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, frid egg egg, Frida egg brid egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and I am fresh off a wonderful week at weekend at Cyprus Point. Doesn't get much better than the Walker Cup there. Uh this year, it was just really cool to see, uh the event happen. I guess has uh you know, I think he'll probably be the only, uh'd be the only live golf.
Event that I attend at Cyper's Point in my life.
So it was really cool to see uh it there meet a ton of people. You know, it's just a lot different than your normal golf event in the sense of how the crowd interaction with with you know, media obviously, but the players and you know, no ropes.
It was super fun. It was a great week.
We'll get into that more on this podcast. I'm bringing in Garrett Morrison, who is the head of our golf architecture content here at at Friday Golf, and we're going to talk about the Walker Cup is Cyperus Point as well as the Ryder Coup venue Beth Page at the back end of this. So super exciting to chat about this with Garrett, who I'm sure has some thoughts from
watching on TV this weekend. But it was a wonderful time out there and very very thankful that the the USGA and Csiper Point had this event, the Walker Cup. I think, you know, it's funny, it's like a weird spot and we'll get more into this, but a weird spot in the sense it's like not one of their marquee events in terms of like how they've commercialized the Men's and Women's US Open, but in terms of quality of venue and players an event in format, it's about
as good as it gets in all of golf. So I'm curious. I'm you know, I'm just very interested to see where the Walker Cup goes the next two decades. But I'll tell you what, for more than three decades, for more than thirty years, this is our partner, Mercedes Benz. Mercedes Benz has supported golf around the world from partnering with the most prestigious major championships, tournaments, and players in
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in their partnership here this year. Let's get to Garrett Morrison now and let's talk Cyper's Point and Bethpage. Garrett, welcome out. How are you.
I'm doing great? How are you doing? Andy?
I'm doing all right.
I'm I'm kind of like coming down from a very packed weekend. It was I think you would you would have loved it. I don't want to rub it in here that you weren't there.
But yeah, it was just like how did that happen?
The audience and the crowds there, It was just like a felt like almost like a festival of people that love golf.
So in a way for sure, Yeah, in a.
Way, I'm like just like extremely like burnt out, and I feel like toast from conversating with with so many people about golf from like sun up to sundown, uh and late end of the night, all weekend long, but also on a high of really, I you know, in terms of cool golf events that I will attend in my life, that is that is up there, and obviously this year's Masters is up there, but that event just from the hole where it was being played, they got
absolutely stunning weather and in Cypress Point. Just spending three three straight days on Cypress Point was just such a pleasure and treat How did you? How were you? How did you feel about it? With the with television and watching from home?
I thought it went well. I thought the course showed well on TV. I wasn't exactly sure whether it would really come through on TV as well as it did, but they did a pretty good job of portraying what the course looks like. And I think also that if you compare the way the course popped on TV for this Walker Cup to how it looked at the old Crosby's and at the nineteen eighty one Walker Cup, I think you gain an appreciation for how well the work that Corn Crenshaw have done in the past several years
at Cyprus Point has gone. The course looks a lot better now. The work that they've done in the dunes, kind of stripping away some of that vegetation and exposing the white sand, has just been huge for the esthetics of the golf course. And so I think that's one thing that came through really clearly on TV. The bunker work looks great, the dunes look great, The course pops on TV, and so I was really glad to see that.
Yeah, especially with the weather that they got. I will say, you know, a lot of people that I talked to that hadn't been out there in a while mentioned how good the dunes look compared to the last time they were out there, and massive difference an area that they've really focused on in recent years.
Yeah, it's it's a big difference from what I saw when I lived in the area. I lived basically right right there for a while and used to walk by the golf course look at the golf course all the time, and the way the dunes look now is way different from how they looked ten years ago. So big kudos to the club, Big kudos to the ground staff that has kind of taken care of that. I think they've
they've been working with Earth Sculpture as the contractor. They've done excellent, excellent work there kind of maintaining that native environment. It just looks great.
On Saturday night, you know, I was out there all day Saturday. What I did was follow two matches and like one in the morning, one through eighteen, one in the afternoon one through eighteen, and you know, then kind of sat around and hung out with some people all night on Saturday, and then all of a sudden the replay came on. And what was amazing to me is like the group there was a fairly large group of
us just then became entranced by the replay. There's all people that had been there that day, and then watching it on TV was truly stunning. I thought the thing that worked really well. And I think I can just imagine just some passer by on Golf Channel that maybe maybe didn't know this event was happening, maybe didn't know a ton about Cyprus Point the drone shots of the Peninsula of six seventeen were unbelievable, and I was, you know, I was.
Out there by Golf Channel. I mean they did their thing there.
Yeah, they did.
It was they had They had one of the new new drones too. You know obviously somebody I fly drone occasionally, and you know it was I was. I was looking at it. I had, I was close enough to see it. I was like I was a brand new drone and it showed like the the it was so crisp, and I just like I found myself when I was out there, but more so almost on TV with those drone shots. You know, this is a golf course. I've looked at
a million times in my life. When I'm watching this television product, even you know myself, I'm just I just couldn't believe.
I can't believe that.
The course exists like that, that the golf course is on that land, and how it's just like this coastline just seemingly when you see it from up high, appears just perfect for golf.
That's the thing about Cypress Point is that it does seem to occupy this realm of fantasy, almost like if you were to invent a piece of land for a spectacular golf course. This would almost be what you'd invent. You'd have some forest holes, you'd have some dunes holes, and you'd have spectacular cliffs, and you'd say, it's unrealistic that you could find a piece of land that has all those features, and you know, puts the designer in a situation where he or she can use all of
those features. But that's exactly what happened with Cypress Point and Alistair Mackenzie, and it's part of what makes it such a remarkable golf course. Yeah. I mean, the drone
shots were awesome in and of them. They were beautiful to look at, but there was also a really good directing and production choice that Golf Channel made, which was when the matches got to the fourteenth green and were transitioning away from the fourteenth green, Golf Channel made a choice to basically stop the flow of their coverage and have that drone follow the group from the fourteenth green to the fifteenth tee. The announcers went silent and just
allowed the imagery to do the work. And it was one of the few moments, aside from maybe when somebody wins the Masters, like Tiger Rory wins the Masters, and they have that wonderful walk that everybody loves from the eighteenth green to the scoring area. One of the few moments in a golf telecast that I can remember when everything was silent for a minute and you were just being asked to look at the golf course and to observe how incredible that walk from the fourteenth green to
the fifteenth tea is. And obviously there is something special about that green to tea transition, something unique about it that can't be replicated by telecasts of other tournaments. But it made me think about how this could be a way that a tournament broadcast could show a golf course to an audience. Just take a break every once in a while and have a drone kind of follow the route of the golf course and show some of the features, because it really gives you a vivid sense of what
the course is like. And it's something that they can do now because they can incorporate these these drones into their array of cameras. So I just wish that we saw this more, We had more of these kind of moments of reflection when we aren't seeing golf shots, we aren't going from putt to putt to put to putt, we just stop for a moment and familiarize ourselves with
with some golf hols. I think that would be something really cool that I don't think they're gonna do because I mean Cyper's point is is a very particular course and maybe they won't be inspired to do this at other courses. I just liked it and I thought, you know, I wish I saw more of this.
You know, obviously this would work some places, maybe not others. I don't think, you know, TPC Craig Ranch is going to be able to do that kind of move.
Who knows after the after the renovation by by House.
Sutton, you know, Lanny Lanny, Lanny.
Watkins us right, it's not how Sutton. Sorry, don't mean to defame hol Sutton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, after after the Lanny renovation, might be might be worthy of it.
But I do think there are places that this could work really well, at say the Masters, where it could be neat, especially depending on the circumstance.
I mean Nick has done something like you know, yeah.
But this could work really well.
And I think it where it would work really well is where you have a situation where a team has kind of or a couple players have have got Walker Cup Brain team, a couple players have separated themselves when we get these great kind of showdowns, and it's not like we need to see the guy that's in fifth place make a birdie to pull himself within six with four to go, you know, but where you can show a really nice transition of maybe twelve to thirteen, or
probably the best one out there would be even thirteen to fourteen or eleven to twelve. And I think, you know, holding on those shots allowing the audience to get a feel of the tournament. And what it does is it kind of simulates how you feel at the event when you're watching, and that that kind of tension that exists when you're in person watching these shots unfold, right, There's like a silent tension that comes in as players go through their routines and get ready to hit the shot.
You feel that anxiety of the moment. And I think that's something with with golf telecasts. And this is something you just hit on that I had never really thought of, But that's something in golf telecasts because of and listen, I get like, show more shots, show more shots, show more shots, but there is something to allowing somebody to sit in the tension that has been missed a lot of times in particularly big moments are over big shots.
It's just proper storytelling. Yes, it does convey the feeling of being at a tournament. When you're at a tournament, there are a lot of silent moments. When you're playing golf, there are a lot of silent moments, and so it would give the feeling of an actual golf round or watching an actual golf round. But more than that, proper storytelling involves an ebb and flow of tension. Sometimes there is slackening tension. Sometimes there needs to be a moment
of silence or kind of low activity. And Cyprus Point embodies this principle of storytelling itself because within that golf course you have moments of low tension and moments of high tension and high excitement. So mackenzie was aware of this storytelling principle and incorporated it into his ideas for Cyprus Point. And I wish, yeah, I wish tournament telecasts would kind of go to school on those longstanding principles of storytelling and say, yeah, we don't need to be
jumping from to golf shot. I think when golf fans say that they want to see a lot of golf shots, that they're not actually saying we want as many golf shots as possible to be packed into as little time as possible. I think they're saying, we want fewer commercials, and we want fewer CEO interviews. We want less irrelevant stuff, we want less non golf stuff. We want the golf to be the star. But to make the golf the star, it's not just about showing a lot of golf shots.
It's also about having these moments of reflection where you can familiarize yourself with the venue, the golf course, the design, and the atmosphere of a golf tournament. And yeah, I crave that kind of stuff. I would I would definitely like fewer golf shots in most tournament telecasts and more more, you know, focus on telling the story of a golf tournament. Be selective, be smart about what you're showing. I don't.
It's it's asking for a lot because I know they need to include the commercials that they include, they'd have these sponsor obligations, et cetera. But this is just what I would want as a viewer and watching this Walker Cup reminded me of that, because I didn't feel like I was being beaten down by a commercial load or that there were all these kind of you know, corporate entities that needed to be serviced during the telecast. It was much more about the golf and I really appreciated that.
And of course when you're at a place like Cyprus Point, it becomes a kind of religious experience to watch golf in this way.
I yeah. To me, like an area that they never show, right is like you see players hit fundamentally tournament changing shot on Sunday, and when that happens, they have a walk up to the green from usually an approach shot, and we always cut away there and that walk, I
think is a fascinating one. This kind of lies with what you're saying, especially especially in the case of if it's two players in the same group duking it out, as you often get, but you get a player walking up to the green and that whole moment of will will they cash this? In that tension of it them acknowledging and dealing with a crowd that's going to be
very supportive in that situation. These are all like things that I when I go to tournaments, you like kind of watch and feel I think like for me, one of the things I took away from this week is like just you know, match play obviously is a phenomenal thing to watch, but just to watch the ebb and flow and the the in between shots mannerisms of players, particularly young players, that some of them show their emotions a little bit more than you get on PGA Tour
because they're younger, and you know, they're feeling more things and they haven't.
Things as much.
Yeah, like it was standardized, it's less standardized golf.
You know.
It was fascinating to watch how like these you could see players tempos and pre shot routines, like kind of differing from shot to shot based off of circumstances. And and I think that's something with the with the PGA Tour, you start to like.
You you get blind or are.
Almost oblivious to because these guys get just so good at refining their process and can you know, like you you talk to these sports psychologists and and and tour or that and coaches, and they talk about how you know, you just try these guys practice routines now where they practice how they get into a ball and you're watching these matches and depending on the moments, like you see guys just going faster or slower, and it's a it's
one of those, you know. And I know we're talking really nitty gritty here about golf, but I think it's one of the things that makes the game really beautiful. And it's so hard to convey through a TV. But I think one of the I guess things that I took away and I think you hit on this a little bit, is just how pure of a golf event this is. This is this is golf, you know, the walker cups like you know, golf four oh one, and the wonderful nature. And I don't you know, some of
the broadcasts did not live up to this. I think the the some of the broadcast crew, you know, just frankly didn't do their homework or But anyways, this, this high level of golf is what we should be conveying more often because it is.
Not dumbing down.
Golf provide such a sophisticated and wonderful product that people are just going to love. And when people love stuff, other people become interested in it.
Yes, yeah, people, people are attracted to passion. They want to find out more about it, and yeah, it's it's a kind of an indication of where we are that that feels so rare in professional golf these days, that the focus so rarely seems to be on a passion for golf. But there's really no you know, no, there's no financial reason for the Walker Cup. Who exists exist? I think I think it exists for for the love of the game primarily, you know, yeah, you know, it's
not it's not completely altruistic or anything. It's certainly people paid to be on site, and you know, it's a good it's probably a good branding exercise for the USGA, et cetera, et cetera. But at the core of it, the main reason that it exists is the love of the game. And that's that's always something that's fun to be part of and inspirational to be part of. So you were Andy, you were actually on site here. We've we've talked a bit about the about the broadcast experience,
the at home experience. I'm really curious about some of your some of your on site observations. Was there anything new that you found out about the golf course seeing these guys, these guys play it. Yeah, I thought it. I thought it held up well. I mean I expected I expected these guys to overwhelm certain holes like thirteen for instance. You know, like thirteen is somewhat defenseless to
a degree. But I was actually pretty pleased to see that the golf course was pushing back a bit on certain holes.
I kind of walked away with I think that this event more pushed like the anybody that watched this event. We need a ball roll back, We need just a general equipment roll back would be.
By general thought.
Many of the hazards of Cyprus point we're just being bypassed by just hitting it over them. I was watching the Nile Shields done again Jacob Midlesky match on Saturday afternoon. Midleski he really moves the ball, and you know on twelve, you know part four and anybody that's played there like that right side is just sneaky. It just eats golf balls. It's a really it's kind of a tricky t shot. You just feel like you can hit it right and
cover this like sandy area. But it just seemingly like if you are if you don't play pretty conservative about that tea, that right side will just swallow off balls.
And on Saturday, Midleski just gets up. You could tell he's gonna put a little extra into this one, and he just hits it over everything and he's left with like fifty sixty yards into that green and it's like, oh, well, I guess it's pretty simple when you can do that, And I think like that would be the thing to be that uh, you know, as great as as it was to watch the golf out there, there wasn't much wind, and I don't think the golf course has a lot
of strategy at sixty six hundred yards with how far.
These guys hit the ball.
There were not decisions being made on any part five, whether they were long part fours or part fives, because they converted them must.
Unless it was should I pull my fifty six or my sixty?
Yeah, well you watch these, you watch like a great hole like like five where you know it, And I think, like, this is the point of the rollback is, you know. I don't think I'm necessarily a short hitter. I'm I'm I would be short by PGA Tour standards, but I think about the way I play five and I have to kind of like bend it around a cross bunker that cuts in and I have to hit I have to get on that tee and I got to hit
a draw on on that hole. And if I could hit a draw, it's such a fun t shot because it kind of banks around this bunker that cuts in from the left on a diagonal.
Yeah, and you're.
Watching these kids just all just hit it right over the bunker and they end up down in the valley. And then they had got you know, a relatively short iron like eight irons and such into the into the green. That's really cool. It's up on a ridge. But when you're hitting an eight iron in it's just it's just mutes so much of the you know, interest of that. And and there was no thoughts of any sorts of layup on that hole. You know, I didn't want is.
So interesting there too. Yeah, that's the problem. It's such a nuanced layup on that par five because you can kind of be close to the cross bunkers, you know, get just over the cross bunkers and be up high, or if you go farther past the cross bunkers, you'll be closer to the green, but you'll be down in this gully, and so there are a number of different
options on how to play that layup. There's also kind of right and left options as well, and just for that to be bypassed entirely and to have the whole play as a part four is a bummer.
Yeah.
And it's like even more so like a whole like two, which is a longer par five. It was just everybody's going for the green, even whether you were in position or out of position. And then that layup there's some interesting bunkers in the layup area, but it didn't matter because they're just hitting it past it. So I think like one of the things for me was was just and I think there was it was very intentional with Cyprus Point. They want to say, we did not build
any bactees for this event. You're coming and you're playing the golf course as is. And one of the things that happened because they did that was it illuminated the massive distance issue in the sport of golf, where you know, there that stretch of holes really like eleven Cyper's Point, you know it punched back into places, but holes eleven, twelve, thirteen are very challenging, is a very challenge of really eleven through fourteen, it's a very challenging stretch of holes
out there. But you know, eleven, they're hitting short irons into it's a you know, maybe even wedges into it's a four hundred and seventy yard part four they you know, twelve, they're hitting little flip ledges into thirteen's flip ledge. And then fourteen because of the trees, forced them to hit, you know, a shot of consequence in terms of like an eight iron into a green that pels in all ways.
But you know, those that stretch of golf. You know, outside of sixteen, there was no spot on the golf course that had these like huge moments of consequence, and that's because they were hitting such short clubs into them.
Yeah, I guess I had low expectations for how Cypress Point would hold up in this tournament because I'm aware of how far these guys hit the ball, and I'm also aware of the dimensions of cypress Point, which are more suited to a player like me than they are
to Jackson coyven. So I was at least pleased to see, at least from home, that there were challenging shots out there that the greens were giving these guys fits in some places, and if they missed in the wrong place, they ended up in these native areas that had a lot of unpredictability. The dunesy areas at Cypress we talked about earlier how they've been cleared out recently, and I
think that that has enhanced the chanciness of them. There's a little bit of Pinehurst there where sometimes you can end up in a patch of ice plant, or you can end up in some weird native grasses, or you can just get a weird beachy lye in the sand, and you're in a lot of trouble. You can't you can't properly get the club on the ball. Then the cypress trees themselves if you if you miss on fourteen or on eighteen. Cypress trees are not a fun type of tree to hit a golf ball out of.
You know, they're worry about you got worry about them getting stuck.
You got yeah, well you got to worry about injury. Probably. There are all these like low branches and just you know, gnarrowly twisted sort of forms that again provide unpredictability. And so I liked seeing some of that. I liked that the course was seeming to provide at least some interesting
scenarios for these guys. But if you look at the design intent of especially the bunkering at Cyprus Point, which bunkers Mackenzie really meant to factor into t shots, then you can see that those have have clearly become irrelevant for players of this kind. And really the bunkers that are affecting their decision making off the tee are often bunkers that were meant to guard against second shots, and so you know, things have just gotten ridiculous and out of control.
Obviously, the uh I will say, like one of the things that I didn't you know, I think gets lost because of the land and the setting of Cyber's Point that showed out great was just how good the greens are and how interesting the greens at Cyper's Point are.
Yeah, and they get.
Total overshadowed by everything else it has. You rarely hear people say, you know, Cyper's Point, that's a great set of greens, but they they really are a spectacular set of greens that have a lot of variety. You know,
they have some some wild greens. One that kind of just kept catching my eye when I walked by it that you know, I never had given too much thought to was like the tenth green, a hole in the middle of the routing that you know, doesn't get talked about it a lot, But then you look at that green.
You could just sit there and stare at it, you know.
And and and then they have just some greens that rely on tilt that are really really fantastic greens, and especially coupled with the firmness that they were able to get because obviously, you know, we got rain today, which was very shocking in September, but there hasn't been rain since since April, so it just provided an unbelievable opportunity to present a really firm surface that really rewarded great strikes in great shots.
It's good that it was firm. It's not always a guarantee on the Monterey Peninsula.
Oh and in summer, I think it's got It had very little chance of not being firm.
End of summer is yeah, definitely the best time. And yeah, I always kind of wonder what it would be like to have a big tournament at Pebble Beach in August or September. I think that would be a very different kind of golf course than the one that we see in that we see in February or even June for the US Open.
Yeah, was condition from the Pebble Beach company about how they just need to convince the usj to move the US Open to September.
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's kind of what we're relying on with, you know, a US Open at Pebble Beach every five years for the next fifty years. But in any case, back to SIPs Uh, the the greens are are incredible, partly because they are original. I mean, those greens have not been rebuilt. They don't have the you know, the precision are underneath them. These are original push up alistair
Mackenzie greens. And part of what that means is that a lot of them are a lot more tilted than any modern architect would build the fourth Green for instance. You know, you just wouldn't make a to the speeds exactly. I mean, it's it's it is pushing it. You know, those greens were obviously built to stimp at far far slower rates than are expected now out of an elite golf course. But the result is when when you bring in some of the most talented golfers in the world.
You can turn up the speeds a little bit on these greens and and they they push back quite a bit. So yeah, that was always good to see. One small thing that I was curious about, Andy, because we didn't see this much on the telecast. But it's just like a really particular curiosity I have about one hole at Cyprus, and that's the eighth hole. Part of what makes the design of the eighth hole really interesting is that it's
a split level fairway. So the fairway kind of sits on a diagonal in relation to the tea, and a dune ridge runs diagonally across the tee shot, and the part of the fairway that is closest to the tee is high up, and then the rest of the fairway is low and you're hitting an approach into a tremendously elevated and very severely contoured green, and so being up on that higher portion of the fairway is a big advantage.
But in order to get there, you really have to challenge that dune ridge and trust your shot because it is completely blind to that portion of the fairway hitting over the dunes. It's also like a pretty narrow section of the fairway, so it's hard to even hold. But I was wondering if you saw any any shots that ended up on that higher portion of the fairway. Is that even Oh is that something that they were looking to do.
I think they were trying to And then you saw like the the part of that, you know, is you want to get up on that ridge and the worst place, maybe maybe the worst miss outside of the ocean at Cyprus Point is missing right on eight is off the tee.
Is it is effectively you are.
Not kicked out, Yeah, and you're just hoping you can get the ball to the fairway from where you from that spot.
So I saw some.
Players do that, and then I saw a good number of players miss right into that.
I think a lot of players were.
Content to be very very conservative on that whole, and they just were going to take the air one hundred and fifty yard shot uphill into the green and just not mess around with that and not do something silly, knowing, hey, I can hit one of these shots in there close. I think what would have been really interesting is, you know, and enhance the tournament.
You know.
One of the big things that it was missing was just breeze if we could have gotten a good breeze and eight was all sudden playing into the wind, that shot, that very conservative t shot is a lot less appetizing when you're hitting one hundred and fifty yards into into like a twenty mile an hour wind. Up fifty you
know what plays up like ten to fifteen yards. You know, when if you got these guys all a sudden having to hit seven's and six irons into that green instead of nines or pitching wedges, they I think that they
would have wanted to challenge it even more. Okay, Yeah, so that you know, the wind was the one thing that just didn't show up, and I think like that's the one thing that I wish we would have seen, because particularly, you know, your young players, you tend to see them struggle a little bit more in the wind, and then the course would have presented probably a lot more teeth. But you know, one of my one of my other big takeaways was just I don't think the recipe for golf is that hard.
To me.
Team match play at great golf courses is a pretty unbeatable recipe. And you know, at this point, the only real, you know, consistent version of of this is at the Walker Cup or the Curtis Cup.
Yeah. Yeah, because the writers kind of television goes to bad golf courses for the most part.
But but this is this was a thing is like and and these events and and I know like if you tried to if you tried to scale this out, you'd lose some of the luster of it. But these events being able to be played at the world's best golf courses are and the ease of understanding for a common fan of what the event is. It's the US versus the GB and I or in the Ryder Cups case, US versus Europe the fandoms.
This is a good event.
This is a good style of event for golf because it's easy to understand, it has fan interests because of the nationality, rooting interests, and.
Then the great golf courses.
I don't think anybody that was, you know, that just passed by wouldn't have been, you know, awestruck by the visuals of Cyprus.
Point.
Yeah, it's it is pretty simple and yet pretty rare for a lot of reasons, right. And I feel like I've had this explain to me condescendingly so many times over the years that I've just really gotten sick of it. No, of course, we can't go to great golf courses because the great golf courses don't want big tournaments. Say you know, no, the Irish Open can't be at links courses. Of course
not we can't do that. We have to go to the k Club and Mount Juliet because you know that the links courses just just don't don't want the events. That's unrealistic and it just kind of drives me crazy because I think that golf fans have been browbeaten into accepting mediocrity. But the Walker Cup exists. We have the Walker Cup, so we know how good it can be. And yet we've just convinced ourselves that this is not a realistic model for golf. And I'm not sure how
to get out of that mindset. I am grateful for the Walker Cup, but it is I mean, it's a drop in the bucket in the the total landscape of high profile, elite golf. They only had a total of what six hours of TV coverage of this event. You had to kind of seek it out and unless you have peak.
That was one of my other other takeaways.
It is such a small event and I'm sure that that there would be some resistance from the USGA and the RNA to really commercializing this event. You wouldn't necessarily have to commercialize it, maybe just cover more of it. I wish that felt more possible. But it seems like a precondition of the Walker Cup being as good as it is going to the courses that it goes to and just feeling as good and as pure as it does.
It seems like a precondition of that is that it that it has to be somewhat obscure, and that's that's kind of a shame.
Yeah, I I you know, I don't know.
I I think about you know, obviously TGL is aimed at being something completely different than this, but some sort of I'd.
Like to see how you're going to bring these threads together here, TJ.
But some sort of of league of teams that played small, intimate matches at the world's best golf courses. You know, I know that it could be difficult to do this, To try and do this, I can't imagine that the TV product would staining.
Well, what we're missing. Part of what we're missing here is Shelle's wonderful world of golf that doesn't really have the I guess the team component that you're looking for, but you you could have some sort of nationality angle come into play with with some matches, maybe you have a foursome's match or something like that. But that was Shelle's Wonderful World of Golf was a great combination of these kind of small intimate matches driven by personality made
into a workable TV product. But nobody's been able to recapture the magic of that program. Obviously it went away in the nineties, so I mean it just hasn't survived or resurfaced any any time in recent history. But something like that would be a wonderful addition to the competitive golf landscape.
I think the hard thing with this, and I want to, you know, provide the counterpoint to what I just laid out, is that golf, the commercial side of golf, has almost become too big for a great golf product. And when you think about Shell's Wonderful World of Golf, I would love to see it come back.
You know.
My biggest fear of it coming back would be then the and I think probably the reality is that the course selection would be dictated by who pays to be a golf course.
Well just turn into the match, right, isn't The match is like our current version of that, but of course it's nowhere nowhere.
Close and it becomes in the match is just this huge cash. It's just this huge commercial operation, which then basically makes it so hard to have a great golf
product when you have a huge commercialization. And I don't want to be naive and acts like it takes no money to put these things on, but I just think I would just love for somebody to take a long range view of this and say, if I make a great golf product, the payoff might not be day one and it might not be year one, but if I make a great golf product, eventually there will be a bigger payoff than just making these golf products that seemingly
nobody asks for. And the walker cups this version of golf, especially with modern television, modern capabilities, and we saw Golf Channel put out there I think probably about a c effort, but just because of the product that they were televising, and when I say the product they were televising, the golf course, the players, and the format this event, like you're watching it and you're mesmerized like almost any unlike almost any other event on the calendar all year, and
I just like, I guess that's my biggest gripe with Shell's Wonderful World. If it comes back, it will be killed by commercialization before it ever starts. And that's maybe a very negative viewpoint on the subject, but it feels to me like executives in golf cannot get out of their own way with ruining something, and like the Walker Cup in a way, the USGA, I think they don't.
They're like kind of they're confused about what they should do with it because of the lack of commercial success that it has in an organization that's become much more focused on commercialization on top of many other things that they do. I think it's confusing for them as to what it should do. But it also might be the best golf products that they own.
It's tremendous for their brand as an organization and the RNA's brand as an organization to have this event in their roster, and I think they should just see it as this tournament represents us well and makes our rhetoric that we are about preserving and defending and enriching the game of golf. Seem legitimate, because if all you have as you're you know, you know, your big products in the world of golf are the us OPENS, then that
rhetoric is going to seem false. It's going to seem like you are primarily a commercial organization rather than one that is genuinely interested in the future of golf. But if you're the organization or one of the organizations behind the Walker Cup, then then then people might actually believe you when you say you care about golf. And I do believe that the USGA cares about golf. I really do think that the people in charge love this event and are devoted to the form of golf that it represents.
And it's because of their efforts that this tournament has gone to such a great array of courses over the past century. And so all credit to them for propping this event up and keeping it going, but it should be I hope there's not any doubt in the organization that this is an important thing to keep going.
Yeah, I think I would echo your thoughts on the us AA, LOV and golf. I think that that's very evident with some of the decisions they've made. And I think just in terms of you know, you spend time with them at an event like this, it's it's clear.
You can see it on their faces how excited they are about about the event. And I think that was.
It was a great week there. I want to talk a little bit about about Beth Page too. Do you have any parting thoughts on Cyprus that you want to get out?
It was a wonderful weekend. Yeah, I hope everybody enjoyed it. It was. It was really a time to kind of sit and soak it in and enjoy a great golf course, a super rare opportunity. If you think that, think about how the last Walker Cup there was forty four years ago. That is a long long time ago, and it might.
Be last Crosby was thirty five.
Yeah, it might be a long time before before we see it again. So so I hope everybody took a chance to to just enjoy it, because I mean, what a golf course. It's it's just incredible. So glad glad that this happened.
Yeah, I would.
The last thing I have is spectacular alternate shots, just spectacular.
Oh it's so good. They should they should have more of it in the in the Walker Cup.
I feel I think that they got to figure something out with the with the format because of the eighteenth sickle smatches just singles.
There's is rough for GB and I yeah, just the talent disparity. Really, it's it's hard to overcome that and when you have those those two rounds of singles.
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Let's get to bed Page.
You you made your first trip out to this, uh, I mean landmark American Landmark of golf beth Page State Park. We're a couple of weeks away from the Ryder Cup. I want to do kind of a short segment here. I know we're going to be, you know, everybody in the golf world is going to be just beating people over the head with Ryder Cup stuff. But it is a spectacle, and this year it's going to one of you know, American golf's landmark locations, beth Page and particularly the bath of the Black Course.
I feel like I've already been getting getting beat over the head by Ryder Cup content, and.
Not just like if there wasn't a Walker Cup, I know exactly, we have nothing else, it would have been awful.
It was very fortunate. You're right, You're absolutely right, because right that the entire month of September would just be a blitz. I mean it's been. I feel like Ryder Cup content is an every year, year round kind of kind of deal right now. But I haven't actually seen that much discussion of the golf course. And that's why part of why I was so interested in going to
see it. I mean, I was going to go see it no matter what, but I was particularly excited about this trip to go see the Black Course at beth Page just because I feel like I haven't seen much good content on this course. I haven't had anybody explain to me what's unique or remarkable about this course beyond the fact that it is very, very difficult. It has that sign out front that just portrays it as kind of the black Diamond Ski run of beth Page State Park.
We know that about it, we know that it's hard, but beyond that, I didn't have a clear idea of what to expect from this course. So I was very very keen to get my eyes on this course, walk it and check it out, and maybe find out some things that I didn't know about it before.
What were you What was the big takeaway?
What was the thing that kind of to that most resonated with you with the With the Black Course.
Two takeaways kind of related to each other. One is a plus land, two is a plus routing. I think those are the biggest strength strengths of the Black Course. It's not that the course is hard. That's not the leading characteristic of the black Horse or the thing that makes it a high quality course. It's not just that it's hard, though it is definitely very very difficult. I think the fact that it sits on extremely good land.
They they obviously kind of selected the best land that they had at their disposal in this area and put the Black Course on it. Kind of prioritized the Black Course in that way, and then the routing works with the land so well. So, first of all, the land I think is really great for golf because it's dramatic and there's a lot of elevation change, a lot of topographical interest, but it's never too severe. So you know, Bethpage kind of sits on this land that is more
or less. You know, there's not like an overall tilt to the land. It's not on a hillside or anything. It doesn't you know that the farthest point of the course is at about the same elevation as the first t But what you have in between are all of these kind of up and down ridges and valleys, and they're very interesting and all of them are kind of sized to accommodate golf holes, so you know, you know, you never spend like multiple holes trying to get across
one landform at beth Page. You're always kind of tackling a new landform and kind of getting done with it by the end of the hole. And so it's just very well proportioned land for a golf course. It's constantly interesting and beautiful. You're always kind of discovering new features, new little nooks and crannies of the property as you're going through the golf course. So that's something that I really enjoyed about it. And then the routing of the
course is just brilliant. It is an out and back routing. Basically, it doesn't have returning nines, so I believe it is the ninth tee that is the at the farthest point from the clubhouse, or at least that's that's the way it feels when when you're on the course, you play the eighth hole, which is a par three, then you climb up to the ninth tee and at that point you're kind of making your way back to the clubhouse. And so it is very much an out and back concept.
And part of what this does is that it makes you feel like you're taking a journey into the wilderness and you're being tested by this golf course, and then you come back out presumably in an altered state, right changed by the experience, and that to me is the true theme of the golf course. This golf course is a test of golfing skill. It's a test of courage and metal. It's a test of what you've got internally right, and in order to get tested, you plunge into the
wilderness and then you come back out. And when you come back out, basically the course kind of crosses a road to get into it, the course section of it. So you play the first hole, then you cross a road and you play holes too through fourteen. You cross back over the road and play fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen in an area that is closer to the clubhouse. When you come back into this area near the clubhouse and you play those last four holes, you feel like
you're in an arena. You've taken this journey into the wilderness and you've come back out into this arena where you're administered the final test. You feel like you're like a gladiator and you're in this coliseum of golf, and that's what then brings you to the conclusion of the course.
So I think what the routing does, aside from using the land really well and finding interesting ways to use the land, you know, applying the golf holes to the land in ways that are constantly changing and very cool, the routing has this kind of coherence as a story about what the golf course is. And that is something that I did not understand from any previous coverage of the golf course or seeing past tournaments at the course. That's something you can only really feel when you when
you walk this course. So I think those are the things that make Beth Page grade. It's it's the A plus land, A plus routing. Those are those are super strong when it comes to this course.
Yeah, I would say that in terms that you know I I have. I don't love a lot like the grass decisions, the grassing decisions, they.
Are and are way too narrow.
What I mean, it is like.
The fairway lines that you know they could be wider, but in terms of of a golf course from t to green, and it is about as impressive as it gets in terms of the golf holes. And and I haven't been out there since the PGA, but I vividly, I have like vivid recall of really like the stretch of two through nine to me is just such a
fantastic stretch of golf holes. In particular when you get like four, five, six, seven, eight, it just you the these holes they're like a roller coasters, soing through there and They've got these beautiful twists and turns and in these these landforms, as you said that you have to kind of play over, down, around, and it is a it is a sensational piece of land that this golf course is on. And I think, you know, is it
my favorite golf course in the world. No, do. I think it's like maybe the best, Uh, it might be the best Ryder Cup venue.
We've had in some time.
Yeah, I think like Whistling Straits would be in the in the conversation, but this should it, you know, And I think it'll be.
The setup of it for the Ryder Cup.
I think they you know, they're they're obviously going to promote scoring and I think like with the rough down, if it's down, there will be a pretty good variance in scoring on these holes. I think it could be
pretty fascinating. The thing that I'm most worried about is just is it too easy to get up and down from around the greens on that golf course at this point with where the modern game is because like the identity of that golf course, what made it so tough in two thousand and two was getting to the green, and I think the difficulty of getting to the green at beth Page has never been lower, and if you
cut the rough down it'll be very low. Where it's not difficult is around the greens and miss greens are are if you're close to the green, are are pretty basic, simple up and downs, And that would be one of my big questions about this golf course. And in terms of doling out bogies, which what you want? I think, like I've thought about this a lot and I'd.
Be curious your take on it.
What makes a good match play course is like the question and where my thoughts have been around it is I think a golf course that promotes a lot of variance and scoring, so holes where a wide spectrum of scores are feasible, And that would be my concern with Bethpage is that I think we'll just see a smattering of birdies, a lot of pars, and a handful of bogies.
It's because not much can go wrong on or around the greens. You can get in some bunkers that are pretty nasty and if you're short sighted then you're going to struggle to get it close. But that's only because of the depth of the bunker and the fact that you're short sighted. It's not because of any contouring on the greens that you'll be screwed in those positions. And that's the big flaw of Bethpage Black. The greens simply
are not very interesting. And it's the part of the course that makes you feel like or that makes you wonder how much aw tilling Hast really had to do with this course while it was being constructed, because if you look at Wingfoot West, or if you look at the lower course at Baltus Rawl or Somerset Hills, then you know that tilling Hast has a taste for wild greens, or at least for interesting contour on greens, and you just don't really get any of that at beth Page.
You mentioned the second hole earlier, I think as the start of this great stretch, and it's such a great hole, kind of works its way around this ridge and then it jumps up to the top of another ridge where the green sits, and so it's this wonderful, really charismatic looking golf hole that introduces you to the best part of the property. But then you get up and look at that green and it is a dead flat oval.
There's nothing going on there. And you know, other greens at Bethpage have more to them, but that kind of gives you an indication of what you're in for really interesting golf holes tee to green and some greens that
are just a little bit disappointing. And yeah, I think that is something that makes beth Page Black not hold up quite as well for modern tournament golf in general, not just match play golf, I don't think, but in general modern tournament golf is maybe less compelling at beth Page because tee to green play has become less of a factor with technology that more and more people have
been able to master the tea to green game. And so if you're going to get interest from a golf course in a high level tournament, it's usually going to come on and around the greens. Augusta National is the perfect proof and example of this, and the Black course just doesn't offer that right now. And so I think that it's not just match play where that's going to be a limiting factor for the interest that beth Page
Black can produce. I think it's pretty much any modern tournament at beth Page is going to have this this governor on it.
Yeah, I think the golf world and you might have a completely different opinion has become way too infatuated with restoration. I think restoration is important for the very very best. Like to me, we should restore courses that are truly extraordinary.
Golf courses should.
Restore Cyper's point, which they have yeah recently.
So exactly.
I think like there are or historic courses, like if there's and I think like Beth Page is an interesting one. Like I think if you just left it the way it is and just said to an architect, can you just spruce up the greens a little right, it would all of a sudden vault up. And I think it's obviously rated in some publications very highly. I don't think that highly of the golf course as a whole, Like it's very good.
It's one of the best public golf courses you could play.
I'm not saying any of that, but you know, it is not for me in the upper upper echelon of golf courses in the world. And what holds it back to the greens is like a very simple green renovation would take this golf course to a whole different level, and I think it would become one of the best major championship golf courses in the world with a simple greens renovation.
You know, one of the most interesting renovation projects that's happened in recent years was a Desert Forest golf club in the Scottsdale, Arizona area. And this is pretty obscure. If you haven't heard of this, that's not your fault. It's a fairly low profile club, an extremely wonderful golf course. Like I think, this is a terrific, terrific golf course on a great piece of land, especially if you think of most of the land that was used for golf
in Scottsdale. Desert Forest sits on this kind of rolling, rolling plot of land that you just don't expect out of that area. So Tee to Green Desert Forest has always been a great golf course. It was designed in the nineteen fifties by a guy named Red Lawrence, and he did a great job of routing the course and using the topography. But then he got to the greens and they were basically the same green one through eighteen,
over and over and over. And so what the club did, and this was really smart, is that they brought in an architect named Dave Zincand, who has worked for Corn Crenshaw and was around that time opening his own design business,
and said basically, give us more interesting greens. And so zinc And went in there and did exactly that shape these beautiful greens that kind of tie into the strategy of the holes that was always suggested by the by the you know, topography and the and the shape of the holes in the landscape, but wasn't really followed through on because the greens didn't really do anything, didn't really
demand different shots from from different angles. Well, what zinc And did is that he took that inspiration from the holes as they sat in the terrain and designed some greens that just had more variety and more strategic sophistication. And I think that kind of move at Bethpage Black would be very very intelligent as an approach to renovation, But it would be hard to do because it's such a high profile golf course. There are so many people who play and love that course as it is. It
would just be a tough sell. But I agree with you that the potential is there. You could just look at some of tilling Hast's other sets of greens and you'd have a great template for what you could do with some of those green complexes at the Black Course. But yeah, I agree that that's what is holding to me when I look at Bethpage Black, when I walk that course from Tee to Green, look at the land, look at the routing. It is a top fifty golf course in the US. I think that's what it feels
like to me Tee to Green. But the greens and the mowing lines are the thing that make it not that right now, And maybe some of the bunker work that has been done by Rhys Jones over the past couple of decades it has been best.
I mean the restoration when he did it was transformational.
It was not a yeah, it's it's It wasn't a restoration is yeah, it's a restart.
But at the the you know where the where the renovation restoration world has gotten to since the since basically two thousand is remarkably higher bar than than where it was when that work was done. Yes, real quick, what's one hole that you're particularly keen to watching the Ryder Cup.
Well, it's got to be in that stretch that you mentioned earlier. Basically from three I love two as well, but from three to six. That for me, is where the golf course really becomes great. Everybody knows four. It's the great hazard hole. When you see it on TV. Just imagine it looking about ten times bigger in person. The elevation drop from the tee to the fairway and then the climb from the fairway up to the green is just much much bigger than you can imagine just
looking at it on TV. But I think this single hole that I'll be most curious about is going to actually be six. It's a very interesting and I think fairly short for these guys par four and the fairway kind of has a little bit of a jog in the landing zone where it wraps around some bunkers and then dips down before climbing back up to the green. And I just want to see where players position themselves
on that fairway. Are they going to hit a conservative shot kind of between the bunkers on the higher ground, or are they going to try to take it over that left bunker and get down into the goalie in front of the green. What's going to be their strategy on that hole? They're probably youre going to head it into the goalie. I mean you know that's probably what
they're going to do. But but I think it's a it's a cool golfer and and I'm looking forward to to seeing some of the strategic dynamics there.
I just got a message from producer PJ. Yes justice for six six rules, So.
So that has a stamp of approval from from the Long Long Island.
Guy, Happy Happy Long Island public golfer PJ for the for the vote on six the You know, I'm actually kind of interested. I don't I don't know if you saw this when you're out there, what the what the grand stands. I I think just like a cool part of the courses ten and eleven, the back to back part four us that.
Share that that's that's sort of like.
Yeah, and I just I love that, like kind of like center of energy. I remember fondly watching a lot of golf back there during the PGA, and to me, that's that's one area that I.
Would I would.
I I'm keen to watch. And I think like if you get a couple of groups on that hole, those holes at the same time with all the fans, it's going to be just like a very cool atmosphere, you know. And I think those holes are are somewhat interesting from t degree. They're obviously fairly penal with the amount of bunkers that are on them, and you know it could dule out some penalty if you get in the wrong
spot on them in the match play. But obviously then the close will be will be electric when you get back over the road in the in the closing couple holes, there are such.
A great setting for yeah, close of a tournament. I think it's going to be so intense and cool in the Ryder Cup. Just that whole natural amphitheater around the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth holes, and then you kind of climb up onto a ridge and go back down into another natural amphitheater for the eighteenth hole. It's going to be great.
But yeah, you shout it out the tenth and eleventh holes, specifically, sitting in the grand stand behind the eleventh green would be a great spot because you can see the t shots on the tenth hole, you can see play on the eleventh hole, and you can also see play on the ninth hole because that green sits right in that kind of collection area and the ninth hole is a very cool dog leg left par four with some great wavy topography in the landing zone for drives, or you
can cut the corner and get up to higher ground. I think that's a very fun golf hole. But one thing is specifically I wanted to mention about ten and eleven is that those two fairways have actually been widened. We're getting righter fairways there. Yeah, awesome. Previously, those bunkers that you're talking about between the holes, kind of the penal bunkers that flank those holes up and down. Previously
those were very much marooned in the rough. Recently they have expanded the fairways out to the bunkers because they discovered that, of course we want balls actually going in the bunkers and not just getting not getting held up by the rough. So I think those holes will be will be much improved because of that work.
Awesome.
Well, look forward to chatting more about Beth Page in the in the lead up to the Ryder Cup. But Garrett, thank you for joining me. People can find your golf course thoughts in greater detail on your podcast Designing Golf. It's been fun to watch that podcast grow over the course of the year. You're getting close to a year into it. So congratulations on that, and we will talk to you soon. But big thanks to you guys for listening, and big thanks to p J Clark for editing and
producing this podcast. We'll be back next week. I don't know what we're gonna do next week yet. I kind of wanted to zig probably from Ryder Cup, but we may. We may zag right back into that Ryder Cup traffic and then we'll be back, of course the following week with our Ryder Cup preview and on the grounds there.
But we'll be back.
Thanks for listening, and I hope you guys enjoyed the weekend of golf at the Walker Cup