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 Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, Frida egg Egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm.
About ready to run off the Welcome back to the fridayg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're speaking with the golf architect Trevor Dormer. Trev has shaped features for golf architects like Bill Corr, Gil Hansen, Rod Whitman, and right now he's working on his first US solo project, a redesign of Old Dane Golf Club in northern Nebraska. Now, the big recent development in Trev's career is that he has joined King Collins Golf Course Design as a partner.
This is the firm founded by Tad King and Rob Collins. It's behind courses like Sweeten's, cove Landman and the new reversible Crossroads layout at Palmetto Bluff. We've had Rob Collins on the podcast a number of times. Certainly we consider his firm to be one of the most interesting and dynamic in the business and the fact that it's now known as King Colin's Dormer qualifies as major news in
the world of golf course design. So what better time to bring Trev on the podcast to talk about his new partnership and to get a sense of his approach to golf architecture. So we're going to get into that in a minute, but first a word from our sponsor, Club Champion. Club Champion helps golfers of any skill level play better golf through custom fitted and custom built equipment.
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You can use the code fried egg to get a one hundred dollars full bag fitting with a club purchase, or fifty dollars off any other fitting type again with a club purchase. So go to club champion dot com and book you're fitting today again. That's called frieda egg all one word. All right, let's get to my interview with Trevor Dohrmer. Trevor. First of all, I've seen you refer to yourself as Trevor from time to time. Is it Trevor? Is it Trevor?
Yeah, it's whatever anybody wants to call me. Trev's Trep's quick and easy and short. So I always just say Trevor. I introduced myself as Trevor. But yeah, it's all good. It's no biggie.
So you take a laid back approach to it. Well, in that sense, Trevor would be the appropriate one, because that's maybe the most laid back way to say Trevor. Yeah, why don't we start with the big news here, and that's that you've joined King Collins Golf Course Design or or should I say the firm formerly known as King Collins now known as King Collins Dormer. How did this partnership come about?
Yeah, you know, it's it's kind of been in the works for you know, about a year. You know, Rob and Tad have been getting pretty busy over the long term, and you know, I thought about it for you know, a good six months because obviously, you know, Rob and
Tad are my friends first and foremost. I've been friends with Rob since you know, two thousand and seven, before Sweeten's Cove, before I ended up, you know, working with you know, with Bill and Ben, and when we were in our infancy, in our in our careers, and you know,
we've always just kind of been friends. And so I was nervous when they asked me if I wanted to become a partner, and I just said, you know, I'm I value our friendships first and foremost, because once you get into business with your friends, it can you know, I had to think about that because it's not worth
losing friends over business. But then, you know, I really thought about it, and we we all have such easy going, you know, laid back in styles that that we're we're more conscious about how we are as you know, how we interact with each other. Then, you know, and and I know their their hearts and and you know, we're always it's so I you know, I thought about it for quite a while, and and we all just thought thought about it for quite a while just to make
sure that it was going to be good. And yeah, so you know, it's it's it's going to be a big transition process because you know, I'm still with with Bill and Ben and I you know, and I have this project here in Nebraska, the Old Dane, and uh,
you know, they're my priority. I said that to Rob and Tad, you know, before we decided to kind of get together with King Colin's Dormer, that you know, I got to make sure that you know, Bill and Ben are priority focus and that the project that I'm helping them within the Bahamas torch Key is is the needs are being taken care of. And and then also it kind of ran into timelines don't always work out, but it ran into you know, my own solo project here
at the Old Danes. So you know, Bill and Ben are so gracious and they know that we're all trying to get out on our own and when we have opportunities that we need to take them. So so you know, right now it's I've got a little bit of time to where I can help with you know, start the dirt move here and in Nebraska. And then you know, we still got a really good team in in in
torch Key. They're the same guys from Saint Lucia, So we have full confidence in those guys to where I can you know, get away to take care of some of this stuff here. So so you know that that's kind of a long winded version, but you know, Rob,
Tad and I have always been good friends. I've been huge, huge fans of theirs everything they've been doing, and and I've helped them out on certain projects when when I when I could get out and see them and they're they're just so fun to work with, and so you know, they let everybody just kind of go and do their do their thing and and give them something you know that they don't they don't put any they don't put
any parameters on you. So you know, it's just a it's just a really good fit there and and so that's that's kind of how it how it started. Now things are getting busy and you know, they're getting a lot of inquiries about you know, new projects and stuff like that, just to like it always has been. But we just felt it was probably a good time to you know, without doing side notes to these these clients. Oh,
by the way, we have another partner coming on. We just thought we we got to kind of make this up you know, public. But but it's a it's going to be a long transition before I'm totally you know on with with with them as as and right now I'm helping them with you know, pre planning stuff and just things that I'm I'm able to kind of help with and they're involving me with you know, all the all of that side so right, but yeah, it's good.
So, I mean, one one reason for the length of the transition is that, as you've mentioned, you're very busy. You're working on your solo project at Old Dane in Nebraska, which we'll talk about in a minute, as well as some projects with Corn Crenshaw, with whom you've worked for quite a while. You mentioned Cabot Saint Lucia. That was a project that wrapped up I believe last year or
two years ago. The course is open now Point Hardy Golf Club and that's out in the Caribbean, and and now Corn Crenshaw also have one going in the Bahamas at torch Key. And so is your plan to continue working with Corn Crenshaw for the foreseeable future on projects like this or after torch Key? Is that gonna wind down as your focus kind of turns to King Collins.
Dormer, Yeah, I think it's you know, it's gonna it's gonna wind down as as as my focus. You know, if Bill and Ben ever need me to jump in and help out on anything, I've already let Tad and Rob know that I might have to break away if those guys need something for a short time.
Or great or something.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's it's a it's a it's you know, it's it's pretty special if you know those guys, you know, need help and I can, you know, have some time, you know, It's it's just been an absolute dream to work for Bill and Ben for the past ten years of my career. They've shaped a lot of my philosophy and and and and let me grow in my career. And and you know, I owe everything pretty much to this date to them about you know, where where my path has been and gone. So you know,
it's it was. It was a tough one, right, but you know it's you know, the thing that allows you, the thing that moving on with Rob and Tad or you know, I get a little bit more flexibility to be home with my family. I spent the last majority of my career doing overseas stuff because I'm Canadian and I got a good passport.
So yeah, I mean, you you've worked in Japan, You've worked all over the place. You've been one of the world travelers of the Corn Crunshaw outfit as well as for other architects. You've been in Thailand, You've been, You've been everywhere.
Yeah. Yeah, it's been the vast majority of my twenty years doing this has been like I started, honestly when I was twenty two years old, was when I went to Russia. And I can't even believe it, Nicko. Yeah, yeah, I can't believe anybody hired me to go to you know, overseas and actually paid me money as a twenty two year old. You know, kid, right, but it's just how
it is. I mean, you know, so right now, you know, I got two young boys, they're seven and nine, and they're they're just little savages and and you know they're becoming a little you know, my wife, you know, bless her soul, she's traveled around with me drug those kids, across continents and been with me for this whole time. Like she lived with me for three years and in Saint Lucia two years, in Thailand. She was jumping back and forth when we first had our son in Japan.
I mean, she's she's she's wanting to settle down in our little town of Kimberly. And and same with the boys. They need they need to I always say, they need to go make those friends that they're going to go
to jail with out of high school, you know. So so so that's kind of you know, life, life kind of creeps up on you, you know, and and that's and that's one of the benefits of you know, being able to be with Robin Tad is I'm going to be able to set some of my schedule and I have a vested interest in the company, so obviously I
want to make sure I'm pulling my own weight. But you know, I think moving forward with our projects, you know, I'll have a little bit of a different role, you know, setting up you know, concepts with Rob and Tad and working on all aspects of these projects, dealing with clients, and then when we actually get to break down or break ground, you know, I want to be there to be able to set the tone to to kind of build some of the stuff and kind of work with
the shapers and the construction professionals that we employ and and and give them a good foundation to work off of, and then be able to take off and go home and see my family. So it's going to be a lot of jumping back and forth rather than you know, digging my feed in and living in a place which I just can't do that anymore, which is fine. It's and and and it's it's good. So I'm excited to transition to some of the stuff. And and uh, yeah.
What excites you about what Rob and Tad have been doing as King Collins golf course design before you came on board.
Well, I think it's pretty well known that these guys push some limits, you know, and that and that's the best part they're like, they're just so fun to work with and and I'll tell you, I'll tell you one thing. You know, Rob, when when we build golf courses and when we build features in the dirt, I'm constantly thinking about how a ball is going to hit a feature and roll and get to a certain section of a green.
It's pretty damn tough to know exactly how that's going to go unless you're doing it all the time, right, So we we we try to get it right and then obviously you san cap it and then it gets a little bit better. Some guys kick around basketballs and stuff like that. We've never done that. It's all kind of in our mind and visual, so it's really hard to know that stuff. And Rob and Tad on some of their projects, I've kind of been like, man, I
don't know. That's above my limit of what I think is gonna hold and what I think is gonna actually work when it comes down to mobile grass people playing the course. And yeah, I got to be completely honest. I mean I was like, I don't know if this is gonna work, but I did it because he was very confident, and it works and I've seen it. I've played it. I've hit shots into it where I would not have gone past that in my own comfort level.
And so there's not that many guys doing that out there out here right now, you know, And it's sometimes that's trial and error, but you don't want to have the error. You don't want to be digging up a green, you know, two years down the road. And they haven't. They haven't dug up greens, they haven't done this stuff.
So they're kind of pushing some of my limits. And I think it's actually making me a better constructor of golf and a better designer of golf, and it's kind of opening up different corridors in my mind for what's possible.
And when I started to realize that there's no other firm that I would want to work with other than Bill and Ben, I thought about, okay, well, you know, when Bill and Ben decided to slow down, who am I going to go, you know, try and scrape up a job with, you know, And it's either myself or
somebody else. And I ran through it all in my head and I was like, the only the only guys from a personal notice that these guys are my friends, and I like them, and I get along with them, But as far as architectural side of things, yeah, they're they They actually kind of pushed my boundaries a little bit, which which I think, in turn is going to make what we do in the future way better.
So do you have an example in mind of a feature that Rob and Tad designed and that maybe you helped to execute or put in the ground that you looked at in concept and were like, I don't know if this is going to work, but then it turned out it did work.
Well, Yeah, you know, I can I can say that. You know, it's it's it's kind of controversial green out here in Nebraska, but it's the fourth green at land Man. It's a it's probably a nine thousand square foot green as far as mobile turf, but there's probably two thousand
pottable square feet. And that the how I was building that thing is is you know, I think it was a US open was happening, and it could have been at Wingfoot and we were just kind of looking at some of that stuff and it has It doesn't really represent anything about the wing Foot greens at all, but it was just how the turf gets mowed down so harshly and steeply down those faces and around and back up. And how extreme the outer limits of those greens are.
Yeah, the how Andy and my colleague Andy Johnson, founder of Friday Gandy Johnson wrote, wrote a piece about the unpinnable area of wing Foot Wingfoot's greens. It's kind of like the distinctive feature of them, that there's a lot of area on those greens that you cannot put a pin on.
Yeah, and and and to be completely honest, we never, I never really thought about that, Like we weren't thinking about that. We were just thinking about I always call this when I look at greens. I call it the legs of the green, the sexiness of a green, and how the curves and contours roll over and drape over her, and it's just it's it's the most beautiful part of a green to me. And I so I call it the legs the sexiness of a green, and it's what
stands out mostly when we craft these greens. For me, this is my opinion. I noticed that first and foremost when I walk up beside a green and I'm looking at a side profile of her, or we're off the back and you've you've you know, we focus so much on mishits off the sides of greens and backs and stuff like that. And when a green looks really good and really sexy from all of those angles, you know
that you've got something really special. And this fourth green, you know, I was working at it with Rob, and I could tell that it was going to be good because I would put something in and then Rob would come back and he'd be so excited, and then we would tweak it and make it more. We would just work at it and work at it, and I probably worked at it for two days and then finally we got it and Tad came out and looked at it, and he's like, man, this is good, but you know
it's it's to me. And it proved that that green. You know, a lot of people, I don't know if they really like it or think they can hold it or whatever. It's one of the more from what Will Anderson, the owner of Landman, says, it's one of the more controversial greens out there, and for right reason. I mean, it messes with you. But what I've really found out is that that's a really good tale of good golf architecture.
And I'm not trying to be cocky or whatever. But it's absolutely be true, and we played that this year. You know, I'm a I'm a pretty shitty golfer. I hit when I when I play golf, I hit three ball, four ball, five balls. If I don't like that the shot that I hit, there could be four balls on the green that are mine. And my friends just know it. And I just play that way of golf. I don't
keep track of score. I don't have the time to really get good at golf because you need to be on the course all the time if you want to get your the little number on that scorecard down to a certain number, right. But I do enjoy hitting certain shots, and I can hit them with a few tries. But when I did that, I hit two good shots and I was on the green and I was putt. I could have putt for Birdie granted to one of the shots, I freaking threw off into the woods. But I dropped
another one and hit a good shot too. So it the green works, that the whole works. It's just people either can't figure it out or they weren't good at that time when they played the whole. And you know, it functions, it drains well, there's no flaws to it, and at first when I was building it with Rob, I was a little bit hesitant on it. But you know, that's that's just one. That's one example. This is so interesting. No,
that's great. That's great because it gets at something that I'm interested in with your partnership with Rob and Tad. And that's that I see you as. And you can correct me if I'm on the wrong track here, but I see you as representing a kind of different strain in golf architecture than they do, or at least coming from a different background. Right.
They came up in Gary Player's organization, and their work often strikes me as very influenced by Mike Strands and Pete Dye. And maybe these are architects you love is well, But you have worked a lot with Coren Crenshaw, which is known more for a kind of minimalist and naturalist approach.
So do you think you're going to bring a different point of view to what Rob and Tad are doing, a different set of skills and preferences, or do you see more kind of consonants and similarity between you and the two of them.
I think we're very similar, Garrett. I mean I think, you know, Rob worked for Gary Player for a few years and another art architect previous to that, But you know, I think that was just trying to get into the business, you know, So I wouldn't necessarily say that Rob's philosophy
stems from that. I think, to be honest, like when we were when we were working together in two thousand and seven on that Gary Player project, Rob was showing me pictures of Pinehurst and then he was showing me all of this archite texture that I had no idea about. And at that time it was one of those projects that one or slightly after when we did a little bit of a Donald Ross restoration in Winnipeg, Manitoba, was when I switched. I realized that building cad golf it
was not for me. I've really enjoyed the aspect of being really precise on a bulldozer or an excavator to where im and the architect came out with his laser and took shots. He's like, oh, there we go. It's to plan because it showed a talent that I could hone and work on with a bulldozer or an excavator. But Rob was one of the first guys that was really showing me Mike Strands, look at this, Trevor, look
at this. Check this out. He was really trying to do something different with that project that we did in Cranbrook, BC, and it is it is a little bit different stylistically than other Gary Player projects. And it has to do with Rob and and Jeff Lawrence and then also the guys that were on that crew, like Riley Johns was out there with us and that's where we all met, so we all became really good friends on that project.
So just for a background, that's a Gary Player project in Canada that you were all working on around the two thousand and seven to two thousand and eight range.
Yeah, yeah, and you know, and and there's a lot of guys that stem from that that are still doing really good work. There's there's Ryan Kalinka who worked for Keith and Riley and do stuff with them. And then Dan phil Cox. He's one of Rod Whitman and Keith Cutton's main guys and I've worked with him. So a lot of that stuff came from, you know, that point, and we all obviously grew in our careers and got
got you know, better at what we do. But but I think going back to what your your original question is, I think there's like stylistically and philosophically, you know, I've I've spent more time with Bill and Ben, and Bill. Bill has really taught me certain things that kind of are subliminal in golf architecture. It's hard for me to even explain it to you, Like, like I no matter how many guys try and get into Bill's head, he'll
throw a loop at you. Same thing with Ben, right, he sometimes he'll just gravitate to something, then you'll be way off. You're like, damn, I was way off there, Bill, But you know he can pull a little bit of that and utilize it, and then we can and sometimes you're bang on Bill's like that's that's perfect, that's great.
So I think, you know, one of the things that I'll be able to bring to them is just a different you know, background, like Rob and I and and Tad, but mainly Rob and I have chatted for the past decade and a half at least once a month, and I would say more like every two weeks, like that's how close we've been. And and you know, he even helped us out in Yokohama, Japan for you know, a few six six weeks while I was back home and we were having our first son. So you know, he's
been he's been around it. But yeah, there is going to be I'm hoping I can bring something a little bit different. I wouldn't want to say that I'm just going to bring the same thing because then they're like, well, what the hell do we need you here for? You do the same shit as us, So.
You know, I would imagine, I would imagine your experience shaping features for uh, corn Crunshaw especially, You've worked for a number of other architects as well, not just Corn Crunshaw, but that that experience is very valuable because if you're talking about the best in the business at finish work and at esthetic and tying things in and and the work in the ground, then is there anybody better than than Corn Crunshaw.
Yeah, I mean Bill and Ben. Again this sounds pretty cocky, but they are the best. It's it's it's it's undeniable. There's there's just levels to it. You know. It's and and you know Bill and Ben in the way that they you know, give give confidence to the guys that we worked with. We're like a bunch of we could be a bunch of misfits as guys. You know, like we a lot of us came from different backgrounds. We didn't all come from landscape architecture backgrounds or sitting in offices.
You know, everybody's kind of come in for their certain reasons, and Bill has has gravitated to each one of us and and Ben and and seen something in us. Maybe it was just some spark, and then he's kind of brought us in and help mold us in certain ways. And then you know, also it's you know, he's given us that breadth to you know, create our own style, in our own creativity. And he doesn't ever hold us back saying, oh that was stupid, Trevor, why'd you build that?
He always will joke about something if you get a little bit too crazy, but he won't ever wipe it out completely. He instills a lot of confidence in us, which is that's huge because when you're a young, young architect and you're just trying to get out on your own, confidence is huge, and especially guys that don't have confidence
going into it. You have to be so confident if you're going to try and stand up in front of a board membership and you're in your thirties and they're going to give you millions of dollars to do something special. They have to see something in you. And Build has has done that with and Ben and Scotti our business manager, he's done that with They've done that with all of us, and it's it's I couldn't be more grateful to those guys for that.
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see and designed for ease. Learn more at true golf dot com, slash egg that's t r U golf dot com slash e g G. Check it out. Let's talk a bit about Old Dane, what you're doing right now. In fact, you you came from the construction site to to talk with me, and I'm grateful for the time because obviously you're you're in the midst of a lot of stuff out at Old Dane. First of all, just tell me about the golf course and and what you're doing there.
Well, Garrett, it's going to be the best golf course in the Braskts sand Hill is going to be you just wait, you just yeah, exactly best twelve holes on the planet, now, you know what it's the start of this was kind of interesting. You know. It's stemmed from coming, you know, working out here at Landman for like the ten twelve days that I was here and just meeting Will Anderson. And obviously if you've met Will Anderson, he's such a good guy, very humble, comes from very humble
back farming background, and his family's just great. I couldn't be I couldn't have been more happy, as like said to Robin tad Man, you guys landed one of the best clients out there. And you know I've always had a text thing going with Will a little bit here and there, and then Will you know, he basically, you know, said hey, is there is there any chance that you'd
want to help redo or enhance the Old Dane? And at first I was like, I looked at I only seen it barely from the parking lot once, and then I looked at it on Google Earth and photos and stuff like that.
Much for context. It's like maybe what minute drive away from Landman fin like pretty close, right, yeah, it's one of my colleagues, Matt Ruschius was on the was on the crew at at land Man and uh he uh he and the some of the younger guys would would play out at Old Dane every once in a while they would go out to play some golf. So it's pretty pretty close to land Man.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know Will Will, you know, he he changed that course when he was younger and built some stuff, and you know, he built some different greens and they they just made it and and you know what, it's the greens are kind of cool out here. It's got like side to side across the property. It's dead flat, but they made some valleys and some swales that you know, when Will said, hey, do you want to look at
this and and see what you can do? Well, I tried to get the light our data and and like an aerial photo, but for some reason it couldn't connect to each other. So I just said, you know what, I'm not even going to look at the course. I'm just gonna look at the light our data. So I had a blank piece of paper with light our lines on it, and that's kind of how I routed the course. And it had a driving range, and I was like, you know what, I'm not gonna I don't really want
to waste Like I don't. I'm not a huge fan of driving ranges because mainly I never grew up sitting at the driving range. But some people it's very it's a necessary amenity. But for me, I'm just like, I just want to play golf and it just stems from my style of how I want to play. So I've just routed holes over top of the whole piece of land and I was like, oh, I was like, shit, I got twelve holes and twelve comes back to the clubhouse and six is close to the clubhouse. I mean,
this is kind of good. I don't know how I did it, but it worked. And you know, it's an outer loop and then an inner loop, so you know, I'm I'm hitting all the right boxes. And I did a few other outings just to double check myself, and they weren't nearly as good. And and then I just said, you know what, will I think that this could be good if you're you know, allowing me free will to do whatever we need to do on this thing. And he I sent it to him and he's like absolutely
let's go with this. So that's kind of how it started. And you know, we Will is so good. He knew how busy I was in Saint Lucia and then starting the torch Key project. You know, he said, you know, I said, Will, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get his or any way we can push this back a year, and He's like, yeah, I think we can push it back a year, but our
irrigation system won't go two years. So you know, so you just want to try not to conflict with you know, different projects, and so far we're making it work, but it's never a good timing to try and take on, you know, two projects and two roles. But but yeah, it just kind of came together like that. And I used a lot of the contour that was there because I don't want to just you know, make push dirt
around for the sake of pushing dirt. I want to be conscious about the budget and utilizing the interesting features that we're there, so, you know, and Will has a has a architectural IQ that is very high, so he understands all of these old, quirky features that I've been studying for the past twenty years that I want to you know, instill, not copy verbatim, but some of the some of the hints of certain weird things like at Huntercombe and and you know, Barrick and and just just
those places you know that are that are interesting and people, and just to try and give a little bit of a different flavor to the gulf around here. And we kind of need to write like it's flat. You know, if you try and try and do something a little different, I think it's going to kind of little be it be better received. So at first maybe people won't get some of it, but I think eventually they'll just play the play the game of golf and they'll start to
realize it. And Will is so good about it. You know, we've got some really good ideas on what we're going to do out here, and some concepts that you know aren't very prevalent in Nebraska golf that we're going to instill out here. So he's he's he's on board. He's come up with some really good ideas out there. And and you know, I when I put on the plan,
you know his name is on there. Redesigned by Trev Dormer and Will Anderson, and I wanted it to be that way because I want to collaborate with the owners of projects, and especially Will when I knew he was he worked on the course when he was younger and reshifted some things around, and then he helped build land Man with those guys. I mean, he he's on it.
He's he brings aside to this project where he's thinking about, you know, the player, the guy that can hit shots, execute shots into these things that I'm I haven't been around a lot. So he's he's really kind of showing me that that that direction as well. And and you know, we we think about that with Bill and Ben, but you know we don't. I don't have a player standing beside me being like, oh well what about this, Trevor,
what about this? You know? So I think it's gonna it's gonna be pretty interesting, and I hope, you know, first and foremost, everybody's gonna have fun out there, and and and it's going to be walking only. So Will, Will is adamant no matter how much people are upset about walking only, it's it's you know, it's it's going to be really good that way. So that that releases a few handcuffs for me.
Bety have to consider the cart paths. That's huge. Can you give me a specific on this course of something quirky that you're building that might jump out a players when when they see.
It, Well, we we got a you know, we got a big volcano green.
I mean that thing, that volcano green is like a grain that's kind of elevated up from the surrounding grade that kind of kind of sticks up like a volcano basically, and the green is on top of it.
Yeah. Absolutely, you know, I don't know how high it's going to be yet, if that's a field process, but we're going to make it definitely stick out of the ground. And it's not going to be like a like a Mount Fuji volcano. It's going to be a landform that's definitely higher than the rest of the surrounding area, and then it'll merge and spill down into the set of tees.
It'll spill down off the back. So the landform is maybe it's going to be, you know, a hundred yards wide, and the green is however much yards you know, like it's going to bleed out and connect into the landscape. And and we've taken a different approach already Uh, Jeff Bradley, who works with Corn Crenshaw and has been you know,
one of the one of the key guys. He actually was doing some stuff that sand Hills, just kind of you know, getting stuff ready for winter, and and he was cruising through here and he's like, Hey, I got some time, can I come help you out? And I'm like, we're there. Jeff Bradley's one of the.
Hooker shapers in the world, just just dropping by your project.
Yeah, And and the odd thing. Odd thing is is he's he's just been on a bulldozer. He hasn't been on an excavator yet. He's, uh, you know, he's he's just here to help out. He's he's got a good relationship with the Anderson family because Jeff did most of the bunkers at Landman and and he loves it out here. And so so, yeahs out here helping us out for a little bit of time before he goes back home.
And so and then how we're thinking about the shaping process out here is we've got greens and teas and how the holes are going to kind of fit together. But we're not taking the approach of shaping the holes as a separate hole. We're basically sweeping from the west side of the property and working our way across the whole property as if it's one massive playing ground, and I don't need We kind of have an idea where
grass lines are going to be. Some grass lines have merged into a double fairway just just for the sake of it, just because it doesn't make sense to mow a ten yard wide stretch of either long grass or rough grass. So we've got that. We've got, you know, a par par three that falls away and a partially blind with some sleepers in the front of it. Oh goodness, We've got you know, we've got like whole number ten
is kind of interesting. It's kind of got a higher left side of the fairway, you know, it's a short, short part four and a skinny right side of the fairway, and you can kind of choose your own adventure. It's kind of separated by a valley that was naturally there that kind of runs through where twelve and ten and
all this stuff. So I just kind of used those valleys that I seen on that topo map, not even thinking about where greens are on the old course, and just kind of tried to fit stuff together naturally, and so you know, and some some holes were building, some holes are kind of laying there, and we're just trying to make it. You know, cult always spoke about infinite variety, and that's been two words that have guided and you
know a lot of things. I really try and make sure that I don't repeat stuff, and all of a sudden, I'll build stuff and I'll be like, damn it. You know, you don't even notice it when you're doing it. You do three or four different things on a couple different holes, and you're like, ah shit, I did it again. It's so hard because because that feature looks good and you like building it and it's it and you want to kind of instill it, but you know, it's got to
fit and it's got to make its own place. Sometimes you can get away and do a couple of things on the course. Sometimes it's one time on that whole course that makes that hole memorable. And that's what really we're working hard is to try and really make this course memorable the first time you play it and not you know, get lost. There's so many golf courses out there that you walk off the eighteenth hole and you're like, oh, I made a birdie on what the hell hole was that?
You know? With the bunkers, you know, they're all the same bunkers, they're all you can't tell the bunkers apart, you know. So that's a bit. That's one of my biggest pet peeves. And that's what we're really trying to do out here is make it so that every bunker
is distinct, has its own character. Jeff Bradley and I were talking about that this morning, about a kind of a cool area for a bunkers where they can merge together on two different holes, and they said to Jeff, I said, we have to make sure that the bunkers, the greens and the features. In like five years, if there's a photograph of it, people are going to be like, oh, that's that's a little Dane. And if we do that, we win. And if and if people are having fun
playing it, that's the biggest thing. But if we if we make it distinct unique, which we're really working hard at, we're gonna win.
So, you know, there's something kind of philosophically interesting in what you're saying. When you design a course like Old Dane on a site that is frankly pretty flat from what I can see that this You know, you've kind of alluded to this and what you're saying about it. It's not like the most high potential site for a golf course in the world. People are familiar with land Man. Yes it's nearby, but a completely different kind of landscape.
You know, it can be more different in fact than like Landman is so severe that it's almost hard to have a golf course there. This is a pretty flat piece of property. And you come out of tradition that
takes inspiration from the land. And so when you're trying to build a varied, memorable golf course and you're not really getting any help from the land, what do you do, Like, where do you get your inspiration from for how to shape things and what kinds of features to include when there's not much there in the land itself.
Well, the last thing that I want to do, Garrett, is say I want to build the sixteenth hole at North Barrick, or I want to do the eighth green at sand Hills. That's the last thing I want to do. Now. There might be a little piece of the green at sand and I've never been out sand Hills so I don't know, and I've never been to North Barrack, so I don't know. But there might be a little piece that catches my eye of a certain hole that I've seen.
It's kind of I've computed all of this knowledge and photos into my head and I won't even really know what course it is, but I'll be like, ah shit, I seen a course somewhere in the north of Scotland that had one thing about it that really struck me. And I'll find it and I'll be like, Okay, well maybe there's something like this. Keep it up there, Trevor.
And to be honest of the like, we've shaped one, two, three greens already out here in the past month, and none of them are on that drawing of the old day. None of them are even close. Like they're all in the field riffing. And that's the biggest That's That's basically how what we do is we we kind of have an idea of length, orientation of a whole and then we riff and we just kind of be like, well what do we do here? And I a lot of times I don't We have spots for bunkers, but I
don't think about building a bunker. I shape a lot of the stuff on the fairways and stuff like that, and then we're also thinking about, you know what, other what what other hazards are there. I don't want to build a a sand bunker just because there needs to be a hazard there. We're thinking about multitude of different hazards that we've seen throughout our you know, experience, and that's what we're going to try a lot of times.
Abrupt contour in the fair way can mess with you just as much as a bunker, and it's easier to maintain, so we're really being conscious about that as well. But to be I don't know how many of more of these I got left in my career. It's tough, man like, you can't keep building on flat sites and try and not repeat yourself.
Yeah, that's what I would imagine that. It's really hard to come up with a zillion different ideas. I'm reminded, in fact, of a story that Bill Corr likes to tell about working at Talking Stick building thirty six holes at Talking Stick. Unbelievable pair of golf courses considering what they started with. But at the beginning of that project, Bill was saying to Ben and Dave Axland and everybody else who was working on that project. Guys, if you have any ideas for holes on flat land that you
want to build, then bring him to me. Because we've got to build thirty six holes on nothing. We've got to come up with a bunch of different ideas. And so what you're saying, if you work on flat side after flat site, it's just really hard to keep refreshing that well of ideas because you're not really getting much from the land.
Well, i'll tell you. I'll tell you another thing, Garrett. I've been preparing for this because I've known it's been coming for a decade or more. Because I knew that when I first started getting projects, I'm not going to get the best sites. I'm going to get some shitty sites. And I knew that this was coming. And I studied Buenos Aires Golf Club, the Mackenzie course that they built up.
He built out there. He had twelve feet of fall over top of the whole property, and it was the last twelve feet of fall was like in a short run. And he just started cutting swales and taking water from all different sections of that property to create that interest. And you know this is probably Mackenzie being a bit of a salesman, but he said that the course does not need to be bunkered. It's beautiful the way it is. But he's only putting in a few bunkers because the
owner likes it, you know. So I really that really stuck out to me about a decade ago of how Mackenzie did it on a not spectacular rumpled rolling land. And I studied it and studied it and studied it and thought, okay, well that's that's definitely the way to create interest is to dig swales and to move. If you cut two feet on a flat fairway and fill two feet, you've got links land, you know, small rumpled links land, which is.
It's just like the dirt kind of moving dirt from one place to another. And you do it a few times and all of a sudden you got and.
Then you move your way, move your move your water off the fairway, get it out of the way. It's it's it seems simple, but then you also have to be very particular in how you shape the ground. A lot of guys, especially in the eighties and nineties, they rolled down the fairway and on the sides and went off the left hand side and down as you would
play the golf. Well, we know what that produces, right, So I've learned from some of the best guys on bulldozers to have to have done this, And one thing I noticed is they kind of work in diagonal fashions or sideways. Rod Witman was the first guy that I
kind of took notice to that. Rod shapes a lot of stuff sideways and kind of carves out swales sideways, and then he kind of hits it a little bit differently and and and you have to work yourself in maybe not all different directions, but it different direction from the line of play otherwise. And that doesn't mean that you can go and move dirt and do a finished grade in the line of play if that's what you're
looking for. But you got to be make sure that you're keeping yourself random, because you know, you can look at a lot of modern links courses, even some of the best courses out there, and you can I can tell where the guy went in there and with his bulldozer and then went, you know, ten yards to the
right and built up a little thing. And it's like all these especially aerial photography, you can see it all throughout these these supposedly random rolling train and then they've made it not random and they're some of the best courses in the world. But it's not a negative thing. It's just something that I don't want to do. I want to make sure that it's like, you know, you're
not thinking about that. So a lot of times I put music in or a podcast and it's I'm focused on the podcast and it's just subliminal, and that really helps me not to focus too much on exactly what I'm doing, and then you you know, end up with happy mistakes that you can work off of when you actually get out to focus.
That's interesting. You like to remove your kind of internal editor when you're doing some of this stuff big time.
Yeah, And this is just my process. I'm not saying it's the best or there's there's there's guys out there that are way better than me at this stuff. But I just have this process where I want to make sure that I'm not repeating and I'm doing stuff random and I'm not thinking about it. I'm not being too conscious about making you know, a bunker at Saint George's Hill or you know, and that's the there's so much golf out there, and there's so much of everything, it's
kind of hard not to replicate stuff. I I want to say that. I'm you know, there's there's a bunch of architects that out there that that profess that it's all been done before in some way, shape or form, So you're not going to get anything new or innovative.
Maybe I'm I'm speaking saying it differently, but I even though it probably is true, I can't in my head, I cannot refuse to believe that, because that's how you just get stifled and that that's that person who's very well known and these architects that are very well known with that it's all been done before. It's you're just
doing something in one way, shape or form. Even though it's probably true there's a lot of golf out there, I just can't allow myself to think that way because then you get kind of stuck at that wall of thinking, oh, well, it's all been done before. Maybe I should start copying or replicating stuff, and I don't. That's the last thing I want to do. So you know, a lot of times I take inspiration from like mega dune sites on Google Earth. I have two different sites that are that
are in random parts of the world. No golf is even close to it, and the dune systems change quite frequently from year to year to year to year to year. So I've got probably ten years of things where I've you know, I've done full routings on a dune site out in the middle of the ocean, just to keep myself fresh and to see something differently, and luckily enough, the aerial imagery of this kind of gets you down and you can see it like when Google Earth is
really good, you can see undulation. This place is probably some of the best golf if you were to build on it, which would never happen. But that's where I start taking some inspiration from playing holds backwards on the stuff forward sideways and you know, so anyways, I haven't heard about that approach before.
That that's interesting. You're kind of finding random non golf places, like pieces of terrain in the world that you can look at digitally, and that that provides some inspiration.
And it's helped me so many times. My last my Leado entry for whatever twenty twenty one was that this is the.
Leado contest where people draw draw imaginary golf holes and one is selected the winner or there are finalists and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, and you know, I had, you know, kind of an idea of wanting to kind of do something like Elbocron in Argentina, McKenzie's course that was never built.
But right, yeah, like crazy reverse you know, how many holes with how many greens. It's you know, there's a real like a reversible kind of element to it, or greens are played into from a variety of different directions.
Right, yeah, it was. It was an eighteen old course with nine double I'm not sure if it was meant to be reversible or not.
But just like Andrew's but but not laid out out and back more around.
Right, yes, yes, correct, and and and it didn't. And it was for a private you know, a private you know, a private course for an estate, and so there's zero safety so you basically walk off the green hit your next ball. But I kind of thought about that, and I was like, I got so I was kind of not jaded by the fact that you can build this fantasy golf hole for the lido whenever, and it could be the best of the best, but it never relates to how you would lay it out on an actual
golf course. So I did a routing for this, you know, a bocron style routing, and and I picked how two of the holes, well four of the holes interacted together. It was a double green. One played into it from the side as a par three, and the other one played into it from you know, from the south to the north. And then it showed how you teed off when you crossed chrisscross that and went to sixteen and
to five, you know. So you know that's and and and I got my inspiration from that from a natural site that I'm not going to give up.
This is your special site. You can't tell anybody about it.
This is yeah, yeah, yeah, and and and the biggest thing about it is it's very good imagery, so you can kind of you can walk the land, which is really cool. So so I go there sometimes a lot of times it's it's you know, certain things that I want to do. And that's you know, with Will Anderson out here, he's he's he's just given free reign. He might kind of be like, ooh, I don't know about that trip, but let's try it out, or or he might find a crazier idea than me. I'll be like,
oh shit, will you know. But that's what's so good. And you know, I never would have done this project if it with it wasn't for the Anderson family. The client was the first and foremost reason why I did it, because if it was another client that couldn't let me just breathe and and just feel at home on this property and with the team, I wouldn't be successful, because
you know, that's the last thing. When you're trying to really focus on bringing a client the best property or the best golf course that you possibly can, and then there's peripheral stuff that you got to deal with, it just doesn't doesn't work out well. And and so far out here, you know, it's been really good. We got you know, some of the farm boys from the Anderson
farms that are helping us out. You know, yeah, we got Corey and Matt and Steve the superintendent, he's he was on a bulldozer, you know, working with us, and all these and you know Tom, and it's just so great, you know. And then we've got a really good irrigation contract or, ev I Irrigation. They're doing They've just done such a great work with the wet Well so far, so we've lined up all of these, you know, good people to work with, and so far it's really getting
you know, it's really being cohesive. Now next year when we're into the thick of it, there might be uh, there might be a few clashes, but we always get through that.
Well do you do you You've worked with some great architects obviously, do you ever find yourself now that you're the boss on a site kind of stealing tricks from Bill Corr or Gil Hans or Rod Whitman in the way that you're interacting with your crew. Do you ever think about how how those architects kind of direct their crew work with their crew and try to apply some of that to how you're acting on site.
Well, yeah, you know, I've been on the receiving on the receiving end and friends with shapers that you know have you know, criticisms of how architects work with them. So I'm very conscious about that now that I'm in this role.
So what's the worst thing a golf architect can do to a shaper?
Well, we have we're as shapers are creative, we have big egos. Sometimes if you don't cut if you don't smash it out. So we have these egos. So you know what Bill and Raw and Dave Axlin and Ben have always preached for the past ten years is don't get married to that, and you do you get married to Why would I build something and present it to somebody like Bill if it wasn't my best flip and work, I wouldn't. So now your best work comes up to
be the chopping block. And let's just say, you know, if if Bill likes you know, half of it, I'm like, oh, okay, that's good. He likes none of it. You just sink, you know, and it's natural.
I mean, yeah, that's that's what happens.
Yeah, And it's a it's a lot of pressure when one of the best golf course architects is like, yeah, I think we need to go a different route. Well what do you like of it? Well? Nothing, you know, so you have to have and then and then you just realize you're working with these guys and it's so free flowing and we we jump in and out of and that's one thing, is we moving forward. I don't
really consider myself the boss. I just you know, I help direct people and if I'm very adamant about doing something because I see a mistake about to happen, then I'll interject. But I really Bill has taught us to be like, you know, just do what you guys do best. You're the professionals, and I'll just kind of come in and you know, guide and direct, just like a shepherd, you know, like that's what Bill is is a very you know, he's a good shepherd of how to keep people.
He doesn't really force people or get people into the lane. You know, we don't have lanes. We just have you know, highways that we kind of need to stay on. And so so I've really learned over the years how to how to be well. It's always a working process on trying to be humble as you can, but try to be humble in what you're trying to do and to recognize that the people that are doing stuff, if you don't portray your idea properly, they're not going to get
it right. And then how do you say to that person who spent time doing a good job, how do you say, you know, that's probably not right. And I always put it on me like saying, hey, guys, I have no idea what I'm doing here, but let's just try and get something so we can work off of. And that isn't that is my process. That's a lot of our processes. We're field based architects, don't. We don't conform to preconceived notions, even when we've walked the site
for that much. There's only a few special sites where you have these preconceived notions, and that involves sand hills. You know, it's it's where you do not want to mess up anything and you know you've routed something special over it. That's when you have preconceived notions of what this and even that it's minor adjustments to make it playable for golf.
So so Trevor, you're you're kind of I don't know if you see yourself this way, but but you're part of a current wave right now of golf architects who have spent years shaping for some of the top names in the business still the top names in the business, but these former shapers now kind of solo architects are now getting their shots at projects. And so i'd include you alongside people like Kyle Franz and Brian Schneider and Blake Conant and Jimmy Craig and Ky Golby and Riley
Johns and Keith Rebb. There's sort of this cohort that is now since the golf course development industry is in a surge right now now getting their shots, and I've been really interested to see the work coming out of this new wave. And I'm wondering if you think that this kind of rising generation of architects should try to distinguish themselves from Corn Crenshaw and from Tom Doak, from
gil Hants. Should they be intentionally trying to do something different, fresh and new, or should it be more of a continuation.
Well, you know what, I don't really I mean, thank you for including me in some of that. I have no idea how the hell that happened, or even if it's true, I don't really Well, you're building.
Your basically your own golf course right now. You're totally rebuilding a nine hole golf course, turning it into a twelve hole golf course. A lot of young architects out there would really like to build a twelve hole golf course.
Yeah, that's true. I do feel blessed at to be in this position. And but you know, those are some big names, and I've looked up to those guys for a long time and seeing a lot of their work, and I'm just like always blown away about how good those guys are. And I it's hard for me to be even considered in that conversation. But I'll get off
of that. I don't, you know, I asked, you know, I walked around with mister Kaiser, Mike Kaiser for three days which was pretty special in Saint Lucia, and chatted with him about this and I said, hey, you know what you know? He's like, so, what are you going to do? Are you going to get out on your own? At some point? I'm like, I'm just happy where I'm at and this is great being able to work with Bill and Ben. And I'm like and asked him, I said, well,
what do you you know us guys? Do you know we've taken all of this knowledge that we've gained from Bill and Ben and I don't I don't want to do the same stuff that Bill and Ben do. I mean, that's them. You know, we're helping build their designs and we're we're assisting them, and they're gracious enough to give us some free reign on some stuff, but they're really it's there. It's always their designs. None of it is
really our design. But I don't necessarily want I mean, it would be highly flattering if in ten years, you know, we're doing as good of work as Corn Crenshaw. But I want to do something different, just personally, stuff that I've thought about in my head, an expression of me and and you know, my new partners Rob and tadd to be something that's an expression of us, not necessarily what Bill and Ben would haven't and I would hope the same goes for other guys. I think we need
to do that in order to advance golf architecture. You know, we get there's so many different stages of and eras of golf architecture, and you know, I never really thought about it, but I think you're right. You know, I think as you know, some of these guys that are in their forties and thirties and fifties are coming out of these certain different schools. I would just hope that they do do something different so that we can advance
things we don't and not for the worst. I think it's like we've seen a dark era of golf architecture. And we've seen the Golden era of golf architecture, so we have two different eras to learn from. And I think that the dark era should be studied just as much as the Golden Age of golf architecture, and then the little bits in between, just to make sure that
we're not going back, and I think we can. Can you imagine if we if you know, the sand Hills of Nebraska gets five more golf courses, that's not it can it necessarily be unless somebody does something different on every piece of that ground. You're going to play all five of those courses and you'll be like, Okay, well I'm playing the same but I just want to play
sand Hills because it's the best. You know, if you're in that zone and you're building good golf of course lay Land and you do, you know, it's it's going to be the same feel and style, even though it's amazing. But I don't. I think we need to kind of differentiate ourselves and kind of do do something different than you know, what Tom and Gill and Jim and Bill and Ben and those guys have done. I think it would be disservice to them if we didn't do something that's expressively ours.
Yeah, yeah, well, and you may not have an answer to this question. I think it's an unanswerable question. But I've been wondering where that difference is going to come from, because in terms of process, it seems like you, especially as well as other architects from your general generation that I've spoken to, you're devoted to the design build method
and working in the field. And that's something profound that you all have learned from Bill and Ben and Tom and Gil, and you've learned how to do that really well. You know, the design build method has been burnished to a shine by this era of golf architecture, and it seems like everybody's carrying that on and believes in kind
of the religion of working in the field. But the difference has to come from something else then, I guess, because the process is going to be simple similar, You're not going to go back to design contract and you know, designing from an office it doesn't sound like. But how then do you differentiate your architecture from the past generation. Is it by introducing more bits of artificiality, not blending
everything in? Is there something there? Is it by looking at different influences different sources of inspiration than perhaps Bill and Ben and Tom and Gil would have. And I'm talking about these architects in the past tense. They're still working, they're still doing amazing work out there, but cant do you have some way of starting to answer that question of where the difference in the new architecture is going to come from?
You know where that you know where this is going to change and where we're going to be well where and this is kind of a little bit off off, but you know where we're going to get really screwed is aire where it's going to It's going to change what we do. And I don't know how much time we got, but think about this. The most complex part of golf architecture is the routing. There's very few people
that are good at it. You can go and look at any any city in America and look at a plan view of it, and you can pick out flaws in the routing easily. Whether they've shaped wholes parallel to each other like this, and then at the end they've changed it and come back. That's a massive flaw. And a lot and and a lot of those golf architects. You know, either we're just recently practicing or still are practicing.
And that's that's really bad. But if you get AI and compress that into build me a routing of a well there you go.
Build me a thousand routings.
Build me a thousand routings. Is here, here and here, and and I'm going to change where the pump station. We're going to change where the lake is. Boom computes and then to this sounds this sounds horrible. But then any young guy that has the computer skills can just talk, you know, and and and you have to have you know, knowledge, can upload that and to talk to a contractor. All these contractors will uh, you know, if the owner, the ownership might even just do it. You know, I want
to build a golf course. I'm going to get this contractor to plug my AI routing into their GPS system. Ye, the bulldozer guys get it to rint and it's fricking close. And and that's what scared the ship.
Maybe not maybe the maybe the bulldozer robots.
Right, Well, well that's that's that's right, But that's what scared the ship out of the Atlito. And and from what I understand, it's still happening now whether or not this is a sci fi reality of something that's going to happen in the future, I don't know. I still think that there's going to be there's going to be a space for the craftsmen that like like like us, that are are there to put I don't think we'll get left out because there's something that you know, robots
and AI won't be able to do. I'm a firm believer in that are our brains are far more complex and AI and and our creativity and the human beings are far superior to whatever AI can produce. But as far as getting it started, there's going to be guys out there that figure that out, which are far smarter than I am at computer and drawings. They'll plug it into a computer, get the best, get a bill Core routing, a bill Core tom dope breed of a routing, and
then they'll get it. Then they'll paint it with the best bunker placement for the demographic of golfer that is going to play that course, and then they'll highlight it. And then you get an agronomist in there and he'll tune the turf up better than Shinnecock. And there we go you got one of the best golf courses in the world, and you know who's rating it. Well, that's a different subject.
Butting it, it won't be me anymore, all right, I'm not going to be.
We're laughing about this and we're taking this into into the future. But I think there's got to be given some space for AI and the routing process on a topographical map, for just fluidity, and it's going to keep like there's so many things that are so complex when it comes to routing. You want to think about wear paths, you want to think about cart paths, you want to think about times, you know, tea times, and how they're going to move. Is there a slowdown effect in that routing?
Maybe not a jam, but is there a slowdown? How can you mitigate that all of these factors are going to get into something to where it's a seamless, free flowing course that is like highly profitable because golf courses don't make a shit ton of money nowadays, even the best ones. It's like profit at the end of the year. Isn't amazing, isn't like millions and millions of dollars? You know, it takes a lot and it's a passion kind of
product project for these these owners. Some of them really do, depending on if you're in the Hamptons and you got really rich, you know, private clubs, but but you know, public golf courses don't don't do nearly as well.
Right, So, so regarding the AI thing that you're mentioning, right this this is in your response to my question about where is the difference in the new generation going to come from? And so is the difference that that new architects are going to find ways of working with AI to produce new kinds of things or are the best new architects going to be the holdouts against the AI wave, the architects who insist on the kind of
human approach to architecture. Because I've been thinking about this myself from my perspective as a writer and a podcaster, because there are products right now, AI driven products that can replace a lot of the functions that I am responsible for. It can write things much faster than I do, It can come up with it, it can learn my voice and probably produce podcasts where you know, it's there's someone who sounds a lot like me interviewing someone who sounds
a lot like you. And maybe it'll get to a point where people can't really tell the difference. And so my conflict has been do I work with our new robot overlords and try to become optimized as a human that way, or do I say no, I am going to be human and flawed, and I am going to make that the thing that is different about me. Because everybody else is going to give in to the AI. I'm going to hold out, and there are going to be people who still.
Want that I'm holding out, Garrett. That's just not fun. Man. Like building golf courses what we do. And that's another thing that the best golf courses that are built are because the team that built it had fun. You can tell they had fun. If you're following the build, you can tell they're having a good time. They're ripping back and forth at each other on social media nowadays, but if we didn't have social media, you could, you know,
call each other up and whatever. But that's the fun part of it, is the interaction between humans building it and the collaboration part of building a golf course, like collaborating with everybody building a golf course. Sure you can, you can, you know, be a you know an Ai dweeb sitting in his basement building these best golf course routings and then build it and get all this you know, acclaim for building one of the best golf course. But
did he have fun? No, he let somebody else do it, so or she let somebody else do it, let Ai do it. So you're just going to be and unless they hide it, but I don't think he can, you know, so just you know what we're I'm holding out. I'm going to do this until I'm old and gray or
or crippled. But you know, it's just so fun. I really, you know, in the past twenty years, there's been maybe a few times in my whole life, even on the shittiest rain days or snow days, where I've woken up in the morning and been like, damn, I don't want to go out there today generally, and I'm being very honest. I wake up every morning and whether it's bright, sunny, thirty degrees or ninety degrees, and I'm like, frick, I can't wait to get out there. So that to me
is a dream. And the people, you know, people that I've done jobs where I've just been like, oh, I got to go and do this, and I can't, I physically can't. But building golf courses, designing golf courses, there's so many different facets to it, so many different things you can do within a day or within a year or months. That just makes so much variety being fun and different things. It's it's it's amazing. Yeah, I love it. I love it to death. It's it's it's it's a passion.
And you know, I've never ever would have thought of myself being in this industry. I was. I used to fly fish and snowboard and and skateboard. I didn't want to do golf. Golf was just something that my dad and his buddies did on weekends. And you know, before I started this, I wanted to be a war correspondent, you know. And so I the only reason I'm doing what I'm doing right now is because I had to pay for school, because you know, I didn't grow up
in a very wealthy household. And my first job was working construction on a golf course and just realizing, hey, these shaper guys travel the world without getting shot at. Maybe that's the way to go, you know. So so yeah, well, yeah, my mom liked it.
Yeah right, I'm sure she was. Yes, golf course construction. If you're going to go to Russia, at least be on a golf course.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, so so yeah, I don't know. It's it's it's been a ride, man, it's been great. It's been so fun.
Are there any ongoing or upcoming King Colin's Dormer projects that we should be aware of. I know you've got a lot on your plate right now, but are there some plans coming together for the next few years, things that we should look forward to with this this new supergroup that you all have.
Yeah, there are we can't really there's some we can't talk about. But the one that's really exciting is seven mile seven mile North. Nothing is going to be unbelievable.
So this is out in Tasmania working with Matt Gogin out there and his group, a little spit of land not far from the Hobart International Airport where Mike Clayton and Mike DeVries have been building the first golf course King Collins Dormers doing doing the second one. Sandy Land right next to the ocean.
Pretty cool, very very sandy. And what's what's cool about it is it's very different than Clayton Debris and Ponta's site. It's got some really cool, longer rolling terrain, which you know, I can imagine, you know that the artistry that Mike and those guys had to do out there, especially when you get a lot of choppy dunes, there's a lot of manipulation you still have to do to make golf holds work. And they did a fantastic job from the from the photos that I've seen and foot Robert and
Tad have told me and showed me about. So yeah, that one, I'm very excited. I mean, they can't speak highly, you know, highly enough about Matt Gogan. So that's again that's one one of the things that you have to get right is your client and your owner and and make sure he's on board with everything that you want
to do. And and you know, and then you know, Rob and Tatters are still working on their Bounty Club course, which I'm not necessarily a part of at all, So that was done previous, and I'm doing the Old Dane which is previous to it, you know, our partnership, and then you know the twenty one Club in you know in South Carolina, there I mean, that thing's going to be pretty cool too. So we're just kind of, you know, we're all really excited to get going on that. And
it's all just about timing, right, you know. There's a lot of stuff coming in and we just are making sure that we're available and that we can put all of our best foot forward and we can all be available on all these sites together or separately at one time or another to where you know, we're we're getting the best out of the site and and ourselves. So but yeah, there's there's some big ones coming up, I'll tell you that, some really big ones, and it's it's
pretty exciting. But we we've you know, we've pushed some of them back, you know, just to make sure that we can finish things and that I can get finished with what I'm doing out here and and that, and then we can make sure that we get it the attention that we need. So but it's exciting, man.
Cool. Well, thanks for coming on the podcav and and good luck with everything you're working on.
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it, Garrett, and I hope we didn't ramble too much for this thing, not at all. Time to get excited on some of this stuff.
So rambling is the brand. Here is the is the goal.
Scrambled egg.
That's quite good, the rambled egg. Let's leave it there.
Thanks trev cool Man, Thanks appreciate it.
This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you enjoyed this kind of deep dive into golf architecture, I can just about guarantee that you would like what we're doing in Club TFE. A lot of our exclusive content in Club TFE has
to do with golf courses, in golf course design. We have weekly course profiles, which are in depth analyzes of what we consider to be very interesting or great golf courses, and we also have a weekly feature called Design Notebook, which basically keeps you up to date on everything going on in the world of golf architecture. Certainly in this upcoming Design Notebook, we'll be talking about Trevor Dohmer and
his work with Tad King and Rob Collins. So again, CLUBTFE, the Frida Egg dot Com slash membership, that's where you can find out what else we're offering within clubtf is not just content, so I think that you should check that out and if you do, thank you so much. Thank you also for listening to this episode, and we'll be back again soon with another