Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by visit Milwaukee. Wisconsin is home to some of America's best public access golf, most of which is a short drive from Milwaukee Center. Your summer travel plans around coming to the Brew City. You can enjoy courses designed by the late great Pete Die, Langford and Moreau, Core and Crenshaw, David McClay, kid and many more, all within a reasonable drive from the city center.
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to make the most of your trip. We are back with an episode about a golf course that's less than an hour from Milwaukee, the nine hole Eagle Springs Golf Resort. It's an Eagle, Wisconsin. This course is the oldest course in Wisconsin and amazingly has been owned by the same family since its exception in eighteen ninety three. We speak with its current owner, Mike Bolan, about the history of the course and what is like to own a course today. I'm sure this will come out in the podcast, but
Eagle Springs is worth the trip and stop. It's a nine hole course, so you can get around it quick and add it easily to a golf trip up in Wisconsin. I highly recommend going. It has some unbelievable golf holes that you literally can see nowhere else, in the sense that you know that every course has holes that you can't see anywhere else, but these are holes that will make your jaw drop. And it's really Its close to Aaron Hills in Lasonia. So add it on go see it.
Support a local business, you know, kind of a one man band, as Mike reveals. So without further ado, here's Mike bowling.
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 fried egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg.
Frida egg Frida egg Brian egg Frida egg Bride egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off the the hump course.
Where do you guys fall on? The oldest golf courses in Wisconsin?
From my what I was always told is when I was a kid, and I'm sixty five now, was we were started in eighteen ninety three, which makes us the oldest one to scumby, I believe, say they're eighteen ninety five. They also claim to be the oldest golf course.
They might say eighteen hole, right.
We were eighteen holes too at one point.
Okay, so I.
Mean they may say eighteen but and I think somebody just asked me that I think Janesville was the oldest country club because there was This book is mostly his book is mostly about the country clubs because it's the WSGA. But he does mention us into Scumbia in his book.
So it explained kind of how the course came about. And obviously your family's history here.
Well, my family came from the west coast of Ireland in eighteen sixty six, and I guess it'd be my great great grandfather and he had three sons and they came here and they farmed to begin with. And then one of his sons decided to build a hotel in the golf course in eighteen ninety three. So at one point there was an eighteen hole golf course with a hotel. Kind of there's pictures with the little big old Randez was he was torn down, I think in the probably
the thirties. His his one of his daughters died and he had a broken heart and tore a hotel down. But the golf course has remained, although it got shortened from eighteen holes to nine holes.
When did that happen?
Well, it's kind of a guess. The man who taught me how to chip was a Chicago had a Chicago an insurance agency, and he was a country club golfer like his brother. Took me to play at north Shore after they played the you know, so they were serious, serious golfers. After they played the US Amateur there. And he when he was a kid, they had a cabin here and he mowed greens and he probably would be he'd probably be around one hundred thirty or forty years older than I am. And so he said when he
was a teenager. So if he was one hundred, say he was fifteen. That would have been eighty five years ago, nineteen thirty. Yeah, so he he said that it was that the course some of the course went further south, so it goes from number one towards number three, goes from north to south, so it'd have been continuing going south past number three, and then they there was a he said, number four came out and dog leg had
a hard dog leg up. He said, there was some you know, there's a lot of area between eight nine and one. He said, there was some back and forth holes.
But there there's a false front on in the middle of that area, just like there is a number six, So probably was a green there, and there's probably a tea by the tea by the there's a little square or rectangular raised a foot raised tea, and by number eight, by the two trees on the top of the hill, and number five down about one hundred yards out, there's another one of those little te's, but I've never seen
a picture of it. One of the guys that follows you brought up a like a nineteen thirties aerial and it wasn't on there.
Yeah, I've looked at that nineteen thirty seven area. Yeah, it's it doesn't have it looks like a nine hole.
Yeah, well yeah, that's what I saw too.
Could be great depression. Yeah, maybe maybe it's when it went out.
I've seen pictures where to the left of number three they plowed at one time, so you know, maybe it was a much firmer, a much firmer surface. You could you could if you stand at number four tea now and it used to Now that's too overgrown, but used to be able to see. There was a definite lower brush area and higher tree area where the fairway must have gone down. And now everything's too tall you can't see it anymore.
So you're your relatives built the golf course and then through all the way till twenty nineteen, it's remained under family ownership.
Yes, they had a they had a I guess there's when you inherit property. There's a there's a there's tenants in common and a joint tenancy. And I think in tenants in common. So if you have say you have four siblings and your parents, your parent dies, your last parent dies, and they give each one of you their portion of the of the of the estate in a in a joint tenancy, if there's four partners in this.
When one of them dies, their part goes back to the original the other three it doesn't go to their descendants. And so that's how this was set up. And that's one of the reasons that kept coming back into this smaller group, and eventually eventually was my grandmother or my mother were the last two here. So and then it got and then the store and I, you know, and then I in the nineties, I bought my sister out. She wanted to leave and do something else. So so now I'm I'm the last one.
So let's talk a little bit. I think we've got obviously so many of our listeners, and I get lost of emouths from people about like owning a golf course and buying a golf course and owning a golf was it like running a family a family owned golf course in twenty nineteen.
There's been different cycles. So if you were in the nineties and two thousands, it was your t sheet would be full all the time, you know, you didn't really In fact, at some point I didn't even take that many, honest, so I didn't want to. I didn't want to push my regulars away. And now you move to this time, and now it's like there's not many of that and everybody is going trying to do events because there's more money involved with it. There's probably more ancillary products you
can sell. People are here for a longer period of time for food and beverage. That's kind of where it's gone to. Where you know, you you know, do you you know, used to be we'd have people from six o'clock in the morning, five thirty, they'd be here now seven maybe you know it's and that's not that's sporadic. You know, so I'm always thinking about giving a special on a weekend on a Saturday to come early. I
know it's probably not true. And you know, if you go closer, more populated areas, but you know, there's a you know, it seems like there's been because of this, the the lack of courses, there's been a you know, a stagnation in demand. So the price you can charge is stagnated.
Also, have your how much have your price has changed? It's like say that early two.
Thousands that I'd say that from the early two thousands, they may have let's see, well in the early two thousands, we might not have had carts either, so that's the difference. They probably went up. I would say fifty percent the green fee prices, and then people because this course is hilly, they do use it. There's a lot of cart usage,
so I'd say maybe fifty percent from that time. But you know, you know, probably in the last five years, if you know, if it's a dollar and you know on a say, on a twenty dollars green fee, if it's a dollar, that's you know, that's probably what it's been. And for a long time, expenses were stagnan too, but now they you know, they go up. It's you know, I bought a used rough More for eighteen thousand dollars this year, you know it it uh, it retails a
brand new it's like sixty thousand. You know, there's no way, of course, I'm not even sure how some of the bigger courses can afford to have because they are going to have multiples of this, you know, or I only have one of these. So from that standpoint, you know that you know that that's made it a little tough. You know, there was a time I wanted to expand to eighteen holes and bought purchase land around me. I'm
not sure that. I'm not sure that that would be well I'm too old now, but I'm not sure that that's the best investment. Although if you could build. On the other hand, if you could build a killer thirteen hole golf course, that might work nowadays too. You know, that's the that's the you know, as opposed to you know, twelve good holes and six bat holes. You might be better off of thirteen and do some kind of weird
marketing that way or something. But you know, getting employees is kind of a you know, it's it's a you know, especially in my situation, don't really make enough for a full year time manager, year round manager to work with me, and you have a I have a tranchiant workforce. So a lot of them work for me for two, three years, four years, some of them. Sometimes you know, you'll have a kid who's going to grad school, you get seven years or eight years because they really they drank the
kool aid and they like hanging out here. So they like the work and being outside and it's a beautiful place. And so from that perspective, it's it's a little bit challenging. I think the good things that you have, you know, dealing with the employees that do well and thrive, dealing with the customers. Talking to the customers. You know, they're they're they're always the best and the worst. You know, you get a bad one, it's really bad, but you get good ones. And it's like one of my favorite
ones just died. And he's like you could you heat come and you could talk about you could talk about golf. You love golf, but you could talk about all kinds of unrelated things. And he was older and he had this life experience and and all that stuff is that stuff is still great. I mean that is you know, you know, if you're in and because I have to work all the time, I'm in here, and I contact these people, you know, I get to know them, and
so that stuff is, that stuff is great. You know, I would tell you this that this place exists because my family never had any and much debt. And you know, like I said, I bought a use more. Don't buy new Moores. I bought a new Greens Moore because that's the most important one. But and and I was and I was willing to live this lifestyle where you you know, you're you know, seven days a week when you're on.
From open to clothes pretty much.
Well, I mean I have people that are opened, but I'm you know, I mean I do. I live like two minutes away. I grew up across the parking lot and live there for a long time now on the other side of number nine Green. I don't know when you took that picture. There's a house there that's where it's like can walk down the hill. You know, it's so you're here. You know you're here, and it's you know, it's not it's not that lucrative for the amount of
hours you're putting in. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's a it's a it's a beautiful place, and you know, and you do get two or three months off and you know, you get to I get to walk to the golf course with my dog or snow shoot with my dog on the golf course, and and you know, I like that. But it's it's, uh, it's not an easy it's it's I don't think it's a I don't think it's an easy go at least at least for an old guy like me.
It's a In terms of taking care of the golf course, do you do you get on mowers? And mow sometimes. And do you have you know, part time staff? How's that?
Yeah, so I I have. You know, there's I have a couple of I have a lot of retired guys. And I got a fairly moory just comes in and cuts fairways. I got a rough moor. He just comes in and cuts.
They're specialists.
Yeah, they're specialists. And if you can get a farmer or a truck driver that can drive straight lines, it's really good. But because professional mowing is is not just like mowing your yard. It's a it's a you know, it's being a professional mow is different than a guy mowing his yard. Because a lot of guys say to me, I love mow my yard. When I retire, I'm gonna come and mow for you. I go, well, you know, maybe that'll work, maybe that won't work.
But it's a big yard too.
Yeah, it's a big yard.
That's That's what I always say. I I like, really, I really like mowing my yard. But you know, mowing my yard takes forty minutes, and and a golf course is about you know, I don't know how many times bicker, but it's like the worlds are these are the biggest yards in the world.
Yeah, when I was when I was a kid, we had a we had one a five gang more in a in a tractor and it would take well only moan once a week. We'd start on Thursdays and it would take us day and a half to mode. Now, we didn't have a differentiation between rough and fairway at that time.
It was all it was the gang out.
Yeah, everything was mode at the same height. Yeah. Yeah, I'm you know, I'm the weekend cutter a lot unless we have an outing than one of my one kind of full time guy, or there's a couple of college kids that will cut in the cut in the morning. I do. I do all the spraying. It's like, I figured it's my place, I'll take the risk. Plus I'm I'm pretty amble about it. I wear gloves and and mask and suit, and you know, I always say it's like I walk out, I go up the Pillsbury dope
boys out there again. So but uh, you know, and I spray on. I spray as as needed. So I I have a degree in metallurgical engineering, but I have read a lot of turf books and I go to I go to a lot of turf education, and so there's kind of a monitoring of the trying to monitor the weather just to decide when to spray. You know.
Yeah, don't want to spray right before rain.
No, or but you do. Got to spray when you got a certain you know, temperature and humidity range, you know, I do, you know, I am. I am going to try, like hell not to you know. I played at University would Ridge once and I was playing and my ball was here and and the guy was spraying. He stopped six inches short of my ball and started six inches past my ball. I try not to. You're not really supposed to do that. According when I try not to do that, you know, I try to. So that limits
spraying time a little bit too. If you're really busy, you don't find me out there. Generally I try to you know.
Yeah, and then when the weather's good, people are here. Yeah, so it kind of makes it tough.
Yeah yeah. But but so you know, on a weekend, like I said, I could be the outside guy, the opener on the outside in the morning, and I could be working the closing shift in here. So that's if that's what's you know, you know, especially in the spring in the fall when my numbers start to drop.
How many rounds a year do you guys do say? And in your best years?
And then you know, and I'd say, you know, we're you know, it doesn't fluctuate that much. In the last two years. It was lower that you know, the year where we had the March that was you know, we actually mode fairways. The only time we've ever mowed fairways was was seventy in the March. You know, it's probably you know, probably sixteen to five to maybe eighteen eighteen thousand rounds, you know, So, and.
What would you say, percentage wise is from your regulars.
I'd say that probably sixty percent is you know, I have I have a you know, a bunch of like season A members this fairly strong league play and they play besides league, you know, there's a fairly strong you know, there's a senior discount fairly strong senior group that plays. We have a we do a junior membership where they have a they have a junior they have some instruction for six weeks and but they get a membership with
it so they can come all summer if you want. So, you know, trying to encourage the ones who want to play golf. You know, sometimes you're become a little bit of a daycare center for some people. But but you know, I think that's the way it's always been for those kids that are golf golf nuts. I know.
I think about my parents. I was like golf nutt and me and my buddy would ride our bikes with our bags, like to the muni, our local union, and we'd be there all day, every day of the summer, and like from age ten to doll you know, fourteen thirteen, And it's like you think about I think about that all the time. If like my parents had it pretty because they knew where I.
Was, and you know, and you know, we watch out for you, and the people get to know you, and you know, you know, there's how how.
Do you most people that come through that aren't regulars find you.
I think it's I think it's word of mouth. I mean, because you'll get people that just live an Eagle that moved into the area and we have been here for five years. I didn't know you were down here, and I don't know. They'll maybe they drive by and see the sign, they talk to somebody, and finally they decided to come down here. As we talked earlier, we're getting some people because of you and your efficacy.
And yeah, you gotta get more.
You know, there's you know, there's I don't you know, I don't know how to say this too, that this this place is kind of you know, and you asked too about how you how we kept this place going. There's like a little community of people that have been invested and you know how you they volunteer their time. You know, they'll come in and you know, oh yeah, you know, you know, I had one of my my brother in law's niece. I didn't have a bar card person though, and two of her sisters had worked for me,
but she had never worked for me. But she came into the bar card on a Thursday night, which is like a sixty person shotgun. I mean, that's the worst one to start with, because you're like, you have to keep moving. There's somebody on the whole that want something. But you know, she was like, she's industrial engineer in middle management for UPS, so she picked it up. You know.
It was like, but uh so there's been this little community of people, and I think that that community interacts with other people and brings people in here Also, you know there's guys like you know, the John Warren who shoots the the yardages for your the course yardages and does the slope and stuff for the Wisconsin State off Association.
You know, he knows and comes and he tells people and he you know, recommends us and he's not you know, just he's in the business too, so he doesn't golf much, but he you know, there's just different people that you know, people, different people. The Hickory Stick guys stumbled across this. So now we have a you know, the Hickory Stick group. They have an event here and they you know, guys keep you know, come through periodically and you'll you know, so it's kind of interesting.
Now for a quick word from our sponsor, visit Milwaukee. Milwaukee is home to some top tournaments. They obviously hosted the PGA Championship in two thousand and four, twenty ten, twenty fifteen. They had the US Open in twenty seventeen at Aaron Hills. This year, they host the Ryder Cup in twenty twenty. A great you know, fall spot for a trip, and we're better to stay than center around Milwaukee.
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to my bowling. So it's funny. I remember I played here when I was a little kid, and I'd always remembered that second hole, and that's how I kind of refound it was I was driving back from I think it was either Lasonia or Sand Valley, and I was like, you know, I got to stop at Eagle Springs and I just found myself amazed at the golf course, like beyond just you. Obviously, everybody's going to talk about that second hole because it's unlike anything you'll ever see in
your lifetime. But you get on the first hole and that's one of the most amazing greens you ever see. And then the fourth hole has got to be one of the best part fours in Wisconsin. And you just go around and you're like, ah, this is this is a really great little golf course. And in terms of nine holes or nine holes are becoming more popular because people have less and less time, and I think that's what this has got more uniqueness and character than almost
any course in America. Talk to us a little bit about the course design in the history of the golf course, as you know, you know, originally eighteen holes, but then it moved to nine. And you know, I read on your website that the original designers somebody came in and redesigned it in the twenties. Correct.
Well, not that I know of, It's always been well AG's Balding I think did it.
And former Cubs manager right.
Or Socks Socks are clubs.
One of the two. I think it was the Cubs. I'm not positive though, and.
So is I mean, like I said, I'm sixty five. The course has pretty much been the same other than we did in enlarge some of the greens and put the eyebrows and the bunkers on six, put an irrigation system in, you know, large the seventh green, large, the fourth green, and large the sixth green. Built some new tea's, So it is, you know, I'm not sure. What I'm not sure is Spaulding designed anymore than the first and
the second hole the hickory stick. Guys have a they have a theory that Langford or Bendelo worked for Spaulding, but he didn't. I looked it up because they told me they were sure because you got the false fronts like Lasonia and and I'm like, I looked it up and he didn't start working for Spaulding until after this was Yeah.
I looked it up too. Yeah, it's somebody that knew what they were doing. Definitely designed the golf course. That's like one thing that's very clear a few of the wholes, like scream Tom Bendelo. But but then I talked to you, it's like, you know those those eyebrow bunkers are very Victorian style, but then you put those in and how do I mean, how do you go about being in a golf course owner? Like when do you when do you decide to add tease and when do you.
The biggest time we did it was when we dug the irrigation pond for the irrigation.
System there, and that's on the third hole, right, it's on the.
Third hole, and so originally there was a series of smaller ponds and streams between it, and so we connected I think three of those. So we had a lot of fill to get rid of. And so you know this this seventh hole, for instance.
Was.
The green and the green in the in the in the sand trap looked exactly the same, but they were half the size. So we hauled a bunch of that that spoil out and and just reduplicated doug This went over the old sand trap with the spoil, dug out a new sand trap, so it looks the same. It's a little bit it's kind of funky. People have problems putting it because if you're on the old part of the green, it breaks down towards the fairway, and the front part of the green is a little higher, so
it breaks back up towards the hill. So it's a little it's a little it's a little funky that way, but local knowledge, right, Yeah, So same thing. We built a lot of tea's from the spoil from there. I think the sand traps on I just thought the sand trap sand traps on six. We brought that tongue down the greenen didn't come between the sand traps, and we brought it between them, and then I just thought it gave him more of an eye line or whatever. So it's kind of I mean, I look at I look
at stuff. I look at stuff all the time and where where would be a good hole. And in fact, when I was going to build it another nine, I kind of had layouts for holes. And these are holes that that if you some of it is I don't know. I just see it and I think it'd be you know, I there's a I was when I went down to
the meeting at chicaw yesterday. We were on one twenty going down and there's this creek along when you get gone by that spring creek or whatever it is, there's a creek there in a valley there, and I we used to drive there to see my my my cousins all the time, and I've always thought that would be
a great place for a golf hole. I don't know, it's just some of it something is, you know, I just see stuff in or it's just I got to get rid of spoils and I gotta, you know, it's like or it's like there's no there's not enough you know, a number on number one and number four because they were originally just the bowls. There's no there's we're running out of you know, we got busier, we were running out of cup positions. You know, we just gotta you know, some of it is some of it is just need.
Yeah, I think that it's that left side that you built on one looks like it's been there forever.
Well part of it was, and then it just we brought that. We filled in. We filled in front, so they got the flat spot there, but the hilly part there, we didn't do much more than plant bent grass up there. We didn't really change it. We didn't regrade very much or you know, frankly, we don't. We don't have the money most of the time. You know, it was a local. The guy who did the fill was we we took soil off this place. The guy who did it was
a guy who grew up. He worked here, his son worked here, his daughter worked that guy's daughter worked here. So you know, they have this kind of like I said, there's this community that kind of has kept.
They feel like they an ownership, right.
Right, Yeah, it's it's a it's a you know, it's not maybe it's not the most important place in their life, but it's a place that has some meaning to them.
So and uh, when did you guys do the irrigation?
We started in eighty eight and I think we brought it up in eighty nine. Eighty eight we had a bad drought here and h and all there was was crabgrass, and so I would I asked, I started asking, you know, my turf salesman. You know a lot of them are ex superintendents. You know, what am I going to do here? Is this grass going to come back? Is it just is it dead? Is a dormant? And they're like, I don't know, we don't know and I'm like, well should
I put it? What about putting an irrigation system in? And they're like none of them would say anything, except for the Dewey Lock who built Kettle Maraine, which is just up sixty seven. He told me, he goes he just do it. He says, you'll never regret it. And he was helpful, and and it's made It made a lot of different It made the difference, and it came back. Mostly the grass did come back. It was dormant, it
was dead. There still was in August. There's still a lot of crabgrass coming up because all that seed bed.
But so that's got to be you know, your biggest kind of expense, right is that when you got to do stuff in like irrigation and stuff.
Yeah. Yes, it was the biggest, one of the biggest dollar project that we ever did. We did again, we did a lot of stuff that you're young, you don't know. You know, my crew, my crew of kids and I. We picked up all the spoils and it's gravel around here, so we picked up spoils. We bed the trench and sand. So we had a dump truck and we'd shovel it. Well, we had a front endloader. We could put the sand on, but we were in the dump truck shoveling off my hand.
We did so much handwork. It's one of those things if you were if you knew what you were in for, you never would do it. But then once you do it, it's kind of like, well, a, it's a it's a big thing. So it was a really simple system. Those guys from Illinois they put it in, and then I don't know, probably fifteen years ago, twelve years ago, I put in a variable frequency drive, which when you put the original system in it's either all on or all off.
And then you had a lot of water hammer and we were starting to have to repair a lot of brakes. So the variable frequency drive kind of worms up. The pressure kind of builds slowly, and we have not had to fix we have to fix sprinkler heads because they're all but not too many breaks anymore. And it's a thirty year old system, which by all, by all means it's supposed to be. You know, I'm not supposed to be working.
The thing is I think in thirty years is what they say. It's kind of here.
Yeah. The other thing we did because I was always going to build eighteen holes. Is it's oversized, so we didn't run at the smallest pipe. Our pipes are bigger, so that that may have something to do with it too, that you know, we built a system that could carry more a loon and then you know, heavier pipe and the bigger you go with the heavier it is a
little bit. So so those are the two and that was like, you know, at that time, that was like a thirty thousand dollars expenditure, which you know, for me, again that's a big that's a big expenditure. You know. Lucky, luckily for me, the bank's been really supportive. I mean it's you know, I I pay my bills and you know, yeah, but even in the middle of the crash, I bought a loose who said of about twenty four brand new cards in the bank just said okay, so.
You know, yeah, your family's probably built up a lot of good will over the last you know, some of them.
Were stubborn Irish people too, you know, you know, we bump our heads into things here and there.
Let's let's talk about the second haul. Yeah, it's uh, what was first tires reaction?
Usually, well, there's people that play here because they've heard about it and they want to play it. There's people that hate it, and uh, you know, there's pretty people that find it hard to believe, you know, that that there's a hole like that, you know. Uh. Brett said that it was. He said it was the most severe sloped green, raised slope green like that, and he did he did say, I appreciate the fact that you didn't do it. Most people would have done and cut it down.
When people, you know, when you asked there, as my clientele has gotten older, he said, they would have cut it down and made the green bigger instead of building the extra hole off to the side. You know, he you know, I mean when I was, when I was, I mean, I had it is you know, if you're on the left side, you know, and believe me, I've been everywhere on that over the course of my life. It's you know, it's pretty steep, you know, it's uh you know, and when I was a kid, we didn't
mow it that often. We cut it with size and whips like three times.
How do you mow that?
Uh line trimmers? Well you can, we have a we have a you can mow most of it with a we have a toro sidewinders where the decks slide so you can get change the center of gravity, so you can go up the so you can mow most of it, but the left sides all the line tremors underneath the sand traps, the top fifteen feets line trimmers. So that's you know, the back. We used to the back a little better. One of my friends has got one of the kids that work for me that's in the construction.
He's got a track bobcat with a kind of industrial more and I was thinking maybe I could see if I get him to cut the back down a little bit again, because the back used to be used to be to be playable back there, but it's not real playable anymore.
Do you have any clue how that got bult?
No, I don't.
I was trying to think it could be either like rubble. Maybe they piled up rubble.
Yeah, I'm guessing that, you know, basically, because you know you have you know, the tee off is a ridge, so maybe there was just a ridge and maybe there was water washed out. I don't know, maybe it was roughly there. You know, my family and there's another family on the lake. Supposedly there's connected with Lake Lulu, and they use scoops with horses to haul fill to haul you know, I don't know. Maybe they hauled phill that way. Maybe they scooped out, you know, down to the right
where the new two is, there's a hole there. Maybe they were scooped they scooped out and had horses dragged up the hill.
I don't know how tall is it from the left side.
Well, it's hard to say because it falls all the way away from you to the fairway's gone, because it's on it. That's still part of the hill down there. You know, i'd say the twenty twenty five feet maybe when you get off by the fairway.
You know, I was saying, I say, I was gonna say thirty. It's got to be ten yards up, yeah, at least, yeah, maybe more. Yeah.
And there's you know, there's you know, it's you know, when I was when I was a kid, you you know, you could you know, I think you just had a nine iron. I could the grass. The grass was longer and the greens was slower, but I could pop it up and keep it on there. When I was a kid, and you know, now I struggled with a sixty degree open, although if you're it's and the grass is fairly tight down there. If you have a bad lie, though a lot of my older guys will just Texas wedge it
up the hill. They've gotten down where they know how hard to hit that putter and it just goes, it bounces up and you know. And when I was younger, I learned that I skulled a shot and it hit it two thirds of the way up and it pops up. And so so if you have a bad lie that way that that's as supposed hitting a putter, I'm more like trying to slam it into the hill and pop it up.
But so you have ten holes and you have a you have an alternate second hall. Yes, what was the why Why was that built?
Because my customers were, my older customers were starting not to play number two. They'd take a six and they would drive by, and my joke was that they would pretty similar to start driving by my driveway. So it was to provide them was with an alternative because really, if you if you if you're not in shape to climb around too, as long as you're on the ramp, you're fine, and you're on the green you're fine, but it's a little bit of a struggle for every everywhere else.
Even you see these old guys who hate sand traps and then they get they're cheering for the sand trap to catch her because I didn't want to be on the side of the hill. Even though that sand traps not easy for a person to hit out of it. But so so we built this over four or five years, we started to grub this out and we built this and typically yeah, yeah, I mean that's a lot of the seniors play it. The women's league, Women's league plays it,
although there's a lot of them are seniors. Also, it's it's also if you miss it, it's difficult to get on too. It's not you know, it needs there needs to be some more grubbing done around that.
But it would help private turf down there too. Yeah, but that's it's it's hard. Yeah, don't have the huge staff right.
Right well, and the thing too for so that for the green, we had a problem. We tried to make a push up green because all the other greens are push up greens native soil, and I think we had too much clay in the soil. So we've been trying to amend it with sand to try to get a little more woamy. So we've had a little bit of trouble with certain spots down there and the drainage comes through there, and we didn't do a very good job
with the surface drainage either. On the left. I think my construction friend was trying to save me money as opposed to and we tried. We thought we'd try it, and then it really really hasn't worked out.
So being the owner and you know, deciding these things, like how many times have you seen where you've tried to save money with something, but then in the long term, because of either maintenance time or or breaking down, it ends up costing you lots.
You know, because I've been I've been doing it for a long time, and and there's people that come and said, you know, the golfer and said, have you ever thought about doing this? And I go, yeah, we probably even tried it and it doesn't work. It didn't work that time. I can't tell you that if you know, somebody was a little because I'm I'm really open to anybody, you know, I don't I don't care who you are. If you're the fifteen year old that just walk around the properties
said how come we do that? Couldn't you do this? And it's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe that's a
good idea. I'm open to that anything anybody. So, but a lot we have tried a lot of a lot of different different approaches or you know, so it ends up you you pretty much you can go to you hit to go have to go to back to the basics and you know, can you can you top press with the old stole drop drop top wrestlers as opposed to the new style, avoid spending the money on the spinners, or you know, we've or we've this now we've now we've gone to going with fertilizer sprudders and buying bagsand
to top dress more often. You know. So it just you know, there's and you know, and and stuff in the Gulf maintenance that falls in and out of fashion too. Yeah, I mean it's not all it's not you know, there's some pretty much basics, but there's stuff that falls in and out of fashion.
So definitely trend. You know, in terms of what what would you say as an owner, you look back on and laugh most about as you're you know, like I can't believe I thought that work would work.
One of my friends and I were just trying to pull a truck. Pop the transmission popped up. We try to pull with the goods story, pull it into a wall, we pull it into a tree. I mean, it's uh, I'd have to think about that.
Yeah, what's the best decision you've ever made?
Well, there's probably a number of I mean the irrigation system, on the on the golf course side hiring, there's been over the years, there's probably been three or four people that probably became identified with this worked for me for multiple multiple years and became identified with the place, probably almost as much as I I was, and and actually taught me stuff that I wouldn't have learned I don't
think if they got here. So some of it has to do with the people and and but as far as the golf course itself, it was probably the irrigation system. You know. I fight with the computer system, even though now the millennials are going to book everything, so you've got to have the computer system. But I always asked Luann, who worked for me for probably working for twenty years, and like, and she loved the computer to begin with. I was like, I don't know it's so much more work.
It creates like another job. It does not that much better than the paper t sheet, you know. So but people, Yeah, but now you know, now the next generation does everything online. There's no choice anymore.
See I think it takes longer to book something online than to call and book something.
Yeah, but you know, I think it as kids don't like talking to people, That's what that's the thing. They would come, they would book check in and and get their cart and go and not not want to talk to anyone, which is kind of the weird thing I think. But because that's one of the big things about golf is it's a social for you know. I mean, yeah, I mean I was a serious player. I still you know, I still play the ball down. I had call penalties
in myself. But it's a game of fun for people, and you know, that's you know, that's one of the things I think is, you know, as I became I started to look at other people's approach to the game, and you know, people have fun. You know, they bump the ball, they have fun. You know, it's there's a lot of ways that you know, you can you can you can do this, and.
If you could do one project, say cost prohibited, no costs to it. What would you do to the golf course.
I would have bought my neighbor's land that the Nature Conservancy just bought, and I would have built. I would have built another nine hole. That's pretty spectacular rugged land back there. And and and you know, from my perspective, you know, building is way more fun than maintaining. Yeah, that's so that's you know.
We should just go mow out some of those lost holes.
Yeah, well maybe, except I knew where they were.
You know that you can find them.
There's I mean, I I thought there was, you know, I thought I had some some decent holes on the layout that I you know, it's pretty pretty primitive layout. I just working on the fifteen degree rule. You know. I don't know if you you know fifteen degrees you have to That was what the guy told me to put the irrigation system in. Because he did that. He designed it so you have a center line and then you have fifteen degrees on either side, and so that's
as it goes out. That's where your drive is gonna. You know, you can't have it across you know, if you start crossing the fairways, you're gonna start hitting people, or if you have real estate, you're gonna start hitting buildings or whatever. So that was, you know, but I laid out holes. There's still one little short part of three that I think there's like a little little peninsula that's narrow and sits out on a thumb and it
won't have to be long. Could you have a narrow green you're hitting ned, But that's probably not my won't be me if that does that?
So do you do you have kids?
I have three step kids. All of them worked multiple years here. They all care about the place. The oldest one lives in in Amsterdam, and she if she was closer, she said she would she would give a role to try to run it. The second ones just became a doctor, so she's, you know, doing that in paying off.
For for medical bell Harry LOLd, that's cool.
And the youngest one who probably worked here, he probably worked here fourteen or fifteen years. He's getting a PhD in biochemistry at Arizona State and he well, he would like to do it. He'd like to be further along and thinks he could, you know, somewhat remotely. But he's worked inside, he's worked outside he's done. You know, he's done pretty much all the jobs here. So but it doesn't appear that at he started. At this moment, they're going to be I.
Mean, he could be an academic. You could be an ideal job for somebody that wants to be a writer.
Yeah.
Well, you know, you're just right, Well people aren't here, and then talk to people when they are are here.
Yeah, he well, he yeah, he's I don't know, he has this thing. He was going to be like a he was going to be an academic and but now he's you know, and even though they pay you as a science grad student, he's tired of being broke, so he might he might go work in industry for a little while.
So, yeah, it's hard being broke.
I mean it's not like it's not like he's a cruing debt because he's They do pay him, you know, enough to survive.
But that's it. I mean, hopefully I'll keep going. In the family.
Yeah, both the both the girls, the two older ones, both of them are married here. You know, so we had big, big.
Wedd I do you guys do weddings a lot?
We not really, We've done some friends' weddings. You know, there's a couple of people that got married small you know, half hour deals up on number five looking out over the lake up there, and they a couple of people got married up there. But we haven't we haven't moved into that, you know, that market so much, although you know, the ones we put on for the kids were pretty you know, you know, it's like it's a it's like a week of work getting the place ready down here.
So what are the cabins used for now?
There's right now there's seasonal rentals, so the and it's so they rent from May first to November first, and they're not heated. And we blew out the water a couple couple of mondays ago. We blew out the golf course on Sunday and blew out the cottages on Monday. It's pretty much the same people come back, some of these two cottages. Some of the people probably been for forty years, forty five years, so it's kind of like
a little community. The cottage up there behind you, up on top of the hill there at the center, there's a concrete building. It was an ice house for the for the hotel, and then they put porches on. There's another one that was a log cabin. It was they built as a playhouse for my mother, and then they put they put porches on it, and so these people rent it. They have access, I you know, own like eight hundred feet of the lake frontage down in front there,
so they have access to the lake. And some of them golf, some of them don't golf. Some golf a lot, some of them just golf a little.
That's a cool place. Everybody should come by if they're in the area. Drive by. You're in Milwaukee, come here.
Well, I mean, and there's springs down there. If you've never seen a bubbling spring, they're down in the front there, there's bubbling springs.
Yeah, so it's is it bubbling now?
Yeah?
Oh yeah, it's crazy. It's cold.
It doesn't really freeze. Those ponds, little springs don't really freeze. It might get if you got really really cold, weak, you might get a skim, but as soon as it gets back up to fifteen or twenty it comes off right away.
So is it how warms the water in the summer there.
In the springs? I think it's in the forties.
Oh, so I'd say it's really cold.
There was a back in an earlier iteration. We used to water out of the bigger pond down there, and there's a concrete building and and periodically you have to go and clean the filter in there, and so you have to go walk in the pond and and by the time you got done here were not quite numb. But but you get out and you get it's like eighty degrees and you come out and your legs are
really cold. Hit burns like crazy. It's like, yeah, burns like But you know, you had to do it because that was the only and you could only water like three holes at a time, and you had it was all holes and bibs, so you would be dragging hose out and turning them on and so one night you water these three. We almost never watered three and five only only later on we started to bring a gas portable pumped down there.
And three's got to be a drainage issue, hu it is.
We have two, we have three some pumps that are running all the time down there. You know, they're around floats. They don't pump all the time, but this year they were pumping a lot. But you know, some some years you can a pretty hard bone stone at number for number three, and the same thing on five. And if you hear in at the end of the year, you come in and you you know you, if you hit the back part of the green, you're it's it's over. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's a cool place. Everybody should come. So we'll see you, uh hopefully next year at the Steam Steam Shovel. But thanks for taking the time
Well thanks for for asking me.