Geoff Shackelford on Rustic Canyon, Municipal Golf, and Photography

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Speaker 1: This episode of the Frida Egg Podcast is brought to you by Zero Restriction. It's spring in Chicago and Zero Restrictions gear is a necessity, especially if you're playing early morning golf. I am particularly fond of their Z five hundred quarter zip vest, which is the perfect layering option for early morning Purchase yours on Zero Restriction dot com or in your local golf shop, and if they don't have it, tell them they should get it. Welcome back to part two of our conversation with Jeff Shackelford. If you miss part one, be sure to check it out. In this episode, we talk about Jeff gil Hans and Jim Wagner's design of Rustic Canyon Municipal Golf, the importance of Superintendent Drone photography, and much more so. Without further ado, here's Jeff Shackleford. I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

00:00:54
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in arid Egg.

00:00:57
Speaker 3: Friday Egg coded Frida Egg Frida Egg Frida egg Bride Egg Lie.

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Speaker 4: I'm about ready to run off the golf course.

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Speaker 2: MM. So I'm gonna change gears.

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Speaker 1: I spent some time in LA recently, and uh, I used.

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Speaker 2: To live in l A.

00:01:41
Speaker 1: A lot of people knew that, but it was a way earlier life and it's it's so funny. I used to play play like all my weekend golf at at Rustic Canyon, which you were a co designer of, and you know, I was at a point in my life where I was probably the furthest out of my golf architecture appreciation that I'd ever been. But at the same time, I knew that was the place I wanted to play golf. After playing a few other places like that, I'm going to play Rustic Canyon pretty much anytime I have, you know, a weekend free. So I'd love to hear a little bit about it. I mean, I going back, I was just blown away. One of the best public golf courses and golf experiences for that anybody can have anywhere. And you know that includes all the high priced places.

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Speaker 2: In this one.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can go play for thirty bucks on a weekday and walk, which is unbelievable. So tell me about the project. You know, how did it come about originally? And if you can put us like back in what where you and and Gil Hans who was a co designer, and Jim Wagner were in your careers.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think when I did the I was working on the Golden Age of Golf Design book and I went back to Philadelphia and I had been in touch with Gil via email, just kind of on AOL mail. Yeah, well he was punch Bowl b w L because I guess Bowl was taken. So we had been in touch, and I went back to research at Pine Valley in different places, and he had said, you know, if a project ever comes up and you'd like to work together, you know, let me know. I'd love to do something. And so this piece of property in Ventura County that the county had they were looking to develop, and amazingly, at the time, they're just there weren't a lot of people interested.

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Speaker 4: In in.

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Speaker 3: Developing a golf course with the restrictions that you would have on a county on land a long term lease and having to keep I believe the language is keeping the green fee affordable or within a certain number that's in line with other county courses. So that's why the green fee's never really gone way way up. But I don't think there's an actual number that specifies.

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Speaker 4: What it could be.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, so that turns some people off. And this the one guy who was interested and had some backing. My dad worked with at American Golf, and he was, you know, asking us what who would be a good architect, and we mentioned Gil, and you know that I might do something with Gil. And so so I went out looked at the site and of course, you know, I'm driving around and all I I see a sand in the places where there's some exposed areas, and I'm seeing these undulations, and I'm seeing this corridor right through the middle that obviously you would not touch because it was sensitive and a natural waterway in extreme situations. But then on the sides of that, you had this area that had been grazed by cattle, so it had lost its really great native grasses and really sensitive plant material that you could you could build on. And so I told Gil, it's you know, it's off the charts amazing. And then there was another developer wanting to do a course with Bob Cupp in the area, and the late Bob Cup went out there and I thought it was too flat for golf, thankfully, so they built on the side of a mountain at Tierrahatta, and so it then kind of actually we did convince him to hire us the developer, and then I got to spend a lot of time working on the routing and going to a lot of the meetings locally, and I probably made them nervous a few times. But you know, I really pushed back hard with a few of the environmentalists who were concerned about it, because I was trying to They just didn't understand and or they didn't believe. And I understood why, because if you saw the crap built around here, you wouldn't blame him either. That we literally intended to mow down the corridors of most of the holes, and we literally had two green complexes that we would have to one we'd have to create the eighth toll, and one we would have to take out two very or three very sensitive walnuts that were protected and otherwise we were literally keeping what you saw. They just didn't believe it, and I don't blame them.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, they they've.

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Speaker 3: Seen things built with mounds and blinding bunkers. So but anyway, so we we eventually convinced them to let us build a course there, and that's kind of how it came about, and then I did I did a routing and then eventually you know, Gill and Jim came out and uh we uh we changed the back nine is is uh is pretty much identical to what I routed the front. Gill had some some really cool ideas and that that changed. I can't even remember now what we were stuck on, but uh where where we you know, because there's always places in a routing where you're just stuck, where there's just something not quite you're trying to get from one point to the other. I think it was over on six and seven because of the environmental issues and that was really about it. So it kind of came about that way. And then it was low budget, and but it could have been lower budget if we hadn't had a contruct superintendent who insisted on the concrete car paths and that was four hundred thousand or four point fifty and just did dreadful damage to some beautiful areas. And the other costs that you look at now is it's regrettable, was that we built California greens and if you go out there still the greens are just still not as healthy as the surrounds, and the surrounds were built out of the native soil and they're still primarily beckgrass, whereas the greens are primarily poa, And you know, it was quite site. It's still quite a sight to see how healthy those surrounds are built out of the native soil. The only probably the only one we probably would have taken the soil out and replaced it with more of the local or the native kind of sand that's on most of the property is at the thirteenth that was a little more clay.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, to me, it it kind of embodies it. I mean, it was an early minimalist golf course and probably one of the really one of the first in this reborn you know era that we're in of like, and it's actually true minimalism out there, like everything is so lay of the land. You can the slope of the canyon is very consistent throughout, and then the holes are just routed to very your way around the the that consistent slope in different ways. And the thing, one of the things it stood out to me is just how how simple the strategy is, but how brilliant it is. And that's you know, the way you kind of feel at all the great golf courses.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there was no reason to to move things around, and and so that was the fun for me, was trying to just go out.

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Speaker 4: There and.

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Speaker 3: Stare at at these these things that we're so great the way they were, but how to make them, Yeah, I would just work a little bit better. So there was some strategy. Obviously, certain holes the twelfth Green we kind of had to create as well, and create a strategy for, but a lot of them it was just this simple make sure you reward the drive that flirts with the wash on the right, and penalize the person who bails out from it. I mean, it is really not that complicated. And that's why I think it has that day to day variety and interest and why people are still drawn to it is the more they learn those those elements and learn that, yeah, I hit a great drive down the right side of ten, and I could go forward in two and I could see right.

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Speaker 4: Into the green.

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Speaker 3: And then the day they bail out or they hit a pole and they're over there on the left and the whole plays about thirty yards longer and the view isn't quite as good. That they realize that's they may not totally realize it at the time, but as they play it more and more they realize that's that's all you need for it to be interesting. And then obviously when you have cool features on the ground, you're going to get some great bounces sometimes and some weird bounces and all that kind of The more you play it, the more you get used to that part of it, and then it's you know, just a change in the sport. All the things that have gone on, and then all the education that people are, like you were doing that things that we got early on as feedback now are positives. You know, in the first year or two, I'd always get this, it's such a you know, it's a fun course. And I've told this story many times, and I'd always have to sit there and nod because that was code for you know, it's it's nice, but it's not championship quality. It's not going to host major championships. It's not over seven thousand yards. And now, of course, fun is the word you want to hear, and championship and hard is a turnoff. And a couple of those championship courses in the neighborhood are either defunct literally gone or on their way out, and so that's been a neat thing.

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Speaker 4: And then we got early on, I.

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Speaker 3: Got so many people griping about the routing, and that was one where I just couldn't I couldn't stop. You know, they go, well, you have that long walk from seventeen to eighteen, and there's a long walk from nine to ten, and there's a long walk from twelve to thirteen. And I go, well, first of all, they're not very long walks, and second of all, we got away with the shortest green to tea walks in modern golf.

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Speaker 4: Somehow we got away with them.

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Speaker 3: Having the developer be a little bit kooky allowed us, probably liability wise, to at a time when you had to be one hundred and fifty feet minimum between green and tea. It was a thing, and it may be borne out of some common sense at some places, but most of the modern architects were literally that's how they would design on paper. And rustic was routed as well, here's the great green site, and that's the next place for the tea, and that flow of the round. Other than those three interruptions, which aren't ideal, but they're not the end of the world either. When you know that all there's all these other great short, quick transitions from green to Tea.

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Speaker 1: And where you have those transitions, like the nine to ten walk, you're walking through that beautiful Native.

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Speaker 3: They're beautiful, oh in this time of year, you know, and I mean it's beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you're going to have a long walk, have it be in beautiful areas. And from twelve to thirteen, that's a beautiful walk up that hill.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we love and I love that one because even though it's kind of a dusty road and I get people like all that, but I always loved it because you know, you finished twelve and you kind of come around this corner and even though you've sort of seen that view already on the eleventh, it's just you just kind of come around this corner and boom, there's this this beautiful par five that just sits there and has a great backdrop and a bunker in the middle. Oh. And I used to, oh, my gosh, the early griping about the bunker in the middle of the fairway was it was incredible.

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Speaker 4: I literally had to measure it.

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Speaker 3: I've already I've forgotten the numbers now, but I had to measure the width on each side of the bunker and explain to people, you have the width of two holes here and you're griping about a tiny little pop bunker in the middle that we worked very hard to place. We we actually bought bed sheets at Walmart and put them out there, white sheets, you know, in our homage to Hugh Wilson and some of the old architects. But it worked because the bunker was it was in a really annoying spot. I don't know if it is is annoying now for good players, since they probably carry it pretty pretty easily.

00:15:03
Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 1: The thing about it too is it plays up that hill into the wind so in in that predominant especially when that wind blows that.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's yeah, that's a freak wind when it when it comes into you there. I'm not freaquin, but it's a it's a tough wind that cut down through the canyon and it's it's it's accentuated.

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Speaker 1: And then it's one of the fun one of the most fun greens out out on the golf course too.

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Speaker 3: I think it's the best green gill ever built. It was one that so so the one philosophic area we had a major disagreement. Difference on was on boomerang greens, and Gill and Jim with both mock my love of boomerangs and the whole influence I had from from from growing up playing some George Thomas and Billy Bell greens was it was the boomerang, and Mackenzie too seeing it at Pasa Tempo, even though they had they had shrunk in most of my time playing Cyprus or Pasa Tempo or well any number of places where I got to expose to boomerang shapes or weird little little peninsulas. So they really fought me on that, and I fought them on that because I said, this is the hole for a boomerang, because it's we've got the w you want to design it where you'd really like to come in. And I don't even know if it worked out the way we'd hope, but it worked out fine. And that's, you know, the biggest thing I learned on that project from from Gill and Jim was it things that I thought would work out maybe didn't, but a different idea came out of the of the discussions or out of the way the hole ended up playing that are just as fun, but you know, there's there's just some some things you can control and dictate and some things you can't.

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Speaker 4: But they just fought me, fought me, fought me. They started.

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Speaker 3: Then they tried this, like they said, what about this reverse boomerang? And I'm like, oh, for God's sake. So then finally one day Gil found where I generally in the green site, this little indentation in the ground which is where the green side middle bunker is. And then somehow the light bulb went off that he could use that and build build the boomerang around it. And I literally was gone for a day. I left, and I think within about twenty eight thirty six hours he had built the green exactly as it is now you'd done the shell. It was perfect, there were no changes. There were all these he found, you know, he created a couple of little wacky little hole locations that we hadn't really thought about. That kind of also helped transition from the upper level to the lower and all this cool stuff that was it. I was like, oh, and you know, and I whenever I get the chance, I remind them that, you know, all that resistance was was uh pointless, because I think that that's my favorite green on the course and it came out beautifully and it's amazing. I mean literally that he'd never had he just you know, it just he just built it. It was like a you know, an artist going into the studio and finally figuring out a song and boom and that was it.

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Speaker 4: And the producer went.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't need to we don't need to do another recording of that. That's perfect and so and they've since built I'm pleased to say, some some cool boomerang greens.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a the boomerang green is is something that you see in California a lot.

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Speaker 3: That's it's just a well that was what they would say, they would sell that's a California thing. And I'm like, well, yeah, maybe it is, but it's an interesting thing. Yeah, And then we ended up doing a crazy boomerang on ten at La South that doesn't have a bunker in the middle. It's just a weird, weird shaped green. But that far off from some stuff that McKenzie drew on paper. And we still get mixed reviews on that. We either get that's that's one of the neatest greens I've ever seen in my life. To that what what were what what's going on there?

00:19:13
Speaker 4: What were you doing there?

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Speaker 2: So that's all right, Alyss, it's a reaction.

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Speaker 3: That's that's winning exactly exactly so. And then one last thing that's part of the problem with boomerang greens is they're very hard to build with the modern green construction. And that's why Ben and Bill are able when they've done them, to do them well, because when you have to shell out this core and do all the layers and all that crap with a us GA or California green, it's just very hard to do. It's very hard to create a very small wing and and to make the turns and the whole thing. So that was the other thing that made that green so amazing.

00:19:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, the par fives in general stand out to me out there. It's like very rarely do you know, there's there's obviously there's great short par fours with three and twelve is.

00:20:04
Speaker 2: Such a fun houle.

00:20:05
Speaker 1: But like I always walk off that course thinking about the par fives, and like us, you hit the golfers right off the bat with that first hole is such a cool starting hole and I feel like that was like that is right out of a George Thomas.

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Speaker 2: You know golf hole.

00:20:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I'm having a pretty simple par five or easier par five, although there was a lot of trouble there there still is and then a hard part. Four was definitely from that playbook. And then it just fit. And then everything you see on the first green or the first hole was there the contours. So we basically just added the bunker and we added a bump to the left of the green so that if you bailed out you went forward and two, but you bailed out left, you had this sort of bump to deal with. And everything else the ditch you see was there. I mean literally when I was walking, I have old you know photos, and there was just like this crate or this earthquake fault that was just sitting there, and it's like what we got a bit and the contours of the land just looked like somebody. It looked like an abandoned hole.

00:21:20
Speaker 4: It was that good.

00:21:21
Speaker 3: And even a little path behind the green, even the old dead trees, that was all there, and you know, we just left it.

00:21:27
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:21:28
Speaker 2: Is that how tough was it?

00:21:30
Speaker 1: With with nine and ten being you know best back par five similar land, you know, creating kind of a unique identity. I think ten ten's green is one of my favorite greens anywhere, the way it's pressed up there. But you know, obviously you negotiate your kind of going in the same direction, long hole after long hole.

00:21:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was definitely excited as a as a flaw, and we got around that a couple ways with you know, the developer. We made sure, well, if you ever have to reverse the nines for maintenance or whatever frost and you need to start on ten, you're also starting on a par five. And they were more bothered that you couldn't see the tea right from the pro shop.

00:22:16
Speaker 4: Like, well, you can't have it.

00:22:17
Speaker 3: You can't have a carry over this area and it's a sensitive area. We don't, you know, to get this project to prove we're just not gonna we're not going to carve through this beautiful area because be the area behind the tenth tee is unbelievable. We toyed with trying to pitch you still could do a cool little pitching pot back there. There's just beautiful oaks and anyway, but yeah, so back to back par fives and and really the way we tried to differentiate those nine is strictly lay of the land with a fairway bunker on the second shot that was meant to be blind if you bailed out right off the tee, if you drove it left. I'm not sure it worked as well as I'd hoped. I wish it was there was some I think the t shot needs a little something now that it that it, you know, a pop bunker. We really love the pop bunkers. We that's Gills admitted that was a regret. We probably should have done a few more of those, just because of how much they annoy good players, even though they'll have like fifty yards of fairway and there's a pop bunker the size of their their desk at work, and it just gets in their head. It's hilarious, the one on number two and a few others, these little scratches, and we just love that, you know, because it's it doesn't really hurt people, the average golfer who's out there, but if it gets in their mind, it's great. So we just had decided nine would be straight and then the green literally those contours we actually staked it out. Rodney Hines, who's a superintendent at Boston Golf Club, built those greens. But they were literally excavation projects, and the ninth Green and the eighteenth Green are what was there. We were that goofy about preserving the contours, and then ten the idea was, well that one will have be more of a bending hole. We'll have a hell's half acre in the middle ish, and then that kind of got that kind of got killed as construction went and I was very bummed about that. And then when we had the flood through there, it ended up getting resurrected and accentuated, so it all worked out. And then the tenth Green is a product of many incompetence on a bulldozer. I just went back and forth trying to learn how to use a bulldozer and digging this hole, and it led to all these sort of this sort of teared, staggered mess of a hole. But then Gil just kind of came in and cleaned that up, and that made it work and made the whole locasions work, and then we just had this sort of long green that the more you hug the right side on the t shot and the second shot it's a very if you don't get home, and two is a very easy little pitch up into the green, and the more you bail out left short of the green and away from the green. The more that long green just doesn't fit your eye. You're just coming at it from a weird angle, and it's very hard to tell where the pin is and very hard to run it up. That was really the way we tried to make those two and the ninth that green is more of an aerial pitch into a kind of a green like the eighteenth of Saint Andrew's with a big kind of crater in the front. If you overspin it, you spin it off and you get all sorts of crazy chips.

00:25:44
Speaker 1: That reminds me a little bit of the story of the Mackenzie quote. You know, how do you make a green flat higher the biggest fool in town?

00:25:52
Speaker 2: And how do you make a good green?

00:25:55
Speaker 3: That's really what happened was both ten and twelve twelve. We just had people pile dirt and then I started pushing it around, and that's how we got sort of this roughed out green. And then Gil came and court it out.

00:26:08
Speaker 4: And made again made.

00:26:10
Speaker 3: A whole locations palatable. But and the strategy of that hole was an offshoot of Tana Riviera and trying to reward you for laying out away from the green, so you'd have a nice full length shot you could control into whatever pin and nobody nobody plays it that way, which is hilarious and great to watch. So yeah, those two greens were the village idiot concept and uh and then the eighth green was the only other manufactured, truly manufactured green where we did pile a lot of dirt and then Gil built something and then and then the rest were pretty much just carved out of what was there with with minor modifications.

00:26:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, you talked about the little pot bunker another the other part five to five has that going for it too, with it right in the right where you want to land it.

00:26:59
Speaker 4: Uh.

00:26:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And that's what made that cool little combined faaraway area with the second hal really fun, was just putting those little scratches in there and and it kind of dictates your layup and and then the and then you know, the fifties shot again was another one that.

00:27:16
Speaker 4: Just it was just right there.

00:27:17
Speaker 3: It was a beautiful oak down the left and and hazard down the right, and it just sat there as a nice left to right shape shot and it was about staying out of the way of it.

00:27:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that front nine.

00:27:32
Speaker 1: It's got I kind of was I was thinking about it with it's got a couple of those shared fairways. It's like that part of the you know, if you think about the routing and uh is much more intimate experience, and then you get out to the back and it's the expansive and and I would say more dramatic piece of the property.

00:27:52
Speaker 3: And that was also criticized early on that there was not a consistency throughout the course that with the two nines were too extremely different. And it's like, well, that's what the land gave us.

00:28:07
Speaker 4: One.

00:28:08
Speaker 3: Two, if you've been to great courses, there's there are a lot of places like that. And three it created this build up. And because a lot of the routing started working around the sixteenth hole that I just found that spot and I went, well, gosh, you're gonna want this near the end of the round. You're up high, this beautiful view down the property. It's dramatic. It's this big bowl that's just made for a fun t shot where you just.

00:28:37
Speaker 4: Let it go.

00:28:37
Speaker 3: And and so a lot of the routing worked around that, and it's like, well, gosh.

00:28:43
Speaker 4: I I wanted, you know, you want a course to build up.

00:28:47
Speaker 3: You don't want to peak, yeah, like Spyglass early, you know.

00:28:52
Speaker 4: And people that that may have been the only.

00:28:55
Speaker 3: Way to make that work because trying to get back up the hill had to be really tough there. But it still kind of peaks early. I mean, don't you want to kind of build up and like Cyper's Point and finished by the water. And there are a number of places like that where the anticipation factor I think is huge, you know, seventeenth, the TPC, sawgrass, the finishing holes. There's some of its environmental, some of it is just what we normally expect from any work of art, an album, a movie. You don't want it to to peak early.

00:29:35
Speaker 1: Noah, that'd be uh if, it'd be the best if the if. The best part of uh is to think about sixth cents if you if you found out yeah the end of the movie, right at the beginning of you're like, well what am I doing? I say, then it's just like the little ground cooun tours, like like the like the seventeenth, that little bump in front of the green. There's just like a brilliant little stuff out there that we add Yeah, that.

00:29:57
Speaker 3: One was when we added just to try to kind of feet help feed shots in. We did, we did a few of those, but those were I mean it was literally like taking a pile of a couple of piles from from somewhere else where we had excavated for a green and we had to lose them somewhere. It was like, here's a great little spot and they just look cool when they're they're cut tight with that and again with the bent grass surrounds, I mean it's bent and there's poem and stuff, but they drained so well, they play so firm, and it's just fun.

00:30:27
Speaker 1: It just looks neat Superintendent out there, keeps him so good.

00:30:30
Speaker 2: I mean, he cuts them so tight. It's you know, it.

00:30:33
Speaker 1: Gives you all the shot options. That's the other thing that it does so well is the maintenance of it. You know where they they let it, you know, they let it get brown in the fairways. But then that the approaches are maintained with such a short cut of grass that it allows you to hit all the shots that you'd want to hit.

00:30:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I get that people don't like the transition from the you know it used to be rye grass mixed to those. Now it's permuted. That was they've converted for water reasons, and I know they don't. People don't like the look of that, and I get that. It's it's probably the one thing you wish you could fix because it takes you out of that sense of complete naturalness. It does remind you that there are two kinds of turf grass here. But you know, that's the price you pay for for affordability and a lot of other things. But that was another criticism early on of the course, that you could you could putt from anywhere off the greens.

00:31:34
Speaker 4: I mean, can you imagine that?

00:31:36
Speaker 3: People say, Nobody says that anymore now, but I got that all the time, Like God, you could just you could just hit a bad shot and like putt from anywhere, and I'd go, Yes, that's that's fun, isn't it. They like, Oh, And that was just all product of the time and the golf eye, just mentality of resistances, scoring and all the fundamentals of what people thought of golf course should be and not you know, being ignorant of links, golf or any number of things. So it's I mean, that's that's what we're talking. Two thousand and two, So it's amazing to think. I mean, in a way, it's frustrating. It seems like, well that it took that long for people to figure.

00:32:16
Speaker 4: These things out. But then when you think about it, eh, you.

00:32:18
Speaker 3: Know, seventeen years ago, it's amazing how much people have have changed. And and your your pod with with Will on the National Links Trust really got me thinking I was about to write a column now I'm going to go down a rat hole. But I got to tell you that was a really good pod. First of all, I hope everybody listens to it and if they're still listening to this, and then but you know, we lose patience sometimes with how long it takes people to come around on things.

00:32:50
Speaker 4: And you know, I'm writing.

00:32:52
Speaker 3: A column for Golf Week on Best Page, and my view going into the column was, well, this going to Munie's has been a failure in terms of championships, because this is it. We have Beth Page, Harding Park, Tory Pines one more time, and then Bef Page and then it's over and we're back to country clubs and eight thousand yard new courses. But then I thought about it more after listening to that pod and it was like, well, wait a second, think about where we've come, bef Page, and these things have open people's eyes, and now look at this, we're gonna we have a movement towards, a huge movement towards getting these munies back. And really it's in an amazingly short amount of time when you think about the clock and the calendar. So it's my point in all this rambling is that it it seems like an uphill struggle to convince people of the right things that they'll really enjoy over and over again, but it really doesn't take as long as we think.

00:33:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something that it kind of duptailed into one of the questions I had about Rustic is you know this this was a wildly different you know, it was a return to you the you know you think about California golf. And I was talking to Kayle Goldby about this a few years. He's like everybody in southern California at one point like decided that their beautiful canyon escape like the most beautiful thing about California's aesthetics, that are these canyons bulls and everybody went away from it to artificial ponds and in flower beds and manicured and this rough, rugged look. It was like the soul of the of the landscape. And this this predated all these you know now big restorations of the of the private clubs in the area which have back you know, most of them have embraced this natural look again. And do you think that this was the instrumental in that.

00:34:50
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to.

00:34:51
Speaker 3: It was definitely helpful, for sure, because people went out there and it was so shockingly different, and and.

00:35:00
Speaker 4: It wasn't and it is different.

00:35:02
Speaker 3: It's a different looking place in the sense that there isn't any other place that blends a canyon setting with California style native plant material. But it's not that different. If you've been to Australia, you've really looked at some of the sand belt courses, it has a lot of elements of that and then a lot of elements of lynx. So it is sort of a blend. But around here, as you say, I mean the fake ponds and planting pine trees and every kind of tree imageable that's not native to an area that has amazing native plants, amazing native trees. I mean, you just don't ever need to plant anything on golf courses ere besides oaks and sycamores. They're beautiful. They can survive any drought, they can survive fires, maybe pepper trees, which we had a couple on the site. But there's no reason to resist what we have here. And yet, but it was a California to do, especially a southern California thing to do. It's kind of what has gone on here and a lot of different things. Just people like to reimagine the landscape like somewhere else where most of the people have come from who live here, and now that's changed. There's now a love of embracing what is native to California and it's fantastic and I so, yeah, I think locally it was definitely a big part of that movement. And then there's just also been things going on where either we've had a couple of incentive programs to reduce water and take turf out of play and replace with native material. We've had some laws change on planning non native trees, and then we've just had an overall awareness of the general health of a course can be greater with a little less turf with these native trees. Native this native that because there was a stigma of native that was expensive, and now we've overcome that. Now people realize, well, wait a second, no, pine trees are expensive in like fifteen different ways and create headaches for turf. And so superintendents have become educated on these things as well. And are they're the ones who know how to make you know, the architects sound like artists, you know, being artists making the case. But the superintendent's the one, now who's so good at coming in and going, oh, well, here's the once they got on board, here's the cost case that they can make to golfers, and they get it.

00:37:45
Speaker 1: Now for a word from our sponsors. This episode is powered by td Ameritrade. Great players change the game and ted amor Trades innovations have always been game changing for investors. From being the first brokers to let you trade on your phone to being the first to feature voice trading on Amazon Alexa, td am or Trade has always led the way with breakthrough technology that brings the market to you. Visit tedomritrade dot com slash Frida Egg to learn more. Member SIPC. Now back to Jeff Shackelford.

00:38:18
Speaker 2: I think that's an.

00:38:19
Speaker 1: Important point too, with what you were were talking about with you know the time, and you know people coming around to this idea. Is that also we're you know, the the superintendents today versus you know.

00:38:33
Speaker 2: Twenty years ago, I have huge difference, just a.

00:38:36
Speaker 1: Wealth of more knowledge not only on agronomy and turf conditions, but also the architecture. There's you know, a whole new group of you know superintendents, the young superintendents that have really embraced the architecture and become an extension of and with all the restoration work, you know, they get to be there with the architects, spend time, be part of these projects. It's it's developed the whole new you know breed of maintenance.

00:39:03
Speaker 4: It is.

00:39:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they really are an amazing group in the golf industry.

00:39:08
Speaker 4: When you think about.

00:39:11
Speaker 3: The way they used to view course setup, course design, and then and then the making the case to the people who write the checks, they are they're incredible. And you know, do you look at Jeff at Rust of Canyon, I think he probably thought a lot of the things we wanted to do there were pretty kooky and weird and a lot of superintendent I mean, he was young enough that he adapted and now you know and really embrace it. But it's it's amazing when you think about say two thousand or so or late nineties, when the minimalist types would would try to make the case for these various things, whatever it is playability issue or design ideas or things like the plant material and the agronomics. Uh and the and the and the where you have turf and where you don't have turf and car pass and all that and how much now that that that is the key to the whole thing coming together is having that person who who could carry it out and maintain it but then also help make all those cases for the people who are still skeptical of cost or function. And uh, yeah, it's it's it's been a big part of the movement. And uh and then when you meet one of those those superintendents and you see their passion for the detail and the little stuff, I mean, it is uh, it's contagious and uh uh and gosha. Just when you go to one of those places and you know a lot of people may not recognize those things or if they're pointed out of them, it just takes the whole round and the experience and you're feeling about the place up so many levels.

00:41:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's the superintendents are definitely, without a doubt, the most underappreciated people on golf, because.

00:41:18
Speaker 4: Yeah they are.

00:41:18
Speaker 3: And you know, like when I'm going to these majors, i can't do it at Augusta. But I've just got to keep I keep reminding myself, like You've got to keep telling because because I'm basically the only media person who even knows that they're doing anything and working these hideous hours. But then I'm also you know, going out there and seeing some of the detail work they're doing or some of the stuff they have to deal with because you know, after a rain or something, And just got to keep telling that story because it's a profession that I've started hearing rumblings from a lot of long time superintendents there suddenly they're starting to hit a wall in terms of attracting new, younger talent. That wasn't the case, and that's been a big part of this movement. I'd say in the last fifteen years, that wasn't the case at all. The turf schools were turning out amazing people and talents, and the and the the salaries were going up, and now I'm kind of hearing, you know, all this little these little anecdotal things here and there that that's flatlining or their concerns. And when you see these majors and what they're doing and the work that goes in and the lack of still the lack of notoriety that they're getting, not just superintendent but the people doing the actual work, it's not good. We need we need to let people know. They also just need to know. So when some tour pro wines about something, you know, how much how much better golf course conditioning is on a day to day basis in tournament golf or in regular golf than it's ever been. It's it's off the charts how good it is.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sad that sometimes.

00:43:13
Speaker 3: Frankly, let's be honest.

00:43:14
Speaker 2: The labor thing's crazy to me because.

00:43:19
Speaker 1: I I think about it, it's like a great job for for like if you think about what you do, you spend granted, like you got to get up early.

00:43:31
Speaker 2: It's hard work, but they you get paid very.

00:43:35
Speaker 1: Well as a superintendent, and it's a like a it would be a very fulfilling job, Like you're not sitting in an office you're you're getting to just be outside on the golf course and you get to manage people. But like it is, it would be a great job. I would be a superintendent.

00:43:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're paid well at the great clubs, and as they should be because they probably generally have to deal with some big egos. But yeah, No, there's definitely been a drop off in job satisfaction. And I don't know what those reasons are. There was definitely everything you just checked off was I would say it was safely the case five eight years ago. But for whatever reason the last couple of years, I've started to hear and it just may be that they've gotten so good at what they do that the expectations just keep getting ratcheted up, and that that could be leading to that kind of that leveling off or the stress factor factor for some of them that it's like, come on, people, you know, and I see it all the time.

00:44:43
Speaker 4: I'm sure you see it.

00:44:44
Speaker 3: You hear it in comments when somebody's quibbling about something and I'm I'm thinking, my god, you're complaining about these pola greens. Do you you have no idea what Poe was like fifteen twenty years years ago? I mean I saw a few putts yesterday at Wilshure that did. It's that time of year, you know, It's just it's the time of this is the tough time of year for polar greens. And you can see the players.

00:45:10
Speaker 4: Looking at him.

00:45:11
Speaker 3: It's like, well, you're a little spoiled. You don't understand. You know, they're doing the best they can, but and it just could be that that the expectations have gotten a little bit, a little bit out of control.

00:45:24
Speaker 1: That's I mean, I think every in every aspect of society, the expectations are at an all time high.

00:45:30
Speaker 3: So kind of yeah, yeah, and the expectation that you need to be on call seven days a week. And you know we have, especially here in California, we just have golf courses that are open too much. Brian Curley has talked about this. It drives him nuts. And rankings and when conditioning, you know, every architect gets annoyed when conditioning is held against the course, but especially in California because a lot of times panels will come when you know, they have to verify, they have to do certain things. And you know, recently had a discussion at a course about car pass and and you know you finally had to kind of ask, well, like how many days did you lose because of this? When you lost five days, but you know six days, but you're open. You're open three hundred and fifty a year here. So you know, there is that kind of thing in our world where we probably need to have more golf courses that are just.

00:46:30
Speaker 4: Closed a little bit more.

00:46:31
Speaker 3: Often to give them a break and to give out the people involved the break. And you guys, by the way, to go down another rattle, you almost got into that on the on the Links Trust pod of more of these golf courses needing to have a Saint Andrews kind of day. Yeah, And I think that's a big, big topic in the discussion of saving these munis. That as much as it pains us the idea of people out picnicking on a Sunday and the lost revenue, I think that's going to be a key element in saving some of these places that where the communities are like this is a waste of green space. Well maybe not if it's bring your dog picnic day once once Sunday every month at the local Lions muni or wherever it is. It's one thing I don't understand another rat hole, But I just I that was something you guys were touching on. I thought was really interesting in that pod.

00:47:27
Speaker 1: That's my thing is like the alternative use is like I use this example all the time and people are probably tired of hearing it. But like, my wife is not a big golfer. Recently, we were in Pinehurst and it was like a gray sunday and and I went I went over. I was like, I gotta go to big pines. I gotta take some pictures. I was like, do you want to come? Because they told me that she could come, and our dog could come. Like the fact that our dog come, she wants to come. She comes, walks around the golf course and and she says that she was like that was really nice.

00:48:01
Speaker 2: I'd like to do that more.

00:48:03
Speaker 4: Right.

00:48:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, And by the way, the sun just note to listeners, the sun has continued to rise from the east and said in the west since since your dog was able to walk on that grass, exactly.

00:48:15
Speaker 1: The dog had a great time. You know, you get home, the dog's tired. The dogs had a full day, like and like, meanwhile, I've.

00:48:21
Speaker 3: Got I got a few people even were like it put a smile on their face seeing you guys out with the dog exactly.

00:48:29
Speaker 1: And that's like the thing that it just drives me a little crazy. Like everybody's always worried about like, oh, well, if somebody brings their dog out here, that's not a good dog.

00:48:39
Speaker 2: It's going to ruin it for everybody.

00:48:40
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, if somebody shanks a shot, I might get hit in the head and it might ruin it for everybody too.

00:48:46
Speaker 2: But this that's life, you know.

00:48:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's it's it's it's one of those things where golf is I think it's softening a little bit, but it has been in its own little place that everything it has to be precious in a certain way. And then usually people go to Scotland and they see things like that, or they pay they pay at the bar at fraser Burgh or whatever it is. There's some weird little thing that they're not used to that reminds them that it's kind of bizarre or different or not normal. And then oh, yeah, by the way, it didn't really matter in the big scheme of things, or made the thing the experience better.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is like, now, you know, when when my wife will be like, hey, can you take can you take the dog?

00:49:35
Speaker 2: And I'll be like no, and she's like, that's dumb.

00:49:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like and is this is a complete outsider who you know, would rather be not even go out to the golf course, you know most of the time.

00:49:47
Speaker 2: And right, you know that's dumb that the dog can't come.

00:49:50
Speaker 4: It's just so so simple.

00:49:52
Speaker 3: And I think the place, I guess the two places.

00:49:55
Speaker 4: That would be.

00:49:55
Speaker 3: And you know, people probably already now getting tired of hearing their names, but you hearing their names for a good reason. But I would love to hear now from John Ashworth and goat Hill and the people at Winter Park who have tried to have some diverse programming and I hate that word. It sounds so corporate, but especially goat Hill where they've just tried to do other stuff, concerts and just bring the community in those different ways. If that, and I don't know how you study it, but if that's had an effect on changing people's perception of that of golf or that place in the area, I've got to think it does.

00:50:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so too.

00:50:42
Speaker 1: In another one, you know, Andy Staples did one Rock one Links in New Mexico, ironically. You know, I was talking to my wife's uncle. She keeps coming up, But my wife's uncle is I'd never thought i'd meet somebody from Hobbs in New Mexico and we're having a conversation. I'm like, oh, and he's a casual golfer and he's like, oh, yeah, you know people they have walking trails, public walking trails throughout the golf course. And he's like, people are out there walking around all the time.

00:51:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's been a huge like rustic back to our original conversation. That was a big issue with getting it approved.

00:51:23
Speaker 4: And you know, Gil and I are just.

00:51:25
Speaker 3: Are pulling our hair out because so the road that goes up the right takes you up to Happy Camp Canyon and every day people walk their dogs along that road. I always get a little nervous because there's some big ass.

00:51:39
Speaker 4: Rattle snakes out there.

00:51:41
Speaker 3: It always made me scared that one day I'd see some poor dog get taken out. But so you had bikers, walkers, and yes it was dangerous, you know, Yeah, it was a little scary because a t shot off thirteen could nail somebody. But it was ended up being a huge point and get approved but at the time, the people who were in the golf business were like, we cannot have the public using this road they've used for thirty years to go up for hike for hikes or to go work out, to run, to take their evening walk with the dog.

00:52:14
Speaker 4: We can't have that.

00:52:14
Speaker 3: It's a liability issue. And we were like, well, well, you just kinda have to figure out a way to make this work because it's what you can see. The community wants it. And by the way, I have not heard of any There's not been an incident that I'm aware of. I will double check where anybody's even been hit on that road. And of course it has made people embrace the rest of the canyon more because hell, wait, we didn't get cut off from our normal afternoon you know, taking the bike up and doing a mountain bike ride up and the canyon, and it's it changed the perception of the project and I think it's made people accept the place, even the people who thought, why are you developing this beautiful canyon like this? So these are things that are really important for the golf industry to kind of get And by the way, they wanted to call the place Happy Camp Canyon, golf course for a while.

00:53:09
Speaker 2: Camp might have been a cool name, though I.

00:53:11
Speaker 4: Would not have.

00:53:12
Speaker 3: And they even came up with a logo, and you'll be shocked to know it was a smiley yellow circle face.

00:53:18
Speaker 4: The name came.

00:53:19
Speaker 3: The name came from a canyon here in Santa Monica called rust the Canyon. One day, I was doing the stairs, this obnoxious west side workout thing that's been profiled in the New York Times, and we were struggling with a name. We'd gone around the place with a guy who got paid way too much money to.

00:53:36
Speaker 4: Come up with a name. Oh god, yeah yeah.

00:53:39
Speaker 3: And it was all animals. And you know, I've written the whole thing about this. Animal names don't work. There's no great golf course, there's no dancing rabbit.

00:53:46
Speaker 4: You know.

00:53:47
Speaker 3: He had white Hawk Ranch was what he had settled on. Well, of course there were no white hawks anywhere.

00:53:53
Speaker 2: What about what white Berry Yacht Club.

00:53:56
Speaker 4: That's probably one of the best.

00:53:57
Speaker 3: But see, now, okay, my delineation is it's an animal doing something. Okay, okay, the dancing rabbit, humping moose, you know, all that stuff. Just no animal doing something active. It doesn't work. Uh Anyway, So and one day I was working out and it was really getting depressing because we were close to that was going to be the name. And I'm no, no, no, no, no no, that thank that one got off the list.

00:54:26
Speaker 4: Actually that would have been better. There were I.

00:54:28
Speaker 3: Said, you can't name it after a hawk that doesn't exist in this area. And and then I was standing there huffing and puffing like an idiot, and I look up and there was there's a sign that says, you know, uh something about the canyon and all these rules and regulations and a note of rusta canyon. And I went, oh, god, that'd be a great name. And and then the guy who developed it lived in the Palisades right nearby, and he liked the name, and thank god it stuck.

00:54:58
Speaker 4: But anyway, sorry, you were going to say.

00:55:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're we're on this rabbit hole, you know, this is what it's all about.

00:55:05
Speaker 4: Can I take you down one last rabbit hole?

00:55:07
Speaker 2: One labbit hole? Yeah?

00:55:09
Speaker 3: So the drone shots you got of Rustic we were just stunning. And I have to say, and don't take this the wrong way, because I get this all the time from people about you know, you've gotten really good at television or you know, you've gotten really whatever, and you know you always go, well, oh so that means you thought I was crap for uh, no.

00:55:30
Speaker 2: Offense, I was. I was a brand new, brand new drone pile.

00:55:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've gotten really amazingly good at the drone stuff and you've done what has driven me nuts in watching what television does with drones and and a lot of people, you know, they just want to fly down the middle of that fair way and fast, you know, And that's cool for like a montage opening thing. Whatever gets you excited. But what would you say is the thing? Is it that that has helped you develop your your eye because what you're doing is obviously you're getting up at an hour's that some of us don't want to get up at to get that first light, and you did that, but you're getting you're capturing architecture the way I would hope.

00:56:22
Speaker 4: And so I want to know, and I even want to do this as a separate pod.

00:56:25
Speaker 3: It's fine, but I because it is arouled, I want to know what it is you think has changed that's that's got you. Are you planning out things or is it just seeing more courses and getting a better use of feel for the drune, what is it?

00:56:43
Speaker 1: So you know, a little reversal here, I've got to ask a question. I think, like a like the first thing you can you know, nothing drives me nuts than seeing people profiling a great golf course and and shooting into the middle of the day.

00:56:58
Speaker 4: That's just lazy. It's cool.

00:57:00
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's lazy and almost disrespectful it is. So you know, number one, you know, get the good light and b and then like I think one of the things is is if you have an under it's just like a superintendent with an understanding of architecture is going to you know, get the golf course playing to showcase the architecture. Like my you know, if I write about architecture, like I need to showcase the architecture. And I think a lot of people get a drone and they're like, oh, look how high I can fly?

00:57:33
Speaker 3: But oh yeah, I love that vertical artsy yeah, which sometimes is cool, but.

00:57:38
Speaker 1: There, and it's great for transitions and stuff if you're doing video, But like the soul of it is flying low and showing the contours because that's really as what, as you know, is what makes the golf course and thinking about I think you start to learn. Like I was, I had no experience in photography. I'm I'm color blind. I I didn't know anything about about light. And and then you start to as you do it more and more, you start to understand the light. And then when you're driving somewhere, especially like Rustic I've been before, you start, you know, it's early in the morning, you're driving an hour and you're thinking about like, Okay, what holes are going to be the best early versus what holes are you're going to.

00:58:25
Speaker 2: Have to wait longer.

00:58:26
Speaker 4: So there was planning.

00:58:27
Speaker 1: I mean, you just start to it starts to become like kind of second nature. And then you get the drone up and then one of the beauties of the drone is if you get it up a high early, you can see where everywhere that's getting the great light and you go there and then you see what spots you're gonna have to wait on, and and you kind of plan it out that.

00:58:44
Speaker 2: Way and and I uh, but.

00:58:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of practice though, Like it, it takes a long time to get comfortable with the drone.

00:58:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, what would you say, is the thing.

00:58:56
Speaker 3: That that just time wise, you know, use it, that that you've developed or learned from that. What what is the thing that's that's changed just I think, I mean, is it some of it the technology too, or.

00:59:10
Speaker 1: I think the light understanding light and and so I think where I haven't done a.

00:59:18
Speaker 2: Ton of it.

00:59:19
Speaker 1: I have all this video that I haven't used of, you know, a lot of great places that I'm planning to do a lot more of. And you know, hopefully Rustic will be the next one here. But like is like getting the panning shots where you're able to take some you know, of that green showing the contours at a low angle with the sun coming in is the most magical shot you can show because it you know, it's like I saw David Normoyle was on Eric Lang's one of his vlogs and he had just this unbelievable, you know, two minute thing about why he walks golf courses from the green back m and he's like, if you if you look at a hole from back here. It was him and Dottie Pepper and they're like, if you look a hole from back here, it doesn't look as hard as it does from the tea.

01:00:11
Speaker 2: That's what the architects do so well.

01:00:13
Speaker 1: Right, And he's like so, you know, showcasing the green and then uh, I don't know, you just got to find the cool spots like that. The beauty of a drone is that you can go places that you can't go on foot, right, Like, why would you take a picture from the middle of the fairway with a drone?

01:00:32
Speaker 4: Uh?

01:00:33
Speaker 3: Well, unless you go a little bit up, because what you're doing what you did with these rustic shots that I saw. And then Wilson Wilshire, by the way, there were a lot of nice comments at will Share about your latest stuff there. Thank you is your because I always wanted to get a lift and get about forty to fifty feet up. I just thought that was a sweet spot. It looks to me like that's one of the things you've improved, is you're you're you're up, but you're not too far up. You're come, you've come down a little bit more.

01:01:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a sweet There is like a there's a too high and then there's a too low. Yeah, And it's about finding right you're right, it's I always think it's I think it's about ten to fifteen meters. My thing does meters. I've never switched it defeat. I'm a European drum pilot.

01:01:20
Speaker 3: Clearly, Yes, Yes, the European touch to that, that's it, And I think.

01:01:25
Speaker 2: That's maybe that's it.

01:01:27
Speaker 3: You know, people need to remember, yeah, because they I think they go too high. And then you're also getting what I've noticed and what drives me bonkers about a lot of the TV flyovers is you are starting to get just you're not going way off to the sides, but you're just getting a little off the center line of the hole. And that I think makes a big difference in just just giving you a little better vibe of the the width of the hole and and some of the features.

01:02:00
Speaker 4: It just feels the other thing.

01:02:03
Speaker 1: So Eric Iverson was on the podcast and he talked about one of like his first days on the job when he was started working for Renaissance and Tom Doak, and he said, Tom put a steak in on the right edge of the fairway and the left edge of the fairway and he said, I want you to build me a green that looks completely different from this edge to this edge. Yeah, And that's like, you know, if you listen, I listen and think about what architects say a lot and then look at holes and you know, even when I'm just walking around, you do this too, you walk on one side to the other side of the fairway. Yeah, and that's something really important to keep in mind when you're taking photos, is like it's like, okay, like if I'm trying to show something, you know, if I take it over here, how is it going to look versus over here?

01:03:02
Speaker 4: Right? Right?

01:03:03
Speaker 1: And getting below slopes is a big thing too, because then you're looking up rather than looking If you're looking down always, you're going to flatten everything, right right. I'm sure people really want this in depth discussion of Well.

01:03:16
Speaker 3: No, I brought it up selfishly because I feel like there's been on Instagram and some of the other things a little bit of a leveling off. There was a drone craze. A lot of people got drones for Christmas, and it was exciting to see what people were doing.

01:03:30
Speaker 4: And I don't know, maybe it's just me.

01:03:33
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe people lost interest, but I feel like there's been a little less of it, and it's still I think one of the things that's really powerful in golf architecture right now that other generations didn't have as a tool to either educate or market or just get you excited is great drone file over. I'm trying to remember now, right, who was it?

01:04:03
Speaker 4: Oh?

01:04:03
Speaker 3: I remember where it was.

01:04:04
Speaker 4: It was.

01:04:05
Speaker 3: I was down in in Myrtle Beach. And the guy who kind of is in charge of golf Myrtle Beach is a really sharp dude, and he and he really is thinking about the game, kind of going ahead and trying to like, how is this, how are we gonna you know, reimagine this place, but also kind of continue to cater to the people who want to come here. But then they think about the next the next generation and golf vacations and all that, And I said, you know, one of the things you've got to do is get a great drone flyovers of courses and and because the next generation when they're already there, but more and more people are gonna when they search out a course, they're going to want to go to YouTube and just get a sense of it. They don't need to have, you know, twenty minutes, but they want to. They want to kind of you know, we see it with tor pros all the time. They go on Google Earth and they poke around and it's like, okay, well there's the entrance is there's where the range is.

01:05:01
Speaker 4: Oh look at that hole, you know whatever it is that they get out of it.

01:05:05
Speaker 3: So it's really important to golf courses to do good drone photography. That's why I'm bringing this up. Well, it's the.

01:05:11
Speaker 1: Other thing about it is like it drives me nuts when you know these courses they put together these drone like and you know, they spent a ton of money to hire some of these guys.

01:05:21
Speaker 2: I mean the amount of money some of these people charges.

01:05:23
Speaker 1: Like I think about it, and I'm like, God, I'm in the wrong business being a media guy and I should be a drone pilot.

01:05:30
Speaker 3: But the uh yeah, exactly.

01:05:34
Speaker 2: You know, it's like and then they do every single hole.

01:05:36
Speaker 1: It's like who has the time to sit through every single like give me like a you know, a quick overview, like that's that's all you need, Like it's a but the yeah, there's there's so much potential. Like I I know exactly what you're talking about. Like one of my pet peeves is drone photography. Sometimes on on Instagram, and like I'll look at somebody describing a volcano hole and a drone photo from you know, sixty feet up in the air straight down.

01:06:04
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, that's the essence of the volcano.

01:06:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, the contour, see the three dimensional element.

01:06:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's just.

01:06:13
Speaker 1: So it's you know, it's it's tricky, it's different, it's it's an amazing thing though, because I think about it, it's like, I'm not a skilled on the ground photographer that has like an intricate knowledge of all the settings. But what a drone allowed me to do was it allowed me to have like a everybody started from the same spot, right, and and my composition, my color correction might not be as good as the greatest photographer, but I I you know, I don't think many photographers have the understanding of what they're looking for. And that's the big thing. If you know what you're looking for, that's how you can do It's like anything.

01:06:55
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:06:55
Speaker 3: No, most of the best golf photographers have had some sense of the architecture and and and trying to capture a hole, uh as a golfer would see it. If they're if they're trying to take a photo of a hole for a magazine. That the best ones did that. The worst ones would just just lazily go behind every green and stand on a ladder and shoot backwards and it might make for a pretty landscape photo that told.

01:07:21
Speaker 4: You nothing about the hole.

01:07:24
Speaker 3: I mean, there aren't many holes, maybe the twelfth of TVC Sawgrass. There's a few where a rear view kind of gives you a great sense of all the things going on. But most of the time it's it's just useless.

01:07:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's it's all about getting on angles. Yeah, just like I'll send you this photo.

01:07:40
Speaker 1: One of my favorite photos I've ever taken is the tenth that Short Acres that rode home.

01:07:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, got it.

01:07:47
Speaker 1: And it's just that's the beautiful thing with the drone as you're flying around and something you can just find really unbelievable shots that you never you didn't think about, you know, right, And it's like this and it shows the you know that the ravine that cuts on that t shot, and I mean it's just it encapsulates the whole hole and that you hit on something. It's like, I think one of the things I hope comes of this generation that you know, golf architecture and courses are such trends, you know, is that we're we've had this rebirth and and kind of a shift back towards the ideals that we appreciate. We might be completely off a rocker, I don't. I think about that sometimes, but uh sure, we might be all wrong about it. But at least now we have the ability to document it all, yes, and hopefully in forms that show people like what was going on like with you know, and less of the you know, what happened in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties happens now you know going forward.

01:08:51
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:08:52
Speaker 3: No, it's a huge part of these projects that I think they are already better documented. But that said, I have a drawer full of rustic canyon print photos and slides, and then I have a box of like six uh mini discs of photos during construction that are that are.

01:09:15
Speaker 4: Uh the sony. I don't even know how.

01:09:17
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's a place that will transfer them, uh and I need to get them transferred. But you yeah, you you look at that and you go, well, Max Barrow was taking these with this weird kind of three D camera and they're and they're fine, you know, But every era has has tried to document, but the technology changes. And so that's why YouTube and the drone is pretty exciting, because you feel like that's going to be around a while, but you never know. You just don't know what's gonna end up being the thing that is the medium that that that age as well. But good photos always age well.

01:09:55
Speaker 1: I'm amazed at how great of photographers the these guys were in the twenties. Is like the composition of these photos is just out of this world. Like that that photo of the eighteenth at Wilshire you posted yesterday that I think that's from the Golden Age. It's from the Golden age of gold.

01:10:15
Speaker 3: Now I took one off the walls yesterday from Wiltshire four and like then and now one I did, yeah, oh yeah, that was just off the wall.

01:10:25
Speaker 2: But that old photo is so increasing.

01:10:28
Speaker 1: You look at it and you're like, god, this photo is just unbelievable.

01:10:33
Speaker 3: Remember they had, they had they didn't you know? With digital the one thing that's dangerous about digital is that you just snap away because it's cheap. But when it was when you were paying for prints and you were you, and the older you, the more you went back, the more you really want to make sure you got your money's worth out of every photo. With cameras, So it's just like the golf architecture when the equipment was not as good. They spent more time getting it right because they had to. The equipment didn't move as fast, and now the equipment allows you to move too fast. And you know, that was what Crenshaw kept telling me during Riviera, and I know I.

01:11:16
Speaker 4: Just didn't get it.

01:11:17
Speaker 3: I'd ask him me, like, what are the most important what's the most important thing? Time he kept saying time. I'm like, what the hell? But what he meant was you the longer you take setting something up, whether it's a photo or a golf hole, and then the longer you can kind of drag out looking at it and fine tuning it, the better it's going to be in terms of permanence and working. And now we have all these tools that allow us to just go quickly, and then the end result is maybe something that that if we'd just taken a little more time, there'd be a few more little tweaks and it'd be just that much better.

01:11:56
Speaker 1: I bet you kind of feel that way with writing. I think I feel that way with writing a little bit. And uh, and with architecture, Like when you have to work and spend a little bit more time on a green, it probably turns out better, just like with a story, Like sometimes the best thing that can happen, I feel like is is something give you a little.

01:12:16
Speaker 2: Bit of fits.

01:12:18
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely.

01:12:19
Speaker 3: I mean I wrote a column yesterday based on after your podcast, and now I got to send it in, but I've just said, you know, I didn't want to send it in yet, and I'll go back and read it now and I'll find I'll find it too typos, and I'll find some sentences like really I was I thought this was going to be a good sentence, and yeah, whatever it is, you just when you get.

01:12:40
Speaker 4: Back from it a little bit, you know.

01:12:44
Speaker 3: I've encouraged Gil to do that sometimes, and we did it on We had a green at La South that boomerang. I was telling you about Angela, who a mooser who works for Gil sometimes and Tom Doak, and she'd build a beautiful green there, but it looked just like the third green apart five next to it, and it just we just came to the agreement. It was like, this is just too similar. It's our fault because she kind of carried.

01:13:11
Speaker 4: Out what we had drawn out.

01:13:14
Speaker 3: And so it was Christmas break and we just we just took time off and Gil came back and we and then we had both kind of had some kooky ideas and we asked if we could do this and this and that, and next thing, you know, it came out and it was great. But it was that extra time where we had the time to kind of conclude it wasn't right and then the time to mull something else, and it made something kind of kind of great. I'm kind of different, wacky.

01:13:37
Speaker 1: It's a sunky thing with society with like the instant you know. I think about this with Twitter too all the time, Like I've stopped tweeting out as many like thoughts because they they need to be developed so much, and it's like everybody's in a race to uh get their thoughts out first. But you know, it's just so important. Sometimes we're just sitting really sure.

01:13:59
Speaker 3: And you saw with Tiger with his win. I had a couple of people asking, who did you read this? Did you read that? I'm like, well, no, I saw the headline, and I know I shouldn't go by headlines, but you know, it's it's too early in a weird way to put into perspective that masters you know, where does it fit?

01:14:18
Speaker 4: All time?

01:14:19
Speaker 3: I'm ask so many declarations, greatest comeback in sports history. Besides being just so ignorant of Ben Hogan's story, you know, you just go, come on, come on, let's just it's calm down here. But that our world won't allow that. People want you to make the declarations and and you're not doing your job if you're sort of on the fence, like well, I think it's a little too early to declare if this is his greatest win or where this master's ranks. I I'm not discounting that it's going to be one of the all time greats, but it's become un But you're if you aren't willing to make that, you know, that sweeping declaration.

01:15:05
Speaker 1: It's like become unacceptable to say I don't know. You know, you have to either say, oh, this is people are crazy if they're declaring it, or you have to say this is by you know, this is out of this word. It's like you have to be on one edge of the extreme, which is sad.

01:15:21
Speaker 4: And I get that.

01:15:22
Speaker 3: Like I'm doing the TV stuff I do with Golf Channel, is the producer's understandably wants you to have a take, and there'll sometimes.

01:15:30
Speaker 4: There will be stuff where I go.

01:15:32
Speaker 3: It's just more nuanced than yes, you know, one side or the other. And I've gotten good feedback from people when I have said, look, I I don't know if you can conclude this right now, or it's hard to say that that was a.

01:15:49
Speaker 4: Bad hole location or what.

01:15:51
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's hard to say and you just have if you And it is amazing how often people respond like, well, I'm glad you acknowledge that there was nuanced in that it wasn't either or so there may be a little bit of a fatigue with some of that.

01:16:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, but we're not there yet.

01:16:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all right.

01:16:09
Speaker 1: Well, I think I hope people are still with us, you know, everybody. Everybody's probably gone, you know, but this has been an enjoyable chat.

01:16:16
Speaker 2: I'll, you know, plan for an hour and get to you.

01:16:20
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, to help me procrastinate on multiple things I was working on.

01:16:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got me starting to look at more Rustic Canyon photos because.

01:16:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't even know if I covered with you the things that we were supposed to cover about Rustic Canyon, but we.

01:16:36
Speaker 2: Got through it. It'll be It's good.

01:16:38
Speaker 1: You gave it, lended a lot of insight, and I think I mean everybody's got to go play, Rusty, I firmly believe.

01:16:45
Speaker 4: Including me. I need not been out there in a little while. I need to go play.

01:16:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta go. It was it was unbelievable when I was out there in this spring.

01:16:53
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:16:53
Speaker 3: Well, when we have the rains like this and the hills green up and the native plants, you just get the visual eye candy of all the different and and right now is even in some ways, could be even depending on your tastes. But as the grasses now go off color, the other stuff stays, so you just get more contrast than ever, you know, like the sage bushes that stay healthy. But then the grasses go, you know, a different color, and then you know, I mean you're color blind sometimes probably this is probably mean to me, but it's a red red. The mix of different shades is.

01:17:35
Speaker 4: Really cool too.

01:17:36
Speaker 3: And then and then the golf course obviously starts to firm up with the summertime too.

01:17:40
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, it's that's it's just a beautiful place.

01:17:44
Speaker 3: It's yeah, we got away with a lot there and that's that that It really is amazing. We knew at the time. By the way we knew, we knew we were getting away with some crazy stuff in terms of where the game was at, and so we did. We did have some chuckles about that. But now, I mean get I say getting away with it, but all we were getting away with was sticking to what was there, which was extreme at the time. To people now it would be like, well, why wouldn't of course you'd do that. Of course, you know bumps like that. You you of course you want the greens to be an extension of the landscape, you know, leading up to them.

01:18:23
Speaker 4: I mean, well, the thing.

01:18:25
Speaker 1: About I think Russet Canyon that everybody can learn from is it's very attainable for all like that that golf guard. That land is very beautiful. It's sandy, it's got some unbelievable you know, native grasses, But in terms of the ground for golf beyond the sand, it's not. I don't think it's unfathomable to think that, like every county in America has a piece of ground that's like of similar movement.

01:18:53
Speaker 4: I don't know.

01:18:53
Speaker 3: They might it had some pretty amazing and all, you know, created by water running through there, and but yeah, well yeah, the moral probably is maybe that they don't have ground that great, but that they have flatish land or lands deemed flatish, that's actually ideal. Yeah, and that's that would be the thing that I would hope people would would learn from it.

01:19:23
Speaker 2: And it's just good green complexes and simple strategy.

01:19:27
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:19:28
Speaker 3: And and a little bit with is a nice thing too. Yeah, people need with with is not a bad thing, and that one still needs to be reinforced probably more often. But it's expensive too to initially in maintenance. But if you figure out how to save turf from other places and we don't have to build seventy eight hundred yards, it balances out very quickly.

01:19:52
Speaker 1: My favorite thing I've seen in the last year is this place, Diamond Springs has a single cut and with with uh with single row irrigation. So yeah, same cut. It's not it's not tight, but it's not long. It's like you know, it be like uh be like probably half inch cut through the green everywhere.

01:20:16
Speaker 3: And then like Augusta and yeah, and then then.

01:20:19
Speaker 1: The native grass is unbelievable because no water gets out.

01:20:24
Speaker 4: No overspray.

01:20:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which is which was also a big challenge rustic to get that laid out. It's it's very hard for people still to do.

01:20:34
Speaker 1: And then I've heard that like it's almost impossible to even be able to purchase a single row irrigation system.

01:20:41
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, people won't even sell it to you.

01:20:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a foreign concept. And but I mean how many you you know, how many great holes are are ruined by uh, all over the world. It's not an American thing, but but anywhere there's too much irrigation with native grasses, it's just it's just a killer. And so yeah, rustic thankfully the soil. I mean, if you I can just I'm picturing a couple you brought back nightmares. But but it was worth it. Of where we were, uh bickering with the construction superintendent who was just you know, classic all coverage guy, and he just could not grasp the idea of these transition areas of this sandy, clumpy little clumps of fescue and sand and and you know a weed here there transitioning you keeping the water away from the native and you go out there. We really don't have that overspray issue except maybe one or two little areas, but it makes all the difference in the world. It's just a killer for fun. I mean, sand Hills. To me, it just takes so much of the fun out of sand Hills. I don't know if they've I've been, and it's been a while since I've been there, but the two times I went, it just drove me nuts, just especially when a whole bends and you want to, you know, cut the corner a little bit.

01:22:10
Speaker 1: I know that's what Kyle Heglund, that's all he works on. When I was there, it was really good, good, but like that's it's you see it everywhere over sprays.

01:22:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially in your area. I mean those Chicago courses and that that have those native areas, and you just like, oh.

01:22:28
Speaker 2: What do you infamous Aaron Hillsgate.

01:22:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and Aaron had it badly and you could see it from you know, like I don't know why it took the week of the tournament to see that, but it did.

01:22:40
Speaker 2: I just love the idea.

01:22:42
Speaker 1: I think the other cool thing that comes of that single row irrigation is the brown edges. The crispy edges are so cool because then there's the It brings in even more of that that risk for playing at the edge to gain the advantage.

01:22:57
Speaker 2: If it's well designed.

01:22:59
Speaker 3: If it's well designed yeah, yeah, it's.

01:23:01
Speaker 2: I don't know.

01:23:02
Speaker 1: So all right, well, well we'll talk soon. We'll see you out at Uh, I'll be out at Bethpage. I'll see you there, so, you know, May we'll go visit one of these munies.

01:23:14
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, you know, well we can talk about that.

01:23:18
Speaker 4: We don't want to go down another rat hole, but.

01:23:21
Speaker 3: I have some I have some thoughts on a place you need to go.

01:23:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we'll talk offline, but uh, everybody can see you on the Golf Channel and uh read you on.

01:23:30
Speaker 2: Golf Week and Jeff Shackle for dot Com.

01:23:33
Speaker 4: Great. Thanks Andy,