I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my.
Ball in a brid egg Frida egg, the dread Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
And welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Today's episode is with Thad Layton. Fad is the senior golf course architect and vice president at Arnold Palmer Design Company, so the company that conducts all of the design work under the Arnold Palmer umbrella. Sad I've known for a number of years, and I think he's been doing some pretty interesting stuff, you know, given the reputation of Arnold Palmer Design, and that's why I was really excited to
talk to him. Obviously, a wildly different background than the majority of the architects that we have on this podcast, you know, one with a lot of different experiences than you know, going to work for Pete Dye or going to work for Coren Crunshaw, whatever it may be. You know, he was building golf courses in far flung locations across the world, and he gets into stories from one of those, which was quite the story. So I'm really excited to talk about a golf design and kind of thads unique
experiences on this podcast. You know, one quick thing I did want to talk about. I wanted to talk about the Pebble Beach pro am and just something I found ridiculous and I'm hoping eventually changes in America.
The play.
I don't know if some of you may not have seen it, but on Saturday, it was windy, it was rainy, it was it was a rough weather day on the Monterey Peninsula, and at NPCC, the wind created a situation along with the speed of the greens, that the ball was not staying when marked, and you know, it made it an unplayable condition and they ended up pulling everybody off the golf course, all three golf courses so MPCC,
Pebble Beach, and Spyglass. So while the problem was at NPCC they pulled everybody off the golf course, they did they halted play for the rest of the afternoon, and this led to a Monday finish of an event that should finish on Sunday. Obviously, that's big for the business of golf. Why these companies sponsor these events. One of the big reasons is for that weekend, valuable weekend airtime and Saturday that got basically none of it because of
this incident. So obviously it was windy, it was it was tough weather, but not anything that we haven't seen in Scotland and Ireland. And it gets to the underlying issue in in American golf is our fascination with fast greens.
Now.
I think one of the things is people think fast and smooth, like those are two separate aspects of greens. And America's gone way too far with the speed of the greens. They have gotten way too fast. You know, you see clubs across the country softening greens, softening greens that have been one way for one hundred years to accommodate the increased green speeds. And this is just silly. You want to talk about things that make the cost of the game higher and unsustainable. It's doing work to
soften greens because we want to have faster greens. You know, everybody talks about firm and fast. I talk about firm and fast, and I think that like what we miss is that maybe what we should talk more about is firm and smooth and in the aspirational greens in golf are the ones that are really firm and really smooth, not necessarily fast.
Uh.
I think band and Dunes pulls us off really well. The greens out there are really accommodating because they are slow. You know, they they deal with heavy wind all the time and they a lot of those places, those spots on those greens would become unputtable if the speed of the greens was really high. So what we saw at MPCC and really derailed the tournament. It was extremely playable in the afternoon at Pebble Beach on Saturday, but it
was unplayable because of the fascination with fast greens. And this is you know, obviously the tour is one of the places that is I would say they are one of the leading proponents of this. The greens are fast week and week out, and they're expected to be fast, and in this case there were two fast for the conditions. So slow down greens, listen, that's going to save us time. It's going to lead to faster rounds. Fast greens slow down pace of play, They cost more to maintain, and
overall they're just unnet necesario it's an ego thing. So let's slow the greens down and we won't have incidents like at MPCC. We'll be playing golf in more weather and it will be a better television product. Hence why people love the Open Championship when the weather gets wild, because these guys struggle, they have to grind and they have to play through it, and there aren't greens for the most part outside of what was it when Brooks
was on the green and it blew. Outside of that, you know, for the most part, the Open Championship doesn't have these delays because they keep the greens a much more reasonable pace. Those are perfect examples of greens that are firm but smooth. All right, after that long winded intro, now too bad?
Late?
All right?
That I gotta ask, and I should ask this more often, but I don't. When and what made you want to be a golf architect?
Like it all started when I was around twelve or thirteen and I got hooked on the game. I'm originally from Gulfport, Mississippi. Not a whole lot of golf courses down there, but I did get to play at IMMUNI called Trademark and it was a golf course. It wasn't very elaborate. There were two bunkers in the entire course. There was a bunker on the ninth green and one on the eighteenth. So I was always redesigning this golf course.
In my mind. I was just completely smitten with the game, watching the two events on the weekend and noticed a big discrepancy between the course I was playing and the ones I was watching the pros play on the weekends. So you know, I just had this inclination. My mind was running wild of everything we could do with this golf course. But I loved the game. And it wasn't too long after that that I was turned onto a
book called The Anatomy of a Golf Course. I'm sure you're familiar with that, and I just dove headfirst into that book, absorbed it like a sponge, and that pretty much set the trajectory for me wanting to become a golf course architect. And I was forty seven now, just turned forty seven January first, and so that's been thirty four years now I've been on this path and very
very fortunate. I know there's a lot of people that kind of want to become golf course architects, and I think there are a lot of people out out there that would have the skill to do that as well. But again, I just feel really, really blessed to be able to do what I do for a living.
So you're one of the rare people that, like, as a teenager, if I asked you what you wanted to be, you would have been like, I want to be a golf architect, and you became a golf architect.
Yeah. I've talked with Jay Blasi about that, and I think he's probably the only other person that maybe from a really early age kind of do what they wanted to do. So I feel it's probably a rarity. I certainly didn't stumble into it in college or after college. It was something that I really wanted to do. And
you know, it wasn't all green lights either. I mean, everybody that I would talk to about becoming a golf course architect, whether they were in the business or were at the fringes, discouraged me from doing that talking, you know, told me how competitive it was to not only get in the business, but stay in the business. So fortunately I didn't listen to them, and I was able to continue to kind of follow that dream and and here I am today, still doing it.
That's one of the nice things if you attack it from a young age is that when you're young, you have a certain level of being naive, you know, and and unaware of how difficult things can be. I you know, I think about this a lot. Is like if I knew everything I knew about golf media now, I would I probably wouldn't make it, you know, doing this, This wouldn't have worked out because I would have been just too aware of all the things that could go wrong.
In your career.
What would you say in terms of breaking into this industry that's really hard to break into really, you know, as you alluded to, a lot of people said, you know, don't go into this as a business. What was the most challenging part of establishing yourself in the design world.
The toughest part was just that first entry, right. I mean for me, I was able to get into I was living in Gulfward at the time. There was an Arnold Palmer golf course that was being built about forty five minutes from where I lived, and I was able to get a job on the construction crew. So I think that is you know that was the pathway for me. Without that, I don't know if I would be working for Palmer, maybe I might be working for someone else. But that was my entry into the golf course industry.
Of you know, we get a lot of them in from a lot of people that want to get into the business. Still to this day, and you know, I try to write everybody back and try to counsel them on how to best get into the business. I think today the best path is construction, but a lot of people don't want to hear that. What they want to go straight into an office. But the business has changed a lot. But even when I started getting going straight into an office was it was unlikely. The odds are
stacked against you. So when people reach out to us, I try to encourage them to get a job or a golf course contractor. And that's how you meet architects. That's how you learn how to build a golf course from the ground up, and that's how eventually you become a good architect. I mean, I think the best architects in the business have some type of construction background. I'm not saying I'm one of those guys. I'm not saying
I'm one of the best in the business. But the guys that I admire in this industry, a lot of the as you interview periodically, they started out. A lot of a lot of them have a construction background. I know Bill and Tom have backgrounds with Pete Dye and how he considered himself a golf course builder first and foremost. So I think that would be the best way to get into the business and learn the most and stay in the business.
I feel like a common thread among the people that I interview in this industry is most of them did things and made sacrifices or went out of their way to make themselves indispensable in order, like, you know, not unable to not hire that person. You know, they they went above and beyond. And I think that's the thing with like a with a highly competitive industry, you have to do things that other people aren't willing to do in order to stand out and and really set yourself up.
Part you've had to give it. Arnold Palmer designed, you know, international scope. You know you've had to been all over the world. What are the few what's the craziest place, Like, what's the place when you think I can't believe I was there?
For x amount of my life. What what's the place that you think of about Kazakhstan. Tell me about building a golf course in Kazakhs.
Well, it's not the Warat's version of Kazakhstan, but that was that was my first opportunity. I've worked for Arnold Palmer Design for three or four years full time as a project coordinator and this project came up and they knew I wanted to be an architect. I was on track to do that, and the opportunity came up for this course in kazaks How you would call it opportunity, you know whatever.
There's step a different levels of opportunity.
Yeah, it wasn't Carmel, but I jumped at the opportunity. I figured this would be a great opportunity kind of make my bones, and they gave me the lead architect job there on. It's called jel Au and it was a project for a big mining conglomerate in Kazakhstean that was doing this golf course is kind of a favor to the president to keep you know, their mining rights
in the country. So I remember, you know, flying from Jacksonville, Atlanta, Germany, and then a six hour labor to, you know, catch the flight into almighty Kazakhstan and it's like, man, I'm delirious. I've never flown this farm my entire life. I show up like ten hours jet lag. I'd get off the plane and there's guys with submachine guns, you know, checking everybody out, Like, man, what have I got myself into. We get on the site and a guy named Ian Gannon,
an Irishman, was our project coordinator there. They said, man, we got big problems right off the bat. We've got twenty five dozers out here, but only two of them work. They're all in excess of fifty years old. The tracks are falling off of them. The laborers don't even have proper equipment, you know. They're pick axes, the handles. They're whittling them out of trees in the morning and by noon the pick axes are broken and they're into their bows of vodka. So I was like, man, this is
going to be that pill climb. So that was That was my first, probably most remote project that I had as lead architect, and eventually it turned out all right. It took about a year to build a golf course. Ian was great. I'd made probably six or seven sight visits on that golf course. Today we like to make a lot more than that, but those are the heydays, right We were opening you know, ten to twelve golf courses a year, so we had a much different business
model at the time. But again, that was my first golf course. Very proud of the way that turned out. With all the headwinds we experienced on that project.
What kind of concessions did you have to make with the shotty equipment, you know, suspect crew and then also like just like the lack of hand like did you have to change the design at all because of that stuff?
You know, I we had to back off of our design standards and specifications otherwise we'd still be there today trying to get this thing grassed. Even when the golf course was grass they had a superintendent that went out there over fertilized a golf course and basically killed all the grass and set it back an entire growing season.
So yeah, it was a new market. It was. It was the frontier I guess it still is for golf and that was that was one of the cool things about working for Arnold Palmers, being able to know people talk about growing the game, that turn gets overused I think in a lot of ways. But to be able to go to a market like that where people even
on the construction crew. When I got to go back and play the golf course for the first time, you know, right right when the thing was growing in and I was out there with a set of golf clubs hitting shots, and the guys that had been working on a golf course, you know, this light bulb went on their head and they were watching this play. They'd never seen anybody body play golf before, and they've been working on this project the entire time. The light bulb came on, It's like, man,
this is what we've been working on. This is this is what this is for. They connected the dots that that was. That was pretty cool.
What's been I guess in terms of you know, you talk about like introducing the game to countries, I you know, we we talk with a lot of architects that have limited scope in terms of building golf courses and countries that are pretty new to golf. What is there a way you approached courses like say it's the first course in a country, differently than if it's a golf course in America.
Maybe the most simple answer is no. I think you want to deliver a golf course as capable of having a tournament there, and I think that a lot of those first markets they're looking to have some type of event there. So you certainly don't want to try to design a golf course around maybe a culture that's never played the game before. I mean, we certainly try to create the ability to play our golf courses along the ground, but that doesn't mean they necessarily easy for tournament play either.
So I think maybe the simplest answer is yes and no. I mean, we want the golf course to be playable for everyone, and I think the way you do that is, you know, you're taking those tournament considerations into account, but you're also taking the ground game trying to factor that in as well.
Yeah, you have to.
That's got to be an interesting challenge because you're in one part designing for the greatest players in the world, because they you know, it makes you make a great Like most places that are building their first course have an idea of probably a DP World Tour event or something, or an Asian Tour event come to play there. But then at this on the other hand, You've got people going out there that have never played the game before in their life play this golf course.
Right, Yeah, you don't want to turn people off right out of the gate. But also you don't want to have a you know you mentioned DP World Tour. You know, whatever whatever event ends up going there, you don't want to go out there and shoot forty under par for the week either.
You talked a little bit about on site time. You just brushed on this and the heyday of Arnold Palmer designed when you were doing ten courses opening ten courses a year. How has Arnold Palmer Designed a design evolved really since you've been a part of it. It's been where you've been your entire career since your early twenties, and how have you seen the firm evolve?
Yeah, it's completely different again, going from twelve course grand openings a year and having forty to fifty. Weas to have this huge project board. It was almost over Wornant Welming. I mean it was about forty feet wide, this whiteboard that tracked all of our projects in the three different phases. And now I can kind of keep track of everything. We're working on a little three by five note card.
But I think the trade off there, you know, what we're sacrificing in volume, we're making up for in quality because we're spending so much more time on site. Just speaking about my own experience, I've for the past five years, I've started to shape my own work. You know, I was down in Uruguay. Just a side note about that project.
It was post pandemic. We couldn't find a shaper down there, and I'd been I probably had five or six hundred hours on a dozer up to that point, so we couldn't get the guys down there that we wanted and the project needed to move forward. So I was like, you know what, I never a better time there. Right now, we need to keep this thing moving forward. I feel comfortable enough where I can get on the dozer and
also the excavator and do some bunkers as well. So that would have been on heard of, you know, back in when I started in the early two thousands, for an Arnold Palmer architect to get on a piece of equipment or have the luxury of time to spend you know, eight weeks consecutive weeks on a project doing shaping and working side by side of the construction team. So as far as an evolution, we're getting our hands dirty. We
like the design bill model. We believe in it. We're not fully there yet, and I think we're probably halfway there. One of the things that we're doing a lot different too, is, you know, instead of working directly with the shapers that the contractor provides or bringing our own people, we've been fortunate enough to work with probably a lot of people you've you've talked to or have heard of to do
our bunkers. I mean, work a lot with Brett Hochstein, Jeff Bradley, even Rob and Tad work with us down in Naples doing some finish shaping down there. Riley Johns is another guy we've worked with. And you know, that not only makes our projects better, but that makes us
better as architects. We're not siloed off just looking at our own work and the work of you know, maybe other brand name designers were, you know, As a golfer, I like to get out and play other people's golf courses, So I think that's another thing that makes us better as architects and as a company. I don't know if you've seen any of our work for the past ten years.
But I said, go creek.
We played, well, there you go Machinele. But yeah, before and after that golf course, I mean, I think there's some noticeable differences of what we would have done when I started at Palmer and what we're doing now a
lot more. You know, center line bunkers issues that are instead of bunkering holes left and right, you know, taking one bunker and just putting it right on the center line as something we would not have even considered ten or fifteen years ago, but we find that that's you know, if you provide the appropriate amount of width on either side of that bunker, that's a great way to create a very interesting golf ball that's asking good questions of the people that are playing it.
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What would you say pushed this evolution and change in ideology? What was really the thing that pushed you guys into changing.
I think it's you know, there's a good quote. If you don't like change, you're gonna like irrelevancy even less so. As for myself and my design partner, Brandon Johnson, I think the guys that are really passionate about this business are golfers first and foremost, and the golf courses that we like to play, and the ones that we were comparing notes on ten or fifteen years ago weren't necessarily Palmer golf courses. Like, man, these guys are doing stuff that we need to take some notes. We need to
change our approach. How are they getting these results? Why are they creating golf courses that you and I would rather go play than some of the stuff our firm has done in the past. And I think that was probably the turning point. And also, you know, competing for jobs and getting beat out by some guys that you know, think you know what we can do work just as good as they can. But but yeah, I think it's time for a change.
What was the toughest thing about pushing like a this is a significant cultural change within your company? What was the heart when you look back and to where you've gotten today, you said you're about halfway to where you want to be. What was the most difficult aspect that that?
I think the biggest turning point was the work we did at bay Hill back in two thousand and nine. And that was mister Palmer's baby. He loved watching the tour pro struggle on his golf courses, and to this day, I think it ranks as the hardest golf course on tour.
Yeah, blood bath every year, oh yeah man.
But and it kind of has always been that way, but it was kind of they kind of tricked it up to get there. We thought the rough was super thick. It was very penal and nature. And he said, you know what, I've reduced this golf course to a par seventy to try to, you know, really challenge these guys. But there was so much blowback from guys that couldn't reach. Like the fourth hole was a it was basically a
five hundred and twenty yard uphill part four. They just moved the tee up forty yards and it made it a four to eighty uphill. Often played into the wind. A lot of guys and really reached that golf hole in two as a part four with a driver and an iron, and it kind of had this force layup. So he wanted to turn it back into a par five.
We convinced them the best way to do that was to really shrink the target up, elevate the green and make it difficult to hit in two, but also provide a lot of apron cut around the green, so if they missed that green, the ball just really ricochet and got to roll in and created some difficult shot selection recovery options around the green. And he came out. That was the very first golfl we did, and you know, his eyebrows raised. It's like, man, this is way different.
You know who did this? And everybody looked at me, so I had to explain myself and I was like, well, you know, we talked about, you know, some things we want to do. I know it's different than the old golf hole. And we did a three hundred and sixty degree around that green with him and he looked at me and smiles, slung his arm around me. He said,
I like this. Let's do some more of this. So that felt to me that that was permission for Brandon and I to make some bigger changes through the entire golf course and also not just Bay Hill, but that kind of opened us up on everything else in our portfolio to go back and really create some thoughtful options on our golf courses, take out a lot of the bunker and create some shortcut around the greens, and recovery options,
you know, all those things you hear about today. We've been slowly but surely implementing those into our portfolio of almost three hundred golf courses for the past ten years. Hopefully the industry is taking notice. I don't know. I'm kind of hard to tell being on the inside, but it's nice to get feedback every now and then from people that are like, hey, we played Satakoi prior to
the renovation. We played at post renovation is so much better, you know, thank you for the work you guys did there. So those are music to our ears or pushing things in the right direction. We just need more opportunities, not only on those renovations, but also new golf courses to kind of flex these new design build muscles in this new philosophy.
If you will, I imagine working for someone like Arnold Palmer or and you could submend Jack Nicholas or Gary Player into this conversation. Is when you're young, you're young architect, part of you wants to build your ideas, but then part of you understands, I need to build things that
look like what Arnold Palmer wants like. Is there a little bit of a difficult Was it difficult developing your own personal style while working under one of the legends of the game that had built hundreds of courses before you got really became established as an architect.
Very insightful, Andy, And that's exactly what I faced, you know, graduating from college. Obviously all wanted to stay employed there, so I wanted to do things that mister Palmer and ed C, who was his number one guy, my daily boss there on pint of Peter Beach, things that they liked. I continue to push the envelope where I thought I could. But you know, also I am a bit of a people pleaser, and I loved, you know, the industry that I was in, and I didn't want to rock the
boat too much. So I think it's a matter of probably the first five years, just getting that first project, getting the credibility, also keeping your eyes open, paying attention to things that are moving the needle and the rest of the golf industry, things that you like, having conversations with ed C and Arnold and like how can we continue to improve? I mean that was one of the great things about mister Palmer is he was always trying
to evolve, He was always getting better. He was always young at heart, right, even though he wore the same you know, hard collar golf shirts every day of his life, he was always trying to find something on the golf course, always trying to find a new piece of equipment. So I mean, I think he understood the need to evolve as a design company, to continue to get better and respond to the changing taste in the industry, and also
set trends where we could. So that felt like to me, I've been there twenty five I started in ninety seven as an intern, so it probably has been what twenty
five twenty six years now. It's crazy just to try to add this up, but it probably took fifteen or sixteen years to where working for mister Palmer to where I felt comfortable starting to maybe question some of the old ways and put some of my own spin on what I think I thought Arnold Palmer Golf Course needed to be to stay relevant and relevant as a company. And also I'd like to credit Brandon Johnson for that,
I mean, because he's supported me. I don't know if I would have been nearly as bold if it weren't for his support, and vice versa, because we were both saying the sant thing's like, man, this what they did there, that just sucked. Man, we can do so much better than Let's let's figure a out a way to do this better. And so that's that's what we've been doing.
I think about your situation, right I. You know, it's a lot different than a lot of architects have gone on their own. That being said, your career path, you know, in terms of experience and seeing a lot of different a wide array of different types of projects in different places.
You know, the benefits of going with a big firm like Arnold Palmer into the sense of for you personally as a golf architect, you were exposed to so much right off the bat versus you know, a lot of young architects that go kind of on their own are
just wondering what's happened, what what their next job? And they're on their one job and don't know what their next job is, you know, whether it be I might pick up some work here for for Gil, I might pick up some work over here for somebody else, like and they're piecing together.
But you're you're lie. I mean, you were you.
Were part of construction crews like pumping out golf courses, and but then you also saw a seismic shift in the way golf courses were built, and you were on the side that it shifted away.
From, right, I don't I don't know if there's a question in there.
Yeah, there wasn't really a question.
I apologize, Yeah, I just I think that's a uh, it's a it's a very you know, I think cause I think about a lot of times, you know, what is the best path for a golf architect? And and I imagine sometimes you you wonder, how would my life be if I wasn't with this big firm that my name's out on the door. Is there ever has there ever been an inkling of of you know, in terms of of Layton Design versus you know, you're you're designing golf courses for Arnold Palmer Design.
Well, I think, you know, if when when I first got in this business, even before I started with Palmer, I've never thought of staying with the firm that I started with forever. It just kind of ended up that way, you know it. We'll see if there's still a demand for the Palmer name. I mean, it's so far we've you know, we've got so many golf courses of service. It's still there. I want to do new golf courses.
It seems like that's that's a bit of an uphill battle without mister Palmer around to do the grand opening to rub elbows with the clients. The bitter iron is I think that we're doing the best work we've ever done right now. I know we are. I mean I can say that unequiped but it's harder than ever to get work without mister Palmer around. So well, you know, I don't want to say never, but things are still good with the Palmer brand. I think it's still strong.
I think the work that we've done for the past decade is starting to turn some heads in a good way. So hopefully we'll get those new golf courses. But that's where my heart is at. Our renovations are great. I love seeing the difference that we can make on some of our old courses in our portfolio. Also some stuff that what like satical. I mean that wasn't a Palmer course, it was a Billy Bell junior course there in Ventura. But you know, those are kind of one offs. I'd
like to do more of those. But again, my heart is in creating something new, bringing the things I've learned over the past three decades to bear on a new piece of property, getting that once in a lifetime site that's you know, hopefully somewhere on the ocean. The big sandscape with you know, one hundred acres to put a golf course wherever you want. I'd love to be able to sing my teeth in that and help shape that. So as far as if that's under Palmer or Layton design,
I don't know. You know, I've got no real preference and I've got no ego in that regard. I just want to do great golf for myself and my friends. Hopefully, if we're scratching our own itch, there'll be people like you and a whole h you know, group of golfers out there that it resonates with, and hopefully it'll be a little bit different then, you know, I just don't want to try to emulate the minimalist movement and all those little variations of it. I want to do something different.
So we'll see, We'll see where we end up. But it all depends on the side and the client. Right. If we can get there, then this sky's the limit.
You talked earlier about you know, Uruguay and building really like stepping in and building the majority of features down there because of shapeing needs and everything. With your life as a golf architect, what is the toughest thing from going to being going from being predominantly an editor where you look at what somebody else built and say, hey, I like this, I would change this, I might move this here, I want this to flare up to being an editor and the creator of the work.
Yeah. I think when you're dealing with being an editor, you're probably holding back a little bit because you want to. I think a good architect and lists the creativity of their shaping talent. They get them on board, they engage, they want the shaper to have some artistic license. So you're probably not getting one hundred percent of what you want wanted or envisioned. And when you're editing and a
lot of cases you're getting something better. But when you get on that those are as an arc detecked, you're the one that's on the hook, right. It's like, man, if you don't like it, there's there's no one to point the finger at. So it's it's much different. But it has provided this connectivity before that I didn't have when I was just on the drafting board and doing
site visits. To be on the dose or and understand how to manage dirt and balance each site and you know, get the most out of it and create quirk and you know, pinnable areas. Everything that you're asking the shaper to do and your plans are by verbal instruction. Now you're the one that has to do that, and kind of these happy accidents that come up when you're shaping, especially when you're in I'm not an a shaper. I'm
a B plus at best. So you know, even even I was, even though I was down there shaping and roughing everything in, there was a team that went behind me and cleaned things up. So back to those happy accidents. When you're not that refined as a shaper, you end up was like, man, I thot, it was kind of not what I pictured there, But that's pretty cool. Let's figure out how to incorporate that that contour into the
green complex. Maybe let's pull that green to that contour, or you know, maybe let's kind of bunker into that that quirky feature right there. So there's there's all these opportunities that arise in the field when you're there every day, when you're shaping your own own work, that are impossible to have on the drafting board or impossible to have when you're just kind of jetting in and jetting out bi monthly, you.
Know at Benda, Uruguay, and uh, I feel like that's like a great Yeah. Yeah, this was before I started the fried Egg, but I felt I was there and I was. I kept looking around. I was like, there's there's great ground for golf here. And something I'm curious with your international travels, what's the best area or country for golf that nobody knows about. Maybe an underdeveloped country in terms of golf that could be a great golf country based off of the natural features.
Yeah, I was gonna say you're Aguay.
You can say you're Aguay. I is that okay? Frankly? Like it's kind of easy to get to from the US too.
Yeah, it's. Uh it's only like two hours ahead of East Coast time zone, depending on what season it is. Right now it's summer down there. But yeah, it's it's a small country. It's right across the water from Buenos Airas. You know that you get some mackenzie fingerprints down there at Punta Karatas and also the Jockey Club in Argentina. But it's for what a reason? I think that, you know,
it's just underdeveloped as a golf country. We were fortunate to pair up with with a developer out of Brazil that purchased thirty five hundred acres just outside of Punta de Leste, Uruguay. Yeah, and the area, yeah, it really is. You've got got the Atlantic Ocean right there and just really great topography, some cool rock out cropping. So we basically had the pick of the litter when it came to putting our golf course on the ground there, and it's one of the it's probably the most excuse me,
the least shaped golf course that we've ever done. We basically just built greens, bunkers and a few teas and everything else is just on great because they had this canopy of native bermuda grass. It's a little rough in texture, but once you mow it down, you know, we didn't need to grasp airways there, so we didn't. So it's it's very minimum in its approach, very sustainable architecture wise.
I mean, the only thing they really need to water or the greens because they decided to plant bent grass there. But it's a great, uh, great model for sustainable golf, I think. But it's the countries go ahead.
That's why I've always thought about Uruguay is like you've got the ground, You've got like the.
It's funny.
I always think back to that because we spent a decent amount of time there and it's like, you know, the the big thing is the geographic aspect of it. Is like it's summer there when it's winter here. So you get the long days, you get the you know, the the weather when it's cold in America, and it's not that hard, like you're not You're not going to get crazy jet lagged, like I don't.
I don't know.
I've always thought about it. There's great wine. You know, usually wine and golf go together pretty well. So Uruguay is uh is a place. Now for a quick word from our sponsor, Luhman. Luman is a great skincare company that we work with. This is one of the things I'm trying to do in twenty twenty three is take better care of myself. I'm out in the sun a ton, whether I'm golfing, whether I'm on site at a tournament,
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Now back to Thad Layton.
With renovating, you guys obviously do a ton of renovation work. And I think this is obviously gonna be a huge trend with golf architecture in the next twenty years, is that there's gonna be a lot of golf courses that come do with irrigation needs and we're kind of reaching that point where the boom period is all those courses are in need of refreshes. What's the toughest thing about renovating and existing golf course the membership.
Now it's a drilled down on that a little bit. You know, everybody thinks their golf course is flawless, So that initial conversation to kind of pull the roll back and say, you know what, there's some opportunities here to do some things better. The best tool that we have to do that is before and after visualization, and that typically works best with showing this is what you've got
with your bunkers. This is what you could have. That's the greatest kind of selling tool that we have is kind of before and after and the bunkers styling and showing those things off, and also green contours, you can also show those off a little bit better with it before and after rendering. But yeah, that that is probably
the toughest thing about renovation. Also is the routing. You know, oftentimes you're stuck with a suboptimal routing that's surrounded by housing and there's no flexibility, right, so you've got to stay on this corridor. So you're you've already got your greatest tool as far as a routing as an architect. I mean, that's if you get the routing right, then everything else just flows from that. But you can't. You can only make a golf course so good that's got
a suboptimal routing. So that's that's probably one of the aside from the membership that's kind of locked into keeping things status quo. The routing is also a substantial hurdle to overcome when you're trying to improve the golf experience
on a renovation. But you're right, Andy, I mean, I would say ninety percent of the money that's spent on building golf courses is going to be renovations over the next ten to twenty years because you've got these great locations that are in these dense urban areas where people can walk right out of their back door and go play a quick nine. I mean, that's not going away. Yeah, I'd love to play Cypress Point every day, and I'm sure everyone else would as well, but that's it's just
not a reality. So how can you make these accessible urban golf courses that have already been set aside in perpetuity for a land use in a green space. How can you optimize that golf experience? And we think we're doing pretty good at that. We've got a lot of reps at it. But yeah, I mean I think that is you're exactly spot on. That's going to be the majority of the market in the United States for the foreseeable future.
What's been the most effect You described an exact question that I have in terms of when you're stuck with a suboptimal routing, and I think everybody that's listening has played a golf course like this where you're constricted on corridor space, too. You've got maybe homes or ponds on the right and left. How do you begin to improve that type of like, what have been the best strategies for you to improve that type of situation?
Yeah, I mean, you're not going to improve a long green to tea distance because you've got roads and houses that are that are locked in there. So the best that you can hope for is kind of within that golf corridor is to really orient people's vision inward instead of outward. And that can come through some landscaping or some taking those sometimes is taking those that containment mounting that's on the outboard, that's trying to protect these homes
and bringing that inward into play. That was probably one of my biggest gripes about how we built golf courses twenty years ago, is just how we manage dirt. We'd move a million to two million yards on every job site, but it would all be scattered into this containment chocolate drop everything kind of every green had this amphitheater setting around it, and the best place to be time in and time out again was the middle of the fairway,
middle of the green. So it's like, how do you take that dirt and you know, if the scope of work is big enough and move it around to start to create these believable features and more interesting golf. But that's really hard to do with, you know, when you're locked in with houses on three sides. So probably the most the easiest thing to do is just rebunker it. And instead of having bunker left and right at every fairway in every green, it's like, hey, let's nudge some
things closer to this. Let's have one bunker closer to that line of charm, give them some room to bail out to the left, and just not be so afraid of where golfers are going to hit the ball because you'll never control one hundred percent of the golf shots. I mean, you could put all the containment mounting in the world, but people are still going to ait houses.
That's just just the way it is. But you know, if you can get away from kind of this delusion that you're going to contain all these golf shots, it's like, hey, let's just make this golf course better instead of risk mitigation, then then you stand a chance at creating something special. Maybe not top one hundred, but certainly move the needle in the right direction for a golf course that may have been stuck and lingering in its own respective market trying to gain members.
Yeah, what I think about those that type of golf course, I always feel like the holes almost fail to set hard, Like if you just created harder angles, it would vastly improve the course in the sense that everything like you lose to everything pushes you to the middle and it
doesn't then kind of shift, you know. And I think that's something I saw at Shingle Creek from your guys' work and especially looking at before and afters, is that the greens all a sudden created angles and lines of play in positions where you know it wasn't the most desirable place, but at least it gave you something to think about.
Right, Yeah, I mean Shingle Creek is kind of a one off RUSS and that it was a core golf course. I mean, you had the hotel, but for the most part, you didn't have houses left and right, so we were able to create enough width to where the angles really mattered.
But that's that's easier said than done. On development golf, right where you've got a three three hundred foot corridor, there's only so much width you can gain and only so close to the center line, you can nudge those issues before it starts to become an issue for the homeowners. So it's it's a fine line. I mean, I think you can introduce strategy and angles to a degree in a traditional development and all the new stuff that we're doing.
I don't know if you're you've played Lakewood National, but it's a thirty six hole course down in the Bradenton, Tampa area, But I think it's worth a look. I mean, I think that's that was a project that Brandon did as a thirty six hole job and they.
Had a car ferry tournament there.
That's exactly right. Yeah, and uh yeah, just right out of the gate, I think the golfers basically as grand opening was the corn Ferry Tour event. It was. It didn't take long before it was you know, went from being grown in and built to hosting that event. But from what I understand, it's a pretty successful it's a well received golf course for the pros, and it's a bit
unusual in a development sense. And I credit Brandon for really, you know, towing the line when it came to standing up to the developer and saying you know what this is the land plant you have, that's fine, that's something we would have done twenty years ago. But there's something that's so much better. Let us, as landscape architects and golf course architects take another look at this land plan. We can still get the same light yield for you,
but we can also make the golf course better. And when the golf course better, that's a rising tide that lifts all boats. Right, So if this golf course is ranked, if it's one of the better golf courses in a very competitive market in that Tampa market, then you're going to be able to justify high greens fees hire home sales. So to Lenar's credit, they listened to that argument. They let us reroute the golf course. And it was all just in theory, as all just play. There's nothing built
as a blank slate. But they had a certain perform, a certain amount of lot real estate frontage they wanted to gain, and we were able to have the best of both worlds. But it took pushing back and not just accepting the job face value and designing within these corridors, but with a routing that was done by not a golf course architect. Right, it was just done by a land planner or and or the developer to achieve you know, a number that they pulled out of their hat that
looked looked good on paper. So in order, you know, yeah, there'd be a lot of renovations, but there also been a lot of new developments. So to the golf course architects and developers out there that are looking to new properties, I would encourage them to to do it different. Right, Let's let's uh, let's get away from these ideal uh lot counts and you know and these long green to tea Let's make a walkable development golf course. I mean,
what a great turn of events that would be. I's like, this is the yeah, this is the way we used to do it. But now I can you know, get off of work at four point thirty and go walk nine holes on a golf course that I live on. And it's a modern golf course. It's not something that was built, you know, one hundred years ago. So I
think there's still a path. I think you can have your cake and eat it too when it comes with development golf, and I think Lakewood National is a great model for what development golf could be, So I'd encourage you to go see it if you're in the area.
You talked about the containment mounting, and I've always thought if they just took that earthwork and moved it into the line of play, it would be you know, like I look at those containment mounds and it's like, well, you know, you think about some of the coolest holes in golf. They play over contours about the same size, and I always just wonder if the containment mounds were the center of the fair away, how cool that the golf holes could be.
Absolutely. I mean you look at the old course. I mean there's no containment mounting there. All the contours are right down the center line, and they're they're hiding bunkers. I mean, he's breaking every rule of rule of golf urse architecture that there is out there. And I think the more you can break those rules, the better chance you have of creating something that's worthwhile and it's going to endure. But yeah, I agree, man, it's we had it wrong for so long. And maybe you could blame
that on a litigious society. It's like, well this architect didn't you know, if you're an expert witness. This architect didn't use go through his due diligence process and exercise his good judgment and how he moved this dirt. He should have done a lot of containment mounting. So that's just maybe one example of how golf in the United States is, you know, dies on the altar of of trying to serve too many masters.
We got to ask, what what are a few of your favorite Arnold Palmer stories?
A few of my favorite Arnold Palmer stories.
Maybe one, maybe two.
Yeah, we got to go to Scotland with him to look at a property in the Highlands. Regrettably that that golf course didn't happen, but that was one of the Castle Stewart, right, Yeah, yeah, that's been a salt in the wound, but that's all right. So yeah, we we got to go over with mister Palmer and two of this just stunning side. It was one of these opportunities like, yeah, this is this is worth waiting twenty years or something, right,
We're going to do this. We're working with Mark Parson and and walk the center lines with mister Palmer, and he was really excited about it, and just just to spend three days with him on site in Scotland was as the time. I'll never forget. It's all the stories he told, the Scotch, the stories we heard over a bile of Scotch, and then then flying back with and Brandon. I got up really early that day. It was you know in the summer, the sun comes up at like
four am. So Brandon went out and I went out and played eighteen holes in Castle stewart By. It was like seven am, had breakfast, got on the plane with mister Palmer, flew back to Latrobe and there was still four hours of daylight and we played another eighteen at Latrobe Country Club. So that was one of those that was a pretty cool day.
It's a great day.
I mean, yeah, play golf like ten hours apart, it's pretty pretty incredible. What what golf courses inspire you the most?
I always say Pacific Dunes, it was. It was a golf course that I think the first cut shot I saw on I think it was the cover of Links magazine. And what year did that golf course open? Is that two thousand and three?
Yeah, about two thousand and one or two, maybe something right around there.
But it was one of those shots that it was like, Man, wherever that is. I got to get to that place, and once I did, it didn't let me down. Of all the abandoned properties, it's still a golf course that I that's the one I want to play the most. And just the routing, the journey it takes you on, similar to Cypress Point, all the terrains that you experience, the care they took to preserve all of these native areas in the foreground, mid ground, and background, the shots
that it asked you to hit. Yeah, it's a great site, but it's a great piece of architecture. But as a golfer, it's something that I would never get tired of playing. I got to play National Golf Links this October for the first time, and it was always a bucket list golf course for me and Man. I had so much fun playing that golf course. And we played Shnnacock that morning, and I played Shinnacock before and wasn't really impressed with it because I think I've lost like a dozen balls
in the rough. This was prior to the renovation that they did, but it was it was a much different golf experience and it just goes to show you the difference you can make with just tweaking some fairway lines and expanding some greens. Taking things back a little bit. But playing back to your question, golf courses that like,
I like and they've influenced me, Shnnacock and National. Playing those two things back to back, I'm still trying to process that, but so far, what I've got is, you know, they're both great strategic golf courses, but National Golf Links,
it's almost like all the varnishes stripped off. You see every kind of that form follows function, every form there is trying to do something with a golf ball, and once you play that thing a couple of times, you kind of know where those features are, but you can also see them and appreciate it. It's like, you know, all that veneer is stripped away, but the same thing across the street at Shinnacock. All the strategy is there,
but it's just so refined and it's so polished. But and and they're and they're on the same piece of property arguably, I mean they share a border. But how two different golf courses, You know, how two courses can look so different. One can be such a punishing test in Shinnikock and then one can be so much fun.
It's just it's still something. I mean, it's probably worth writing a book about maybe someone already has, but those the architecture on those respective sites being so close to one another, are cap or captivating to me.
Yeah.
The the thing about those two places that I am so you know, similar to what you're saying, is like the styles are so different, and you know, like it's kind of the the perfect thing to point to when you you talk about how golf architecture is in art is like very similar sites, different architects, and completely different results, right, And I think like one of the things that I've heard from numerous people is that, like, you know, a
great example about like the different architecture styles. Like you're talking about how how punishing, how tough Shinnakock is and how how fun and scorable National is, if you you know, from what I gather, when women play, women prefer Shinnikock.
They think Shinnacock's more fun because there's lets like the openings into every green is wide open, right, so you can run shots in much easier at Shinnacock, whereas National has a ton of force carries into greens, and you just think about like that difference, right there is like completely different philosophical completely different styles, right, you know where Flynn was so natural and the Rainer McDonald architecture is very manufactured for the era, right. You know, It's just
it's just a fascinating those two courses, studying them. If we could go back to the Pacific, Dudes, I'm just curious, what about the picture stood out to you? You said you saw a picture and yeah.
It was the Yeah, the Eleventh Green. I believe that the short part three that blew out bunker on the left and all of the gorse and the Marrem grasses and that green and then you've got the the Pacific Ocean on the left. It just captivated, man. I just as a golfer, I wanted to play that hole. I wanted to get there. And I had a friend get named Deedrich Holmes. He worked for the First Tee and he would arrange a trip, an annual guys trip out there, and I was I got to go with him probably
five or six times. And man, everybody would compare notes at the end, is like, hey, what's your favorite golf course? And it was pretty even you know some people would say, well, actually a few people said trails. A lot of people said Bandon Dunes, and like the hair on my neck would stand ups, like, man, how do you like Bandon Dunes more than Pacific Dns. I don't get that, but
you know that's your opinion. But yeah, Pacific. I mean, I just and even talking with now that I'll live here in Denver, I've gotten together with gym or being a few times from dinner, and we've gone to see some golf courses in the area, and I continue to pick his brain about that and just their process during construction, how they were able to achieve those results, and just I could study that golf course play it, and I don't know, you probably won't hear a lot of other
architects talk about a modern golf course being their favorite like that, But I'm just being transparent like that. That's the one that out of all modern golf courses that resonates with me the most.
I think that golf course. And I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but I think resort golf. The more and more I think about it and look at it, I think resort golf in a way can be watered down golf architecture, Like if you put architects in the same position to build a private course in a resort course, same land, the golf course would have a little bit more zip pop like some a little bit more like if it's a private club that a resort.
And one of the things I think about Pacific Dunes is that golf course would be the exact same way no matter who it was designed for. And I think that's the thing to me that stands out is that. And I think about it because it's the one course abandon that you truly feel a level of consequence when you're standing over shots where it's if I don't hit this here, if I don't if I don't really get this to the right spot, the next one is going to be really, really hard and harder than this one.
And I think that's a lot of times get what gets watered down at resort design because of the idea of playability in getting people around and it's vacation golf, and I think that of you know, like that golf course does not. It's it's the same feel that you get when you play Shinnakok where you're like I have to hit this shot, and I don't want to hit it, but I know I have to to otherwise the next one's going to be even harder.
Yeah, i'd agree with that dog didn't pull any punches with specific dunes. And I wonder why that is. Was that site just so special and they preserve so much you create, you leave things alone that maybe you would have watered down just to keep the integrity of that site, and that just the natural beauty leaving those things alone and not overshaping things that maybe you end up with kind of an anti resort golf course. I don't know.
Yeah, it's interesting, Like I think all the courses there are great. It's just that's the only one that to me really triggers the the do or die elements, Like whether people want to admit it or not, I think all great golf courses have, like the truly truly great golf courses force you into hitting shots you don't want
to hit. I mean, like perfect example is the sixteenth at Cyper's Point right, nobody stands on that tee and it's like, you know, I really want to hit it at this island green, but but and you could hit it way left, but nobody's going to do that, and it's like, you know, like it's forcing you to do something you don't want.
I mean, that's the thrill of golf and seeing if you can pull it off, right.
Yeah, And that's the difference between tournament golf and casual golf. I mean I remember talking about mister Palmer stories and really trying to get him to buy in that we needed more conto in our greens and talking about Augusta as a model and that that being a fun way to play golf. And he looked at at me and Brandon's like, are you guys fing crazy? Is like, that's Augusta's not fun. You don't want to stand over a putt to you know, for a million dollars with twenty
five feet a break in it. That's not my definition of fun anyway. So he certainly brought this tournament mindset to bear that you know, was different than what the way Brandon and I thought. So it was always interesting reconciling those two things.
That's a fascinating tidbit in terms of like the what you guys viewed as fun tournament golf views as are you kidding me? And it might like it kind of gives you a lens into why you know so many tournament courses aren't really fun courses.
Well, I don't think the tournament courses. I mean I think there's a lot there's probably a general consensus that most courses on tour are pretty benign, especially you know, after watching last week, you know, Tory Pines. I mean, I'll say it, it's just it's a squandered opportunity, right, a great piece of property. But it seems like that's what a lot of the pros want. It's just like the great shots get rewarded, and you know, anything less
than perfection is punished. There's not a whole lot of quirkiness on that golf course. And when you introduce introduce quirk into tournament golf, it seems like that turns a lot of pros off. And I get that. I mean, if that's your livelihood and you're telling me that my year is going to come down to whether I was lucky or unlucky, then you know, maybe take that that eraser and kind of water things down a little bit.
Maybe maybe that explains some of the general general shape and style of a lot of the courses on tour, But It's interesting that Riviera is one of the perennial favorites on tour every year. Cappado is another one. Those are kind of quirky, I don't Maybe maybe those are the guys at the top that are playing those golf courses and winning and they can overcome that quirk.
I don't know.
I always wonder if Augusta wasn't Augusta, what the feedback would be if you like, just like basically copied the greens and put them on a new golf course. What what would people say? Because I think that it would it would be a very negative feedback loop.
I would agree. I think architects that have tried to do that. I think we've tried to at least nudge some of our shaping on greens in Augustus direction. You gotta be careful, man. I mean it's people say they want those greens, but I don't think they want those greens every day at their home golf course, and they certainly don't want to play tournament rounds on them. So I think there is a disconnect with what people say they like and what people want to play every day at their home golf course.
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a fact.
I mean, there's that's a whole rabbit hole we could go down, but that I want to thank you for your time.
This is great.
Catch it up and I think you know I'm going to make a make an effort this summer to check out one of your one of your redesigns. I'm really excited to see the work that you guys have been up to in the last couple of years. I know one that is kind of in my radars is getting up to Seattle Golf Club. So I'm excited to see what you guys have been up to. And it was really great hearing you talk about the transformation you guys have been part of.
Thanks for the opportunity, Andy, I really appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to another edition of the Fridagg Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Matt Rusin's Thank you Matt. As a quick reminder, we are humming in Club TFE. If you're not our a member and you're looking for more golf content from us, if you like what we do, this is a great, great option for you.
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