What’s New at the Ocean Course with Scot Sherman

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over a Ba Dratty. Obviously, beat Dratty's been a big sponsor of the show for a long time, one of our earliest sponsors. They have a new product line, the Bea Dratty Sports. So they've really taken their time developing this line. It's not your typical tech fabric. They you know, kind of scoured the earth for the best fibers and they have you know, not only polos, which they had last year, but they also now have the Blair pullover.

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00:00:47
Speaker 1: You could you go for a jog, you can mow the lawn, and I'm like, you don't have to worry about you know, getting sweaty and ruining you know, your favorite polo like these these are built for that. So definitely check out the sport line at beach dot com. If you use the promo code Frida Egg twenty five, you'll get twenty five percent off your order. So check out the sport line at bdradty dot com and thanks for the support. Today's episode is with golf course architects Scott Sherban. Scott has had a long career in golf architecture that has seen him work for a number of different architects including Pete Dye, Bobby Weed, and now most recently he has partnered with the Loves Davis and Mark Love and one of the recent projects that he has finished is the Ocean Course. He worked with the resort and worked with the team with Jeff Stone and the maintenance team at the Ocean Course to add some new tea's, tweak some existing teas for this PGA Championship as well as move some trees around and kind of get some design features back on that golf course that had had gone away. So we talked with Scott a lot about the Ocean Course as well as the opening of Belmont Golf Course in Richmond, Virginia. Belmont is a aw Tilling hass Donald ross course that has been converted into a first T facility with their you know, restoring twelve of the original holes out there as well as building a six hole short course and a large driving range on the eighteen hole facility. So we talk about that project and the work that went into that. So, without further ado, we've got the PGA Championship coming up next week. This is a talk with Scott that should get you a little primed about the golf course.

00:02:47
Speaker 2: 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.

00:02:53
Speaker 1: A brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday egg, Frida egg Frida, egg Frida.

00:02:57
Speaker 2: Egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the home. When was the first time you saw Key Island?

00:03:25
Speaker 3: Well, the first time I saw it would have been in nineteen eighty nine. I went there. We went there as a family, my wife and I and her family, partly because it was under construction and I'll never forget my father in law and I tried to and I had just been married several months before. We tried to ride our bikes down a sand road, the now entry road, all the way down to the to the golf course, and it was so soft we gave up and we decided, well, we'll go out on the beach because we know the sand is hard, and so we found our way to the beach and then rode up until we saw construction, and we came into the golf course at what is now fourteen Green roughly and all gone. It was like the surface of the moon, to be honest, just at that stage it was just all sand everywhere. Hurricane I'm trying to think Hugo had probably not hit yet.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I was going to ask by the tieline, that would probably be before Hugo.

00:04:29
Speaker 3: That's right, because it was later in the year and we went during the summer fairly certain, and so that was my first introduction there, and Pete was not there. Alice was thereabouts somewhere, but I met several of the guys that were working there. And that's an ironic story too, because I ended up working with those guys elsewhere in the future dates not too long after that, and they got me in touch with miss Alice, who she and Pete were living there in a condo somewhere, and I still have the letter that she sent back to me.

00:05:09
Speaker 4: We actually sent letters back and forth in those days.

00:05:12
Speaker 3: And she suggested a way for me to work for the Dive family and turned me on to Perry Die, who was in Denver, And anyway, that was sort of the start of me getting to know miss Alice and then eventually Perry and and Peebe and Roy Dye, Perry's brother, et cetera. And so that led to a job with the Die family starting.

00:05:37
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety.

00:05:38
Speaker 2: Is that how you got into golf architecture?

00:05:41
Speaker 3: Yes and no. It's sort of an interesting story. My dad was a friend of a golf architect here in Greenville actually, who worked for George Cobb. I knew at some point that I wanted to be in the golf business. I played high school golf with a guy named Chris Patten, who won the US.

00:06:00
Speaker 4: Amateur Oh yeah.

00:06:01
Speaker 3: And the first time I saw him hit a golf ball, he was in the eighth grade. I think I said to myself, you know, I'm not going to be playing golf and feed myself. So I got to think of something else. And so through high school I really didn't have that feel. I didn't know exactly what was going to happen. But I had always drawn golf holes, even as a child in church, I drew golf holes on the offering envelopes, and so it was something that was in my brain. And slowly but surely as I got to college and I sort of worked it out in my head, Hey, this is something I might want to do. And I attended my first Master's tournament in nineteen eighty six the Saturday and saw Jack Nicholas and saw Augusta National for the first time, and it just sort of crystallized for me what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure how to go about it. But John mcfoy, a longtime friend of mine, and a guy named Tom Marzoff who works for Tom Fazio, they both lived here and they started patted me on the head and said, here's what you should do. And so I did a few things to sort of prepare myself and I'll never forget my wife and I went to the Tour Championship at Harbortown and I had never been at Harbortown. And we walked the golf course and after the fourteenth old there used to be a pop bunker left of that green that was just mean.

00:07:24
Speaker 4: There was a ladder.

00:07:25
Speaker 3: I said to myself, I need to go meet Pete Die somehow, and and found him eventually and found this outice at.

00:07:33
Speaker 4: The Ocean Course.

00:07:34
Speaker 3: So it's sort of a circle of life thing, just one thing sort of led to another.

00:07:39
Speaker 1: So you've been you've been working with the with the Love's Love Design group, and you also are doing you did the you know, renovation work with new teas and some restoration work at the Ocean Course in prep for this this tournament. Obviously, you know you saw the Ocean course at it's early stay. Just how would you say that the course has evolved since you know, the early days to what it is today.

00:08:08
Speaker 3: Well, my goodness, so we're thirty years from construction, and you know, Pete said it best, and needless to say, Pete's the architect, the brains behind it. I you know, Pete was not well when I helped do some work there with the team at Kila, a big team of folks, but with Pete's absence, I just sort of had to keep the team together and help them out. But the Kila folks were great. But as Pete would say, you know that golf course walks or moves more than any other. So one of the things we did was looked at a number of old slides. They were actually slides, and we had a slide projector and we would look at the slides in the office of Steven Younger, who is the head professional, and sort of look back during some construction photographs and also during the Ryder Cup and just try to get again a feel for the place.

00:09:06
Speaker 4: And has changed so much.

00:09:09
Speaker 3: You know, it was a very difficult golf course for the Ryder Cup, as Pete was tasked to do build the toughest golf course you can think of, and there was just a lot of native a lot of sand, a lot of things to avoid, and you know, once that tournament went through, there was a need for the resort to get players around. And I'm not exactly sure when this occurred, maybe after the current owner bought the resort or bought the golf courses, but some widening took place, all the while still a difficult golf course hosting World Cups and Senior PGAs and obviously the PGA back in twenty twelve. So what we tried to do was, obviously we had to deal with some land. Carrie Haig said, hey, we've got several golf holes and I have a list here that.

00:09:58
Speaker 4: Need to remain on car fours depending on the wind condition.

00:10:02
Speaker 3: So we had we went back to five to twenty plus on some of these long far forests, So that's an evolution. And we tried to put back some of the sandy doney areas we chunked in. There were so many dune plants that you know, Pete had planted thirty years ago that had taken over se oaks, et cetera. So we tried to expose some sand and bring it a little bit more in play. Here there and yonder. There were a few I would call blowout bunkers originally, and so we were able to put some of those back. I mean they had been there, they were just grown over. And we exposed these blowout bunkers. I can think of Whole number seven and a couple of others, and they'd lost some trees over time. So we actually moved some very large oak trees into several golf holes from other golf holes, Rory's tree being one of those. The tree in the middle of three fairway is a quote new tree from twenty nineteen and it came from the sixth hole. And it's better than ever. And I'll diverge a little bit. I always said since that tree got placed. I wish Pete could have seen it, because it really fits well and looks better than ever. And so we just tried to restore aspects of it now carries focused to some degree was getting gallery around and shifting some gallery so that we could use some of the back tees that we weren't able or that they weren't able to use back in the twelve pga. So we did some flip flopping and going backwards and building some dunes and putting some tea's on them, sort of like whole number six is quite a far back tee. It's quite elevated now and you can see the ocean in the clubhouse from there, and there's other examples of that. So again just trying to expose some of the natives, some of the sand, move some natives around, restore bunkers that were not available to us anymore visually and strategically. And then we did some changes, for example to number seven, some slight changes that were a little bit more in keeping with Peat's changes to holes like nine and eighteen over the years. And as you know, Pete Tinkers and he tinkered with that golf course over the years in preparation for major events. So we tried to he's our architect. We're doing what he would want, I believe, and Roger Warren and the whole team was right there every step of the way, and we you know, we put it all all back as best as we could.

00:12:39
Speaker 4: And I'm just part of that team.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: How will seven play differently with the changes?

00:12:45
Speaker 3: Well, you know, one of the things that Pete did is, let's say, on number eighteen, I would call them nooks and hooks that he put let's say in the big bunker left of the green. So we just added some nooks and hooks that sort of reflected that look, and it was it's a little bit more penal. You know, if you try to cut that corner, it's a left right t shot for that par five. And if you cut that corner, you might be in some of the nooks and hooks, which was one of his evolutions, something he added to golf courses.

00:13:19
Speaker 4: A little bit later in his career. So you got to be careful.

00:13:23
Speaker 3: And of course, if you blow it left, that's not the strategic side.

00:13:27
Speaker 4: And if you hit it too far left, you may be in a couple of our new blowout bunkers that are sort of long and left, so you know, wind we'll drive everything, we'll dictate everything there, and for mister Goodwin's sake, we're praying for a little bit of wind because it will make for a much more interesting event, which we think will happen in May.

00:13:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can't have much less wood than it had in that August dat in twenty twelve. It obviously blew and it was it was a crazy Friday, but outside of that it was pretty tame. And rain, you know, also softened the course. And this year leading in it's been almost a drought down there, so we should see a lot different playing conditions at least even if if we get a little bit of rain. With regards to the Ocean course. You know, one of the things I think that stands out at the Ocean Course is the shaping and the work that was done. You know, it's a very artistic look, and obviously it's not like your naturalistic look of minimalism that's invoked today, but at the same time it's not. It doesn't at all look manufactured. When you're out, you know, working on somebody else's golf course, how do you try and mimic that shaping and what stands out about the ocean courses shaping?

00:14:43
Speaker 3: Do you so some of the discussions I had with Pete and Alice over the years, which were certainly nowhere near as you know, many conversations as as some folks, because I didn't work with Pete dozens of times. I was fortunate to work within maybe eight times or so. But I felt like I had a working knowledge and had seen so many of his golf courses and studied so many and worked on so many. I've sort of seen the evolution a little bit, and it talked to him a little bit about the strategic evolution of his golf courses. So the shaping aspect of it there was based on Miss Alice's idea to make.

00:15:24
Speaker 4: Sure you could see the ocean from every golf hole, tease.

00:15:28
Speaker 3: Fairways, greens, and so that the elevation of the golf course is very noticeable. They had lots of sand to work with, and the steep and deep edges that are you know, that beats known for but yet not repetitive and not just perfect anything were something that you know, I just tried to emulate. And he was one of the ones that said, you know, we're trying to create a third dimension, hight with with and depth, you know, so it's not just a mound. It's got some dimension to it and some character to it. And don't finish anything too perfect, because you know nature is not going to be perfect, and even though it's a constructed environment, let's let's make it look like it's been eroded a little bit and not just perfect perfect.

00:16:16
Speaker 1: That's that's an interesting, you know, thought of you know, not trying to make it. You know, I imagine in many cases you get in the field and everybody's trying, you know, those to make it look perfect. But the idea of not making it look perfect, because you know, nothing in nature is really perfect is a really is one that kind of sticks out.

00:16:36
Speaker 2: Is a good thought, but correct.

00:16:39
Speaker 3: And we all the time coach our guys and I've been fortunate to work with only a few golf course builders over the years, and they perform really well. And we've always tried to coach the guys and remind the guys and the new guys, don't rake this too much. Let's not you know, I run a little bit of equipment and I'm not great at it, but that's a benefit because I could never get anything perfect, so it's always imperfect.

00:17:04
Speaker 4: As I run a little bit of equipment.

00:17:06
Speaker 3: Especially a bulldozer, I have great respect for the guys that run bulldozers all day because I am not wanting to sit in the seat. I want to be moving all the time. So we remind them to not be perfect. If they want to see something that's really imperfect, throw me on a bulldoster and it'll be a mess. But that's imperfection, and we try to plan that in and tell the guys, do not rake, do not finish, do not box play things too much.

00:17:34
Speaker 4: We just don't want it so perfect.

00:17:36
Speaker 2: That's like that famous Alistair McKenzie quote.

00:17:39
Speaker 1: You know, if you want an interest in green, hire the biggest fool in town and tell them to make it flat right.

00:17:46
Speaker 3: And you know, Pete I think, had a comment and I can't remember the name he used, but suffice it to say. People would ask, well, you know Piner's number two, Who's greens are those? And he would say, well, Joe Smith, what do you mean Joe Smith? We thought that was Donal Ross. Well, you know, Joe was on The Rich and the Shovel and he was part of the crew, and you know, Ross gave him an idea and he just went with it. So so much of what we do I try to encourage because again I learned it from Pete and Bobby Wet. I try to encourage these guys to interject their ideas and their thoughts so we don't do something that's just repetit.

00:18:23
Speaker 1: And given that era, you know, is contemporary, So Tom Fazio, Robert Trent Jones, it seemed like, you know, Pete Die had a you know, distinctly different management style. Talk to us a little bit about how working with Pete and what that was like, you know, in the field.

00:18:42
Speaker 3: Well, it was interesting, and you know it was his quote that said, during some hard economic times, you know, if I needed to pare down my staff, I'd have to get a divorce because it was just he and Alice. And that's a model that a lot of us that have worked with the Dye family or connected with them in one way or another carry to this day. You know, we just were kind of free agents, and you've talked to lots of these guys that you know, sometimes work with Bill and Ben, or sometimes work with Gill Hands or you know, just kind of in and out. But you know, the times that I worked with Pete, you know, he was high energy. Even the last project I helped him with, which was in North Florida, he would have been about almost ninety, and even at that age, as his health was starting to decline a little bit, he was pretty active in his mind and had new ideas all it was hard to keep up, you know, physically, he walked very fast and was thrown out ideas. And you know, I learned long ago from Bill cor to have a notebook with me everywhere I went. I do that to this day, and you know, just took notes and so forth. But you know, you just never knew what was going to come out. And for any of us to say, we're trying to think like Pete thought, that's not possible.

00:20:03
Speaker 4: So you just never knew.

00:20:04
Speaker 3: What was going to come out. And so you look at Harbortown in nineteen sixty nine or you look at Whistley Straits many years later, and they could not be more different looking. But strategically, you can see Pete's thoughts and his ideas about strategy and the way he moved players around with these s holes, making the player work the ball in two directions, so he was always thinking about each golf shot, make sure that if it was left to right the first shot, the second shot needs to be right to left, making sure par three's were all in a different direction, making sure there was balance on the golf course. So not one particular type of player could take advantage of a golf course because of his particular strength. And I think you've seen how his golf courses hold up to this day.

00:20:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the thing.

00:20:54
Speaker 1: Is like you often see Pete die characterizes one style, but if you've seen a large body of his work, there are so many, so many different styles, even back to before he made a trip to the British Isles. You know those first like ten to twelve golf courses he built, like Radrick Hills is one that sticks out to me. Is so much different than what he built, you know late in life, like Whistling Straits.

00:21:20
Speaker 3: Right or the golf Club in Ohio that's quite different. I'm fortunate to be working on del Ray Dunes in Boynton Beach, Florida. That was their first golf course in Florida and quite different. So yes, you're right, he was influenced by his trips to Scotland and whatnot, and some of that became his sort of stamp and signature. But even after that, they all ebbed and flowed and changed and were site specific. So that was a gift that he doesn't know he gave me, and Bobby Wee doesn't know he gave me. But the ability to just think differently and tried to pull out something about the site that can be unique is a gift.

00:22:05
Speaker 1: What are the courses that you've worked with with the love worked with worked on with the Loves is the plantation course at Sea Island where they obviously host every years to the second course for the RSM.

00:22:18
Speaker 2: I'm interested.

00:22:19
Speaker 1: You know, what have you taken away about the professional game from that project?

00:22:25
Speaker 3: Well, so when it comes to that particular project, you know, we were confined for space. There's only so much you could do as far as lengthening the golf course. And again it is a resort golf course, so trying to balance those two things is always for most in our mind. But we've really and we're all fans of having the players, particularly the good players, challenged at the green. And if we can challenge them at the green, that's really where we can make them think.

00:22:59
Speaker 4: And so we've thought a lot about challenging these guys.

00:23:02
Speaker 1: At the green, How specifically do you challenge players at the green where it remains more playable for the resort guest.

00:23:12
Speaker 3: Well so, and again I would go back to some of Peak's Peak's thoughts fair way cut around greens. And it's sort of a sort of a strange thing to think about this, but I very much believe that shortcut is easier for the bad player but harder for the good player. When I say that is the bad player just wants to get something up on the green somehow. The good player is going to sit there with multiple clubs and say, hey, what's my option here? And once you get to get them thinking, and Pete used to do a lot of that with intimidating water or something.

00:23:51
Speaker 4: But once you get them thinking, you sort of.

00:23:52
Speaker 3: Got them a little bit. Because they have so many options, a bad player can just put it up there and they're all good.

00:23:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:23:59
Speaker 1: In the ocean course a good example of challenging around the greens where obviously it's tough everywhere with the especially when the wind blows, but with those greens built up, you know, all the good players. The professionals are going to have to worry about missing short, long, right, left, and the ball getting further away from them because most of the greens are perched up with shaved.

00:24:21
Speaker 3: Edges and then green shapes. I mean, one of the things Pete was great at is not only contour, but the actual shape of the green so that you could tuck a whole location, you could bring the whole out to a more open spot. In this house, always wanted the front of the green as open as possible, depending on the length of the hole, and so that's good for the resort player, the average player, but you could sort of tuck whole locations here and there behind something a bunker or a bulkhead or something and challenge the good player that way.

00:24:57
Speaker 4: So we very much built a.

00:24:58
Speaker 3: Golf course at the Plant course that was in our goal right up front was to somewhat emulate the older style of Rainer and McDonald banks a little bit and Pete and sort of mesh those together because Pete was a Seth Rayner fan and would say that very openly.

00:25:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you know, one of the neat things to you know, just in terms of shapes, but you know, with with when you're talking about Pete, is always a look at the orientation and the angles that these unique shapes sit on, and how those you know, if you just go to you know, a Google Earth and Google you know Pete Die course and you just look at the way they orient they're so varied across the board and and like what you talked about earlier with thinking about each shot, I think that's one of the things that stands out with the with the way Pete built golf courses is the orientation in the greens and how that dictated everything back.

00:25:58
Speaker 3: To the tea absolutely and he was very keen on left to right, right to left, left and right right, you know, over and over again. And he he sort of without knowing it would reveal some of his thoughts about how a green should sit and you know, what aspect of the green should be closer to the player and what aspect should be hidden from the.

00:26:19
Speaker 4: Player, and that sort of thing.

00:26:20
Speaker 3: And so, you know, from an early age, early twenties, it started to get me thinking strategically rather than just the mechanics of.

00:26:31
Speaker 4: Building a golf course. Although Pete was.

00:26:34
Speaker 3: He told me from the beginning, get your ear end in a ditch. You need to learn how to build a golf course from the ground up, which is what I did our first project in Hawaii. I was very much in the dirt and continue to be. I mean, we we've learned to be golf course builders and designers and all of that together.

00:26:53
Speaker 4: But so much of his thoughts were just in me.

00:26:57
Speaker 3: And people like Bobby Weed and other folks that have worked with Pete way more than I have, have that strategic thought at all times. It's not just a landscape feature. It's not just a construction project. We're thinking strategically with every shot.

00:27:13
Speaker 2: That's was there.

00:27:14
Speaker 1: Is there anything you know from the Plantation Course? And obviously you'll get to see your work here at Kiowa in a couple in a week, But is there anything that happened at the Plantation Course that you maybe took away from watching the pros play that you know you carried to Kiowa or you'll carry to future thing like huh, you know, I I thought this might work, or this worked way better than I imagined. Is there anything that you know, any revelation that's come over the last few years of watching that tournament be played.

00:27:46
Speaker 3: A little bit and again, my my concern is we we just we're losing the distance battle. The equipment, all equipment is so good and you know, what do you do about length? And so that's why Harbortown, or to some degree a little bit lesser degree, but to some degree the plantation courses is good to challenge the tour pros because there are certain places they really can't just hit driver and swing as hard as they can. We're okay with these guys not hitting ten or twelve drivers every round. And again Harbortown is a perfect example of that. Was just at the tournament there and they've visited there quite a bit and learned a lot every time I've been watching these professionals and how they navigate that golf course. So yeah, just going back and going back and going back. I mean, we just don't have enough property to do that now the ocean course because of the wind and because we have the property, you know, they will never set it up all the way back on every team because that's not appropriate. Yeah.

00:28:53
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that you may point about not getting too fast. I think one of the things that you lose when greens get really fast is like you lose the advantage of being able to reward aggressive you know putting, you know, and when you have to play defense on every putt, you know, that's not you know, you're worried about it uphill putt rolling three and a half feet by like, that's not you know, necessarily rewarding the person that put themselves in the position where they can be aggressive, you know. And I think that's something. And then also you reduce the amount of places that you can put a pin.

00:29:25
Speaker 3: Correct and over time we're reducing the contour we can put into green. And one of the things that is neat about the ocean course, and I've spent a lot of time over the last few years with George Fry, who was the original superintendent and helped Pete build the ocean course. And because those greens are postponing, there's an opportunity for us to keep peach contours because the postbonon won't get too fast and we're at a seaside location and so they'll they'll not be crazy fast. And so some of these more contour greens are okay there and it's refreshing now. They probably will be twelve at the fastest, which for you and I is.

00:30:10
Speaker 4: Probably pretty quick.

00:30:12
Speaker 3: But for these professionals coming off of Augusta National and other places where the speeds are probably higher than that, it's a neat difference. And as long as the wind is there but not crazy, it will have an influence. And so that's one of the things that Mark and Davis and I talk a lot about is let's put slope and contour back in the greens. And we've done that for some years now, even for tour events like the one.

00:30:41
Speaker 4: At the Plantation.

00:30:42
Speaker 3: Let's put some contour back in the greens and let's maybe slow them a little bit so that we add to the difficulty for the great player right at the greens, because they're just going to hit it as far as they want to, but let's make them think.

00:30:57
Speaker 4: And thinking is hard work.

00:31:00
Speaker 1: So what are you with the PGA a week away? What are you both looking forward to at the tournament and with the course specifically.

00:31:08
Speaker 3: I spoke with the Focus down there just the other day, and the place looks great. George said he thought it was presented as well as ever. Jeff Stone is the superintendent there. So obviously there's aspects of the competition, there's aspects of how the golf course looks what.

00:31:26
Speaker 4: We were thinking.

00:31:27
Speaker 3: You know. For example, we were able to add length and move back the T on eighteen so that they can use that back team. Previously they couldn't use the back t because of the grand stands and whatnot. So we got it out of the way, and hopefully it will challenge the players more than they did before and they will have some longer clubs coming into that green. We've deepened some bunkers, which is just natural, you know, in that setting, sand blows and sand blows, and the bunkers sort of rise up, some get shallower, some get deeper. So just every aspect, to be honest with you, uh were I'm looking forward to seeing and getting the reaction from from the owner and you know, hosting, and it will be interesting to see a lightly attended event. And I don't say that in a bad way or a good way. It's just there'll be less folks there. As the PGA of America has announced.

00:32:21
Speaker 2: I think that the thing.

00:32:22
Speaker 1: The reality is obviously revenue wise, it's not a good thing for the PGA, but for spectator viewing, if you're on sight, it's better. And then also if you're watching on TV, you get to see more of the golf course. Like I think that was one of the big revelations people had last year when there were no fans, is how much more of the golf course you got to see without all the infrastructure. And there'll be substantially less infrastructure, so you get to see more of the long views out of the ocean course. If you were going to pick out, you know, for our audience, one hole in particular that you think is going to be compelling to watch it. You know when somebody when the cut telecast goes and now over to X hole, you know, what's a hole that people should maybe perk up and make sure they watch a little bit of golf.

00:33:08
Speaker 3: On well, I would always say seventeen, And I've been asked that question before, especially if it's windy. Now we were able to one of the things we did is replaced just about all the bulkheads and bridges and so forth there. And as part of replacing the bulkhead on seventeen and Pete had changed that green some years ago a little bit, we were able to get the green closer to the bulkhead and whatnot. So we'll see where they put the whole location, but I would say seventeen. You know, it's right there by the ocean that obviously is sitting on the water, and it's near the end of the day. It's near the end of the tournament, so it's pretty compelling. As you might remember in the Ryder Cup, it was very compelling in those days. And hopefully, you know, there'll be just enough wind that there'll be a substantial club hit into that green, which today might be a five iron. I would be I would just love to see somebody hitting five iron or more amongst the leaders in the in the event.

00:34:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, especially if you get to get the right wind. Having been out there so much, you know, can you talk a little bit about the variability of the wind out there. Obviously a lot of people don't get to spend you know, a lot of days at Kia.

00:34:23
Speaker 2: You know, most people can't afford for it.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: But you know, like having spent a lot of time out there, is the wind as variable as people say it is.

00:34:32
Speaker 3: Well, I would say sure, especially if fronts come through and whatnot. And I would think may would be a little more active front wise. You know, when you're there in the summer, it seems like it's kind of calm and hot and humid in the morning, and then as things warm up a little bit, the breezes get going, the ocean breezes, and you know, I'm not as familiar with the with the prevailing wind, but you know, the prevailing wind may or may not matter because at the moment you're hitting the golf shot, or where is the wind coming from, because it can swirl, it can die, it can rise, and it's all about the moment.

00:35:08
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think that's cool about there out there, about the wind, and this goes back to you know, Pete's design is just how you know, you play in the same direction right for so many stretches out there because of the long, narrow nature of the site. You know, you play out and you play back and then you play back in. But how different each shot moves with the wind. You're playing in the same direction, but you know, you you might be having a four o'clock wind and then a you know, a two o'clock wind, and you know how it just tweaks all all the time and you never seemingly can get settled.

00:35:44
Speaker 4: M h.

00:35:45
Speaker 3: And that's absolutely correct, and most of the unsettled nature is because of what Pete is put in front of you, regardless of what the wind is. And that's partly why you know he does this figure eight routing quite often.

00:36:00
Speaker 4: If you look throughout his career, the figure.

00:36:03
Speaker 3: Eight routing is very well known amongst the golf courses he's done to put hazards on one side of the of the golf hole for several holes, and then you flip over and the hazard on the other side, and I can think of Pga West, I can think of teeth of the Dog, and you just go on and on this sort of somewhat figure eight routing that gives you that different wind and gives you that different angle all the time, and he with his hand has added additional angles and additional unsettled things that are going on in your brain to try to overcome what this next shot looks like, even if you're in the middle of the farewell.

00:36:42
Speaker 1: So to move subjects on. You guys are just wrapping up a restoration and then a you know, a redesign in the sense of your going to short course at Bellmock Golf Club, which is a old aw Tilling hast later worked on by Donald Ross public municipal facility in Henrico County, Virginia, which is just outside of Richmond. It was the site of the only major championship ever held in Virginia. It was won by a Virginia and Sam Snead. Obviously a huge, you know, a municipal win for municipal golf in the sense of, you know, it was a golf course that was very much you know, in peril. They were looking at alternative options and the first tea there was obviously a big part of getting that the ball rolling. Tell us a little bit about that project and working at Belmont.

00:37:40
Speaker 4: Well, it was just a very, very rewarding project.

00:37:45
Speaker 3: They were in the early stages of submitting their proposal and teamed up with us with Love Golf Design and said, hey, before we go too far, what do you think about this idea. It was eighteen holes only that was all. There was a team holes in the clubhouse, no driving range. There was one putting green as I recall, but that was it. They said, we want to take those eighteen holes and create twelve full scale holes, six short course holes, a putting course, lots of practice area and a driving range. Because our programs the first team and they have now three facilities. Our programs need those kinds of facilities. We think the city needs various options to bring people into the game, fast playing options or somebody can stay here all day long and have their fill of all the golf they want. And we immediately said absolutely, with all that we're doing in regards to short courses and alternative facilities and all that the world is seeing now over the last ten or so years with these alternative kind of routings and short courses, et cetera, we absolutely think that would be the right thing to do, no qualms about it whatsoever. So we teamed up with them, their group was selected and it all went fairly quickly. We were under construction in the midst of covid on May fourth of last year and it will open May the twenty fourth of this year. And it was just one of the most enjoyable projects, except for some weather issues. But we had to get creative and we studied what we could about the old tilling Hast and some of Ross's changes, and we tried to hone in on an era for a tilling Hast, and ironically, Wingfoot was the host of the US Open last year, so that was somewhat of an influence. And as you know, Davis won there and Mark has played there a lot. He and Mark have played there quite a bit. And we had some greens that were really interesting and just put them back, just rebuilt them and put them back, and tried to infuse a more parkling style look to the golf course. Removed a bunch of trees, but we were very keen about creating these alternate facilities, so we wiped out several golf holes to create a new driving range, which is going to be fantastic for anybody, but particularly the first tea programs. We did take a couple of golf holes and convert them into a six hole short course, which we took inspiration from some of tilling has I guess you would say more famous or more notable par threes out there. They're not exact copies, but like the reephole and tiny tim and we have sort of our version of the duel hole from San Francisco Golf Club and tried to be faithful to what we saw on the big course where bunker locations were and like I said, the greens and so forth, and so Mark is actually there as we speak and we'll be back in two weeks for the opening. And it was just the greatest thing ever that we've been involved in, and it will serve that community. Well, I've said this many times. We've all said this. I wish that facility was in my backyard. It's on one hundred acres. It does everything we need golf to do today and for the future. It's not the end all be all for the club folks and meaning country club folks and big daily feed facilities and that sort of thing, but it is the perfect compliment to bring people into the game and keep people interested in the game.

00:41:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I've got mixed emotions about Obviously, I'm a history I would have loved to see the eighteen holes of the original eighteen somehow restored. But obviously, you know, it all comes down to clients and they wanted range and it makes sense for the first t it's just a new iteration of the place. And it's cool to hear that you've tied in a lot of the historic you know, giving it that sense of place. You know, it is a I highly recommend people going. Uh, it's it's so convenient. I mean, it's right on off of I ninety five. It's in Richmond. It's a great place to visit because you've got that big you've got that big town, you've got you know, things to do, but also you can get out and play a quick round of golf if you're there for whatever it may be. We we've seen a lot of you know, former tour pros get into the golf uh design business, you know, and obviously there's been a bix bag of results.

00:42:34
Speaker 2: How is how involved is.

00:42:36
Speaker 1: Davis with the with the business and you know what what's unique about him his view on on golf courses and uh, you know, maybe some of his personal preference across you know, the country, world and tour you know.

00:42:52
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because, yes, Davis is involved, and he has a passion and that passion just is growing, so as it is with all of us. It seems like if you have a passion for something, it just grows over time. The other thing that's interesting is, you know, he's obviously the most accomplished player in the group. Mark is great as well, and I can just maybe sort of kind of maybe keep up, but Davis is the most concerned about the average player. He you know, he.

00:43:22
Speaker 2: He's played a lot of pro.

00:43:24
Speaker 3: Ams, that's correct, and we have all grown up doing something in the golf business, all all of us, from the shop to the maintenance, to design, to construction to you know, we have a very background, but it's all aspects of golf, and he knows the business well as the rest of us. So he's concerned about the customer, whoever that is. There's only whatever it is, two thousand players in the world that can play at the very highest level, and then all the rest of us want to have fun, and so he's always concerned about that. So, you know, it's funny because we're always sort of pushing the envelope a little bit and he's sort of raining us in a little bit. But it's a very collaborative thing, and I think the best golf courses are built somewhat in collaboration. No golf course is built by itself or by one person anyway, because of all that it takes to build a golf course. But when it comes to making decisions, collaborations are great. You don't want the committee to be too big. But it seems like the three of us mesh really well. Market Davis are very different as brothers, and of course I'm a brother from another mother, I guess to some degree. So you know, we all have our various perspectives and it seems to work well. But yeah, Davis seems to love it. He loves playing on equipment and he can run a bulldozer better than any of us. That he's the one worried about the average player more than the rest of us. And his mom.

00:44:52
Speaker 4: If his mom can play it, then everybody will be good.

00:44:55
Speaker 1: I feel like that's such a good way to think about stuff, as you know, especial Actually, if you're with good players and they don't understand what you're talking about with playability is like, hey, you know, if I put your grandpa or grandma here, would they be able to hit this shot? Like what you know, imagine hanging this shot, you know, with a three wood and they'd be like, oh, well, yeah, that would be hard.

00:45:17
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, that's you know, you got to think about this stuff.

00:45:20
Speaker 3: Oh yes, And you know that that jogged my memory about something. So you mentioned the plantation course one of the things we did there. Of course, they have lots of practice and now we have a putting course there and they have lots of options.

00:45:33
Speaker 4: At Sea Isle, we added a sixth T.

00:45:37
Speaker 3: Some folks call it a family tea, but it's a little under four thousand yards. And one of our clients called us after that golf course. He at the time was probably seventy eight, and then his wife was as well, and he said, hey, we played the Plantation course for the first time and my wife had the greatest time. And here's what she said. She said, Hey, Bill, you guys get to move up a tea as you age from the back teas and you just keep moving forward and us, ladies, we have a forward T and that's it.

00:46:10
Speaker 4: Well, these guys have built a new tea for me.

00:46:14
Speaker 3: And she played this, this thirty nine and fifty yard T and had the greatest time ever. She was so happy. And if mom is happy, that makes everybody happy. So it was one of those things that we have done on golf courses, but got very tangible feedback from someone that owns.

00:46:34
Speaker 4: Golf, that knows golf, that loves golf.

00:46:37
Speaker 3: And you know, he said, we're going to put those on every one of our golf courses if we don't already have them. And so that's something that at Belmont, for example, is a great addition, you know, and we learned just from that that scenario that the super seniors, not just the kids, but the super seniors love that forward tea. They can keep playing golf until they are a hundred from that forward team.

00:47:01
Speaker 1: I think I think good players should go play the forward tea.

00:47:06
Speaker 2: Exactly.

00:47:07
Speaker 1: Teach yourself how to go super deep and it's you'll find it's really hard because then you get yourself all these weird forty yard pitches and it's a great p Like I that's some of the best practices going up to the very forward tea and try to shoot as low as you can.

00:47:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:47:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, excited to see Belmont when I could get out there, and excited to see more of your guys' work, you know.

00:47:29
Speaker 2: I think the plantation.

00:47:30
Speaker 1: Of course I haven't been, but it looks really interesting and uh, you know, hopefully a great PGA championship at Kiowa. And you're on on Instagram. People can find you at scott with one T Sherman easy easy handle to find and keep keep you updated on all of all the places you're working at.

00:47:51
Speaker 3: Well, well, thank you so much, Andy, and I just so as I said, I was so thrilled to work there at the Ocean Course and what's circle My professional life in a in a complete circle in some way, and just humbled by the opportunity. I told Roger Warren when he called me, I was almost in tears. I just could not believe, never expected such a phone call. So we're we're thrilled to go. I'm going with some family members and we'll we'll, we'll just take it all in as best I can and savor the moment.

00:48:21
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's the Uh, you're just doing the first eight of the figure eight, so you're.

00:48:26
Speaker 2: Not done with the circle. You've got a hold other circle.

00:48:30
Speaker 3: Come, yeah, we'll see, Yes, we'll see.

00:48:31
Speaker 4: And I appreciate that optimism.

00:48:34
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks Scott.

00:48:36
Speaker 3: Thank you much. Good to talk to you.

00:48:48
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Friday Podcast. Today's episode was edited by beg Atkins and Garrett Morrison.

00:48:57
Speaker 2: A quick reminder, be sure to check out our event. We've got events across the country.

00:49:03
Speaker 1: We are sold out on a bunch of them, but we still have a few spots at Rolling Green in Philadelphia, a great William Flynn design, as well as Daviport.

00:49:15
Speaker 2: And that's just outside Chicago.

00:49:17
Speaker 1: It's right on the Illinois Iowa border and that is one of the best Allison golf.

00:49:23
Speaker 2: Courses in the country. So check out our events.

00:49:26
Speaker 1: You can find them at on the Friday dot com. There's a tab for events. Go there you'll find information about all of them and we hope to see you out at events this year at twenty one, Thanks for listening and talk to you soon.