Designing Golf with No Limits & Northwood's Restoration Efforts

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

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

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Speaker 3: Ball in a fried egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg bride egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run.

00:00:13
Speaker 2: Off of the hump course.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and today I have a I have a really fun episode. I think this is a range of spectrums of golf course architecture about as the furthest apart as you can get. First, we have Aggie Pisa, a architect based out of Mexico who is one of the lead designers on TGL, the new arena golf league that was created by Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy and Mike McCarley that has been on ESPN the last two weeks and will continue this spring. I've been pleasantly surprised with TGL. I think like I'm kind of taking the long game approach here of but I think I was really impressed in week one that they didn't fall on their face and that I enjoyed some pieces of it. I think a lot. It's been polarizing. People really dislike it that I know other people really really like it. I think more people generally have liked it than disliked it. But I understand the edges of the spectrum and I'm taking kind of a wait and see approach. I enjoyed watching it. It's different. It's not, you know, really serious major championship golf, and I don't think they intend to be. One of the things I think is that I'm really interested in is the whole designs, and I think Augie of the three architects, has stood out the most. He has been the most daring with his designs, and I think, you know, there, there's what I like about it is he seems to understand the idea of designing virtual whole virtual holes is you have no constraints, and that that kind of shows through with his work and with his different designs. You can check out the whole designs on tgl's website, which is TGL golf dot com. They have a whole section and they have like fly over every every hole. It's really clear which ones are Augie's, just because of the esthetic and the the I would say the the the bold nature of them. So anyways, we have Augie Pizza talking about that in a little bit about his career, and then on the back half of this episode, we have a really cool story. Northwood is a golf course in Sonoma County. It is a nine hole Alistair McKenzie design and it's one of those courses that offers just an incredible experience. It is open to the public, available to all, and but it's it seemed better days. It's been one that I've always dreamed of restoring. And then I was made aware of a high schooler now a college freshman who actually began a restoration project at Northwood by reconstructing a bunker there this past year. So we have Will Carlson. He's a freshman at cal Poly and he went to high school in Sonoma County. He comes on to talk about how he began a restoration project at a golf course, an Alistair McKenzie golf course as a high schooler. It's a small scale projected, but a very deep project and hopefully one that hopefully continues for years to come, because that golf course really could be could be It could be really cool if if they got more of those Mackenzie features back and a lot of them are just sitting in the ground as we talk about there. So that's Will Carlson first. Before we get into that, I wanted to talk and spend a minute on Eugenio Chichara and his comments about Live. Eugenio was a kind of rising amateur star. He started Oklahoma State. He was a great amateur and collegiate player. He won an NCAA regional. He won the Amir Aari Invitational, the Hawaiian tournament that has a lot of the top teams. He was one of the top rated amateurs in the world when he decided to go to Live straight from college. He was kind of one of the early guys that obviously they had, like James Piatt and Turk Patitt, but Eugenio went to Live and then one early in his career. He is still twenty four years old, only twenty four years old, and he's leaving Live to pursue a career on the PGA Tour. First he will have to serve a year's suspension. Very petty thing since he never had any status on tour. Seems like a silly rule to me that you're suspended even if you never held a PGA Tour membership. You just made a choice to go somewhere else. That's silly. That's a topic for another day. Let's get to his comments. He talked of flushing it a Twitter account over the phone and talked about Live in his decision to stop playing Live. I'm thankful for everything Live has given me. I'm twenty four years old and my life is set. I don't know if it will work out for the best or not, but I know this is what my heart tells me is right, and it works for my motivation to wake up and grind and get better and to say I can be a PGA Tour player. One day after he got released from the Fireballs, ch'chara could have played the promotions event but decided not to, and he's focusing strictly on the PGA Tour. I see what it's like to win on the PGA Tour and how your life changes, how you get major access and ranking points on Live. Nothing changes there is only money. Doesn't matter if you finish thirtieth or first. Only money. I'm not a guy who wants more money. What will change my life is playing in Hawaii and qualifying for Majors qualifying for the Masters in the Ryder Cup. When I joined LIV, they promised owgr and Majors and it didn't happen. I trusted them. I was the first young guy, and then others came after I made the decision, but owgr and Majors still hasn't happened. I saw you last year when they pulled the bid. It's frustrating, but I'm excited for the new opportunity and to see where my game takes me. I'm a winner and I was never treated like a winner. On the PGA Tour, ludvig Aberg has one win and I have one win on Live. He has one on the European Tour and I have won on the International Series on the Asian Tour, so we have similar careers. But he has way more experience and plays way bigger tournaments. But we have the same wins. We have performed similar what tours I can play on, I have won same with him. He's the number six player in the world. Everyone talks about him, but on LIV, I'm the only young guy who's won one and they never talk about me. They always talk about the same guys. I'm not blaming them. They probably know more, but they don't really care about the young guys much. So this decision is what's better for me. I'm very thankful for what they've done, but my mind is different now and I want to get to what I was dreaming about when I was little, because obviously live doesn't didn't exist when I was growing up. I was watching Tiger Woods winning on the PGA Tour, and I want to do that. Those are some pretty damning quotes about Live in the competition. Let's talk. Let's unpipack them a little bit. Chichara at this point has made a lot of money, I believe. I remember the rumors of an eight plus digit deal. So it's an eight digit deal. You're talking tens of millions of dollars. When he signed, he won an event that's a four million dollar windfall. He is in a very unique position where he is twenty four and his life is set. He has maybe not generational money by the way some deem it, but he does not have to think about money the rest of his life if he's smart with it, and now he wants more. You know, I think there is an interesting arc here. And what you know when you talk about anybody and in their profession, how they evolve. I think people want praise and want money, and then they want to win and make a lasting impact. I think Shashara is at that place at age twenty four. He wants at this point to be relevant. You hear the Obert I'm still jinks by the announcing crew with Aberk right out of the gate. But Ludwig Obert, you see the comments about that, I think they are a little bit of an extrapolation for Chachara to compare him to the number six player in the world. But on the surface, he has accomplished a lot. If he had if he was twenty four and had won an event at one, two maybe two events on the PGA Tour, we would be talking about him as one of the bright young players of the game a lot more than we do currently, and a lot of that has to do with the difficulties Live has at establishing relevance in the game of golf outside of just taking players. The other aspect of this, like the damning nature of this for the for the for Live and I I sympathize a little bit with them not being able to get owgr points and major major championship access, like you know, a barrier of that, because I do think like you can make an argument that they deserve some of that, and this isn't not about that, but I just think the the nature of what he talked about, nobody cares about anything over there, and nobody cares about any of the results that Live has it. You know, you finish thirtieth, you finished first, it doesn't matter. It's all money, that's it. I think that's the issue with Live is that, like we saw it again with the relegation, Brandon Grace and Bubba Watson got relegated, but they're back on the teams this year, so they can't even run a relegation. It's not a serious product. It's not a serious tour. And here we have young, young, talented players going there and not getting the development and the really fostering that they need. I think like for a while people were wondering, like, would Live become this great destination for the best young amateur players in the world. After Chacharo's comments, after his experience and how he fairly eloquently for a twenty four year old outlaid the issues that he was facing there. I have a hard time believing this is going to become a preferred destination for young players. So, you know, with the new president coming into office in a couple of weeks, like, we're probably gonna see some sort of deal. I can't imagine Live is gonna go anywhere. But I have a harder time believing Live's gonna go anywhere on its own when players are saying things like this, part of running a successful golf tour is developing young talent and developing young stars. You can't there's no way that this tour can exist if the only way they accumulate talent is by paying ludicrously high sums of dollars to get them. A lot of this would be developing talent. Live's proven they can't do that, and you know, it just makes it more and more clear that this is not a long term solution for a tour. So I'm excited to see Chachara in a year attempt to gain relevance in the sport that he's very talented at, that he has a bright future, and to see, you know, will be a fun story to watch him try and climb from no status to status on the PGA Tour over the next couple of years. It is silly that he's sitting out a year. All right, let's get over to Augie Piza talk TGL another upstart league, and then we'll talk to Will Carlson. First, let's talk about our friends at Goodwalk Coffee. Goodwalk has been a partner now and we have developed our own proprietary blends with them. We have the Shotgun Start Blend, which is a darker roast, and the fried Egg Blend, which is a lighter roast. That's the one I drink every every day. Really, one of the things I love is about their This is their subscription. I get it delivered every other week and it comes and I never have to worry about get coffee. I get two bags every other week. That's the right amount of coffee for me. You might need weekly, you can do weekly, you could do monthly, but these like you know what I love about it is like I'm never scrambling to go to the grocery store. I don't have to run there the night before I realized I don't have any coffee, or the morning it works off the morning of and then I'm I'm late to get coffee. One way, Also, if you're looking to save a little bit of money. Don't go to Starbucks, don't go to your local coffee shop to buy coffee. Just make it at home. I've got a good drip coffee maker. I used to do pour over. I don't have the time to do pour over anymore. Anybody get in an into my mentions about that. I've got a nice drip coffee maker. It makes great coffee, and I'm so happy with my good Walk Coffee. So one of the things is this helps support what we're doing here. We we have a partnership with them, so when you buy Fridagg coffee, we see some of that those purchases. So head over to Goodwalkcoffee dot com slash fried Egg. You can subscribe there. If you use the promo coat fried Egg, you'll save twenty percent on your entire order, and if you sign up for that subscription, you get thirty percent off your first order and then ten percent off all future shipments. Big thanks to good Walk. Check out Goodwalkcoffee dot com and are two buns there? All right, let's get to Aggie Pisa. All right, Aggie, welcome on the show. I I'd love to hear a little bit about your background, and how you got into golf design in the first place.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you Hendy, thank you PJ. Let me do this so that we're all we all create a nice empathy here on this triangle. These are my design glasses. So that's great, it's it's it's great to be here. Thank you very much. Guys really appreciate this space.

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Speaker 1: So how how how did you get into golf design? What in your you know, when growing up, like, what inspired hire you to become a golf course architect?

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Speaker 2: It's it's I'll try and keep it short.

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Speaker 1: Uh this is you don't have to keep it.

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Speaker 2: Okay, all right? Well, when I when I grew up growing up, I grew up in a household of two pe teachers, both both my parents pee teachers. So I grew up in in sports. I grew up in uh, you know, competitive sports, playing everything ironically, accept golf. So I played all all types of sports competitive, uh until until I graduated from from university and uh one, I had two passions sports and architecture. Architecture. I wanted to be an architect since I was in fifth grade elementary that I can't explain. It was just kind of like a ray of light. It's just like you know you're gonna you're gonna study architecture, and that's what I did. I studied vertically. My background is in vertical archite. I'm a vertical architect, regular, regular architect. And uh, when I was studying, I'm like, how can I mix architecture with sports? Because that was my other passion and uh, in the beginning, growing up, I thought that I would be designing, you know, stadiums, maybe maybe the next Charger stadium. Uh, Diehard Charger fan back here.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry about that.

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Speaker 2: I'm still hurting. I'm still hurting. But we were playing with house money. So we're good. We're good. We'll we'll we'll see about next year. We'll see, we'll see. We'll see everybody next year. So, uh, that was my kind of like my dream. How do I how do I mix? How do I fusion all of this? And when I when I I grew up in in in in the country club in Tijuana, and of course I knew about golf. Of course I loved it. It just didn't when I was when I was growing up, it just didn't do it for me. I wanted to get dirty, I wanted to hit people or get hit or whatever. You don't contact sport. And and when I when I when I started in university and graduated, I I completely picked up golf. So that's when I actually became like a golfer. And and it was kind of like it was just there, like a ray of light. You know, Hey, golf architecture is the answer. I was very lucky to have applied to Paragon back then in the Jack Nicholas Construction company. They were doing Eldorado and Paulmia and Cabbo. I applied, they said yes, and that's how we started my career focusing in golf course architecture. And since then twenty five plus years ago, I was very lucky to fusion my two passions sports and architecture through golf design.

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Speaker 1: So you get that first job, you probably had an idea of what golf architecture golf designed. I feel like people in general have like an outsider has this, like let's see a glamorous view of what a golf architect does. But very few understand what the start of a career at golf architecture was like. What was it like those early days on site? Uh, working with El Dorado there, what what were what type of things were you doing? And were there any second? Were there any second guessing during during those early days.

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Speaker 2: Every day waking up at five point thirty to arrive to a six am work hour session, freezing in Cabo because it does get cold. Yes, my funny enough you asked, because my first assignment was to make sure that all the labor guys had their drinking their jugs of water filled up with water and ice eventually if it was hot. And that was my first gig. I was just running around the golf course in in a in a little truck, uh that got stuck in sand every other day, walking around. That was my first gig. So so nothing glamorous about that. I was the you know, I just graduated from architecture. You know, I'm all like hyped up and I like, oh boom, you go down there, you're going to be, you know, putting the luggage onto the airplane. And that's your that's your first gig. And that's how it started. I was. That was my first gig. Then I started to work my way up little by little. I am very lucky once once you put those that those things together that I did learn golf architecture, not then, but at that time I was learning it from the ground up literally, so I got to see all the drainage, all the irrigation, earth movement, shapings, finishes, et cetera. And I was kind of like coordinating a few things here and there, running errands up and down. But then, uh, the directors knew that I want that part of my dream was to become a golf architect, so they would put me as they as a driver on the when Jack Nicholas arrived for the walkthrough, so they got me listening behind right there to everything that they were saying. You know, it was you had Jim Light there, you had you had Jack Nicholas, you had all the big boys, and they were discussing the holes, et cetera. So that's when I was like, uh and and that's that's how I started to learn.

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Speaker 1: And at that time, from those early rides with with Jack and his team, Is there anything in particular that that sticks with you from today from those conversations?

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Speaker 2: They number one the attitude. I think that that getting the one of the things that's that stuck with me and still to date. And I think this is why we're sitting together now is is the quality control of things, you know, not letting go and and not compromising for for not for anything. You know, sometimes you do, but but at at at at some level, once you pass that bottom line, then you never go back because then you're you know, you do things you know cheap or or not well or less quality or stuff like that. I think that was just tough. That was That was the best lesson that I learned working with in that at that level of architecture and project like Eldorado, Paul me uh. And then I jumped to being a junior project manager for the first Tom Fazio course in Cabo Canensia. So that was my schooling on my on my first three years. It's it's uh, you know, uh, sign me up. It was fantastic to have that schooling with at that level of quality of architecture, of quality of of uh you know, design and and quality of works.

00:22:36
Speaker 1: So I you obviously got your start, uh building these courses in Mexico. What I I'd be curious like where were your early kind of I guess like where what are some of the designs courses architects that you're that really inspire you as an architect.

00:22:57
Speaker 2: Uh, definitely. Alistair Mackenzie was my first inspiration. But that was that was That was a little bit. I started scrolling down, strolling in now to to the history because the only way that I was going to make it as an architect was going to be through the books. I wasn't gonna win a green jacket anytime soon, so it was it had to be through the books. That was my only way. So I had to be a student of the game. I was actually studying all the all the details, the plans, the drawings, the adjustments, everything that went through on the walkthroughs with with either you know, at that time I walked through with in before before I jumped into architecture per se, I was completely on the construction side. So I was walking through at different projects with Robert von Hagey, who was who I also learned a lot from me and Robert von Hagey, you know the Tom Fazio, Jack Nicholas and and and eventually also Gary Player and his team. So I had that schooling and then I talking about hitting the books. I applied to the at that at that time, the only master's degree in golf course architecture from the It was in the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art. I applied to that, I got in, uh you know, and uh and I had to sell everything. I think I sold even my toaster. Whatever. Let's go and uh, you know, let's buy it kilt and uh and and go to Scotland. So that's when I really dove into the the the the that I don't want to say, I don't want to say true, but it's just the old you know, Golden Age, the the the most conservative, uh you know, less is more attitude and golf design. I had the opportunity to learn firsthand, uh played you know, fantastic golf courses. When I was there for a couple of years. I worked part time for a Scottish architect, then worked full time for the Scottish architect a dear friend can and uh and that's when I made the jump to architecture. I was drafting for him at that time.

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Speaker 1: What uh, what was it like being a student not from Scotland at in Edinburgh. That had to be a incredible for someone who's into architecture in general, an incredible experience. What are a few of the things that you know, like maybe one thing that you really take away from that experience and think back on often.

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Speaker 2: Uh my, the the way that that they grabbed me and just put me down to earth, said Augie, this is not the way you know we do it here. This is I was coming from that school that I told you about, so you know, it's the bigger, the boulder, the better, the the the all of that stuff. And and and and I was, you know you in Cabo. That was my experience. Your your move small mountains from left to right. You're you're rebuilding arroyos, You're you know, you're filling them up, you're cutting them down. So it was massive lakes, et cetera. And it's majestic, it's beautiful, and it's bold, it's character. I love that part. But when I got my first assignment over there in Edinburgh at the at the UNI, it was like, Okay, we're going to do this assignment. We have this assignment with three whole assignment. And I was like moving contours everywhere and doing this and doing that. And I got put up to the draw to the board and I'm like, this is not how we do things. And I'm like, oh wait. So that was my first kind of like, that's my first take, and I love that. I love sharing that story because because that that brought me down to earth in a lot of things. You know, it connected me with nature, connected me with the sensitivity and sensibility of earth, and that's when I started also to grow not only as an architect, but also as a human being in uh in the in in in uh being sensitive to nature.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think it's one of the most interesting, interesting aspects of golf architecture, right is the the big range of of types of projects there are from We're gonna move, you know, no stone unturned, We're gonna move uh, you know, heaven and hell to make this a fascinating golf experience too, We're going to try and go and do as little as possible and let nature do do the talking. I think, like with anything, you know, different forms of this art appeal to different people, and there is a wide range. And I think, you know, I think something that is sometimes misconstrued maybe is like something that I think I've like, I guess I've earned a greater appreciation for is you know, I think like just in general, what should be celebrated as golf courses that make you feel something, even even if you're kind of viscerally offended by it, especially if you're offended by it and there's a good, big group of people that love it. Like to me, that's like, that's provocative, right, Yes, And in terms of how how an art moves forward, there has to be feelings in all directions, right.

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Speaker 2: I love it. I love that you're saying that, because going back to that, to that situation that I was in, I'm like, I understand it. I didn't take it personally, and I understand that this is your world, this is what you know, this is what you like, and this is your critique towards my work. But I love character. I love doing this. I love my my you know, my involvement in these places and and and the character and deep and and doing this on this can I love it. And yes, of course you know that at the end we I I believe that as as artist, we should create things that that move internal, something internal, wakes up something internal in in whoever's there to witness it.

00:29:18
Speaker 1: I think this is a good segue to your TTL designs because I think that the thing that caught my eye is that to me, I felt that your your designs were was I felt like you were the main and I you know, this isn't necessarily a slight at the other architects, but I felt like you understood the assignment a little bit more of like we can build anything. And I think you you we saw it in in the first week. You've created some provocative designs that have that that put players in situations where they have to make decisions. In different players of different skill sets have to make different decisions. I thought it was a really great moment in the first match when the second hole was when your designs picked your plunder. For those that didn't watch, but Matt Fitzpatrick, a shorter hitter had to go up the I believe left side, a longer hitter was it Wyndham Clark the teed off hit it up the right side, which has a longer carry. Neither of them chose the middle fairway, which has an even longer carry and gets a more advantage. But there was a real decision making and it was a hole. If you built that hole in person in real life, people will be like, this is fing crazy and this can't be a real golf hole. But we're in this setting where you can build anything you want. I'd like to hear about how TGL started with you and what were the like initial props, like how did the process of creating holes happen with the league?

00:31:07
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, well, I love your comments and and yes, I believe at the end it is a great compliment and a great balance of what we did between the three designers and Nicholas Design, bo Welling, you know a couple of firms that have I've admired throughout my career. So it's kind of cool that that we had the opportunity to work together. Everybody was working in a vacuum. You probably heard that everybody we were all like secluded and uh, and we just had that assignment to come up with holes. I think at the end when you put.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: So, their assignment was just like design us holes.

00:31:46
Speaker 2: Yes, it's all it's kind of like design holes for obviously, you know that we had the brief of what's TGL. How's it going to be played? We had the fixed green zone, which is also kind of like okay, let's we we can rotate it, we can have different angles. We can attack it on a draw or on a fade or high trajectory. If it's if if the bumps, you know, we can put it in front, we can put it in the back. We can we would decide how we twist the the the big part, and then the and then the and then the road the rotating part. So there's two there's two components that we can play with. We can play with the tongue, So the tongue you can stick it out or you can put it behind, and then you would have to come onto the green, let's say on a part three or or an island green or whatever. So so we knew about the brief and how it was playing and what the restrictions digital just restrictions or or we we would have. But then but after that it was it's all. It's an all go. So we all we all left with our sheet of paper and it's like, okay, let's draw. And we didn't meet for like for like a year probably until everything was designed. We were I was working with UH with full Swing, well everybody was working for pull Swing because they were producing our holes and which was very very cool, very exciting because at the end we the design process was very very regular to a regular on soil project. The difference is that instead of the shaper hopping on a dozer. It was we had a shaper with a you know, handling a mouse and and doing all the programming, uh digital programming. And then we we were there on the back and forth so so so yes, the brief was let's you know, let's let's think outside the box. Let's let's create. And then we teamed back with my with my team beside golf in the state and our rationale west. How can we get this like completely out of the box, get this you know with uh, think completely outside But the lines stopped when it was but let's still keep the integral and respect the integrity of the game, because that's that was us. I mean we didn't. We didn't. We never thought about you know, going underneath the clown the clown's you know, mouth or anything like that, or jumping from from one planet to the other, which it doesn't it doesn't mean that we couldn't that we didn't think about it.

00:34:21
Speaker 1: I have to ask, like, I think your holes, your holes stand out because they are you know, they are the craziest holes. And I say crazy, and I think that all these holes should be crazy. Like for the most part, I.

00:34:36
Speaker 2: Think it as a compliment.

00:34:38
Speaker 1: Well, like I think like one of the things is like the realities of pro golf is it's outgrown their arenas. They have dramatically outgrown the existing arenas we often see just it's just driver wedges for the most part at a lot of PGA tour venues. The to me, the peel of TGL is that it is an amazing place to test design principles on on tour pros at a scale that you can make angles and different things really matter. But like to me, the you know your holes they are they are by far the most I'll use the term provocative. And and what I did you have any holes that got left on the cutting room floor that went even further?

00:35:36
Speaker 2: Concepts? Yes, holes no concepts, yes, yes. I mean it's like it's like, you know, it's like getting you know, the gig to do an album. Obviously you're going to have a cut room and and and but the problem that the situation is that that album needs to have twelve hits. How are we going to do I don't know, you know, it's because you know you it it's kind of tough because we want something different. We just did a Okay, now B has to be completely different than c some you can see similarities because we really like the approach. Let's say on flex and pick your plunder. It's to say it's it's it's it's a similar it's a similar approach, different strategy, but it's a similar approach. And there we thought it was pretty exciting, at least in our way of thinking, because we're gonna have match play, we're gonna have alternate shot. So how do we level the playing field? If if one top golfer draws the ball beautifully, hey, way to give me that thing. I'm gonna cut the ball beautifully over here on this side, or I'm gonna go straight down the middle. So it leveled the pitch. When it comes to match play and alternate shot, it's like, you know, we have these different options that I don't. I don't have to just go one way and have to absolutely shape the ball to what the architect is telling me. I can have different alternatives, and that's why we created those those holes that have the alternative. Others. Others are strategy strata a little bit more strategic, or like the spear when it's just uh, you know, fifteen yards where it pinches and you decide if you if you green light it or if you if you pull back.

00:37:25
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the spear is a really interesting one because part of this, part of this is the strategy of how a team sets their lineup and how the whole interacts from that standpoint, and to me, the spears and interesting. So the spear is a hole. Imagine for those that haven't seen it, two triangles meeting and at a point, and how that would create a very narrow point in the fairway. And that's at two hundred and eighty six yards the most narrow point, and it's wider and on either side of that point where those two triangles meet. Now, like if I was setting my lineup, I would I would probably especially with the format of alternate shot, I would. If I was a savvy captain, I would be making sure that one of my long hitters is on that T shot, in particular because of the huge advantage that you can gain if you could fly it three point fifteen versus you know, a you know, it seems like did you roughly the PGA Tour average length T shot Carrie is probably around two eighty six.

00:38:39
Speaker 2: Yes, that was that was we measured it off so.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: Like you know, like the you can build intentionality, which I think is interesting from the sense of like when I think about how other sports work. If a defensive coordinator in football plays a let's just call it a like a a cover zero where they blitz, that's going to that's going to lead to the offensive coordinator calling a specific play to combat that defense. And with hole design, as this evolves, you can you can create intentionality of how the players and the teams or are going to play their offense. They're shot And I think that's the unique aspect of TGL that in a huge advantage for the league in the sense of that I guess, like you know, if I if I was going to put on my critics hat, which you know is part of what I do, I think like one of my questions would be with you, and you've spoken about them, you know, with the picker, plunder and flex and and the other triple fairway hole, was there idea you know, what was the kind of the idea of going with three holes that have a really similar feel in terms of the three fairway did you did you have other concepts that you are considering putting in there instead of and varying the three fairway.

00:40:09
Speaker 2: Look, well it is once you see one, it's very easy to have the gymnastics and say I've seen that. I've seen that before. Well, yeah, of course. So I think that when you have something, at least in my way of thinking, if you have something good, if I have a good riff, why wouldn't I use it? Why wouldn't I use uh, you know, a variety of that riff on the next song? Why wouldn't I use this? Because it's so at least, again, in my way of thinking, I really enjoyed designing this. It's the first time that I don't have to count irrigation heads.

00:40:46
Speaker 1: I don't have to.

00:40:48
Speaker 2: I'm like, let's go, I don't have to do any value engineering. Come on, ed So, so I'm going crazy with double fairways. Tongue over here. If you want to hit three thirty in in the flex, you know, So, let's let's have fun with this. Let's see where they go. And for me, the best, the best you know, reward that I can get is if that team, if that team you know, huddles huddles up and takes us a slight second more to discuss these holes. That's that's that's the best that's the best reward that I can do. So I'm looking forward to that. And uh and that's why I created these different you know, tongues and avenues and yes, when when when we came out with that, with that concept, of course, I I I reproduced it in a in two or three different scenarios.

00:41:47
Speaker 1: One of the holes that has not been played yet, and I don't believe is in this Tuesday's routing is the sterling that as a whole I'm partic clearly interested in. Thank you, what you know, tell me a little bit about that and how how it's going to play out.

00:42:09
Speaker 2: Well, that's a node I have in in our designs. I have a little bit of ode pieces, uh here and there, and that's in the highlands of Scotland and and and it has I also like to play with a little bit of humor. Andy, I also like to play see my designs.

00:42:27
Speaker 1: It has to be especially with this league, there has to be humor in the design.

00:42:33
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I like to play. So I'm like, you know, let's let's put a nice bunker right here in the middle. And ironically the worst place that you can play stripe it down the middle, so you have to choose. You have to choose left or right. Now, with the types of shots that these players, at the level they play, they're going to have to choose starting right and ending left or starting left and ending right, which is which is something that I'm very much looking forward to see. And uh and for us, I would just be aiming at the at the at the bunker in the middle, and I know that I'm not going to hit it and I'm just gonna be safe on the sides. So so that's uh, that's a little bit. I'm also thinking a little bit of how would the you know, the regular golfer a ten plus handicap, how would they play it? As well? Will they have fun? And that was part of also the brief, Andy, let's get my brief once we once we huled up and beside golf, let's let's do something crazy. But would it be a golf course or a golf hole that I would love to play and play and play or would it just be the wow factor and I'll play it once and then uh, okay, that's enough. Would it be a place where I would love to you know, if if we put all these together in a treasure map, like I like to call our routing. If we if we create, if we put these in a treasure map, one beside it's the other, or like a regular eighteen hole golf course. Would I like to become a member where I like to go there and play every day here and there? Would I like to do that? So these holes are are are are are are pushing the creative boundary, but to hopefully at one point we can play live one day without the setting. Of course, we're not going to have a floating a floating spear in the middle of the Hudson River or whatever it is. But but or or or the temple in Machupchu, we're not gonna have that. But we can have that pinched right there, maybe in a desert style hole or something at the end. If we carve out the the the hole, maybe we can get away with it.

00:44:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like that. That is something like I think one of the neat things that probably hasn't been explored much in golf architecture, and we've seen it. We did like a little TGL hole design competition in our membership and somebody created it in two K twenty or PGA Tour two K on their course, and we've seen like we had like this random guy that I didn't even know these people existed that play PGA Tour two K and do like YouTube videos. He was like commenting about it. I and like, you know, it's an actual place where you could like test design ideas to see what people think about it. But the I think the one of the tough things I think, like from in terms of what you guys had to do, what are the things that I think is the toughest aspect of the task was the green being fixed the bunkers the green and being able to move around contours but and move around the orientation, but being fixed with a green. How did you try and work around that?

00:45:58
Speaker 2: That's a very interesting question because it is, you know, if you see it in comments all over the place, is oh, we should have they should have done this, they should have done that. Obviously, not everybody knows that there are restrictions. There are technical restrictions, There are you know, technology restrictions, because we're not you know, at the end, where we are, where we're at, where we're at in technology, and it will only get better. Season two. Grab on to your you know, because it's it's going to be obviously better. You know, It's like it's like grabbing Madden ninety seven and Madden twenty twenty five. You know, it's it's it's the same thing. It's gonna be in that it's gonna be sequenced like that. Eventually, technology is here to stay. And I think this, this, this this TGL is is amazing. It's fantastic, and and and and and we're only and it's only going to get better. This is the worst version of TGL that we're going to play. It's crazy.

00:47:00
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's the thing that like so many people were and I live in this world where, like, you know, you have to come up with definitive takes about things in the moment, and like I think my general definitive take about about last week the first week of this was listen, like, we can't really have a definitive take because this is like we've never seen anything like this, and so much of an idea becoming a full fully formed version of what it is is trial and error. I mean, like, I think that's that's the thing that drew me most to your designs was that there's a real like willingness to try stuff as opposed to I felt like some of the other holes, and I don't mean this in any in a necessarily about they felt like a whole like I could go play on any Jack Nicholas golf course, you know, like a few of them, and it's like, well that that's not interesting to be in this format of golf. Is we should test, you know, the very far end of what this is and if it if we have to rein it back in, we can easily rein it back in. But it seems like it should start pretty abstract in terms of where it is, where it.

00:48:17
Speaker 2: Is, it's, it's it's kind of like, well we we we practiced that gymnastics per se in our in our regular design world. I have a saying, let's maximize to minimize what don't live at yourself and anywhere, anytime, at any place. Let's let's go, let's propose this and then oh, you know, it's it's it's whatever the factors are, we start minimizing and we arrive to that, to that concept now. But uh, and that was the same approach that we had. Let's let's maximize to minimize. So yes, of course, one two or three concepts were left in the in the cut room. But at the end when we started minimizing, it's it's like, oh, this is gonna work, this is great, this is this and yes we are everybody's taking risks. And I and I and I and I love that you appreciate that, you guys appreciate this because at the end, it's it's it's all about risk taking, you know, being being critiquing is is it's like a food critic. No, it's very it's very easy. You just you're just.

00:49:20
Speaker 1: There's easy being the critics. The critics the easy job.

00:49:24
Speaker 2: Exactly.

00:49:25
Speaker 1: I got to be the one that just sits back and say, well they could have done this, you know you.

00:49:29
Speaker 2: Exactly, which is fantastic. So I'm glad. I really love that you appreciate all this, you know, the getting out there. Everybody's taking this risk. It's a it's a great it's been till now, it's been a great product. The ratings have been there. It's it's it's it's something. And I I'll share this. It's last Tuesday or that Tuesday of the day. Now you're old. I don't I don't think I've ever felt that way, and I don't think I'll ever feel this way again, because we're gonna take this for granted now. So having this out, once the lights were out, once the DJ was in, once everything was like once the first shot was shot on one of our holes, we got the start and the plank, it was like, okay, we can't that's it. We can't control anything anymore. We did our best, everybody did their best, and it's out there and now it's all let's keep on, let's keep on building.

00:50:33
Speaker 1: I got I gotta ask you know, every all the players got walk up music? What would a better your walk up music? If you got to pick, it.

00:50:43
Speaker 2: Wouldn't be my reaction if you were wondering, oh that's a good one, I think it would.

00:50:50
Speaker 1: Be giving you that one to prep But I just had to when you hear it started talking about the lights coming on.

00:50:55
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you what, I've never been in a mainstream music guy, So for me, it would have to be, uh, you know, somewhere in the sparks the Smiths, Frans burned on Paulaton aspect of things. I really I really enjoyed that type of of music, so so it would have to be somewhere.

00:51:20
Speaker 1: There, all right, we we could we could work with that, I guess, you know. Back to the fixed green. To me, thinking through the assignment, the hardest, hardest hole the design with a fixed green has to be the part three.

00:51:38
Speaker 2: That's a very good observation. And uh, and yes, part part of it. And I I have to admit the difficult part of of tj O was designing Part three is for me. I only speak for myself.

00:51:50
Speaker 1: I like, I can't, I can't think of like, how how do you differentiate? And one of my questions, I don't know if you asked this or if it was, was did they have the ability to like turn off some of the green?

00:52:05
Speaker 2: That was? That's that's an interesting one. Sorry Ny for uh, let me there was having said this, Uh, one of our holes, which is on the rocks, it's called on the rocks. It's uh, it's.

00:52:19
Speaker 1: One of.

00:52:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. But then but then, like a good book, it changes.

00:52:25
Speaker 3: No.

00:52:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I had one name from there from the turn in name, and then and then it evolved and and and and some of them changed, the majority they did not. So it was kind of cool. Uh. Uh So going back to that, and I and and This is a shout out to the team at at t M r W and full swing and everybody involved. Uh in t g L. It was we were My last hole that I had to turn in was the Part three. It's just you know, kind of like an examine and when you're there and you want to leave that to the end and come back to it, and I go, okay. But when we were discussing the the the design detail and the and the angle and the approach in a in a great team effort, there was the proposal of removing the tongue bit, you know what they're calling the millennial falcon. You've probably seen that, and just keeping the road, the the the rotor part, the just the green section. So it became kind of like a disc, kind of like a kind of like a vinyl right there. And that's and and then we started to tweak the design and it was it's it's actually a great hole. I love it because the short and they played it this way. It's a it's a one and thirty five plus yard Part three, but it opens up in an angle. It has it has five different peninsulas that you can play it on the right and the greens shape to that to talking about the green how you can rotate it. So if you attack the right, you can play one one eighty plus and the left almost to twenty or vice versa, and you would have the angle of a cut or the angle of a draw or play. Then when it encroaches, it starts coming down all the way to one thirty five plus, which is uh, you know when you when you have the best players in the world not doing a full shot, that that keeps it exciting. So that's the objective of that one.

00:54:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me, if would you talk about like where, how how it could evolve? I think like if they can figure something out with the green area, it would just add a lot of flexibility. Like I I've thought about, like could you take the green and say only I want to turn on only three thousand square feet of it and and then have like you know, a bunker only one of the bunkers and runoff areas and can we just like only have a portion of the green zone available in the approach area available And we're gonna just say it's water on the right side, you know, because we've turned off the right path of the green right, So if the ball lands there from the simulator. It seems like that should be something that like, oh, it's just in the water and you're taking a drop. That was one thing I was thinking about in terms of that, How do you think about like the contouring of the green and are there limits to that? That was another question I had. It seemed like the greens were a nobody expected it, but a really challenging aspect was chipping and putting on the greens because it's like the ball reacts a lot differently on the astro turf than it would in real life. I thought that. One of the things I walked away was like, oh, like as a for an architect, you know, you can really deliver some penalty with short sighting misses with the astro turf almost more so than you can in real golf.

00:56:13
Speaker 2: Yep. And that's why you have to hit the green. I know it is. It is a It is a a challenging bit obviously the green. So there's two two major challenges I think for for for these players. One is hitting out of the rough. It's uh because because when you you have to drop that and and the.

00:56:31
Speaker 1: Ball seemed like it was saying down a lot.

00:56:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so so that's an interesting shot. If you're in the rough, I think that's that's a very especially especially far away and you're in your your second shot, that's a that's a tough shot. Uh. Then obviously, you know, all all kidding aside at the end, if you're you're in the green, you we the the the technology. We were not involved in the in the in anything that has to do with the green. We were. It was just giving to us at the end. But you know, obviously you try and get it to the best pace and play that that that can that technology or or artificial turf can give us today.

00:57:13
Speaker 1: How much contour can you can you build into that house? Is it how much? Like about how much if you could put into like feet terms maybe once you're how much can it go up and down in terms of building the contours in the green.

00:57:27
Speaker 2: Once you're in the jacks if that's your question. Once you're there's there's three section that has jacks right there, Yes, the top bit, the bottom and the and the right per se that the three the three major pin placements. Then that has a section has jacks, and you can manipulate that. I mean, obviously you can go further to whatever percent you want, but that could be manipulated to up to a right to left two and a half percent, and next time the next hole can be manipulated to a left to right. Once you're in that, you know, in the in the in the in in the Sombrero area, in the in the pinmplacement area, if you're if you're on the outside, if you're on the outskirts of that place where you have the jacks. Uh, there's no contours. The countries are fixed, the area is fixed. Everything's what it is right there that you see the top tier on the on on the green and uh, and I think it's interesting. I don't I don't know what it was running, but I think it should be running more than eleven. That was That was an.

00:58:32
Speaker 1: Interesting fast.

00:58:35
Speaker 2: With the eleven plus easily.

00:58:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seemed very hard, but I saw I saw it like the light. I mean, it's like things you don't think about, but like some players were talking about, like the lighting being challenging because of how bright it is. The other could you it seemed like most of the contours were like sections. It'd be like tier tier tier, like three tier three sections. Is there a with the jacks to make like just like a small like a smaller feature. Is it mostly you have to plateau them.

00:59:07
Speaker 2: Well, we wouldn't. We wouldn't take it to that to that I mean, we wouldn't have a little dip or something like that. We wouldn't take it to that level. We want we want to challenge you, not once you're in the green zone. We we want to make it as you know, as as direct as possible. It's not like we want your ball to do this and then come back and then hop into the hole. That's that's not the the the point the the the green is UH is usually set to whatever you can see so that on the next hole or on the or or for the next you know, read you can you can have a read from the from the from the last hole. Now, I don't know how long they practice or if they have a practice round or something, because that would be interesting. I don't know how how. I don't know if they have an opportunity to be there one or two days or that morning before and just and just practice and practice and practice. That's UH, that's something that could be interesting as well.

01:00:06
Speaker 1: What did you think about the KULD What were the conversations around the conditions. I think like this is the other thing. Architecture and conditioning are intertwined and like in terms of like how the ball reacts on the screen to when it lands, and like this pace of the fairways. I think a lot of people would have liked to see the ball, you know, roll a little bit more and land on the green. I thought lud big Aberg had a time where it was clear he hit a flyer and the ball almost spun when it hit the green, which was seemed to be very unrealistic when a player, when a player of his caliber starts yelling, sits it, sits it right after he hits it, that usually means it's going over the green. Somehow it held the green in that case, like and then obviously there was no wind in the first match. And I've seen on some of your whole dynamics you have like ideally plays in a crosswind, which I thought like that was for the spear, that that's a smart thing. What if you're trying to get somebody to hit to little spot like a crosswind would be really fun to watch. So what was the conversation around like the designing with the conditioning in mind, do you think that's something that they will ramp up over time with wind and and and maybe a little bit more firm pay like firmness to the green where everything just doesn't land kind of like a pillow.

01:01:40
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we we have we did have thatch problems on the green and what no, just kidding.

01:01:48
Speaker 1: I was like, where's it going?

01:01:51
Speaker 2: No, no, well, make sure we turn off the sprinklers next time before.

01:01:56
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that was a common complaint, was like, I want to see that these balls to be rolling.

01:02:02
Speaker 2: We'll get it, We'll get it. We'll get it dry for you next time. And for all the players, I think, you know, it's uh, it's it's it's it's interesting again, it's it's it's gonna be ongoing. I can't answer all these questions because they're on in the technology side of that would be something for for full swing and everything. But uh, when when I think, I think the most, you know, the the most the most exciting part is the is the the the challenge or the having the players miked up, having the shot clock, having all of these factors that also factor into the fun aspect of this, which is which is made for TV. Let's not look, let's not let's not overlook that part. Because if we're trying to just you know, get our our our brain into the real from real the golf that we know, into the golf that that that we do, don't uh you know, if that's our our barometer, then then it's easy today. What's going on there? You know you didn't replace your divot. What's going on? Man? Yeah, what's going on? But I didn't see a divot coming in. It's hey, nope, this is no good. I hate this. Yeah, it's it's easy. It's so so I would invite everybody to jump in and and kind of like, hey, wait, wait a minute. We have golf on Monday. We got golf on Tuesday. It's a two hour show. We get to see these guys right here, uh you know, players, top of the top players in the world, uh, PGA tour players, and then we don't know where this is kinded. We'll probably see celebrities, et cetera. But at the end, this is something that that that is that is also to have fun. Let's not forget that we're all here and and the teams are too hopefully with the with as competitive as they are, let's have fun. Let's enjoy this.

01:04:00
Speaker 1: This this process with with tg L, you've designed some crazy fake holes. Has that changed anything with the way you've thought about designing real in life, in real person holes.

01:04:15
Speaker 2: Oh that is a beautiful question. Of course it has. I I like to push boundaries. I love character. If if you if you go on to I don't know if you've seen the pit, if you've seen some of my regular designs.

01:04:32
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would see them in person, but i've seen the sketches.

01:04:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's do it one day. So so you're there there. I'm I think we're very lucky. You mentioned the word crazy, which I took as a compliment because I I yes, I think that we're you know, we can get crazy. We have crazy ideas, but they only remain ideas is unless you have a crazy client. That's that's the guy that you're looking for, the crazy client that has empathy with You're like, oh my god, I love this. Let's go, Aggie. And that's when you become an architect. If not, you're just a theorist.

01:05:16
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

01:05:17
Speaker 2: If you don't, I can write, I can sketch all I want. If they're not in real life. I'm not an architect. I'm a theorist. And that's where that's where we've been very lucky in our career to believe in what we do, to believe in our work, and to and and and to look for these clients that are wanting something different, something unique. Uh, you know that. I'm still looking if you want, if you want the philosophical me, I'm still looking for the maximum artistic expression of golf.

01:05:50
Speaker 1: Would you would you character it seems like you would characterize yourself in the in if we're talking real life architecture, more on the maximal side than the minimal side.

01:06:04
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, I mean the approach depending on what you're looking at. Because on the construction side, on the value engineering side, on all that side, I can. I can be minimalist. I've done miracles with little money. And that's also part of the show. You know. Sometimes you hear, oh, we just remodeled this twenty eight million dollar remodel. Well, of course you did. I wouldn't do that. Do it with two? Do miracles with two. That's what we've been doing. So I'll creative juices are always out there because we have to do miracles. With less. Yeah, I can only dream about a twenty eight million dollar project. Let's go.

01:06:42
Speaker 1: I think you get really crazy.

01:06:44
Speaker 2: Oh that so it's been, it's been great. Yeah. I think I just like to the experimental phase. Andy for any creative mind is fabulous and I think that's where that's where I love to stand on the on the experimental side of things. You know, if I, if I played the guitar, can also play let's try the mantle in you know, let's let's do let's do the Octopus Garden by the Beatles. That's that, you know, that's what we that's what we strive for.

01:07:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I think, you know, diversity, having a lot of different work. I think that's something that I respect a lot about. You know, say an architect like Tom Doak in the sense that he's he's built golf courses where he's moved almost no earth. But then he's also built golf courses like the Texas Tech University course in Lubbock where it's just dead flat land and he just went nuts and moved all kinds of dirt. Like having that range. I mean, that's what the great you know, the great bands and a lot of times the iconic timeless bands have exceptional range and diversity and sound, right, and if you're talking about a golf architect, you know, having that diversity and sound and is is almost the ability to adapt your style and your principles to different situations.

01:08:17
Speaker 2: That is a beautiful way of putting it. And uh, uh yes, and uh obviously my admiration to Tom Doag. We're not yet in the same sentence, but we're working.

01:08:26
Speaker 1: On it that.

01:08:29
Speaker 2: Time. But yes, I mean yes, I mean you see all these you know, great minds out there that are that are that are creating beautiful things and stunning work with Again that the how versatile are you depending on the brief that you have in front of you? The why is the most important bit in for for a creative why why are you doing this? And once you have that clear you can go that is that is very important. If you understand that, then the next steps fall into place.

01:09:06
Speaker 1: I'm curious, Uh, what do you think is missing from modern golf architecture right now? Modern as in what's happening age the ages, what's happening in the last twenty years. What's something that you feel is missing?

01:09:24
Speaker 2: Uh? Missing? I don't know, because first it's great that we that we are going back to that, going back to to go forward, if I may, you know, it's it's great that we that we now that we're surrounded by so many beautiful minds, creative that are students of the game. And I think that's that's that's part of of being, you know, something that's happening very fantastic in our in our industry. Now, Uh, what's missing in general? I wouldn't dare to I don't know. To me, Like I mentioned, I, I love the Golden Age of architecture and to some that could be or that means it's the it's the the uh the highest you know. Uh, it's the best artistic expression there's ever been in golf architecture. In my way of thinking, I'm still trying to discover it. What is Yes, based on all the different aspects that we have passed through the years in golf architecture, how do I take that and do something different? You know? I I grab I study Alistair McKenzie and I said, what would Alastair McKenzie do if he was alive today? That's what I think about. I don't I don't know if you would I don't know if you.

01:10:49
Speaker 1: Would do a question because like they were like you know, you talk about constraints, like they were very much constrained with equipment. Yeah, but TI I mean like if you look at some of his projects, some of the things he built, like there was like a maximum aspect to them, like the mounting at the Jockey Club or the you know like park yeah, sitwell park Green, Like those are big earth moving moments in a time when you consider how limited the earthwork moving capabilities were, Like think about the eighth Green at Augusta National when he built it in nineteen thirty, you know, nineteen thirty.

01:11:30
Speaker 2: Effectively, cypris point out the point. I mean, it's it's yes.

01:11:35
Speaker 1: Yes, it is a fascinating like people like often say like they they would cringe at, and I don't know what their reaction would be. I think they cringe to like some of the societal things that happened today versus then. But like I do wonder it is like everybody assumes that they would be like offended at certain things with the game. But I also think with the level of artistic expression that we saw from some of these architects, like I think they would be pretty interested in what where they could push the art form because to me it seemed like when the Great Depression happened, everything kind of stopped. But if you look at the latest architecture and where it was going, you know, Perry Maxwell was like pushing almost supreme minimal, like he was going one way, different direction. But then you had like Alisair mackenzie was building seemingly more and more contouring, like getting pretty wild with contouring, which is an earth moving endeavor. And then you had people like Langford and Moreau or Charles Banks that were using steam shovels to manufacture stuff. So it was interesting like there we had this like two kind of schools diverging in the thirties when it got halted, but like one of the one of the you know, like I don't know, I do think when I liked, when I think about the future the next twenty years of golf architecture, I do wonder where where the idea, Like I think everything gets thrown in this minimalism bucket that and a lot of it's not necessarily minimal, but it gets thrown there. Like natural aesthetic looking bunkers with like rumpled edges are just deemed minimal today. But I do wonder, like, how how much more evolution does the minimalist movement have versus like, what are the next steps of maximalism? Is there a version of manufactured that kind of like really comes back in vogue.

01:14:00
Speaker 2: It's a very interesting one. Obviously we can't answer that yet. Only time will tell. But that's the evolution of art, isn't it.

01:14:06
Speaker 1: Yes?

01:14:07
Speaker 2: I mean you you grab exactly. I mean as you grab and you go, you go from the neo Classic to the Neo Gothic or to the you know, it's normal in paintings and in buildings and uh so you have all these movements. I ironically, I think golf in the in the artistic way of of seeing this, UH holds on to the to the expression for for five hundred years, I mean maybe only passing. There's some changes in the probably in the Victorian era with with the greens. UH designed a little bit different in that era. But other than that, we we came up with this, you know, it has it has it has secured the way of designing the materials, the construction, the you know, the the principles of of of the sport or or the game that will I think that that is here to stay. So what I think the minimalist approach should always be there. I think it should it should always be embraced, and then from there we can take off every here and there. I think that's that's that's what you know, everybody likes or can listen to classical music, or can listen to a classical band or classic band. But but but we always you know, sometimes we like to you know, as they bang our heads or or or or or go to uh to to to. I don't know a rave party every now and that I don't know, but we we need that diversity. And and the lucky thing that we that you know, that we have and we live is that, you know, creativity at the end knows no borders. So we don't know where where the next where the next golf architect is gonna come from. We don't know where the next artist with the next singer with this, and that's the beauty of art. The artistic expression is is what we should embrace here being minimalists or being you know, an exaggerated view or something different, something new, something diverse. We'll see.

01:16:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like if one of my big critiques and in golf architecture as a whole is we've got way too much stuff that's just right down the middle and not very interesting. And you know, the the challenge right now in the industry is how could we possibly get a substantial amount of remodels and rebuilds done at the price tag for remodels and rebuilds, you.

01:16:41
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, exactly. A Sustainability is the bottom line at the end for the majority of the projects. We have a few here and there that that it really doesn't matter in the economics or or or or in the or in the membership. You know, we don't I only have three members That doesn't matter, and that's part of the but but in the middle section we have to you know, at the end, it has to be it has to be sustainable, you know, in the economic and the ecologic and in the social aspect. And that's part of the beauty too. That's that's the challenge as well. When you challenge with restrict when you create with restrictions, that that that that also gets gets interesting.

01:17:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean there's a lot of belief that artistic creativity is maximized with more restrictions. You know, the more challenged.

01:17:32
Speaker 2: I don't know if maximized, but it's challenged, and and when that and when that and when that crosses, when that challenge crosses let's let's say a glass ceiling, that's when you have the geniuses.

01:17:47
Speaker 1: Well, I'll just leave it here. I don't know if the challenge of a restricted green section is going to yield the best set of part threes and TG but I think you guys did You did your best with the challenge presented for the part three of having a simpler agreeing Aggie. This was great having you on. It was really a fun discussion and look forward to doing it again some time. And I'm looking forward to seeing more of your designs as the TGL season rolls on. And uh, I assume you'll be back for season two with some new designs. So thank you for coming on. Everybody can follow you. You're active on social media. Your Instagram is at Pisa Golf, p i z A Golf, no underscore or anything, but look forward to seeing more of your in real life work as well as more of your TGL work.

01:18:42
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for your time. You're interested in our work. I really enjoyed this chat. And let's go. I think there's gonna be it's gonna be a fun tg L season.

01:19:00
Speaker 1: All right, before we get to will if you're enjoying this conversation and just design. If you're into this podcast, check out Club TF. We're doing a ton of stuff there. I'm really really excited. We've we've embarked on a new website project and we will be bringing a new version of our website in Q one ideally, hope. I think it's Key one. Yeah, it would be Q one. We'll be we're planning to be done with it. But one of the big impetasis of that is improving the membership experience for our Club TF members. And we think it's pretty good right now, and we think it's only going to get better. But it's you know, we're investing in it because of all the support we've gotten from from Club TFE. So we are doing a lot of golf course architecture comment terry. There you get early access to events which are really releasing every week for the next you know, next couple months, and then you also get ten percent off the pro shop. So if you're interested in our membership, go to the fridagg dot com slash membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year, and all that money goes to help supporting our growth and continue to deliver better and better products for you, our listeners and readers. So big thanks to everybody that supported us and would love to see you in the club. All right, let's get to Will Carlson. All right, I'm joined by Will Carlson. Will is a freshman at cal Poly and you might be wondering, why are we having a college kid on the show. Will did something I just found out about up the road for me at Northwood Golf Club. A I would say, ah, it's like kind of like a cult, a cult following golf course. It is a you know, uh is a stunning is as an Alistair mackenzie design, it's it's had better days if I'm being honest. But you play in this epic look uh, you know, setting with giant redwood trees and you play along the Russian River and it is just a mesmerizing place. I know a lot of Pacific Northwest people and people of northern California are like, what's the big deal, It's just some redwood trees. But anybody that's not from the area. Playing in that setting with those redwood trees is an unforgettable golf courses. Golf course We've done a decent, pretty big amount of coverage on over the years. And uh so it's a nine hole Alistair Mackenzie course that I've always dreamed about. You know, some restoration work. Little did I know a high school student Will Karlson pitched the owners and completed the first restoration work at Northwood Golf Club recently. Will, I would love to hear about how you got interested in Northwood and how you began the process of starting to get restoration work done there as a high schooler.

01:22:23
Speaker 3: Thank you, Andy. Yeah, so, I guess when I first got out to Northwood, I was probably like in middle school at some point, and my grandparents would take me out there because it's like so low key. I mean, that's all all Northwoods about. Everyone goes out their plays just to kind of get away from all the pretentious golf side, which is Northwood is anything but, which is kind of ironic with how it started out as like the most pretentious thing you could possibly imagine, and now it's like the most casual place and awesome. It's just like so unique for how many people different people get to play there and it's so laid back. But I mean, I know, you know, and maybe some people who've heard of North when it was started by the Bohemian Grove, which is across the river from it, out there on the Russian River, which is just crazy how it ended up being what it is today. But yeah, so I guess I just reached out because I had been playing the course and then at some point, probably in like twenty twenty one or something, when I was starting to get interested in golf architecture, I started to learn it was a Mackenzie and I was like, there's something here. Once I actually could be gan to be able to recognize McKenzie features, I'm like, this is kind of cool.

01:23:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I it's you know, that's I think the thing about the golf course is it is, you know, a shell of what it once was. But one of the beauties of it is that nothing's you know, like the bunkers don't exist anymore, but they're sitting there. They haven't been, they weren't filled with dirt. They are just sitting there. So, you know, super a fairly amateur, I like someone learning about golf architecture is very easy to see where a bunker was, So what I you know, I one of the things that you hit on that I love about Northwood. I love that, you know, it was a course that you went when you were a kid, very young beginner.

01:24:20
Speaker 3: I remember my first high school tournament ever at Northwood, which is pretty funny.

01:24:26
Speaker 1: I remember, like you know, like your your parents or grandparents or uncle or whoever got you into golf. My dad took me, I remember, for my first round, and like you take someone for the first round to the least pretentious, most laid back place that you could find. And I think that's like one of the things that I love about Northwood is that you go there and you see people of all walks of life. Definitely, you've got golf hipsters, you've got serious golfers. You've got you've got just like guys and jeans and tank tops. You know, you you have a wild, wild walk of life.

01:25:09
Speaker 3: It can get pretty wild out there sometimes in both good and bad ways. But yeah, it's super special. Nothing like it anywhere I've gone. So let's at least at least in California.

01:25:21
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the history because one of the things that you've done. You've You've produced a YouTube video that I did dive deep into the history of Northwood, And I mean, anybody that's played there or interested in Alistair mackenzie, interested in Northwood should go watch it. But let's talk about like the process of you. So you you get into you're getting into golf architecture. You love this golf course, you live twenty twenty five minutes away, and it's a it's a special place, and you begin to really want to learn more about the history. So how did let's let's talk about how did you go about this? Is I've done like some small digging, but nothing substantial, and it's a hard place to find information about.

01:26:07
Speaker 3: Tell me about it. That's kind of that's kind of what got me into the whole thing, because I watched the video that came out a few years ago about Northwood the Scratch Golf and they went in to talk to Gaylord about the history. He's like, eh, Dallas or McKenzie, but that's all I know. And I'm like, as someone who's getting into golf architecture, I'm like, there's no way they don't know anything. And I went out there and when I. Once I start talking to them asking stuff after I did a little bit of research on my own, they were like, yeah, you don't really know anything. And I was just like shocked because I think the original clubhouse out there burnt down, so they don't have any of the original plans or anything unless they're still in the grove, which I'm I don't have no idea, but.

01:26:47
Speaker 1: I feel that's always been my theory is that there is just a treasure trove of information in the grove. Yeah, but there's a lot of information probably about a lot of stuff.

01:26:58
Speaker 3: There, oh, stuff that we'll never get to know about. Yeah, but well I'll try and pull some strings to look at that at some point. But what I was able to find basically before I started talking to Gaylor to them there, I was just looking through aerial photographs of around the time thirties and forties and whatnot, and then just trying to read articles and stuff, and there's nothing. There's very little on all the aerial photographs because the trees are so tall you can't see the golf course.

01:27:26
Speaker 1: Yes, I've run into this issue.

01:27:29
Speaker 3: So but I was able to find. I looked. I was just googling and going in through Pinterest and stuff trying to find images, and I was able to find a few of just like random pictures from like the forties and fifties of people playing there's like the mayor of the town out there playing golf. There's a few good shots.

01:27:46
Speaker 1: Where did you find these?

01:27:48
Speaker 3: Just on the Snoma County Archives? Okay, I was able to they're like free domain access. And then I also when I started talking to Gailor, they gave me he took a few like scans of these old postcards that they still have, like you know, a lot of golf courts happened where it's like the picture of the course and like the white handwriting at the bottom. They had like five of those. They had the first, the second, the fourth, and then a few pictures on nine looking back, but some of them were they're from like different times. There was only about three that were from early on, and they were definitely not as high quality as the one that you've seen in the pro Shop of six.

01:28:24
Speaker 1: That that photos mesmerizing.

01:28:27
Speaker 3: That photo is amazing, that's the how high quality it is, and that one is special definitely. But yeah, so basically after I got all those photos, that kind of started to try and see like how they would fit, because a lot of the features, like you said, are still there, Like you just have to walk around, like, oh, there's a bunker there, Oh there's this here. You can see where the original greens were.

01:28:47
Speaker 1: And what we're saying by this is the bunker is dug, but there's.

01:28:53
Speaker 3: They were well in.

01:28:56
Speaker 1: So if you're a layman and you buddy, if you told if as soon as you explain what that was it used to be a bunker, you can go out there and find dozens of them.

01:29:09
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think there's about there were about thirty or so originally, but there's just clear as day. Because I think that's why Northwood is so I'm fascinated by it is because like they've never done anything to it except for like losing teas and one of the greens, but everything else is just exactly how it was. And they didn't even sand greens for a long time, so there's very little sand build up except for on a few of the bunkers that were there before I got there. Those have obviously built up, but there's like it's pretty original.

01:29:37
Speaker 1: The greatest frustration candidates are always the places that never had enough money to excre things up.

01:29:44
Speaker 3: And that's Northwood if anything. But I guess back to the history we can get to that is like, so basically what I've got through it by just talking to people and reading what I could is that the Bohemian Grove obviously all the rich people out there, they wanted to play golf, and they did wanted to have to drive into town every day because and there wasn't even that many good golf courses at the time. And what was crazy is that Jack Neville, who co designed Pebble Beach, was a member of the Bohemian Grove. And this was around nineteen twenty six. Is the course started construction in twenty eight, so he must have been. Mackenzie was redoing the greens at Pebble Beach by eight and thirteen in nineteen twenty six, so I can only imagine this is just meaning together the j Well.

01:30:28
Speaker 1: Also at this time, Alistair Mackenzie is designing Metal Club, which is effectively half play in between Pebble Beach and Northwood.

01:30:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's just Hi'm assuming he met Mackenzie and that was kind of starting the cypress point getting that moving, and he's like, oh, why don't you come up here and do this for us. I guess I don't know why he wouldn't have done it himself. I guess he just wanted I guess maybe the members wanted the best of the best. But it ended up so he ended up going up there. There's one picture that's alleged to be him of this train car parked because the road there used to be train track. That was only way you could get there was by train, like this narrow gage rail. But there's a picture of a man like leaning up against a train car that's parked by where the course was being built. And they said that he stayed there because he wasn't allowed to stay in the grove. Interesting McKenzie, So that's kind of funny. But I don't think he was there. I think he just went to the property like lay out the course like at the initial design, which he did because he was busy and it was impossible to travel back then. I can't imagine getting to Northwood out there in the middle of nowhere one hundred years ago, but.

01:31:41
Speaker 1: Well shortly after he got to Australia, I mean exactly. One of the fascinating things, like people always talk about Don Ross and like fascination about his travels and oh yeah, all across the country. It is like Alstra mcczie designed a golf golf courses in South America, Europe, North America, in Australia. Yeah.

01:32:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I was talking to some people, they were saying, talking about mackenzie Metal Club, he had to take a train to San Francisco, a ferry across a train, Yeah, because the bridge wasn't done right exactly, no bridge, so he had to take a ferry, another train, and then from like the main area in Sonoma and Marin, he had to take a horse and buggy up the mountain to get to Metal Club, and then North was even farther. So it's so I'm assuming he only went out there to like lay it out, and I'm assuming he had his associates go out there and do the final shaping, because there's I was able to find some newspaper article on the McKenzie like history chronicle that said he it opened in nineteen twenty nine, not nineteen twenty eight, so same year as the depression started. But it opened and he wasn't there, so I'm assuming he was only there for the initial layout. But yeah, so open in nineteen twenty nine, and then the depression and the Bohemian Grove was like, you don't need this anymore, and it got sold off. I don't I don't know off the top of my head who had got sold to initially, but whoever it was, it was still so hard to maintain anything at the time.

01:33:08
Speaker 1: So anybody that's bended Northwood or seen photos of Northwood, I feel like it's become impossible to open Instagram without seeing photos of Northwood. It's become the influencer spot. Yeah, but the you're mesmerized by the giant trees, I think, oh, yeah, you know at this point with where the golf course is in its state, like the draw, Yeah, it has al Mackenzie's name, but it's more of the trees. I found it fascinating in your work. Can you explain the dynamics of the trees? Because these are they're I mean. One of my favorite photos I have is this photo behind two looking back to yes and my favorite part of the true the photo what people are always like, this is an amazing photo, I say, I always say the best part about it is that there is a giant dump truck on the left side and it looks like a like a toy car next to this tree. Yeah, that it's next to. And it's my favorite part of the whole thing. It's like it's it. Until you're there, you do not understand the enormous nature of these trees. And obviously this part of the country it's kind of like the bottom part of this massive redwood forest grove that extends up through the northern part of the state. But when this was built, what was the why was this even able to be built in understanding the dynamic of these trees.

01:34:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the trees that are there today are not the original trees. Those have all grown since those were not there originally.

01:34:54
Speaker 1: So basically this are roughly one hundred year old trees.

01:34:58
Speaker 3: But I think they're about one hundred and fifty because in the eighteen eighties was when the logging was just decimating the redwoods out there. I mean the town's out there. There was one town now it's called Gerblo It's called stump Town because there's nothing but stumps that you could see for miles.

01:35:11
Speaker 1: Now, that be a great If there's a golf course in Gerinville, be a great name.

01:35:17
Speaker 3: That would be awesome. They could market that it's close enough. But anyway, so when McKenzie went up to build the course, it was like the trees were probably about thirty feet tall, nothing except they look like little fur trees, like compared to what they are now, they're tiny. But I think the property have been used for like military training early and like the teens, for like World War one or something. It was like a military camp, and so it was kind of some areas were kept clear because it was like a ranch. And then the Bohemian Grove bought it because they're like, it's the flattest thing out here because everything else is just mountains.

01:35:50
Speaker 1: So the trees were new, young trees. Very they've grown to what they are now, but also with the with the way redwoods are, they still have more owing to do. Correct.

01:36:01
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean they can live to be two thousand years old. So and and I've actually talked to Trevor, the superintendent out there. He's not even allowed to touch some of the trees because they're protected by the state lesby, which is kind of a problem when you're trying to maintain a golf course under one hundred and fifty foot trees.

01:36:18
Speaker 1: This is the challenge of Northwood, and I think like, like you know, anybody that goes out there, you you are going out there more for the experience than yet like you, it's I would say, given the setting, impossible to have extraordinary agronomic Oh yeah, you know conditions. However, I do think like when you talk about like I mean I go, I live in I live really close to Metal Club, and one of the challenges of metal Club is they have original Mackenzie Greens and many of them have very few full looks. We recently saw Passa Tiempo undertake a giant renovation. One of the one of the core tenets of it was to establish more whole location potential.

01:37:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I got to go out to that project and talk with her Bena about what they were doing there, and it's yeah, it's really interesting because he's talked about how the greens went from tears due to sanding just to slopes and north it doesn't have that because they never standed the greens. So the original tiers are like where they are and like.

01:37:30
Speaker 1: The reality of where it is is like you're never going to be able to push the agronomics extremely Oh.

01:37:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean in the past few years, it's gotten a lot better. They've done a lot of really good work. I remember when I was first playing it, it was just I mean, there's not much like solid turf out there. But when I played it originally, there was like no grass. It was just dirt, and the greens were like unputtable. Because how they've done a lot of really good work in these last few years to try and it, but there's there's not much you can do, and that almost makes it because the greens play how they're supposed to.

01:38:02
Speaker 1: Do, exactly it is. I think like one of the things that I've always thought with Northwood is it has this opportunity to really be like, you know, beyond the Mackenzie name, the redwood trees, but it has the opportunity to really be throw back golf. Right. You can come here and you can get a little bit of a slice of what golf was like to play in nineteen forty, in nineteen you know fifty, when everything wasn't you know, maintained on like a razor's edge. And I think that it the whole the whole place has a charm about it. If you're someone who really cares about conditioning it's not going to be for you, no, but like the charm of it, the quaintenance of it, the trees, the mystique of it. But then also just like how it ties in with the little pro shop, how it ties in with the I love the restaurant, I will never know they're not either at the restaurant.

01:39:05
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's an experience. It's unlike anything else around that I've ever been to. But yeah, it's just so when I whenever time I go out there and play, I try. Unless I'm playing with people who are unless I'm playing with my friends for like competition or something, I'll bring my old club. I have clubs that were my great grandfathers, like nineteen thirties, very early. I think they are metal shafts, but they're painted to look wood, and I'll play out there with those, and it's so interesting because you see every single bunker is right where you want to hit it. The greens are so interesting to put on with, just because of how slow does the slopes work totally differently, Like you're not hitting a putt like a foot and it's rolling thirty five feet. You have to like hammer it in some places, and it's just it's so interesting to play it with the how he intended.

01:39:51
Speaker 1: Of the old photos. We've talked a little bit about the sixth you know, you had a few old photos of a few holes. What was the one that mesmerizes you the most.

01:40:03
Speaker 3: I'd probably say there's this one really cool photo. It's you know, the other's the hill before, like the blind of second green. Yeah, there's someone standing on top of that hill taking a picture through. So you have the second green and then you have the fourth green beyond it, and you get both of them layered. So the second green used to be huge, like it like went even higher up that insane slope on the right, extended way closer to the downslope. And then there was a bunker on the left there where that bay tree is now. And then the fourth green in the back, which is already an insane green with the insane enormous backside. I can't it's like you talk about buried elephants and that's all that could be. And then there's these there's this huge bunker on the hill on the right side, there's very mackenzie as you can get. And then there's no houses obviously originally and there's just enormous trees in the background.

01:40:53
Speaker 1: It's it's cool. It's i think like the one thing that that changed, and you hit on this in your video. It's so so apparent when you play the golf course because you know you have these greens that are are very slowed. Yeah, you get to the third hole, it's a par three and it's like a pancake.

01:41:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really sad. And that green is sinking into the ground because when they're building the course, they just bury the stumps. They could take them out because they're huge. So then so the stumps are decomposing and the green is sinking into the ground. If you played in the winter, it fills up with water.

01:41:28
Speaker 1: So that's something they have to address at some point.

01:41:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm saying, why not do it in the style of a McKenzie. That's the one hole that I know nothing about because the trees that are so tight that you can't see anything from above and there's no pictures, and.

01:41:42
Speaker 1: It's so clear based off the next tee shot that the green used to be further out and the old tea used to be further back.

01:41:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, it used to be like one to seventy five and then so overall the first hole lost about like fifty yards second hole, second hole used to be four f one hundred and fifty yards blind green par four.

01:42:03
Speaker 1: In twenty nine, the first hole lost fifty yards where.

01:42:08
Speaker 3: It used to be behind the restaurant at the basic hill behind nine green.

01:42:12
Speaker 1: The tea box was back.

01:42:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, like that little bunker right in the middle of the fairway that's like eighty yards off the tea that would have been actually in play for worse golfers back then. Okay, so that one was longer, whole two was. I can people struggle with that whole to day. I can't imagine playing at four hundred fifty yards to a blind green. I'm like, it's kind of insane.

01:42:31
Speaker 1: That to me that I wrote an article after I played there and very crappy photoshop of what I thought the green would be, and it's like that hole to me is like you're talking about one of the one of a great hole in California.

01:42:48
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, it's spectacular. And the fairway underlations are incredible on the course, like no one talks about it, but whole two fairway, the fourth fairway is insane.

01:43:00
Speaker 1: What about the fairway undulations appeal to you so much.

01:43:04
Speaker 3: So I feel like, well, I talked to the galer and he said that when they built the course, obviously, like I said, they couldn't tick off the stumps, so they just buried them. And there's all these little moguls everywhere. And then for drainage, there's these little you can almost like mock streams that go through the fairways and it gives it a really like natural Lynxy rumpled look. And he gives you you never have a flat lie at Northwood, even though it's not that hill li of property, you never have a flat light because of all the little rumples.

01:43:29
Speaker 1: It's it's super unique because at most times in these you know, most of California's populated in mountain valleys, you know, and you're you're in valleys, and the valleys are for the most part just gradual slopes. Yeah, they just gradually slope and there's very little micro movement. It reminds me a few years ago, we had Brian Schneider on and he was talking about North Jersey, a golf course that he's been restoring over the years, and he talked about how the course got all these like little bumps and humps in it because the members wanted to play the golf course early, like early in construction, and the deal was they could play, but they had to take up they had to pick up all the rocks in the fairways and toss them into piles. And that's how like this like what have become like really great features of the of these golf holes. But this is such a similar like sense type of place where like these bumps in the faaraway are just redwood stumps.

01:44:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And it's you almost don't realize, like you can look at the ferry looks flock when you get out there. You can have a lie in the middle of the fairway with the ball is three feet below you're your your feet and it's like, how do you It's hard to not to slice it into the trees. But and that's another thing about the course is that the trees are so big that they make everything else seem small. And it's really not like if people say, oh, it's so narrow, the fairways really aren't. They're like thirty to forty yards wide. It just feels so narrow because like claustrophobic because the trees are so big.

01:44:59
Speaker 1: This is something I think that I say this to people are always always ask me, like when they see pictures, like how do you You must be hitting trees all the time. And it's such a perfect example of like the the concept of scale and what giant scale items do to everything around them. These trees are so big that everybody thinks it's so narrow, but it's actually there's plenty of space.

01:45:26
Speaker 3: Except for the ninth where they built the houses to the fair way, which is the only thing that really not in number two. But yeah, it's it's incredible. It's Yeah, if you play with the hickories, you're never gonna hit a ball in the trees, Yes, because there's so you're not you don't have that much stalt dispersion, and the trees are so far away that you're really never gonna hit into them.

01:45:46
Speaker 1: It is a perfect hickory golf course.

01:45:48
Speaker 3: Like I agree.

01:45:51
Speaker 1: What So let's let's talk about So you've you've gathered this history you in the video, you've put together basically an aerial sketch of what you think the golf course looked like. And with the bunker schemes.

01:46:07
Speaker 3: I had two iterations of that too. I did one that I did, and then I found more information, so I had to do it again and change some things. But yeah, so you're.

01:46:18
Speaker 1: Probably going to find more information. Yeah, at a later date, you're going.

01:46:22
Speaker 3: To keep that already had I had half of it an ink and I realized, oh wait, there's a bunker here, and I had to add it. It's I'll probably have to do it again at some point.

01:46:30
Speaker 1: So after after you've compiled all this, how did you go about approaching Gaylor chap and his His son is Trevor, right, Yeah, Trevor the superintendent about the idea of getting starting to get some work done at Northwood. I mean you're a high schooler. Yeah, like this is I think this is like kind of the amazing part of the story.

01:46:59
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I guess I basically just kind of started doodling and just drawing stuff and thinking about what could you do. I just went out there and I had been asking them for history stuff already, and I first thing I did, I gave them the map of the course of what it used to be. Kind of like I guess in my head it was getting them interested because, like you, I'm sure you've realized that not many people out there are there for the history, but I wanted to kind of show them how like special it was. And they knew it was special, but I wanted to help visualize. And then they're like, yeah, we've always wanted to do something, but we've never really gotten around to it. And I'm like, well, why don't we do it? So I kind of just I went out there with Trevor and I. We went out with spray paint and outlined the bunkers, which is so easy.

01:47:38
Speaker 1: Because you just all of them.

01:47:40
Speaker 3: I think about seven. We did two on number two, and then the fairways on number five, and then some of the other ones on six, so we've found a few in The ones on four were ridiculous. I really wanted to do four, but there was There's two issues that two green side bunkers. The one on the right faces directly to the houses across the street. They're like fifteen twenty yards away, so those are gonna get pummeled by people thinning out there. And that bunker was like ten feet deep originally, and I'm like and they're like that that one's gonna be two penal. I'm like, okay, I get it. And then the one on the left is a little shower shower, but I wanted to put there like there's a tree of bay tree hanging over it's just gonna dump leaves into it all the time. But in a storm a few weeks ago, the tree fell down. So now I'm like, let's do that one. But anyway back to the original one. So I narrowed it down to the little you know, the little one in the fairway on number one, and then then the number six I did. I said, the one on number one I was thinking about because that one's even like simpler there, and he was already having a drain there, because we didn't want to have to tear up the whole fairway to do it. Like they already had a drain there because it's such a low spot and would fill up with water otherwise. But I proposed those two and I got and Trevor and Gaylord were into it. They had started and they were really interested in the history. So I just went on a zoom call with the board of all the stakeholders, and I kind of, I think there's a bunch of owners. So when the so Gaylord's father, when he bought it in nineteen seventy, he bought it from the company. He bought it and it was in horrordo ship. There was no grass on the greens. It was like dirt greens, like nineteen hundred Victorian golf. There was no grass. And then they were able to kind of fix it together. But he bought it with a bunch of other people and they still own steak in the course, So there's like I think there was like four or five different stakeholders. But I ended up I pitched it to the board. I showed them, I gave them like some measurements and stuff volume and rough pricing, and we were able to get it approved and sad, but it was interesting to said the price wasn't an issue, And I'm like, okay.

01:49:47
Speaker 1: Roughly, if you if you don't mind giving us a ballpark, like you put one. So you put one bunker back? What did what did that that cost out to? Did you have to rend equipment? How did you know? The other thing is I assume you've never built a bunker before.

01:50:04
Speaker 3: I actually I have in my backyard.

01:50:06
Speaker 1: Okaually not really tell us about the backyard bunker.

01:50:11
Speaker 3: So my backyard I have like a little twenty twenty five yard lawn and I'm like, and well, it wasn't really like maintained, so I just put a One day, I put a pot in the ground to use a golf This was like years ago, and I started mowing it like a golf course, just like taking the regulation off of the lawn mower and dropping it down like a mowed at green height, just just scalping the lawn. And then eventually I actually got it. You can kind of put on it's like a fair way. And then I and then my dad cut down this tree and he was taking out the stump, so I just kept digging below the stump and made it a bunker. Handed him, Yeah, with a pig and shovel.

01:50:46
Speaker 1: Oh, it's awful. I built one bunker that way.

01:50:50
Speaker 3: Well there was some of that at Northwood too, but yeah, so I did that. We actually there's actually like they're like little tiny bunkers, like maybe eight feet by three feet. You can take a swing out of it because they're pretty level, but I did. There's two of them. There's one that's like a pot bunker and there's like a shallower one. But yeah, so I guess I had a little bit of experience with that. And then at Northwood. I had to move a lot less dirt because it was already there. We just had to kind of dig down for drainage and like doing some finger pipes just to get that down. But so we already had the He had the excavator on site because they're always doing work out there, trying to fix tea boxes and whatnot. But so we had the excavator already, and then after I had to outlined, he just kind of took away the stuff in the middle, just the grass. We went out there with a sawd cutter cut out all the grass, and then I got in there with a pick and kind of defined where I wanted the edge to be exactly, and I kept doing that as he kept excavating, and then we just kind of went about it. We did tarp, and then we wanted to do better belly better. We couldn't get that because they only do like large amounts also just be ridiculously expensive. So we did that, put the gravel and the pipe, and got the drainage in. So overall I think it costs around like a little less than five thousand dollars, between four and five thousand dollars because it was all all in house.

01:52:13
Speaker 1: What in terms of of what you what you you found sand too.

01:52:20
Speaker 3: Right, yes, Yeah, So after we scalped and then he took a I think we only took out about a foot of dirt in the bunker because it's just like accumulating over time to get it to be below grade a little bit. And then so we started finding sand.

01:52:36
Speaker 1: And that means you're right in the right spot.

01:52:38
Speaker 3: That's what I was like, we see, I mean, it would pretty be it would be pretty hard to deny that it wasn't here, But now we got physical evidence, which is pretty funny. And then kind of it was kind of harder to find like the upper edge because there's less sand there initially, so I kind of had to just what's interesting is that the picture that I'm sure that you know about about six is not actually of that bunker because there's six different bunkers on that hole.

01:53:04
Speaker 1: Originally, so awesome, So yours was not one of the ones in the picture.

01:53:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the ones in the picture, there's the left bunker on the left green side, right green side, one like twenty five yard short, which is the one in the front of the picture, and then mine is like twenty yards behind that Okay, it's actually a really interesting strategic hole without that if that tree that was hanging over wasn't there, because like the farther left you go, you have to carry more bunkers and it's you have a side hill.

01:53:29
Speaker 2: Lie.

01:53:29
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, if you go the right, which shows two really deep bunkers which aren't in play anymore because the tree got so big, obviously they're not there, but they would have been perfect to hit a carry over that to the right side and then you have a good angle. But it kind of is on the ridge, so it does give some blindness, which is kind of why I wanted to do it, because it's Arry McKenzie esk in that sense.

01:53:49
Speaker 1: Do you do you have like goals of trying to do more and what are those conversations like and like how you know, I imagine, so you're in school, you're in San Luis, Obispo, so you're ways away. Is this what you're hoping your summer project is or something?

01:54:11
Speaker 3: Well, this summer I actually have something lined up. I'm going to be working back. Well, actually I got into golf architecture, actually into the field, kind of getting more hands on at lake. Mr said with Gil Hans there. I would send an email to the superintendent and was able to get out there and watch that. But I'm going to be working there as the assistant superintendent summer.

01:54:28
Speaker 1: Awesome. What are you and what are you formally studying.

01:54:32
Speaker 3: I'm studying landscape architecture down here, so just the standard degree to get into the most golf architecto to get into it.

01:54:42
Speaker 1: It's amazing. So do you do you have goals of doing more at Northwood?

01:54:47
Speaker 3: I definitely, definitely. There's actually a talk about because the one hundredth anniversary is coming up twenty eight so Gaylord was talking about redoing the Ninth Green because everyone hates it because it's such a severe slope, and I'm like, I want it to be done right. I don't want it to get bought. So I'm like, if you're doing something, I'm going to be there watching what's happening, because I think I probably know the most about the history of design at least, and I the Ninth Green used to be crazy too. It used to have these two wings out on the right and left side. There used to be I think three or four bunkers around the green. It used to be really cool. And I'm like, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right. We're not that green seems a little bit like we were talking about earlier, the slope getting too severe, like because the only the only part of the green left is the false front.

01:55:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the.

01:55:39
Speaker 3: Rest of the green got abandoned. Now it's just all false front.

01:55:42
Speaker 1: And so speak stuff on the back parts, right.

01:55:46
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think there's like a bunch of little like weird shapes in the hill in the back, and I'm like, maybe there was some of those scrab bunkers that Mackenzie did, and then in the front there was all these you can see easily. On the left side there is a bunker and banked into like the base of the trees. On the right, I think there was another one. So if we're gonna do what, we need to do it right, because that would be a travesty to have an original Mackenzie green and just do something wrong with it. But I think I think there's a motion to get that done.

01:56:14
Speaker 1: That's that's exciting. That's exciting.

01:56:16
Speaker 3: As a fan, you have to come down, you can come console with the project.

01:56:20
Speaker 1: Well, just let me know, let me know when you're there. It's a. It's a short drive for me, So let me know when you're going to be around and we'll go up and play. I'll bring my hickories. You could play.

01:56:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a match. That'd be fun.

01:56:33
Speaker 1: So hey, thanks so much for coming on. And this was a real joy to chat with you. And congrats on on doing something. I mean, it's unbelievable that what you were able to accomplish at before you left for college.

01:56:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pretty special and now it's a good It got me into a lot of talking to a lot of good people, so super exciting.

01:57:07
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. We will be back next week. We've got a couple more interviews piling in. Big thanks to everybody who's been listening to the new year. We're really excited about this Wednesday release and new schedule, and big thanks to PJ. Clark for editing and producing this podcast. We'll see you next week.