Masters Favorites, Golf Architecture Chat, and a Ranking of Golf Areas in Great Britain

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

00:00:05
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a brid egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg Egg, Frida egg bride egg.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg podcast. Today's podcast is with Jaeger Kovich. It's been a while since I talked with Jaeger. He's a friend, a young up and coming golf architect. He is. Last time we talked to him, it was in twenty nineteen, so a lot has happened. He's kind of gotten his own solo design company up and going. Uh So it was fun checking in talking some nitty gritty design stuff as well as he did a power rankings for Scotland and England. You know, areas for travel, So if you're looking to book a trip, that's a good little segment where we talk about the different areas of the UK. Sorry, Ireland. He hadn't been. I haven't been, so there was no nobody pulling for Ireland there. But before we get into this, I wanted to do a little update. A few weeks ago, I did top ten, you know, players to watch going into the Masters, kind of my top ten. We're close, We're two weeks away. I can't believe it, really like almost a week away from the being Masters week. It's crazy how much it sneaks up on you. So I wanted to do an update. Obviously, since then, we've had a lot of terms. We had Bayhill, we've got match play this week. We had the players a couple of weeks ago. So here is the updated top ten Players to watch at augusta National number ten. I'm really trying not to overreact here, but justin Thomas, this has been a really disappointing start to twenty twenty three. I think with all the news and golf, this has been obscured a little bit. He hasn't been very good, and obviously he won a major last year. I don't know what's going on with his game. He's fifty third in strokes gained approach and one hundred and forty third in putting. Obviously it's early in the year, but when you wonder why JT hasn't really been contending, that's why he's one of the lead Players of the Game for Reference last year he was eighth and eighty fifth in those two categories. He's never going to be a great putter. I mean, he had one really great year putting and that's twenty won a ton. I think that was the year he won five times. He's more of the type of player when he puts well, he's going to probably win or finish very highly. The thing that's alarming to me is the driver distance. And obviously it's early in the year. He's played some colder weather places, you know, that West Coast swing, but he's thirteen yards shorter than he was last year, and that, to me is is a little bit alarming. I think that probably is why he's kind of dipped and strokes gained off the tee also as well as approach and putting. But still the trend line is right at Gustin Nasal. Hopefully we see something out of him this week or you know it, it'd be fun to have them. In contention, he's one of the most fun players to watch play golf. So that's justin Thomas, number ten, number nine. Jordan Speith obviously near win at the Valspar, played really well at the Players at bay Hill. Also, this guy's he's rounding into form. In the record at Augustin National speaks for hisself. So I think, like, what's been super impressive to me the ball strike. It has been really good the last few weeks. And if the putter can get hot, I mean he's going to be in the mix. Number seven, Jason Day. It's amazing year, amazing resurgence for Jason Day. This is one of these stories of the year. Him and Ricky are playing a lot better golf. It doesn't look like Ricky's going to get into the field at the Masters unless something crazy happens this weekend and or next week. But Jason Day, he's back. His worst finish in this year is T nineteen. He's basically been in contention in the mix at every event he's played in twenty twenty three, and if you go look through his Master's career record, he's basically in the mix every time he plays at the Masters. So I really love his chances at Augusta National. That would have been a nice bi Low candidate a few weeks ago. I'm sure his odds have really soared. Zel Taurus will Zel Torris. He clocks in at number seven, so obviously he's just a different player. At the Majors, he hasn't been great this year. He played really well at Riviera. I think that's enough for me. Obviously, the putter wasn't very good at the Players. But if he is, if he's doing anything decent on the putting green, the way he hits the ball, he's probably going to be in the mix up to number six Colin Morrikala. He's obviously had some disappointing weekends. I think the players people were expecting him after that first round to kind of run away and Kapalua was really disappointing way to start the year with that kind of Sunday collapse. But he's playing so well in the sense that like he's just ready for a breakout. He finished third last year at the Masters, you know, anywhere that puts an emphasis on approach play like Augusta Nashal, does you have to love Klin Morikawa. We're up to number five camp Smith I said it would be really hard for him to move out outside my top four. It is hard for me to move him outside the top four, but like god, you know, these live events, he's the big name players aren't even in the mix. It's kind of crazy, like he he hasn't contended in a golf tournament since he played those Australian events over the winner the Australian Open, in the Australian PGA, and even so, like you know, he won, I think he won the Australian PGA, but like I don't know, we haven't. You know, he played really well right at the beginn any to live. It hasn't been good for Cameron Smith, and I just wonder, like all the big name live guys like is guaranteed money and offseasons good, We'll see, I think, you know, if one of them wins wins the Masters, that'll change the way we talk about live significantly. But right now it's just hasn't seemed very good for these for these big names that live. Obviously, the courses haven't been great fits, especially for a guy like camp Smith. The last two and Augusta's about the perfect course fit. That's why he's still five. He hasn't been playing well. He hasn't been playing very much, and I have to think the guy's playing real competitive golf leading into the Masters have an advantage up to number four. He has not his best finished at Majors T thirteen, Maxhoma. He's playing too well to ignore this. He's up to sixth in the world. His finishes on the year are third, first, thirty, ninth, second, fourteenth, and sixth. Guys played well at a lot of different golf courses. Is a lot of different events, and I think he's going to play well at Augusta Nashvill. He's just so well rounded. Every every aspect of his game is strong right now. Number three Rory McElroy. He's making some changes to the putter, making some changes to the driver. I think, like it's hard to forget that three months ago he was the undisputed number one player in the world. So with that, with that mind, I'm sticking with Rory here at three. I think he's going to get stuff figured out before the Masters. Remember last year he missed the cut the week before and we were wondering, what, you know, what's wrong with Rory, and then he finished second, the best finish of his career really at august National. With that sixty three on Sunday, John Rahm, this feels really weird having Rom number two. He's won three times this year, but the guy ahead of him is just playing really well. So Rom is number two right now because Scottie Shuffler, I just wonder, are we just watching last year on repeat? If he goes and wins the match play this week, it would be just shocking, you know. But again, just I think his personality. Garrett did a great product last week on Shuffler. I think it lulls us to sleep a little. How brilliant this guy is and his approach to the game is really I think advantageous, and he's he's got two wins and big wins and the players was like a clinic and you go into augusta that short game, all around skill set. Love him, love him in a title defense. But you know, obviously with Rom, I think Rom and him are are kind of one A, one B right now. And I wouldn't be surprised if Rory's got it straightened out by the Masters. So that's your top ten, and here's jeger Koga. I went back and listen to our conversation and I realized, like the first thing that stood out to me was the timing of it. It was like October of twenty or twenty nineteen, and.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: The fall at wingfoot right yeah, and then Bryson won like nine months later.

00:09:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean not nine, it was like almost like almost a full year later. It was like eleven months later.

00:09:18
Speaker 1: What year did you say?

00:09:19
Speaker 2: It was twenty nineteen, because then it was the COVID hit and then it was a fall Yeah, fall us open, And I was just thinking about all the crazy stuff that's happened since then, and you know, just wild times. And obviously you're in a lot different career place than you were then.

00:09:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty pretty different, I would say for sure.

00:09:45
Speaker 2: One of the things you were talking about on that podcast was the apprehension of building your first green at Eggertown And now obviously you have a bunch of jobs and you've got a lot of greens under your belt. Can you walk us through the experience of kind of getting experience building a first green, but then also now building a lot of greens?

00:10:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's well, I guess, you know, simple as that was. We built that green right at the beginning of COVID. It was literally during the shutdown when we got special permission to well not special permission, but we were eventually granted as like essential work, and we're able to complete that in March or April. I think of that twenty twenty COVID years that prec and so you know, this past fall we ended up building I guess four new greens at Cedarbrook and doing a project that's you know, good ten times larger in the general scope of things, and you know, I kind of came away from that telling you know, some of it like I felt that like pretty much, I'm just super really confident in the ability to design and shape, and you know, I felt like the greens at Cedar Brook turned out about as well as anything I'd really ever built in my career, and just really kind of feel like finally firing sort of on all cylinders in terms of like full design, shape, proper golf operation at this point. Twenty nineteen was you know, that was really the beginning of the full solo career entirely for me. I think that summer right after Edgartown, I probably built a couple bunkers at Baltus Roll with Gil and one or two other small things that summer. Wh but that was basically the beginning of proper golf only work. And yeah, it's it's very different, that's for sure.

00:12:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, with that, with the building greens, Like, what's spend that? What was the toughest thing about building your first green versus you know the greens you built this fall?

00:12:13
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'm not sure that there was anything much tougher about it. I had definitely shaped greens and built greens previously, but doing it entirely for yourself the first time, trying to make sure. I've definitely found over time that I'm probably always trying to focus on making pinnable space work more and more and more and slow things down. And you know, if it was like three percent, how can we stretch things and broaden things and soften things to make it closer to two percent or the fine line of two point seven and two point nine s At some of these places, they don't work, and so just making sure that stuff continues to that you don't want to do all this work and spend all this money. And you know, I always like to say the fractions of an inch matter, especially when greens are rolling at you know, eleven twelve whatever. You know, all the things that you don't like and are pound about, but like that's what's that's what's truly is the difference is a fraction of an inch can make the difference of two point five two point seven, two point nine, and that's what makes a third of your green work or doesn't work, and that's that's what matters the most.

00:13:30
Speaker 2: So how do you go about making that change? What is that when you're on like a sand pro is that what is going on with the How do you make the.

00:13:41
Speaker 1: Whole it's you know, kind of from start to finish, certainly when you're in a green well, when you know it's starting on the bulldozer and roughing in pretty much as getting it as close as clost and colst as I can with the big bulldozer, and I'm shooting grades through it, and I know generally where I'm trying to get okay, and then I have the laser out there and I jump off the dozer once I feel like everything's pretty close, and I'm in the green well. So you're working the subgrade of it sixteen inches below the finish grade, and it's just so super important that the layers are perfectly matching like all the way through. That's what you know, the superintendents want. That's how the USGA green performs its best. So you really got to get it as absolutely perfect as you can at the bottom, and then you really only want to play with the last inch or so at the top. You don't want to screw up those those layers, and especially getting it right in the bottom. So it's getting everything roughed in with not it's really finely graded with the bulldozer, all the false falloffs and everything, and then shooting grades. And I'm basically taking three three paces and shooting a grade because three paces is about ten feet ten feet. Lets you do pretty simple slope calculations of you know, two three percent here or there as you're moving the laser up tenths of a foot, so you know you're trying to truly almost make a grid of ten foot sort of spacing in certain cases of where you want whole locations, and then you know if you've got a giant tier. I mean I've fixed a few of these like sort of two tier kind of greens because the tiers end up so damn steep that like you put from one side and then the ball rolls off the front of the green and you don't get that right. So you can't just fudge the whole locations. You sometimes have to lay the whole thing back and if you end up chopping two inches down in the front to make everything work, now you've got to take that and carry that extra two inch grade all the way through the approach and through and how it ties into the bunkers and everything. So you get it all set with the dozer, and then I'll go even further and bring my excavator with the knucklebucket in and to fine tune it, like to a really extreme degree of like you know, are we talking millimeters, Yeah, it's probably in the centimeter sort of ranger or less. To get those details right. And then you let the guys come in and do the drainage. And then they drain it and they drive all over the thing and they try to keep it pretty as clean as they possibly can, and they rake everything fine tunely from there, and then you go up and you got to check it again in the stone once everything goes back. And then once the stone you know, is perfect and that base four inches of the USG and green, they go up with the mix and then you can probe the mix perfectly and see if it's twelve inches a year there. And that's when you get into the sand pro and I use a four foot digital smart level, so you regrid everything with the big laser and then super super fine details. With that, you can't have any water sitting still. Some places you need water moving, you know, a certain percentage so you don't get ice damage. When your recent thaw in Massachusetts here or there spilling off the front of the green, that was an issue. So it's a lot of different you know, fractions of a percent here or there, but that's what makes the difference. And you know sometimes when you know people don't get that right is when twenty years later we would come back and we fix it.

00:17:34
Speaker 2: God, that's that, honestly, like sounds like my worst nightmare is that level of attention to detail throughout a very long process.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: But that's that's the stuff that matters the most, right, I mean it truly, you can't. I don't know how you would possibly have gotten to some of this level of interceded detail in a Grady plan or plans, or hand it over to anybody, or even just got it this close. And then what would we do chop out the you know, you wanted to accentuate the false run and the way something the green drapes over like so much, and now the Superintendent's left with like six inches of mix and it's burning up in the front of his green Like that's not good. So it's just kind of I think what it takes. But it's where like the real architecture really is, right. I mean, you put crazy edges on bunkers all day long, and you put tongues and I'll do whatever, but like you got to get to the greed somehow, and those those last fractions of an inch or what make the world a difference.

00:18:45
Speaker 2: You obviously have gone from as you alluded to, really like jumped off the cliff into your own work as a individual architect on your own what's been the toughest aspect of that over the last few years?

00:19:02
Speaker 1: The toughest I don't know if there's like a the toughest thing. I think it's I've gone through, you know, just a few different learning processes and things. I think one of the things that I've always worried the most about is making sure we get all the budgets and everything is perfectly organized and predicted as possible. Certainly, every you know, everybody, everybody's known about all the crazy price jumps and all the crazy you know every material and contractors and everything. It's it's really difficult to sort everything out and predict the cost of materials and the scope of work and what what everything's going to come into months sometimes years in advance. So going through and just getting better at the stuff has been a big thing for me over the last couple of years and I feel super confident really in it now. You know, that big project at Cedar Brook, we came in you know, just the just the right amount under so that was nice the last you know. And the thing is is like if you're not doing a brand new golf course or a giant like project, it's hard to manage. You know, you can't like chop something out at the end. If you have like a two week project and you're building like there's no place to hide it. You get one bill and it's over. But like a bigger project, you can make this bunker smaller, that bunker smaller, and the screen you know, can change size and it can change the price here there as you go. But there's that stuff. There's also just generally getting better at the proposal process and the sort of sales and like that sort of portion. You know, it's certainly different when you have a handful or two projects versus two projects. I have, you know, some guys that have been helping me a certain way over the last year. I have Nick who's been helping me with plans and graphics over the last year and is now you know, his role was increased a lot, so trying to figure that out. But I've had people help on site too, So trying to figure out how to manage and do some more of that stuff well, keeping that level of I can get the last centimeter perfect on the greens and do things the super hands on way that I've been doing since that hand drawn plan that Edgar Town and the handbuilt and hand rate you know everything. So that's the hardest part is keeping up with the entire program.

00:21:52
Speaker 2: It's it sounds like it's it's figuring out things that you can afford to let go of that allows you to focus on the things that you have to do.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I haven't really let go of too much, but a little bit. Yeah, waiting till the last Yeah, until it's absolutely impossible. But you know, there's no doubt, you know, found the right person who's been making the work better and adding has made everything better for me, for the clients, for the work. So it's not really about letting go. It's just about making it better for everybody because the work of graphics look better to work with, better to get more time.

00:22:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like something that's drastically changed really in the last twenty four months with golf architecture is the graphics and the plans. You know, I am a romantic for the maps and just the simple drawings, but there is this new era of you know, especially I think with clubs, showing clubs with using some you know, digital renderings, using video game software to redesign holes. Like to me, it seems like that's something that's really changed a ton. What how do you guys go about presenting your your the things that you want to change to a club or a somebody that's trying to build their own golf course.

00:23:23
Speaker 1: Everybody sort of has a different version of what is a master plan, right everybody? You know, Sometimes it's like one most large thing with some notes on it. Sometimes it's you know, you've probably seen the eighteen individual graph paper kind of things that guild does with the whole notes, and you know, I've kind of started with that and they've now sort of been branching out and doing more of like a masterplan sort of book where the meat of the thing is eighteen individual holes and practice range and stuff. It's all done generally on some sort of grid with notes. What I've basically been doing is I take my drone and I fli it over and make an exact aerial photograph of each each individual hole that we're working on at the club one through eighteen, and then I use that to make my base map, and I set it at scale, and then I start making my field notes on top of that, and eventually, you know, I build out into a hand drawn thing that shows what's there, It shows what's changing, and gives you the sort of whole notes on the side. A lot of times it also has like a green detail which shows you, you know, the size of expansions or in some cases you know what a new green concept might look like. But so what I've done with my books is generally I make that sort of the left page of the book, and the right page becomes a little bit more, you know, a couple broad strokes details of you know, why we might be doing this or that to the green why we you know, a couple of little things, and then some supporting photographs, maybe your second hole after it got flooded while we were working on the master plan over the course of the year, and you can see these certain things. Or I took a photo a couple of weeks ago of a tree that you know, they told me it was a great tree and it was pivotal, and I went up to it, and not only was it run on one side when I turned around, like I took a photo and there's like a whole through it, Like you could see an entire hole through the thing. And I'm like, oh, how are they going to argue that this is safe? So you know, that's why some you know or you know, And then a lot of times what we also do is I'll layer in like I'm wearing my Morris County hat right now. So that has a few supporting like historic photos. So it has the nineteen thirty aerial photograph right next to the plan, so you can see that my plan looks just like that nineteen thirties, and you can see what actually being restored or not. And it might have a note that calls out this that or the other thing in it, and then pending which sort of plans we're doing. You know, the Boris County will be done in the Seth Rayner style, so they haven't seen it yet, but it's the old school blueprint with the you know, super crude kind of hatching. The Donald Russ stuff looks like his black and orange field notes with the intricate sort of bunker details that Walter Hatch and those guys, or Walter Johnson would have done for him. And then some are just sort of our own style. And then I do take other drone photos and make perspectives. So I will take like a drone photo of like that fifteenth hole at Cedar Brook where we have this green that was elevated seven feet in the sky, and I sort of drew with a punch bowl sort of slopes. And now with Nick's help, we add you know, he'll do the black and white line drawings and he'll add in the color and layer in the photo behind it in a pretty realistic way, and I think it adds, you know, more support to some of these. So in the end we end up with like you know, about a fifty page book, and the beginning has if you're Morris County, you have all those big historic documents and some things at the front, but it tells you, you know, why we're doing green expansions, or why we're you know, tree removal was important here or there, or the history of the place, or why at Cedar Brook we bumped out the approaches so people could run the ball in, you know, the kind of key elements of the plan because everybody, you know, you could write a big document and a big, you know, long thing is a master plan, and most people wouldn't really read the whole thing. The couple guys in the committee would, but a lot of people would be lost. And if you give people plans, not everybody is able to visualize everything. So I feel like this has a little bit of everything. You know, the guys that want to read absolutely everything in the club, it's everything's in there for them. But a lot of it's sort of visual based and not so much writing because people have a hard you know, they just won't read it. If it's just just see need a little bit of everything.

00:28:21
Speaker 2: It's interesting to be that like in a way, when you give them less information, it allows a little bit more freedom. But the way it's going with like rendering with some of these renderings. They're so like, Hey, this is what we're going to build. I could eventually see people being like, wait, it doesn't look like this, you know, and and like what some of the some of the most the best part about the golf architecture is being there and making changes on the fly as you feel and see things.

00:28:53
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, I guess it also depends you know who's doing that draw Yeah, I'm I'm doing the drawing and I'm doing the shaping. So I basically have a year through the master plan process to stand there and work out my first couple moves at the very least, and the vision for the bulldozer. I don't then have to take it three years later when we finally got the master plan complete and then the funding and then this other contractor and then I bring my other shapeer guy or his cut and then like, hey, so this is kind of what we were thinking. We were kind of like, I just get it go. And so I feel like I'll change things and some things like a green contour or green cop like it won't be super incredibly detailed and that stuff. But I think the people with Searbrook would tell you, like it actually is reasonably close, you know, the bunkering on tens definitely different. There's little things you're there, But I feel like it helps me stay a little closer as the guy that started his career working for Tom, who's like, nah, a stupid, like he hates strong, they hate doing it. You know, Don's done this amazing thing behind me, and he's incredible and he could absolutely do it, but Tom just didn't value it as much. And I think on probably a newer project, it'd be way harder to do this amount of stuff. But in the consulting master plan world, I think it's virtually required and the you know, I think it makes it. You know, I feel pretty proud that of like these these master plant books we've been able to create, I feel like they're about as cool as any sort of deliverable you can give the club and have them feel comfortable that this is this is what we're getting and they kind of know it.

00:30:46
Speaker 2: It's definitely the expectation is changing, and it seems like it's changing rapidly, like in terms of like what you get from a master plan, like it is becoming more and more thorough more and more in depth than ever before. With with the you know the visual capabilities today like that I think has has dramatically changed in the last like really like two years of golf architecture. Now for a quick word from our sponsor, Club Champion. Listen. You know we talked about it the Open. Rory's making tweaks to his driver set up, to his putter set up. These are the types of things you could do. Also, you get a tour level fit in customization if you go to Club Champion. What I love most about Club Champion is it to set it and forget its situation. When I go there, I get my clubs and I'd never ever think about changing clubs. I don't ever look in somebody else's bag and have envy because I know that I got the exact perfect fit for myself. So they have fifty thousand customizable options there between shaft and head combinations. It is your one stop shop to get dialed in for golf season, which for you and the northern parts of the country, it's coming right around the corner. I'm sure you're getting Nancy ready to get out there. Great way to get ready for the golf season is visit Club Champion. If you use the promo code fried Egg, you will get fifty percent off a fitting with a club purchase. So if you use the promo code fried Egg when you schedule you're fitting, you'll get fifty percent off your fitting costs with the club purchase. So if you're looking for a single club, new set of clubs, go to Club Champion and try out everything and find what's best for you. Now back to jaeger Kovich, you have an interesting mix of renovation and seration clients. You know, I would I think that it You know, there are there are a lot of people that you know, do a ton of restoration work of Golden Age architecture, don't do a ton of renovation work. You're early in your career, And to me, one of the things that stands out is there's a good mixture of both. Which one do you? Uh, you know, would you say you gravitate a little bit more towards you don't want to answer this question, but I don't.

00:33:26
Speaker 1: I don't gravitate that. I mean, really, I feel like it's doing the different stuff that is what keeps it interesting. Like it's it's trying to build in different styles and do different things and think about different Yeah, I find that the most interesting and it probably makes you better. And uh, you know, you don't just keep building the same sort of stuff, you know, McDonald rainer stuff is very different than the tilling has stuff or the super trenchy kind of the bunkers that we're going to be doing at Tavistan, which is Alexander Finlay or the Donald rock like. And then we have crazy sandscapes out at Laura Wings and the bunkers at Manhattan Wood's are definitely cranked to a volume like very few other places. And that's entirely my own stuff. So yeah, I find that fun. I just I like doing different things.

00:34:26
Speaker 2: It seems like restoration is like it's more of like a history project versus the renovation stuff is where you get you would get to like let loose a little bit more right and and and put your own Yeah.

00:34:44
Speaker 1: It's more of it's yeah, it's more of this is the answer right once like you get to the answer of this is how it was, and then it's once you're there on site, it's like, Okay, how can I get it to this as fast as I can? And it's a different sort of you're going straight from A to B there as fast as you can where the other stuff has less of a clear solution. And in many ways I don't know, I mean, yeah, but every place you're always doing some sort of history, you're doing some sort of thing, or there's a lot of I don't know, Oh well, there's a lot of similar themes throughout. I would say a lot of the principles and making things, maximizing properties and making things better for you know, memberships of two hundred and three hundred people like. It might look different, there might be different styles you're there, but a lot of the general kind of make it that golf course has fun as possible that that ever goes away.

00:35:59
Speaker 2: What part of renovation especially, I mean you've got some kind of mid century work, you've got you consult at a Gary Player design, you consult at a design Cedar Brook that's in the was built in what the sixties.

00:36:14
Speaker 1: Right, Well, they had they had the nineteen nineteen towing hast and then they moved properties too, and then they got basically a nineteen sixties like sort of RTJ knockoff for William Mitchell. So that was like this weird blend of the both, right, that was the take some of this tilling hast history and mix it with their property that's different and honestly way better than their old one. So yeah, that was that was like, you know, one of those kind of both things, which was a lot of fun, you know for the kid that grew up caddying at Quaker and writing the twenty page thesis in college on Toilling House and all that good stuff to like, you know, getting out there and trying to you know, make the back half of number ten look like or play like some of the back half of the ninth green at Wingfoot West and the bunker in the front is kind of like two center or Ridgewood or one at Quaker, and then you know, maybe the t shot had a little bit of you know, the bunker on the right's got seven not Ridgewood East, and a little bit of something else on the other side. So yeah, I mean I quite enjoyed that. It's you know, that was fun. I mean I probably wouldn't have naturally gravitated to like that style had there not been some sort of historic twist to it.

00:37:43
Speaker 2: What's so, what's the most challenging part of the renovation work? Like taking something that exists and turning into something else.

00:37:51
Speaker 1: I guess probably figuring out what is the proper blend of how much to change and how much to leave the same. Are you sticking with the same routing? Are you changing certain greens? Are you changing all the greens? Are you changing? You know? Then beyond that, you get in the like are you doing phase projects? So you can you handle doing half the bunkers in one style half and another? Like, you know, coming up with the consistency stuff and the playability stuff throughout becomes a different sort of challenge as you go through that.

00:38:28
Speaker 2: I imagined that it's like, you know, in a lot of cases, you would you know, the easiest perspective is we can start from scratch, change everything, blow up everything, but the financial and you know, shutdown period is probably not palatable for most clubs. So then it becomes like, if we're going to do two holes, how do we get to eighteen eventually? And how much are we are we changing?

00:38:57
Speaker 1: Yeah? And which ones worth it are the most? Which greens or holes are the most? You know, how you pick you know where, So that's kind of you know, it's a lot of listening and then it's a lot of using my imagination and showing them what it could be, and then working as a committee to figure out where the best you know, what they want, where the best value is, and that sort of stuff. You know, I think to a certain degree, some of the job is to show them what their potential could be. But at the same time, so many of these clubs, you have three hundred people that joined and play there like dozens of times a year and love these clubs, and they don't necessarily want to do that, and they probably shouldn't do it either in the majority of cases, like you know, blow the whole thing up, what I mean. But so you know, you have to learn in over the court, you know. That's why you know it takes generally the like proposal and interview process at these you know, it takes a few months a lot of times, and you're trying to listen and feel out what the general you know, and propose what you feel is sort of the right decision, and over the next year you can really fine tune that and understand more of what's really going on underground, what we need needs to be changed or updated, and what can we also do and how do you maximize the property and make sure the place is like you know, the best for these two hundred and three hundred people or whatever. But also sometimes there's places that are you know, single owners type things versus you know, equity, and it adds wrinkles here or there to some of the stuff. And yeah, and we make them all different every time.

00:40:49
Speaker 2: A little news. Obviously it's a big story in golf. I'm curious from your perspective as a golf architect, what your thoughts were on the USGA distance announcement and a local rule that was, you know, the idea that professional golf at highest level of amateur golf will will use a different ball that flies a little bit shorter than the ball that we have right now.

00:41:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think in general they made what seemed to me as to be the only like the the option, right. I think, you know, in terms of the specifics of how far it actually does roll back, I guess I have a little bit of hard time understanding exactly how many yards they think some of these guys are going to be going and some of these like you know, we're taking the one hundred and was one hundred and twenty seven or these swing speeds, and how they calculate it. I guess I don't. I guess in general, it seems like I've probably lean on the camp. It's like, maybe it's not going totally back far enough. But I think in general they made the pre right decision with the local rule and the bifurcation and the pro game only, and you know, it doesn't seem like the ball is gonna be any squirrelier. It's just going to go maybe fifteen yards less for the best guys for a little bit, or for the most average player and then to be determined from there, I guess.

00:42:30
Speaker 2: But yeah, in a way, it seems like the ball is actually going to be less squirrely because if you just knock off distance but don't change spin, you know, it's just not going to go as far right. So yeah, I guess less off line in a way.

00:42:47
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, So I don't know. I've been chatting with some of my friends whatever, and I think I guess what. I sort of why it's maybe not perhaps far enough in my ideal version is like you want you want the par fives to matter, and you want the best players in the world, and whether the pros or the leading amateurs or whatever. You know, everybody thinks it's just a pro game, but like the back tee stuff and the things like, that's an issue for me. It like most places I go to in one way or another. But you want people hitting like every variety of clubs in a part threes. You want long irons, you want this. You want par fives to be able to matter.

00:43:32
Speaker 2: What's that mean? What's that mean? Par fives to matter? Just you know in your opinion.

00:43:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you want you want the ability to have like real three shot like it takes three strokes to get there at least on occasion. You know, for pretty much everyone. I'd like to see what you know, how Rory you know, would really think through that sort of stuff on a more regular basis. This isn't going to do that. They're not going to be hidden, you know, unless it's like you know, the crazy hole at Oakman or wing Foot, like they're still not really hitting many of those super long part threes for the most part, or things like that, or the long irons in the Power for way, it's just not really doing it. It's longer, it's not you know, but whatever.

00:44:20
Speaker 2: It's interesting. Last year the Masters fifteen was obviously lengthened and then they got a little bit unconventional of wind and it was playing into the wind. And what I found, I found it to be very, very compelling because it brought some of that like you know, they use this term for thirteen, but this momentous decision where it wasn't an automatic I'm pulling out the long iron and going for it decision, and you start to sog, you start to see you guys lay up right, you know, right edge of the fairway, left edge of the fairway. And then when people went for it, it all of a sudden built this drama. Right, oh, they're going for it. And I think this is something that like amateur golfers have, but at the professional game it's almost just been like, take out the longest if you missed the fair away, take out the longest club you can hit from the lie and just get it up there as close as you can and just dump it up there anywhere, and you're fined.

00:45:25
Speaker 1: And if there is never an option, they pull out the unfair work. You know, I guess that. You know. The other thing is like, you know, are we going to really let the old you know, is the old course? When's the old course going to be relevant for me? You know, you want that to be relevant, right, don't you, as like an architect and architect like, yeah, you wish maybe it was like an extra fifteen percent when they went to you know, over there a little bit.

00:45:51
Speaker 2: I think that's the thing that I wonder about, is I fear just from the usja's history, like, to me, the this isn't a situation where it's like we're going to start here, we're going to see how it goes, and we're going to tweak it from there. To me, when the USGA and the way they've gone about this decision making process, I mean, this has been a very long process. This is more of a we're doing this and this is what's going to happen. This is not like a company that's trying out something new to help their culture and it's like a hey, let's try this for and see where it goes and adapt it. This to be seems more like, hey, we're going to enact this law and we aren't we there. It doesn't feel to me like there's going to be a lot of rigidity in the you know, because to me, it would be very compelling if there was like, hey, this is the range we're looking at and you know, there's a high end and a low end, and we want to see some testing and we want to see how this plays out before we settle on exactly where we want to go. Yeah, I mean, and I get why that would be a difficult thing to propose on a large scale. Like that's the difficult Like that's not the way the government goes about approving laws, right.

00:47:13
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how they don't prove anything sometimes, Yeah, I I I think that they their right to dig their heels in and say we're doing this and to like, I appreciate that I probably did pick it and keep you know, wanting you know, I get it. I'm sure it seems like there's a whole bunch of other people that you know, I think we're out to sea. I hopefully will be here and uh, you know, Tiger tell the webs to relax a little bit in Augusta. I hope, I hope, I hope he he has, you know, just says what he's generally said for the last long while about the ball. I would imagine we probably get that press conference at Augusta.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: Ring obviously not laying up this week, had Rory talking about it and how much he wants it to change. So that's it's I think, like you know, it's got to be a top down thing. I think that's the one thing I do think is that, Like I mean, from your perspective, is distance a problem at clubs?

00:48:20
Speaker 1: Like?

00:48:20
Speaker 2: Is is distance a problem at at your local country club? Is it exclusively a PGA tour problem, high a high level amateur golf problem, or is it a problem at club?

00:48:32
Speaker 1: No? I So, like you know, I was talking about this with my friends when this stuff came out. I mean it was like a you know, a couple of days long never ending. You know this that the other thing, and like you know, your work isn't like you know, you're not the work you did at the country club or the US Open teas at that Way country Club that they're playing that you built like handful of years ago. Like you don't do that work anymore. Like you know, your clients aren't guilt clients, like they're not hosting that stuff. I'm like, you're right, but we have you know, US Open qualifiers. We're at a handful of these clubs, Manhattan Woods, Knickerbocker have held them, Patterson holds them sometimes. Not that they honestly the qualifiers they really don't use the back teams because they're sobered that those guys that think they should be playing from all the way back there, they break robook it out of bounce constantly, and like those shoot ninety seven, they won't get enough people through to finish. But like the clubs and some of them, like we deal with it. I think in a lot of cases, you know, we're still trying to make it like the best, you know, harder for the best players at the club. And in some cases, like there's a one of the sharpest dog legs you've ever seen on the par five is the fifteenth hole at Tavistock, and these guys just go up and over like an l of trees and the average player can't even reach halfway to like the l in the if you can sort of imagine what I'm saying, and then they have to like bunt a seven iron up to get just to the corner of it and then play back around the like boomerang shape. So like, yeah, we're dealing with it, and I gotta set bunkers that you know, some of the scratch are you know, really good players and club championship stuff, and then the te's that really need to go even further, and you got to figure out how to make it fun for everybody. And a lot of the cases right as we've seen throughout, you could use the Rodom anchor Ridgewood as great examples of the restorations I did with feel like those things are super historically accurate, bunker positioning things like that. There's a few places here there where things got rolled a little bit. You're there, but you know, we did a lot of it with teas and stretching things back and repositioning stuff occasionally with that as well. But you just sort of let at those places the history and the you know, we have three hundred some odd whatever members and we're just going to do the right thing for them, and what those guys take it apart at that point, So there's some of that as well, and not worry too much about it and just go play golf and you know whatever. You know, we get a lot of the like hitting it the wrong fairway thing with the distant stuff is probably the scarier thing to me, The hitting it like the further offline thing, Like I'm the scarier and like harder things I think to deal with than just the pure distance at sort of my level.

00:51:35
Speaker 2: I as somewhat everybody's heard of this. I've played it like basically a percim and driver for the last year. The biggest thing that I tell people I noticed is like, I don't miss it fairways over anymore. Like when I hit a really bad T shot, it's like fifteen yards offline, like fifteen yards into the rough. It's not going like and I played I played modern equipment the other day and I hit some drives. I hit a moder driver, and I was hitting some drives like really like way outside the window that I had become accustomed to playing in, you know, where it was. Fees was like, Oh, this can go into the other fairway, and that's something that was unavailable.

00:52:15
Speaker 1: It can go. It can go. It can go up and over the trees and across the road and across to hit the other house on the second story. And that's where I in a way you've never imagined.

00:52:26
Speaker 2: I think what I hope from this is that this becomes like a top down adaptation for the world of golf, because like that's the biggest issue to me is that the there is like a distance problem in the sense of like how far fifteen handicaps that are long can hit it offline, you know, right with regularity, you know, versus the you know, like that is a real problem because it's you know, whether it's houses nearby and the different things that you have to do to mitigate that issue.

00:53:00
Speaker 1: You Yeah, you know, it's it's crazy because we're talking about this stuff. And then you know, my friends bust my balls and I had to use your club champion code because I don't hit it as far enough. You know, I had the old stuff and I'm losing the fifteen yards or whatever they said. They got me twenty one yards. We'll find out if it ever greens uper around here.

00:53:21
Speaker 2: But like you know that well that I played with a buddy's driver, Yeah, and I couldn't believe it. Like I was worried about a bunker based off of I've been using a twenty thirteen driver. Yeah, mine was before I went to the person.

00:53:36
Speaker 1: Mine was about was, you know, twenty fifteen during the Ridgewood projector something like that. Yeah.

00:53:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, So anyways, I was worried. There's I'm not going to use the numbers because I did not want to sound like a humble brag, but it was into the wind, into a cold wind, and I that was that bunker was right out of number I used to really worry about. And I hit this driver and I hit it really good, but it flew by fifty I was like, whoa wait, wait a second, this is this is what these new drivers are Like.

00:54:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, that's not how I play, But I have to deal with guys to do that. And then I'll be out working on a hole and I'll be working on the longest spare way bunker where the guys, you know, like you can hit it up into the thing and we'll do some actual like some things to the bunker. So if you get it in the furthest part of the bunker, it's way worse than if you're at the shortest part of the bunker, because you know, that's just one thing I've sort of factored into my designs here there where I think I can sort of help make, you know, design to this issue. But while I'm in that bunker shaping it, there's like a ravine water carry thing that's like one ninety five, and all these freaking Jenner the members that play every day from the blue teas or whatever, and they can't get it over the freaking two hundred yard perry. And they've got all the new stuff and they got and I'm like, you know, it's every buddy thinks they can do it and they can't. And then it's so it's so strange. It's really tough. And then you know, you got forward tea's to add everywhere, the white that the you know, the tea if you only got a set of four t's at some of these clubs, you got the championship, the general, the like standard bends member right, the sort of that white you know, senior read sort of tea that's never really in the right position because those guys don't want to go far enough and whatever. It's it's such a wide range of of self defector in it's crazy. Yeah.

00:55:37
Speaker 2: That's one thing that is, like the distance as the distance gap gets wider, that doesn't get talked about enough is the need for more teas. And you can do these combo te's, but they're hard to they're hard, they're hard to use, Like you have to have a scorecard to understand where you're supposed to play, you know, like and and tea's obviously, like greens are expensive, te's aren't cheap, Like it's not cheap to build new Yeah, it's like.

00:56:01
Speaker 1: That, it's not. You got to take the grass off, then you got to take the mix out. Then you got to reshape it and move it around. So that requires new irrigation and you know, then you gotta shape it and you got to put back and then nutrainage new mix. Six inches of mix you gotta you know, that's not cheap. You gotta laser level it. You got to fill the top sole back up, you got to buy the side, you got to lay the side, you got to pay someone to break all the dirt. Like there's just so many different light items. It adds up if you're going to do it with all those materials. So yeah, it's not it's not as cheap as you'd think, you know, just go lettle out a spot and throw some grass on it. Like that works someplaces, but that's mostly not the expectation. Uh, you know a lot of times. So like you kind of end up going back to like these really really long, big sort of connected free flowy almost like you know, slightly more are just version of the R T J runway team. But like you kind of in some ways either need something like that and new stuff around, or you just have a bunch of pods, or you just you know, limit yourself.

00:57:14
Speaker 2: Why Rees, why Reese would just build eight of those decks every uh every hole?

00:57:19
Speaker 1: Maybe that seems like a lot.

00:57:23
Speaker 2: Anyways, Uh, I had you prepare something. I want to get to it since uh, since we uh were running here near an hour, I wanted to talk. I had you prepare the power rankings of the UK so areas. The idea would be, you know how you would rank We got to have.

00:57:44
Speaker 1: Your Who's defining the geography? Is any Johnson's Friday.

00:57:49
Speaker 2: Geography or what you're You're just just you're you're the boss here. I'm trying to plan my next UK trip and uh and so anyways, this was kind of a selfish asked because I wanted to see where how you kind of figured how you would how you would shake out these different areas of the UK and in terms of where you'd most want to go for golf trips in a centralized location.

00:58:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of figured you had some sort of twist to it. So I threw out to start with Ireland and Wales. I'd never been to Ireland. I really would like to go to Ireland. I don't know the Ireland geography super well and how you'd split up. So I left that off correct.

00:58:40
Speaker 2: All right, that's good narrowing it down already.

00:58:44
Speaker 1: You know, some of the courses I most want to see in the world are in Ireland. I would say that. You know, then you have this like you know UK thing. I don't know. Well I left it up. I basically chopped up Scotland into like four categories. You got the Highlands, you got the Saint Andrews, you got the Midwalthian Mierfield, North Barrack centralized trip, and then you got the West Coast okay, and then for London England rather, you know, I put like what I've done in England, it's really been London, but you can drive two hours to the English Channel and like break up that London trip. So is that English Channel its own destination or is it part of London?

00:59:36
Speaker 2: We'll say that's its sound destination because I feel like London is a huge, huge trip. Could you could be there, but I feel.

00:59:44
Speaker 1: Like where people screw up the London trips to go play at the heathling Golf. The first time is they go see six cult courses all down the street from each other, when you could have played three, driven to the coast, played Saint George's Deal, Rye, and then driven back and played three more and you actually remember the differences and you get everything all right.

01:00:10
Speaker 2: Well, so then that could be.

01:00:12
Speaker 1: Like, that's why I go into That's why, that's why you know, I'm going to go to New York City. But you drive, you play, you know out in the Hampton's, you get a little Westchester, maybe you squeeze one in New Jersey, but it's like a New York City trip. All right.

01:00:24
Speaker 2: Well that's it's your it's your show here.

01:00:27
Speaker 1: So so if you're going to do that, I think that's got to be probably number one.

01:00:32
Speaker 2: So it's the combination of London plus the English channel.

01:00:37
Speaker 1: Right because you get your Saint George's, your Open Championship Rota. Of course, you get Deal one of the most fun links, and Rye one of truly the best courses in England and probably one of the most fun links as well. And you can combine that with your Walton Heath, your Sunningdale, Saint George's Hill. You can add in all sorts of little things, you know, around that. I think if you just did ten days straight in Surrey, it'd be great, but I think you'd lose. They'd start to blend together, you know, and the list in London like it's crazy. I mean, you can do different things in between these things, right. You can skip out to Royal Ashdown Forest on the way in between, right, and that's something you wouldn't see anywhere the course with the note bunkers. You know. The last time, I think one of the first times we were on the pod, we were talking about the Addington, Yeah, and that was before the changes, and I was telling you that, like, if there's one golf course in the world that I would buy or whatever, it would be that one. And now you have guys that are saying it's like the greatest restoration in history and we're like four years later, so you know, I don't know, I have a hard time not putting that as number one in a power rankings. Number two, I'm going to go with Scottish Highlands, all right, because you know it's a little crum me to leave out the old course or you know, I think this is Northfield, this is where.

01:02:08
Speaker 2: People people would struggle to say I'm going to the Highlands because it's like you you look at East Lothian and it's like, oh, I could play North Barrick, Mirfield and a bunch of other courses, and in the Highlands it's like I.

01:02:22
Speaker 1: Didn't feel yeah, right, So you have a ten in Merefield and you have one of my three favorite courses in the world, North Barrick West right, without a doubt. But kill Spindy's cool. I didn't think the Gullins were that amazing. It's it's a great trip. I've really enjoyed it. The Renaissance Club is all right while you're in there as well. But I mean, if you do the Islands, you could fly into Aberdeen, you get Royal Aberdeen, you can go up to you can you know Castle Stewart's got one course, is going to have two and that's going to become way better here shortly, right, So you get cruden Bay, which which is all world really good. You got Dornick, which you get at least one ten pretty much no matter how you split, like any of the Scotland or England trips, you're not going to get more than one ten unless you move around between these these spots, so that gets you the tench but you you know, Brora with the grazing, I mean, that's a pretty hard thing to turn out. And you can always supplement in your Nair and your Fraser bro your Rob Aberdeen's, like there's a lot of other things up there as well to add in. I don't even know where you'd factor in your Glenn Eagles. Is that Highlands or is it somewhere more Saint Andrewsy like Tom putt it in one of the older guides. So then you know, I think you have a toss up in some ways do you want to do the history and do you want to do this Saint Andrews and the Carnoustie and the Kings Barns and all the cool stuff around there.

01:04:01
Speaker 2: I think the other thing with the other thing with that trip is staying in St. Andrew's having like the college town you have, like like you you have a lot more things to do at night.

01:04:13
Speaker 1: That was my first trip, My first trip was to there, you know, and knocked out those big three. I think, you know, if you have if that's a great way to go, there's no doubt, you know, it's funny though, because like I also had the West coast of Scotland is like super high because so many people. You know, you got Preswick, you got the one, I guess. I guess. I don't know you count Turnberry as an open rota, but you got Turnberry or trun over there. True, probably not the quality of Prestwick or the other, but they're pretty solid. Macrahonish if you wanted to drive down there, I've never done it. I'd love to that. Uh, Western Gales, those are two I felt like I really missed out on. But north than the West of England. I think, you know, I haven't been there. It's that's with Ireland. It's probably one of the places I want to see over there in the UK the most all the I guess it's sort of hard to define that sort of middle chunk your Liverpool areas. You're you know, your old original Mackenzie sort of stuff there. Yeah, there's there's links, courses, there's the stuff inside. There's a lot of cool stuff up there that i'd really like to see. But now you're in you know the five or six numbers of your your power ranking there, so how far down the list do you go?

01:05:40
Speaker 2: So, so to recap it, you've got you've got London English Channel one, then you go Highlands, then you go three. You're going with Fife, Yeah, then for East Lovin yeah, which.

01:05:54
Speaker 1: Is crazy in looking back on it, it's not. I don't I don't really care for that, but that's what we said.

01:05:59
Speaker 2: And then five five you've got the west west coast of Scotland.

01:06:03
Speaker 1: How do you put one of the three favorite courses? You know, yeah, screw it, let's do it.

01:06:09
Speaker 2: Could you make an argument that East Lothian has the two top the two best courses of any of the regions.

01:06:16
Speaker 1: Hm hmmm, yeah, sure, absolutely you can make that argument. You got at tend Yeah, I think it's yeah. I just think the list at the top. I think once you were off those top two, it drops off. So for like a week unless you're doing you know, multiple days at each which are beyond worth it, Like beyond worth it. That's what I did. You know, two days at your field and two days at two or three rounds in North Ad like that was that was worth it. I'm just not sure I would if you were going to spend a week. I feel like I get in there and I drive somewhere else then spend the week there entirely.

01:07:05
Speaker 2: I you know, that's that is See this is great. This is I think that's where that That's an important distinction, right and so, but it doesn't.

01:07:15
Speaker 1: Doesn't really matter because the last time I went over there, I played the old course with Clyde and then the next day we drove across. And it's not over night to play Preswick. So like to an American, some of the driving doesn't seem like that big deal. Some people like to stay. So you know, you moved once, moved twice. You know, I don't know how long are you going for?

01:07:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. All right, Well there this is now in the in the sand. This is your power ranking, so have to live with it.

01:07:44
Speaker 1: So which one are you going? Where are you going?

01:07:46
Speaker 2: I don't know.

01:07:47
Speaker 1: I've the record.

01:07:48
Speaker 2: I've decided look at it. Iron I'm looking at Ireland, Highlands or London. Those are my three that I'm kind of I in so.

01:07:58
Speaker 1: As someone that did Saint Andrew's and MIDLEVETI.

01:08:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't done all of Saint Andrew's. That's the thing I do. I do want to get back and do like the full thing yeah, I only saw I only saw two courses there. I you know, I need.

01:08:15
Speaker 1: To but I was, Yeah, if there was you know, by some magical circumstance, you know, you were able to play the old course like a handful of times in a week, that's that's probably what you'd pick.

01:08:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's see, that's the thing.

01:08:30
Speaker 1: That was what I picked. It's just hard to guarantee that, you know, it's hard to I guess all these places that are all so vound from COVID for like years, I guess. And the Americans all queued up.

01:08:42
Speaker 2: The thing that you you made a point about North Berrick and Mierfield, and I think, like one of my regrets, like and this is like the hard thing we had. The we got you know, kind of presented us the opportunity to play the old course the Tuesday after the open, you know, and and we we like we pause for a little bit. And the guy that offered this up was like, wait, all right, what do you think about the reason we were thinking about it was because we had thirty six holes lined up at North Barrick and we were like, well, we kind of want to do all day at North Barrick. Like that was like the thing like I really wanted to play North Barrick twice and ended up. What happened was we played North Barrick in the morning, got in the car, drove to the old course, played that, and then drove all the way back to North Barrick where we were staying, and it was like, you know, that was a really long day. Do I regret going seeing both of them? Absolutely not. But one of my big regrets was not getting thirty six holes getting to go around North Barrick again, you know, because that's where I think, you you, that's where you start to appreciate the truly great courses is every single time you play them, they get better. And that's the thing that is hard with Scotland and hard for anybody.

01:09:52
Speaker 1: But like, you know, how'd you play the how'd you play the pick? Did you end up hitting it off the walls?

01:10:01
Speaker 2: I just hit a massive block, just a huge cataclysmic block, just and that I had. I think I I think I ended up over the green and then I chipped up in mid par But you know, Brendan hit it right up against the wall. He had hit a little chip right over it.

01:10:20
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so he got to interact with it like a little bit.

01:10:25
Speaker 2: But yeah, I really one of my favorite holes out there is the hole before the pit. I love that hole. I love I love that like little middle that not short par four, but you know shorter par four that plays like kind of up over hill you don't know really where you're going. And then that green that sits there right on the on the water. I think that's like, I think that's the most beautiful hole out there. Personally.

01:10:48
Speaker 1: There's so many good ones there. It's so good.

01:10:52
Speaker 2: The thing that I was taken aback by were how good the greens were, Like I don't know, like every green you're just it's like, God, this is an amazing green and just the way they kind of sit on the ground and everything.

01:11:05
Speaker 1: Definitely some of the more interesting links greens. There are certainly some links courses where the green contours are just you know, don't quite have the maybe the energy that you think they might have given the landforms around and they're much simpler and whatever. But North Barrett comes with it all the way through.

01:11:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, what's the weakest hold what's the weakest whole? At North Barrick. This is the question that I hated that somebody asked me the reason this question. This is one of the hardest questions I think to answer when you play the best courses.

01:11:47
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is it like maybe one of those part five?

01:11:53
Speaker 2: Like eight? Yeah, I really like eight, though I like the green, I like the t shot.

01:12:00
Speaker 1: It's tough. I don't know. I mean one is great, Eighteen's also good, even though they're you know, sneaky similar to Saint Andrew's. It's not a place with a lot of week holes. I mean, I don't know. The par three with the in the bathtub it's cool, is it like, I don't know, I don't know. I'd probably say answer, yeah, absolutely, you know what's the what's the worst hole at Dalliil? You pick your turn? Same thing, Yeah, same thing. They're they're very similar in terms of like if you just played it on that that same thing, right, you just you just came from sand Hills, you had an opportunity, you had to crank through Ballee in one round, and then you had to be off like you love it, but you'd be pissed because he didn't really get it.

01:12:52
Speaker 2: I got it that. That's a hard question. The ballyt Neil maybe.

01:12:56
Speaker 1: It's no harder than the North Barry one. It's the same thing.

01:12:59
Speaker 2: Maybe is it thirteen or fourteen that has the center line bunkers.

01:13:05
Speaker 1: They both do. The one's a longer hold.

01:13:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, the longer, the longer one than Okay, don't I don't know if it necessarily works perfect. I don't. I feel like you can't get to the spot reliably, Like it's just like it's it would be so silly to try and hit it left. So then you just like kind of have to play to the right, and then you're in the.

01:13:28
Speaker 1: More room to the right than most people really believe or will play for, so they often find more trouble than they And then if you end up in one of those gnarvely center line bunk which are just some of the craziest bunkers like out there, it is, they're a mess. You you're probably making an X sixteen.

01:13:52
Speaker 2: Sixteen would be the other one, because I just don't think the t shot works great.

01:13:56
Speaker 1: Interesting, you know, I probably I would have picked eeen. I think the green is I just think it doesn't work as well as some of the other ones. But I find that the teach out on sixteen extremely compelling. Trying to for me just rope one in there all the way down and down into that bowl of achievement as it's nicknamed. So do you want to set your you want to set your power rankings to camp or you know where you want to see five courses or your two courses and play them over and over again.

01:14:31
Speaker 2: I don't think it would be you know, you know, prudent for me for the audience to just sit at two courses and play them for a week straight and tell them about it. I think, you know, I have to go. I have to go see a bunch of as many courses as I can, which is the hard thing.

01:14:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm generally about that as well, but you know some days sometimes yeah.

01:14:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the courses you want to marry, you know. So that's that's the thing. Those are those are the best ones, are the ones that you're like, this is the one I want to play all the time. So yeah, Hey, I appreciate the time as always, good catching up. Really happy that you are you were are getting quite busy and look forward to seeing some of your work here this year.

01:15:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I appreciate it. Always good to catch up, and you definitely got to come see some of these new greens we were talking about at the start of this. I think that would be uh, that would be great.

01:15:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, thanks Jeger and I'll talk to you soon.

01:15:39
Speaker 1: Have a go one.

01:15:49
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to another edition of the Friday Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Matt Rushes. Thank you Matt. As a quick reminder, we've got boots on the ground next week at ANWA, so Garrett and Meg Atkins will be going down to the Augusta National Women's Amateur Brendan and I will be on the ground for the Masters, so we will be you know, the team will be divided and conquering Augusta National the next two weeks. The best way to stay up to date with everything we're doing around those events is to sign up for the Frida Egg newsletter. It's free. Go to the fridagg dot com and there should be a bar right across the main page there. Enter your email. You're in. It's Monday, Wednesday, Friday and thank you guys. We'll be daily during the Masters on that but thank you guys for the support as always, and we'll be back next week with a new episode of the podcast.