First Impressions of PGA Frisco
PGA Frisco is one of the most important golf-development projects of the past two decades. It consists of two 18-hole golf courses, lighted par-3 and putting courses, an ambitious hotel and retail enterprise, and a new "home" for the PGA of America. In the next 12 years, Frisco will host six PGA majors: two PGA Championships, two Senior PGAs, and two Women's PGAs. Andy visited the complex recently and joins Garrett to discuss everything he saw. The two cover the overall development and partnership between the PGA, Omni Hotels and Resorts, and the city of Frisco, Texas; and they break down the Gil Hanse-designed East course and the Beau Welling-designed West course. There's praise for the PGA's efforts to bring golf to a major metropolitan area as well as critiques of some architectural details and concerns about the cost of the sprawling compound.
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00:00:00 Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in. 00:00:06 Speaker 2: A bride egg, Frida egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg, Bride egg Lie. 00:00:11 Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off the golf course. 00:00:23 Speaker 2: And welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about what the PGA of America is up to in Frisco, Texas. And what it's up to basically is building a massive golf complex that's going to serve not only as a resort but also as the new home of their organization. So far, PGA Frisco has two eighteen hole golf courses, one designed by gil Ants and the other by bo Welling, and these courses will host a number of major championships going forward. In fact, PGA Frisco has already been assigned two Senior PGA Championships, two Women's PGA Championships, and two plain old PGA Championships within the next twelve years. So I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this is one of the most important golf development projects in the past couple of decades. Last week, our own Andy Johnson got to see it all with his own eyes and he's here to talk about it with me. 00:01:33 Speaker 1: Andy. 00:01:33 Speaker 3: How you doing, Garrett, I'm doing great. 00:01:36 Speaker 4: I'm back at home, I'm back in my podcast shed and it's nice. 00:01:42 Speaker 3: To be here. 00:01:43 Speaker 4: And you know, I think one thing that you left off that's important aspect of Frisco is that they also have a short course, a ten hole short course that it was co designed by Bo and Gil and then a massive putting cores that one of the neat things I think just in general, is a free, free amenity for anybody, So anybody going by can go use the putting course and no charge. So besides the championship two championship golf courses they built, they also added some other, you know, smaller amenities and a massive, massive place. And I think the unique thing about this project is that typically this type of you know, resort and golf course project, we're looking at far flung destinations. We're looking at places that you have to you know, trek to. This is a golf course that you can fly into Dallas or if you're in Dallas, you can get too easily. But you can fly into Dallas, one of the busiest airports in the world, and within a matter of twenty five thirty minutes be at the golf course. 00:02:53 Speaker 3: And that's rare. 00:02:55 Speaker 4: And obviously there are some pluses and minuses of that. You know, I think you definitely have some things that you have to concede when you when you. 00:03:05 Speaker 3: Have property in that area. 00:03:07 Speaker 4: But there are a lot of pluses to that in stuff that we don't usually talk with talk about, and we haven't talked about because the most most of the golf development has happened either at private clubs or at resorts that are far away. 00:03:24 Speaker 3: So this is an exciting project. 00:03:26 Speaker 4: And you know, in terms of me since starting this, the fried Egg really like the first one that's like I kind of was like, wow, this is like right in the the hub of a massive area of population, and I think that made a big impact on me over the course of the three or four days that I was there. 00:03:45 Speaker 2: Well, why don't we start with the bigger picture of what this complex is. Aside from the golf courses, the short course, the putting green, the golf elements of it, there's a lot more here than just golf. Right, this is a new headquarters essentially. I know that the PGA of America doesn't want to call it a headquarters. They want to call it a home which is sort of has has a whiff of the PGA tour about it. But in any case, this is like a huge development outside of the golf. So can you just give me, like what the overall picture of this place is. 00:04:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's a huge, huge development. It's got retail aspects to it. It's got a obviously the resort, and it's a partnership with Omni, so there's an there will be a huge Omni resort on site. There will be housing, you know, and this is one of the things that I alluded to earlier. When you're in a major metro area, you're going to have houses that come. So there's housing development, a ton of retail. 00:04:49 Speaker 3: You know. 00:04:50 Speaker 4: The deal was done between the PGA, OMNI and the City of Frisco, So you know, the City of Frisco, I believe owns the land, but it is paid a effectively lease cost every year from the PGA and OMNI. So with it it is a it is a facility that has a lot of things Frisco. Just to give you a little background on Frisco, I mean, for those that don't know, it's like, I think, the second fastest growing city in America over the course of like ten years. It was the fastest growing city when they announced this, And I was guilty, as many others of kind of heckling Frisco, Texas and where it was, and when they announced it, it was pretty far outside of where Frisco had been developed. Fast forward the three four years it takes to build a thirty six holes of golf, and you can see how Frisco is starting to get out to where this facility is. And you know, it's not hard to see that within five years that this will be effectively like right in the hub of a big city. 00:06:05 Speaker 3: That and all for everybody. 00:06:09 Speaker 4: I love that Dallas isn't considered the biggest city in America like Dallas Fort Worth because of like the city aspect, like all. 00:06:16 Speaker 3: Right, yeah, huge, huge, It's insane. 00:06:23 Speaker 4: I like, I couldn't believe I hadn't been there for a few years, you know, I hadn't been there for like five years. And just driving I mean, there are there's so many cranes there's so much going on there and this city is is just getting huge. What and you know, this facility is right next to To give people some context on Frisco, the city is right next to the twelfth. It's a brand new high school. It's their twelfth high school. The Frisco School District massive and one of the cool things it's like this, you know, and this has kind of got me, is one of you know, you've got a high school right next to a world class class golf facility. You know, the high school teams will be able to use the facility. You know, the putting course is free, and that idea of golf around population centers, like, we don't see this a lot. We more often than not, we hear of golf closing around population centers. This is golf being built around a rapidly growing city and there will be kids and lots of programming for juniors around this golf course. And I think that, you know, there is obviously a lot of people here that are making money on this golf and there's going to be it's probably going to be pretty expensive to play if you're a resort guest. But on the flip side, there is good that's being done. From the community aspect, there's you know, uh, you know, big Junior. There will be a big junior program, and obviously they have different facilities with the PGA that will allow kids to get into the game, which I think is a very good aspect of this project. 00:08:00 Speaker 3: Beyond the golf courses. 00:08:02 Speaker 2: So presumably they have there's a lot of buildings involved here, like big clubhouse, like teaching. I assume there's a teaching facility. This is the PGA of America, this is the the golf professionals organization, And so what's that starting to look like? Like what's the style of the buildings, what are they trying to project in terms of like what they're building aside from the golf here. 00:08:25 Speaker 4: It's definitely modern and I think like one of the things is that right now there aren't a lot of homes on the golf courses, but there will be a lot. 00:08:31 Speaker 3: Of homes on the golf courses. 00:08:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's going to be lucrative. 00:08:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, and I know the lots that on Gills Course, the Championship course that are going between one and five million dollars for a lot. But then on the Bowelling course there will be you know, it'll be more affordable housing, and it will you know, you can already see the lots being graded out. So there is a huge, huge hotel being built that's set aside. One of the things that's unique. And I think the difference between this development and the development of the nineties, or say even the PGA's last home in West Palm Beach PGA National. The homes aren't intertwined into the golf course, you know, like if you think about Bayhill, where they get in the golf course, right, these homes are going to be set back from the golf a fair amount. The golf courses were designed, not designed with homes in mind. The golf courses had their land and were built on that land. 00:09:36 Speaker 2: Are the homes kind of around the perimeter like the golf courses have their own footprint. That's what it looks to me from here. You took some drun shots obviously while you were there. From your picture, is what it looks like is you have a block of golf course, right, the holes relate to each other, right, and then there's space around the perimeter where the homes are going to happen. And that seems like a you know where you know, kind of resident golf development is moving a little bit more. Thankfully, we don't have these kind of isolated fairways with homes down both sides, which was the style for you know, a couple of decades and really produce some awful golf courses. This is this is a bit more of a reasonable and golf focused way to go about, you know, residential development. If you have to have homes and this, I guess this is the way to do it. 00:10:24 Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean here's the thing too, right, like who's pouring. Obviously, building a golf in Frisco is super expensive. That's why people don't build golf in like close to population centers. This is a five hundred million dollar project when you consider the hotel and everything involved, right the golf courses, you know, I'm guessing probably I don't know, we're probably you're looking at like probably forty to fifty fifty million dollar build for the golf course alone. But like that's notwithstanding the land, Like the land is the expensive thing here because it is, you know, in a rapidly growing population, so you're going to have to have houses in order to make the money work. So obviously in an idealistic world, there wouldn't be houses there. But if there weren't houses there, we probably wouldn't have have golf there, right, So you know, I think that's a big departure from the way we used to do residential golf and golf is having the golf courses be the golf course. The architects build on the land that they want to build on, maybe, and then. 00:11:31 Speaker 3: The houses get built outside of that. 00:11:34 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:11:35 Speaker 2: All right, Well let's talk about the golf courses themselves. So we have a gill Hants golf course. We have a bow Welling golf course. People listening to this podcast are obviously going to be familiar with Gill Hants. He's best known for his restoration and renovation work at famous championship American golf courses. His portfolio of original designs is not as big as some are architects of his stature, But this is an original design by gil Hans. So let's start with that one. Then we'll get to the bow Welling. This the Hance course is called the Field's Ranch East Course, which is not a name that I'm really going to remember. This is the hands course at PGA Frisco. What are your impressions of this golf course? 00:12:21 Speaker 4: Yeah, so obviously when you think Frisco and you think Dallas, like you don't think topography. I think the first my first kind of reaction to the place was the second hole. First, Sol's very flat. Second hole plays up this big hill and you're like, well, WHOA. I did not expect there to be this kind of topography and land interest here. So you know, is this great land to build a golf course? 00:12:47 Speaker 3: No? 00:12:48 Speaker 4: You know, the soils it is very rocky and that's not easy to move earth around, right. 00:12:54 Speaker 2: But there's not much great land in Texas in general to build golf courses. But there's a whole lot of so. 00:13:01 Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think there's some there's some new projects that are going to be coming online in really that have some pockets of good land in Texas. But you know, in Dallas there's not a ton. But this place has land movement, which I think is very important to you know, tournament golf and creating interesting golf. 00:13:20 Speaker 3: Right. It makes it hard. Whereas like Trinity Forest sits on. 00:13:23 Speaker 4: Top of the landfill, it's got a lot of little micro movement. This has some dramatic movement. I think the property from the bottom has seventy feet seventy five feet of fall from top to bottom, So that gives you an idea, like, you know, most great you know, and I think one of the probably the great courses, none of them have over. 00:13:44 Speaker 3: One hundred feet of fall really for the most part. 00:13:47 Speaker 4: So like you're talking about the right amount of up and down, you there can be too much up and down, and this, you know, it falls in the bracket of right up and down. 00:13:59 Speaker 3: You think tournament golf, right, And I think this is the big thing with. 00:14:03 Speaker 4: The PGA building a golf course for championship golf versus say the USGA, is that this golf course has space. It has wide corridors, It has bunkers that are placed strategically throughout, but there is a lot of space. 00:14:21 Speaker 3: And the space, you know, fairways that. 00:14:23 Speaker 4: Are thirty to forty yards wide as opposed to twenty to thirty makes a big impact for your regular play. And you know, it's hosting, as you said, two PGAs, two women's PGAs, two senior PGAs. But like this is going to be a fun course to play for everybody because there's space and the I think it's a windy place, so there's space off the tee, there are hazards where you want to get your ball to, but then you're hitting into greens that are fairly small. That was one of my big takeaways is that these aren't huge greens. There's a lot variety in sizes. There are big greens, but as a whole, there are a lot of small greens, and they have short grass around and runoff. So that where Gil is choosing to test the elite player is really what on those second shots into greens and around the greens. And the greens though, are fairly muted. They I don't think they're like bold, brash greens. They have tilt, they have character, but they aren't places you're not going to see wild, big undulations. They're providing a lot of pinnable space, and they're you know, they have movement, but they aren't like wild, eccentric greens. They're sure there are a few greens that are like, whoa, that's a really cool green, but for the most part they're kind of more subdued, tilted greens that enforce strategy back based off of the way they sit on the ground. 00:15:54 Speaker 2: So I mentioned this earlier, but Gil Hans's is probably best known for his work at older horses, restoring, renovating, et cetera. He's been a major presence at recent championships because he is so often the architect that you know, vintage clubs will hire to work on their courses, and he continues to do that work. You know, Lake Merced is opening up this year or has opened, I guess already, and the Olympic Club is nearby in San Francisco is undergoing some Gil Hant's work, So he is all over the place still with that. But his original work is interesting to me because I still am trying to figure out what Gil Hans is or who Gil Hants is as an original golf course architect. So some of his projects that he's done that are original designs, Rustic Canyon, you know, fantastic public course in Southern California, Stream Song, Black Hoopy, Match Club, Boston Golf Club, Pinehurst Number four, the Rio Olympic Course, you have Castle Stewart, Caprock Ranch in Nebraska which opened recently, and so you know, there's there's a sample size here, but I'm not sure I quite yet have a sense for who he is as an original golf course architect that we I do for like Corn Crenshaw or Tom Doak, whom I consider sort of Gil Hans's peers in the industry, or even David McLay kidd right who has done some has really put his stamp on what an original kid design looks like. So are there any takeaways from the PGA Frisco Hants course that give you some indications or some you know, new knowledge about what he's going for in his in his original designs. 00:17:42 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:17:43 Speaker 4: I think, you know, I've played a fair amount of Gill's original body of work, and I think the the thing he likes to give people space off the t I think that's that's something that in where the challenge is going to come is coming into second shot. One thing I picked up I've picked up on overtime. I think, you know that is a tangible thing that you can take away with Gil and is definitely a theme at PGA Frisco is the way he likes to approach par fives. With par fives, he really wants to test, you know, the good player and their ability to drive the ball off the tee accurately. 00:18:26 Speaker 3: On par five. 00:18:28 Speaker 4: And he does this through the second shot he builds really bold cross hazards. Often sometimes they're in the form of just big bunkers that cross like a great hazard. Sometimes they're in the form of series of bunkers. They sometimes at Prega Frisco, for example, there's canyons that that cross that really unless I unless you hit a great T shot, you are going to be laying back. You're not going to have that option to blast it from a opportune spot and run it up to sixty yards. You are going to have to make a conscious decision of am I going to try and hit it over said feature or am I going to lay back to oftentimes like one hundred and fifty yards With Gil, I think that's one thing, and I think, you know, I think the hardest thing to design and Tom Doaks talked about this is par fives with because that's where the distance gap is the biggest. That's where good players are hitting driver three hundred plus yards. Average players are hitting drivers, say two hundred and twenty yards, and all of a sudden, then like what do you do right and how do you make it interesting for everyone? So I think that he does a really great job here testing great players with this strategy of par fives. I think Tom Doak and Bill Koorr, they they will use big, bold strategies on occasion, you know, to do that, but I think a lot of times what they like to rely on is contour and where Gill likes to build, build, build things, or create hazards in the way. So I think the drawback to that is for the shorter hitter, oftentimes some of the hardest shots on the golf course are layup shots. Now, it infuses interest, right, it makes you feel like you have to hit a good shot, but it also kind of feels sometimes like you're hitting a par three shot. And you know, I played out there with retro clubs, so I was kind of feeling the brunt of this. 00:20:30 Speaker 2: Right, Well, you've been playing most of your golf with retro clubs lately. Yeah, you've got the seventies. 00:20:38 Speaker 3: Club champion. 00:20:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, you got it. It's got to happen. 00:20:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, for everybody that's listening. 00:20:44 Speaker 4: I enjoy playing the retro clubs, but a lot of it's because like my driver broke and my irons broke, and I just haven't gone and remedied it. But anyways, you know, so I felt the brunt of this, like you're you're standing and you're like I, I don't like any of these options as a layup, Like I don't want to. And I think that's like good because like what players are, like analytics has proven like just get it close as close as possible, and that's something that good players are trying to do on par fives, Like if I can push this up to like thirty yards, I'm going to hit a good pitch shot unless I'm in the wrong spot angle wise right. And I think like the other aspect of this is he does some really interesting stuff with green orientation that that makes you have to when you push up to that thirty yards threshold, you need to be in the right spot. But one of the things that I've picked up and I think this is really true to Hoopye. 00:21:38 Speaker 3: I think it's really true. You know. 00:21:41 Speaker 4: I think if you think about Rustic Canyon, you know this is this is true there for people like he has crossing hazards a lot of times. 00:21:48 Speaker 1: On the par fives. 00:21:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm thinking of that five yeah, yeah, like number six maybe it is, which which is one of my favorite holes on the course where and I think of this almost as a Gilhand template borrowed and adapted from tilling Hast the great hazard hole that you see at courses like you know, pay bethpage Black where and Pine Valley is is some of the original instances of this. Where we're telling has kind of advised on this specific hole. But yeah, summerset and and you have a big hazard going across, as you were sort of describing, that tests your ability to get your get the drive in the fairway, because if you're not in the fairway, you're gonna have a hard time clearing the great hazard on your second shot. But and so gil Hans uses this at a lot of his original courses. But what I think of as a kind of Gilhan's edit to this template is that he'll often concentrate a lot of hazards then in what would be the longer player's landing zone for the second shot, like positioning bunkers right where a longer player might want to set up an easy wedge into into the green, and then he'll orient his green so that they receive those shots really well. He'll use a lot of narrow greens right on par fives. He'll orient those greens kind of toward where those hazards are so that the closer you are to them, the better the pitch shot you'll have. And so this is just these are you know, he kind of combines that great hazard template with those, you know, really well positioned hazards in the pitching zone into the green and it's just a way that he kind of makes it so you can't just kind of blast it up a par five and get an advantage. 00:23:33 Speaker 4: So perfect example at Frisco is the first hole that is effectively a what you just described. There's a series of crossing hazards in a like a kind of like a low creakish area that cross across the front of it, and it's a small green that's tilted severely from left to right. The whole kind of bends a little from left to right, so when you hit, you hit your t shot and then you're presented with a really weird layup. I was saying when I played it, I was standing in the fairway and I was just like, I don't know where I should hit this, Like should I hit it short, right? 00:24:07 Speaker 3: Should I hit it short? Left? 00:24:08 Speaker 4: I hit it short, I hit it long over the creek left, and it was death. I mean I hit a great wedge that stopped on the right edge of the green because it was like, you know, that green's just running away from that bad angle, so if you hit it to the wrong spot, you're gonna have then all of a sudden really and it is a brilliant whole design. I think the one thing is that sometimes it makes those layup shots really arduous for the lesser player because it effectively turns layup shots into like a tough par three shot. And and you're not always hitting those layups from advantageous areas. 00:24:45 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. 00:24:46 Speaker 2: And then and then if you play the layup, say if you're way back going into a green. 00:24:50 Speaker 4: Hundred sometimes one hundred and sixty hundred and eighty yards hitting into a small contracting yeah yeah. So and this is listen, this is the difficult cult tea of designing par fives with the distance gap that's in golf. And this is one of the reasons why you know, when you when you condemn, make the game smaller. This is where a rollback would really help golf architects. I think is like, if you bring this rain distance in and this gap was less, it makes par five so much easier to design because you know Bill and Ben have a template effectively a par five template that we've written about, and what they do is they do everything at the green with contour, and they bait players to go for a green with an empty right side, and they try and they try and defend par with contour. But at the end of the day, you're hitting something up there to the right of the green or left of the green to that safe side, and you have a twenty yard pitch, and you know what Gill's doing is saying, you know, if you're not in position, you're gonna have to lay back to one hundred and sixty or one hundred and fifty yards and hit a full wedge Like everybody's going to take the twenty yard pitch no matter what. That's just the way golf is at this point, Right, is that my chance of hitting like a twenty yard pitch close? And you can do a lot with contour, but it's hard to do that much, right. So I think that's the thing is, like, I think it's a very effective way for championship golf, but to test champion you know, test the best players in the world. So that's one big takeaway from it. I think one thing Gil does do a great job of is a really wide variety of par threes. 00:26:31 Speaker 3: And I think that like you can pick that up. 00:26:33 Speaker 4: I think like working, you see a lot of like influences from different things. And I think obviously like one of the things he works at all these great old clubs, all like classic golf courses, some of the best courses in the world, and you see some influences from around there. And one of the things that all the great old architects really. 00:26:52 Speaker 3: Did well par three variety. 00:26:54 Speaker 4: And I think that's something that you know, Bill and Ben and Tom and do is a you know, a wide range of shots, you know, and you have short par threes out there. You have two short par threes out there, which is rare for tournament golf. Like you know, you think about tournament golf, like where people like to push yardage is in par threes. And you know Bayhill is famous for having four two hundred and twenty yard par threes. 00:27:18 Speaker 3: And yeah, well. 00:27:19 Speaker 2: We'll think about the President's Cup venue that we just saw too, Quail Hollow. I mean, there's just all long power threes exactly. 00:27:25 Speaker 4: So with this one, you're gonna see guys hit wedges and I think that brings me to another point. Gill loves building short holes. What I will say about Gill's short holes is that they have real bite. Like you approach them, you you want to get aggressive, and you want to you can be in great positions and you can still walk away with trouble. And what he does like the short holes, if you hit the shot, you're gonna walk away with a great look at birdie or better. But if you don't hit the shot, then you're gonna be really tough positioned save par. And I think that's like a neat way to do it, especially with when you're looking at major championship golf. A lot of our favorite holes are a hit it or else situation or riviera where like, if you're in the wrong position, all of a sudden, you're gonna feel the pain, right And he did that. Likes there's a nice there's two holes on the front nine, seven and eight, a short part four that's really cool. It's got like an L shaped green and it's drivable and the front left really the all three quarters of the green has this massive false front, but the front right side is right where you want to kind of hit it and from there. It's a great position. I mean, you can hit a wide range of shots into the green, but that green runs really quickly away from you. And that's a really concerning feel for a player hitting a pitch shot right where you know that that can get away from you really easily. And then over the green is death. You know, there's a creak back there. It's a it's a shaved off runoff, and anything just over the green is running away. So you know, hey, if you hit it here, you're gonna have a really easy pitch shot. But that pitch shot all a sudden becomes difficult when you're thinking, like, if I hit this just a bit too. 00:29:16 Speaker 3: Hard, it's going to roll over. 00:29:18 Speaker 4: So you know, the natural inclination is gonna be people even pitch shots a little short, so. 00:29:23 Speaker 3: Really cool hole. 00:29:24 Speaker 4: And then the next hole is a short part three that's got a green that's got a lot of different positions. And if it's in the front, you're looking at a tiny you know, it's enticing. It's one hundred and fifty yards. You know you, oh, I can hit this shot, but you know you're looking at it, you know, little blanket that you got to land the ball on. To get it to hold there. So the seventeenth hole, I mean there there are a lot of cool short for short for short threes, there's two short fors and short threes, both of which are at the back end of nines, which I. 00:29:55 Speaker 3: Think is a neat thing. 00:29:57 Speaker 4: Fifteen is fifteen and seventeen on the back nine, and and uh and seven and eight on the front nine, which which are they just add a little bit of spice to the end of a round when you think about players going off ten and ten and one in the early rounds and then at the end of the end of the tournament, you know, having some scorable holes coming in. 00:30:16 Speaker 2: And they ratchet up the stakes too, because it sounds like there's an opportunity for a great score on those holes, and there's an opportunity for a horrible score. And that just makes things a little bit more tense toward the end of a nine or the end of a round when players really want to make their rounds. 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That's kind of what I've assumed so far, but I'm not sure about that. 00:32:28 Speaker 4: I think they're gonna have a lot of like Texas State stuff in PGA stuff at the bow course. I think the majors are all going to be on Gills course. I think there's like a drastically different style. And obviously when you build a place with two courses, you want each place to have a unique feel. And I think obviously bo and Gil kind of are way different architects. You know, bo Welling comes from the Tom Fazio school. You know, it is a contractor a lot of like you know, manufactured golf courses. Gills is very lay of the land and you see that right away. Like you know, when you look at the two courses, they have different style from from just a build standpoint. Gills obviously they move dirt, but it doesn't look like they moved a lot of dirt just for the you know, for those that you know go out there, Like all the low areas and Gills Course are pretty much manufactured a la stream Song Black, and I had to think that that experience helped them. But like the lower holes are manufactured holes where you get up on on the ridges, those are those are less you know, those are pretty much lay of the land. But one of the things you don't you know, you at Gills Course, everything kind of flows on the land, and when you go over to Bow's Course, there's a little bit more construction up and on the exteriors of holes that kind of containment mounting seeps in a little bit there, especially in the middle of the back nine. The other thing is that Gills property is a better property than Bo's just from a starting out standpoint. And that makes sense if you're gonna have a course that hosts major championships and you're gonna have somebody design a major championship course. You're gonna give them the pick of the litter with the land, so Gills kind of sprawls a little bit more space. 00:34:19 Speaker 3: Bo's is much more compact. 00:34:21 Speaker 4: I think it's gonna be a course that people can get around a little bit quicker because it doesn't take as a take on as much acreage. I think Gills is a little is a better walking course. It's very easy to walk. I walk Gills course. It's nice tea to green transitions. Bo really routed his course around one hill and to go up and down the hill. The tee to greens are a little bit more clunky. But like what makes Bo's course really compelling and why it's worth a play is the greens he built, you know, really eccentric greens, and I think part of the reason he did that was the differenterentiate from Gills. Quieter, more subtle, understated greens. You know at at the West Coast, which is Bow's course, the greens are really built up in some places and wild like they are. They're really fun greens. There are greens that like you're excited to hit shots around. I played it without flags in which was really fun because I was hitting to middles of greens, and sometimes I'd end up with wild putts over big ridges to different spots, and with these greens, you know, that's what's driving the interest. Because half the holes on Bow's course are in a flat floodplain, so they have to take on a lot of water, but the ground contour is not really you know, into like you can't build great natural holes on that land because it's you know, it's flat. So where he ratcheted up is the greens, and you'll see that right away. The first green is kind of like almost like a maiden green. It's a powerful, a short par five that you're hitting into this wild green. The second green is a really cool green that's kind of got a front and a back section. One plays up and then the back section run runs away. The third greens of par three that's just a wild, wild green. I mean, it's got this big kind of tier that runs through it, kind of zigzags through it and has a few other ripples in there. 00:36:22 Speaker 3: So you know. 00:36:23 Speaker 4: The eleventh green there is probably one of my favorite, probably my favorite green on property. It just sits on the land at top of a long part four. So really cool greens that you're gonna want to hit shots around like that, And I think that's smart, Like you build a course that like you you are excited to play a second time because they have the pins change. That being said, I think there are some downsides to the East Course or to the West Course. You know, I'm not sure that the routing was great on it. One of the things that's got a big central hill. When you're not on the flat hill holes, you're playing on this hill, and for the most part, the only only thing you do is you go up and down the hill, and it gets a little redundant, and I, you know, I didn't really pick up on this early because you're playing around. You play up at first on four, and then you play on top of it on five, you play down it on six. On seven, you're back into flat areas, so you play flat flat on seven and eight, and then at that point is where you really kind of start to realize, like and the redundancy gets into the middle of the back nine. So nine plays up the hill, ten plays down the hill, eleven plays up the hill, twelve's on top of the hill, then thirteen plays down, fourteen plays up, fifteen plays down and at that point you're kind of just like, am I just going up and down this thing? And then at that point you're back on the flat land, So like midway in that kind of stretch of you're just like, am I just really going? It felt like it feels like you're doing like if for anybody that skis, like you know, at Colorado you go to Great Mountain, one of the things that's nice is like a long run. But at this golf course, it's like when you go to like a Wisconsin ski hill and you go you spend ten minutes going up the lift, and then you go down for thirty seconds, you know, and you're like, okay, that's you know, So I would have I don't know, you know, I don't know how much was into this routing process. And obviously I'm not an architect. I you know, routing a golf course is really difficult. But I think like some holes that played along the ridges would have been really beneficial here because it, you know, for the most part, you're just playing down and up, and if you could have gotten some holes that played along the ridge with a sidewaist tilt, it would have really stood out and differentiated the hole and obviously, I think that would be hard because it's not a huge site and that would take up a lot of land. But something to change up that middle part where really you're just playing up and down the hill would have been you know, really greatly, greatly improved the flow of the golf course. 00:39:00 Speaker 2: All right, so we've got cool greens, but we've got maybe a slightly clumsy routing and some some questionable shaping perhaps between the fairways. Just looking at pictures of the two course courses from above, you can see a clear difference in the shaping philosophy that was brought to bear on the construction here. You know, you can see how some of the things on Bow's course were built up and how Gills course mostly sits flat to the land. Now this is not to say that Bow was behind every single one of these decisions. I'm sure there were a lot of complex factors at play here, but this is how the courses have turned out. 00:39:43 Speaker 4: It's an interesting thing because if you look at the shaping between holes like one in eighteen, there's another stretch of six and six and eleven it's much more muted, and then all of a sudden in the middle in that closing stretch. They have these buil top mounds, and you have to wonder if it was for spectator purposes for potential tournaments, you know, it it doesn't fit what I think BO had in mind for the golf course. It's it's drastically different, and it is more reminiscent really of the TPC type shaping and mounding that you would get interesting at a course that hosts tournaments and likes to put grandstands in and and has places for spectators because that other shaping. I mean, I have this high high picture and some video of where you see the two courses, and you can see the two different different styles. Within Bo's you see the gills gills shaping, and you see on the top left of it where five and eleven are of Bo's much more understated. I think it would be a much better golf course. It's shared fairway space and then in the middle of that back nine, you know, if you think about a tournament, that's right where you would want to have grandstands. 00:41:00 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:41:00 Speaker 2: This this stadium course concept, yeah, you know, I mean, it's it's the concept that the PGA Tour really really pianeted. So it's almost as if like the a PGA tour course sort of infiltrated Bow's design at that particular moment on the back nine. 00:41:15 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because then all of a sudden, you see this and what it does, like, is it really limited I think his ability to create unique t shots when you're playing up the hill, because you can do bunkers and everything, but everything looks the same. It feels like you're walking into the same room, if that makes sense. If everything on you know, because it's it's closed off, it's walled off, and then it feels like everything kind of funnels to the middle, Whereas like it removes that ability to have expanse and draw people's eye away from things right where you feel like, oh, you know, like it just limits what an archaic tech can do when it's just a closed off room. Like when you think about if you were doing interior design for a kitchen that flows into your living room, right you all of a sudden have all these things that you could blend in together. If it's all walled off, then you're just designing room to room and you lose that cohesive feel. And that's I think the thing that happens on that back nine and I think like one of it limited. He has these really cool greens and in a way it limits when when you have that mounding and everything bowls. What it does is it pushes balls to the center of the fairway and you have cool greens and cool hole like you could have really cool hole designs where you could play to the edge, right, and playing to the edge gets you an advantage to certain pins and other pins. And I think this golf course would be significantly better with half the bunkers that it has, because you know, there are a lot of bunkers on exterior t shot on the holes, and it's like there's native grass already on the exteriors and you have wide fairways, but you're condensed. You're making me play down the middle into the these really cool greens that would be really the most fun to play from the edges, and they're dissuading people in many cases from playing to the edges. I would like to say, I think there's one really there's a really neat hole within, you know, and this is the thing. 00:43:15 Speaker 3: The mounds are one thing. 00:43:16 Speaker 4: They still have some neat holes in those mounding areas, right, It's just it was just a miss overall, but in those mounting holes. The fourteenth hole is a cool long part four and it's done. The T shot has no bunkers. What it has is a big central contour that creates a right and a left half of the bunker right in the left half of a fairway, and then at the green that green has angled really sharply that you want to be over on the right side of this, you know, and it's harder to get to. It's kind of raised up. Left is much easier to hit the T shot too. But if you hit it up on the right side, then you have kind of a clean look into the green. If you hit it up the left, you've got a worse angle, a shallower green to hit a long shot that's uphill into like really cool hole design and neat way that they just did the angled green. 00:44:08 Speaker 3: But that being said, like you know, it's walled off. 00:44:11 Speaker 4: You're you know, it's you're kind of like you don't you're not looking at the hole. You just played thirteen down the hill, which is a really whole cool hole in its own right too, right, Like, it's just it's a shame that that shaping in the middle of the back nine happened, and and and just in general, less less is more when you build really eccentric greens, like the more space you give players, the more fun it is to play into those greens. 00:44:37 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:44:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, it puts the emphasis on the greens instead of the other stuff. So you know what one thread I find interesting here. You know, we have gil Han's and bow Welling right, and so this is this is kind of they're not a new guard of architects, but they're not as much veterans as you know, the Corn Crunchhaws, the Tom Doaks, the Tom Fazzy, the Jack Nicholases, et cetera. And they come from very different trees. As you mentioned earlier, Gil Hants comes from the Renaissance golf design Tom Doak tree. Tom Doak in turn comes from the Pete Die tree, which is the same tree that Corn Crenshaw came from. But then you have a very different tree with Tom Fazio's organization. And some of the architects that have been produced produced by Fazio's firm have been really interesting. Mike Strantz came out of Fazio's firm. Tim Jackson and god sorry, David Kahn came out of Fazio's firm, and they are doing really interesting work that's very different from the work that architects who are coming from Gill's firm are doing, or from Doak's you know organization, and so you have these different influences. Bo Welling is was a Fasio guy, but it seems it's like the Fasio people have to sort of adjust in this new landscape of golf course architecture because they sense that although Tom Fazio continues to get a lot of work, he is falling somewhat out of favor right among golfers and especially golf course architecture hardcore fans. And so it seems like these Fasio graduates have had to make slight adjustments, They've had to change their philosophy a little bit. But there's still that kind of Fazio thing going on with Jackson and Kahn, certainly with Mike Strantz's work before he passed away sadly, and now we have bo Welling. So how do you think bo Welling is absorbing that Fasio influence or applying that Fasio influence but then putting a different spin on it to make it something that's going to be kind of popular. Among golf golfers and golf developers. Now is he kind of changing? 00:47:01 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:47:02 Speaker 4: I think if if you talk to people intimate with Fazio, they they always talk about how he handled business. And I think that was, like, you know, from a from a running of a golf architecture business standpoint, he was really the gold standard. 00:47:18 Speaker 3: And I think like that is a really good basis. 00:47:20 Speaker 4: Like if you if you're coming up from Bill, Bill and Ben or Tom, like you're gonna know how to build a golf course, you know, I like the design build type of thing, and you're gonna you know, I think one of the things you'll you'll understand is how to drain golf without reliance of catch basins. That would be a big thing. And tying things in tying things into your natural environment. I think like stylistically, you know, if you were gonna say, hey, what are the pros and cons, Like say you're making a college decision, Like you know, what are the pros and cons of going to each of these schools? 00:47:54 Speaker 3: Right? 00:47:54 Speaker 4: I think like if you look at the the Tom Fazio school, You're you're gonna learn how to run projects really well. Like that's going to be like the basis like you're going to see, you know, what you do how you build a business of scale business up to to to build multiple court like lots of projects on a yearly basis and deal with all the inner workings of building a project. I think if you good went with like the Bend Bill Gill route, you're going to learn really stylistically how to build a beautiful golf course, right. And I think that where what we see with these new age like I think Jackson Con is a good example of people that have learned the business side of it with Tom Fazio, but also bring their own style to it, and they do their style differently. They're they use contractors. It's not design build, but they have like really interesting style from their standpoint. They build and they manufacture that style. It's not we are using the natural environment. They create natural environments by building huge stuff like it's stale national. They built eighty foot mountains that look real, you know, and they've created this environment. 00:49:07 Speaker 3: I think Bo. 00:49:08 Speaker 4: I think what Bo's doing is that he's got the fasio business side and then he's trying to trying to build a golf course from a strategic and you know, design perspective that Bill, Ben, Tom and Gil would build. The problem is that he I don't you know, and I haven't seen a ton of Bow's work. This is I want to preface this with just based off of really Frisco East and pictures I've seen of other projects, it just doesn't seem like the construction matches up with the you know, like there's there's a missing elegance. And then also like strategically, I think some of the holes are hampered by the bunker right, bunker left, or you know, a bunker. You know, a lot of those holes just don't need bunkers, and there's bunkers there because it's almost like, well, well we have to put bunkers here. You know, there's almost like a the ideas right, but the executions just not quite there. 00:50:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:50:09 Speaker 2: Interesting. And then of course bo Welling has done work with Tiger Woods. He is I think the way to put it would be that he is the principle of TGR design. He is the head architect. I don't know exactly what their workflow is. I assume that Tiger is involved in the way that you know, Jack Nicholas is involved in his projects, but bo Welling is the architect for those and two examples that are probably well known among the general public would be Blue Jack National and Pains Valley at Big Cedar Lodge. And what I see in those courses, and maybe this is a kind of tiger Wood's choice, what I see in those courses is an Augusta National influence in the esthetics for sure, but not the Augusta National of the nineteen thirties, not the Mackenzie Augusta National. We're talking more about the Augusta National of the eighties and nineties, the Augusta National basically that the Tiger Woods won his first Masters on and that's what I see them trying to do in some of their work. But I'm not sure how those courses match up strategically with Augusta National, either past or present. But that's just something that I noticed, Like they do the bunkers the same way as Augusta National has had them for the past number of years. 00:51:26 Speaker 4: For instance, I really enjoyed Blue Jack National. I thought that was a good golf course. 00:51:31 Speaker 3: It looks cool. 00:51:32 Speaker 4: Yeah, one of the things with it, I don't think stylistically it's great. I think that it would be better with a different style aesthetic. 00:51:42 Speaker 1: Like shaping in terms of shaping. Yeah, okay, I. 00:51:44 Speaker 4: Think the thing that is great that is also like underscores blue Jack National as they used to Bill Kore and Ben Crenshaw routing. 00:51:54 Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I didn't know that. 00:51:56 Speaker 4: Yeah, so there was a so that was a Core Crenshaw routed. I can't remember, you know, it's been years since I was there, but it was either an existing core Crunchhaw course or an existing core Crunchhaw. 00:52:10 Speaker 3: Routing that they use and then they built the course. 00:52:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, all right. Well, in any case, bo Welling is an architect to watch. 00:52:19 Speaker 1: He is. He is up, up and coming. You know, he's not. 00:52:22 Speaker 3: Super young course new course at Kiwa. He's building there. 00:52:26 Speaker 2: There's going to be some bowelling projects and the fact that he is associated with Tiger Woods means that he's going to be able to have a lot of influence on on some higher profile projects uh in future years, and he's somebody to keep an eye on. 00:52:41 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:52:42 Speaker 2: And this course is yeah, I mean it's one of the first really high profile examples of his original architecture that people are going to be able to see. So in that sense, at least, it's it's going to be interesting. All right, Well, so like. 00:52:55 Speaker 1: Taking a. 00:52:57 Speaker 2: You know, very high level view of PGA Frisco. What is the PGA of America doing here? You know, just in general? How what what is the strategic move that they're making here? What is the big swing that they're taking? And do you think that other golf organizations need to learn something from it and maybe do something similar? 00:53:22 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:53:22 Speaker 4: I think, I mean in a way it's different, but I would liken it to the to the PGA Tour having TPC Sawgrass, right yeah, you know, and they have two courses there and it's just a it's wonderful to have and you know, you see the USGA doing this with their anchor sites, but it's wonderful to have golf courses that you own that could be regular championship places. 00:53:45 Speaker 3: Right at the bear at the very least. Right. 00:53:48 Speaker 4: It also gives them a great place to have programs run from it, because the PGA is so much about instruction and PGA you know, members, and that's not in you know, you have the junior PGA stuff, and it gives them a place to do that. I mean, it's a it's an easy place to get to for people, right Dallas is one of the easiest places to get to from anywhere in the country, and I think that's a big part of it, is that this is a place that's easy to get to. They have a course that can host a wide array of championships. I think that that Guild Course is going to be a really, really fun championship golf course. It's got flow, it's got you know, it's got stretches of hard holes, it has stretches of scorable holes. And when the wind kicks up, especially like May when you're having PGA's out there, it's gonna be windy. It could be wet, that's gonna kill a lot of rain. But when it's windy, you know, those targets are going to be really small. You know, there's there's space, but then those small greens will become very difficult to hit irons into and wind. So I think just in general, I don't know how many of these were going to have right where you're going to see a massive golf development within you know, a city like this just not something that's going to be very a regular occurrence in the time of age that we're in, like land Costs alone or so, you know, constricting. But like where you're seeing this urban sprawl like this, this growth, you know, this is a golf course that's going to be a fabric of a new community, right, this is a new city effectively, And this golf course, much like the twenties, was built on the outskirts of town. But it's only a matter of time before the golf course is surrounded by town. And it's almost like, you know, it's twenty twenty two. It's almost like it's nineteen twenty two in a way with this golf development. And obviously there wouldn't be the commercialization with the resort and everything, but the houses are going to come and it's going to be just like those types of golf courses. And I think that's that should be applauded, that the idea of that this course will be available to high school teams. It will be you know, the putting course being free, like that's a great activity for pair in the area to bring their kids to go do at night. It's lighted, you know. The short course I think is going to be fairly low cost. I don't know what. 00:56:07 Speaker 3: They haven't set the greens fees. 00:56:09 Speaker 4: Yet, but I saw I heard had heard on site anywhere from twenty to fifty bucks. If it's twenty bucks for kids, Like, that's a great activity to go do with your kids, right, Like I hate I hate the phrase grow the game, Like I hate it. 00:56:24 Speaker 1: Well, don't use it though, Let's come up with something else. 00:56:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. 00:56:27 Speaker 4: But when you think about, like how do you get make golf more popular? You make it super convenient and close to population centers, and you know, like if you were going to build out like a modern way to get somebody into into the game of golf, like short courses and putting courses make a ton of sense with restaurants around them so you can take your kids to go eat and then you can go putt Like I mean, this is this makes sense. So like if for a governing body organization to actually build a modern facility that makes sense from a from the standpoint of how would I introduce somebody to the game of golf? Is very it's nice to see, it's refreshing. Like are the golf courses the greatest golf courses in the world? No, Like Gills Course is a very good golf course. Is it the best work he's ever done? I don't know. I wouldn't put I think like I think a Whoopie, Rustic Canyon, Boston Golf Club are better golf courses, but like it's it's a very very good golf course, and I think I really enjoyed playing it and wanted to play it again. And the same ghost for Bo's course. With the greens like they are, they're so worth seeing and there are gonna be greens and you're gonna want to play it again because you're gonna want to see the different pins. Like he built an interesting golf course on a site that wasn't easy, you know, it's. 00:57:49 Speaker 3: Worth worth seeing. It's easy to do that trip. 00:57:52 Speaker 4: Also, if you're traveling right, you know, Dallas is an easy place to go. You can there's other things to do at night if you're going with your family, right, That's that's something that makes sense to me. 00:58:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I know that something that bow Welling is interested in is how to create spaces that transition between the spaces that people occupy in their normal everyday lives and golf spaces. He's really interested in those kind of in between areas, like say a public putting green where somebody can come from where they work or where they live and kind of participate in this intermediate zone between golf course and the outside world. And I think that this is something that needs to be done at a lot of urban golf courses, you know, create these places where people feel comfortable coming in that are that are free even and they can participate in something adjacent to golf. And I just think that's a great service that golf courses can do to heavily populated communities because these spaces where you can kind of go that are outside of your home and outside of your workplace. And for a lot of people these days, home and workplace have become the same thing. We need public places where we can go and hang out and participate in recreation, have chance encounters with other people that I think that's a human need that is not well served by the modern world, and golf can do a much better job of offering those kinds of spaces up to people. Does that make sense That might have gotten a little bit heady. This is what I mean. Academics call these third places. It's not home, it's not work, it's another place. It's like a bowling alley, it's like a mall, it's like a shopping district. Those kinds of spaces are sort of disappearing in the modern world, and people are becoming lonelier as a result. I think golf is really well positioned to create third places that really work for people, you know, And if that's something that Frisco can have an influence on, then great. 01:00:11 Speaker 3: I mean, and this is the thing. 01:00:12 Speaker 4: Frisco has got a lot of amenities that fit this bucket, right. Not every course can have a lighted short course or a lighted putting green, but like a good example would be Winter Park in Florida. Yeah, now they have a putt they have a putting green. There's a big putting green that's not even near the clubhouse that people like walk down the street from the neighborhood to and use with kids. Like, but one of the things they have that everybody could have. They just have a nice lighted patio and they serve beer. They don't serve food. They have a cooler of beer. And guess what happens. People from the neighborhood walk up there, sit down and sit on the nice lighted patio and have beers and they're looking at golf and like, here's the thing, Like people always have, Like, Oh, I don't know if top golf is growing the game of golf, Like you know how silly you sound if you say that. Like the idea of like somebody having a club in their hand for the first time and hitting a ball isn't growing golf right the same way, like if people that don't play golf go to a golf course to sit and just have a beer as the sun goes down and look at look out over the golf course, they're way more. 01:01:22 Speaker 3: Likely to go play golf. 01:01:24 Speaker 4: So golf courses need to be And I think this is like the thing growing up in the nineties and growing up at golf courses in the nineties. Golf courses in the nineties were so mean to kids. Restrictions, you could do this, you could do that, Like kids were just like kind of like unless you're with your parent, you can't be here, Like that was kind of the mentality. And it's like you're here to golf or you're not here. And really, facilities and types of things that promote the idea of welcoming people in whether they're playing golf or not, and no matter like what skill level they are is super super important. And I think this is a facility that does that. 01:02:06 Speaker 2: So we've said a lot of nice things about PGA Frisco. I want to get to one last point, which might be a common critique of this development, and that's that it's obviously very expensive. They spend a lot of money on this, and this is an organization that has among its membership a lot of professionals who are struggling, who are not making very much money, and who are working really, really long hours. And so is that an optics problem? Do you think with pg at Frisco, this kind of glitzy, pricey facility that's made by an organization that has members who, many of whom aren't doing particularly well in their professional lives. Or is that kind of missing the point of it? What do you make of that? 01:03:00 Speaker 4: Interesting question? And it's a philosophical question, and uh, you know, in a way it gets to the root of like a lot of issues in the country as well. Right, you know, like you could take take golf out of this and you'd find like a similar thing. Right, I think like overall when you when you look at it in a vacuum, right, is like the things that it provides the PGA are very good you know, can the PGA only do things with their members in mind? 01:03:31 Speaker 3: Right? 01:03:32 Speaker 4: Is that that's a question I would ask you know, obviously the membership is like the big thing with them, but do they have a greater responsibility to the game of golf. If PGA Frisco takes off and it becomes very popular in terms of like you know, getting kids and other people into like non traditional golfers into the game of golf, you could then make the argument that that's driving value back to every PGA member because more people playing golf is going to ease the difficulty of their jobs, because more people playing golf means more money in golf and more opportunities in golf. 01:04:08 Speaker 3: Right, you could spend it that way. 01:04:10 Speaker 4: The other way you could spend it is like would they would they have been better, you know, with a better use of this money have gone to X Y Z bonuses these things right now? 01:04:21 Speaker 3: Like I don't know, I. 01:04:23 Speaker 4: Mean this is this is obviously like if you if you just changed around the terminology of these things, you're getting to the deep rooted political issues of our country. 01:04:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, economic, social, and political. For for sure. Golf is not separate from those as much as sometimes people might like to pretend to that, but I think that the hope here that the PGA of America has how you know, Jim Richardson or somebody might respond to this this question or this critique, is that he would probably say, this is a facility for PGA members. This is this is for them, and you know, if it makes a great deal of money, then that just makes the organization stronger and benefits the membership in that way. I think that's the hope. You know, that somebody much much smarter than me can answer the question of whether that's likely to happen here, whether there's going to be a significant return on investment. But it seems like from your description of it that they're making a lot of smart moves with it, so at the very least, it's going to be a really interesting place to visit. 01:05:27 Speaker 4: One last thing, if anybody's like, you know, think about when to go play it. 01:05:32 Speaker 3: My advice they have Bermuda grass. 01:05:36 Speaker 4: I think this place would be extraordinarily fun, like early December when the Bermuda's gone dormant. Yeah, and that I mean, it would be flying out there and it would be a really if you know, I think that's kind of still like a low rainfall month for them. 01:05:57 Speaker 3: You want to kind of paste it out. 01:05:59 Speaker 4: You could get you might had some cold days, but like that place when it's dormant, is going and infirm and hasn't rained, is going to be a racetrack. And that's I think that the Grand Me team, it's grown in really well. It's in phenomenal like unlike a lot of courses, that place that had a long growing period. Like the day it opens, it's going to be in good shape, you're not going to be It's not going to be like well, I wish I would have waited a year to play that, because you know the the you know whoever's opening the course wanted to open the course as soon as possible. You see that at clubs with with renovations. You see that at at resorts. Is like the idea, open as fast as possible to get that get the revenue driving in. This one had a long growing period. The course is in phenomenal shape. Roger Meyer, the superintendent, did an awesome job. 01:06:45 Speaker 3: His team is really good. 01:06:47 Speaker 4: And I if I was planning a trip down there, I would go early December and see it when it's dormant and. 01:06:55 Speaker 3: Just see that ball, That ball will just fly around there, all right. 01:06:59 Speaker 1: Sounds cool. Thank you Andy. 01:07:11 Speaker 2: This episode of the Frida Egg Podcast was edited by Meg Atkins. 01:07:15 Speaker 1: Thank you Meg. 01:07:17 Speaker 2: A quick plug here for the Frida Egg pro shop. This is at proshop dot Thefrida Egg dot com. And this is a direct quote from Andy just now when he was telling me what to mention. He says, we have stuff, and indeed this pro shop has stuff, including some fall themed and winter themed items that you can find your long sleeved polos, you can find layers, you can find winter hats, and so if you're looking for something for the cold bumps that are approaching, then go to pro shop dot Thefrida Egg dot com and check out what we have. It's a great way to support what we're doing at the Frida Egg Podcast. Thanks for listening and we will see you again soon.