Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today we have an episode with Golf Club Atlas founder randmri Set. But first I'm very excited to announce that today's episode is powered by tdam or trade. Every stroke counts on the scorecard and every penny counts in the market. That's why tedamror Trade is committed to straightforward pricing with
no surprises, so you're free to swing with confidence. Visit tdamritrade dot com backslash Friday Egg member sbi C. Now, without further ado, here's randmri Set.
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 Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the thelf course.
You're a big proponent of dogs on a golf course. Why has America lost its way and not allowed dogs for the most part on golf courses.
Well, Americans are good at always coming up with excuses, and they'll talk about the litigious nature of society and if somebody's dog went over and barked and bit somebody that the club would be Libel and da da da da da. But you know, they've done it in the UK for one hundred and fifty years. It's just part of the game, as part of the evolution of the game, and somehow they are able to figure out how to
do it and we're not. So I'm not going to come up with excuses for why it wouldn't work here. I just know that it works over there.
Yeah, it seems like it would give It would make the game way more approachable. Also, I think about it. My wife isn't a big golfer, but she loves our dog, and if I go out and walk with the dog, she's exponentially more likely to come walk with me.
Exactly. I mean, you read the article I wrote in Golf Week. I mean it just literally, My fondest memories are the five Morissets and our dog Sandy going to the golf course that Trump's playing, Cypress Point or Pine Valley or whatever. And I feel like the next I'm fifty five, that the generations behind me are getting cheated of something. At least in this country. They're not in the UK, but they are here, and you know, I lament that fact.
Besides dogs, what are kind of the say, virtues of UK golf versus an American goth you'd most like to see come to America.
Well, you know, in the UK, golf is a integral but relatively small part of your life. You should be able to go play eighteen holes, have a match with your friend maybe Stableford, in three hours or less. You have a pain at the end of the round in your back home, all within four hours. In America, it's going to you might be looking at a six, seven, eight hour proposition and it's just so much you know, it's this infinitely more time consuming and therefore to a
certain degree, it's just that much more selfish. I mean, it's a selfish pursuit. You're doing something that makes you happy. You're leaving your kids and your wife and your dogs at home, and so you know, I just I like the way that the Brits do it. You know, if it takes several hours and you scoot right back home, you know it's in proportion to its worth in your life, and you can get on and do all kinds of
of other things. So you know, one of the and that you know, you can't walk a seven thousand yard course in two hours forty five like you can swim Ley Forest. You know, I can play two rounds at Swinley Forest in the time that it takes to walk a quote unquote championship course in the United States. And so you know, I'm I'm I'm just a huge fan of six thousand, sixty one hundred sixty two hundred yard courses. Part does not need to be reached, certainly seventy two,
it can be sixty eight, sixty seven. You get your exercise in, you know, in a timely manner. And I think that that's you know that the Brits approach it like that. I've never seen a Brit stand off to the side of a green and write his score down right after holding out. And you know, through golf club battlests have had a lot of guests here and when
I take them to Southern Pins Country Club. If somebody asked me after the first hole, what'd you get, I know that I've made a misjudgment and inviting that guy, and of course I'll always have some kind of witty retort for that. But you know, the card and pencil mentality that Mackenzie hated is alive and well here, but I don't see it in the UK.
It's the thing that drives me the most nots is if I'm in the group behind a group that's in carts and you know, they walk off the green and they put their putters in their bag and they get in the cart, and then one will take off and one will be paused there for a second, and you know that they're writing down the scores for the whole.
Sad to say. I mean, if you see that unfolding, probably just playing the wrong golf course, you know, I mean, it's just not You're not going to have kindred spirit golfers of the sort of golf that you and I like, you know around you, and that's just too bad.
It's Southern Pines.
That's one of the hidden gems of American golf.
It's you know, it's a delight. I mean, I contend that it's on the best property in Moore County. Every hole rises or falls twenty thirty feet. The green to tea walks are very short. I've lived here. I moved here in two thousand and Chris buy and I go out many evenings after work to play anywhere from five to eleven or twelve holes, and you know, we're closing in on twenty years of having done that, and not once if I made the mile drive thinking, gee, I
wish I was doing something else. I mean, I'm always keen to get to the golf course. And a lot of that's just because the land is so good. Yes, all the detail work, you know, the ross detail work is missing, the greens have been modified, but nonetheless the appeal of the land just shines through their only homes on two of the holes, and oftentimes we'll skip those two holes. And regardless of how I left the house,
I will be coming home in a better mood. If I was in a great mood when I left the house, I'll be in an even better mood when I return. So my wife, Fritz is always keen to shove me out the door and let me go get my hour fixed.
It's funny I was. It was the middle of winter we left for this trip, and the one of the first nights, I was really stressed out, had been working all day, and I went out to a course and walked nine and like forty five fifty minutes came back and my wife was like shocked. I was in a completely different state of mind. And it's just amazing how like the spiritual, like the release, Like it's almost like meditation getting to go out and walk and play golf.
So you didn't race home and enter your scores into the Gin handicap system and compute how many greens and regulation you had and how many pots.
I wasn't keeping my stats.
Yeah, I was just putting with a pin in. I was you know, I was hitting a second chip if I wanted to hit a second chip. But most importantly, I was just hitting the golf ball and walking.
That's what golf's for, and that just that message somehow gets lost in this country. And again, people are free to turn the sport into anything that they want to. But for me, you know, it's pure relaxation. A friend of mine once said, well, you don't ever play for money, and I was like, I play for something you know much better than that. I mean, it's just you know, bragging rights, and he just he didn't understand that.
That's I went through. I was a competitive golfer for you know, I still play some competitive golf, but I was playing for score and I found myself. I got kind of you know, loss in my way. But then when I started writing and reading more about architecture three years ago, then all of a sudden, the enjoyment of golf like spiked. I cared so much less about what I was shooting, what I was scoring, and I was just enjoying walking and observing what was going on around
me on the golf course. And it was just an enlightening moment. And I think that's the thing that people get lost with the It is the American mentality. It's always like striving. And what's ironic about it is at work, you're always striving to be better. You're trying to you know, grow, And that's like, you know, that's your where do the stress comes from? Right? It's like, why are we putting this all the stress on when we're doing a leisure activity.
If I want stress, I'll stay at my desk. It's this meant to be a pure form of laxation. And again I don't know why. You know, let's say that you instead of shooting seventy five, you wanted to shoot seventy three. Well, how much more short game time is that going to take for you? To be away from your wife to try and lop those two shots off. And that's where it just becomes, you know, more and more and more of a selfish pursuit. And really the
only person who cares what you shoot is you. I mean, there's not a person in the world who cares what you shoot other than yourself. And you know, all I can try and do is hope and pray to break eighty. And you know, if I do, you know there's a sense of satisfaction. And if I don't, who cares. But one thing, you won't hear me talk about it because I know nobody cares.
That's exactly, nobody cares for yourself about what you're doing, or the guy, maybe the guy that you're playing a match against.
But yeah, but then there's just match play and there's no score, right.
Yeah, Well, I think that's like a big thing, is the match play component, Like how much quicker things would play and how much differently course design would have been had match play been the predominant form of the game in the US versus stroke play.
Well, you know, we've just profiled Somerset Hills and White Bear Yacht Club on Golf Club that list and both of those in with three hundred and forty three hundred and fifty yarders, both of which you know, if you're in a tight match against a good player, you're pushing for three. It's really hard to achieve. And you know, it's a great match play holes. They don't fit into the American norm of the big, tough, you know, brutish, strong,
two shotter in the round. But again in match play, you know, you know, to me, it's much more interesting. Could you birdy the whole and win versus get a par and you're opponent, you know, Bogie's has a mishap.
What you're evaluating, say a golf course, and you just touched on to non championship golf courses by certainly today's standards, fun golf courses to play versus a brutish championship course. How do you do you do you kind of look at them as two different types of golf.
No, I mean it just you know, the only thing that I know leaving a golf course is do I want to come back? That's the only thing that matters to me. And if I do want to, you know, I'd never understand somebody who says, you know, I just loved it. I had the best time. You know, do you think you'll ever go back now? I mean, you know there as you know, and that is the as ease of travel has come about in the last two decades. There are now a lot of chasers and people running
around ticking boxes. I've played here, I've played here, and you know, if a guy has played a golf course one time, you know, he might have some surface remarks about it that you can pretty much read anywhere. I'm much more interested in the guy who's played at two, three, four five times and really taken the time to start to get to know the course. But it all comes back to, you know, do you want to return. I'll
never forget the first time I played Castle Stewart. I just felt like I missed, you know, I wasn't hitting the ball well, I was always out of position. I just felt like I was missing something and I just knew that I was super keen to return. And so a few years ago, Fritz and I went up there in November. There are very few people. We stayed for three days and everything just opened up before me and it's just been one of my favorite courses ever since. But it only happens based on familiarity.
That I feel the same way as I was talking to somebody the other day about Old Town Club and they're like, I'm surprised you're not hitting Old Town Club on this trip. And I was like, well, I talked talked to a guy at the club at Dunlop who suggests I come back in the fall. Plus I didn't want to just squeeze in one day, Like, if I'm going to go there, I want to go I want to be there for.
At least too properly.
Yeah, And it's funny because, like what you were just talking about in Castle Stewart, I played. So I played National Golf Links for the first time this year, and the first round it was like I felt sensory overload, you know. I walked off the golf course and I was like, you know, I've seen so much stuff that exactly that you were. I was struggling to pros and and then I got I got to go back again that week and play it again, and I picked up more. And then and then I went later in the year,
and you pick up more that that time. I played with older equipment, so I picked up even more, Like you know, I'm playing with a ballota and all of a sudden, this T shot on seventeen isn't just bashed up the left. It's like, oh my god, I'm seeing bunkers I hadn't seen before. And that's the thing is with these great golf courses, you learn so much more and more and more every time around them, and it's almost it's unfair to even that's something with a rating system.
And I wanted to ask you, is like, how do you even cast judgment on a golf course one time around? Especially with the you know, the great ones.
You know a lot of people. I remember a friend of mine, Ted Sturgis, from Indianapolis. We went to see Chambers Bay, Tom Doaks Course in Washington State, Tumble Creek, and the David McClay kid Course, Gamble Gamble's Hands and we was about a five day trip and Ted asked me at the end, and then we saw Waverley and then the Cow Club. He goes, so, you know, how would you rank the five courses? And I said, Ted, you know, asked me in five weeks and I'll have
had time to kind of mull it over. But you know, you know, I think that's a little bit part of the danger. And I'm not I know, I have a Twitter account and people are tweeting at me, but I can't remember my password to ever respond. But I think that's a real danger. I personally would be very leery of making tweets leaving a golf course because I just you know, there's no rush. The world's not waiting for your opinion on a golf course. You might as well take the time to you know, to kind of roll
it around. And I think about it. You know, it's always been ironic to me. We expect our architects to live and die on a site and only do two or three courses max in a year, and then we blow in and out in five hours to render some you know, judgment. Where's the fairness in that? It's just absurd.
People always are like, you don't write your review, like you write about golf course right away when it's freshest, and I'm like, well, I don't forget about it. I actually think more about it. And then you know what, the stuff that sticks with you the most too, right when you wait. So you started golf Club Atlasts in the late nineties, How did it come to be? And for anybody that's listening that's not gone to the site.
It's essentially, I mean, something that's inspired me since I was a kid and read and you know, there's unbelievable troves of information about golf architecture on it.
Well, to be honest, I was bullied into starting it. Some friends of mine had some software and they wanted to prove to corporations that it worked. And they asked me if I had anything that they could load into it that would demonstrate its viability. And I said no, And they came back and said, well, do you ever take pictures of anything? I said, apart from golf courses? No, And they said, well, you know, have you ever written
about golf courses? And it turned out my brother and I wrote these little booklets and we would send them to twenty or twenty five people. I said, yeah, I enjoyed doing that. Said well, why don't you do some course profiles. We can do this and this, And then the clincher was they said you could have something called a discussion group. And this is in nineteen ninety eight. I'm like, well, what's that and they said, well you
can post. And I'm living in Sydney Australia. You can make a post and people around the world can read it and then respond back. And at the time I was going broke, calling people saying I just played Royal Melbourne, I just played Kingston Heath, I just played New South Wales and I'm getting these enormous phone bills and I said, so wait. Essentially, I thought, well, if I did that, it would pay for these stupid phone calls of me
bragging to people. Sure enough, we started to assemble things and we went live in the summer of nineteen ninety nine.
With this all a sudden ability for people to communicate, exchange ideas, you know, share information. How do you think golf architecture has changed with the founding of golf club Batlats.
Well, you know, a lot of clubs do kind of cloak and dagger stuff. I mean, I know growing up that the power and control on what direction a golf course was going to go resided with a few people. Now there there's just so much more free flow of information and it's available to anybody and all you have
to do is your due diligence. So there, in theory, there should be a lot more educated people on golf course architecture, you know, and in addition to the Internet and websites and podcasts like yours, there was a real resurgence starting in the mid nineties, just in printed literature,
a lot of fine golf books. I know you're a huge fan of George Bado's book on CB McDonald and just you know, just became an instant cornerstone book that could disseminate, you know, valuable information to every McDonald rainter course out there. And you see places like Sleepy Hollow
just latch onto it and and run with it. So so there's so much better information out there, and and it's available to all the members and I you know, and to be honest, you know what golf club at lists has become since two thousand and six seven, with the great implosion of new course construction, has really been chronicling all the great restoration work because there's been a paucity of new course construction. And you know, that's one
thing that America has done better than the UK. They Americans have taken greater, more records and more detail has gone into restoration projects here than elsewhere around the golf globe.
It's something that American golf has done better than that. That's a rare thing for some. It's actually, you know, I never read thought about it that way.
And you know, I can whine a lot and wish the sport was simpler here and wish it was more akin to the UK roots. But that thought occurred to me when I was in Edinburgh a few weeks ago, that that that is. And I asked several of the Scots I was with, and and nobody really would take the other side of that argument that they're that they do that are pure restoration work.
How long did you live in Australia seven years nineteen eighty three to two thousand. How's the golf culture there different from say the UK and America.
You know, it's a it's warmer, and so you'll see the folks with the socks pulled up to their knees and in short pants, and I don't think short pants are allowed even at some of the clubs in the UK. They have the same culture. In terms of pull trolleys. I don't ever recall seeing a caddy in Australia other than at an event. You know it, if you're an able bodied person in the UK or Australia, you're going to take a pool cart or you're going to carry
your bag. I mean, you're not going to feel like a ponce and have some guy do it for you when you're perfectly capable. So in a lot of ways, it's just a warm weather version of golf. In the UK. The biggest difference that they do is that they pull their trolleys right across the greens rather than around the sides, and you see so much of the you know, the fringes in this country are oftentimes the worst presented part of the golf course because they get so much traffic.
In Australia recognizes that and they say the hardest surface on the golf course is the putting surface and you do the least damage, so just go, you know, drag your card across.
It's funny. I as an American, you always walk around and put your bag on the fringe. And I was playing golf with Brian Palmer, who was the former superintendent of Short Acres, and He's just putting his bag right on the green and I'm like, well he's doing it and you know, same idea. He's like me resting this bag and he has, you know, a no stand carry bag like a it was like a Mackenzie bag and him putting it down. I mean that's less impact on the green than somebody walking it.
You know, it makes sense. Another thing in Australia. I remember if you hit it to within your first putt to within two or three feet, and assuming you're not named by his line, you are fully expected to hold out. Nobody wants to see you mark clean the ball, step back, plumb bob, do this? Do that? You know there's a great sense of urgency to you know, beat four hours and just playing a you know, timely manner. Again, nobody has the patience to watch you grind over a two and a half footer.
I don't have the patients to allow myself to rind over too.
It just doesn't matter.
Yeah, now let's take a few moments to talk about our sponsor. Today's episode is powered by tdamror Trade. Whether on the course or in the market, it helps to have a second set of eyes to keep you on your game. That's why ted amor Trades Trade Desk is here to help gut check your strategies so you always feel confident teeing up a trade. Visit Tdomritrade dot Com backslash Frida Egg to learn more about what their trade desk can do for you. Member sbi C. Now back
to ran Moro set. One of the new things that you added this year was a GCA is the one hundred and forty seven Custodians of the Game. I thought it was one of the best things I've read in a long time. Was the you know, the preamble to the to the list of courses. Tell us a little bit about how you came up with that idea, why you decided to put it out now, and kind of the thought process behind what a true custodian of the game is.
Well, I have you know, you and I were talking last night. You know, rankings and lists have taken on negative connotations lately, but I've always enjoyed puzzling over what resonated, what did and why do I like one course more
than the other? Blah blah blah. And so Tom Doak asked me to join the Golf magazine panel in the mid nineteen nineties when I was living in Australia, and I served on that panel, but I became frustrated by several things that were going on, and I didn't think that the direction really represented in a speuse the the kind of golf that I really enjoyed. So I resigned from that panel in March or April, knowing full Well had already started to write the one hundred and forty
seven Custodians of the Game. And one of the things that had prompted me was, you know, we write a lot of course profiles on golf club batlests on courses that are whether they're nine holers or six thousand, sixty two sixty three hundred yards, and I've just received some of the nicest handwritten letters from people saying thank you for being a voice of reason in the world, and
so prompted by that. You know, you know, it's one thing if you feel like you're the only person who enjoys that golf, and sometimes you would just kind of keep your opinion to yourself, but I think there's an enormous group of people who would enjoy playing, you know, three hour round golf and some of the things that we've talked about earlier on your show, and so I tried to give a voice to to that, to to what you know, would appeal and then some of the
things that you know that, like in America, you know, some of the trappings of the game that don't actually lend any real value. And so so I'm to be honest, I am very proud. And I got a lot of help from three or four people who asked to remain anonymous. But I was really really pleased with how it turned out. And I was pleased with the outcome because there were some people who were very upset that they didn't make it, which made me happy. And so you know it, you know,
and it really reached far and wide. I mean, I'm a technological idiot, and I'm always amazed at you know, golf club battlests. Having been going for long enough, you know, we have a reach into you know, all the corners of the world. And and it was and it was really pleasing. You know, a past captain of the RNA sent a glowing email and to a guy like me who cares about the history of the sport, what can you say? I mean, it just meant a lot.
Yeah, So where how does the list evolve?
Is there you know plans for updating changing as you go along.
The one hundred So it's interesting that you know, the one hundred and forty seven came about because there are one hundred and forty seven Open Championships that have been held, and there have been a few missteps along the way, like Kerneusti where they lost control of the core twenty years ago, but by and large it's been a testament
to the game. So I decided to do one hundred and forty seven, and I said, with each Open Championship, I'll add another course to the list, and you know, in the process, over the course of a year, I might play revisit ten or fifteen, you know, or so of those courses, and so there'll be some some movement.
Shawn Arble is a huge I'm just a huge, huge, huge fan of Shawn Arble's work in the United Kingdom profiling these country English courses and working on a trip with him and my friend Joe Andreoli in the first of September to go see a lot of common ground courses up the west side of England. So I have a feeling that two or three of those will squeeze their way onto the list, and next it'll become one
hundred and forty eight Custodians. Even though somebody said that the expression the one hundred and forty seven Constodians has already wedged its way into the vernacular, and so you ought to keep it at that, even though the number will grow. And I think maybe that's the way I'll do it. And when it reaches one hundred and fifty five courses, you'll know that it's been going for eight years, and so it'd be a nice process.
Yeah, And it gives people a reason to reread that again every year, which is I think important is that you're always good to reread stuff and like jog your memory of Oh this is what's important.
Yeah, now you know it's fun.
You know.
One of the comments came from an architect who just played Royal Port Rush and and the several times that I've been there, it has had really wet, thick, heavy rough line on top of itself, and you know, it's a course is not heavily bunkered, and obviously it's a very windy sight. And then I just feared with the Open Championship coming there this year that it'd be even more narrow. And so that's an example of a course
that didn't make it. And this architect was actually saying the playing conditions were wonderful and the rough wasn't impenetrable. So some of that just has to do with, you know, the weather in the time that you're there, and so you know, they're you know, probably is a is a course need to go revisit.
But when how do you get into golf courses in the start? I mean, you've been traveling a ton, You've seen everywhere, you've been heavily. You're one of the co authors of the Confidential Guides with Tom Doak and Darius Oliver, And how how do you, you know, kind of start this golf crazed life.
No, it's you know, it's one hundred percent due to Dad, who took a very relaxed approach, and he would go play nine holes every night after work. And he never put any pressure on us to go. And and as soon as you know, as soon as somebody doesn't want you to go, you want to go. So I mean, so you know, and and so we would, you know,
we started off like that. And Dad worked at a regional investment firm and in Richmond, Virginia, and there was a man named Harry Easterly who worked there too, and mister Easterly later became the president of the USGA, and was on it, was the executive director of the USGA, and was a member at Saint Andrew's and Mirfield and every Augusta and Pine Valley, and and mister Easterly took an interest in my dad and father taking his three sons to play golf, and so in nineteen eighty three,
when I was twenty years old, we took our first trip to the UK and we played Dornock, Mierfield, Saint Andrew's and Turnberry. And you know, if you didn't like golf, then you know you didn't. If that didn't peak your interest in golf architecture, then something was wrong. And I ended up working for the USJA for a couple of years.
In nineteen eighty five eighty six, you know, I started to see Fisher's Island, Shinnecak Hills, played Augusta with mister Easterly, So you know, obviously an incredibly fortunate, spoiled, rotten life, but it all resonated. And then you know, comparing those courses, though I was seeing some work going on to the Country Club of Virginia where we remember, that just didn't resonate, It didn't mesh what I saw these great courses, was
what was going on with the local club. So you start pondering, wondering, wondering, and you know, one of our first trips was to Pinehurst and Harbortown. It was a family vacation from Richmond. We stopped in Pinehurst and we went down to Harbortown and you know, Harbortown has some obvious wow moments and really cool features and really cool greens. And I still think that in sand Hills are one of the two greatest courses, you know, in the in
the modern game. That changed the direction of the game. But nonetheless, we walked away thinking that Pinehurst was all that bit more special and we just and on the ride home from Hilton Head to Richmond, which was something like eight nine hours, all we did was blabber about why we thought that. And so that's when I'm fourteen fifteen.
You know, poor moms in the front. I'm sure she owned some ear plugs that I never saw, but you know, just trying to you know, you know, comparing Harbortown with these you know, calibogie sound and high winds versus Pinehurst, which, other than a couple of holes, doesn't move up or down, you know, more than ten or fifteen feet. It really
was an interesting mental exercise. So just you know, from that, from that first Pinehurst Harbortown trip to the UK trip to some exposure to the Northeast courses, including like Yale University, you know, it was a recipe for falling in love with the study of golf architecture.
Yeah, the I think that's the Yale's one that kind of I think can show what a like how a person views the game. I was playing with a random guy yesterday and he was like, oh, that towel, I have a Yale towel and he couldn't see the whole towel. He's like that that looks like a that's a really wild course. Like and he was you know, in a in kind of a tone that was like he didn't
like it, and like the blind shots and everything. You could just tell like, oh, this is the type of but and I don't want that to sound the wrong way, but I said, oh, yeah, that's amazing place, huh. And he's like, yeah, it's something. And but you know that that place is like an adventure.
Yeah. I went up there when I joined the USA in eighty five and so I'm in Bernardsville and Yale. From Bernardsville, it was on a weekend. I went with Wes Seely, who's the director of communication, and we saw Herbert Warren wind up on the patio, wrapped up in a blanket, and that was awesome. But when we got back to the USGA and we said, yeah, we drove, you know, two and a half hours to Yale. And
the man's response was, why did you go there? There's so many better conditioned courses in Connecticut, and you know, and yes, there was goose droppings all over the third Green and YadA YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. And I came back just blown away by that golf. I mean, it was just eye opening, and you know, talking about inspiring and da da da da dah. And and then you know, that guy's comment was just this bucket of cold water.
And I just knew right away that he and I were coming at the sport from two different things, you know, two different angles. And again not saying you know, there's a right or wrong, but you know, I'll stick with my perspective.
That's something that I think about all the time, especially with Augusta National, is that Augusta National has this ability that it you know, it essentially shapes the way so
many people look at the way at golf. But the thing that people take away from Augusta National seemingly always as the conditions and the beautiful flower beds rather than like when it opened it had twenty two bunkers and it's got why, you know, for the most part, really wide fairways and strategic bunkers, limited force carries, extremely playable Like why do you think that's what the average American golfer takes away?
Yeah, you know, boy, Augusta You know, for a lot of people, it kicks off their golf season. You know, if you live in Boston, you might not have hit a shot, and so it's just the awakening of a season. So there's an automatic built in euphoria. But I mean, you know, from my perspective, last time I checked, Alistair Mackenzie was viewed as a good architect and the changes that have been made there in the last twenty years have really pivoted away from the from Bobby Jones. From
Bob Jones and Alistair Mackenzie's original thoughts. And you know, when they built that course, you know, the world's greatest courses. You know, in the thirties, you know, it was Pine Valley and it was Oakmont and then like you say, this course comes along with huge, wide fairways, just a handful of bunkers, but a lot of really cool plane angles. And then systematically, you've seen them this century reduce the plane angles, and you know, I just find it appalling.
You know, the tree placement down the eleventh hole. You know, maybe if they had narrow if they'd put in trees on the left side of the fairway and push it over to the right. But I mean they just totally ruined all of the plane angles right now. You want to be, you know, ten yards into trees to have the best angle into the green, and so, you know, it's evolution is very regrettable. I'm personally shocked at how the rankings, all the magazines just give it a free pass.
I mean, it really is the Holy Grail type place, and the poor work that goes on there just gets a pass, and I don't know, you know, that's its clout.
I did an interesting article last year during the Masters. I looked at this scoring dispersion of holes from nineteen eighty two till now, and the eleventh is like shocking is essentially they've traded birdies and double bogies for pars
and bogies. Yeah, with the planting, like it's become such a one dimensional hole and it's taken away the thrills and the near thrills that bounce into the water, and all of a sudden, a double bogie comes out of nowhere with a guy who thinks he can pull off a shot that's trying to but like now it's just hidden in the fairway and if you're not in a perfect spot, just bail out.
Right right now. Obviously, the US Open is now played in April, and that's really a shame because the Masters used to have its own voice and it morphed into the US Open, and you know, we already have a US Open, So let's go back to that brand of golf. You know, there are some rumblings that they are cognizant that they want to get back to how the course used to be. And of course those trees can be
gone in a second. On the eleventh hole, just as an example, but the back tee on seven, you know, four hundred and fifty five yard tea to that shallow green. You know, it's just it's just it's bad architecture, it's bad golf. You know, you would think they would know better. I mean, to their credit, they don't even hardly use the t anymore, but they to just they ought to get rid of it.
You know, with the modern game and the modern driver, modern ball. I always reminds you of the McDonald quote with the Haskell ball where you talked about how you know the Haskell ball has you know, created, has made great holes indifferent and made many in different holes really great. And if the seventh a three hundred and fifty yard hole with a shallow green with a wide fair away would be one of the most compelling holes on the golf course. With the modern game, it's like, where are
the guys going to drive it up to? Are they going are they going to try it drive it really close? Or are they going to lay back? You know, all of a sudden, some guys might be on the right day, with the right wind, be able to drive the green, and all of sudden that hole would be one of the most fun holes to watch on a golf course that's got a ton of you know, unbelievable holes to watch.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of courses where you automatically pull the driver every single time. And if they would play that hole from a three point fifty to four hundred yard I think you would see four or five different clubs pulled by different players, and in certain conditions, some people would probably try and driving into the green side bunker. But it'd be infinitely more interesting than having everybody hit driver and having you know, eight iron in.
Obviously, I think we'd be in the same boat where we'd love to see Augusta National transform back to what it was. What are some of the projects that you've seen, say, over the course of GCA that have been the most inspirational in the sense of like transforming a golf course.
One would be Sleepy Hollow where, you know, back when I worked at the USCA, we had a dinner there at once and nobody wanted to play the golf course, so it was just a having dinner in the Vanderbilt former state. And now nobody would go to Sleepy Hollow and not beg to play the golf course. I mean,
that's transformational. Los Angeles Country Club. You know, George Thomas is an absolute legend and hero his work had been so mistreated and and at Los Angeles you now see that he's one of the you know, handful of greatest architects ever. You know, one restoration project that I think really flew under the radar because it's a it's a pretty quiet club as the country Club of Brooklyn. Again, Gil Hans did it and just did uh, you know, top tier work. I was amazed to read some negative
comments about the course. But that's such a cool, old fashioned course with you know, the smallest greens aside of Pebble Beach that it represents a very appealing throwback. And now with the work that's occurred there that you know, they fully embraced that again. You know, I want to go to a golf course that's different. I don't want to go to a golf course that I've seen twenty
five different versions of. In the country club, you know, in it's old fashioned ways, you know, it has its own voice.
That's I think that's an important part is it's not about doing what the course down the street does. It's about doing what your course is, you know, and finding that unique feel, vibe, architecture, the funky stuff, getting that back and making yours, not, you know, like the course down the street, and then make them look at it and say, I want to be like that golf course.
You know, you couldn't be more spot on. But in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties, it was the club down the road is planting trees, and so we should plant trees. And so the courses just became more and more the same. And you know what's the point in that.
Well, I mean part of that, though, is that it tied with the trend of society that was, like the mass suburbanization, everybody moving to the suburbs, everybody's you know, these housing developments that had the houses that looked exactly the same right down the road. And I think that's
one of the things. Golf architecture follows trends in society so much and a sense of I think we're starting to see this shift back to hand craftsmanship, and it falls in line with what's going on in the greater society, where people are more involved, more interested in experiences, and more interested in, you know, buying lettuce that's locally farmed
rather than the mass produced fifty cent lettuce. They wanted to have that they want to know where it's from, and I think that's where we're starting to see that. I'd be interested. What do you think? You know, obviously restoration has been a huge part of golf course architect for the last you know, fifteen twenty years. What what do you see as the next wave?
Well, you know, I speaking restorations. You know, you and I first met at the California Golf Club of San Francisco, which you know, talking about a transformation. If you've I had honestly never heard of that golf course. It came up in a few threads of golf Club Atlas, but you know the pictures that I saw it just it
didn't resonate, you know. Now, in my opinion, it's that you know, it's the finest course you know in the greater San Francisco area, and you know, talking about going from zero to ten in a rapid rate, I mean, that's a transformation that you just can't beat. So, you know, I'm not sure, you know, to answer your question, I'm not sure we need more golf courses. I'm not sure that golf is growing. Maybe it is with women. So I'm much more of a fan of taking care of
what we have. I do not play poor, bad golf courses. I would rather not play than go play a poor course. And a lot of people their exposure to golf is by playing in different courses because their bodies just want to play whatever's the cheapest golf course, and there's no hook to get you involved. So you know, if you said all we were going to do until twenty fifty is get our house in order and take care of all the courses that we have in the world already,
I would be perfectly happy with that. Barring that, obviously, what I'd like to see is, you know, some more nine hole courses, more six thousand yard courses come up, more courses that you know it could be, and they have to be close to where people live. And the problem in America is the pricing of land can be
prohibitive to then build something like that. But even as you and I discussed last night, even if it was a fivel golf course, I mean something, but just make sure that it's that it's of you know, high quality. It makes people think, it makes people want to hit a bump and run shot. You have options. You know, you can't have enough golf like that.
Yeah, I agree, It's the interesting aspect of how courses have gotten so long to fit for technology is just like when you're building a new course, do you build it to make it easy to walk for people playing
the back teas or the middle ties. Either way, some class of golfer because of the seven thousand yards is going to have a bad walking experience where you're either walking back to teas or you have to walk forward all the time to teas, and and you're gonna have, you know, fifty seventy five yard walks between greens and teas.
Yeah, I'm actually not even a fan of tea's. I mean I say, prepare, give some prepared surfaces and let just people pick where they want to play from. And again you can't have you know, then you can't have a handicap if you're doing that and this and this and this. And you'll hear those arguments in this country, but you won't hear them in the UK.
Yeah.
I was playing with some guys and uh, you know, it's a course I played a bunch of times and it was really windy, and it was this it's a great there's this great risk reward par five like it's an infinitely better hole if you have a chance to go for it into and it's playing into a twenty five mile an hour wind. So I say to the guys, like,
let's go move up. We moved up to like the green teas, which were, you know, one hundred and twenty yards shorter than the back teas that we were playing, just because I was like, you got to have a chance to go for this. It's a great golf hole, and if you don't have it, like it's a it's a much worse golf hole.
So we move up. Everybody's having to hit like.
A long iron over you know, over water, try and you know you either bail out or you go for it. And you know everybody had you could tell had a great time. It's like, why can't you just play a tee based off of how you want to play a hole.
You'll get no argument from me. I mean again, you start putting all these rules and regulations you know around a sport you have to take a cart, you have to take a caddy. Well really do you? I mean why just you know, like at the cow club, you can carry your bag, you can take a pool cart, you can take a caddy, or you can you can do anything you want to. You know, they just assumed that the members have common enough sense to do the right thing.
I can't believe that pole carts are not allowed at a lot of clubs around the country.
Well again, it gets back to the false perception that somehow they're tied to municipal courses only, and you go to Mierfield in Scotland and all you'll see your pool cards. I mean, the members never going to hire a caddy. So it's just it's just false. It's false perceptions that have been perpetuated.
And what bothers you more mandatory carts or no pull carts allowed.
Mandatory carts is a no go. So I'm just not gonna be there. So that doesn't.
You know.
I mean, you know, again, I've had so many great experiences with caddies. It's not that conceptually that I have a problem with caddies. You know, it's that you have to take one. But if you do show, if you do go to a place and they say, you know there are no pool cards, you know that they're trapped back in time and that they're not you know, they're just you know, it's just it's just bad decision. Making, so you're not likely to be with kindred spirits at a place like that.
All right, last question, you're resident of the U Pinehurst Greater Pinehurst area. You got ten rounds?
How you splitting them?
Well, I will tell you. We're doing this interview on March the first, and this is the absolute best time of year to be here. Like Pinehurst Number two plays perfectly with its dormant Bermuda Fairways, dormy Club dormant Bermuda Fairways. So this time of year, I would lean heavily on those two courses, you know, Mid Pines and Pine Needles. For reasons that I don't understand. They both overseed and
those courses become much lower and less fun. Midpines sparkles in August with their new Bermuda Fairways, it can still be very bouncy, very firm. So I'm not trying to hedge on your answer. It depends on what time of year. You know, the big We've kind of got the Big four and a half here, we've got Piner's number two, we've got dormy Mid Pines, Pine Needles, and then you know, I'm a big fan of the Cradle, and then you know, up the road, you've got Tobacco Road, and then just
for a quiet afternoon hit again. I've just never been disappointed by Southern pines. But those are the courses that you have to you have to see.
It's a funny when I plan my trip and everybody's like, well, why are you coming now? And I'm like, why am I coming now? When when else would you go? And then you listened to what Ross said about he was enamored with the way that played in the winter, and it was closed in the summer because in the winter the bermuda didn't stick and all of a sudden you could play ground game shots.
Well, yeah, they're very favorable rates here. And I've played number four four times Number Pinter's Number two four times between the first week in January and the last week of February. And the longest it took us was four hours and fifteen minutes. One round was three hours and fifty minutes. And you know, when the guests come in peak season, you know the times are going to really swell beyond that, and that diminishes, you know, just some
of the fun. But it is it's an absolute joy to live here right now, and I try to personally not travel very much so that I can take advantage of it this time of year.
Yeah, well, I know you're got you got a tight window here, so we appreciate the time every They can read a lot of your writing on Golf Club bat lists. You're doing some contributing for Golf Week, and uh be sure to check out Golf Club at list if you haven't yet. It's uh, it's it's really like a you know, if you're if you're a golf course addict, it's uh, it's where you can definitely get your fixed on a regular basis.
Thanks for having me, and I look forward to seeing your Elks course up outside of Chicago this summer.
You got it. Let me know when you come. You know, bring the dogs.
You're a good man.