Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison, and for today's episode, I sat down with Andy Johnson to discuss the state of the restoration trend in the American golf industry today. But first, this episode is brought to you by the United States Golf Association. So you probably know the USGA mainly for its championships for the US Open, the US Women's Open, the US Amateur tournaments, and many others. But the USGA is also
a huge investor in the future of golf. They run junior golf programs, agronomy studies, sustainability initiatives, and just overall efforts to make the game healthier and more diverse, more accessible. The way the USGA does this is through the support of USGA members. Your membership fees help make all of these programs possible. So if you would like to get a USGA membership or give one to someone else as a holiday gift, you can go to USGA dot org
slash fried Egg. If you purchase a membership that way, you'll get a twenty percent discount code at the USGA shop. That's just a special bonus for Friday Egg listeners. So USGA dot org slash Frida egg, get yourself or someone else a USGA membership. I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball in a brid.
Egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Friday, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida egg.
Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
All right. So in this podcast, we are going to have a discussion about an article that you wrote, Andy Reese, for our website published this week about the great remaining restoration opportunities in American golf, so the courses that still need to be restored even after we've had a big restoration boom in the golf architecture industry. And so it's an interesting article. It really has generated a lot of discussion, So we thought we'd dig in a little bit further
in a podcast. So maybe we could start with just what prompted you to write this article.
Definitely, Yeah, this has been something I think over the last month or so that's really been on my mind. As you look around and you start to see, you know, the important thing is is clarifying, like, you know, the article was based on courses that you know don't have a clear restoration plan in place or a consulting architect you know, recently hire to to put together a master plan. So you know, the likes of Yale, you know, we
know that's going to happen next year. You know, the shutdowns planned and and then over the next two years, Yale's going to be restored. That's not on the list, right, It's it's the courses that you know have shown kind of zero impetus for you know, restoring their golf course in the in the recent years and don't have really a planned that that I put put on this list.
So you know, as you see news different places Kansas City Country Club just hired I think Kyle Franz and Tyler Ray, you know, and and these different clubs around the country. You just started to check off like, oh, there's a there's a tilling hash restoration, there's a lookout mountain you know is doing work. And then you see the work that was done like really you know, pivotal work that was done recently, like Oakland Hills is a huge restoration just because of what Oakland Hills stood for.
That was the first course that was renovated and the first course that had this open doctor type mentality which diverted away from the class of Golden age that being restored to Ross.
That's it. That was like one of the last titans to fall.
Really, when you think about America and you know, what we have here is we see this you know, trend that's dominated the last ten fifteen years of golf course architecture. You know, there hasn't been that many new builds. The predominant work in the industry is restoration. You start to see read the tea leaves and it's kind of coming to an end, and you know, the remaining great restorations
for the most part fall into two buckets. They're either public golf courses or private clubs that host championship golf regularly. And that's really the two buckets of golf courses that have remaining restoration, and those from those senses, they have
big barriers that inhibit restoration work. So that's kind of what prompt the article, and it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, is like what, you know, what's going to be the next big restoration and that was the idea between behind putting together the article is like, here are the ones that, like, frankly, are the ones that I'm really would be excited about. And you know, for you know, most of the ones that aren't on
the list, I don't necessarily know if those should be restored. Now, obviously I miss some, and maybe we'll talk about some of the ones I miss, But like, that's the other line, is like what should be restored?
What should be renovated?
And you know, just because the golf course was built from nineteen oh nine to nineteen thirty doesn't mean it should be restored.
Well, so let's put a little finer point on where we are in this restoration boom that has been going on for the past twenty plus years or so. But really, I mean, it has ramped up in the past decade, but it's been with us for I'd say at least two decades in the golf industry, where courses are intentionally restoring original architecture from the nineteen tens, twenties, and thirties, the so called golden age of golf architecture. Just look
down the list of a magazine ranking right now. You know that's an imperfect measure of what the great important courses actually are, but it kind of gets you started. Just look down that list and consider how many courses have gotten restoration work done lately. You know, Pine Valley maybe that could be one that that could use some restoration work. We didn't go there because we haven't been to Pine Valley ourselves, and so you know, we're just
judging from pictures. But that's at the top of most of these lists. Relatively well preserved architecture. Overall, Cyprus Point has been well preserved that has not really needed a massive restoration at that point.
I think that an important thing to note too is like the types of restoration work, like something that's become popular i'd say, in the last ten years with you know, in gill Hands does a lot of this type of work. Is you shut down the course, and Andrew Green's doing a lot of this. Now shut down the course, do it all in one shebang, you close for a year,
you open back up. The other school of that is what I think Tom dok and Bill Corr did a lot of early on, was you know, here's your master plan, and we're going to accomplish this over ten years.
Yeah, Tom Doak and Bill Corr and their associates have been very involved in gradual projects like that, consulting we could come.
Yeah, and I think Cyprus has undergone that type of work over over the time, and that's the type of work that you know Oakmont has done.
And yeah, Prairie doing Chicago Golf probably.
Yeah, Chicago Golf actually did a big bunker renovation last year. They shut down in August and or end of August and we're opened back up at the beginning of the year.
Was a was a restoration that flew very under the radar.
Yeah, as Gogga Golf likes to do. Yeah so, But just to name some courses that have undergone one of those sort of all at once restorations, the ones that are really visible and noticeable when you look at the before and afters. There's Marion is a big recent example of a gil Han's restoration, Pinehurst Number two, Los Angeles Country Club, North Course, Wingfoot, West, Seminole, Corn Crenshaw. All of these courses have recently done restoration work and they've
kind of been ticked off the list for years. Seminal was on this list for sure for years. Wingfoot has been on this list of great restoration candidates, for sure, and just a ton of them. I think what we noticed is that a ton of them have been checked off lately and have done the work that they've needed.
Even a course one that's kind of flying under the radar is Sciota.
Oh yeah, for sure.
You know where you had Jack Nicholas come in and do some changes that dramatically altered a Ross Championship golf course, and that one will open next year with Andrew Green doing it.
And that's you know, like that's the thing.
You start to go down the list of there's been all these courses that you always said, well, you know, there's always like the what if the great what ifs. There aren't many great what ifs anymore. And that's that's really an interesting thing.
We're going to enter a new.
Kind of chapter of golf design in America in the next five years, and I think that chapter is going to be centered around because of what's happened with the economy with you know, the after effects of COVID is a lot of the people that have a lot of money have a lot more money, and I think you're going to see a big golf development boom. I think there's going to be more new courses than we've seen since the you know, economic crash in two thousand and eight.
I don't think, you know, I think we're going to see more deve development in the next five years than we've seen since then. And then I think the other big thing is going to be renovation work. Is you're going to see a lot of golf courses that are you know, that have great piece of land or are fundamentally flawed, that are just blown up and redone. And we've seen some of that start to leak out with the Pinehurst Number four for example, would be an example
of that. And that's an interesting it's a different animal because those project projects are much more complex than restoration for the most part, because what you have to do with those projects is you have to undo the bad stuff and the majority of the time that goes into the project is undoing the bad stuff to build the
good stuff. So it's almost like double the work. And you know, with timelines and different things, people aren't patient like those those are almost become more work than new builds.
Or at least those kinds of projects are a little more difficult to sell. You mentioned, and that with renov sorry with restoration projects that there are kind of two buckets that are remaining. One bucket is the courses for
the regular golfer. A lot of these are public or municipal courses that still need to be restored or still could be restored because they're great, but they've just kind of lost their way over the years and they haven't done the restoration work yet because they just haven't had
the money in time to do it. And then the other bucket is the championship golf bucket, where the barrier to doing restoration is often, well, we can't turn back the clock to the twenties here because that course would be too short and easy for these pros that we host tournaments, and so we need to do something something else. And so let's talk about that bucket for a minute.
What are some of the complexities and considerations that we have to bring to bear when we're talking about championship courses that could be restored.
Obviously, I think that it starts with defending.
Par and the the concept of par that has really stricken golf for eternity.
The idea that that.
Par pars obviously changed, and and you know, there's this conception that rough, lots of rough, narrow fairways and long golf courses is the best version of championship golf. I thought, you know, Joe Lambagna had a really interesting tweet. Who's
been on this pod a data scientist. I guess you could call them a consultant to some PGA Tour players on data talked about you know Albany, which isn't a great golf course but has wide fairways and a lot of you know, interesting shorter par fours where you know, what's more, you know, entertaining of a golf product one where you know, at Albany, to separate you know, yourself, you have to hit it close versus you know, these long, narrow,
punishing golf courses. If you hit it to thirty feet, you're separating yourself from the field.
So, you know, I.
Think one of the things with these golf courses that is a constraint, especially you know, at the top of the list, if you haven't read it yet.
Is let's look at let's look at the article. Yeah, Number one is Augusta National, Number two is Riviera, Number three is Pebble Beach. Number four is TPC Sawgrass.
So top four are all of these, you know, landmark championship courses, and each of them has I think a little bit of a different conundrum per se. All Right, so if we want to go in order, you've got Augusta National. Now, I don't think that a true restoration is ever going to be in the cars here, Like, let's just put that out there, like you're never going back, like and you know, it's important to go there, like to understand, like restoration is a loose term that's used
for a lot of things. I think where I think golf fans would be enthused with Augusta Nashvill is if the look and the style of play that was you know, the look was abandoned in the fifties and sixties or probably the sixties, but the style of play was abandoned
when Tiger Woods came along. And now if we iff, I think golf fans and golf architecture fans would be really enthused if the style of play and aesthetic of the early days were embraced now like the tees, the lengthening of the tees, the adding of bunkers, that's fine, you know, that's that's what they feel like needs to happen. But the rough you know, there shouldn't be rough out there, Like the ball should roll and roll into the pine straw. You should be in the fairway or the pine straw.
That's kind of how the golf course was imagined. That's what Alisair McKenzie and Perry Maxwell imagined with the golf course. Now, you know, and then obviously everybody always points the bunker style, you know, the right Now they have these blah white saucers. If you could get those mackenzie bunkers back, it would be wonderful. Now Tom Fazio is the consulting architect at Augusta National. Now Tom Fazio has done you know, obviously he's one of the most prolific architects of his era.
But you know, he's he's kind of getting up there in age. So I think one of the things that that's an interesting thing to watch over the next ten years. They're probably going to have a new consulting architect architect in the next five years. That's probably a reality of the situation. I think Pine Valley is probably in that same bucket because they Tom Fazio is the consulting architect is there as well. So that's a really interesting thing
to watch. And you know, I think the final thing I'd say about Augusta National is the is the way they mow.
They mow into you know.
Everything they do is to prevent distance, right, is to make the golf course play longer, so it plays more as the golf course was intended to play.
But what happens is they lose.
The idea of the ball rolling and off those slopes into the out of play areas. You know.
The architectural history of Augusta National, as everybody knows, is super complex. If you haven't read this article, you really should. Ron Witten's research project for Golf Digest on the complete changes to Augusta National. Go read that article if you haven't already. It's an incredible resource for understanding exactly how
much has changed. It is a kind of compendium of the changes that have happened to each hole at Augusta and there are there's a dizzying array of changes that have happened over the years at different times at the hands of different architects.
Now, I mean there's changes every year.
Absolutely, and some of them maybe were for the better, some of them certainly not. So I think what you're dealing with at Augusta National is a nineteen thirty three design that it wasn't necessarily all the way there. You know, it was an Alistair McKenzie Bobby Jones design. It had a lot of brilliant ideas, but it wasn't necessarily perfectly suited to what the course would become. And that is
a course that hosts the masters. Also, you know, when the course was designed, the economy was really starting to go to put Alistair McKenzie was nearing the end of his life. The golf industry was just in a really weird place. I'm not sure that the course was as fully realized when it opened as a course like Cypress Point right where that that was really a finished course when it opened. And if Cyprus Point had ever strayed away from its original design, we could very easily say
go back to that. We cannot say go back to the nineteen thirty three Augusta National, not just because it's not feasible, which it isn't, but also because maybe the course wasn't quite its best self when it initially opened.
Perfect example would be like the tenth hole.
You know, it was a shorter par four with a punch bowl green and a hollow and people, oh, bring this back, But you know, Perry Maxwell was a pretty capable.
Architect, and that's a great hole too.
Yeah, and he moved that that hole up on the hill and it's an unbelievable green site that sits there today. Where it is today is where Perry Maxwell move that. And now, what's a better hole for championship golf? Is the shorter part four with the punch bowl and the hollow or the tenth hole today? I would probably say that the tenth hole of the day where you're testing players hitting a mid iron off a downslope, I guess it's more of a short iron now off a downslope
to elevated elevated severe green. That is a shot that you don't see very often now, Like I think that's a better hole for the modern game, right, And that's the complexity of restoration is figuring out what is the best version. And I think, you know, if we want to move the conversation, this fits perfectly with the discussion
of Pebble Beach. That's the big question with Pebble Beach and why I think restorations hard there is like where do you go back to the course is in a way an architectural mutt, more so than today than ever before, because you've got Nicholas, You've got you know, you've got the Morse influence, You've got the Alison Merckenzie Chandler Egan stuff, and then you've got just you know what hosting us opens does to a golf course, which which just narrows
the playing field or the playing field that you have and just father time with shrunk greens and narrow fairways.
Yeah, and you've got the Douglas Grant and Jack Neville original design, which not many people have actually looked at. I don't think many people actually know what Pebble Beach looked like when it opened in nineteen nineteen. But it's a lot different than it was.
You lived there.
I did live there. I didn't live there in nineteen nineteen, but I walked around that course quite a bit and thought about it quite a bit. And it's a great course now, you know, to be clear, like, this is a great golf course.
And that's the same with Augusta National.
Yeah, Augusta is still great. I mean they still have the greens, a lot of the greens at least at Augusta National that either Mackenzie built or Maxwell built, and they're just great. Now. Okay, so Pebble Beach, the routing was there pretty much from the beginning. The greens as we understand them now were definitely not there at the beginning. I don't think you want to go back to those
original greens. They were pretty rudimentary. If you look at the original Seventh Green, for instance, I think a lot of people would be shocked at how different that is and how kind of bland it is. It was just like this big expanse at the bottom of the peninsula there now. Chandler Egan when he came in and made some changes for the nineteen twenty nine US Amateur Chandler Egan had worked for Alice Mackenzie on a few California projects. For people who don't know, he turned that into a
really cool green surrounded by this dunescape. Now there are a couple of pictures of this green as Chandler Egan renovated it. They always get trotted back out on social media at every Pebble Beach pro am or whenever Pebble Beach hosts a big tournament, and people obsess over this kind of doneesy. Look that Chandler Egan introduced to the seventh hole, to the fourth hole, and a couple of
other holes I believe at Pebble Beach in the late twenties. Now, I don't think this was ever the right choice for Pebble Beach to put fau dunes there. That's just not the nature of that landscape. I don't think they would have lasted if they even were given an opportunity to last. And I just don't think that's what we need to go back to. I don't think a restoration to the Chandler Egan look at the course is the right path. But maybe we can consider what Egan and Mackenzie did
to some of the greens at Pebble Beach. Really look at those, look at the dimensions of the greens, look at the contours, and consider that as part of a historical renovation plan. Now, there would have to be a lot of creativity in any plan to make Pebble Beach meet its full potential. Would there would have to be some choices than an architect, bold choices that an architect would need to make. But I think it's definitely possible to improve that course substantially.
Yeah.
And this is the thing, this is the aspect of Pebble is like this rudimentary version of itself the routing, you know, and obviously it got developed off of this routing. This routing delivered eight to ten world class golf holes, like holes that you would say are among the very best in the world. When you think about Pebble Beach, you think three, four, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, then you go sixteen is a terrific hole, eighteen.
Eighteen one of the best finishing holes anywhere.
You know, they could be it could be all rough and they still be great golf holes just because of the topographical features. Like you know, you could you could just let them go to seed and it would be fun to go play those golf holes. Like if you didn't mow them for two years, you could play field golf on those golf holes and it would be extraordinarily exhilarating. So this is the thing with Pebble Beach is that
it is this you know, the routing. It was done early, and it was you know, but it delivered these holes. So I don't think you could ever do a renovation. There's one one hole that needs to be re routed is the part three fifth?
Yeah, well, so's to discussion renovated. Jack Nicholas put it along the cliffs. It used to go inland, and I think everybody regard most people regard that as as a positive choice because you've got another hole on the cliffs. And if they had been allowed to put a hole
on the cliffs originally, they probably would have. But the charm of the old fifth hole, even if it was kind of a nothing hole, is that after you walk off that green, you're basically right at the sixth tee and you get this great reveal of the sixth hole, which is my favorite hole at Pebble Beach, and right now you have the fifth hole. You're already on the cliffs. You kind of see the sixth hole early, and then you have to walk backwards to the sixth tee and
it just doesn't have quite the same walks. The walk is really bad.
It's like it doesn't walking on it feels like you're walking on a public road up a hill.
Like that was the sacrifice for getting the hole on the cliffs is that walk and they and they haven't really paid attention to that walk, either landscaped it or anything. It's just kind of there. But anyway, that's a that's a mine point maybe in the scheme of things. But yeah,
restoration renovation. I think this is where we call it a historic renovation, where we're looking at historic elements of the course, but also feeling free not to be completely faithful to the Egan Plan or the Grant Level plan or whatever.
And the other complex thing with Pebble Beach is that it's the most expensive public golf course to play in America. It is a pack T sheet And if you were running a business, you would say, I don't know why we need to shut down the.
Course cost ourselves.
I think I haven't done the math, but I imagine hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tea revenue to improve a golf course that has a supply and demand issue, if anything, Like people always complain about Pebble Beach. Like, if you were running a business, like you'd say, well, we should charge more because we have a pack T sheet every single day, and we're charging a rate that like until we meet a threshold that doesn't lead to pack T sheet every day, then we're actually on a bargain.
Yeah. Absolutely, they're not going to have a meeting after we release this podcast and be like, all right, guys, I guess we have to shut down our course and do a historic renovation because the guys on the Frida Egg podcast said that we should. They have really no reason, no impetus to do this kind of work right now because that place prints money.
So you know, if you look at if say there became a movement, you know within to do work at at Pebble Beach, it would need to be this work that's done over a ten year period. It would need It's not going to be a full course shutdown. I just can imagine the economic loss not only for the golf course but also the neighboring community would be massive. And I don't I couldn't foresee that type of a renovation.
So you're going to talk about a golf course that's getting worked on over ten to fifteen years, and what's the complexity of that. Well, it's a USGA anchor site and you've got us OPENS coming back every what is it eight years or so to Pebble Beach.
And they have, to their credit, done some of this gradual work on the golf course.
Seventeenth hole, seventeenth hole.
They've expanded the green the fourteenth hole, Part five. I think they've done a really successful green expansion there. That green got way too small for how steep it was, and they have expanded it out the back and I think that that has very much improved the hole. They've recaptured the old tenth t I guess it is, which is right next to the ninth green. Just a great angle into that hole turns it into more of a
diagonal hazard drive. And so they're definitely doing some small things here and there gradually to recapture some elements of the golf course that have been lost over time. I wish they would do more, but again, they don't necessarily have the motivation to do more, understandably, and so we'll see. Okay, so we've I think we've talked enough about Pebble. That's number three on the list. We skipped over number two, which is Riviera. Do you want to dig into that one because Riviera?
Yeah, we talked about this now.
Riviera is the best course on the PGA Tour every year, and I don't think it's particularly close. It's so fun to watch that tournament at Riviera, and so a lot of people would say just that, like, hey, Riviera is doing fine, what do you think needs to change there?
I think the discussion here is, you know, we talked about this with Jeff Jackelford when we did the George Thomas podcast. Now, Riviera is one of the best golf courses in America right now. But you know what Riviera fully realized, fully restored is is arguably the best course on the Way Coast in its own town. You know it It's got George Thomas, you know, with lacc North
has clearly supplanted it as the best course in town. Now, whether or not lacc North fully restored and Riviera fully restored, what the best course is that that's something that you know, we don't know because we haven't seen that for a very long time. So I think with with Riviera, you know, you you've got this kind of a conundrum and and it's this golf course is really really good. Not much
has changed. That's the thing with Riviera, more so than Augusta and Pebble, is that it's all just sitting there. It's the simplest project of all the projects on this almost probably all the projects on this list, is that like it's just sitting there. Nothing has been monkeyed around. It's you're talking about tree removal and brank of restoration and green expansion and fairway expansion. That's like then you're you're done. You know that that Golf Courses is great.
You know it obviously is hosting the Olympics coming up, It hosts the.
Genesis every year.
And it's got something else that usually lends itself to really great restorations is it's a single owner really great golf projects.
It is a single owner.
It is uh and they have obviously a very powerful GM there and that that lends itself usually to really great restoration projects. It could go either way, right, a golf star. It could be a good thing or a bad thing. And I think right now the club is very half happy with what it is. You know, it charges exorbitant guest fees. It hosts this event every year, and it is the pride of the pride of the PGA Tour. That is the star of the PGA Tour. Now, you know what it could be is more than that.
And that's that's the question, is what do they want it to be?
Right, I think that they're fairly happy with it what it is. Right now. That's the hard way, which is which is hard to argue against because it's like, hey, you should be happy this is a great golf course. But I think we both see the potential in it. But the thing that is easier about Riviera than Pebble and Augusta National is the original design was fully realized, completely brilliant. I think would hold up well today.
But is held up really well.
Yeah, it has held well. I mean some people would argue the trees have have made it harder than narrowing fairways have made it harder. I don't think any of that is really what makes Riviera difficult enough to be a feature course on the PGA Tour. I think it's the greens. I think that's that's what it is right there.
And so if you push those fairway lines back out, if you took out some of the eucalyptus trees that are the grasses, they are in weird places, Yeah, I think it would still be a tough course, a tough enough course for for PGA Tour players. And uh, you know, if you look at that original Thomas design is just so brilliant, it's so great, and so you have an easy reference point where you're like, this is what the golf course could be.
It was.
It was really a course that met its full potential early on. How can we bring back as much of that as possible?
I think, you know, and I'm just gonna leave a gusta out of this.
But when you look at Sawgrass, you look at Pebble, and you look at Riviera, these are courses that host tournaments one time a year, one week a year, fifty one week fifty one other weeks, it's just about regular play and with with restoration work done, it would be a you know, just like such a supremely more fun golf course for the every day player to play day in,
day out with the restoration work. So you know, what all these courses have done is that they've prioritized the one week and the people that are getting paid to show up to play over the fifty one weeks, and the members that pay their dues, the guests that come stay at their resort and pay exorbitate fees in the cases of TPC, Sawgrass and Pebble Beach.
All right, let's take a quick break for a word from our other sponsor for this episode, Precision Pro Golf. So Precision Pro is proud to announce the next big thing in golf technology, and that's the ACE Smart Speaker. This is a portable Bluetooth speaker that can read distances to you. So the ACE Smart Speaker doesn't just play music. ACE stands for Audio Caddy Experience, and that's really what
it is. It's a personal caddy that speaks to you and gives you GPS distances to the front, middle, and back of a green, and it also allows you to customize layup zones and get distances for those. Basically, it just lets you not second guess your distances or second guests the shot you've decided to hit. The ACE Smart Speaker is available for just one ninety nine at prison
visionpro golf dot com or Amazon dot com. It could be a great holiday gift for yourself or for a golfer you know, swing with confidence, hit more greens with Precision pro Golf. Now, speaking of annual tour hosts that have strayed away from some of the original design principles that inform the course at the beginning the stadium course at TPC Sagrass, A lot of people might be surprised to see this on the list because most of the courses on the list are from the nineteen twenties and thirties.
TPC Sawgrass opened in nineteen eighty one. It's a peak dye design. What needs to be restored about.
This course, Well, I mean we see it with the PGA Tour.
When something's different, something's challenging, something's not right in front of you, players complain and the golf course suffers for it, I think, gets more bland, more basic. And that's really kind of the story of TPC Sawgrass over the last you know, thirty or forty years.
Forty years now.
So you know, with Sawgrass, the golf course has you know, gotten more bland. It's gotten more you know, a lot of the greens have been softened. The other thing that has happened is that the golf course has gotten extremely more neat and manicured and about lush conditions in a way. You know, you can look at Sawgrass and you can really see what the Augusta National effect of green, manicured white sand has done. That golf course really mimics Augusta
rather than having its own identity. It is a golf course that is, you know, that is trying to follow Augusta National. And what's sad about it is that original identity was rough rugged. It was a golf course that was built out of a swamp. But today it is a it is a pristine, manicured golf course, and it has lost that rugged nature that was its defining characteristic when it opened.
And it was also designed almost expressly to piss off PGA Tour players. Yes, you know, Pete Dye really wanted to get in their heads. And to his credit, Dean Beeman, the commissioner of the tour at the time, was on board with that. He let Pete Dye pursue these ideas that bothered PGA Tour players. But ultimately the complaints of the players, and really pretty early on in the course's
history started, baw Ben Crenshaw was involved. He called he called the course, uh like something designed by Darth Vader. There was there was a there was a quote kind of like that, and you know, I'd be I'd be curious to hear Crenshaw's overall thoughts, because I'm sure they were more interesting than just, oh, this course is unfair. But that kind of chorus of complaints from the pros by the mid eighties really caused some changes to be made.
One of the things with that is that we've seen, of course a good example like the ocean course which we saw at the PGA, was wildly entertaining to watch. And one of the things I think that Pete Dye had the benefit of that the architects of the Golden Age knew but didn't really know, is that really the
true trajectory of where equipment was going Now. Pete Dye's golf courses were built with that in mind, knowing that the game and the equipment was going to continue to get better and you know where That's one of the things that I always wonder about with sawgrass is like, what would that golf course look like today had it not been significantly overhauled, and how much how would the challenge present itself because one of the things with sawgrass
is they don't have space to make it longer. And that's one of the biggest issues there is like they don't have a lot of space, Like it's it is what it is, and you know, the evil solution of it of softening these features, combined with the distance advances, has really taken the teeth out of the golf course to where now it's just you know, it's a glorified it's a It's still got a lot of the strategy and the interesting thing that that de does with angles
and you know, preferred lines and you know, hitting away, like when you play away from water, you get these tough shots. But you know, the golf course has been has been, you know, watered down so much that really, yeah that you know, when you combine it with the equipment advances, the athletic advances of players, it's now just like a driver way.
You know, it's a wedge fest. You see on eighteen.
You know, one of the most daunting t shots is now like a two iron or a five wood wedge Like it's just wild.
I mean, it's.
A it's an unfortunate you know, kind of combination of that early complaint and then the distance and then the equipment advances where where the golf course is no longer one that gets inside players heads.
It's a fairly straightforward course.
It's sort of if you think about it, it's the opposite of what the original vision was for the course. I think some of this has been heightened by the fact that the Players Championship now takes place in March, right, so it plays a little bit softer. But a lot of this softening has happened architecturally as well, the maintenance decisions. It has gone in a direction that, Yeah, the overseed, it's gone in a direction that that Pete Die certainly
wouldn't have imagined. I can't imagine that he would have been a fan of it.
Well, the Twelfth Hall, then, you know.
Totally redesigned and has been monkeyed with every year since then, indicating that maybe it wasn't all that good of an idea to begin with. In general, I think it's kind of underrated how much a lot of Pete Die's courses have changed since they opened. You know, people think of him as a modern designer, and he is, but that doesn't mean that his courses haven't strayed pretty far away from the original vision.
Yeah, And that's one of the things that you think about with restoration is you could see, you know, what of Pete Dye's portfolio, what of Robert Trent Jones's portfolio? You know, and even we're getting on the early Tom Fazio portfolio deserves to be renovated. And you know, I put Worldwoods on there. I played that golf course almost fifteen years ago now, and that golf course was spectacular, one of my favorite public golf courses I've ever played.
And where it is now versus where it was fifteen years ago, it is a departure and it used to be one of the greatest public golf courses in America. It's it sits on wonderful land. It was obviously esthetically supposed to match Pine Valley. It does a very good job of that, and you know, it's just a shell.
And I think there's some hope for it.
I you know, there might be you know, some some some you know, positive news coming out of Whirlwoods in the near future. But the that that's one that that really, you know, you start to think about Die Fazio and Robert tred Jones, Yeah, Dick Wilson, as you know, kind of the next wave. We're getting through the Golden Age courses and it's really you know, this is the time where you start to see, you know, a golf course can really diminish over forty years.
So that's where we're kind of at with the restoration.
When you get past these big championship golf courses and Sawgrass would be the kind of the golden goose of that of that era.
The ultimate example, I think, another one that we didn't include in the list but maybe could have is spy Glass Hill golf Course. You know, if we're talking about courses that the Pebble Beach Company could address some things at spy Glass Hill is a great example.
Great example, a great one that I wish was on the list.
Yeah, I mean I I should have suggested it, because it was in my mind. But you know, the hesitation there is that if you put Alistair Mackenzie on that land, which is essentially that very similar land to Cyprus Point next door. In fact, the holes in the dunes at Spyglass Hill are in the same dune system as Cypress Point, then I don't really doubt that mackenzie would have created
a better course. But spy Glass Hill is a really good example of its era of architecture, of the kind of work that Robert Trent Jones did in the fifties and sixties. I think the course looked a lot different when it opened, played a lot different, and it would be worth looking at what it was originally and considering how to bring some.
Of that back yeah, I mean, spyglass is an interesting thing. I've always thought if you flip the nine of Spyglass, it would get considerably better right off the bat if you if you t off ten is one and you play through the dunes and then you come out and that and that ocean frontage is in the back half of your round.
It would be really an incredible thing.
And then obviously it's kind of a similar I think, like with all the outcry that people have about the Pebble and the Faux Dunes period of Egan and Mackenzie. Like if you go look at an old photo of Spyglass, especially the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth holes, you're that that is like mouth watering stuff where you're like, WHOA,
why did we ever go away from that? And it's just this idea I think it like really carries over from the Augusta fact of Augusta effect that you know, color television and Augusta National had on golf.
Is like it's very neat now.
And it's like, you know, people I think would actually pay this is this is the case for you know, Pebble with with spyglasses, Like the trend now is the rugged sandscape and you had that. You know, if you really roughed up Spyglass and the dunes holes too, it would just be an unbelievably striking golf course.
Yeah, and those are actual dunes, right, to be clear. The way that it's different from Pebble Beach is that Spyglass Hill in those first few holes sit on actual dunes, the same dunes as you see next door at Cyprus Point. And so yeah, a ton of a ton of potential there for sure, but also raises some of those tricky questions about what to do with mid century courses that have strayed away from their original form. I think those are those are worth looking at, as well as are
courses from before the Golden Age. You know, maybe there are some Victorian courses out there that are that are wrevariety looking at. Yeah, you got to have variety among golf courses. And yeah, maybe some of those courses are are pretty bad, but take a look at the esthetics, take a look at what was there before, and maybe you can recapture some of the that just for the historical interest.
Yeah, the golf course that David Normoyle is a member at Saratoga Springs is a Victorian course that was restored by Ky Golby to Victorian status. It looks very cool, It's got a lot of above ground features and it's neat.
It's it's its identity, right.
I think like one of the quotes that sticks with me is like, you know, golf course is about you know, Curtis James talked about this like his job as a superintendent. He's a superintendent at Old Elm in Chicago, isn't just about maintenance. It's about how do I provide the most unique experience holes one through eighteen. And I think that is a really good way for golf course operators, heads of committees to think about their golf courses.
All right, So I want to give people an idea of what's on the rest of the list, and then maybe we could talk about some courses that we wish we had included on the list, or that we could have that almost made it.
So.
Number five is o High Valley in Ohigh Valleyen is a George Thomas golf course. We have a long article about it on our site. It has completely lost its way. I'm not sure that it's going to find its way back, but there was something truly special there, and there's still a lot of it remaining. There are at least nine holes there that you could turn into something sensational.
Well, and more importantly, the resort charges like it has something special, celebrates the history that they have, you know, pardon my French, have shpit on for forty years.
Yeah, they promote the George Thomas lineage while at the same time literally putting buildings on top of George Thomas golf holes. So that's what's going on there. University of Michigan golf course is number six Alistair McKenzie, built by Perry Maxwell. They use it as a parking lot on game days famously, but it still looks pretty cool and it's a great opportunity.
Yeah, Mike Derieves has restoration plans. It's extremely a successful university alumni base that somebody just needs to write a check. And from what I gather, it can't be named after somebody, which is the hold up in any Larry David kurbyr enthusiasm fans will appreciate. They need a donated by anonymous type person to stand up.
Yeah, yeah, as somebody truly virtuous, I guess all right. Number seven is George Wright which we have discussed recently on the podcast. But you say that it could be the best municipal course in the country if fully restored.
Now they have an interesting battle. It'd be an interesting battle. I would love to see fully realized George Wright, fully realized Bethpage Black, which is on this list, and a fully realized Stanley Thompson's Sleepy Hollow, which is on this list. It would be quite a questionist, what is the best municipal golf course in America?
Yeah, that's a battle of Golden age municipal giants there. So number eight is I'm going to mispronounce it Kankakey Elks country Key, kanka Key Spot, kankake This is This is a course that you.
Love, you know.
This is a golf course that can be purchased. This is a golf course that is an hour and fifteen minutes from one of the busiest airports in America.
Yeah, Chicago, O'Hare or Midway you're talking about.
This is a golf course that has a very neat history. Joe Lewis used to train in kanka Kee when he was the heavyweight champion of the world and played his golf when in Kankakee at Kankakee Elks. Wow, it is a lank for Moreau golf course. It is a it is a golf course that you know, I I I'm often dismissive a little bit on here of Chicago is a great golf city. Chicago as a golf city would would dramatically leap up my city rankings with the restoration
of Kanka Ky Elks. People look at me like I'm nuts when I say that I believe it's the fourth best golf course in the state. If it was fully restored, it would immediately jump into the conversation with Chicago Golf Shore Acres and Old Elm as the best golf course in the state. It has green greens that rival Chicago golf screens if they were expanded and maintained properly. And it is you know what Lawsnia is to Wisconsin, Kanka Key Elks is to Illinois.
Number nine is Timber Point Country Club. This is on Long Island. Was a Charles Hugh Allison design. There is a picture that often circulates of the so called Gibraltar Hole, which you have to kind of see to believe. But this is a really intriguing tantalizing golf course. Now not all of it still exists. It's now a twenty seven whole com complex. Twelve of those holes, I believe you said, were part of the original Alison design, so certainly something could be done.
It was expanded to twenty seven holes.
It was, you know, it was a country club, and then the Long Island Parks District or whatever, the governing
Long Island golf body took over it. And you know the thing here I think there's like a successful possibly use case is if you look at what happened at Saint Patrick's, the tom Doak project in Ireland, where they had twenty seven holes, kind of we're ever going to have anything great in the twenty seven holes on the plot of land for modern golf that they had the idea of renovating here, restoring what you can renovating and taking the facility from twenty seven holes to eighteen offers
the opportunity to have one of the crown jewels of public golf in America. And obviously Long Island is known, you know for its private golf. You know, it's you know, Shinnacock National Golf Links, Maidstone, Friar's Head and then you've got Bethpage Blacks in the public sphere. It would be a really neat thing to have timber Point also on the island, and it could become a public golf mecca
as well. With Beth Page Red, Beth Paie Black and timber Point, you'd have three of the best ten public golf courses, you know, a municipally owned golf courses in America.
The tenth ranked restoration opportunity right now in American golf, according to our list, is Sleepy Hollow Golf Course, Stanley Thompson Municipal Course in the Cleveland area. We mentioned it previously. This is one of those kind of big municipal projects that could they could really produce something sensational.
Yeah.
I you know something I've been learning over the last twenty four hours is I've been lit up with anytime Cleveland, Ohio gets gets a bone, you get really excited anything anything naturally.
You know, Cleveland metro Parks got tagged a lot when we posted this article.
You know, as as Djokob Noah famously said, you know, whoever says I'm going to Cleveland one of the.
Great quotes of all time. Uh, sorry to be clear, we don't necessarily agree with him.
We just think.
That I'm in Chicago, so I gotta, I gotta.
There's a lot of great golf in the Cleveland area, Yes, golfers that this is a prime place to go to.
Really, that's true, great golf. See.
And and here's the thing Metro Parks has is like a sensational organization and has done a wonderful stuff with parks and recreation around the around the city. The thing about it, you know, they have these immaculate parks, immaculate and they have their sitting on Mannakikidal Ross Course which is very very very good and Stanley Thompson Sleepy Hollow, which is extraordinary, and they're sitting on these two golf
courses that could be world class. Municipal golf courses are very good as they are today, but you know, the standard of which they keep their parks doesn't match the standard which they keep their golf courses.
Yeah, all right. The next course on the list is Pine Barons at Worldwood's Golf Club. Tom Fazio, we talked about it earlier, so we can kind of skip over that one. But you know, certainly, of course that should be considered for a restoration, even though it's a fairly it was designed in nineteen ninety three.
Yeah, and then we can talk about the You know, the three of the remaining courses on the list are all in California. You got the Harding and Wilson courses at Griffith Park, which are George Thomas designs. You have Santa Anita, which is a James Harrison Smith design in Arcadia, California. And you have Sharp Park which is in Pacific in San Francisco, which was an Alistair mackenzie. Now, like one thing that you'll notice with this whole list is how
many courses are in California. I think like California is probably arguably the best golf state in the world, in the in the country now it could.
Be even better.
And the reason is because of the natural features that it provides. Where you have mountains, you have sandy soil, and you have extraordinary natural features with the canyons, barancas and all that. You know, one of the places Santa Anita isn't one of those. It's in the mountains. It sits right at the foothills of the mountains in Arcadia.
But it was all constructed. It's one of the most amazing construction projects that's ever happened in the given when it was built in the thirties, and in what was done to the land to make it a golf course, you know. And then with the other two, with Sharp Park and Wilson, you're talking about restorations, you know, of courses that were built by two of the greatest architects of all time, arguably probably two of the three to five best architects in American golf.
Yeah, and with both courses they have gotten really far from what they were originally, sometimes for legitimate reasons, other times because they were just neglected. But right now, at Griffith Park and at Sharp Park, I'm not sure that you can say that they properly represent a George Thomas design on the one hand, or an Alistair McKenzie design on the other hand, they've just gone really, really far
away from that. That's not to say that a lot can't be recovered, because a lot could be recovered at both courses, but you would need to take a pretty ambitious approach in order to get something that resembles what those original architects would have built there. Now at Sharp Park, specifically, there used to be holes on the beach, right, There used to be holes that had fair ways in the lagoon, the seaside lagoon that the course plays around. Those are features that you can't get back.
Right.
They have built a sea wall on top of the beach because those holes washed away in a storm fairly early on in the course's life. The lagoon is now an environmentally sensitive area. It's been the subject of lawsuits. I don't think you can build holes back into the lagoon there. You can't really even build them that well
around the lagoon. What you can do at Sharp Park is bring in a designer who knows what he or she is doing and do some sympathetic renovation, recapture some Mackenzie flavor on the holes that still exist there, and just do your best to help that course serve the public as well as possible. Griffith Park is kind of the same deal. You know. I don't know the details of the history of that course quite as well, but I've played those courses.
Jeff talked about it in the George Thomas podcast a little bit. Yeah, Like you know, they got with like basically a copy and paste job with greens and surrounds, and you know, the these would be massive undertakings. One of the reasons they're at the bottom of the sixteen courses is because of just how much it has to be done and how far they've strayed. You know, there these are places that you know whether or not they
can ever be what they were, they can't. But at the same time, Santa Anita is in a different boat. Sant Anita can be like wonderful and I think a lot of people are most shocked when they see this, But you could go play Santa Anita right now and see what it could be. The other two take some creativity and some realization.
All right. So the ones that we haven't mentioned yet that are on the list of sixteen great remaining restoration candidates in America are fourteen. The Black Course at Bethpage State Park. Good Old Bethpage Black obviously has gotten plenty of work done in the past twenty years. But you know, it's not a.
Question of whether what the standard of that work was, Yes is the question. I highly recommend anybody that is listening to this that hasn't read the piece to go read the piece and look at the I think it's a nineteen thirty eight.
I can't remember.
I somebody sent it to me years ago, and I've had it on my computer since thirty eight. Aerial of Bethpage Black. Look at that and then take a spin on Google Maps and look at what's there today, and you'll just see how big of a miss it was in terms of the fairways. The everyday player is just really lost, and just the bunker style, the magnificence of the bunkers in when it opened versus what it is today.
You know, one of the things that I've you know, I've learned over the years is that Rhys Jones cut those bunkers into the green pads. So the greens have been the green pads that were undisturbed have been disturbed. And that's a shame, because I think the course is shortcoming is the greens. You know, the routing, the topography and the strategy of the course is impeccable from tee to green. Where a little literally kind of stalls out a little bit is at the greens, where they're pretty
pretty flat and and simple. That is a golf course that, you know, along with Bethpage Red that really afford the opportunity, you know, like it's it's one of those courses where, like I think it you need to look at it as the bucket of like, you know, a lot of these great restorations in recent years. Oakland Hills was something that was worked on by Rhys Jones numerous times before it was properly restored, you know, And and bethpage Black kind of falls into that bucket.
All right. Final place on the list sixteen is High Point Golf Club, Tom doakes first course. He documented the construction of this course pretty extensively in his book The Anatomy of a Golf Course, Yes, along along with his other early courses. So it's now Hops Farm the course closed down, but it's still kind of sitting there, and we've got a cool picture of Tom Doak out on the course kind of pointing at something what is clearly a golf hole. So there's a lot of stuff still there.
I'm not sure how reasonable it is to expect that something will happen there again.
Tom Tom says it's an oversaturated golf market, but I kind of think that. I think the allure here, which we didn't really put in here in the article, is that in Tom's mentioned numerous times on the podcast with him, is that this is the only golf course that Tom Doak built.
Everything you know this is he was built.
All eighteen He built all eighteen greens, and I think that's the allure here. Like, you know, he just recently like a core that was a huge restoration. Like the big one of the big what ifs that we haven't talked about is Dorna Hills. And the reason that it's such an important restoration is because it was Perry Maxwell's first and home golf course and Tom dolk lives in
Traverse City. This is Tom Dolke's first golf course. And you know, given his portfolio of designs, he's going to go down as one of the greatest architects ever and this is his first golf course. That's just kind of sitting there and in a wonderful vacation spot for America, Like that's that's the thing, and and a place where he lives. It's kind of his in a way, Dorna Kills. So you know, you can put some other courses of Tom's on here Atna Springs, the nine hole are in in Napa Valley.
That's kind of just sitting.
There Edna Springs is close to my heart. Yeah, it's one of the one of the early courses that I played in my renewed golf architecture obsession several years ago when I was kind of getting back in to it. And a nine hole course Northern Napa Valley, absolutely beautiful, was suffering by the time I played it and has since closed down. You know, that could be one of
the very best nine hole courses in the country. So you know, that's another kind of category of potential restoration candidates, just good courses that may have been built pretty recently that have been abandoned but maybe could be reclaimed now that there is a big uptick in interest in golf. All right, So I think we should do this briefly. But five other notable restoration candidates that we listed are Balboa Park Golf Course in San Diego, William P. Bell
Billy Bell. Nineteen thirty three is when the course that's currently there was really built. East Lake Golf Club, Donald Ross. We're not sure exactly how great Eastlake was originally, but it's at this point the annual host of the Tour Championship has gotten pretty far from anything resembling Ross. Uh, there's the there's beth Page Red which we mentioned earlier.
Kind of the fund the fun course at beth Page is still difficult, but uh, but many would argue, as you say in the article, that it's the best course on the property. There's Reynolds Park in North Carolina, Winston Salem, pretty near Old Town Club, which was the recipient of one of the best restorations of the modern era by Coren Crenshaw Perry Maxwell Course municipal. We've talked about on the podcast before.
That's a sleeping giant.
Such a cool routing and uh and really could could use some help and and there's there's maybe an opportunity.
It probably deserved to be higher on the list. But you know, the thing that doing this exercise bore out was just like, how many the best opportunities are municipal courses.
Yep, and Son Eagles fits that category too. I'm actually not sure if it's a municipal course, but it's a former private course that has turned public. Tilling has design in New Jersey that has some mouthwatering greens.
Yeah and old photos.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's there's enough there to do to do a restoration.
All right.
So with all that said, what are some of the misses. What are some of the courses that we wish we had included on this list?
Swill Park, which we talked about on the pod. That was just like, honestly a braid fart. That's a tilling Hast design that's pretty much just sitting there that it would be a really fun, sporty course with a restoration. It's not overly long, but big, a severe plot of land and really neat routing. So that's one that I would put in there. I think, you know, one in Texas that we didn't mention, a Cedar Crust, which was
the nineteen twenty seven PGA host. Another tilling Hast design would be one that's a municipal course in Dallas Gulf Town.
If a Cedarcrust were restored, Dallas would have very little competition for being the best public golf city in America. All Right, Columbia Country Club is one that maybe should have been included.
Yeah, that that's a private that's a Walter Travis.
That's one of the few that we uh that you know, if I thought about it, I thought about putting it, but then you know, a friend of the podcast, George Water, sent me a bunch of old photos. I had seen one or two and then I looked through the whole batch and thought to myself, Ah, that was a miss.
Probably probably should have been on here.
I do, I do understand that there's some possible easement that situation, that could have a road going through the center of it, which might dash any hopes of that happening. And then and then the Pacific Northwest, which to me is kind of the great unknown. It's it's your backyard, so I wanted to you.
I know it. I mean, there are that many opportunities here because we did not get this infusion of amazing Golden Age architecture. You know, Seattle is kind of av McCann's town, but there aren't that many public McCann courses that I know of. Chandler Egan did a whole lot of work up here. I think it's right to see
Chandler Egan as a second tier Golden Age architect. He was very, very good at what he did, but he wasn't anywhere near the level of the Golden Age architects that you know the names of.
And McCann probably is in the same buck.
Yeah, Yeah, McCann did some really good work, but nothing that jumps out as like, wow, that was brilliant, you know, And so I think it's worth restoring these courses that they built and looking at the historical record and recapturing some of the stuff that they did, but also considering how they could have been better in the first place. Now, the thing that's great about Chandler Egan is that he built a lot of public courses. You know, he he lived in the area, and he you know, just gave
his services to pretty much anybody who asked, seemingly. And so East Moreland Golf Course in Portland is really a wonderful public golf course, but they've planted way too many trees on it. It's been taken over by BlackBerry in the past ten or fifteen years in a major way, and they just need to clear some things out there, open up some sitelines across the property and it's just beautiful and there are some really fantastic greens there that
I'm curious about. West Seattle is another Chandler Egan course in Seattle, municipal course on a great piece of land. And so these are some These are the ones that I think of. Those are the courses I think of when I think what the potential for restoration could be in the Pacific Northwest. So another couple ones that should be mentioned Essex County, Francis a burn in New Jersey, Charles Bank's course would be pretty cool with a restoration.
And then Rock Spring, which I visited and wrote about on the website. We didn't include in this list mainly because there is a restoration plan on the table there that Kyle Franz is probably going to carry out and uh and so you know, the future is looking right for Rock Spring. But but that's still a course that that could use a restoration. It would be pretty special. I think that pretty much brings us to the end
of the list. I'm sure thoughts that we I mean, there are more courses that we could mention.
Next next up is renovation list, you know, cranking on that, and you know I have a you know that would come with the caveat of like there's a million courses that I haven't seen that sit on wonderful ground. Yep, Because that's what I think renovations about is is really when you look at the great renovation opportunities, is hey, is this is this on a great plot of land that we can make something spectacular from something that's not.
And I think that's the next frontier. That is the you see some courses that were nothing burgers that are turned into two really great golf something. So that's that's the kind of the exciting thing I think, Like, you know, when I think about restoration work, there's also going to be a lot of restoration work. And let me just put this out there. I'm not going to damate, but there's a lot of restoration work that really is committee
driven that's not very good. And so there's going to be continued restoration work at courses that receive restorations within the last five years that just frankly isn't very good work.
Yeah, So here's one last idea that has come to me about what the future of restoration might look like. You know, restoration so far in the past twenty years seems to have mostly meant restore the shaping of the golf course, the aesthetics, restore corridor with fairway with sometimes restore the strategic positioning of hazards, so the basic strategies of the holes, restore green shapes and contours, but pretty much moderniz everything else right, put these high tech systems
under greens. You know, the maintenance practices are really modern at a lot of these supposedly restored golf courses, and I understand why. I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The things that they're doing with maintenance right now are amazing and understandable for courses that host championships or get a lot of play, or just want to have some kind of tools at their disposal that allow them to present the golf course exactly how they want it to
be presented. But the result is that the courses don't look a huge amount like they looked in the twenties and thirties. I mean, you know, in terms of the shaping, in terms of the architecture they do, but in terms of the maintenance practices, they look really different. And again, not necessarily a bad thing. But maybe one of the next steps that we'll see in restoration is restoring some of the maintenance strategies that were in place at these courses.
Originally just because you want to do this, but because a lot of courses are going to be forced to do this to kind of reduce the inputs that they're putting into the golf course and to get a little more bare bones in their conditioning approach. I think that changes in the climate, changes in water supply, a lot of the things that are going to happen over the next few decades are going to force courses to reconsider
how they approach maintenance. And so maybe one of the things that we'll see in the work that architects are doing at older courses is how can we make maintenance more efficient, more environmentally friendly and all that kind of stuff. Does that kind of make sense as a thought?
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I mean maintenance sustainability, that's sustainability is going to be a big thing in the next you know.
It has to be years.
We can't avoid it. It's inevitable and so and architects are going to have to be involved in that process.
So this will do it. This is probably too long already, but.
Thanks for sticking with us if you're still here.
Yeah, and we'll be back with uh with Moore next week.
This episode was edited by Meg Atkins. Thank you Meg. If you've been enjoying the Friday podcast lately, maybe consider leaving a rating or review in iTunes. Those really do help us out. Thanks for listening.