Brett Hochstein on a (Potential) Sacramento Muni-ssance, Flat-Land Design, and California Golf

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

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

00:00:05
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.

00:00:06
Speaker 2: In a fried egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison, and today I'm talking with the architect Brett Hochstein about some exciting municipal golf projects he's working on in Sacramento, California. Brett is a talented young architect who has done shaping for Tom Doak, Gil Hans and others, and he's currently helping with the work at Pastepo. Very talented guy, and I'm looking forward to chatting with him. But before we get to Brett, let's talk briefly about Golf Forever. You may be noticing, if you're anything like me, that you're not as loose on the golf course these days as you used to be. Your body could be holding your game back, and it's time to change that. Golf Forever has personalized video routines and a special swing trainer that gives you added flexibility, strength, balance, and you'll be able to hit the first tee ready to go. If you do these workouts. More importantly, you'll be able to stay healthy and pain free and playing more golf than ever. I've been on the golf Forever program for about a week now and I'm feeling pretty remarkable differences. You know, these exercises are really targeted at the motion of the golf swing, which is a weird motion. You can't really prepare for it in many ways that you've been taught in, like gym class in school or regular stretching routines. The golf swing is very specific, and the Golf Forever program really targets what you need to do, what your body needs to do when swinging a golf club. I've had issues recently with my neck and upper back, and i can feel that I'm getting stronger in those areas, so I'm really excited about how this is going to turn out. I think it will really help me. So get started now at golf forever dot com and use the code egg that's egg to save one hundred dollars. I'm a swing trainer with one year of the app golf Forever dot com code Egg go check it out. All right, let's get to Bretton. Brett Hawkstein, Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing.

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Speaker 2: I'm doing great. It's great to be here.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with what you're up to in Sacramento right now. I think it's pretty exciting. You're heading up a couple of potentially very fruitful projects at the city's municipal courses. How did you get involved in these projects there?

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Speaker 2: There's actually a German architect, Christian Althouse, who's longtime friends with the people who operate, who have a long term lease and operate the Sacramento City courses, the Morton Management Group, headed by Ken Morton Senior and a couple of his sons. They're like a big family operation. You know. Christian was sort of like a de facto member of their family for like a number of years, kind of like there, you know, his American family, and he like followed me like on Instagram and whatever else for years and knew, uh, you know, I lived out here, and you knew that the you know, the Mortons were looking to, you know, maybe just do some projects out on the courses. You know, they want to, you know, at least do like some Himalayas style putting greens and that sort of thing. And uh so he he knew I was kind of like local and you thought, you know, liked you know, what he saw, like the pictures I posted and whatnot, and uh, you know the different work I've been involved with, and recommended me to them, and they reached out and you know I so I came out and visited, and uh, you know, we've just kind of been going back and forth and building upon our relation, uh you know, since then, eventually leading to these master plans, uh you know, one of which is completed for Land Park now and the other one for hagan Oaks, which we are still in the middle of.

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Speaker 1: William Land Park and hagan Oaks are the two major golf facilities that you're focusing on. Why don't we dig into william Land off the bat because that is the master plan that you have. So what are the basics of the golf course? Where is it? What is it, what's its history? All that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it started with a history. It's a nineteen twenty four golf course celebrating it's a one hundred year anniversary. That's where we just unveiled this plan on the big board and everything with the little ceremony, the different delegates of the City of present and various people within golf is really cool, really fun event. The oldest course operating in Sacramento. I think there was like a nine hole sand green course like north of Hagan Oaks at one point, but that's long defunct, so land Park is it's the oldest in town right now. Nine hole facility, Willie Lock design originally fairly straightforward. The main thing about is that it's right in the heart of you know, Sacramento's main the park, like their you know version of Central Park or Golden Gate Park, which is also surrounded by a really cool old neighborhood and that's just named land Park. You know, really charming, kind of collectic houses, super weafy and shady, and it feels like you're stepping into a different part of the country when when when you're over there, the park in the area itself just kind of has this kind of whimsy and charm and this you know, vibrancy to it, that this energy that the people who are frequenting it, both golfers and non golfers alike, which is really cool.

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Speaker 1: What are some of the main problems that the course has right now.

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Speaker 2: Well it's one hundred years old, so you can imagine some of them. The main one that we're tackling, and that's it's our starting point before investing any sort of capital. There's there's a big irrigation issue situation. The main thing is that it's it's tied to the the rest of the park system, which leads to and which is you know, it's it's old, it's aging. You know, the pumps are aging. You know, they don't have you know, enough pressure as it is, they're not always working. Time frame of fixing them is not expedient. If someone decides to shut one of the big valves off and you need it back open, that's not just a quick oh yeah, I'll open it back up in thirty minutes. It's uh, you know, can take days or weeks, who knows. And the biggest thing is that the competition for water, especially at peak hours with the Sacramento summer heat. You know, it's I saw it's been in the hundreds there recently. It's pretty typical. You got poet annual greens mostly and you know they need a decent amount of water, pretty solid amount of water and you know, to avoid weilting and dying and overnight pressures. You know, the superintendent uh Muhammad Ali there, he he keeps pressure readings and you know some of them are insanely low. Like it's basically, you know, you can get just a trickle or which just basically we use a puddle of mud around where the heads are and the green get zero water. So that's just that's a problem and we're we're working on that first and foremost because you know, there's no sense in building some new uh you know, potentially USGA spec greens and putting that capital in and locking it in and you know, not being able to get any water on it. And there's some drainage issues too that we have to deal with and uh, but they're they're kind of relatively minor compared to the irrigation one.

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Speaker 1: What would it take to fix this kind of issue at william Land.

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Speaker 2: Really what we need is just uh to isolate a bit from the the park system with our own pump, our own well you be able to draw from that so still be like you know, tapped into the water source, but have control of the supply and the pumping and the water to charge the system and make sure we always have pressure.

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Speaker 1: This might be a sensitive question, but is that primarily a technical question or a political question as to whether you can get that done.

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Speaker 2: It's both probably a little bit more political, and I can't totally speak to the details of that for various reasons, one of which is, you know, it's kind of it's not my area of expertise. I'm here to you know, lend my support as best I can and help steer things. But as far as the actual you know, workings and you know what aspects of it we need, Yeah, that's I leave that to uh. You know, we got to the Mortons and and and you know, all the city departments and you know everybody else that you know, we work along with.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: It's a tough sell in California to devote water to a golf course. But I suppose if you can make the argument that you are going to be efficient with that water, or perhaps drive for efficiencies overall in water usage, then you can start to make a little bit of headway. But the headlines are tough, right, you know. The the the easy sort of criticism of golf sucking up water is a little bit difficult to get past.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, you make great points. I mean, part of the problem right now is that we're wasting water like it's we got water, you know, coming out of the heads, and it's not going to the greens. That's that's useless water. All it's doing is making a mud bath. And another big part of this is thinking about that long term sustainability. You know, it's all this is about setting up the course for the next hundred years. And in California, if you're not thinking about, you know, what your water plan is and what your turf grass is, then I don't know what you're doing. So you know, we're looking at you know, potential turf grass conversion, you know, through the green encouraging more warm season grasses. You know, Sacramento is tough because it also gets kind of cooler in the in the winter, but you know, I think there's some strains that could work well for it. And also, I mean the greens, you know, one of the big drivers of changing the greens over. You know, it's not just the you know, design and fun part of it, which is you know, that's that's a huge part of it, you know, especially to me, but it's also you know, converting it over to you know, much hardier bent grass than the Poe annual they have, you know, something that you know will actually you know, hold up and you've got a lot more play if you have water issues or you know, crazy heat, and you know, just it gives you that much more of a security blanket.

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Speaker 1: Would you be looking at bank graphs on the greens and like a bermuda grass maybe on the on the fairways or something like that, what's.

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Speaker 2: The most most likely? Yeah, that's that's kind of what we're leaning. But you know, I'll obviously defer to experts. I have some background in turf grass, but you know, there's certainly people that you know, they devote a lot more time in their lives to it, and their opinions are more valuable than mine. But yeah, I still have.

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Speaker 1: Some well, your your opinions are more valuable than mine in this situation. So there's a there are levels to this, But yeah, I ask because more courses in California these days are starting to look at some of these new strains, new hybrids of bermuda grass, and it is kind of an interesting trend. Pasa Tiempo has experimented with this. But I don't think on totally in this direction. I've seen kind of swatches of turf out there before where okay, we're trying something with bermuda and just seeing how it does in this spot in the fair way, and and we'll see. But it does seem like a kind of general movement among California courses to explore the various uses of bermuda as the climate changes. As things get warmer. The problem, as you kind of referred to earlier, was that a lot of these places still get pretty cold as well. And how is the bermuda gonna do? How is a warm season grass going to do in a place that's still capable of getting pretty cold.

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Speaker 2: I guess that's kind of the big thing. I mean, the biggest thing for for most you know, unfortunately is you know, what is the winter color? You know, that's this you know American golfer, uh, you know, cares about their cares about their color and so you know down a UC riverside, that's what they spend a lot of their time for with their with their breeding is try and get winter color. But you know they're also focused on other stuff too, you know, heartiness and leaf texture too, which that's that's the one. The part that I most care about is leaf texture because that's what impacts, you know, how the ball bounces and rolls. And yeah, I was always kind of wondering and bermute and all that. And once I first saw a valley Club I don't know, seven eight years ago, I was like, WHOA, this could really do well in this state.

00:14:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is that. You're talking about Valley Club of Montecito near Santa Barbara Alistair McKenzie course. The turf there is unbelievable. It's unbelievable. How for I've never ever I mean, I grew up on Cocua golf courses in Santa Barbara, and you know, going from there to Valley Club is like a completely different sport. It's it's pretty crazy what they're doing there, and it might it might point a new direction forward for other courses. So it's kind of a but let's get into the stuff that is obviously more exciting to you and to me and to listeners out there, and that is the design stuff that you're proposing for William Land. You published some of these materials from your master plan on your website, which is a fantastic golf course design website. If anybody hasn't seen Brett Hawgstein's website, you got to go check it out. There's a lot of cool stuff there. You're a great writer, and the visuals are wonderful as well. But you publish some of this, uh material from the william Land master Plan. First of all, what what are the basic intentions of the plan design wise? Overall?

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Speaker 2: Well, like I mentioned, uh, you know, a lot of stuff that's driving this is you know, kind of infrastructure and yeah, you know, future sustainability related and on that point, you know, I'll tie into the greens in order to get you know, a grass that's gonna use less water, have better disease tolerance and traffic tolerance and all that. You know, the best thing to do is just to you know, start over, start fresh, and build some new greens. And yeah, that opens up a whole world of possibilities. Because there's two things that are most important in golf design. It's the routing and then it's the greens. You know, those two things have a higher impact than anything else. You know, here with the routing pretty much locked in, pretty pretty well set, barely benign sight, not dead flat, there's still like kind of some movement there, and you can really kind of see it in certain spots across the property, which is really cool because it's kind of close to the river, so I think there's kind of some old like river ancient water channels and such. But there's huge potential to impact the design just with greens, and you think of places like you know, wing Foot or whatever, you know, kind of a bit more benign sight riviera, you know, benign down in the bowl or down in the flat in the wash. So there's opportunities to use creativity, you know, with design moves simply you know, select well thought out design moves within the greens, and the approaches to introduce a lot more strategy variety make it much more friendlier for the lower trajectory hitter, you know, beginner player to be able to bounce their ball onto the green, especially if we're able to convert the turf and get it firm, you know, have contours that will affect and what happens with the ball after it lands and then you know, tying off of it. You know, creating you know with low impact, low disturbance area, but high impact design moves just you know smaller bunkers here and there on the fairways and fairies are pretty wide, but they're fairly flat for the most part. You know, maybe a little bit of movement here and there. That Apai is kind of a good plateau that you can drive up onto, but you know, there's it's just a blank canvas to do some things, some pretty cool things. When I first saw it was like this, you could have some real fun with this without really spending too much or doing too much.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned Wingfoot, which is an example of a flatish site where the greens are super bold, and that's where a lot of the interest of the course comes from. Riviera clearly has more movement and the routing uses those sides of the canyon to generate some interest for the golf course. But there are some more subtle portions of that course as well. Are there other golf courses that you think of when it comes to flatish or subtle sites where interesting architecture was done to make the golf course feel like it's not just flat and uninteresting.

00:19:00
Speaker 2: I was actually on a kick for that for a number of years. I was like obsessed with, like, you know, just flatter courses. The one that really stands out to me is one that I actually haven't been to, and I wanted to ever since I first saw ram More sets profile of it on Golf Club that lists over twenty years ago now, and that's Garden City. So I almost went last fall. I'm hoping I can go this fall. But that place looks incredibly fascinating for you know, pretty benign piece of ground, and I referenced that a number of times in this plan, along with a whole you know, bunch of other courses kind of from that region, because part of what I want to do with this course and this site, you know, this is something I've been thinking about for a long time, particularly here in California. You know, there's a lot of Golden Age stuff in this state, but it tends to just kind of follow one style or you know, a general style, the kind of Alistair McKenzie, Billy Bell, George Thomas, you know, big, kind of flashy sand tying into right natural stit.

00:20:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were there were just a few architects who had an impact on Golden Age California architecture and a lot of it. A lot of the stuff that survived or became significant at least happened more in like the nineteen twenties and even into the early thirties as opposed to the nineteen teens, which were of course very significant for like New England. Right, that's where a lot of the courses that we revere in New England came from. That was their era. California is a little bit later, a.

00:20:41
Speaker 2: Little bit later, but there's also some like early twenties stuff that had kind of like some of that kind of more antiquated sort of look, which I mean, I think it's charming in a lot of ways, but most of it was furtly converted to more of the uh, you know, Billy Bell Mackenzie style, you know, not long after, like in the early thirties or late twenties, pretty soon after or just lost completely. So yeah, I mean they're really you know, we've kind of ended up with sort of this similar stuff, and it's it's understandable in a lot of cases because you know, most of these courses are kind of along the coast range where there's a lot more land movement. You got arroyos, brancas, all this natural stuff going on, you know, hillsides where it's like, yeah, you want to have a big flash stand and you want it to tie into that that big you know, natural wash or rocky outcrop over there. It makes sense. But Sacramento is different. You know, it's flatter, h as I mentioned. You know this, it's right in the heart of the park there, and you know a lot of older homes surrounding it, a lot of trees, you know, a lot of really good mature oak trees and sycamore trees. And you know, if if it weren't for you know, besides spotting the odd palm tree sticking out here and there, but you'd probably think you're in the northeast there. So I just think, like the site and the context of the site and the surrounds and the history of it, I just think it's the perfect place to you know, kind of do some more of this, like you know, Northeast sort of Golden Age stuff, because you know, one of the big parts of the Golden Age is that gets overlooked is the diversity of styles and architects, and you know, we don't have enough of that in this state, and you know, this is just the perfect opportunity to try and introduce some of that, you know, kind of more sharper features, greens with contours but maybe like a bit sharper and smaller contours here and there versus big bolden flowing more like Mackenzie, maybe like some berms, some cops or you know, ridges like that or chocolate drops or other stuff. And you know, trying to get that to marry up with something that's easy enough to maintain is that's going to be my main challenge. And because you know, that's that's super important, is making sure it's maintainable for you know, a small crew. That's that's why I've got to get to get to the Northeast and get with all these superintendents and figure out exactly what they do to maintain their features, make sure that we can do it too.

00:23:21
Speaker 1: You're speaking my language here, the diversity of styles in the Golden Age, looking for different sorts of inspiration from that period, because I think a lot of people right now are eager to move beyond the usual or most typical Golden Age influences and they think that the only place to go would be somewhere outside of the Golden Age, or you know, to the post war period or something. Let's let's take a look again at at Robert Trent Jones, And you know, that's fine that some people can do that, but I just feel like there's a lot more to explore in the golf architects of the tens, twenties and thirties that hasn't yet been fully recognized or taken advantage of. And what you're saying about the nature of California sites is so interesting because what Alistair McKenzie and George Thomas and Billy Bell were all trying to do was live up to this canyon land that they were working on. They were trying to build landforms that didn't look dinky and lame compared to these huge barankas that they were building on. And at Pasatiempo, McKenzie succeeded wonderfully in creating something that truly lived up to that landscape. But if you look at flatter sites like William Land, there's not much of a precedent in California for super interesting architecture that still survives that does something with a flatter piece of land. And that you know, the architect who always comes to mind for me in this vein is Walter Travis, and obviously he had a big influence on Garden City. But I think about Cape Arundle in Maine all the time. That is an interesting site in some ways, but a lot of it is pretty flat. And what Walter Travis did there was so useful I think for us because he didn't completely transform the site. He couldn't have, he didn't have the technology to do that. But he worked on the greens in a way that made that course consistently fascinating to play. And to apply that to your project at william Land would be really smart, because you can't go in there and turn that park over, right, You have to do subtle moves. And so how can you do subtle moves on a flatish piece of land and produce an interesting golf course. It seems like that's the problem in front of you and it should be pretty fun to try to address it.

00:26:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't call it a problem. I call it an opportunity. It's I mean, with with a blank canvas like that, I mean, you can easily create greens that you know you can dictate and and and the wide corridors that we have, you could dictate strategy back to the tee and have it be different from day to day. If you're if you're paying attention to where the flag's up, you know cut you know, especially on like the second hole where I've got you know, an idea borrowed from Ely, where there's a spine running down the length of the hole and into the green. You know, you better pay attention to where the flag is, what side of the spine it's on, because that's where you're going to want to put your t shot and not have to negotiate it. You know, upon landing, you know where you could either come up a little short and you end up on the wrong side of it, or you know, just short on the other side of it and you get ejected kicking off the backside. So I think there's a lot of strategic opportunity here and excited export.

00:27:01
Speaker 1: What needs to happen in order for this project to be seen through.

00:27:07
Speaker 2: Well, it's yeah, the first thing is getting the irrigation situation solved, and then it's it's fundraising. We're working on that right now. They've set up a fundraising committee and campaign and they're working on it right now. If you're if you're interested in contributing, you could probably just you just reach out. You could reach out to me, or you can reach out to you know, the golf courses themselves at Kurt David at at Land Park and then good yet steered in the right direction, all right.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: I wanted to poke my head in here real quick to talk about good Walk. Good Walk is Friday Golf's official coffee partner, and it is in my mug this morning. I've got good Walk coffee going. We had to talk to at a little bit early because of course he's a working man. He had to get out to Pasa Tiempo and start shaping, and so I got up at about six am on the West coast and I needed some good coffee. Goodwalk is what has been providing that for me lately. I'm using the Friday Golf Blend. That's right. We do have our own blend, and it's a bright and vibrant organic coffee roasted to a medium light level. It has beans from Central and South America blended with a naturally processed coffee from Ethiopia to create a balance of milk, chocolate, and berry flavors. Now we also have a Shotgun Start blend for those who prefer more of a medium dark vibe. But I'm very much a medium light guy, so the Friday golf blend hits me just right. Goodwalk is a great company that we're very proud to be working with. The founders are golf nuts who also happen to be coffee nut and they buy high grade beans from around the world at fair market prices. They buy from farmers who follow sustainable practices and pay good living wages to their workers, and importantly, the beans happen to be very very good. So go to goodwocoffee dot com slash fried egg and use the code Frida Egg at checkout to save twenty percent on your entire order. Now, using the same code to start a coffee subscription will save you thirty percent on your first order, and then you'll save ten percent on all future shipments. You can pause, skip, or cancel your subscription at any time on the website. So again, goodwocoffee dot com slash fried Egg. All right, Well, speaking of Alistair McKenzie Brett, let's talk about the other sac memento course that you're working on a plan for, and that is Hagan Oaks. Tell me about this place.

00:30:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the uh, one of the few municipal courses that Alistair McKenzie actually designed, which is kind of sad, kind of surprising, because he wrote so much about how much he believed in public golf and its importance, something about you know, every every country you know having public golf and you know there'd be no wars, and he's he's just a massive proponent of it. But you know, it's one of his h yeah, one of his few kind of surviving public courses. Design of it as it is currently not super true to his his design, both in terms of routing and features. I know, the freeway kind of squeezed it a little bit. But you know, based upon my research out as much as a lot of people think so, I think there's some real opportunities there to get a lot of it back, if you know, if it were a perfect world, hopefully it is the thing that really stands out about it is it's the only person mackenzie did that we know of where all eighteen green sketches still exist. And I would argue that even you know, having you know, worked at Positive Tempo for the last year and other places, looking at you know, studying his other places, I would argue that his concepts and plans and ideas for Hagan Oaks were more interesting and varied and just straight up cool than any of his others. And that makes sense because it was possibly the flattest piece of ground he's been given, so he's compensated probably for that. Unfortunately, we know there's no real evidence. I've got one o Blak aerial that kind of shows something which is really exciting. I got it is actually shared by Neil Craft in Australia. Super cool, So there's not a lot of evidence. They blew them up pretty early on. A lot of people say is because of difficulty, but I haven't read anything so far of that. The only thing that I've read was actually a comment from their longtime pro talking about mac McDonald, one of McKenzie's long term associates, who ended up staying on like as a superintendent, flattening all the greens out because it was too hard to grow grass on them in the Sacramento Valley heat. So it's only I've only seen an agronomic reference to it, not difficulty reference. I don't know the exact year it happened, but the bottom line is they don't exist. We don't know, but the drawings are just unbelievable, just the different like shapes and tongues of them, and the slopes that are there where you can, you know, use a ball that get to one portion of the green to the other. It's I just think there's so much opportunity with that to take those and apply it to the real world, you know, the modern modern day world, using those concepts and make some great stuff.

00:33:32
Speaker 1: So, you know, what you're describing with hagan Oaks as greens is similar in some ways to what you see at Pasa Tiempo and the original greens at Augusta National. These these tongues and and kind of tooth shapes and you know, different amoeba shapes and little places to put pins that are closely guarded by bunkers and then other places that are more forgiving. And this was a style that at least as far as I can see, Mackenzie was moving toward at the end of his career in life. And so is that kind of where you see hagen Oaks's greens old greens coming.

00:34:19
Speaker 2: From very much? I mean, I think it's probably you're spot on. That's the trend that he was kind of moving towards, kind of starting with positive Tampo. That was nineteen twenty nine. Augusta was what thirty one, thirty two, and Hagan Oaks was thirty two. So yeah, moving towards the more intricate, varied green styles, crazy green styles, fewer bunkers. I'm not even sure Hagen actually had a fairway bunker at all.

00:34:50
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:34:50
Speaker 2: He used a lot of like kind of Yeah, there were a lot of drainage swales that were drawn up. I don't know if they were a built or not. I think that would be cool to put him back and of some other issues too, and a lot of you know, just mixing like routing stuff through, through and around like native oaks, and so yeah, you're dead on that. That's that's a trend he was going, and I think it's probably the uh, you know, it's it's kind of like the most extreme like version of it. It's kind of you know, his his maximum, that the peak of that that trend.

00:35:22
Speaker 1: He was heading the craziest portion of his crazy Greens period. So I like that. As you've mentioned a couple of times, you're currently working on Jim Orbinas project at Pasa Tiempo. You did the Front nine last year and are now in the midst of some work on the back nine. Working on a course like this must just be really exciting because you get to learn the architecture so well. You're you're you're in the dirt looking at what was built and trying to recreate certain forms and and really getting detailed about it. I can't imagine many courses that would be more fun to work at in that regard. So what what is something that you've discovered about Alistair McKenzie's architecture as you've gotten to know Positio better.

00:36:15
Speaker 2: I mean, it's such a great place to work. It's just you know, amazing property, amazing golf course and just to you know, really dive in and connect with it is and just it just reinforces like what you know about and understand about about mackenzie and you know, his his tendencies and style and pick up some new things too. I would say the biggest thing that I've probably picked up, and it's a highly practical one for you know what we're just talking about with with with Hagging Oaks is you know how you know his greens concepts, his drawings, you know translate or translated uh to the actual field and the build. Yes, I'm out there, you know, you know all day. You know, I haven't been on the green so much but around them and you know, experiencing them. And then you know, going back into the clubhouse to pick up my lunch and and look at you know, his sketches there and just think more about it and like, okay, you know how what those extreme you know, crazy sketches you know actually you know, look like and in the field. Because that's what I have to do at Hagan. If we're able to, you know, do what you know, we really want to do and should do. Being able to you know, apply it in a realistic way, because you can't just build, you know.

00:37:44
Speaker 1: You can't just build right, No, because he's got.

00:37:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got three tongues coming off of greens that are like, you know, five yards wide. You know, there's like a mound just to the side of the green. You know, it's plus eight and then like two feet into the green there's a minus three. It's like that's that's eleven feet of change right there, and you know and only like a twenty foot area, Like I don't think so, no, you get it's he he drew those exaggerated to convey a concept. And uh, you know, even the sketches that I've got, like in this plan from for Land Park, you know, like the first hole is one of the ones I shared. You know, I've got like the mounds like extra pointing just to you know, show an idea. You know, once you get in the field, you know, you soften a massage and you make it work understanding you know how the ball rolls and reacts, and you know how you got to mow things, and uh, you know what access is going to be, and you know, balancing out of traffic and just tying it all in together.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: So what point in the process are you at with the Hagan Oaks planning work? How far along is that and what's the basic timeline.

00:38:59
Speaker 2: We've been taking our time with it for good reason. Uh, for a number of reasons, mainly because it's so important and we really want to get it right. And you know a lot of us understand that it's you know, pretty complex too, and there's there's a wide range of things approaches that we could take with it. So you know, I'm I'm still I've got a lot of I've spent a lot of time doing a lot of research. I've got some some concepts basically on the ready and you have once I settled down with some of these Mackenzie shaping jobs this summer. Uh you know, I'll go back this fall and uh you know, we'll we'll do in an initial concept of presentation, walk through with the with the partners, and you know, to see how it goes.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: So, Brett, something you've been able to do a little bit of as you've been working at Positi is explore some courses along the central coast of California. Now, the Frida Egg podcast and the Shotgun Start podcast have I think severely hurt people's perception of the terminology of California geography. So just to be clear right now, northern California does begin around the Bay Area and then goes to the border of Oregon. The central coast of California begins around Santa Barbara and stretches up along the coast to about Santa Cruz, which is just above Monterey. That's the central coast of California. Pasa Tiempo is kind of at the northern tip of the central coast of California. That is your geography vocabulary minute, right there. In any case, you've gotten to see some courses in this area, and I think it's an interesting area. There there's a lot of kind of not so great golf and then there's some really cool little stuff that people haven't heard much about. So what what have you seen lately among the public courses in this area that you think people should know about.

00:41:15
Speaker 2: Well, if we want to include Santa Cruz or the south, there's two really good public courses here that, yeah, I happen to play a little bit. The one closest to the Posse Tiempo is de la Viaga. That's that's one of those super high potential public courses that it's like, oh gosh, what you could do at this place. I mean, it's it's it's.

00:41:43
Speaker 1: Cool land, right, I mean, it's like, yeah, and there's a there's a famous disc golf course there, like it's one of the it's kind of funny, it's yeah, it's it's like, yes, it is. They hold a pretty big tournament there every year and it's regarded as one of those like a digital disc golf courses. It's like one of the one of the links courses of the disc golf world. Uh, the that that facility, but there's a there's a ball golf course there as as well that that does have some potential.

00:42:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like you said, the land movement's really cool. If you could remove or at least thin out a bunch of eucalyptus trees on the south perimeter, it would be amazing because it sits on a cliff top, you know, hopping over kind of like you know, various fingers of a plateau and you know, over canyons, and the views of the Monterey Bay from up there could be incredible and stylistically, uh, but you can tell that they're like, you know, kind of modeling, mimicking a little bit of positive tempo. It's kind of got some junior features, uh, in a similar style, and you could you could play play that up and expand upon it and do some really cool greens to go along with a pretty cool piece of land. Working further south, we can just go we can just go north to south. Here. Pajero Valley is one that I've driven by a number of times, Like, I just got here. The golf course over there, I know it's core golf. I'm really curious to see it, and I wonder if there's anything interesting over there. Finally played it at the beginning of you know, the project this year back in April, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is really cool, like really old and just a throwback to like you know, it's kind of like, you know, a bit more unkempt shape, but like the ball bounces and rolls out there, like it's like I almost feel like I'm in a different country and it's super peaceful. The setting is serene, you know, nice views of this estuary off in the distance, and just kind of like some old school features too, like really neat, because I guess it was originally like the Watsonville Country Club right way back when a nine hole course that eventually expanded, but even the stuff that was expanded, and like it's like the fifties or whatever. There's some pretty cool poles and pretty cool greens there too that really they kind of fit in all right with the older stuff. And just some of the greens too, the way they just simple tilts. It's almost like William Flynn like to it where it's a and then bunkers kind of garden the outside. You just want to land it just on the inside of those bunkers to be able to get it to you land in a good spot on the green if you want to get close.

00:44:28
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure who designed it. I played it only once I went out there to Watsonville. Watsonville is like a little bit inland, and yeah, this is a really cool place. And it almost reminded me of a Billy Bell course or something like that. I've seen southern California Billy Bell courses that that one put me in mind of.

00:44:48
Speaker 2: I can't remember I was. I was messaging Sean tell you about it one night, the first night, and I can't remember who it was. Now, yeah, I think they have like some plans for like renovation of it, and hopefully they take a minimum touch to it, because I mean you could just expand in greens there and you know, call it good almost.

00:45:06
Speaker 1: It looks like it opened in the early twenties, and of course was was redesigned by my man Robert Muir Graves, who you know, did a lot of stuff, not not all of it particularly good in the fifties and sixties on the West coast. But but that is that is a cool a cool golf course for sure. Now, did you am I right? That you saw a Pacific Grove for the for one of the first times recently. I don't know how familiar you were.

00:45:35
Speaker 2: It's been on my list since I moved out here, and it's always like, yeah, I'll get down there. It'll be easy, you know, Just it seems like I'm always like doing something else, like whenever I'm in that area. And finally actually got the you know, made the effort to stop in and play and you know, get to make sure I timed it up with the Back nine kind of twilight and really cool. I was surprised at how interesting the the Front nine was, just both in terms of kind of like some of the design remnants and the land movement.

00:46:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, but just to clarify for people who haven't been there, the front nine is inland. It kind of works inland, and then back to the clubhouse, which is kind of on a hill overlooking the Dude Escape and the ocean. And then the back nine works into the dunes and is kind of the famous part of Pacific Grove but was actually built later than the Front nine. The front nine was designed by Chandler Egan and actually initially started by the town and worked out to the coast and then came back into the town, so the routing was essentially reversed from what it is now. But when they built the back nine on the other side and the dunes, they moved the clubhouse to between the two nines. So that's basically what we're talking about here. Yeah, and then and then what did you think of the dunes nine?

00:46:55
Speaker 2: Pretty cool? What kind of stood out? It was like, you know, it's not so much you know, bunker to set up the angles. It's just like the way the fairways kind of like the zig zag and weave through, uh and use the periphery kind of set up you know, your your your angles and strategy the land movement on what's what's the outer of the dog leg the part five? Uh? Like what twelve? Yeah? Yeah, it's like, yeah, you feel like you're, you know, back overseas in the UK when you're when you're you know through that it's just the humps and bumps and everything. It's it's pretty neat all. Right.

00:47:36
Speaker 1: One other course in in the area that you think people should know about Central Coast California golf, what's one other working down to Santa Barbara.

00:47:47
Speaker 2: Or keep going, keep going south let's you know, go right right in the middle there. Uh more, obey, yes to me. I had no idea. I always scanned, I kind of google maps, you know, looking up and down like coastal golf, you know, trying to find something that you know might kind of feel like you know it's you know, from overseas, and you know I saw that, and I saw, you know, the way that the water and stuff works around it. I always just assumed it was just kind of like a flat lowland course kind of you know, sharp park in a way. And thank goodness, I didn't look at any pictures because I drive up there and I'm like, holy cow, this thing's on top of a hill. Unbelievable setting and views and everything else, and very old school, old school in a way where the features are just super simple, like they did. They really did, like minimal, like just enough to like get the greens kind of flat enough to be possible. That was it. Yeah, nothing else you would like to see almost you would like to see a little bit more. I think that's right. You know, not every Golden Age course needs to be perfectly restored. Uh it's point Land Park. I don't I don't think it shouldn't be restored, but you should bring it back. You should use Golden Age speakers for sure.

00:49:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, and some of that could be could be done at Moro Bay for sure.

00:49:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know there, you know, the land and the tilt of the land really dominates. So you've got to be careful about you know, what you do. You got to play off that. But yeah, you don't want to do too much either because there's already you know, a lot going on. It's kind of a lot of the holes kind of have like a you know, Olympic Lake feel where they're just like, you know, completely tilted and yeah, you're you're fighting, you're fighting the grade.

00:49:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, there there are some pretty severe elevation changes and tilts out there, and it's it's kind of fun because you don't see that sort of design as much anymore because if that course had been built later, a lot of that would have been kind of softened or flattened out a little bit.

00:49:55
Speaker 2: But Bay is just down the road, yeah, exactly, fairways on you know, pretty extreme ground and.

00:50:02
Speaker 1: It's not as interesting. But Dery Creek is neat as well. And we've done a story about Derrys Creek and I love that story. They're looking for water basically, and they're having a really hard time finding water, and so Dairy Creek is one to know about. But it's kind of part of this municipal or county golf system in San Luis Obispo County that Moro Bay is part of. You have Dry Creek and then you have Chalk Mountain, which is another one that I think is really neat, and if you haven't been there, Brett, you should check it out sometimes because yea, there is something.

00:50:34
Speaker 2: I haven't seen, so I got something left. Still.

00:50:38
Speaker 1: It's kind of been in Canyonland. Yeah, it's you know, classic California golf land. But yeah, More Bay is is so neat, partly because of the golf course and partly just because of that town and that location. I grew up in Santa Barbara and my dad and I would sometimes just go up to Morro Bay to feel like we were on vacation or something, because you would go up there and you feel like you're you know, you're not you're not spending much money to play that golf course, but you're in this beautiful, charming little town that's right at the base of Big sur Essentially, if you drive up north, then fairly soon you'll be going through Cambria and where the Hearst Castle is San Simeon, and then you're in Big Sur. So it is, I mean, a truly beautiful part of the state that really not that many people go to. It's kind of underutilized because if people go to Big Sur, they kind of come in from the north. But accessing it from the south, there are some little towns there that are so charming and pretty, and there's not a whole lot going on there, so it's kind of like a hidden, hidden spot.

00:51:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I hadn't known hardly anything about it myself, and I was really happy that I allowed myself to be pleasantly surprised. I didn't even know about it. I didn't know about the rock. When I when I like turned like a corner and like with the street and I saw that thing for the first time, I was like, holy.

00:52:12
Speaker 1: Wow, so cool. Yeah, No, it's a it's a place that people should see. All right, Brett, I won't keep you for much longer. You need to get out to Pasa Tiempo and start shaping features again. So thank you for joining the pod and and good luck with the Sacramento Projects.

00:52:29
Speaker 2: Oh thank you so much, great to be here, appreciate it.

00:52:47
Speaker 1: This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you'd like to do something real quick to help us out, just go to wherever you're listening to this and leave us a rating or review, a rating and review preferably. We like getting the feedback and also those ratings and reviews really help us find new listeners. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode.