I miss the green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball.
In a brid egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, fridagg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg bride Egg.
Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today we're doing our first ever live podcast, and I'm lucky to be joined by a couple of the brightest and youngest stars in the turf industry from Chicago. We've got Brian Moore from the glen View Club, Brian Palmer from Shore Acres, Scott Pavalco from the Babbelink Club, and then I'm also joined by fellow golf nerd Jason Way. Guys, welcome on, Thank.
You for having us, Thanks for having us.
So to kick things off, I'd love to hear from each of you guys about how you guys got into turf and how you got into golf.
More importantly, Yeah, I grew up around the game. My father was superintendent, so I'm pretty sure all three of us is the common theme right there. So just basically every summer from probably the age of eleven or so was spent on the golf course with my father. Helped out where I could caddied, and just really developed my love for the game through summers with him.
He was at an old.
Course in Elmsford, New York and Norwood Country Club, so there's some pretty historical significance of that club and architecturally too, I think Tailinghouse, rain Air, and then Banks took over once Rayner died, so it's a pretty cool property where you can see essentially, you know, tidbits of all three of them. So it's kind of where my love for golf and architecture stems from.
Nice and then you were at the Loop.
The Loop grew in the Loop in northern Michigan.
And then came too.
Yeah that's a little layover at Chicago Golf Club.
So yeah, yeah, not at it all not bad.
You got to see a lot of good architecture, how about you, Brian.
I'm pretty pretty much like Brian over here. My dad was a superintendent, so I used to go to work with him on the weekends and I started working for him full time, I guess on the payroll when I was fifteen sixteen, and my grandfather played golf. He's the one that taught me how to play. And at some point, I guess I decided that I want to go do it for a living and end up going to college and just go to work at some clubs around the
Northeast and having some fun. And I guess the other passion just kind of grew from more experience.
Yeah, my story is somewhat similar, but a little bit different. My father was also superintendent at a little public course in just outside of Youngstown, Ohio. I grew up. I was born and raised in Ohio, and unlike these guys, when I was fifteen, I thought the idea of getting up for work at four am was ridiculous. So I did other things at that time, but I grew up around the game of golf. My grandfather retired from the steel mills in Youngstown the year before I was born,
and I kind of grew up. He was kind of my best friend as a little kid. He would take me to the little Part three golf course and we would chip around, and that's kind of I can ever remember not being around golf. So fast forward to my twenties, I started working for my father at his course, and after about a season, I just knew it's what I wanted to do. At that point, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, but after working for him, I fell in love with being outdoors
every day. I love the game of golf, the problem solving. And then I went to o Highest University got my degree and I worked at Mierfield Village for eight years. I was fortunate to be hired there, and then luckily the Jeensic family took a chance on me. I was a young kid and they hired me to run cog Hill for three years, and then after that I went up to Babblink.
So what's the best part about waking up at four am every day.
For me living in the city, no traffic.
I'm not quite sure. I really like to watch the other sunrise and I can't stand to wake up when the sun has already risen. I really kind of feel like I wasted a day at that point.
Yeah, it's that sort of that feeling of accomplishment. You know, it's fun to be up and five hours later you see people driving to work and you're like, yeah, you know, and working for four or five hours, you know, and wide awake. I like to joke that on my days off, I like to sleep in until five point thirty.
So to kick things kind of off into the superintended talk, I think there's a disconnect with your regular golfer and what you guys do on a daily basis and for a living. So what's one thing that you wish every member at your club understood about your job?
I think, you know, what's interesting about our job is that we strive to create a playing you know, a place for recreation that's the same every day. But by definition, it can't be the same every day because you have
so many different variables. You know, we're dealing with living things, the weather, and so you know, the golfer is there for a brief four hour window, you know, hopefully less, hopefully three and a half, but sometimes four to five, and you know, we do our best to make sure everything's the same, but it's really not possible because of all the variables.
Yeah, I think I'm with Scott there.
It's so hard to have a consistent product every day given all the variables. But the one thing I wish that that, Yeah, the members of all the clubs and all the golfers in general. Really we're able to see how large of a team we have and how many things we're trying to accomplish in an eight to ten hour day, and how much work is actually done long before the sun rises, long before the first tea time at.
Eight o'clock or whatever it is.
I mean, there's there's a lot going into it. And I really wish that some more golfers, some more members would go out earlier, go ask the superintendent to go cut cups or go to Corset, just go for a walk.
In the morning and see how much is actually happening.
It's like they should have a mandatory, uh, you know, like you bring your kids to work day, it should be bring your member to work day.
Yeah.
I've offered it up and I've had a couple of coming cut cups and it'd be great if more did it.
It's fun.
Yeah, I just think it's the amount of time it takes in the morning, kind of what Brian said. You know how large your crew is, and you know how much is actually going on in the day, and you know how much time you'd really like to have in the morning to get it set up, and you know, probably for all of us, it's you know, getting get it all done before play, stay in front, and the moment, the moment you get caught, it kind of just you know, throws a wrench and everything.
So so the three of you guys recently took a trip to the British Islands. I'm interested, you know, when I go to golf course, I'm always looking at the architecture from a superintendent's lens. What do you guys look at and what are kind of some cool things that you took away from the trip.
I think it's how little they do over there, you know, the perception of you know, the members over there and what they expect, not condition wise, but just how much they just let nature be over there. They don't try to control and minimal, minimal inputs. That's what I always knew, that's what they did, but to see it over there and you know, you know, they just don't fertilize fair ways.
And for me, that's kind.
Of what I'm trying to do this year, and just how little inputs they put into things. But I just think it's, you know the perception of the members from here to there, you know, what they expect at our clubs are entirely different, you know, so it's a tough balance to try to do little but make it look like you're doing a lot.
So where do you think that we in our golf culture here went off the rails with that, because that's clearly not the way we are here about golf. And you know what can people like Andy and I who are out there trying to fight the good perception fight for you do to help get us a little bit, you know, more back in line with the spirit of the game.
Well, I think that what's really interesting, even if it's I mean, we're very fortunate to go to some of the better clubs in the UK and Scotland and everything is so simple from the moment that you step out of your car. There isn't a ton of employees and everyone coming to greet you, and the clubhouses aren't huge and grand, and you can really walk on the best golf courses in the world just been walking up to the pro shop and the other courses are very simple.
Obviously a lot of them have been around for a long time that in some cases they weren't shaped or you know, built, they were just kind of there and seeded or you know in mode, and yeah, I think that there's a strong a connection between the course and the town.
You know, every.
Course has a town or a village across the street, and they're not trying to hide it with any fences or anything like that, or green tarps or anything. It's just it's there. Embrace it. It's all ye know, kind of like we're doing at Canal Shores. It's all just part of the community.
Yeah, I think, to echo what you said, Brian, the biggest thing that I took away is that it's just simple and accessible and fun and golf is a part of the community, or at least that was my perception, you know, spending two weeks there. I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert of what happens in England and Scotland. But you know, the other thing I would like to just say is when you go there and
you see the links land, you get it. It just makes sense, like you can see why golf evolved there and see why they're able to have great golf with not high inputs. And you know, it's not to say that we all, you know, as superintendents, we strive to be minimal and you know, good with our budgets and produce firm conditions. But when you go there and you realize they're on sand, they can grow fescue, it doesn't
grow very much. They don't have to mow it, they don't have to double cut things that you know, they literally dig into the side of a dune for sand to top dress. You know, these types of things. It just makes sense. You know. I will reflect on one thing, before we really saw a links golf course, or before we walked one, we pulled up to this castle, Bambrea Castle and Brian and are like, holy crap, look at this freaking castle. It's been here like five hundred years.
And you turn around and you look toward the ocean and there's just all this dune's land that's not a golf course, but you just look at it and you're like, that should be a golf course. You know, great terrain, small level areas, features that look like bunkers that aren't bunkers. They're just there. And so that's my biggest take home.
It just makes sense there. And we sort of impose our American will on the game, and in some cases I think we've made it a little bit less fun and a little bit less accessible unfortunately.
So as you were tripping around over there, did you stay incognito or did you actually reach out to the greenkeepers the courses that you played and interact with them?
Yeah, we kind of.
My trip was early and they saw the golf late, so I wasn't with these guys. But for us, yeah, we reached out to the course managers.
And at North Barrick and at St Andrews.
They gave us a tour around the facility and walked the course with us.
And then when I was with Scott, we're just incognito the whole time.
What was the coolest thing you saw over there? Whether it be a hole, a you know, feature, or you know, just something you picked up, like, what was like one thing that will stick with you?
Well, the one cool thing is all the walls and how they all on each course. There's a wall that'll come into play, whether it's you know, out of bounds or it's something that you have to go and hit over to access a green. Another part of the fairway. You know, it wasn't taken out, it was just there was a wall that was about a hundred years old. They just went and left it there and they go and go and use it. I think that was cool.
And just a lot of small little bumps and things like that that can go and add so much to a hole. And it's a really simplistic approach.
Yeah, I think to echo what you said again, you know, all the stuff, A lot of the things like at North Barrack for instance, that make it so awesome is the fact that they didn't have you know, Cat three fifties and land levelers to completely smooth out the ground and to remove anything that wasn't actually the golf course. They just sort of incorporated what was there into the golf course. So there's walls and big humps and bumps
that you would never expect. And you know, maybe with the exception of sort of this renaissance of old school design, you know, in the past fifteen twenty years or however long it's been going on in the United States, we see those as imperfections and we work really hard to make everything smooth and perfect and a single plane. And it's I realized after seeing the links Land golf courses that that's really what gives them character and that you know,
it's just what makes it cool. The golf course is just on the land that was there.
Yeah, And I just think, you know, with with the modern architecture currently, I mean, what's going on over there on those links land courses is kind of what they're trying to emulate with the subtleties and the imperfections within the fair ways, and you know, they just it just happened there. And you know all the courses being built now, you know that are primarily on sand is. You know they're trying to duplicate that in one way or another.
It's pretty interesting.
But those those green complexes at North Barrick just blew me away, Like I could play golf there every day and never get bored of it.
That's what I hear from a lot of people. I need to get over there, Jason, have you Ben? So you guys have each taken significant undertaken it significant restoration work at each of your club's golden age courses. So Scott you're at a Allison course, Brian Palmer you're at a Rainer course, and Brian Moore you're at a Flynt course,
some say Colt and Ross course. Many lots of speculation as to what the true lineage is there, what's been the most rewarding part of the work that you guys have done getting it back towards what it was close to opening day.
Like I mean, for me, you know, I'll first say that, you know, I my career, it's it's only really recently and since this project that I've really gotten interested in golf architecture. I didn't grow up a architecture fanatic or anything. I just played the courses that were there and you know, didn't really think much of it. And what's really interesting to me is to appreciate the history, but then just how how much little details are so important. You know,
grass lines. I'm sure we'll talk about grass lines at some point, but you know, just putting in the extra effort to get the grass lines right for us made
a huge difference. And then really the to answer, to truly answer your question, what's most rewarding, it's just having people see the work, and not that it's all mine, you know, it's our crew and Urbina and the shapers, but and just to see their appreciation and for them to not know why necessarily it's so much better, but they see the new golf course or that, you know, the renovated golf course versus what it was, and they immediately find that it's more fun and they have more
fun playing and you know, they enjoy it.
So with you getting into architecture more recently, what have you done to kind of like learn about Golden Age architecture and how has it changed the way you do your job on a daily basis.
Well, you know, quite honestly, I don't know that it necessarily changes the way I do my job on a daily basis, but it it It just I just try
to think about things in a different way. And you know what I've done is I've you know, taking taken the opportunity to go on trips like to the UK, and I try to read you know, I'm not going to say that I've read every architecture book, but websites like Jason's and yours and Golf Club Atlasts and you know, I just try to take in information and see how it's applicable to what we do at Bobblink, you know, because I think, you know, one thing we always say,
or I always say to our crew is we're either getting better we're getting worse. There's no staying the same. And you know, if we can use some of the information, you know, we have, like there's so much information available right now. You know, you don't have to go to the library and dig to find out things about Golden Age architects. It's it's everywhere. You just type it in Google and you know there's information everywhere, so it's really easy to learn things.
Yeah, I think that for the other restoration at Short Acres, it was really just there wasn't one sort of as like as a singular sort of moment, or if it wasn't the bunkers or teas or anything like that. It's really just when the members were able to see it grown in and see how much it really resembles what it looked like in the oldest aerial in nineteen thirty seven, I think everyone just just kind of got it. It's the aha moment that it's changed and it's changed for the better.
We Andy and I and people like us obviously love to go down rabbit holes of geekery. I'm kind of curious to know, I mean, just before and after shots of the work that's been done at your respective courses. Obviously, I would have to assume ninety nine people out of one hundred think it's significantly better.
Do they care to know.
Why or are they just happy to know, Wow, this is better than it was before. They What level of interest do they have in the thinking that goes into making decisions big and small.
I think it varies. I mean, you've got some people that want to know why and other people that.
Don't. Really they're just there to play golf. But yeah, I.
Think you know, the people that maybe don't necessarily understand why you did something, when you have that opportunity to describe it to them and tell them why, you know, it's kind of like that aha moment. Okay, yeah, I get it, it makes sense.
So yeah, I don't think that that there's a huge part of the membership of any club that that really we'll go and get into it like that, But there is that handful that you know, you know, they'll ask questions in quizya and being at short Akers, which is obviously, like you said, a Rainer, and having a lot of temple holes, and having a lot of members that will go play other places. It's when they go and they play another Rainer and come back and then they have questions,
and I think that's that's the best. You know, It's when each year. We have interns and I take them to Chicago Golf Club or go to Blue Mount. I'm trying to teach them about template holes and all that sort of stuff, and they kind of look at me like I'm a crazy man, and then we go there and by like the second te they're like, Okay, I get it now. So I think that there's a little bit of that too.
I would say buy and large. The typical golfer, typical member or golfer in general does not, and hopefully it's changing. But I don't think they really know or care that much about really what makes it. Architects are good. They just know that certain courses they play they have more fun, and certain courses they play and it's not as much fun. And so, you know, we have a very small percentage I would say at Bobblink that really have gone down a rabbit hole to learn about Alison or to learn
why we did what we did. They just know that the conditions are much better. They have more fun when they're out there. You know, their guests that they bring are happier. You know, it's just they just want to go and play, and that's that's cool. I think that's it's our job to worry about that stuff, and if there are other people that are interested and that can want to learn about it, then we love talking about it.
I agree. I think most people don't know how to describe why something. They liked a course more than another one, but they know it's better. And I always hate when somebody says, you know, I played this course and I say how was it and they say hard like the first thing that comes. So, you guys are all young, and since join, since becoming a part of your club and becoming the superintendent there, there's been a significant culture
change around the club with how it's presented. And you know, what were the biggest keys to changing that culture Because obviously members always joined clubs because they like the golf course. So they spent a ton of money at some point liking the golf course. That was the way it was before you guys got there.
I think for me it was pretty easy because right me coming in there, they there was a change that they wanted. So for me, you know, I was always amazed that. You know, you know, they say they want firm and fast and brown, but do they really so when you start to implement it, I was pretty shocked that they.
Were all on board with it.
So for me, it was pretty simple. It was, okay, let's just keep keep pushing, right, there's no one's complaining. Must be doing a good job. Let's just keep pushing. So, you know, it was it was changing over before I got there, So it was it was pretty easy for me.
Up at Short Acres.
I really think it was just the other members were interested in change, and they were interested in trying to go and restore the golf course and the way it used to play. And I'm quite thankful that they go and let me tinker and go and let me push it and just going go and mess around, and it's all for the enjoyment of the members and their guests, but to really just to make it play like it did one hundred years ago.
If our membership is a little bit different in the in that and our project kind of came about for a different reason. You know, our project was not a architecturally driven project. First, it was we had significant agonomic issues, we had significant drainage issues. Basically it was an infrastructure project. And fortunately the board of directors at the time had the foresight to realize that this was a great opportunity to bring back some of the architectural features that have
been lost or covered up. And so, you know what was the success You know, why was it successful, Bobblink. It's because of the board of the directors. They had a good pulse on the membership and you know, they were willing to stand up and say because it was so contrary to what had been done there for one hundred years. You know, they had kind of been proud of the fact that there were no major projects, there
were no you know, closures for renovations. But unfortunately the infrastructure situation that degraded to the point where we needed to intervene in a serious way. And the leaders at the board you know, drove the project home. They helped focus groups to find out what people wanted, and hired a great architect and you know, I think we ended up with a pretty good product.
Speaking of you know, working with architects, so Brian and Scott, you work with Jim or being Brian Palmer, you work with Tom Doak, how is what keys? And you know, with the relationship you guys have built over the last year a couple of years or some of them, what have been kind of like the things that you've learned the most from those relationships.
Well, for me, I mean, the project was it really just opened my eyes to the world of golf architecture. You know. Jim Jim Orbin is a really uh he's a he's a great guy, and he was really easy to get along with, and I could tell from the beginning that there was a mutual respect. I think it's
I think it's really important. I've described this to our members and to the guys on our staff, But in order to have a successful project, to me, there's like a triangle of interests, and on one end is like the agronomy and the superintendent pulling in one direction, and then on another corner is the membership and what they want, which isn't always right, you know, and they're pulling one way, and then you need a guy like Orbina or an
architect to come in and pull that third direction. So the triangle sort of evens out and you have a balance of what we need agronomically to grow grasp what the members want for, you know, how they want to use the club, and the respect of the history and of the design that was there.
Yeah, I think the one thing that I have.
I guess that I've learned the most from from spending time with Tom and his associates is they've just got such.
A keen eye they see everything.
And I think that's just a neat question to ask when you spend time with any architect, when you walk down a fairways, just stop and say, okay, so what are you looking at right now? And they'll tell you. And I guarantee you probably wouldn't ever go and guess what they're thinking about. But you know, it's just what direction the water is going to be draining off the green and just all sorts of things like that. You know, it could be a bunker off in the distance on
a different hole or whatever. And that's been really eye opening, quick educational, and it's got me looking at a golf course in a totally different manner.
Yeah, just what they see is completely different than anybody else. It's yeah, it's crazy to that they're focusing on something that's, you know, two hundred yards away, but it's going to come into play on your approach out to this green. And you know, working with those guys building the loop, just seeing you know what they're focusing on and what they're seeing and to hit off of Scott too.
I mean, you need to.
Have that relationship with the architect.
You're working with.
You know, there's got to be a certain amount of trust there where you know, you need to trust them that they're going to do what's best, and also you know they need to trust you that you can you can implement and maintain what they're trying to do. So I was always I always just say to them, just do what you know, do what you want to do. I'll find a way to maintain it.
So I know.
Brian's kind of done that up at Short Acres with some of these bent grass collars and you know, at ninety degree angles, so I don't know how you get a mower on it, but scissors right, lots of ropes.
Speaking of different perspectives, you mentioned the Scott. You mentioned the player corner of the triangle there, which I'm sure is interesting at times. All three of your clubs have a pretty wide range of handicaps from what I understand, how do you balance, you know, trying to provide a fun and challenging experience for people who are at such wildly different ends of the skill spectrum.
Yeah, I'm firm and fast.
Everyone's pretty much gonna love it for the most part. You know, to have the old guys, senior members come up to you and say they've never hit a drive this far. You know, no one's going to complain about hitting the ball further than they have before. I think when you get to the greens is where it gets more trickier, you know, knowing when you should and shouldn't
push green speed. You know, for certain events, yeah it's great too to push, but you know, day in and day out, you know, midweek when you got the ladies' days, you know they don't want the greens. We're alling thirteen plus and putting off the green. So he's got a kind of balance and you know, for me, I just try to target who's who's playing and when to push and when not to push.
For me, it's really it's a lot about the course set up, who's playing. I can see who's playing in the morning, and I can see there's eight groups playing, and there's four or five groups that I know that want to challenge. Then I'll go and you know, give them a challenge. But I think that the biggest thing is trying to be consistent. I know we spoke on it earlier about how hard it is to be consistent.
But I just just try to keep the greens at the same speed all day every day, so that if you come out on a Tuesday, they'll probably be just as fast as they.
That would be on a Saturday morning.
And that makes it, I think easier for everyone just to get a gauge so you don't walk out in the green and say, oh, well it's lower than yesterday.
Or whatever it was.
But I think there's a lot to be to be set about course set up, and I think it's a lot of clubs.
It isn't taken to us seriously.
It's more of just a chore, and it's something that that I think a lot of thoughts should be I put into it when it's performed in the morning.
I don't know that I have a whole lot to add to that, because these guys made some great points, but i'll just echo that. Well. One of the things that we did in our project is we added some tees to help with some of the aging members, you know, some forward tees and encouraging people to play the golf
course a little bit shorter. And then you mix that with having typically firmer conditions when the weather allows, and some expanded bent grass around greens that allow for a variety of shots and so that you're not always you know, having to fluff a sixty degree wedge out of the rough, you know, to get it up on the green. And so just having variety and allowing different players to play
different shots. You know. It's the funny thing about bank grass around greens is it's easier for the high handicapper and it's just as challenging for the low handicapper, you know, because the high handicapper can pull a hybrid out and bump it up the slope or you know, put the ball, whereas it makes the good golfer think, you know, about how they want to play shots.
So just variety is big for us with short grass around the greens. I'm a big proponent of it. I think exactly what Scott said. It makes it easier for the high handicapper and actually probably a little bit more challenging for the low handicapper. But one of the issues is people when you change something like and you go to short grass, people don't it's different and they don't
know how to play it. It's not as simple. Is there anything that you guys have done to kind of educate your membership on how to how it's changed and how it's you know, you can play it differently now.
I mean, I can't take any credit for it. Our head pro Dan Waters did a great job with kind of getting ahead of that stuff. One of the things that we did with our renovations we don't have a step cut, we don't have any callers, so it goes green right to rough up against our greens, and so initially that was something that was difficult for people to understand why we did that. But he did a great job of, you know, giving a group lesson or putting a video together to explain how to hit a certain
shot or these are the options you can play. So you know, that's collaboration with him is how we kind of got the members on board with it.
I think with all the short grass, I don't know if there's been a lot of education. I just think that it's been something that a lot of golfers have had to go and relearn. I think it's a shot that they would hit maybe twenty five or forty or fifty years ago, or on a.
Trip to Ireland or Scotland.
I've had members come up and say, yeah, you know, it's supposed to be getting you know, pretty firm and dry out there, and I'm going to Ireland next week, so I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna go hit some bump shots from you know, forty or fifty yards out. I'm gonna get the putter out and it's just playing all the shots that they used to play. That there's I guess getting more comfortable with nowadays.
Yeah, I just use the putter more, just putt it.
It's like they had that scratch video that you know, they they put out the PGA Tourist thing that was like they did like a remix version of you know, all these highlights and it was just putt It's it's so much easier for the regular player to, uh to
do so. How often in the summer do you guys get around and see other, you know, people in this room's work And is there an instance where you took something that you saw across the street or down the street and implement it immediately into your operation.
I think of the summer it's probably less. It's spring fall is when we probably venture out more. I know in the summer, I just don't want to leave. But yeah, you always try to look at just even like now for organizational like you know, walking around people's shops and what are they doing here? What are they doing there? Just trying to grab ideas. But yeah, I mean I think it's always it's always nice to go see Brian and see how firm as fairways are and you know, maybe push you a little bit.
You know, well, I'm not going to water tonight.
I got to try to catch up to him. So yeah, I think we're competitive in nature, so it's always nice to get out and go see people and either you know, gauge what you're doing against that or using this motivation.
Do you ever get to say like, hey, you know so and so is doing this over there, so that's why I did this here?
Do you ever use No, But we'll call each other and say, oh, you know, call up Scott Bordner and be like, hey, heard your pretty soft down there, heard your pretty green. You know, just try to rile each other up.
You guys shouldn't make sure it's to say are you soft? You know you soft? Bro?
Yeah, something that between myself and Brian Moore and Scott Board and we've got a pretty good little relationship going and we definitely like to to go and push the buttons if we can so. And I mean, it always helps out when you have interns and you can go and make those those field trips, or if you if you have a rain day and it's just nasty, you just go send the crew home and you know, just go take your assistance and interns to go for a
walk somewhere. And I think you're always gonna go and learn something if it's the way that they're doing divots, if it's the way that I mean, there's just a million different ways to improve. But if you just go and find that one thing on a golf trip, you know, to go and make your operation that much better than it was a it was a worthy trip.
I think it's really hard to get out in the summer. It can be, and it kind of at least the people that I work for and the way I kind of grew up in the business, like there's a vortex of like one hundred days in the summer where historically you're like married to your golf course and you don't leave.
With that being said, I've really tried to make an effort to break out of that, and not only for myself but the people that work at Babbling, to try to like explain like it's okay, Like it's okay if we go somewhere else, or if you take a day off, or if we leave early because it rained, or you know, we I've just tried to do a better job of not feeling like you have to be at the golf
course all the time. And I think it just going to see somebody else's golf course just kind of puts into perspective what you're doing and whether the golf course is better or worse, or you know, it's not necessarily that,
it's just to see something else. You know, you look at the same thing over and over again for one hundred days, and it's like it gets worse in your mind, or you don't really you lose perspective, and then you go and see something else and it kind of brings everything back together and you realize, you know, we're all doing the same basic thing. We're all doing a good job. You know, it's just good to see other places. So I don't get out as much in the summer as
I do in the spring, and fall, winter. But I've kind of made like a note in my mind, like do it get out, see a couple golf courses in the summer, just to put things back into perspective of where you actually are.
And it's just so easy around here because there's so much good golf and great superintendents where you can I mean, for me, I can drive I don't know ten minutes and see three guys. So it's sometimes you just gotta get away too.
Yeah, I'll never forget being on a trip to Long Island with Brian Bossert from Brynmar and we we were at Piping Rock and we were walking off one of the tea's and there was a candy wrapper in the fescue and he picked it up and you could just tell like his relaxation level increased, so because he's like, so it wants everything to be perfect at his own club, and he's like, oh my god, if if if on Long Island they have candy wrappers on the ground, I
guess I can relax a little bit. So speaking of getting out and about you know, playing versus just taking a walk. Is one better or the other than the other, or do you just get different things when you do a play versus a walk.
Yeah, I think it's important to play your course. You know, it's hard to say you're gonna play every week but at least a couple of times a month because you just see something from the golfer shoes. But you know, when I'm going to see people, I don't. Yeah, you're just getting away sometimes the last thing you want to do is play. But just go walk and talk and what are you doing here?
You know, this is my issue.
I heard you're doing something similar, you know, like I don't have callers like Scott either, and so what are you doing? But it's always great to go play.
Yeah, I really think it's important just to go and just to go out and walk. You know, if you're playing and your balls on the right hand side of the fairway and you want to go and see, you know, something that's open they had left hand side, it makes an awfully difficult to do. So just important just just to go and walk somebody else's courses, and just like Brian said, just to just to go and ask questions and bounce ideas. You know, there's some people in this
room that I really trust. And if I'm going to make a change in something. Are gonna use something different or do something different than I mean, I'm always gonna go and ask a question first.
I think that's important.
I think for me it's both. But I think there are different versions of playing golf. For me, playing golf doesn't have to be start on hold one, play eighteen holes, grind it out, keep score, you know, keep track of all your shots. Like for me, playing golf can be just walking the golf course at the end of the day, excuse me, with a wedge and a putter and hitting a few shots, putting around, chipping. You know, I do that frequently all day and that to me, that's as
important as anything else. It doesn't have to be eighteen holes, you know, regimented. You know, it's okay to just go play a hole or two or you know, and to echo Brian what Brian said, you know, just walking getting off the golf cart. Whether you're a golfer or a superintendent, it's it's the best thing. You just you appreciate things in a different way.
You know.
I walk the golf course every day that I can in the winter and a lot of days in the summer. You know, it's just a it's a good way to see the golf course for me.
Yeah, I think it's important in the morning in the summer just to walk. So for at least at least one morning in the summer every week, just to walk and don't walk in order. There's a lot of things that I can see if you walk right down the middle of the fairway every time. So I'm all over the place. I mean, I'll lose my cart some days, and I'm just kind of out about wandering around. But I mean that's the only way that you're going to go and see things, and you know, if you're on foot.
That's the way the architects do it too. I always find it funny, having walk some courses. How you go into a shop and if you're with an architect, the staff is always like, oh, we got to you can take a card and always walk. I see, the only way you can see everything because you you can take your time, and you know you're not driving to a
certain destination, so you can take sidetracks and everything. We're gonna do like a scenario here, you know, So if all you guys were moved a new job tomorrow and you took over a course, that would had all the typical American golf problems. It's too overwatered, overtreed, shrunk greens. What would be kind of your first objectives?
Put a plan in place, just map it out, you know, give give you know, if it's private, give the membership. You know, your roadmap for the for the first year, goals, how you're going to obtain the goals and go from there.
Yeah, And I also think it depends on the architect. What kind of course. Is it a Golden Age course? Is it a new course. There's a lot that you have to think about, and there's gonna be a lot of education, and there's a good chance that it's probably if it is overtreated or overwatered or whatever, it's by being away for a long time. So to go and take your time, go and develop a plan. If you have an architect, try and develop a master plan and go that route. But a lot of education.
Yeah, I think typically, you know, we're maybe a unique group because we've been at courses that have worked with great architects and have an architectural pedigree. But if I take a new job, first thing I'm looking at as grass and it's pretty likely that the reason they hired me is because they're not happy with the turf, and so you know, having a background in architecture would allow
me to think of things a little bit differently. But ultimately, you know, you originally hired typically to grow grass, and you know, you make a plan and hopefully you can make architectural improvements in house or however, you know, to to allow people to have more fun and enjoy the golf course.
So what's the most unique and resourceful solution that you've come up with for a problem at your course.
It's a good one. Yeah, you're not. I mean.
I think we always try to look on you know, what can we reuse?
Right, I know, just trying to like reuse.
I did a couple of fairway expansions last spring and just you know, where can I reuse that that rough sod? So we covered up some some stump holes.
Uh.
And I think in my operation, it's really I think, like everybody else in this room, we're having a tough time with labor, and it's how can how can we go and change things and go and go and develop or keep the same conditions but with a lot less inputs, whether it's Triplex's which for.
The longest time was.
You know, it was against the rules to have a triplex and a green you know, they work just fine, and they cut just as good as a walk mower. And if we can go and go and get away with it, that's the third of the guys that we would have the walk mall just you know, different things like that, if we can go and get rid of the step cut and we can do that, and that's one last guy in the morning. I think the bunker
maintenance and now has changed quite a bit. I don't know about about all you guys, but uh, you know now we're allowed to go and get away with only giving a full rake in the bunkers maybe twice a week and just go and touch them up rather than send him a full.
Crew of six guys out every day.
There's just a lot I think in the maintenance that that we do every day and don't even think about.
It's kind of a hard question to ask.
Yeah'm probably not going to directly answer your question because I can't think of anything. But I think there's very few like truly new ideas, and it's just sort of adapting things that you wouldn't necessarily have done in different ways, and that's not a very good answer. But one of the things that we always focus is focus on is trying to see what we're doing that it causes damage.
I'm sure these guys would agree that. You know, a lot of times things don't look good on a golf course, or you have areas that wear out turf, and you're like, you know what is going on, and then you actually observe what's happening with your staff or the routines that you get into, and you're destroying your own turf because guys are making turns in the same spots or you know,
you're doing things the same way. So it's just this is not answering your question, but it's something else that you know, we just trying to realize that we can sometimes be our own worse enemy. Less is more at times.
Yeah, there's no doubt.
I mean I think that we've probably all want killed more grass than a disease, golf or anything.
Yeah, sometimes it makes perfect sense in your mind and then you do it and you're like, I don't know, hey, Funnerberg.
What do you think of this? Ure?
By nature? We always want to try to do something to fix things. Yes, less more yes, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing.
Do you really need a roll today?
Probably not?
Yeah, So November first, you guys have touched on it a little bit. But you know, one of our members of our audience urged me that we had to talk about water usage. Is that something that you found less is more is good with water?
It depends on the circumstance, you know, it's just everything circumstantial. So, you know, bobblink, you know, we strive for firm, fast conditions. However, seven twy percent of our golf rounds are with golf carts. It's just what it's the way the members operate. So, you know, whereas we would like to never water our fairways because we could get away with it, we have a lot of golf carts running overhere those areas. So we have to find a balance between what's appropriate for
play and what is going to keep grass alive. And so typically it's it's always better to be too dry than too wet.
But I always add more.
You can always add more.
Hard to take it away.
It's very hard to take it away if we're you know, we're in a place that floods. You know more, too much water is always worse than not enough, so probably less is more most most cases.
Yeah, and just knowing when right. You gotta know when to push doesn't matter. You know what Brian Palmer's doing. You want to push, but you like, no, that's a bad idea. You know, I'm gonna be a little soft today and you know, spend the heads to night. But yeah, it's just knowing when when and when not to, probably.
More importantly when not to.
Yeah, sometimes you gotta put your ego aside and do what's best for the plant.
What's your biggest pet?
Peeves, Oh, it's a lot, there's a lot. I hate when people slam the golf stick on the green. It's like, come on right, spend over. I just hate it. It's just like, let me put it here and then drop it. Oh my gosh, it just drives me crazy.
I do that sometimes. Yeah, I'm an offender.
Yeah, just bend over.
And you know there's always that one guy you see walks over the edge and puts it down.
You're like, that guy gets it, you know.
I think now again, like most people in this whole room would would agree with with all these new spikes. It's just if we could all have some nice old old school metal spikes again, and just go and keep your feet quiet, don't be moving, no twisting, don't drag your feet. I mean, just gon't think about the people that are playing behind you, because you know you have two people that are dragging their heels all over the places. It's just kind of destroyed for the rest of the day.
And I don't like when.
I mean, it isn't always a caddy, but it'll be a member as well when the flag stick is in the cup and they'll go and and take like the flag and go and bend at a forty five degree angle, and then for the whole rest of the day the flags kind of rock and just kind of sway in the breeze at an angle because the whole whole cup's ruined.
I agree.
You know we're going to get into overrated, underrated.
But golf shoes way overrated.
Gosh, yeah, I agree.
I could go down the rabbit hole of like grumpy super gripes. But all I will say is that when I grew up growing up learning how to play golf, my grandfather and my father would always tell me it was like the first rule, you always leave the golf course in better condition than when you step foot on it. And now my dad was superintendent. I don't know if other people learned golf that way, but I was always taught.
You know, you fix your ball mark and one other at least you always repair a divot if it's unrepaired. And so for me, you know, the biggest complaint is that, and we should just do this in life generally, is try to leave things better than the way we found them. I just wish more people sort of had that attitude
with golf courses. I see it every golf course you go to, you know, unfixed ball marks, un rake bunkers, divots, it's the same stuff, you know, taking a post down to hit a shot and don't put it back up, that kind of stuff. It's just common courtesy.
I'm a do sweeping offender, and we talked about morning routine earlier, unapologetic do sweeping offender. So on a scale of one to ten, with ten being like super nova level of annoyed, how annoyed is Dan Lucas at Kingsley Club with me for going out and starting about five minutes before the official start time every time I play, and running up on his guys who are trying to mow greens and fairways.
Yeah, I'm sure.
The operators are probably more frustrated than anything. It's not you that's necessarily the problem, but I think it's you know, our staff.
We teach to be courteous and to get out.
Of the way, and you know, the first people offerre they're always like, well, I don't care if they're in my way, but yeah, they're gonna pull off to the side, And it's just that compounding, you know, effect on everything else that you know, five minutes here, a minute there where. Next thing you know, you're making the turn and you're, you know, a half hour behind. And now the people that do care are the ones that are you know, you're waiting on.
And once you wait.
You're done.
You might as well just start rolling the green and get the do off and head home because it's hard to catch up. Yeah.
I mean, if it's a person that's gonna go out and do it every day, then the crew is gonna know who it is and know that you don't care if you keep mowing, so just keep going. You know, you're not a person if there's a lot of doing the green, you're not gonna go and line it up. You probably gonna have your bag in your back and go put it and then if it's close, you're gonna pick it up.
Right.
So this isn't too big of a deal.
But you know, if it's a forceom that wants everything to be taken care of prior to them, it can make it pretty tricky. But we always need to find a way. Scott talked about the problem solving and it's a pretty cool aspect of our job, and yeah, we'll figure it out.
It's it's the it's the expectations of the deuce sweeper. You know, if it's somebody that's gonna take their time and realize that you know, like like Brian said that if we don't get the golf course prepared, you might not care, but the guys behind you probably do care if the golf course isn't perfect when they get there. And so so, you know, if we lose that one opportunity of the day to work unimpeded, then it does
sort of set everything else back. So a lot of times, if we have an early group that you know, wants to tee off early or you know, play really quick, we send them out in front of our maintenance and then have them loop back around. And it's sort of that way. It doesn't impede our routine because we you know,
our schedules. I mean, it seems very simple and it really it's not rocket science, but we put a lot of effort into figuring out who's going to do what and how certain pieces are going to fit together to be able to get things mode raked, watered, rolled, of course, set up done, you know, all in an order that makes sense so that when guys finish those jobs, they can move on to their next task. And you know, if you haven't. We always deal with unexpected things equipment
breaks down or whatnot. But you know, having a forty five minute delay or fifteen minute delay on one thing can set something else back, you know, twofold. So it's it's really just all the planning, but it's what makes it fun. It's like a chess match. You know, you're at the pawn and we're the king.
Question.
It kind of goes with the annoyances As a superintendent. One of my biggest pet peeves is watching other superintendents peves.
On social media because at the.
End of the day, that's what they're painous to do, and we've seen it over the years, and I know that's pretty well. I'm sure social media is gonna come up. But what you guys think about.
Your communication and social media?
I'm sure you've seen that in your community out there, there's definitely.
There.
But do you guys feel about what should be out there?
What's too much shou Yeah, I just don't put anything out there.
I think.
You know Twitter, right, I think it can be extremely useful, but also I think it could be pretty negative at times. And yeah, you just got to be really careful with that. I don't I just stay away from it. It's uh, if you're not doing it, you can't you know, offend anybody or but yeah, it's it's tricky. I don't think either of us really do too much on it. But I think it could be useful, you know, course conditions this and that.
But yeah, yeah, it's.
Like I think I've said enough. It's like when I always get frustrated when journalists or like you know, influencers on social media take to like their travel problems. It's like, I don't follow you for your travel problems.
I hate that. Yeah, I think knowes what happened.
More positive you know point out the.
Yeah, I think you know, I'm moderately engaged on social media. I think it's an interesting platform. There's a lot of people that give in put interesting information on social media, but I'm not I do not engage in conversation or state opinions or it's just it's it's unfortunate because you know, when you meet someone face to face and you have a conversation, uh, there's very rarely. You know, there are certain people and there are certain you know, incidents, but
people are generally nice to each other. And when you're behind a device, you know that filter. And it's not saying that everybody needs to be filtered all the time, but people just feel like they can say whatever they want and you don't realize that anyone can see it. And it's just a it's a slippery slope. It's a
slippery slope. I think it's it's a big mistake to state opinions because you never know it could come back and the next job you apply for, the guy looks at your Twitter and it feels completely opposite of you politically or you know, especially politics. You know, that's like the last thing you want to put on social media. Because you might need to be hired again someday and they could come back to bite you. It's silly, but that's the world we live in. I think.
If Phil perfect, the question, the question is what is your perfect day on a golf course look like? From a superintendent?
Superintendent?
So, first off the bat right, everyone shows up, no breakdowns. It's probably maybe starts off morning fifty to fifty five, slight breeze from the north, maybe a little bit of clouds, and then it opens up, gets.
To about seventy two.
You know, take take the sweater off.
And that's about it.
Hang the hose up for the day. Maybe drive around, say hi, make sure everything's good. It's probably my dream day.
Yeah, I think I'm pretty close to Brian there.
As long as everyone's on time, nothing breaks down, you know, obviously the conditions are what you want. It to be pretty dry, hopefully have a clear day. You don't go and find anything unexpected out there. You know, there isn't a dead deer in a fairway, or does skunk here.
Something like that.
That's always kind of fun to deal with. But yeah, just a nice day with no obstructions and no unexpected events would be nice.
Maybe good lunch too.
It's a nice lunch, would really tie it all together.
That's some pretzels.
Pretzel.
It starts with a good cup of coffee, fifty five degrees, gets up to about seventy, no clouds, and then being a mile and a half from Lake Michigan, the air conditioner turns on, gets to about seventy five and then next thing you know, it's sixty seven clear day.
Throw the sweater back on.
Yeah, put the sweater back on. Now, you know there is Every day is a good day if you're on a golf course. In my opinion. I agree, even the worst day on a golf course is better than the best day stuck in an office in my opinion. So you know, I like my job, the good and the bad, the weather. You know, it's also fun sometimes when it's pouring down rain and you're out there walking around with a rain suit on, and you come in and people look at you like you're absolutely insane, and you're like,
this is awesome. You know, I'm out in the rain, and you know you're stuck in traffic somewhere. So I like it all. I like the turf part and the architecture part and the my staff part, the political stuff with the membership is probably the least fun part of it. At times, I've got a great membership, but you know, those are the things that make the job difficult. It was just grass and our staff, it'd be a piece of cake.
Yeah, So do you have to fight to get does the office have a gravitational pull for you in your day or do you have to fight to get out there on the course and stay out on the course.
Or no, No, it's the opposite. It's like you got to find it makes the time to be.
In the office.
That's my least favorite part, dealing with paperwork and yeah, outside all.
The time.
With Brian. I don't know.
If I do spend time in the office, it's after course set up, so maybe like an hour or two prior to lunch, and then all afternoon out on the course and all evening.
Yeah. Probably, much to the dismay of our accountant. The bills tend to stack up on the desk because that's the last thing you want to do with it inside On a nice day or even or if it's a bad day, you don't want to sit in the office either. You want to either be gone or be out doing something so playing in the flood. Not yeah exactly, but the galoshes on.
What's the like nerdiest golf rabbit hole you find yourself going down a.
Lot, uh historicerials dot com or Google maps or I just love like, like especially if you can find like different eras of photos, just like watching how golf courses evolve. And uh, it's I mean, that's when I get sucked in the office if I start looking at aerial photos, because hours will pass and I'll be like a little geez, I gotta get home.
Yeah, I'm with Scott.
There's there's so much online you're talking about, all the information. You can watch courses of all of them. You can go in see your property and hopefully you know, you end up like coming across an old image of your place or something like that they haven't seen before. But all the information, all the old black and whites. It's fantastic.
Yeah, same you just yeah, we're shoot at six o'clock.
I gotta go.
Where's the weirdest place that you found something really cool at your club?
Ah? Well, I don't know if I want to talk about it, but I've found some weird stuff borderline gruesome, but yeah, I don't think I want to share it. I kind of was one of those things you wish you get on, say.
It's getting dark, it is getting dark.
I don't know.
It's always good to get up in the attic and basement. And one of the first things I did was just clean the shop. And the amount of old periodicals you find and the stuff that you're kind of grateful that somebody decided to keep old magazines from like the twenties and thirties.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's always pretty interesting just to go cleaning and just to look. I mean, obviously you're gonna expect to go and go and find some old old maps and a map drawer, but you know it's the one on the bottom or the one that's rolled up in the back forty somewhere that you go.
You know, it's almost like you strake gold. That's fun.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much the same. We did find some cool stuff when we rebuilt the golf course. We found some arrowheads and some horse old horseshoes and like a railroad spike, and you know, you just kind of wonder, like, how did that stuff get there? Why is it here? You know, Bob iLINK was a horse farm at one time. It just kind of makes you think, like, man, some
of these trees have been here that long. You know that if there's only the trees had eyes, you know, tell me what had happened here two hundred years ago.
What role does photography, either historic or current play, and how you're able to do your job.
I think from a documentation standpoint, it's great, you know, with Scott just doing that big project, if you can get an actual picture of you know, what you put in drainage wise, or you know, the use of drones now where you can you know, use it to log information, you know, power lines and stuff like that, so you can go and find it at.
A later date.
And then obviously for you know, all future work you're looking to do to have that historical documentation. And it's a big difference between you know, having the you know, two thousand foot overview versus you know shots of you know, your approachot into the green where you could.
Get that third dimension look to it. I think it's it's all important.
It's really just you know, what are you trying to do? Are you going to make changes for the future, and you want to do it too, How it was you know, original architect intent. Then yeah, I mean how else you can to do it? There's nobody around you know who built short acres and can tell you, well, I remember putting that tree there.
Yeah, it's all about documentation. I mean, if it's a couple of trees, you're gonna take out. If it's a project, like you said, so that the future superintendent or whoever that person is now going to know that there's a pipe here, there's power here, because that's probably the worst part of the job, is to go and dig a hole and go and go and find something, or go and hit something that you shouldn't hit.
I think everyone in this room could have tested that.
Yeah, it's I think it's super important. I think one of the things I talked to the guys that work for me about is taking meaningful pictures. I mean, the smartphone is probably the best and worst invention you know, in history, But for like, I basically use photos as a journal. Like I just take as many photos as I possibly can can, all the time. And then you know, with technology, Google Photos uploads everything and I can look
at it on my computer. I can go to the date it's GEO tagged, so I can search Highland Park and it'll show me all the photo you know. It's just it's so great, and it's such an easy way to to catalog things and to you know, just keep
track of what you're doing. And you know, it's it's really hard to remember what the golf course looked like two weeks after we airified in twenty sixteen or whatever, but I've taken photos of it so I can go back and say, you know, well, actually the greens look the same two weeks this year as they did two years ago, you know, because perception is, you know, you just our memories aren't that good. We're not built that way. So photos are great. I mean, the more photos are better.
Yeah, probably too many for me at least.
Yeah, same here, but yeah, you know I need you don't have to buy film anymore, so it's great.
The more hours, you know.
Yeah, I've got like two hard drives filled up with photos. I look through them whenever I get depressed about where the PGA tour is playing. So we're gonna do some rapid fire question, well maybe just one rapid fire question and then get to overrated underrated, so you know, you can say one word about whether they're overrated, underrated, or you can expand on your answer. So up first, what's better for taking pictures? Sunrise or sunset?
Yeah, I don't know.
I think sunset. I mean, nothing beats a good sunrise. You get the color. But I always feel like.
Shadows in the evening are a little bit more uh sexy to my eye.
I'm a sunset person, just like you said, the shadows. There's some really neat things that you don't see any other time.
Of the day.
Depends on the angle. It's all about angles. Sometimes some goods are some holes are good at sunrise, some are good at sunset. See, I'm a sun ride.
There's something about the morning light when it gets to a certain part how the golf course, like sun lights up that I'm into.
Yeah, I feel like you got a little more time in the evening as well.
I think if you if you miss it, yeah, you've got it in the morning. Year that's it.
There's like twenty minutes in the morning, yeah, where.
You got maybe thirty five or forty in the air evening.
All right. Overrated, underrated ball washers, overrated.
Overrated, overrated, underrated coffee, highly underrated.
But underrated underrated.
Is there a do you guys each have like a a designated coffee maker in the shop.
Yeah, yeah, we've got two, one for myself and then the rest of the staff. They don't like it as strong as I do, so we had to buy another one at least upot a day.
That explains a lot.
Do you ever get too caffeinated.
Shaken?
Yeah? I do, and then as soon as I do, my assistance can tell.
He said way too much today, just pacing.
Uh overrated, underrated green speeds.
Hmmm, I think they're overrated, but uh, you know, for guys like us at private clubs, we have to keep up with with the expectations, if you know, if that's what you know, the members are all our bosses, so if that's what they want, then that's what we have to give them.
I can go underrated because I think there's an importance with green speed.
And and how how.
It plays, you know. I think more often than not, if you're you make up too fast, you're gonna you're gonna take away the fun for a lot of people.
So I think it's important. I'm gonna go underrated. I think it's key to.
Determine, you know, what's what's the limit at.
Your course and then kind of stick within that range.
I think I think it's probably underrated, and not meaning that faster is better, but to what Brian just touched on that the right speed, but I think I'm gonna cheat. But I think what's underrated is the speed of your approaches and fair ways.
Yeah, and right ball roll If you're rolling fourteen but you're bouncing everywhere, yeah, I'd rather be rolling.
Eight and smooth.
What's the thing that you work, like, the aspect of your maintenance that you work the hardest on that gets the least appreciation.
Probably not by choice, but bunkers, My gosh, it's a ridiculous amount of labor we spend on bunkers. It's probably it, I don't know, it's probably all the little stuff we do too, the grooming, you know, the it's the stuff that we're doing in spring to gear us up for you know, the midsummer to have it playing great that probably you know, goes unnoticed.
Maybe I'm wrong.
It's it's the stuff that every golfer hates. It's the aerification, the verder cutting, the top dressing, the it's it's that stuff that uh you know, we only do because we want the golf course to be better for the members. But unfortunately we need that time to intervene and the
golf course doesn't play as well. So for sure, that's that's the worst thing, because none of us want to have a crappy golf course, you know, so we just try to make the best decisions, and unfortunately that stuff is largely unappreciated and hated by the golfers.
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent.
I mean, when a golfer isn't happy because the golf course has just been verified, don't think for one split second that myself and my staff is is really excited about a lot of holes in the greens. But it's something that we have to do to go and provide the you know, the conditions that are desired. So so we do it and we try to heal as quickly as possible.
On the subject of bunkers, if you could waive a magic wand and change expectations for bunker maintenance away from kind of the PGA tour standard that I think we're prey to in this country to something that's reasonable, how would you describe that, How would you really like to maintain your bunkers.
If it was just up to you, if you were king.
I just wouldn't like to make data. Just let them be. I think if I don't know, it's I think what Brian.
Does up at chore Acres is pretty good. Unfortunately, with my circumstance, I can't put a trap rake machine in our bunkers, but we.
Try to.
Do less of a full rake and more spot rake in It's just it's just time consuming. But I think it's you know, the golfer, you know, you need to be aware of who's playing behind you, and you know, pick the rake up, and you know, don't just you know, rake it right. You know, you should walk out of a bunker and feel comfortable knowing that if you hit your ball in there, you'd be Olka playing it.
Yeah, I think that.
Just to give them a great rake every Tuesday morning, uh, and then just go and go and do it again on the the following Tuesday morning, just so everything's at the same spot.
But if everyone is doing the job, whether.
It's the golfer, a caddie, whoever's playing, to go and clean up after themselves. Like Scott said, make sure that the course is in a lot better shape than when you went and set foot in the first tee.
But I don't have to do as much.
But yeah, those are the expectations we have here in the States, I think, get back to the UK. I mean the only place that we saw bunkers fully raked was Monday morning at Saint Andrew's at the Old Course. I mean everything else was you know, go use your foot whatever, just just going clean up after yourself.
I think it's it's a tough question to answer for me, because you know, I've worked at the PGA tour sites and I've done that, and reflecting back to the Links golf courses, you know, it makes sense there that the bunkers aren't raked every day because it's just what fits, you know. But at Bobblink, we've created, we have a totally one hundred percent created environment, and we have sand on top of soil that literally does not drain at all.
And so for me to say that I would like to just not maintain them, it doesn't really make sense because it wouldn't be I don't I think we would lose some of the architectural integrity because we've it's they're totally created you know what I mean, and so I'm you know, we're fortunate. We rebuild all our bunkers. They're really easy to maintain, we have good drainage, we trap rake them. It's it takes. We have one hundred and
fifty thousand square feet of bunker, so they're huge. It's actually easier to just do a full rake than it would be to walk in and try to touch up footprints. So two guys full rake them in three hours in the morning and we're good to go. So I'm pretty lucky in that regard.
All right, last question, if Tommy Rayner took over as consulting architect of your club and said you need to either install double wide cart paths throughout the property or ten water fountains, which would you choose.
Probably go with the fountains, like a nice fountain.
I'm all about maintenance access, so I'll go with the car pass we can actually use those, and.
I guess I'll go fountains as long as you're in Lake Michigan. Yeah, go put them in the lake and that's fine.
All right, Thanks so much for you guys time. Thanks Phil and Oak Park Country Club for hosting this and uh Jason and Keith from Heralds from setting this up and hope everybody enjoyed it.
Thank you you've.
Been listening to the Fried Egg podcast.
We do the digging for you.