A Keiser-Backed Renovation in Madison, the Doak Internship, and Women in Golf Course Design with Sara Mess

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison and this episode is brought to you by the Frida Egg print Shop. So one of the things we love to do with the Friday Egg is take great photos of great golf courses. And if you would like one of these photos on your wall at home, you can go to our print shop. It's at proshop dot Thefrida Egg dot com. And we've added a bunch of courses recently. What's up there right now includes the abandoned courses, the Sand Valley courses. We've got some shots of Prairie Dunes, wingfoot George Wright, which we talked about in our last episode, and so there's just a bunch of stuff up there now. You can get these prints framed in a variety of different ways. I can personally recommend the metal prints, which really make the colors pop and look great. So check it out pro shop dot the Fridagg dot com and click on photography prints. So today's is Sarah mess. Sarah is a former intern for Tom Doak and has worked with Doak on his recent books about routing. She's a really great golf architecture mind. Right now, her full time job is as an elementary school teacher in Madison, Wisconsin, but also she is working on an exciting golf course project in Madison that's at glen Way Golf Course, which will soon be known as glen Way Golf Park. This project is funded in part by Michael Kaiser and his wife Jocelyn. Michael runs the Sand Valley Resort and is the son of Mike Kaiser, who is the developer behind Bandon dune'es and a bunch of other golf resorts that you know of. Kaiser's involvement has brought in several talented architects to Madison and they're just pursuing some really interesting ideas there. They're introducing some fun, strategic design concepts to the golf course itself there, reclaiming native areas and making sure that the property contributes positively to the environment. They're using various tactics to get the non golfing community more engaged with the golf course property, just doing a bunch of stuff that's really fun and forward looking. So in some ways, the Glenway project is an extension of the work that has been done at Winter Park in Florida and Rock Wind Community links in New Mexico to reimagine what a local municipal course can be. But in other ways, Glenway might be a new model for what cities can do with their old, struggling nine hole municipal courses. They can keep the golf and improve the golf, but they can also design the property so that it can offer a lot more than golf, and I think that's one of the big things that Glenway is doing. So that's the main thing I wanted to talk about with Sarah Ms, who has spent a lot of time on the Glenway site recently, and I was also curious about her career path and her experiences in the golf architecture world. So let's get right to it. Here is Sarah mas I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a brid egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida eggggrid egg bride egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. First, I'd like to maybe get into what glen Way golf course used to be before the recent work started. So how would you describe what the golf course was.

00:03:57
Speaker 2: Golf course was kind of I would say run of the municipal nine hole course, a bit run down and had, you know a lot of kind of deferred maintenance on it. Trees had been planted, you know, probably twenty thirty years ago that were really starting to encroach on things. The green sites themselves were all very small and kind of you could see that they had shrunk over the years. You know, people taking a lot of times around the greens because you ended up chipping back and forth and things like that. So, you know, the place where in Madison a lot of people would would start to learn golf, but not a whole lot of interest in terms of kind of architectural features out there.

00:04:37
Speaker 1: So tell me the story of how it ended up becoming possible that it could be renovated. What's the backstory?

00:04:45
Speaker 2: So I don't have all of the backstory, but so Michael Kaiser and his wife Johncelyn live in Madison as well, and as you know, Michael and his brother Chris have developed Sand Valley to the north here, and municipal golf in Madison has taken a couple hits in the past few years. There were I think three or four years ago they were talking about potentially shutting down all the municipal courses and so people have kind of been rallying to try and save those because you know, those are the courses that are accessible to a lot of people within you know, the city limits. And because of the pandemic and then the construction that was going on at Sand Valley, Michael saw an opportunity to you know, he had people around that were experienced in the business, you know, Brian Schneider, Craig Hallton that had a lot of experience and would be nearby and that he could you know, kind of corral for a bit of time to get to work on the project. So you know, it actually made it through kind of the city council in Madison in what for me, I would consider record time, you know, and Madison can be a city that's very difficult to get things moving. But you know, he said that he and his wife would would pay for the impret but that it needed to be done this year because this is when the people that would be that he needed to work on it to make it great would be available. And managed to get it through all the kind of various levels of government and got it approved to be started. So we were able to get started in late April.

00:06:19
Speaker 1: So that's quite a turnaround. It goes from the municipal courses in Madison potentially being shut down to a pretty ambitious renovation project being approved. What do you think accounts for that? Is it just you know, Michael Kaiser the name and also offering to fund the project really made it go.

00:06:39
Speaker 2: I think that really made it go. He really made a concerted effort to talk with the surrounding neighborhoods and get their involvement, you know, made sure to take advantage of the fact that you know, University of Madison is here and doing some things in terms of restoration of native areas, and really this idea of it being more of a golf part and not just a golf course, so trying to get it to be more of a part of the community as you see in you know, a lot of places over in the UK. So I think drawing on that idea and then there were enough people in Madison I think that we're very worried about the fact that the municipal courses might close. That kind of put a little extra weight behind this, and you know, encouraged the city council to be able to take advantage of what was an incredible offer by Michael and his wife.

00:07:27
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that there are a number of accomplished architects who are in the area at the moment, and that's because of the construction going on at the lido near the Sand Valley Golf Resort, which Michael Kaiser is is spearheading. Brian Schneider is there, Craig Halton is around a number of other working architects. And you live near or in Madison, I believe, I'm yeah, I'm.

00:07:52
Speaker 2: In Madison proper, not too far from one of the lakes.

00:07:55
Speaker 1: So and so, how did you become involved?

00:07:58
Speaker 2: Well, this is one of the few places where I feel like Facebook was used for good. It was one of those like I know, it was that I have I have two very interesting like golf course architecture, Facebook stories and this is one of them. And it was, you know, it came up on my news feed as like something you may be interested in, and it was like the initial announcement that he was gonna he was trying to do this project. And so I texted Tom Doak it said Tom, I know you've worked with Michael before. I know you've worked with Mike. I'm in Madison. See if I can, you know, even if it's just to come out and check things out every you know, so often, but I would love to be involved in a project like this. It was, you know, the idea behind it, making it more user friendly for beginners, getting more people involved is what my thesis project in college was on. So, you know, something I feel very passionately about. And you know, Tom, Tom sent a note to Michael for me, and Michael called me at the end of the week and said, sure, sounds good, let's get you involved. So it was pretty amazing and I was pretty excited about it.

00:09:02
Speaker 1: What was the other Facebook story? By the way, A little digression here at digression I do.

00:09:07
Speaker 2: Have so when I was in grad school, so ten plus years ago now, so Facebook was not quite the bohemoth that it that currently is. I randomly got a message one day from a gentleman named Alex Duhamel who is a member at Oysters Harbor, and just was like, hey, Facebook is suggesting that we be friends. I'm not sure. Like we both went to Michigan State and that's the only reason. We could kind of figure out why it was. But you know that Facebook is suggesting we'd be friends, and I see that you worked for Renaissance Golf, and we're looking at potentially, you know, redoing some of the greens and things, and we would really love to have Tom and the Renaissance Golf team involved. So this is like two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, I think. And the thing that was just somewhat ironic is Tom had stuck. You know, when Tom was going and looking at when he was in college and in his early twenties, he had gone to Oysters Harbor and they wouldn't let him so you had to get there's like a bridge to get to the courses on an island, and they wouldn't let him across. So he had actually never seen the course. But you know, I passed passed the information along to Tom and the guys and they ended up going out and you know, redoing the greens at Oyster Harbor's. And I still keep in touch with Alex. He's played a bunch of courses. He has family in northern Michigan, so you know, we keep in contact there. But it was just one of those like somebody that I would probably have never met in real life because he lives in you know, Massachusetts. But Facebook decided that since we had golf in Michigan state in common, we should we should talk.

00:10:43
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was a pretty decent guest by the algorithm.

00:10:47
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, exactly.

00:10:49
Speaker 1: So getting back to the Glen Way project, you mentioned a couple of names already who are involved, Brian Schneider and Craig Halton. Brian Schneider a long time associated of Tom Doaks, and Craig Kyltum, who has done a lot of work in Wisconsin, including I believe the restoration at Lasonia. Those are two people who have been involved in the project. Who else is on board right now? I believe there are more people. There's kind of a big group of architects who are all kind of contributing.

00:11:18
Speaker 2: Correct, There's a big group. So Brian Slanik came for a couple of days and did some shaping in I think late June early July, kind of at the end of one of his Lado trips. J Blazzi is originally from Madison, now lives in California, but has stopped by a couple of times when he's in town visiting family, kind of just doing walk arounds giving some feedback. The other folks involved are more in the landscape, architecture, horder culture side. Although I was gonna say, I know Andy Staples has stopped out, I haven't actually been able to meet up with him when he's been there. Andy North, I think, has stopped by a couple of times to put in his two cents. So yeah, there is quite a very large crowd of people giving input on it.

00:12:02
Speaker 1: Are there too many cooks in the kitchen?

00:12:05
Speaker 2: I don't know that I would say there are too many cooks in the kitchen. The difficulty has been that the cooks all arrive in the kitchen at different times, and so trying to figure out what the final dish is actually going to be has been a little a little tricky at times. So that has been the trickier part, not necessarily there are too many, but that they don't always, you know, end up in the kitchen communicating to each other.

00:12:24
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's probably useful that your local, i'd like to.

00:12:27
Speaker 2: Think, so I try. You know, it is really hard, you know, in the summer, I was able to go out there usually at least once or twice a week to kind of head out and see what's going on. I could always just head out in the evenings. I feel like some what became the like de facto tour guide. There are definitely quite a number of like local Madison people that were interested in the project that I ended up taking around at different times to be able to kind of show off what we were doing and to try and you know, a couple of people even from the neighborhoods surrounding it too, weren't really you know, knew something was happening, but weren't really sure what it was, and to try and really give the idea of what we were hoping to accomplish, and I think helped get some people that were maybe a little bit hesitants, are uncertain about what was going on, excited about the project.

00:13:17
Speaker 1: So there are numerous different intentions for this project. There are a bunch of different things that it's trying to do. But maybe we should just start with the golf itself. So what is the renovation trying to do with the golf course?

00:13:31
Speaker 2: So with the golf course, we're trying to make it a little more fun, more interesting for kind of players of all levels and a kind of good introduction to the game for people who may this might be their first experience on an actual golf course. So made the fair you know, took out some trees, mainly ones that were not native to the area, So expanded the fairways some made the green surfaces a little larger because you know, kind of to prevent back and forth chipping trying to you know, moved. One of the things I was really involved with was kind of placement of tees and getting tees, you know, instead of two sets of tees where you had the back teas and then twenty yards in front of that had you know, the forward tees. Getting a little more variety in terms of the distances that the holes would play and also the angles to try and kind of take advantage of some of the topography that was on site, but also give people, you know, instead of having just the same challenge from twenty yards closer, like providing a little bit of variety there so that when people would come in play, you know, maybe they choose one set of teas when they're out with their buddies, a different set of teas when they're coming with their family, or somebody that's new and that you're not going to be, you know, just looking at the same thing but from a shorter distance. Another thing that was added was a very large kind of putting green putting course combination. I think it ended up being somewhere around eighteen th in square feet. But again to have the introduction for people that maybe aren't haven't played golf before, but it's right on. You know, there are two kind of main streets that run along the course, and the putting course is right there at the corner. So having people, you know, having it be visible that people are out there having fun playing you know, a version of kind of mini golf that a lot of people are familiar with, but to get them out on on the course to do that.

00:15:27
Speaker 1: So you mentioned te's. Obviously, forward t's are really important to beginning players and also to some players who are more experienced but just don't hit the balls far. What are some common mistakes that you see at courses with their forward tee placement?

00:15:42
Speaker 2: Oh, man, I could this is this is a this is a soapbox? I am I am so I also am this fall I teach the golf course planning a design course at ball State doing that virtually, and that's one of the things I'm really hammering. But the tees, you know, so to give a little background, I you know, I played golf in high school and then was lucky enough to be able to walk on to the Michigan State golf team, so played in college and that's kind of how I got into golf course design was my coach knew, the person that taught the golf course design class at Michigan State. And but anyways, playing in college, I you know, I hit the ball, generally speaking, a lot farther than than most women. And the forward teas just ended up in such dumb places on most courses, you know, on the inside of a dog leg, or you know, you have this tiny little tea that's angled in the wrong direction, and so many times they just seem like an afterthought and it's such a missed opportunity because you know, one of the things at Glen Way, I'm really I don't know if it'll end up on the card this way, but I'm really pushing for them to be labeled is like beginner intermedia in advanced tees as opposed to you know, kind of forward and back tees. Or like junior and forward and back tees just because of kind of the stigmas involved there. But you just a lot of times forward tees end up at places that either are too far for kind of where many women would be playing from or be able to hit. So you know, you're automatically having a hole that might be labeled as a part for but realistically is not that for ninety percent of the people. Or you have it where, you know, if somebody does hit it instead of you know, kind of the average one hundred and fifty yards, if somebody hits it more like one hundred and eighty yards, they end up with a very extremely narrow place to land the ball because you're going through a dog leg, or you've got some sort of hazard that's in an just in just a really awkward place. And so you know, it's one of those things I only I say this jokingly, but only partially jokingly, is that all golf course architects should have to spend a week with a high school girls golf team, because like on a high school girls golf team, you've got some girls that are going to be out there. You usually got one or two people that might be shooting high seventies, low eighties, but are going to be hitting the ball two hundred yards, and you know are those, you know, players that are potentially going to play in college. But the better females. You've got people that are kind of usually at the lower varsity level, that are hitting that one hundred and sixty but are pretty straight and you know, have good consistency. And then you've got kind of the JV players who maybe have only been playing for a year or two and are only hitting the ball, you know, seventy or eighty or ninety yards, and you really get a much wider breadth of skill, I think than you see in many of the high school boys teams. And so yeah, it's only half jokingly, but like I think it would be really eye opening for them to see what it's like.

00:18:49
Speaker 1: It's a reality too. Yeah, I mean there's so much variety in golfer's ability, so much more than the usual set of three t's would imply, right, And yeah, I see so many courses where the back t's are seven thousand yards, the middle tees are like sixty seven hundred yards or sixty five hundred yards, and then the forward tees are around six thousand or maybe a little bit less, and that's six thousand is way too long of a golf course for a lot of people, right.

00:19:18
Speaker 2: And the thing that I that I think, I don't know that I learned at Michigan State, but that I so at Michigan State. Like we play on the course, but the nc DOUBLEA has come in and kind of selected which tees you would play if you were going to play a tournament there or if you're going to play an NCAA regional there. So those were the tees we would always practice from, and they were you know, we had a couple where we played from the forward te's, we had a couple where we played from the middle teas. We had a couple holes where we played from the back tees. So being able to do that, you know. So I don't know that the solution is six different t boxes, but I do think with three or four te boxes and really varying where you put things, you can make courses much more interesting on a day to day and so you're not going out and playing the same thing all the time. So that you know, that's one of those things that I don't I don't the problem you run into is the USDA has handicaps only from one specific place, so people that are you know, do things with their handicap and makes it more complicated. I actually don't have a handicap, partially because a lot of times the golf courses weren't rated for women from the courses from the t's I was playing, which is just like so you know, after a couple of times, I just gave up. It's like, this isn't worth it to try to enter scores because my scores aren't reflecting where I was, you know, where I was playing from. So I'm a little more flexible on where you're going to play from than I think a lot of people tend to be. But well, you'd think of getting that variety in there.

00:20:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, well the variety is is a fun thing, right. It should be a fun opportunity for architects to design one hole and then design three or four holes out of that one hole. I mean every architect wants that opportunity, right. It's sometimes it's really hard to narrow your ideas down to nine or eighteen holes or whatever it is. Well, here's an opportunity to design multiple different holes. Basically, with these new sets of tees as long as you place them interestingly, you're kind of executing different concepts from each of the tees, which should be a fun opportunity, but I see relatively few architects kind of taking advantage of that opportunity or pushing those kinds of ideas with owners.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree, and it's it. And some of that has to do with a lot of times, the people that are the loudest and talking about things are the people that are playing from the back teeth. So those tees tend to get a little more focus. And I think, you know, so I coach a high school boys team and one of the things I make them do is for practice around I'll make them take like three golf clubs and they play from Usually they play from the forward tees, but I'll mix them. I'll have them mix them up and go play, you know, go play course and see what you can do with just three clubs. And so, you know, having teas in interesting places again, you kind of make those different golf courses is you know, maybe on a normal day, this hazard is out of range for ninety five percent of the people, but two days a week you move it up, and you know, then fifty percent of the people have to deal with it. But you know, you can just get that more interesting and just wider variety of things to keep the course exciting for people.

00:22:29
Speaker 1: So we have tees, we have the width of the golf course at Glen Way. What's going on with the greens? I know that there's some interesting stuff going in the ground there. What are some of those things?

00:22:39
Speaker 2: There are some I would say the greens for the most part are at least two to three times as large as they were previously, so a lot larger greens. The greens for the most part look a little more complicated than they are, so like when you actually get on them and put them there. You know, the slopes aren't crazy are things, but there are more slopes on the edges to kind of allow people to play along the ground or to put from you know, put from the fairway or use you know, use a slope to run it onto the green and then once on the green. You know, the the puts are interesting, but not maybe quite as crazy as people would initially be concerned about. So they're one of those things that maybe look a little you know. Alistair mackenzie always talked about hazards that look more difficult than they are give people a thrill. And I think some of these greens are one of those that they maybe look a little more difficult on first glance and they will actually be to execute, you know, but they do still have enough interest to keep people excited.

00:23:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. So another big dimension of this project is environmental stewardship, reintroducing some native elements to the landscape that weren't there at the previous golf course. So what are you trying to do with that end of things?

00:23:58
Speaker 2: So I have been involved some with Craig, just kind of helping figure out where those areas, you know, now that we've got the holes in there, where those areas are, so that we can have those good native areas, but they aren't going to necessarily interfere with play too much because again, we expect there to be a lot of beginners and people who are just kind of starting out the game, So we don't want to make the native areas, you know, too intimidating for them. But we do want to kind of restore some of that that look because before it was very much kind of your quintessential trees between every fair way kind of municipal municipal course, And like I said, we removed quite a few of the non native trees to replace with native plantings. And not only are we kind of restoring natives, but you also get more of a view across the golf course and it seems like, you know, it just seems more of an interesting place. But you could see what's coming, you can see what other people are doing, you know, And some of the tours that I've given people that have played out there before really mentioned that as one of the things is how interesting they thought was going to be to be able to look across the course and see these these native areas and see these other holes.

00:25:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. So when you're working with a community like Madison, tree removal can be a tough sell. Yes, And it sounds like that there are also some tree plantings going on in certain areas of the golf course, some native tree plantings. I saw that on the plans.

00:25:22
Speaker 2: At least I think they're more Yeah, I think they're more lower native vegetation. Yeah, so there are We're definitely some people that were not happy with some of the trees that were coming down. Again, we really tried to emphasize that these were trees that were not native to the area. One of the things, you know that there was an Arborius, you know, the city Arborius came out and did look at some of the other trees to make sure, you know, we weren't taking down any trees that were that were healthy. They're in the southern portion of the site. There is a really lovely stand and along the seventh hall a really lovely stand of old oak trees. And so that was one of the things you know that we made sure that we are preserving and keeping, you know, keeping those that were because this area was an oak savannah for the most part, so keeping those, you know, keeping those native trees, and really kind of the other thing we tried to do was, you know, then you're highlighting what some of the native trees are instead of hiding them behind all these other trees that are maybe not quite as nice looking or native to the area. So really kind of letting us highlight what some really cool looking trees are.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that basically the argument that you make when when somebody is unhappy about the tree removal going on, When somebody makes the argument that this is not an ecologically sensitive approach, do you kind of go to the well, listen, a lot of these trees weren't native, and here's how we're cultivating some of the native landscape so that it actually can be of ecological benefit, right.

00:26:55
Speaker 2: And that's that is what we tried to do, is that you know, we are trying to restore this the you know, the amount of kind of they did have some areas of kind of slightly native longer grass, but you know, I think we have seven times no, maybe more than that. I think the final plan ended up. It's something like fourteen hundred percent more, you know, like a huge like we are greatly increasing the amount of area that was devoted to native plantings and native trees. But to do that, we had to take out some of the existing tree structured there. And so it just can be hard for people to sometimes envision what that's going to look like because all they see is a tree coming down, and you know, it's another ten or twelve months before you get you know, the natives are there and planted and established and you can start to see what it will be. So that can be a hard a hard thing for people to envision, and you know, all they see are the trees coming down and think that that's what the final product is going to be when you know, in reality it's going to be much more than that, right, Yeah.

00:27:54
Speaker 1: It's always tough to to put across the long term vision when the short term site is a tree coming down. You know, it's exactly so another thing that can be potentially problematic, But it sounds like there are some ways in which this project is trying to mitigate these effects. Is you know, when you're increasing fairway size, that has the potential to increase the inputs that you would use to maintain those fairways, and so what are some of the ways that you're trying to mitigate that impact.

00:28:24
Speaker 2: Some of that is that those you know, we are expanding the native areas, and those native areas will need less water. The other thing is partially just having less water on the course in general, so that it plays a little more firm and fast, which you know for beginner golfers who may not hit the ball in the air as far is advantageous because then it's going to run along a little more. So you know, we're kind of you know, those two things work work at opposites, right if you if you aren't using as much water to water your existing fairways. You know, you can make the fairways a little larger and not use any additional you know, not have any additional inputs there. So that's one of the things they're really working on is trying to get that how the course plays dialed in and by doing that, you know, have less water on the course using in the sprinkler system and things than they normally would have or then they previously would have, I guess would be the better way to say. So.

00:29:18
Speaker 1: Finally, and this might be the most interesting part of the project for me. There's a big community engagement element here, and not just in terms of making the golf course more accessible to a variety of skill levels, though that is important, right having the right t's, having wider fairways and the right kinds of greens so that you know, many different people can play the golf course and feel challenged by it but not overwhelmed by it. But off of the golf course and around the golf course, there are various things that I take it you're doing to bring more of Madison to the golf course than perhaps was there previously. So what are some of these initiatives them?

00:30:00
Speaker 2: Is you know, through, So there is a commuter trail that runs just to the south of the course, so kind of developing a trail through the course that will connect up to that so people can kind of walk through the course. I know they're still kind of determining exactly where that path is going to fall, but just kind of letting people get out there. The course is actually right adjacent is immediately adjacent to a very large cemetery where a lot of people come and will walk around because it's a very large, open, you know, nicely wooded area. So being able to kind of incorporate the golf course into people that are walking there the putting course the idea to have you know, community members come there. But then the way the putting course and the ninth Green were situated, the putting course is up high and the ninth green is in kind of a bowl, probably eight to ten feet below that. So the transition between those has been set up as kind of an amphitheater. So not only could you watch people finishing playing golf, but you know, in the summer, potentially the neighborhood could set up like a movie screen and you could have people kind of you know, sitting on at Amphitheater and you know, watching an outdoor movie.

00:31:04
Speaker 1: That's a great idea. I love that.

00:31:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there are also you know, fireworks nearby, so again a place that somebody could come and watch, you know, when the couple times they have the fireworks, you know, come and do that. So just kind of doing those things to make it feel again like more a part of of the neighborhood and instead of this separate, kind of isolated thing.

00:31:23
Speaker 1: So one thing I'm curious about with the walking path is the potential safety issues. I mean, I love this idea of having non golfers walk through golf courses. In fact, I think it's really important because that could be a place where a non golfer might go to appreciate what a golf course is, you know, how peaceful it can be out there, how natural it can seem, and even appreciate some of the architecture that they see around there, looking at how the fairways and greens and bunkers are shaped, you know, and I think anybody can appreciate that, just like anybody can appreciate the architecture of a billing. And so having a walking path that kind of engages with the golf course is a fascinating idea to me, I think an important one, but it can be hard to execute, right because there are golf balls flying all over the place, and if you're dealing with non golfers, they might not exactly know what to look for or where to be. So how are you addressing that balance between you know, safety and access.

00:32:24
Speaker 2: So that's what you know, we are still kind of trying to find exactly where that line is going to be. You know, right now the path is kind of drawn along one hole, but kind of but there are a few remaining trees that would still kind of buffer it from there and kind of behind some other ones so that you would be unlikely to have golf balls. You know, they would have to quite substantially overshoot a green to get there. But again, yeah, anything is possible, right though, So you know, the other thing they're trying to determine is if you know, maybe initially the trail is only open at certain times of the day when golfers are less likely to be out there, and then as people become kind of more familiar and kind of understand a little more what to kind of watch out for, maybe expand those times because you're right, people just aren't necessarily used to looking for, you know, understanding where golfers are, how golf balls may travel. And I think that's something that as people will get experience with it, you know, you start to understand those things, so you may be able to But I think initially there's kind of going to be maybe some more restricted times as to when the trail is open, and then you know, hopefully expand it. But that's that's something that we're working on and that'll you know, I think the final decision on that will actually be the City of Madison as opposed to kind of you know, we can we can advise them on what we think would be appropriate, but ultimately that will be the city's decision.

00:33:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have to decide what the what the liability potential is there. I suppose that's exactly that's I mean, that's a great idea, but just tough to pull off exactly.

00:34:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I always go back to, you know, the little bit of time I got to spend in Scotland. You know, at north Berry, people are walking down to the beach all the time, but people you know, that's again that's one of those things that's established, so people are looking, are aware that people would be walking along. The golfers are aware that people will be walking, and the walkers are aware that may there may be golfers playing.

00:34:19
Speaker 1: They've been doing it literally for one hundred and fifty years, you know, exactly exactly, so they know what to.

00:34:26
Speaker 2: Look for exactly. But I also think like Winter Park down in Florida does it pretty well. But part of that is how the course is broken up by sidewalks, so you're not necessarily playing across the sidewalks are across people walking so much. But you definitely do still have that effect of people walking through the golf course and they just happen to be kind of also walking along a road. So you know, I think that's a place where it's been done successfully that you do have that more integration of kind of people walking and people playing. But again, that's one of those things that I think takes, you know, a certain awareness you have to have, and you know, once people have developed that, then you're good, but might be a little rough to get there sometimes.

00:35:07
Speaker 1: Right, So, what's the what's the status of the project right now? Where where are you in construction as winter starts to fall in Wisconsin.

00:35:18
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we had our we had our first frost last night. We've got a freeze warning tonight, so yes, winter is definitely coming. So everything has been grassed, we're pretty well established and growing. There were a couple of places we've been a little short of rain here in south central Wisconsin this year. Unfortunately, like when we had rainstorms didn't coincide great with when we had planted things. So there are a couple of washouts that we'll need to throw some seed down early in mid September, which is kind of the last grassing date you'd have here, So hopefully those can get established over the winter, but we'll kind of, you know, we'll have to see where that falls in the spring, and then right now kind of really figure out exactly where those native lines are going to be and getting some of those native plantings in. So you know, right now, if you go out there, they're mowing the greens, they're starting to mow the fairway, so it looks like a golf course again. You know, no sand in the bunkers yet, and you know, hopefully all of it kind of depends on what winter and spring ends up. You know, it's kind of kind of a crapshoot last last winter. You know, it would have been great for growing. The two winters before that, you know, we ended up with massive snowstorms in April and rain, you know, just kind of torrential torrential rains another years. So you know, a lot of it's going to be you know, we're hoping to open early early summer, but a lot of that depends on kind of how nice mother nature is to us over winter in early spring.

00:36:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you never know what you're going to get in Wisconsin and spring that is.

00:36:51
Speaker 2: That is accurate. The Upper Midwest is all sorts of fun in February and March in April.

00:36:58
Speaker 1: So the idea would be under ideal circumstances to establish the native in early spring and kind of have it ready to go by an opening date sometime in the early summer.

00:37:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've got a lot of the natives are in so hopefully they can be established, you know, get a decent amount of them established. Now there will be some they'll have to come back in in the spring. That's a pretty accurate timeline there, at least that's what we're hoping for.

00:37:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very exciting it's a it's a really cool project, and i'd encourage people to kind of check it out. There's plenty of information available online since it's a public project, and we'll see see how it turns out. I hope the weather cooperates. So let's get into your background a little bit here. You were a, as you mentioned earlier, a competitive golfer. Is that kind of how you got into golf, just by being interested in competition.

00:37:51
Speaker 2: I am not the world's most athletic person, but my dad so I will tell the story that, like, you know, when I was little, my parents had me in soccer when I was like five, and I that didn't go well because I would apparently go down and talk to the goalie all the time because I thought they were lonely, which is not not not the way to success.

00:38:14
Speaker 1: They're looking right.

00:38:15
Speaker 2: So I am very competitive, but that was not it. So my dad kind of decided. You know, my dad, I have a younger sister who's almost five years younger than I am, and he wanted to have sports that he could play with us. And you know, he couldn't really play soccer with us, couldn't really play basketball with us. But you know, he could play golf and tennis with us, So those were kind of the sports that that he showed us. I really didn't start golfing until kind of early middle school. Couldn't get the ball airborne really till kind of like eighth grade or so. And you know, for me going into high school, it was like, oh, these girls on the golf team, they must be like really good, and you know, there's I'm just I'm not there at all. And so what my dad did is took me out when day in the summer when there was a when there was an high school invitational at the golf course that we would practice at, and I just, you know, kind of went to the end of the range and was hitting at the same time as these high school girls getting ready, and I could hit the ball like they could, and so that was really kind of like, Okay, maybe maybe I can do this. So then, you know, got on the high school team, and my younger sister, who is much more athletic than I am, had this crazy idea that whatever I was doing seemed like a good idea. So that's kind of how she got dragged into it. But yeah, played in high school and then hit the ball a long Way and decided to go to Michigan State for college. Was there on an academic scholarship, not anything athletic related at all. But the guy I took lessons from in Fort Wayne, his daughter was on the golf team. It had just been named Big Ten Freshmen of the Year. So had put in a good word with coach for me and said, you know, she it's the ball along way. She's got a lot of potential, she's got great academics. She's not going to cause you any trouble. And so coach was generous enough to let me be a walk on on the team, and it was an incredible experience. So because at Michigan State, I was in the Honors College and my senior year I had an extra elective I could take, and in the Honors College you could take kind of whatever courses you wanted to without having to take the prerequisites. And so I saw this golf course planning and design class in the Landscape architecture department and said, Wow, that sounds interesting. I'll take that. So I signed up for it, and the instructor was kind of like, who who is it? You know, I've not ever seen this person in any landscape architecture class. But he was a golfer and golfed a lot with coach, and Coach said, you know, she'll be fine it, you know, just tell her what's going on. She'll be She'll be good. And took the course and really loved it and decided to apply for internships that following summer and was, you know, applied for Tom Doaks internship and was lucky enough to to be awarded that and kind of the rest is history.

00:41:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, So tell me about the Renaissance Golf Design internship program. You applied for that you got it? What did you end up doing for your internship?

00:41:14
Speaker 2: I was an intern in the summer of two thousand and four, So I did about a month in kind of traveling with Tom, a month in the office, and a month on site is kind of what it ended up split out. And it was one of the things is that there aren't many women in golf course architecture, and so when I had interviewed for the position, Tom had mentioned that and Don Playscik another one of the associates, and I was like, I'll be fine, Like, you know, I always like sports growing up, Like I ran the NCAA. You know, basketball pool in middle school. I was you know, I've got a degree in math from Michigan State, like I'm used to not there not being very many females around. And I didn't really understand that until the third day on the job with Tom and we're and we're going to a pre bid meeting for Stone Eagle and it's myself and sixty five guys in a room, and it was like, Oh, this is what you're talking about.

00:42:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you say there aren't many women in golf course design, yeah that.

00:42:15
Speaker 2: That might even be under selling it.

00:42:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's underselling it. There there are very very few, right, But you know.

00:42:22
Speaker 2: I got for the internship. I traveled with Tom, you know, did the pre bid meeting and got to walk around kind of Stone Eagle and see what a site looked like before any construction happened. And that was one of the craziest sites. It really just looked like the surface of Mars. So you know, that was really just dropping you and you're like, wait, how did you figure out how to put a golf course here? Because I don't see anything that resembles a golf hole, so you know, kind of just how different sites could be. I got to travel out to Long Island and did the where they had the groundbreaking for Sabonic when the Open was at at Chinnakok, and I did the groundbreaking at Somonic. So that was really interesting to walk around what was a completely different site and then kind of go over and get to see Shinnacok a little bit even you know, even kind of covered in crowds. But you know, I hadn't really seen much golf, you know, I had only played golf in the Midwest until then, so you know, going out and seeing what golf courses could look like in California, going up and seeing Tumble Creek out in Washington, and so what that looked like versus what is on Long Island. You know, that was all within the first week and a half two weeks I was working for Tom and it was just eye opening how different things could be. So did that and then came in July and kind of worked in the office and getting an idea of kind of what sort of you know, what the plans look like, how how you're does you know, how he goes about approaching a design. Some of it was you know, organizational things, you know, getting out that was right after cap Kidnappers and Barn Google had opened, so kind of getting out being able to distribute pictures and things to people who wanted those, you know, in the days before Instagram and ubiquitous pictures everywhere. And then I spent the last five weeks on site at Tumble Creek as they were finishing up that course, so got an idea of what a construction site looked like, what all it involved. That course had a pretty compressed timeline, so it was really interesting. So there were quite you know, when I got out there, they were kind of doing the finish work on some of the first holes in seeding those, whereas some holes they were still doing large earthwork and kind of anything in between. So I really got to see kind of all the different possibly you know, all the different phases of the construction project in that kind of five weeks.

00:44:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what interested you most as you went through all these different iterations of what a golf course architecture job could be.

00:44:51
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll I will freely admit to I love the maps. You know, Tom jokingly says, you know, if I had a choice, I would just have the you know, the maps of all the projects because that aspect of putting the puzzle together is really interesting to me because you know, I have jokingly told Tom before that, so when I was an intern, like the application was to take a hole at a course you had and kind of redesign it to make it better in some way. And so I did the eighteenth hole at four Seekers, which is the course of Michigan State Place for that the next year it was, you know, just design your ideal hole. And I told him, you know, if I had applied then, I don't know that I would have gotten it because, like, no constraints at all, I find it hard. But with a golf course, you're like, you know, you're probably gonna have eighteen holes. You know, your part is probably going to be between sixty nine and seventy three. You've got you know, distance is probably going to be somewhere between sixty five hundred and seventy two, and so you have some of these constraints, but within those constraints, there's an innumerable number of ways you can solve the puzzle. And so that part I love and is just I find super exciting.

00:46:02
Speaker 1: And what made you ultimately decide not to pursue a golf architecture career full time. You're you're obviously good at it, right you You've had maybe the best internship in the industry, and and you and Tom got along well, and and and so for a lot of people this would be the beginning of an illustrious design career. And and you've certainly remained involved in the golf architecture industry, but your full time job is something else. So what what made you decide to go that direction?

00:46:31
Speaker 2: Part of it was that, you know, Tom also really likes playing with maps, so there weren't always you know.

00:46:37
Speaker 1: There's and Don the too, right Don Pa, and.

00:46:41
Speaker 2: Don Don is there as well. Yeah, so Tom kind of always gets the first picks of playing with the maps and gets to spend more time with that, you know, understandably. But so at the you know, that was two thousand and seven, which is when, you know, even though we kind of hadn't hit the recession, like golf courses were starting to slow down, there weren't as many projects coming in. Yeah, so I decided to go to landscape architecture school because I really liked the design aspects of trying to do that. And the other thing is the guys travel one hundred and fifty to two hundred days a year. And I'm just while I love traveling, the act of traveling, like getting places and back, that sense of kind of not being grounded in one spot I really struggle with. When I would travel with Tom, it always felt like I was going someplace or coming back from some place, but never actually in the place, if that makes sense, because all the trips, you know, going between things were usually pretty short, and that just wasn't for me.

00:47:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the life of wandering versus the life of being rooted. And you were, Yes, you were more about the life of being rooted. And so what are you doing now?

00:47:48
Speaker 2: So I currently teach math to first and second graders as my.

00:47:53
Speaker 1: Real job, very different from golf architecture.

00:47:56
Speaker 2: This very different from golf architecture. And then I am also, as I mentioned, I coach a high school boys golf team. So you know, I jokingly tell people that, like, somewhere along the line, I made some poor choices because I like teach six and seven year olds and my real job, and then like for sanity, I coached sixteen year old males, So like, that's somewhere along the line that there were just some poor choices, poor choices made there. But yeah, so that's kind of my those are my real jobs.

00:48:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And you have a busy life. I mean you do still a bunch of things in golf architecture, including the Glenway project. But recently you helped Tom Duck with a couple of books he put out. So could you tell me about your role with those books and kind of what you're doing to help put them together.

00:48:42
Speaker 2: So the first book I worked with Tom on was his book on routing called Getting to eighteen. And I got involved with that partially because even you know, while I stopped working full time for Tom in two thousand and seven, you know, I came back and did I worked with him on the Renaissance Club, the three new holes kind of along the Firth and fourth there, and I think that was twenty eleven, and then you know when we did the Olympic project in twenty twelve, so you know, kind of have always stayed in touch with him, and I organized the map room when I worked for him, and then organize the map room again when I was there for the Olympic course. And Tom and Don would just rather not deal with having to do that and so for me, again it's looking at maps. It's like, I, that's something that I could do. So I, you know, I would every like couple of years stop by and like spend a week and reorganize the map. You know, what new maps have come in, what do we need to do? How does this, how does this fit? And so in I think it was twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen is when he was starting to get the idea for this book. And also, you know, the map room was a little unruly, so you know, what maps do we need to get in a digital form in terms of you know, being able for posterity stake to save what ones do we not need copies of once we need copies of? So it kind of started with me kind of organizing and getting those things all digitized, and then from there, you know, Tom has kind of always said that I, you know, kind of how I think about golf courses, it's very similar to how he thinks about writing golf courses. So kind of when trying to figure out what the book was going to look like and how it was going to not only be laid out but just kind of be presented, you know, we worked back and forth, kind of telling telling the story of each how each course came to be in it in its final form, because that's you know, one of the really interesting things about golf course architecture is you know, people will tell you that there are all these these rules that you have to follow for golf course architecture, and my line is always that it's more like you know in Pirates of the Caribbean, where it's not rules, they're guidelines. But so it's really interesting to actually see, you know, a lot of times you're just dealing with theoretically, this is what works, or you know, based on all these courses, a majority do this thing. But when you get down to the nitty gritty of an actual individual course, which of those rules are important, which of those things you have you know, what parts of the property are the things that are going to determine how you route this and what are things that you know aren't as important and you you don't pay attention to as much. So getting the book structured that way and Tom was really good at being able to say what he did, but he's also been in the industry for so long that sometimes he would skip over parts that most people will be like whoa, what, how did we get here? And so exactly, And so I was always in an interesting position that I had. You know, I was not in the industry full time, but you know, as I said earlier, I know enough to be dangerous and so, you know, and I just a lot of people that I know don't know golf course architecture. So a lot of times I would be explaining to them, you know what we're talking about. And I had taught the course at ball State when I was in grad school, so kind of that, you know, getting back to being a teacher, like how explain this thing that's a little common located and figure out how to make it easier.

00:52:03
Speaker 1: You're somebody who can look at a topo map, a topographical map, and understand it and kind of understand where a golf course might go. Not everybody has that gift. I certainly don't. I'm baffled by it. Unless I see the piece of land itself, I have no idea what I'm looking at. So what's some of your advice to somebody who maybe wants to get a little bit better at looking at a topo map and understanding it.

00:52:29
Speaker 2: Firstly, if you can get a topo map of land that you can go out and walk, or that it's nearby so you can see it. That is really kind of the first step if you are really uncomfortable with kind of how things go visually, especially because humans are especially bad at like judging vertical distance. We're not too bad at horizontal, but vertical we're not so good at.

00:52:50
Speaker 1: That's interesting, isn't it. That's kind of like evolutionarily coded or something like. We didn't need to really know about the vertical stuff, but the horizontal is important because if you're being chased by an you know exactly right.

00:53:02
Speaker 2: Like you know, you just know that something's out of reach. But after that, you know, you don't need to know, well, is this like three times taller than I am or like five times taller than I am. Either way, it's out of reach, so you're not gonna get it. So, you know, if you can get a topo map of property that you can go see to help you kind of figure out where those things are, that's a really good thing to do. You know, one of the things in grad school as we built a couple of models, and so you know, actually just you know, take like cut out cardboard and you know, do a little thing so you can get an idea of what that looks like. You know, because if if you take like a little cardboard cutouts, you can look down and you know the edges of the of them are are the lines. If you don't want to do anything quite that artsy craftsy, you know, just start looking at take one line and kind of trace it all the way around a site, you know, kind of to see how it to see how it moves, or to see kind of where things are, because then you can judge, you know, are the things inside there getting taller? Are they getting shorter? You know, did you need to so kind of figuring out where one spot kind of consistently goes around?

00:54:10
Speaker 1: So like what what what what one elevation point in other words, one line on the topo map, this is this? This point is you know what like forty feet up or something like that. You just trace that all around and what's that?

00:54:23
Speaker 2: Like? I think that gives you an idea of kind of what the it's It starts breaking it down and then into like a chunk or a piece that you can visualize that smaller amount. And sometimes it's hard to see, you know, it's hard to see if you if you just have a large map, it can be hard to see those smaller areas. So it's better if you're trying to learn how to read a topo map to start on some of those those smaller, smaller sections. If if you feel a little more comfortable with you know, perpendicular lines and kind of how things are spaced, figuring out where water is gonna run. You know, that's another one that you can kind of a lot of times on maps. You can see the topal lines will be pulled back where you've got water running down because if you think about it, you know you've got a little valley there, so that's why the topal line goes in. So kind of being able to trace where water goes is also because we're good at visualizing what water does, right because we see lakes, we see rivers, we see you know, waterfalls, So that can also help.

00:55:21
Speaker 1: So would you say your ideal job in golf architecture would involve kind of working with maps and essentially working out of the office and conceiving of golf courses that way, I think, So, I.

00:55:35
Speaker 2: Mean it is really important to go on site. You can have you know, a map never tells you as much as what is actually out there. So I think a map can you know, get you eighty percent there, eighty five percent there. But really, you know, that's one thing that working for Tom I really learned was that it is, you know, how important it is to be out in the field and see you know, they're just part of it is just the scale. So you know, when you're designing a golf course, usually working at a map that is one inch to two hundred feet, so you know, you can you can get the structure pretty well on just a map, but you do have to be you know, being out on site and figuring out where things go and how they especially how they tie into other things. That's what makes a golf course great.

00:56:20
Speaker 1: And so then do you think that golf course architects are always going to kind of be nomads or at least good golf course architects are going to be these people who travel a lot.

00:56:30
Speaker 2: I think so, I mean, I know, you know, there's an entire other discussion on the lido and how that course is being designed.

00:56:38
Speaker 1: We might be sending the robots out to.

00:56:43
Speaker 2: But even so, you know, that was a really interesting you know, I got to I stopped out to see Tom there this summer. And even if you have this GPS that I think was accurate within like six inches, and you know you're pretty confident of those based on you know, all these other ales. There are things that models don't account for, Like in a computer model. It can look great at a computer, but if it doesn't drain, Like a computer doesn't have to account for the fact that you might get three inches of rain in two hours. You know, a computer model doesn't have to account for the fact that you need to get a mower off the green, you need to get people off the green. Both the incredible opportunities that are there, but also it's limitations and I think we sometimes forget that things that might look great digitally might not always function in the real world. And so it was really interesting to be out there with Tom and kind of going around and looking at those where that transition between this is what's on the computer versus this is what we're seeing in the ground, and how do we make that seamless and look good was so that was you know, it was really the math nerd in me really liked that part, especially figuring out because as close as that site is to what it was out on Long Island. There is at least a little bit of fall, so like how they tried to account for that. Even I think I would have come up with a different solution. But that was also meybing, really math nerdy, and Tom was like, you might have to explain that one to me again because I'm not sure exactly what you were saying. It's okay, don't worry about it. You've already got all of this in the ground. It's not going to change.

00:58:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the human contribution to that project might be a little different than it has been in past projects, but it's still there in terms of providing edits. So the thing actually.

00:58:28
Speaker 2: Works exactly exactly.

00:58:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know so, I mean, there are so many ways in which the job of a golf course architect might change in the next thirty years. There are a number of different forces acting on golf right now, from the climate to social changes to changes in the golf industry. You know, we're in a golf boom right now, but we're not seeing a huge amount of new construction. There's more than there was a few years ago, but a lot of its renovation. And you know, so I think the job of a golf architect might look a little bit different in twenty thirty five than it does right now, and I wonder whether those changes are going to be good or not. And specifically, you know, when I think about your path through golf course design, I wonder about the diversity of the golf course architecture community, because obviously something has gone wrong so that so few women are involved. I'm not sure what needs to change, either in golf architecture or just in the wider society for there to be more representation of women in golf course architecture. But I wonder if this is something you've thought about and whether you see it getting better or kind of remaining the same.

00:59:51
Speaker 2: I mean, I can only speak for myself. I will tell you that, you know, I'm teaching the class at ball State this year, and I also taught it last year. Last year I had seven I had six males and one female, and this year I've got seven females and four males. So I think you are you are seeing more more women in the design professions in general. Whether that goes ends up being a golf course architecture, I'm not certain. Part of it is, you know, I think understanding the game of golf is important. So part of that is having more female golfers. You know, you don't have you know, I don't play like Jack Nicholas. I was you know, I was pretty good, but I was a walk on. I didn't travel with the team really. But just kind of having that understanding of how golf is played and especially how other people play golf, I think is important, and that maybe there aren't as many females there. It's also it's a hard again, if you're traveling all the time. It's really hard if you want to have, you know, if you want to have a family, or you you know, want to do some of those other things. It's it's not an easy profession in terms of like family life and home life. So that that I think is hard, and I don't know that that will change.

01:01:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the That's the million dollar question is whether there's going to be a broader social change whereby more women are not just going to get involved in golf architecture, but more women are going to have jobs where they're traveling a lot. Because traditionally those jobs where people aren't really rooted have been traveling a lot, have been quite male dominated. That that's that's one of the factors in golf architecture that has shaped it. But perhaps in the future we'll see more women willing to travel on more men willing to kind of hold down the home front.

01:01:36
Speaker 2: I think one of it is a part of it is simply access too, not necessarily just access to golf course architects, but access to courses. I'm not going to completely wait into the whole like men's clubs and that, and I'll be honest, I don't I don't care if you want to have a club that's only just men, but I should be able to see the golf course because might have something that's interesting and that I can't see elsewhere. And that's where I run into problems. But just being able to get in and see a bunch of different courses, and you know, having having access to the greens committees on those courses and you know, the superintendents and just kind of part of it is that that networking thing that is that is hard to do. And you know, I'll be honest, the fact that I worked for Tom has been an incredible help there because I could just you know, text him and say, hey, can you talk to Michael for me or you know, a couple of times when I've been traveling said Hey, I'm going to be around here, can you you know who do you know that that I could you know, talk to and just go and go and see the course, And that introduction is hugely valuable and being able to have that introduction.

01:02:58
Speaker 1: This episode of the Friday Podcast was edited by Meg Atkins. Thank you, Meg, and thank you to Sarah Mes for that conversation. So obviously the professional golf season is really winding down right now. Currently, the PGA Tour has the Bermuda Championship, which I believe Tommy Armor three turned down an opportunity to play in. So things are pretty sleepy. But the Frida Egg newsletter is still going and the writer of that newsletter, Will Knights, is coming up with all sorts of creative ways to keep things interesting. Arguably, this is the best time of year for the newsletter because it is you know, we can go some new places with it. So I would recommend subscribing to that newsletter. You can go to the Frida Egg dot com and subscribe there and I will also leave a link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.