
When you're not hitting the ball, if you're not hitting it to the correct spots. Yes, it's just the stress, just the magnitude of the stress just amps up on every single hole, because all of a sudden, if you miss into the wrong spot, whether it's a chip or a putt, getting down in two sometimes just feels like impossible, like you can't do it.
So you made three birdies, yeah, five, eight, and where else?
Sixteen? Back right? Yeah, which your least favorite hole too. It's a great tournament hole and it's well positioned in the round. And I will say, like I know they set that pin. It was like a Nicholas anniversary celebration anniversary. Yeah, it's a great pin. I wish that they would sort of alternate, honestly, Like you've got to hit you've got to hit a good shot to the funnel pin also obviously to catch the funnel correctly, but you've got to hit such a good shot to sort of hold that
back right section on sixteen as well. And I hit a yeah, I hit a great shot on that whole.
It's amazing when you heard Rory after talk about how in the back of his head, like he knew he had a birdy opportunity at fifteen, but sixteen he was really worried about because it was gonna be hard to that back right pin. He's like, because it wasn't in the traditional spot. And I was, you know, I was, I was pretty worried about about hitting a shot back there.
It's it's a difficult one. You have to flight it correctly. The spin has to be right because it'll feed off right and it'll going along is not great, and then obviously it'll funnel down to the left as well. But yeah, they've really stuck with the low left pin for a long time. I feel like they used to mix it up a bit a bit more, and I do hope they kind of bounce around on six team going forward, because I think that's actually a really interesting ben on Sunday.
It would be would be fun. It creates, it changes the dynamic of the finish where sixteen seventeen eighteen are just like hold on exactly for dear life, and it's kind of where then thirteen fourteen, fifteen you got to you gotta make hay. Yeah, totally all right, Cameron, thank you for coming on thank you for all all your work during the Master's Week. You know, you make all of our our visual visual things we do pop. So thank you and I couldn't have been happier that you got the chance to play.
Well. Thanks. I think I think the whole team. It was a team effort Master's Week, but I was just just happy to be out there. There's not much better.
All right, Let's head over to Schneider. Big thanks to Cameron for coming on the pod. It is like, literally his least favorite thing to do is to appear on the podcast. He likes to be he likes to be the man behind the scenes. He does not like to be out front. But he's always very well thought out. So big thanks to Cameron for coming on. Before we get over to Brian Schneider, let's talk about our friends at Red Rooster. These gloves are amazing. We had this
for the Club TFE member gift. We did a we did a fried egg glove and I couldn't believe the resounding feedback. I was getting texts left and right from people being like, this is like the best glove? How can I buy more? So Redrooster goolf dot com is where you can check out all their full suite of products. But one thing I would love to call out is that it's April. It's a rainy time of year. Why don't you check out the rain gloves. Red Rooster's rain
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it's kind of, you know, the real golf season. Use that promo code fried Egg fifteen and stock up on gloves. That's Redroostergolf dot com. And let's get to Brian Schneider. All right, Brian, Well come on, I am. I'm excited to chat with you. This is our I feel like we talk every year, but new segment that we're going to do on this podcast. And this is a I appreciated when I texted you your response because that's the whole point of it. This is a moving target. It
changes all the time. What are the three courses that are rattling around your brain the most right now? And obviously you texted me something along the lines of like my three at this point are going to be different than the three I tell you tomorrow.
So yeah, it's hard to narrow it down to three. And it's uh yeah, it's definitely a moment in.
Time, exactly exactly. Its completely changes based off the day of the week. I think with this, you know my answer today would be different tomorrow. So I think that's what makes us fun is it doesn't mean it's just an end all, be all my three favorite It's just what I'm thinking about now. So let's get into it. You're a busy man. I don't want to keep you around.
I know you got you got a lot of stuff in the hopper and and we're going to be excited to see some of your new stuff coming online this year. But what is one course that you are thinking about a lot?
So I'm I've been fortunate to see a few virgin pieces of land in the last week or so, so I've got a couple of a few topo maps laying around that I've been playing with, one of which you know, the site is kind of a series of big ridges and valleys, and my mind immediately went to Seminole for that. So I've been thinking a lot about Seminole, which is
not something I do often. You know, Seminole is it's a pretty wonderful place, and you know, it's a very very good golf course for people like you who play golf very well. It's less enjoyable for people like me who don't play as well as you do. So I've got a lot of respect for the design. It's a brilliant piece of work, the way that Ross took advantage
of the features of that site. And it's full of great golf holes, you know, but it's kind of like Pine Valley and that is full of great golf holes that are you know, almost unanimously you know, designed and especially maintained in a way that makes it a real challenge. So it's a place I respect. It's a wonderful place. It's not a place I love. But from a routing perspective, some of the challenges of this map I've been playing with.
You know, my mind went to Seminole and how Ross, you know, took a venue and there's the ridge on the ocean and the ridge a few hundred yards inland, and how many of the holes play pretty gracefully up and down across those ridges. And some of the best holes on the property are the ones that really take advantage of the topography in unusual ways, like the fourth
and the sixth and the third. So seminals one that's been popping around my head just this morning and today as I'm playing around with this map.
There's a lot of directions to go with Seminole. It is obviously it's one of the more revered golf courses. I also think it's it's one of the most like it's a it's a great golf course, but I can't think it falls in the Chicago golf bucket of golf courses, where like people will say it's overrated, because it's not. I don't think like it. It's overwhelming, overwhelmingly like awe striking the first time you play it. But as you you know, the property, for I would say sixty percent
of the property is fairly mundane. I mean, you have, as you alluded to, those two big ridges and in between it's it's kind of just relatively flat land and low yeah, and low right, it's not not exactly like. I don't think you would take that site and say it's extraordinary, but the golf that was produced on it is, and it is completely how those ridges are used are used, right.
I think I compared it to like a salad bowl years ago I wrote it's a big salad bowl, and the two ridges are the forks like your tongs that you put in the bowl just to prepare the salad, and they're kind of on the edges. I think that's the description I use to give people kind of a more idea of what the site is like. So it's kind of like, you know, you have these high ridges on the outside that are like almost like the edges
of the bowl. And it is amazing how how many holes interact with those ridges, right there are very there's only what probably two or three that that don't have some connection to one of those ridges.
Yep.
Yeah, whether you're whether it's a tee you're teeing off from a pie down to the flats, whether you're playing through the flats up to a green halfway up, or you know the holes that play.
On top that are the best ones and off the sides. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable. And you know also the way the holes change direction over and over. I mean it's a windy place. You're right in the ocean, so there's always a breeze. But I don't know that you're playing two holes in the same direction. There are more than two holes in the same direction at all out there, and you're changing direction constantly.
Yeah, the ever present wind there, Like a calm day in South Florida in that location, with it right up on the ocean, I mean, a calm day is still going to be like a club and half too club wind. I think that's just it just makes it accentuates the gulf so much. Right, if you put that place in a very unwindy place, let's just call Central Ohio, I don't think it would have the same reverence as it does because of the natural conditions and elements that it
has on a day in, day out. It's a reliable wind. And I think like that's the thing, like when when you're able to create a course that moves around as much as it does, it just is like a it's a constant pressure, right. I always think that, like great golfers have the ability to play these like stress free rounds and great architecture has a way of compiling stress. And if you think about yourself as a human being like stress, eventually you can only take on so much
stress before you crack. And I think that's what kind of a round of golf does. And I don't know if there's a course that's better at accumulating stress on you than seminole. I think like ones that I would think of in a similar vein like mirrorfield, would be one that accumulates stress like you just like nothing is you don't look at anything and think that's overly hard. There are a few shots, like I mean, if you're playing seventeen and the winds coming off the ocean, that
could be overly hard. Like for the most part, none of the shots feel overly hard, but the accumulation of them over the course of eighteen holes, you are going to make a mistake and then you are going to get in a really difficult position. I would say, you know, one of the tough things as an architect, having those two ridges, does that they're big ridges? Does that make it difficult because it can maybe make it feel monotonous.
Some of the holes blend together a bit, you know, the ones that are are playing east west. You know, there are some of those holes that follow a similar pattern. Definitely, it's hard to distinguish two from eleven. For instance, Mierfield has a little bit of that too, But.
You know, it's the The.
Mention of Chicago Golf Club is interesting because you look at both of those sites and just you know, if you're analyzing the architecture, it's like, man, those guys got the most out of those two sites. You know, to your point, you wouldn't necessarily look at either one of those sites. Are Seminal is a cool site. I mean, you're on the ocean, you've got sand dunes, but there's a bunch of that property that was swamp Essentially, It's like, wow, he really did the best he could with that site.
Chicago's that way certainly. You know, it reminds me a lot of Pinehurst too. And you know, the greens at both of those places tend to be elevated and crowny and when they're firm and in the wind. You know, it's nothing new that wind and firm greens are the things that make golf really hard for good players. But I think you know, as long as players hit it now, as far as players hit it, those two things are
more important than ever. And you know, there aren't many days you go to seminole where the greens aren't firm and it's not blowing, so you know, it is always a test for good players.
What amazes me I was talking to somebody about this other day, how these guys that are members there, these older guys, like that's the course they play all the time, but they figure out how to get around it. Like I don't understand how Like if I played there every day, it would just kick my ass. Eventually I think I just give up. But these guys play there all the time, and it's like these these guys that are seventy years old,
like scratch out seventy fours. I think there is like an aspect of that golf course where the vast majority of people don't play it enough to really you know, the vast majority of people will never play it, but like you know, the people that do play it one or once or twice every five years, like you know, rare. Like I do think that golf course similar to Pine
or so number two. It if you know where to manage your misses, you can start to get around it a little bit more like they've the first couple of times, you just have no chance. You're gonna rip balls off greens. You're gonna miss long and in places that you just can't miss, even though you're twenty feet from the hole,
Like you know that. I think there is like an aspect of that golf course mismanagement is like the number one thing you have to do because you're going to miss out there with the wind and from.
Yeah, a lot of the best courses of that way. I mean Pine Valley certainly is that way. You know, the first time around, you're just in awe of everything and you feel like you can't miss anywhere, And the more you get to know it, you realize, wow, there's there's some space out here if you can control your ball. You know where to hedge. Lido is very much that way too. You know, the first visitors to let O where it's like, wow, that's a really hard golf course.
After you've played it a bit, you start to learn. But yeah, because you missed it over there when the pin's there, you had no chance, But you have seventy yards of room in that direction to make your second shot that much easier.
The Leado. That's not uncommon among some really good golf courses that people think are really hard.
The Leado is such an interesting golf course. I love that it is now like that resort is going to play it. It's you know, obviously it's like a limited amount of resort play at sand Valley a day on the lead, you know. I love that it's like coming clear that like the resort guests don't like the lead out and the like. It's like playing it one time. It's really hard.
It's like the old course.
I mean to me, it's it's more like the Old Course than any course I've played, because it's super vague off the te's. You know, you go to Saint Andrews and if you've never walked the golf course before, you're just you know, for the next four hours, you're just gonna hit it with your caddy points, and Liedo's got a lot of that.
It's like, just hit it there, and there's nothing.
Terribly fun about doing that until you get to learn what's on the other side of that ridge that you can't see over, what the green looks like. And the more you get to know it yourself, the more engaging it gets, but the first time around it's you know, I remember going to Lido shortly after they opened and went in the pro shop and was talking to the guys in there, and you know, like, man, everybody loves it.
People are just raving about it. And I was like, I think most of those people are lying, you know. They they've been told that this is going to be some great things, so they've feel compelled to to rave about how great it is. But I don't think most people the first time around haven't any idea what they're doing, and certainly don't appreciate all the subtlety. And that's very
much the case of the Old Course. I feel bad for people that go to St Andrews or go to Scotland and you know, play seven the top one hundred courses in a week and you know, fly through St Andrews play the Old Course, because you can't possibly enjoy and appreciate it the way you could if we all had the luxury to play there.
Often, I feel like the Leado's it's such a local knowledge place. It is a golf course that the first time around you're just like hitting it to places, as you said, very vague off the tea great way to describe it. But then if you start to understand where you're trying to get to with different whole locations, you can effectively, you know, you can effectively create situations where you hit regularly into gathering pins. I always think of Tom's quote. I think that this was in the third
podcast I ever did with them. It was about stream song Blue. I asked, I think the question was like, what what do you wish people could know about this golf course? He said, I wish there were signs on the golf course that I could put on contours that when you're on the wrong side of a contour it says you have hit it in the wrong spot, because like every contour has a helping side and a hurting side.
But like at the Lido, it's a great example of if you get to a certain position off this vague t shot, if you know, it's kind of like an open ended question, if you can get off the blocks and have like a great like I find writing to be like this, if you can get if I could get out of the blocks with a great opening paragraph, which is always my kryptonite as as an author, is that I just can't get started but if you get
off the blocks, then everything falls into place right. And the lido's so similar to this, Like if you can get it into the right spot, if you know where the whole location is is, you get into the right spot, all of a sudden, it becomes like a very friendly golf course. But if you're in the wrong spot, it is a very challenging golf course. And I do think like the value of a great, great caddy out there
is so yea, so huge. I had. I had a caddy this summer out there that like he told me, like I generally feel like I have like a pretty He was like, he told me to hit it like thirty yards short of a green and I was like really, and he was like thirty yards short, thirty yards left and I think it was on seven h and I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it, and it fed right to the hole, and you know, like then like from that moment on, I was listening, you just get
into good spots and then all of a sudden you can you can take advantage of the cop Yeah, that.
Has some really good caddies there, But you're right, it's one thing to get over the vagueness of the t shots like on twos, like trust me, there's a bunch of space on the other side of that ridge, just hit it over there. But the greens are the thing like you and that takes more time to get to know the greens. But it's like, oh the pins back left today, I can't go anywhere near the I've got to miss here and better off being twenty yards short and left than anywhere right of center.
Yeah, but that's what makes Gulf fun too. I mean as a member, you know, that's what you want in a golf courses.
You know, a the variability from day to day that those sorts of that, that sort of architecture gives you. But also just taking time to figure out a golf course and hopefully you don't know the best way to play a whole the first time you play it, and hopefully the best way to play a whole changes from day to day. I don't know that Seminole's quite that way.
I think Seminole is a bit more prescriptive, just like you know, those greens are just hard, and if you know there's there's a preferred angle where you're playing down. The link to some of those greens, and if you miss that ten yards right or left, playing across the green a little bit is a much harder shot.
This is kind of what I was getting at with the big ridge topography. Does that just generally lend itself to prescriptive golf more so than the smaller, like more human size contoury.
Probably, you know. I I have learned about my own taste that I kind of like flat golf. You know, to me, the best you know, not necessarily tea shots, but the best approach shots to me are the ones that are you know, level or downhill a little bit, because then I can play short of the green and let it run on and I can watch that. I don't really like playing twenty or thirty feet up to a green. I don't enjoy that shot that much because you can't see what the ball does when it lands.
You're and you're.
Limited in the shots you can play. You know, if you're relatively flat, like it's St.
Andrew's or Hollywood's one of my favorite places to play, a lot of those shots are just kind of ground level and you can hit any shot you want. So yeah, I think you do have a little more freedom to play a variety of shots on flatter ground. When you get into hilly ground, the land is telling you more what kind of shots you want to hit.
All right, let's get to number two. What's uh, what's your second course that you're thinking a lot of?
So one of the other topo maps that's laying in front of me reminds me of a few of my favorite places, and I'm gonna lump. I'm gonna cheat and lump three places together.
I get I get accused of doing this all the time on the pod because you like to talk. Well, I just like to jam stuff together so that you know. I do this for our five things about majors. This is where I get accused of having like eight things that I make into five.
It's like the one bite pizza review.
I appreciate you you doing this. I appreciate you turning the tables on me.
Here.
The three I'll say are Garden City and Walton heath Old and wood all Spot, which to me are all very closely related cousins. I get all three built on relatively flat ground. You know, there aren't big hills at any of those places, and the architecture embraces that.
At those places.
You know that so many of the greens at all three of those places are just laying on the ground, you know, subtle tilts left right, right to left away from you in some cases, and the features aren't you know, there's there's some stuff built up above ground, but a lot of the bunkers are just like sunken down in the ground. And this, this site that I'm playing with this map, reminds me so much of that that there's just this beautiful, gentle movement.
You know, it's like plus or minus seven or eight feet.
Sandy, gravelly soils that drain really well, and I think it would lend itself really well to that style of architecture. So as I'm you know, playing with the map and working on these routings, I'm finding places, you know, green sites that are just quiet on the ground, not necessarily on a high, necessarily in a pocket, but just kind of an open space on the ground and tilting and an inconmuniate direct I think that's really cool old school architecture.
And you know, Garden City. Unfortunate to work at Garden City and have spent a lot of time there over the years, and you know, a couple of years ago they were looking at adding a couple of back teas, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, who are these four? And I asked, what was you know, every spring they host the Travis you know, the Great Amateur event, and I was like, what was you know, what did the
Metalist shoot last year? And I think the best score was like a seventy or seventy one, which is amazing to me because that golf course, now, we've spent a lot of time over the past ten years really restoring it to the photographs in nineteen thirty six that was in the last hosted an amateur. That was their last major event. So the golf course now, with the exception of a few back teas and a few forward tees, it's almost identical to the golf course they played in
nineteen thirty six. You have the best amateurs in the country, in the world or hovering around power or over power, and that the architecture is timeless.
You know.
I love that sort of architecture. And the golf course is playing firmer than it has in a long time. They're superintendent Mike mcleeby has just been pounding saying into the greens and the approaches and you can hit the shots you want to hit. But that architecture is really simple but still holds up really well to the best players in the game.
I think that those greens are just so hard to hit into you you always I feel like you generally know where to land shots, Like you know, when you're that golf course, with the way it's set up distance wise, you get a lot of wedges in your hands, and I think like the best thing you can do to combat wedges is greens that run away, like variety, varying the greens because and this is always why I've taken away from Garden City is like Garden City, the more
you play it, the more worried about where you land wedges. It becomes so much of a well, this is one hundred, this green tilts away. I'm not sure how much it tilts away. Do I need to land this ninety four? You start to think you're just it gets you thinking
because you're not used to it. You know, every hole feels like you need to land it a different number, and you get frustrated because like you'll hit a wedge and you're like, oh, it's perfect, and then you have to off the back of the green because it pitches away like it just gets a bad bounce or it takes a big first hot because you get that unpredictability you know, that comes with just such a wide variety of greens like that. It's just magical how those greens
sit on the ground too. I think that that's one of the other things, is like it's so hard to decipher from the fairway what's going on at the green and where you want to land it.
And it's it's about more than just the number two. It's about yes, your tey. You know.
It's like, Okay, I've decided now I want to land this ten yard short. But am I taking a full swing and trying to land it as soft as I can? Or am I knocking this down?
So it's about.
Trajectory as well as where you want to land it, which, you know, the more you're thinking about what kind of shot, no how far you want to hit it, the more compelling golf gets, and you're thinking about what happens after the you know, once the ball lands, what's it going to do?
Yeah, I think that's really fascinating it. You know, another thing we're.
Doing there over the past couple of years we've been you know, they've got these sand dams, which are kind of a result of top dressing and you know, buzzing around with the sand pro working the sand into the green after you've verified it leaves a little ring around the green and it's it's subtle the first year and slowly builds every year you do that. So we're removing these sand dams around the greens, which you know now they're really nondescripted. But at the same time, we're adding
short grass around some of the greens. So you know, they used to have you know, they were never terribly well defined, but some of them had the definition of rough leading in to them and around the backs, and we're wiping that out in a lot of places and just adding short grass. So now the greens you're just
floating in space and a sea of short grass. So I think it's getting even harder to get your bearings and understand where just how far away is that it feels uncomfortable because you know, the green is just literally floating in short grass.
It's a cool look.
It's also you get the number right, you get the one hundred yards, but if you play a course, it's one of those courses where you might play it more, it might get more frustrating because like you're thinking one hundred yards, like, well, is that one hundred yards with the green with the whole twelve paces on or sixteen paces on? And that makes a huge difference because the front part of the green might be different than the back part of the green, you know.
Yep, yeah, then again, you know the greenkeeper has done a great job affirming up the approaches now so you can hit all those shots and it's like that's the opposite of seminal where it's like you can hit any shot you want and none of them are easy. You know, you've got to have touch, and you've got to have judgment and you've got to execute. Yeah, it's not telling you what to do at all. It gives you a lot of freedom to play whatever shot works best for you, which to me is the best kind of golf.
Were you did you work on the Woodhall SPA project with Tom?
I did.
Yeah, that's been one of the golf courses that I haven't seen this long, fascinated me the most and been high up on on on list of courses that I really want to see on any given year. What there's you know, you lumped in with Garden City. There's also seems like there's a lot of like big scale moments out there, like with bunkers impactful.
You know, you'll appreciate it because you're a drone guy and you you like that perspective being up and you can see more.
And Garrett would love it.
But when you're on the ground, it's a relatively flat place, so so some of those features that look great from ten feet in the air, you're not really seeing the full depth of them, you know. And that wood all spots fame for the par threes and the fifth is probably the boldest of the bunch, but it's the skinny little green that's surrounded by bunkers all around, and they must be i don't know, ten twelve feet deep with
straight vertical faces. But the tea's about the same level as the green are just slightly above, so you're not seeing the floors of the bunkers at all from the tee and it's not until you're up by the green and probably in one of those markers that you appreciate how deep they are. There are a few moments around the golf course where Yeah, there are things that are kind of in your face. And it's one of the
coolest looking golf courses in the world. I mean, it's just a very the texture is great, and the natives and the sand and the green turf and the trees, and it's really a beautiful, kind of rugged, masculine looking golf course.
It's really a cool looking golf course.
Does England have the most aesthetically pleasing golf not on the Ocean?
Yeah, there's a lot of beautiful golf in England, I mean, and probably the most dwell.
America is tough to be.
Just because it's so big and we have so many golf courses as a destination, you know, as a as a overseas destination for American golfers, England has such a wide variety of you know, great parkland, heathland and links. Yeah,
a lot of beautiful golf courses in England, the stuff around. Yeah, if you catch the the heathling courses around London the right time of the year when the heather's in bloom, yeah, that's that's a gorgeous style of golf that you don't really get to experience anywhere but England.
All Right, what's what's your third course that you've been.
Thinking of.
Or fifth?
Yeah, who's counting?
I made this three. I made this three because I thought three was really hard to pick.
Three is sorry, and I cheated. I'm not taking any back. I'm not taking any back.
The other one is just a project I'm kind of in the middle of, so I'm thinking of it a
fair bit right now. And that's at a place that nobody knows of in Connecticut called Silver Spring Country Club in Ridgefield, which you know isn't far from Greenwich or Westchester, but just far enough, you know, Like Ridgefield's a beautiful little town, and the golf course sits in a space that's largely surrounded by untouched forest and a really peaceful place, a great membership, a lot of really wonderful people there, and a really pleasant golf course and a nice piece
of land. I don't really love touting my own work this way, but it's yeah, you asked the question. So you know, it's a project that we did nine holes this year, the back nine. Well we'll get into the front nine this coming fall. You know, it's a nice routing, so I'm not really changing that too much, but you know, greens, bunker's teas have been tinkered with a lot over the years, and we're we're tinkering a lot more and kind of changing the style of the golf course. Will keep in
the bulk of the routing intact. But it's been a really fun project, I think, trying to give it its own style and create some some funky features that freak people out a little bit when we first built them, but I think are going to be a lot of fun to discover and play over time. That's been a really fun project and something I've got to wrap up a little bit this spring and then get back to in the fall for nine more holes.
What's it like, you know, changing completely changing, you know, like the golf course. Everybody's joined there because they seemingly like the golf course. So you know, as you said mege a funky, provocative and really like, you know, not changing the routing, but changing the te's, greens, fairways, bunkers. That's going to completely change the golf course. What's it
What's it like overhauling a place? I imagine that when you open, you aren't going to have one unanimous approval from the club, like you know, from from the members standpoint because golfers hate change more than anything in the world, you know, But what what do you kind of like think about while you're changing it and balancing that idea of like, the membership joined this other place that I'm completely overalling.
It's a really good point and a point I make often.
But yeah, like you said, the members joined that place for a reason, presumably because they really like the golf course, and getting them to buy into something completely new isn't always easy, which you know, frankly, most of the work that I do on older golf courses like Garden City or Hollywood or other places I work is restoring.
You know.
It's like you've changed this over the years. It was really cool one hundred years ago. Let's just put that back, and let's put that back as faithfully as we can. And then if people don't, you know, if people don't like that sort of change, you just blame the dead guy and say, well, this isn't me, that's what he did, and that's a little more acceptable. When you start changing things, you open yourself up to more criticism because my opinion
is not necessarily better than anyone else's. I'm the one being paid to make all those changes, so somebody values my opinion. But it's a very different thing and I haven't done a lot of that.
You know, we did some of that.
Atlantic in Philly a couple of years ago, and I think that went over reasonably well. So there's some players that hate that too. As long as more people love it then hate it, then you're okay, I guess. And if you can replace the members that threaten to leave, you're in a good spot.
But it is a challenge.
I mean, you're taking something that a lot of people love and have gotten to know for a long time. And you know, they were giving a lot of tours this fall as we were doing the work, and members that come out and say, oh, this is a completely different hole.
I don't know how to play this now. And that's kind of the.
Idea that you're going to have something fresh to play and hopefully that's fun and exciting, and hopefully that excitement sticks.
You know.
It's like discovering something new can be fun as long as people like it, and hopefully that lasts. And you know, there's so much of building a golf course, you know, and people ask about a Barnwell, it's like, you know, we just built the kind of golf that we like to play, and then you hope that other people like to play that kind of golf too.
And this is the same thing.
It's like, well, I'm just building something I think is really cool and something I would like to play. I think this hole is going to be more fun now than the version you had before. Hopefully you like what I like. In two years from now you're all really happy with it, or enough of you are happy with it.
The club is still in a good space, and you've got a bunch of other people that want to play and join and to fit a good tracker good of that, So hopefully that holds for at least a few more projects.
That's my philosophy with like the podcast, people are like, how do you figure out what to talk about? Well, like, I just talk about stuff I'm interested in, and I figure there's thousands of other people that are interested in it as well. So I think, you know, take that, like, if I like to play this type of golf, then I think other people will like to play this type
of golf. Is a is a generally good philosophy. I think like one of the challenges, like I think something that I find is fascinating is like country clubs just like struggle with chefs. Right, so country like anybody that's ever been around the country club there they wrote to they rifle through chefs. And I think one of the things that people it's probably like a good place to work. Country club is good, good place to be a chef.
It's like, well, you have to cook like the staples, Like there has to be a stake, there has to be like and one of the struggles is like it's hard for chefs to feel creatively they have their creative itch scratch because like it's a menu that like people want to go to the club and know what's on the menu, and chefs naturally want to be inspired into cooking what they want to cook and try new things
and experiments. So it's this culture that kind of runs counter And I think like one of the things with country clubs, having you know, played a country club in a different point in my life, is like they're just everybody. There's such creatures of habit. Like they play the golf course the exact same way they you know, they set up the golf course. A lot of golf courses if you look in America over the last you know, six decades, have removed more optionality from their golf course than they've
then adding. I think in the last you know, ten fifteen years, we've been in a period of them adding optionality. Whether or not they use it or not is a great question. But like, you know, if you put the back tea on a middle tea box one day, someone's bound to come in and be like, what, why was the back tea up on this hole?
You know. Yeah, and handicap in America plays in that.
You know, it's like, oh, I've got to I've got to post my score and I've got to play from the same set of teas.
It's like, just go out and have fun. Like fun is good, but it is funny.
You know, you change a golf hole and you add a bunker in the fair way, and then somebody comes out and says, well, I'm going to drive it in that bunker every day, Like that's right where I hit my drive.
It's like, then, don't hit driver.
To do something else, avoid the bunker. But it's funny to watch people play a golf course after it's reopened when you've made changes, because yeah, they've just tried to play it the way they always did, and the golf course isn't reacting the same way, and that can be frustrating for some people.
I think one of the things this happened, and I don't know if this is just my I just feel like one of the things that's happened over the last couple of years is that golf courses have been more and more it's just like drivers okay almost everywhere. And I think, like I play a lot different golf courses now than I played when I was like but I just think that in a way we've gotten away, like from I think part of this is like balancing fun factor, Like people think, oh, it's like we have to be
able to hit driver everywhere, it's fun. And I think a lot of this is destination golf getting wideer friendlier, which I think overall is a good thing. But I do think like the idea of like holes that you might hit a three iron have become like this, like black sheep. It's like, oh, I can't hit driver, Like
this isn't fun. But like I do like when I think about like putting together a round of golf and managing a golf course, like sometimes like holes where you have to hit a three iron it's okay, you know. I don't know if it's just it could be me personally too, just being aggressive because I don't like care what I shoot anymore. You know, could be that too, But I do feel like it's it's become such a like with new golf courses, and the general trend is like the hole, you almost have to be able to
hit driver on a hole. I don't know if you feel that way.
Yeah, And the Nationals are great, Yeah, I think you're right.
I mean it.
Architecturists trended towards big, wide fairways, lots of space, find your ball, keep moving.
Angles.
Theoretically, the National is a great example. There are a handful of holes of National where it's like, you know, if you want to hit it more than two to eighty, you know, the fairway stops here. If you want to hit it further than this, you've got to go over there instead to that offset fairway.
You got a terrible line in from over there.
You know.
We tried to do some of that at Old Barnwell, Like you can hit driver if you want, Like, there's a fairway out here for you to hit driver. But we're going to shove you to a place where you don't want to be coming in from and make your second shot that much harder. And National has a handful of holes that do that so well that you know, the fairway just ends, you know. The ninth of Mirfield is a great example of that too. The bunker's up
the left and that broken ground. It's like, you know, your your your direct line to the hole ends right here, you know, And it's a distance where you're still a long way from the green. If you want to get closer to the green, you can try and squeeze it up there, but you don't. You may not like where you end up.
So yeah, I don't. I think you're right.
I don't think golfers like it when you just cut them off and there's no place to hit driver.
But I don't know that this is a bad thing.
I mean, I think it's like I think it's hole, you know, yeah, And I think if you don't do that, it's hard to get longer irons at a reasonable yardage on like a smaller parcel land, Like, how how else are you going to get a seven iron six iron into a long hitter's hand other than cutting off the fair away.
Yeah, make a you know, if there's a four hundred and seventy yard part four, you're not hitting five irons into those holes today, no.
Which is kind of insane.
I played it.
People hate long part threes, you know.
They tend to hate long part threes too, Like when you force good players to hit a long club into a part three, they seem to hate that too. So you can't win because that's really the only place to force somebody to hit a long club is a two and ninety yard part three.
But nobody likes that.
I played one of the courses I grew up playing this fall, and they built a new back tee on one of the holes and it it. It was it's like thirty yards back of where the old back tea used to be. And I hit driver and I hit a really good t shot and it was amazing because I got to it and I was like, oh, this is like where I used to hit approach shots in when I was in high.
School club anymore.
Yeah, but it was it was wild to be because it's like, this is a hole. It was like four to fifty hole. Now it's like four to eighty. The four to fifty hole was had become just driver wedge, which is wild. It's insane, insane, And it used to be like a good drive in the there was like a little rise at two fifty at two hundred out from the green, So two fifty when I was in high school, I mean like that was like a good carry, like and if you didn't hit it good, you didn't
carry the rise, so you wouldn't get the bounce. And it's like, you know what, Like now that it's back, it's like kind of an intact but still at four eighty for a really long hitter. And I just played recently with a kid in high school who's sixteen, who like flew at fifteen yards past me and I'm like, oh, and he's never gonna think about you know, like four
eighty is just driver wedge. It's it's utterly nuts. I don't understand, you know, like for a constrained property in old school golf course, like what, you know, where can you go when you only have one hundred and fifty acres?
Yeah, yeah, that's tough. That's tough. And there's I think there's something low.
I mean, the satisfaction kind of hitting a great four iron is totally different than the satisfaction of hitting a great seven iron.
But how often do you have that opportunity? You know, you don't get to hit great four roans because you hit it too far.
Do I know you don't watch a ton of pro golf. Do you remember Rory mcroy's two iron into eighteen at the Scottish Open a couple of years ago because he was playing into like the thirty I mean, like, yes,
that shot. I will never forget that shot. If it was a wedge I would have forgotten it by now, you know, or if it was an eight iron or a seven iron even, but that was just extraordinary, And I think like the same thing for a player, Like the shots you remember the most are generally the extraordinary shots,
and they usually aren't with seven irons. They're usually with like four irons or hitting an amazing recovery shot around the greens or you know, those are the shots I tend to find myself remembering the most.
Yeah, you give great players seven irons and they're hitting it inside ten feet three times out of ten.
You know, great shots.
Now you're going to get You're going to get the stat voice coming at you. You gave cold, you have to speak in vague vagary or else they will weapodize their stats in any way to get you.
Well. In any case, they're they're really good at hitting seven arons relatively close to the hole.
I love watching the old shells matches where guys are running forwoods on the greens. Yeah, like that you don't see anymore, and that was fun to watch.
I mean for golf architecture to and and this is so true for like ninety golfers. Is the your construction of greens extends well beyond the green because it goes into the approaches for those running shots that is all thought of.
I mean, what is it?
Is it about twenty yards an ind for most holes?
Yeah, that is still the way a lot of people play. Yeah, yeah, and especially a lot of a lot of ladies. I mean watching even watching the women's tours, the trajectory is totally different. Completely, It's more relatable and it's more fun to watch because angles still do matter for them a little bit, or it doesn't on the tour. But yeah, it certainly depending on what kind of all you're building.
It's the twenty thirty forty yards short of the green and then everything around the green that you're spending a lot of time thinking about too.
Just this is a complete off the top of your head. I'm curious women's Open is going to like extraordinary places, but they're mostly men's open sites. What's one course understanding, like sixty five hundred yards is fine? Is great for women's golf. I think Lancaster was a great example of a golf course that would never host a men's event that shined last year. What's one golf course in America you'd love to see host a women's tournament beside Cypress point beside Cypress?
Yeah, answer, no, you gotta go a little well, give us something, Give us something, give us like your favorite, give us an Indie rock, don't give us the rolling stones here.
Yeah, it's all the easy Pine Valley than National, Like all those are too easy because they should be going to those places because they can't, you know amazing. Yeah, they can play all those places without having to change the golf course.
It would be so much fun, and they're starting to take advantage of that.
I think, finally, maybe I don't think. I don't think the LPGA like I think the best women's product would be if you like reworked at and said, like we're only going to host like we're gonna do like twelve events a year at like the premiere golf courses in the world, and try and pitch it that way. I think you could get like a unbelievable product because you could actually have like the footprints matchup.
Yeah.
Yeah, ninety ninety seven percent of the top fifty golf courses in the world don't work for the man anymore.
They'd almost all work for the ladies.
Sunningdale, you know, Saint Jorge, just hell Roll, Melbourne, Kingston Heath, they'd all be fantastic.
It would be fun to watch them go around those golf courses.
One one off the radar. One give us, give us something for the archives here, you know, uh see.
You're putting me on the spot. Country Club is Scranton. How about that?
There you go, Walter Travis. Why would it be fun?
It's because it's a wild set of greens where you need to think about where you're going to land the ball, and there are a bunch of greens there where you can't land your ball down the putting surface and feel comfortable. So you've got to run balls onto greens, and I
think it'd be a blast to watch that. It's kind of their short game, and like their short game shots are so fun to watch too, because yeah, they just they play it a different trajectory and they're so good at the shots I love to watch.
The topography would be great there too, because it's a fairly severe piece of land, right, Like it's got kind of like heaving movement right yep, yes, all time, All time. Regret was I went to a buddy's wedding in Scranton and didn't stop there. It's like, how many times are you going to find yourself with a weekend in Scranton? But I was with my wife and she doesn't play golf, and she didn't know anybody at the wedding.
That's pray.
Before you were a big deal too, you could you could just make that happen now you're you're a celebrity, But it might have.
Been tough for back then.
So I yeah, well it should have gone. Should have gone.
It's not going anywhere. You got too many places to see.
Way too many, too and too little time. Brian, thank you for coming on. Uh, it's always fun to talk golf courses with you. And look forward to seeing some of your new work this year. Silver Spring maybe getting out there this year anytime. All right, big thanks for listening to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. I head to Scotland this week. I will be in Scotland. We'll have an episode next week with Garrett Morrison. We're gonna dive into a couple of topics and I will
be abroad, but we will be back next week. And big thanks to PJ Clark for producing, editing and getting this podcast out to the world. Thanks PJ.