Superintendent Series: Rodney Hine of Boston Golf Club

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the fridayk Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at Toro. Today's serious golfers keep up with their energy levels with healthy snacks and just like trail Mix and water, get us through a round without flagging. Toro's new Workman GTX Lithium utility vehicle is powered by a tenacious, long lasting battery. The Workman GTX Lithium renders daily battery maintenance a thing of the past. The same for replacing lead acid batteries for a couple of thousand bucks every few years. The Workmen Gtx's lithium battery lasts six to eight years with no degrading of runtime during its lifespan, saving time and money. Let's see trail Mix. Do that. Follow at Toro Golf on Twitter and reach out to your local Toro distributor to schedule a demo. We are back. We had a little two week break. We were all traveling, so it was a busy week At the Friday I was in Kansas and then Boston. So in Boston I met up with Rodney Heine. Rodney is the superintendent at Boston Golf Club and a lot He's had a long career. He started out working up the assistant ranks at Wingfoot and then he became the growing superintendent at Stonewall in Pennsylvania. That's where he met Gil Hans and he became the first employee of Hants Golf Design and was with Gil for I think about ten years, almost before then taking the growing superintendent job at Boston Golf Club and he has been there since. So really really neat guy. I think people should enjoy really thoughtful person. And I really enjoyed this chat, and I hope you guys do too. So without further ado, here is Rodney Hin, the superintendent at Boston Golf Club.

00:02:00
Speaker 2: For example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg egg, Brian egg, Frida egg, bride egg Lie.

00:02:11
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the course. How did you How did you get to Stonewall? How would you become the growing superintendent of Stonewall.

00:02:42
Speaker 2: I was the one of the assistants at Wingfoot and I was working for bab Alonzi and jan bel Jean, she was with Fazzio at the time, was coming by and consulting at Wingfoot and got to know jam Beljian very well. And she called me up one day and said, hey, you know, there's something that you might want to look into in Pennsylvania. And I was about twenty five at the time, twenty four, no, twenty five, and she said, there's a new course there. We're not going to be able to do it, but you know, they're looking for a superintendent, a growing superintendent, And so I went down and interviewed for it, and they were desperate for knowledge to get it grown in. They had moved a lot of earth and they needed to get things they were running out of season, and so they hired me and I just had to jump into it both feet, and it was. It was crazy, and that's where I met Gilan tom Doak.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: How tough was it to I've heard a lot of stories about like the wing Foot culture and how hard it is there when you're a young superintendent with just like was it like that when you were there?

00:03:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.

00:04:00
Speaker 1: It wouldn't been late nineties, right, yes, early.

00:04:03
Speaker 2: Nineties, early nineties, Yeah, it was. It was intense. I mean, there was a high expectation for the course. The Anderson Memorial was always the you know, we always worked toward the Anderson Memorial, which was a huge nationwide invitational, and the day to day expectations of the course were still we're at a high level. Yeah, but it was it was great. I mean I learned so much there in that in that expectation, I learned how to intimately know a piece of ground and intimately know golf holes where you knew what their characteristics were. We had a loop of twelve holes that we were responsible for syringing thirty six holes split amongst us. And in that process you got to those twelve holes. You were you were there, you know, very close and in an understanding what made them, where where they would dry out, what to look for. It was. It was incredible learning experience.

00:05:06
Speaker 1: Is that where you got into architecture or that happened before.

00:05:11
Speaker 2: That's where That's where it started. I think it was there that I knew what was different that made it good, made our architecture good. There were just holes that just stood out and I just wanted to continue to play. And that made me, that made me ask about why am I looking at this and enjoying this to the eye and to be able to play it as opposed to some of the some of the courses that I had that I had worked on, and I didn't have that desire. So that was where the light switch went on. And then being in the met we got to see other great golf architecture. So we got to see west Chester. I helped out at the tournament there every year, quick a Ridge, so we were exposed to as assistants. We were exposed to that, and we had a good assistant group that we would go play each other's course often, you know, done with work, and there was this brat pack that would get together when we go play each other's courses and then eat and drink afterwards and go home after a tough day. But it was it was good. So I got to experience a lot of great golf courses there.

00:06:14
Speaker 1: So you get this job. It's done while they're they're they're desperate. They find you, you know, you know, lucky. I could have found much worse, right, I guess, so, yeah, but they get and then you're thrown into this growing role like did you did you really know what you were getting? Into with growing in a golf course, like I imagine the demands are a little bit different than you know day to day maintenance at one of the best courses of the world.

00:06:42
Speaker 2: No, I had no idea. It was it was learn on the fly. The I guess the things of maintainance course is what you're you're ultimately trying to establish as far as the health of your soils, you know, equates to the health of your turf, So that was an portant constituent in trying to make sure that the soils were going to be nurtured in a way that they're going to produce a healthy turf. So that that's how I kind of broke it down into a simple form and then from there just kind of whatever needed to be done, we got to get it done. And then it just started to roll into a system that you would develop as you discovered it in that moment because it was a it was a tight window to get stuff prepped and seated and sawed, and you just went after it and got it done. So it was I learned on the fly for sure.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: What part of the project did you get come in on? Was it already dozers in the ground, was it before it.

00:07:45
Speaker 2: No, it was the dozers were in the ground most of the holes, many of the holes were already shaped. I think there were maybe six or seven holes that were still that had been roughed out, but they hadn't been finished shaped. So it was it was go time.

00:08:01
Speaker 1: It was your first day. Had to be like, yeah, there's no orientation.

00:08:07
Speaker 2: Right, nothing nothing. No. I met everybody I tried. I had to be able to find out who could do what, who had skills on a on a tractor, who had skills on on you know, prepping the soils. And it was it was, it was nice. I had to accumulate equipment that they didn't have. It was. It was just furious fire under my ass and I just went.

00:08:31
Speaker 1: Did Mike Debres work on that project too?

00:08:34
Speaker 2: I don't recall meeting Mike Devres there. No, I met Mike Debres many years later when I was working for Gil. He could have been there. I don't know, you know, I could have been flying around like a nut. I don't remember meeting Mike debrese. I spent a lot of time with Gil because he and I basically hand raked all the greens in preparation for the seating. So that's where that's where I really got to spend a lot of time with Gill and get to know Gil.

00:08:59
Speaker 1: And that had to be like you started to understand a little bit of golf architecture. I imagine that is like a moment where you're just fully thrust into the whole art of creating a golf course, and a lot of light bulbs went on.

00:09:14
Speaker 2: Absolutely. That describes it perfectly well, because when we were going through and I was getting caught up with what had been done, Gill and Tom both tried to explain some of their thoughts behind the hole, and that was to translate in how they were going to grasp it and how it was going to be maintained. So both of those astute architects were prepping me and bringing me nurture, mentoring me to be able to produce the product how it was supposed to play, how it was supposed to play. So yes, the switch of okay, architecture just isn't how pretty it is, it's how this landform is going to serve the player or not serve the player in this case, how where defenses are what aren't. And that was the was really the education that I needed to be a good superintendent for you know, classic architecture.

00:10:07
Speaker 1: What do you have any like good stories from that? Like, what do you any not necessarily stories, just memories. I mean, I imagine it was an important part of your life because it set you on a on a completely different path that we'll get into than being just a superintendent at that time. But like, what was there a memory there like or something that stands out when you think back to growing in Stonewall.

00:10:34
Speaker 2: One of the most interesting memories I had was that we had a silo that was part of the original dairy barn and and I know you've seen you've seen it Andy about the the there. They re used a lot of that structure, but there was a silo outside of it that was that needed to be taken down. And somebody called up some Amish people that lived in the area, and I remember being there and watching them. These three men looking at that. They didn't say many words, They just looked at it and they kind of talked very low amongst themselves, and then one person went over to this side with a mallet, a wooden mallet and a wedge, and the other person went over to another side and they both timed it and hit this thing, and then the silo just imploded. It just went down right where it was supposed to be, and it was time to clean it up like one. It was unbelievable that what they were able to accomplish in like forty five minutes was I was gobsmacked. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And they it was a perfectly good structure, and they could take and make that thing implode on itself and not damage anything else in forty five minutes.

00:11:59
Speaker 1: That sounds like some like witchcraft.

00:12:01
Speaker 2: It really, Yes, that's a good description. They knew exactly what they were doing because they probably built there some of their some of their relatives have built it many years ago. But that's the craftsmanship they were accustomed to, and they knew how to how to deal with it.

00:12:16
Speaker 1: So they they finished the golf course. Then they leave you there and you're growing it in and then how long till it opened?

00:12:25
Speaker 2: Let's see, we we did get it all grassed and we opened it the next year. It was kind of late. It was in the near I think it was at the beginning of July that we opened it. And yeah, so I maintained it for the next two years, just under two years as a you know, fully functioning, full membership type of type of club.

00:12:50
Speaker 1: How do you then jump over and joined Gil for Hanstons, Like, how did that happen? You stayed in touch or what In the meantime, You've got this architecture bug. What are you doing? You know those those years that you're working at Stonewall?

00:13:06
Speaker 2: Well, I think that I had the architecture bug, but I didn't have an outlet for it other than maintaining what was in front of me and what I was doing every day. Gil at the time was, I believe, living in Colorado, and then he was he was moving intending to move to Pennsylvania. When he moved to Pennsylvania, he would come and check on Stonewall all the time and he would catch up with me. We became pretty good friends. And then he he shared with me that he was going to go on his own and he asked, he said, well, would you be interested in in joining the firm? And I said, well, I was. I was single, and I said, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that. Why not, I'm young, I'm still young.

00:13:57
Speaker 1: How old were you at the time?

00:13:58
Speaker 2: I was twenty and twenty six at the time, twenty six when.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: I went to the Perfect Age.

00:14:03
Speaker 2: It was so I had no fear of travel.

00:14:07
Speaker 1: I had.

00:14:08
Speaker 2: I wanted to travel. I love to travel.

00:14:10
Speaker 1: You're not quite as big of an idiot as it used to be.

00:14:13
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, Yeah, that's that's a good that's a way to put it. Absolutely he was. You know, Gil had a passion about architecture that he had. He and Tom both had kind of lit the fuse for me, And now all of a sudden, I had unlimited access to releasing that creativity. And he wanted me to get into machines. He wanted me to apply my agronomic skills to our jobs and to as a as a service for the for the firm.

00:14:47
Speaker 1: I bet I imagine that was a big advantage for Gil as having somebody that has like a ton of agronomic experience and had grown successfully grown in a golf course.

00:14:59
Speaker 2: Yes, and he learned from me that. So. I my alma mater is NC State, So and I chose that school specifically for cool season and warm season grasses I need. I wanted to be able to grow grass anywhere in the world. To be honest and that school offered that. You know that combinations, they covered him both equally. So when Gil learned about that, he'd I'm sure he knew that if we had a project down below the Mason Dixon line, that I would be able to apply that. Plus I had experience in the South of growing grass in the South in my early career before getting to wing Foot, so I had both warm season and cool season experience by then.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: So so you get you just jump off the cliff, you go join Gil And what what were the early Like everybody thinks Gil hands now and obviously he's doing projects all over the world and restoring a lot of the great golf courses in the country. Like, what what was life like in in startup hands golf design?

00:16:06
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, we he had specs and contracts that we went through and we would I had to basically up update the specs for whatever project we were doing. So that was that was the first step. And you know that we had no secretaries. That was me. So I'm spending time on a computer, typing away and getting getting things kind of understandable from my point from a from an agronomic standpoint, that we would be able to communicate to clients and that worked out really well because then I was in the review of stuff. I understood the design elements that he's trying to ensure with every every contract that we would do. So that was interesting, to be honest. Our our launch for that, for our small firm at that time was Long Island. We had to work on Long Island. He had connections in Long Island and we were able to to do some restoration work there and tilling as courts at North Hempstead is one of the first ones that I went to and I spent time on. So that was really kind of our launching point.

00:17:19
Speaker 1: So you just kind of started an area and it was all just you know, small, small restoration work at that time.

00:17:26
Speaker 2: Or yeah, so we would I got into the machinery, we would use the club's labor and so I would now have to get a small portion of their of their labor force and and help direct them and get the work done and and teach them how to build these things.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: And how much different was that versus like that like in the early two thousands when you're building courses new like, how much different was the way you went about projects?

00:17:58
Speaker 2: Oh well, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything, because my leadership, in my in my management style was completely formed by having to do just that. So I had to learn about people very quickly at a at a particular club, and we became, you know, they became very close. We were working every day for eight to ten hours, twelve hours a day, and so it became a kind of an intimate type of group of getting this work done. As we got into you know, later, it was still very similar, but I was able to take those those leadership techniques and the learning about individuals and where their talents are and where their talents weren't and be able to fit them into the team. That became honed as I got got further in with the into the career with Gil and it became it just became better, It became more efficient, and we found better ways to do it. And then we then you could apply that to working with contractors. As we got the bigger jobs, we had to do that with contractors. But I mean, I couldn't have I couldn't have asked for a better training ground than working with those intimate groups of some of these great superintendents their crew and working with them and learning how to lead ye.

00:19:20
Speaker 1: You know, I think back I grew up caddying, and I always think, like I always tell people that I think one of the best things about caddying is all the different people you meet, and your job as a caddy is effectively to figure out what that person wants from you without asking them and on the first whole, like you know, like your your job is to understand their personality and what they want from you, you know, and you know you can always tell. I always I thought you could always tell who wanted you to read pots, who didn't want you to read pots, and who wanted, you know, more than just a yardage, who wanted just a yardage, and different things, and and I think that's probably similar where you're working with a bunch of different people and in order to do a good job, you have to understand those people and how they understand information in a way.

00:20:11
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, So how did you that's a I want to ask that question. How did you How did you develop that talent of finding what that player is going to want out of you as a as a caddy and how what were some of the tips that would give you that idea of oh, this is how I'm going to be successful with this guy.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: I think generally like personality, you know, you could I think you could just tell right off the bat how they greeted you, and then just how they acted around green, how they acted around approach, you know, like when you're getting you know, when you say one thing, you can kind of just tell based off of body language, if they wanted more. Oh okay, I don't know. You know, I haven't caddied in a while, so you know it's probably.

00:20:56
Speaker 2: Well that makes sense because there's some of those elements that you would in in you know, assessing your talent of that team, of that small team, you would be able to pick up some of those things.

00:21:08
Speaker 1: You can find people you like, and as you get into the round, you could tell people that lack confidence that needed just like a little extra like hey, you know, hit it, hit it here, like you needed like a positive reinforcement. You know. I don't I think caddying is such a it's it's you're just coaching people. That's all you're doing. Is really like if really good caddies are are able to understand and talk to the player the right way, you know, because certain things if you try and coach somebody that that is introverted in a quiet person, they're just gonna just hate you, you know, and if you try. You know, meanwhile, if you give somebody that needs like positive reinforcement, especially with golf, the game that just beats people up, you know, if you give them, if you don't give them positive reinforcement, they're just going to wallow away and they're on toils the rest of the round.

00:22:02
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that makes sense. So you you have in your observation your ultimate goal is for them to have the best experience possible. Yeah, and and so.

00:22:13
Speaker 1: That's the caddies job.

00:22:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I've had great experiences with caddies because of the caddy. A great you know, not so great playing round, but I've had a great experience because that caddy, you know, lifted me up when I was really really bad and then I got through a tough stretch. Yeah, so that's that's that's great.

00:22:34
Speaker 1: It's interesting now, like you know, you take caddies and like the difference between you know, I don't know, I had this now on a whole diversion. I had my most recently, I had a caddy and he was a good, really good caddy. He was but like I could tell he was like he kind of was giving me caddies speak, you know, he was giving me yardages and and I was hitting really good shots, and I was just like, I was like so skirting away from like I was on front of greens as opposed to like the back, the back where there's some danger, you know, and that a good caddy does that. They just coached the But eventually, on like the fifth hole, he told me something, and I was like, I want the number. I want the real number. What's the real number. And he was just giving me numbers that were like safe numbers.

00:23:23
Speaker 2: Oh, I suit you.

00:23:24
Speaker 1: And I said I'm tired of having forty five footers, you know, like and then you know, then he like just gave me number like and then from there we were we were going. He was great candy, but he was doing what like is a really smart caddy does. Is he was just keeping me away from trouble. But and he was just making me have hard two pots.

00:23:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it. That's interesting.

00:23:52
Speaker 1: It's I imagine it's the same with maintenance crew. Like you have people, you probably have staff that does really well with written as well with visual you have a wide range of personalities.

00:24:04
Speaker 2: We do, yeah, I do. And you know I learned a lot here at Boston Golf Club. So my metabolism, I can give you an example. I had an assistant come in here, had a great pedigree, and my metabolism runs a little high. So I you know, I have a sense of urgency and I have I like people that have a sense of urgency. And I was had this assistant. He started working for me, and I was getting frustrated. I noticed I was getting frustrated because he didn't have that sense of urgency. And another colleague of mine, a superintendent, told me. He said, well, you should go get this book and it's called the Color Code. So I went and got this book the color Code, read the color Code. And then I came and I started observing this assistant, and I started asking myself some questions about him. He's not rapid, but his work is impeccable. He never has to go back and redo his work. He's quiet, he doesn't have a lot of feedback, which I don't mind feedback. I like feedback. But he does everything to the letter and then some and it's just slow. So I started thinking. I said now, where am I losing efficiency here? Because I don't see a huge expense expenditure of energy from this guy, And in the final analysis, no, he's just as efficient as somebody that has a metabolism that covers a lot of ground like I do in the day. And that completely turned me around into how to look at people and even how to better mentor people because I'm now understanding what makes them tick and what fulfills them in a job better than I would before. Because as there's always my source of joy of how the work gets done, quantity and quality. If I can get quantity and quality combined, oh my god, you know, I'm all over it. But if I find somebody that doesn't, the speed isn't that important, but the quality and the thoroughness of it, if that's what's feeding them, it's my obligation to see that and to feed, you know, continue to perpetuate that in that individual.

00:26:33
Speaker 1: You know, as a boss, people that work for people really understand their bosses personality. But I think it's harder for a boss to understand the people that work for you's personality.

00:26:50
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think that that's a mistake. Yeah, I think I think it's the boss's responsibility to be able to identify because I have I have a couple of I have a couple of just rules in in anybody that comes into our department, into this this team, and one of the rules is, if you're hungry, I'm going to feed you. If you're not hungry, I'm going to go to the person that is hungry and wants to be fed. So they're gonna get my They're going to get my ultimate attention. And then that kind of when I when I talk about that in the interview, it really kind of sets them up to say, Okay, do I really want to be here? And can I be hungry enough that I mean get fed. So when that that usually filters out a lot of people, and most all the people here are hungry and want to be fed. So then what that translates into is understanding how that person, what that person wants to eat. So if they want to learn about agronomy, or do they want to learn about scheduling and and you know, stacking work and and getting work to go across a morning and and stay in front of play, or do they want to really understand about plants? Do they really want to understand about about the cultural aspects of agronomy or anything. You know, that's what I'm going to feed them. But it's my responsibility to find out what what is going to be there piqued their interest to keep them engaged in their work.

00:28:17
Speaker 1: Rudimentary question. I've heard this. I hear this word all the time. The cultural practices, h what does that mean?

00:28:25
Speaker 2: So cultural practices are you know, mowing could be considered a cultural practice, but the cultural practices really are verification, top dressing, rolling, grooming, verticutting. Those are the type of cultural practices that are I think I did say rolling, but.

00:28:45
Speaker 1: Those is like almost like daily things.

00:28:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, some are daily summer seasonal, you know, so we needle time every other week in the heart of the summer. That's a cultural practice, just to get a little air into the tur into the into the greens. I guess brushing and brushing is another cultural practice.

00:29:03
Speaker 1: It seems like you could put a bunch of stuff into cultural practice.

00:29:07
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's it's part and parcel of our daily operation, for sure, but it's it's different than It's different than mowing a green, raking your bunker, blowing it off, you know, that ritual maintenance it's a little bit different, has a little bit of a little bit of a change up than than the ritual maintenance.

00:29:30
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00:31:01
Speaker 2: Well. So I have a system that I've found that works here and it all starts with Sprain is and I talk about things with my guys about mastery. They have different elements of our work that they I want to show them how to master, and I always start off with Sprain. And the reason I start off with Sprain as being mastering Sprain is because there's so many elements, critical elements that are within that responsibility that set up for the next steps in mastery to be a good superintendent. So when someone learns Sprain, they have to learn accuracy, and they have to be able to mix whatever is being expected. They have to be able to read and be absolutely thorough with whatever they're mixing and going to apply to our turf. Their ego has to be put aside because I have a rule with all of us that if we mix up a tank, we to have each of our at least two people double check our math on that tank, So your ego has to go by the wayside, so there's a bit of humility with that. Then what's really interesting is you have to manage your spray through the golf course for not only play but equipment. So if you're spraying on the same day that you're mowing fairways, you have to have that fairway mode and blown and ready for it to accept the spray. So you have to manage your work around things that outside influences of play and mowing or whatever work is being done to the course. So within that, the skills that you're getting is you're getting accuracy and quality of work. You're getting humility, and you're getting logistics and you're executing getting all those impatience. So those are those are the elements that set up for the next stage, which would be after mastering spraying, now you're going to be more apt and more able to manage the work on a golf course and your crews and how they how they attack the golf course and get it prepared for for members and guests, and then that leads then they get then that's goes right into leadership. Now you're starting to lead people and getting the best out of them so they execute your plan.

00:33:35
Speaker 1: So if somebody stuck on the spray for a while, it's not a good sign.

00:33:39
Speaker 2: No, I mean, we all, I mean it ends up being since it's mastered. You know, when you get to mastery, we all end up getting on that spray and it's always something that we we always do. But once the sprayer is mastered, then the then a lot of other things open up and then I get into the area and understanding the mechanics of irrigation, problem solving, troubleshooting, those are all incredible important elements of a superintendent has to do, and irrigation always delivers those kind of lessons.

00:34:16
Speaker 1: We talked a ton about problem solving. You love problem solving, That's that's why you love being a superintendent. What's what's your what's a favorite problem that you solved.

00:34:28
Speaker 2: Oh, let's see. So we had in construction here at Boston Golf Club, we had a cart path and it was it was actually a construction path, but it was intended to be a car path that went around the back of our fourteenth tee and it was in between. It was on our property, of course, but the path was close to some of our neighbors, and our neighbors would inevitably complain about dust and about noise. And and I remember standing over there on the fourteenth tee and I'm looking and I say, well, why do we have to go around by behind this tea? Why don't we just cut right in front of it. The player is never going to see it from the tee if I cut the path in front and go along the side. And it was a simple solution, but it solved the problem. From that point on. We never had to complain about that. But it was it wasn't it wasn't an obvious one. It was just it was just kind of all of a sudden dawned on me and ended up being a service. Two ways is that it did get the traffic around the tee, but it also gave us access to our fifteenth hole, which was difficult to do. And yeah, so that those kind of problems, just kind of looking at it musing. I like to muse and study stuff to see if we can figure it out. But that that's a simple one. But that was that was one that that just stood. It just popped out at me when you asked, going.

00:35:57
Speaker 1: Back to hands design in the early days, what was like a project that like, you know, you guys got that was like, you know, I feel like every startup new business has these moments that you never forget and you like are you're like high fiving and you're just on cloud nine? Was there a project that was like that? The first like project that felt like you broke through And obviously you probably didn't break through. You think you break through, but then it's like ten projects later you're like, oh, this is the one. You know, this is what I go through all the time.

00:36:35
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I know exactly what you're saying. And I would have to say the doing the uh craighead links at the Craile Golfing Society right next to Balcomi links. So when we got that, that opportunity that was that was the one that said, well, you know, we we have an opportunity to do something really cool and that was high fiving And Gil and I went and started down in in England and interviewed contractors all the way. We just drove and interviewed contractors and looked at golf courses and looked at architecture. I got to see Sunningdale. I didn't play it got to see Sunningdale. I did play Rye And yeah, that was that was the moment. That was the moment, and I was I was pretty excited. I went after those specs and jumped in those specs with so much energy. It was great. And then getting over there and building a golf course only ten you know, just down the road from Saint Andrews was absolutely amazing. I went and visited St Andrews on Sundays and just study the architecture on the old course and I would peek over to Eden and stuff like that. That was that was, That was the time. That was the moment.

00:37:54
Speaker 1: Sunday walk at St Andrews like seems like one of the most delightful thanks.

00:37:58
Speaker 2: It is really is. And you see all the townspeople, you know, enjoying the links as well. Their sense of community there was pretty amazing as well. And they just they just appreciated what they had. You can tell.

00:38:14
Speaker 1: So you worked with Gil through two thousand and three, correct, What was the impetus to stop and go back to being a superintendent.

00:38:25
Speaker 2: Well, what was interesting was that guilp and hands golf course design provided me the opportunity to hone my skills in so many ways, and we've covered a few of them already, but the widening of my understanding of golf and the agronomy of it kind of culminated when we got here because we had two wonderful owners that gave us a great bit of liberty here and their reverence for traditional golf. Theirs was focused on New England style of golf, but their influence that was their main influence, but they had exposure to golf in the UK, They had exposure to golf in different parts of this country. They had a really good pedigree of experience of golf. So when that happened here and I saw what they were allowing us to do and what they were encouraging us to do, it really kind of made me wonder if I could take one of our projects and just completely finish it, not walk away from it, do the final brushstrokes on it, be able to be able to, you know, manage the plant material that is that is kind of contributing to our canvas and make sure that those are in line, and just kind of improve it. So that was that was one thing that definitely entered my mind. The other fact of the so Gil's my experience with Gil prepped me for that. And then I had a My daughter was born on March sixth in two thousand and three, and we immediately came here to start building, and I was, I was commuting, I was staying here for four days. Then I would go back home and and yeah, home was Philly, and that that became hard for me. I couldn't you know, when I came home, she didn't recognize me. I mean, she's just a baby, you know. But to me, it was I was. I was probably hyper sensitive to that at that time.

00:40:36
Speaker 1: I'm going through the same thing when I travel, It's it's terrible.

00:40:41
Speaker 2: I was, you know, I was hypercent. I was. I've always wanted to be a father, right, that was one of the always one of my dreams. And now I'm a father, and and I'm traveling back and forth, and and it just seemed like things started to line up that kind of drew me to jumping back into being a superinten it here. I was definitely prepared because I've had the exposure to all this different architecture and different styles and the economy that golf should be. And then my wife said, are you sure you want to be a superintendent again? I said, well, she goes, I think you're crazy, but if you want to, we'll do it. And she was supportive and we I threw my hat in the ring and we did it.

00:41:24
Speaker 1: Surprised you got the job, well.

00:41:28
Speaker 2: I kind of. I mean, I don't know.

00:41:29
Speaker 1: I have you interviewed against other people?

00:41:32
Speaker 2: What's that?

00:41:33
Speaker 1: Did you have to interview against other people?

00:41:35
Speaker 2: I did have to interview. I don't know if I interviewed against other people, but I did interview. You know, I had been out of I hadn't been growing grass for nine years, you know, I'd been intimate with grass, and I, you know, still stayed, you know, in connection with it. I still was a GCS double a member and went to the conferences and stuff. But you know, I could see somebody being apprehensive of somebody that hadn't been managing a golf course for nine years.

00:42:04
Speaker 1: Now when you look back at it, because you've been here since O three and like you're close to twenty years since. I can't imagine in the modern era there's ever been somebody that was intimately involved with like the spec plans and like it's so rare that there's a superintendent before even the like you were involved with the just getting the project started.

00:42:28
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, I walked this this property with Gil and Jim one time with Bill Kittleman and walked it when it was just it was all wooded, and I saw it from the raw ground and we were you know, very very much uh waiting for us to find water. You know, that was a big deal. But we had been through this property over and over, walking it and doing routings and stuff. So yeah, you're right, I don't know if that's been done, but well maybe you know.

00:43:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I can't think of anybody before the Golden Age, like you know, in a way like Donald Ross at Essex County down the road, he was the club maker, cook, golf pro superintendent, architect, you know. But since then, I you know, like post World War two.

00:43:20
Speaker 2: That's a good credit. It would be worth a study. There might be.

00:43:24
Speaker 1: There might be so you guys had you had financial issue, Like a lot of things happened here. Yes, you know, like a lot of clubs open and things are great, but there's also clubs that open and struggles come and you've been through it and now you're back to where you've got waitless here, But like, what kind of you know? You had this archt you understand the golf course, You understood the architecture of it, what it was intended to be, and you have to make cuts, Like how did you go about figuring out where you were cutting like and where you weren't like where you're I'm not I'm not sacrificing that, but here's where I can make a concession.

00:44:11
Speaker 2: Right, So I would harken back to my experience in the UK, and there's one course there that had such a had an impact on me that and it was Ganton. It's near the borders. Great golf course. It was a it was more of a heathling course. But what I noticed about that particular head greenkeeper is he kept his plane surfaces, the surfaces that you're supposed to be on, in fairly impeccable shape. So he started at the center and he worked out and it was it was just so well done. It was so neat, so tidy, but that was where his focus was. And it was obvious when you played if you got too far off the beaten path, you know that's that's kind of in your So I would use that philosophy throughout all those difficulties that we had, and I would always go back to try to make sure that the plane surfaces were as good as we could do them. And then as it went out, I had to I had to basically not put the attention to it that that I would like to do. And so that's where the economy came. That's where I put the economy into keeping us relevant, so to speak, through those through those tough times.

00:45:34
Speaker 1: Was there anything you did, like where you made a concession, but you maybe did something knowing that, hey, when things are better, I can get this back easier if I do this like you know, almost like future problem solving.

00:45:48
Speaker 2: Well, I did make a mistake in those times where I did not aerify fair ways in two consecutive years, and that was a huge mistake. What happened I had I had takeoff patch just rip me up in quite a few fairways, and so I had a what's that. So it's it's a soil borne disease and it it attacks the roots of the planet. So in the so the grass dies. Yeah, so it dies in patches. It's ugly. It was it was not fun, and so I would say that that and then and then the there was a definite increase in thatch in the in the fairway, so they weren't as hard and they weren't as fast. So that was one mistake that if I, if I were put in the same position, I wouldn't sell that out. It is a quite an It is an operation too, especially when you have thirty six acres of fairways. It's a big operation to erify fairways. One of those the one of the years I did solid time, but it wasn't enough. The thatch was just obvious and I had to I had to rectify over the following years. But that was the one thing that I would say now to prepare to answer your question. One thing that we did that I did here is I really invested in nurturing the soils, and I do inputs of calcium, magnesium and potassium. And the idea is that if you have a soil that is healthy and that can sustain can sustain the turf, the turf is going to have a better chance of taking care of itself. And that's played out to be true here. That investment early on in the in the growing especially I put. I invested a lot in pre plant and that that did show its its benefit to us.

00:47:48
Speaker 1: So that was something you did when you guys were growing in.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I maintained it for after growing in. So I got it to a level and I maintained that level, and then when the thin times came, I was unable to maintain it to that same element, that same standard. But it didn't go backwards so far that I couldn't grab it back. So those soils stayed pretty healthy, with the exception of the miserification that was That was the mistake.

00:48:17
Speaker 1: You know, when we were walking around the last day, you've been, you know, extolling the virtues of of natural plants? What made you so obsessed with natural plants? And you know, why should everybody care about them? Because I care way more about them now than I did before.

00:48:39
Speaker 2: Well, so my interest in plants has been you know, goes back way back, but it really was tuned in college when I had When we had plant I D so we were tested. We had the potential of being tested on one hundred plants a week. I had to know one hundred plants. I D them know they're common in Latin name and spell them correctly. Oh god, one hundred plants a week. So I became I started to know a lot of plants, and then that became kind of a second nature when you go through that kind of rigorous, rigorous testing. And then I.

00:49:17
Speaker 1: How often would they spring these tests on you?

00:49:20
Speaker 2: Once a week you were tested. You had a hundred plants in that week, and you would probably get tested. You would have ten of them that you would have to identify, but you had a pool of a hundred that you'd be called on.

00:49:32
Speaker 1: One hundred different ones every week.

00:49:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, So what he would do, Bryce Lane, he would do a group of them that were trees, a group of them that are shrubs, and then a group of them of groundcovers or grasses. So that would make up that lot, so to speak. And so you'd have to know them all. And we had fun, I mean as students, we had fun because I was an excuse to get together and we would we would cram every week and then we'd have some beers afterwards. It was a blast, but it was a lot of work. So then my appreciation of plants and being in the right spot finding a plant that was working, and once you know a plant. It's a lot of fun to say, oh, so, why is this plant doing well here and not here? And then then you then you want to discover a plant that you see that's really cool, really interesting, and then you find out about it as you know, much easier and not under the pressure that I had in college. But you you were able to grab that that technique and learn about that plant and then understand why it's applied here. And then you identify all the bad guys, you identify the invasives, and you develop a hatred forum, and and you work at you know, how am I going to get this thing out of here? You know? Fragmighty?

00:50:47
Speaker 1: What's your least favorite invasive?

00:50:50
Speaker 2: My least favorite invasive is a European buckthorn. That thing is just it's just nasty. Some people like it because it has berries for birds, but it is something that can just take over a landscape and make it look absolutely disgusting, and it grows anywhere. It really has no preference, so it'll get into your wetlands and it's such a pain to get out of that, and it's it's it's a nasty, nasty plant.

00:51:18
Speaker 1: What do you think natural plants and mosses do to like, you know, the overall experience at say Boston Golf Club.

00:51:28
Speaker 2: So most people, I don't think it's like it's it's it's architecture. If you go into a wonderful building, you might not notice all the craftsmanship that has been put into the entry way of that building. You know, you might not understand the mortises and that it's mortis and ten, and you might not understand the notice the crown molding and how well the miters are. But when you walk into it, you know it's really good. And I think that kind of grassmanship that nature can provide for us is really what is ultimately getting. It's not noticing the individuals, it's those individuals contributing to that collective experience. And that always amazes me. It amazes me and nature. It amazes me in golf, and it amazes me here. And those are the things that I think that have that I don't think there's many people that are going to notice whether it's moss or lichen or.

00:52:32
Speaker 1: Or yarrow or cat moss.

00:52:34
Speaker 2: Harry cars Yeah, one of my favorite plants.

00:52:37
Speaker 1: A baseball player.

00:52:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, Harry Cappy exactly.

00:52:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you make a good point, because like, if you go into a room, like a really well put together room, it's not like you look and say, oh that that coffee table makes this room great, or it's rarely a standout piece. It's just everything together works.

00:53:01
Speaker 2: Right right, and it gives it.

00:53:04
Speaker 1: You know, one of my favorite podcasts that Garrett, our managing editor ever did was this one on Sense of Place with Blake Conant who works for Tom Doak, and they just talked about, you know, gus genius loci. I'm not a Latin guy, so I'm you know, it might be, but they talked all about how the best a lot of the best courses have this sense of place, and that's like a really not easy but like a great way to evoke a sense of place is because nobody else can take that from you, because these are all the plants that are supposed to be here exactly, and it brings out different colors. It's not a mono green. It's got all this different colors and textures that are all natural. Like I feel like one of the trends in golf architecture golf maintenance is these native areas and everybody it's a monkey see monkey do type exercise where if somebody is doing it this, I'm going to do that versus exploring what is best for your locale, not maybe what you saw somewhere else.

00:54:15
Speaker 2: That's that's absolutely true because the the the participants, the plant participants here are going to be different than they are in the mid Atlantic. They're going to be different than they are in North Carolina and going sell even further south. Our plants here are quite different than Scotland, Northern Scotland. I was just there and it's they, you know, through evolution and through the age of their courses. You know, they have the they know what their constituents are in in their in their landscape, and they've evolved on their own. And the thing that that's interesting for a new course like us, so we're relatively new. We might have one hundred years of history in ten years, but it's we're still new. Is making sure that those plants plant participants are properly influencing or not influencing play. And that is that is the fine line. That's the that's the one that the that we get better at by observation.

00:55:21
Speaker 1: Like your bunker fall of ferns, my.

00:55:23
Speaker 2: Bunker full afferns. Yeah, sweet fern. Yeah, so sweet fern has its place and it doesn't have its place. But no, the bunker full of ferns is fine. No, the the haycent fern is fine. Yeah. Yeah, so you understand what I'm saying. But if you have if you have sweet fern, which is a woody and you know it's that can have a supreme impact on that could be a double hazard in a in a bunker, and that's not good.

00:55:55
Speaker 1: What would you pick up in Scotland? Go over there? What what's the thing that you've thought of most since you've come back from Northern Scotland.

00:56:04
Speaker 2: Economy, economy of maintenance, economy of play, and you know where they where they put the onus of presenting the golf course to the player. And again it goes back to that, you know, starting in the in the center and it works out. The one thing that I do I need to work better at is and I can do it in some areas. And I'm taking back is you can find a ball nearly everywhere there unless you really go off the beaten path. If you go way off of the golf course, you're gonna end up in Gorse. But if you're if you're fifteen yards off of off of the edge of the fairway. Sometimes even twenty twenty five, you can still find your ball in advance. It Castle Stewart, there was not really a spot on that golf course that you couldn't find and do something with the ball to get yourself back into play. So that's something I want to I want to do better here. Some places I have no I can't do anything about that.

00:57:04
Speaker 1: A forest you can't do anything.

00:57:06
Speaker 2: Or if it's a wetland, that's you know that you really can't get in there and manipulate. But I can do better on the fringes. I can do better in some of our native roughs.

00:57:17
Speaker 1: How many complaints do you get a week about the Fifth Hall?

00:57:21
Speaker 2: We used to get them a lot, but not much anymore.

00:57:25
Speaker 1: Do you think people it's turning tie, People are realizing golf is not supposed to be fair.

00:57:30
Speaker 2: For American golf.

00:57:31
Speaker 1: Do you think like the humility.

00:57:33
Speaker 2: Of the membership here. Yeah. I think the membership here is gaining that they are starting to embrace some of our quirky, difficult holes, and it's part of who we are as American golf in general. No, I don't think they're buying into that completely, not like not like it is in the UK UK. You know, they they make fun of themselves, get themselves in a bad spot here. It's it's it's a series of words.

00:58:06
Speaker 1: You know, your membership has to travel so well they do because this this golf course. Ye most people never been here that are listening to this. But I mean it is like when you said that, you know, you were shocked at how much you were able to get you know, really like no rules when you were building. Really you know, this is a golf course like that. You come and it's like, God, this is like what a lot of people want to build but never have the developer that allows them to. And thus, like your membership is so got to be so comfortable with blindness and awkward shots and greens that have you know, severe undulation in them. You know, it's just a it's an interesting thing to think about. Like I think like this golf course, from what I've seen, it polarizes people. But in a way, like I'm almost more attracted to polar polarizing courses because that tells me that it's making people feel something.

00:59:11
Speaker 2: Oh, I would agree, and I think it does something else that for the membership here is they they don't know it, but they're becoming more creative golfers. It's not they're not obviously, it's not obvious. They're they're forced into doing something unorthodox to get out of some of the places that you can get in here, and I think that's making them And when they're successful, they're gonna they're going to capitalize on that. And if they're not, you'll find people wanting to try that again, to try to execute something that because they were in a difficult spot and try to execute something that gets them out of it. So they I think they discreetly this course discreetly creates a more creative golfer.

00:59:59
Speaker 1: I agree that it has to, because I think about I've gotten worse at every aspect of golf since I've started this, But one thing that I've gotten better at. The only thing I've gotten better at is like my imagination around greens. And it's because I so often roll balls, or I I putt around edges, or I walk a course with a with a wedge and a putter and just chip and see how slopes interact. But now when I have that that thirty five foot or over a spine and it's a really hard putt. It's like I just see the fall line and I can hit it like it's something. When you play places like this, it creates. It makes you visualize stuff more and you see beyond just that's the hole, like it opens everything around you.

01:00:53
Speaker 2: I would agree, yes, and I think you're going to find things that you want to try at courses like this. You want to you want to try. And then many times when I'm playing, I wish, I wish I had the time in a round, but you know, we want to play fast. But I would love to be able to drop two balls, two more balls after I tried one thing, and I want to try something different. And those are the type of courses I did that in Scotland. I had to. I had to drop another ball and try a different shot because the one I previously did didn't didn't turn out with the result. And that's and I knew I was going back to Scotland anytime soon, so I had to do it right then and there and drop that ball. I'm gonna try this, you guys. I'm sorry, I'm gonna hold you up, but I did it anyway.

01:01:38
Speaker 1: What's what's a hole that turned out better than you thought it would when you built it. I imagine there's always like hemming and hying about what should be done with a whole. There's so many possibilities when you build a golf courses. There are one that you kind of were uh and now that you I mean, you spend so much time on the grounds, like I imagine like certain holes like just.

01:02:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me think it.

01:02:04
Speaker 1: Is there one that you like, love that you don't love quite as much as you used to like when you first you know, I because I feel like that's probably something that happens, right.

01:02:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, so turning out better than I thought would probably be nine. But that's also the same one that I don't I don't love, but it's it's good and it's better than I thought it would be, but it's it's not it's not my one of my it's not something that I find is the vista is great, but I don't know. There's just something about nine that just doesn't the that hasn't really pulled it for me.

01:02:50
Speaker 1: How many holes can be weak and it be a great course in your mind? This is what I think about this question all the time.

01:02:58
Speaker 2: I don't know that's you know, when when you're when you're designing golf courses and when you're when you're analyzing golf courses, you just especially design you you just want to have eighteen great golf holes. Right, I don't know what that what that low end acceptability is.

01:03:18
Speaker 1: Well, I think it also has to do with how high the highs are.

01:03:21
Speaker 2: Right true? Okay, yeah, I'll give that to you. Sure, so you would be able to so the so the media.

01:03:28
Speaker 1: You almost have to like net out itself.

01:03:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, the mediocre is going to come up a bit because you're high is so good? Yeah I could, I'd buy that. Yeah. So again, it's so hard for me to judge that. But there's let's say two, I'll just pull out.

01:03:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, two, that's see it. It doesn't seem like you can have less than that.

01:03:47
Speaker 2: Really that's your feeling too, I.

01:03:48
Speaker 1: Mean, like to be yeah, you can be really good with like three or four, okay, but like really great. You can't maybe one even really really great. I mean that'd be like the stress. Fear of stress feres.

01:04:02
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, yes, it definitely.

01:04:04
Speaker 1: The best places don't have any.

01:04:06
Speaker 2: With the exception of Cyprus, which has one. But it's the best. It's up there. It's so good.

01:04:15
Speaker 1: I told you we talked about this earlier today. I believe that it's a representation of life, that nothing can be that good.

01:04:25
Speaker 2: He did, You did say that, and I have to agree.

01:04:28
Speaker 1: But like whenever you think it can't get everything's great and gravy, you kind of get, you get kicked in the ass in life.

01:04:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:04:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that whole.

01:04:39
Speaker 2: I'm going to buy that. I'm I'm going to buy into that. I think that's fine. I can live with that though.

01:04:44
Speaker 1: The reality though, and I know I've seen a million different things. Any hole after fifteen, sixteen seventeen is going to be bad.

01:04:54
Speaker 2: True, that is, That's very true. Yes, nothing that that is. That's amazing that they climax to that.

01:05:02
Speaker 1: And then you know, if that was one, nobody would think it was that bad.

01:05:08
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. Yes, you would get away with it much easier if that were one. I would totally agree with that.

01:05:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you could do it that way. You could just walk down the hill, play that walk up to one T now one T. They could just make that.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: I wish we could roll back time so that you could try that to see if that actually played out that way because too many people know that it's truly the eighteenth, but that that is that's really interesting.

01:05:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we could convince him to do a shotgun start and we could start on eighteen.

01:05:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go.

01:05:45
Speaker 1: Do you want to start on one? No, I'd like to start on any.

01:05:48
Speaker 2: I want to start on eighteen. I want to finish on seventeen. That would be great, then it.

01:05:54
Speaker 1: Would Yeah, I think that would fix it at all easily.

01:05:57
Speaker 2: It's how economical is that fix? That's perfect?

01:06:01
Speaker 1: I mean I wonder about like a lot of that because we were talking about walks today, Like if you have like a really long walk later in the round, it's awful, But if it's just earlier in the round, then you just forget about it. That's true because you have energy. You're not hungry, right, you haven't been just dismayed at your poor golf.

01:06:22
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, right, it's all it's all behind you. You know that that walk is all behind you. All this other stuff is in front of you now and you've just experienced for sure.

01:06:33
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about routing Boston different? Obviously you have the road dividing it. I like, you know all the routings all the potential routings. What are the things that you think? Do you like, it's got to be weird, you know, going back to this like it's weird. You know, you're the only person that knows everything about a place, like literally everything, and it's never not been here. Do you think about other things? Like do you like, do you ever like think about if you could change something? Or do you just keep keep doing?

01:07:07
Speaker 2: No?

01:07:08
Speaker 1: Were the old routings?

01:07:09
Speaker 2: No, we really did explore all the potential routings here, and I and thinking back, and I've actually looked at some of those old ones. We have them, we have them archived. And when Gil figured out five, six, seven, and then eventually eight, it was it was just absolutely obvious this is the routing it did there. There was no other improvement that we could find in it. It just made so much sense. And the transition coming up the hill into the quarry and coming out of the quarry and going back down was just as good as we could do it. So yeah, in this case, I couldn't find a better routing out of it.

01:08:00
Speaker 1: All right, I've taken enough of your time with my nonsensical questions. It's also getting late. I know that you, you've got a strict sleep schedule.

01:08:09
Speaker 2: I do. I do have a strict, strict sleep schedule and it works. It works to anybody out there listening, invest in your sleep.

01:08:18
Speaker 1: You just same routine every night.

01:08:21
Speaker 2: Got to do it.

01:08:22
Speaker 1: That's I'm like the world's greatest sleeper. It drives my wife insane that I can just fall asleep at the at the whim. But my thing is, I have to be ready to go to sleep, and I know when I'm ready to go to sleep.

01:08:35
Speaker 2: Oh really.

01:08:36
Speaker 1: The only time I struggle going to sleep is when an outside agent is pushing me to go to sleep before I'm ready.

01:08:45
Speaker 2: Oh, then that disrupts it.

01:08:47
Speaker 1: Then I then I'll be up like all night.

01:08:49
Speaker 2: So you have your checklist and it's all and everything's okay, good, I've got that. Now I can go to sleep in your and then it's bliss.

01:08:57
Speaker 1: It's not a checklist at all. It's just the feel overcome.

01:09:00
Speaker 2: Oh okay, it's a feeling. Ok.

01:09:02
Speaker 1: I just I go to sleep and then I'm out. But if I try and go to sleep before I'm ready, I will be up all night.

01:09:10
Speaker 2: Ah, I say, I say.

01:09:12
Speaker 1: It's a blessing and a curse.

01:09:14
Speaker 2: It sounds like it. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to go. I don't want to think about that too hard because that might be incorporated. I don't want that.

01:09:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like if I have an early flight, that's when it gets in trouble. Tub Oh yeah, like because I want to I want to go to sleep, but sometimes I'm not ready.

01:09:29
Speaker 2: Well, so one thing Gil taught me one time when we went to when we went to England that first time, he said, Okay, so this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna fly into Heathrow. We're gonna get down to this B and B and we're going to take an hour and a half nap and then we're gonna get up force it no matter what, We're going to get up and go about our business. And sure enough, that worked. That really really worked.

01:09:55
Speaker 1: I've heard some people get over jet lag by being like super active when they get somewhere or like the nap.

01:10:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that worked for me then, and I've I've tried to employ that and it works.

01:10:08
Speaker 1: I never traveled the places that I'm jet lagged. That's hopefully changing next year.

01:10:13
Speaker 2: But well, I'm curious about Gill's philosophy. Now because he's everywhere. He goes back and forth across time zones all the time.

01:10:20
Speaker 1: He might just be his own time zone, the Gill zone. Yeah, and he just operates soun he you know, with how busy, he might just not sleep.

01:10:33
Speaker 2: No, he does sleep. He's got a sleep. He looks good. It looks like he's getting sleep. I saw him just two weeks ago, so he's getting sleep.

01:10:42
Speaker 1: He would look like a wreck if he wasn't all right, Rodney, It's been a wonderful coming.

01:10:47
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I I thoroughly enjoyed your visit and spending time in getting to know you. It's been fantastic a couple of days. I'm glad you're in the Northeast.

01:10:56
Speaker 1: So yeah, I might just be here more often. You know.

01:10:59
Speaker 2: Well, you have an open invitation. We'd happy happy to have you.

01:11:13
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Fridagg Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Garrett Morrison. As a reminder, a great way to support the podcast is to visit our pro shop. We have a new collection of items. We call it the Rainer Man. It's a little Seth Rayner logo on shirts and pullover. So we have him in b Dratty shirts and the new Bee Dratty Sport pullover. So with fall here, it's a great layering piece, that pull over. It's one of my favorites. Already warned a couple times with the temperatures a little bit cooler in the morning, So if you go to the fridagg dot com you see a pro Shop button up in the top corner, go there and you can purchase a Rainer Man shirt or pull over. Thanks again for listening to the Friday Podcast. We will be back soon with another episode.