The Economics of Golf Course Construction (feat. Bruce Hepner)

00:00:00
Speaker 1: One of the biggest problems facing the golf course industry today is the rising cost of construction, the cost of building new courses, and the cost of renovating existing ones. Especially since twenty twenty, these expenses have gone way up and have ultimately been passed on to the golfer, most obviously in the form of higher green fees, but also more subtly in the way that the industry as a whole has moved toward the high end, toward pricey resorts and exclusive clubs. So I thought it was time to talk about the economics of golf course construction, about what it takes to build a golf course affordably in a time where everything seems to be unaffordable. My guest is Bruce Hepner, a long time golf architect who has recently taken on some surprisingly low cost projects and who have some fascinating thoughts about where golf architecture as a whole is headed. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf. What do the different components of a golf course construction project cost, or really what should they cost? I get asked versions of this question all the time, and honestly there's no good answer because every project is different, but we can definitely talk about the general economics of golf course construction, and a little later we'll discuss three excellent modern golf courses that were built on low budgets and are still affordable to play. Now, this might seem like a funny topic to take on right after the Masters, given that most people would not associate Augusta National with economical golf course construction or maintenance. But actually Augusta National did begin its life life as an experiment in what its co designer Alistair McKenzie called the economy of golf course construction. Famously, the course originally had just twenty two bunkers, and it also had very simple agronomy, just one cut for the fairways and one cut for the greens. For most of his career, McKenzie was obsessed with this idea of economy and construction because for him, saving money in building courses was not just a nice benefit for his clients. He thought that it actually produced better golf courses. So let's start with a few things that mackenzie repeatedly emphasized in talking about this subject. One he was insistent on the importance of hiring a capable golf architect. Now, in one sense this was self serving, but in another completely indisputable. Sperienced, qualified architect can definitely help you avoid costly mistakes in the future. Two Mackenzie was an avid proponent of saving money by working with the natural landscape instead of against it, choosing sites that were already well adapted to golf, and routing the course so that you didn't need a lot of large scale earth moving to create the holes. Three he advocated for minimizing bunkers and other artificial hazards. I will say he did not always practice this, but he did at Augusta National, so at least there's that. Four Mackenzie was all about using modern labor saving technology. If there was something a machine could do just as well as manual labor, he wasn't a romantic about it. He was fine with mechanizing certain tasks. Lastly, Mackenzie spoke a lot about achieving what he called finality in golf course construction, in other words, designing and building the course well enough so that it wouldn't have to be changed in the future. And this is where Mackenzie makes it clear that economy in construction is not just about saving money during the building process itself. It's about heading off future expenses, and this might sometimes involve spending a little more right now in order to avoid spending a lot down the line. So it's a balance. There are things that you need to invest in like a good architect, and there are things that you don't need to overspend on. So one of the major tasks for a course developer or a green committee is to distinguish the smart investments from the unnecessary ones, the needs versus the bells and whistles. All right, let's bring this to the present day and about the economics of modern golf course construction. Now we're setting aside for the moment, pre construction costs, which would include purchasing the land and getting planning and permitting taken care of, clearly a major expense, but not what our focus is today. What are the biggest line items in a golf course construction budget. I have to start with irrigation. You would be shocked at how expensive it is to install a modern top of the line irrigation system. That alone typically accounts for somewhere in the range of a quarter to a third of an entire construction budget, so irrigation that is the albatross of any golf course project. Another huge expense is large scale earth moving and site preparation. Basically, this is about adapting a site to golf, making sure it's walkable, graspable, that it drains. So obviously, this cost is lower for properties that are already well suited to the game, and that's why this is a very dynamic category. It's often the reason that a project costs either way more or way less than you would anticipate. A few other notable expenses would be bunkers, especially when you factor in ongoing maintenance. If you decide to put in USGA spec or subair under your green, that can get pricey. Cart paths sometimes cost millions of dollars by themselves. And finally, kind of interacting with all of the above, you have labor, who's on site and what are they doing? Now. I'm sure you can see at this point how golf course construction budgets can spiral out of control. There's just so much that needs to get done, So how do you cut through the noise and identify the needs versus the bell and whistles. Let's talk about three modern US golf courses that I think did exactly that. These courses were built very affordably and can still be played for reasonable rates. First, Wildhorse Golf Club in Nebraska, wonderful golf course built by Dave Axland and Dan Procter in nineteen ninety nine. The total cost of establishing the club was somewhere around one point three million, and the construction of the course itself came in under a million. The single biggest line item in the budget was the irrigation system. You won't find that surprising. I've heard that it costs somewhere in the range of six hundred thousand dollars by itself, so that's where they made their huge investment. But aside from that, the course was built for just a few hundred thousand dollars, and in my opinion, it is the best non resort public course in the United States. Next up, Rustic Canyon Golf Course, designed by Gilhan's Jim Wagner and Jeff Shackelford. This is one of the best golf courses you can play in Southern California, public or private, and the cost of constructing the course itself was three million. In two thousand and two. About four hundred thousand of that went to the cart paths, which the developer wanted but the architects were a bit chagrined about. But in all other areas the design team used a very light touch. They ended up moving only about seventeen thousand cubic yards of dirt. And just to put that in perspective, when Mike Strantz built Tobacco Road Golf Club in North Carolina in nineteen ninety eight, he moved around five hundred thousand cubic yards. So you know, you can see how the earth moving and site preparation part of the budget can be really low or really high depending on the quality of the land and the intent of the architect. Now, if you're interested in the full story behind Rustic Camion, Jeff Shackelford goes into great detail about it in his book Grounds for Golf. Grounds for Golf has been out of print for a while and a little bit hard to get, but it's being republished on June fifteenth this year, so make sure to check that out. Okay, last project I want to talk about is Diamond Springs Golf Course in Hamilton, Michigan. Diamond Springs was designed by Chris Schumacher and Mike Devrees in two thousand and two, and they were really innovative in the way they set this course up for low cost maintenance in the future. Diamond Springs has old fashioned single row irrigation in the fairways, so the sprinkler heads just go right down the center of the whole corridors, and like the original Augusta National, there are two heights of cut fairway and green. Both of these factors allow for simple, efficient, affordable maintenance, and it's a terrific golf course that anyone can play for sixty dollars at most. So three projects, Wildhorse, Rustic Canyon, and Diamond Springs, what do they all have in common? One they started with properties that were already well suited to golf. All three had sandy soils and good natural undulation. The Wildhorse property was basically perfect. Rustic Canyon was a little more complicated because it was environmentally sensitive, but a great site for golf, so good land in all three cases. The second thing these projects have in common is that they were directed by excellent golf architects who had plenty of experience but were still on their way up so they were not expensive to hire. Three. Those architects were devoted to minimalism and the design build method. They wanted to work with the natural landscape, they wanted to minimize artificial hazards, and when they did move dirt, they wanted to do it themselves.

00:10:58
Speaker 2: Four.

00:10:59
Speaker 1: In each of the projects, there was what I would describe as a remarkable lack of ego in what they were setting out to accomplish. They weren't going for the photogenic, all green, everywhere turf presentation. They weren't trying to build a top one hundred golf course, though in the case of Wildhorse, I would argue that they got there anyway, but that was not the intent. They were just trying to build good golf at a reasonable price, and that attitude is unfortunately pretty rare in today's golf course industry. Keep in mind that all three courses I just talked about opened between nineteen ninety nine in two thousand and two. Those kinds of projects, new build projects built affordably are just not happening very often right now. One big reason for that is that the cost of everything has gone way up. But I do believe there has also been a shift in philosophy. I think we've become much more interested in trying to match the splendor of Alistair Mackenzie's courses and less interested in following his advice on economy and construction, and that I think is a problem for the future of the game. Now, to talk about that issue a little more in depth, I'm going to bring on the golf architect Bruce Hepner. Bruce got his start in the industry working for ron Force and Tom Doak. He worked on some incredible dok projects, including bally Neil and Cape Kidnappers, and he also developed a specialty in gradual, sensitive restorations of classic courses like Essex County Club and Cape Arundle. Recently, Bruce has done a lot of work on public courses. He's helping to revitalize several municipal facilities in Nashville, Tennessee, and he also carried out a major renovation of Miami Lakes Golf Club in Florida last year. He has a bunch of interesting things to say about economy and construction and what he sees as the excesses of modern golf architecture. So let's go to my conversation with Bruce Hepner. So, Bruce, you told me when we chatted a couple of days ago that you have been playing a little bit more golf lately. How's that going?

00:13:32
Speaker 2: The scores aren't going down, but I'm kind of taking a year or so off. I don't have any projects till fall at twenty seven. So I told my wife, I'm like, you know, I play that crap forever. I'm like, I want to kind of dedicate this year to playing golf and taking Lasson's, hitting balls indoors every day. And just got back from Florida. Played two weeks of golf down there. So it's just just fun to get out and play, see new golf courses. I've seen a lot of the new ones being built in Florida, but also playing and reintroducing myself to my golf clubs.

00:14:05
Speaker 1: What did you see down there?

00:14:07
Speaker 2: Saw may Aka mm hmm, the Big danea fry striker striker, Yeah right, yeah, just insane, just the biggest thing. I've just gonna push Shadow Creek, the shade.

00:14:20
Speaker 1: They moved a lot of a lot of dirt out there.

00:14:21
Speaker 2: As elevation changed. Danis. I think they remember say they dug one hundred and thirty acre leg fifty feet deep and ran out of dirt, so they had to build more lakes. It's it's amazing to create that kind of a landscape out of your brain. Is somebody's brain is just beyond my scope of what I've ever done. I saw David's new course, David Kid's new course at streams On, which is super cool. And then I went up to Aiken and saw Brian and Blake's new the Gilroy had under construction. That's gonna be really cool.

00:15:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the second eighteen whole course at Old Barnwell.

00:15:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then New Holland. I walked the routing at New Holland which Brian's doing ray across the street from the tree Farm. Also an Ache and that's gonna be something really cool. Wow, the rut it's just laying there.

00:15:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:15:17
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's some good stuff being built out there.

00:15:19
Speaker 1: So, Bruce, the main topic I wanted to tackle with you today is what Alisair McKenzie called economy in golf course construction, which is to say, building golf courses as efficiently and affordably as possible without sacrificing quality. And this is as big of an issue as it ever has been, because everything about golf course construction has started to take longer and cost more in the past few years. Nonetheless, you yourself have taken on a number of projects whereas I understand it, economy has been a priority. First of all, a series of renovations for the municipal Golf cyte them in Nashville, Tennessee, and then just last year a big overhaul of a public golf facility called Miami Lakes Golf Club in Florida. Was there something that that caused you to take on these kinds of projects at this point in your career or was it just sort of happenstance that they came along at this time?

00:16:20
Speaker 2: It was a perfect timing for me. You know, I've built, you know, courses all over the world, but you know, you're working for Tom. We were still budget conscious. You know, he came from Pete and Pete. Pete was budget conscious, so you know, we built Pacific Dudes and bally Neil for a fraction of what renovations costs nowadays, So that just carried over. You know, I grew up playing about public golf courses, Caddie. You know, I wasn't a country club kids, so, you know, and specifically Nashville it hit the tone because there was just no there's no new seats at the table, there's no new golf courses being built. There's one, but it's super private, and the only place people could play were public golf courses and they've kind of gone in disrepair, just like any city. You know, I grew up in Detroit, played Rackham. That's where I grew up playing. And you know, any city metropolitan system is usually that's the lowest priority right now. You know, with the economy of it's gone, not a lot of money is being sunk. And in some of these are really good gems. You know, Rackham was a great ross golf course. Yeah, so every every metropolitan area has these and they're just going in disrepair, and you know, people are playing the heck out of them, but there's just not much money supporting him. So you know, that's what got me interested. It's untapped, you know that, And that's where golf starts. That's where most of us learn how to play. Majority of golfers play public golf courses. They don't carry handicap even they just play golf. They gone and play golf, drink beer and have fun. So it's it's kind of been pushed to the wayside, and and uh, you know, I'm pretty comfortable. Yeah, I could retire right now, I say, my money, but this is kind of fun. It's the way I can give back to the game in my little way is to is promote this first tea programs, Kaddy. You know Evan scholarship programs. You know, common Ground is great. They have that kind of pre Evan scholarship program out there. So there's a lot of little hubs that are starting this. You know John's, you know, the Ashworths, the Goat Hill. You know. San Antonio has an insanely good public golf system where the money stays in the golf. They probably are the leaders in the country. A guy named Jim Rochik is heading that up and we're going to use him as a consultant in Nashville how to figure out how to do this without spending a lot of money, but keeping the money in the golf.

00:18:43
Speaker 1: Donalds fort Worth does a really good job too. It seems like there are a few Texas megalopolis that are that are kind of getting some of this right. At the moment, and actually you know, a memorial park in Houston as well as for example, you know, hopefully an indicator of where things are going there as well. Yeah, and these projects kind of require something different from an architect, which is what I'm interested in speaking with you about. And maybe as an example, we can dig into your work at Miami Lakes specifically. Now, this is not a municipal golf course. It is a privately owned public golf course that has traditionally been affordable, especially for people in the immediate area. And so you know, it's a kind of project that we don't see a lot of these days. In fact, you know, the kind of mid range daily fee course has sort of gone away in favor of a lot more action at the high end for both private clubs and public resorts. So Miami Lakes, just for context, is a public course in Florida. It's about fifteen miles north of Miami. And I've heard that the way you became involved in this project has something to do with the last time you and I talked on a podcast. Actually it was a couple of years ago when I brought you on to talk about Nashville, your work in Nashville, among other things. So what is that story? How did you become involved?

00:20:04
Speaker 2: I get an email, blind email from Danny Martinez's part of the grand family that basically they don't own Miami Lakes, but they founded it. The grandfather founded that. You know, the community. It's a beautiful community, and they had a golf course. And he heard the podcast you and I talking about public Golf, so he blindly emailed me with a pretty good letter that was quite compelling. I'm like, you know, I'll give him a call, because I get emails like this three four times a week. I go, I'll call him and chat them up and see if I got him in the right direction. And three hours later, he's telling me everything. You know. I was waiting for him to tell me something so I could hang up, and he kept telling me all the right things. You know, public golf, the first tea program, his grandfather. You know, he grew up playing there. It's a part of the community, kids played for free. You know. He was clicking all the boxes. I'm like, oh, okay, I'll come down. I was going to come down and play golf a timcqwan and Jacksonville anyway, So I'm like, I'll just drive down to the rest of the way, spend a day with you, check your golf course out, and met the grand family. They're beautiful people, just humble and just everything clicked and I walked the golf course. The routing was pretty good. The back nine was just inundated, flooded. They didn't even have irrigation on a couple holes just because the water table was two inches blowing to the surface. So I kind of I'm like, you know, I think I could. I think I could fix this. Let me think about it and let me build the team. So I called him Mecure Golf out of Jacksonville, which I've worked over a lot. Talk to them. They kind of fell in love with the project. We were able to pick the right irrigation designer, and I said, well, if I build the right team, he let us do what we're good at. I'm interested and Danny supported us one hundred percent.

00:21:59
Speaker 1: So what were the the most important goals of the plan for the renovation that you ended up coming up with.

00:22:06
Speaker 2: Well, it was a lot of engineering. It was dead flat, you know, it was typical Florida dead flat. Any dirt that they used, they build the greens up twenty feet up out of the ground or putting mounds on each side of the fairway. There was no contours in the fairway, so it was a drainage nightmare. In the back nine really had to be lifted three feet out of three to four feet out of the ground to keep it from flooding. Every rain event, the water would back up and wouldn't go into the canal and it would just fled. They couldn't play the back nine basically. So a lot of it was engineering, but you know, it wasn't going to stop me from making something cool at the same time. So the basic thought was what I wanted to do was build something it looked like it was built in nineteen thirty, like Flynn or something back in those Florida days when Flynn and Langford and those guys were building courses, you know, rainer at that time. I wanted to build something to look like that, which meant it was wallawall grass. Yeah, I'm kind of I'm kind of over the I call it the native oars. Yeah, of course, you see now it's get the sandy native stuff. You spend more time in there than making the golf course good. So I said, we're going to just take that off the board, walda wall grass, make it wide. You know. Luckily, your grandfather when you routed that golf course gave us a really wide corridor, so the house has never come into play. There's only houses on a few of the holes, so it gave me ample room to play with it and minimal number of bunkers, like fifty bunkers. I use them judiciously where they really impacted a lot of t shots. Just create a lot of contour in the fairways to create interesting lies on your you know, on your a pro shots, build great greens. And the goal was, you know, at one time, back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, that was the hip place to hang out Miamu Lakes golf courses where all the dolphins lived. Shula's Steakhouse was his first steakhouses there. He lived on site, so it was kind of the happening place for public golf celebrities. You know. I brought in Kay Goldby to help me build the greens. His dad had played in an event there. Kai, I think caddied for him, So one time it was the cool place in Miami. So we wanted to create that vibe again. It's also the home of the first tea program Kids Play for Free. Charlie Duluca runs that project. His grandfather started the project on a Saturday morning. They'll have one hundred and eighty kids, some of special needs, on that first on the putting greens. So we had to build a facility for the kids. We also had to build a facility to could hold up. We just had a college tournament there. You know, it's still almost seventy two hundred yards. Had a college tournament there. They didn't rip it up. We want to have state amateur, vank, state pro events and create that vibe where people hang out there again and it's happening, you know. You know at any given day, Ray Allen Alonzo morning, Carlos Boozer, Tico Torres, I play golf with him. He's a drummer from bod Jovi's hanging out there. They're all coming back.

00:25:12
Speaker 1: From the past right there. You know, it's a good guy.

00:25:16
Speaker 2: I just love him. But it's if Marino it's been there playing, if the word is out and we have an advertising and it's they still have to build the clubhouse or building a big apartment, building a big teaching facility with a restaurant in it, you know, the whole the whole nine yards to service public golfers. You know, they're still going to have they got one hundred and fifty members. It's basically sold out. That just get preferred tea times and we'll have a locker room for him in the locker room in the new clubhouse. But it's it's really turned back to it's the hit place to hang out and play golf in you know, South Florida.

00:25:59
Speaker 1: So before giving into the cool design stuff that you did with the course, which you outlined a little bit there, I'm curious just about the drainage issue, which you've also gestured toward. That was a that was like a big, big part of this project, right if people can imagine, I think it's it was, especially the back nine. It's just full of full of lakes and you know, like island fairways and just a lot of a lot of water. So could you give me just a few specifics on how you how you figured out that that drainage issue there, because it it it's one of when if I were looking at that course myself, you know, I'm not qualified golf architect obviously, but if I were looking at the course, I would be saying to Danny Martinez, you're the person you corresponded most with on this project. I would be saying to him, I don't know if you can fix this right. You might have to. You might have to really do a lot here. So what what was your approach to fixing the issue.

00:27:01
Speaker 2: I walked the front nine and there's just a couple of lakes. It doesn't really feel like Florida. The front nine, I'm like, okay, this is really easy. The routy's good. And also they turned to the back nine and I'm like, oh shit, you know, and it was got on. You know, it was just terrible lakes, a lot of force carries, and I'm I don't like, you know, I remember playing golf with Thomas Sunningdale and they have that one little pond in London and Tom went over and spit in it. He goes, it's the first water feature ever in the history of golf other than an ocean.

00:27:31
Speaker 1: This is where it all started. I'm like, that's sixth hole to fifth or the sixth hole lap, and.

00:27:37
Speaker 2: That's how I've been. It's like, you know, I'm not a big force carry over water, so I had to fix it, you know, to make the design work and make it something I would want to play. I filled in a lot of the lakes so it's you know, there's only a couple of really true carries over water or they're on diagnosed kind of like the eighteenth of Sawgrass that the lake would be on the one side or the other, but playing a room to void. So I had to make sure I could do that first. Then we had to figure out where we're going to get the dirt. We had a budget of a million dollars of sand being brought in. Luckily mccure Golf, Chris Moni and Andy the project manager, we figured out how to do it by dredging the existing legs. Because the existing lakes were only like two and three feet deep. They were just held water and that's why the water came up. So we spent half of the project just over there dredging, making them twenty thirty feet deep and taking the dirt up, lifting a fairway, let it dry. And luckily it dried pretty good. And you know, we we knew there was a there's a water level we had to get above, which was the flood stage. So we had to get out of that. So most, you know, probably five of the fairways we lifted four feet and I filled in all that. You know, the four the terrible force carry. You know, you'd hit a driver seven iron six irony into a green because he had a lake in front of you. So I got I you know, I just despise us some Uh. For the most part, I got rid of any force carry and reconfigured the lakes so they'd be attractive and not wasn't a dominant like a typical Florida golf course where you have a lake on one side, you PLoP the dirt and houses on the right or vice versa. So I said, I didn't want I wanted to feel like old Florida, not a housing development Florida. And that's how we did it. We lifted and we we we saved a million dollars just by creating our own dirt. And then we had to make sure that drain too, So we surface drain. Make sure we surf surface drain. And then we put a bunch of pipe. If we saw a wet area, we pounded a lot of pipe and down swales. I was trying to get the water to swales so we shaped the fairways just so they could function well drainage wise. So that's kind of how we did it, and then put a whole new irrigation system and it's working right, It's.

00:30:07
Speaker 1: True, almost like a Pete Dye project. What are you're talking about? You know, it's like dredging the lakes and flipping it onto the fairways. And I mean it's that. You know, other architects have done this as well, but.

00:30:19
Speaker 2: Make Carrick's the best way to do it because they do much of the works dives for exactly.

00:30:23
Speaker 1: That that was kind of the connection I was making. Right, you're working with mccarec Golf Construction, and yeah, they know that they.

00:30:28
Speaker 2: Get figured out and they did. Yeah, it was engineering Marvel. That's why I love you using mcures. Chris Money's you know, used to work for Bobby Weed and uh, he's an architect has road right, but he's kind of a big project manager and he's smart as anybody I know in the business. And we figured that out and it the beauty is it worked, and uh, they don't have to even in a big rain, they don't have to close. And that that was a big thing for these folks. We can't have closure. We got to get people out and play. And it's very walkable, but you know it's floor. Do people take carts And you know, the hard part was maneuvering the cart pass. When I had a lake on the left and lake on the right, where do I put it so I didn't want to see it on my t shot, So that that was a lot of work to figure that out. And then just make sure the golf works. And you really don't notice the lakes that much unless you duck hook one into one, but they're not. I make sure the design you didn't need the lake to make the golf holes good. That's why we concentrate on the greens and make sure they're a great set of greens, and they are, They're really good, and then you have great golf.

00:31:42
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00:33:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, mostly, you know, like I said, it was a dead flat golf course. We had a length. There was plenty of length, and we have a prevailing wind coming off the ocean. Eventually it comes from the ocean, so you know, longest holes are going into the wind for the good players. I didn't have a lot of fairway bunkering, but I have a lot of contours out there, ridge lines I built. You know, I kind of built a landscape and then knowing the golf course would go on it. So you know, out there at two eighty to three, there's a lot of hanging lies or little rises that that might kill a ball. You might have to kick it over it. So I could take care of the good players with their t shots by letting him hit free. But you know they might be have a funky lie. But your average player could just bunk the ball along. You know, it's wide open. It's it's almost impossible to us a golf ball. And then you know it's all about the green sites and the approaches and so the greens are good. You know, I just can't you know, I just came from Blue Mountain that fall, so I had a lot of rainer in my brain. So there, you know, there's some there's some influences there. But you know I brought in Kai for a month and a half and you know, I'd rough shape the green. I kind of knew what I wanted, a rough shape the green ahead of him, and then he got on it made it, you know, ten times cooler, and we just worked together and you know, open approaches, or we would I'd tuck a bunker on the right where he could tuck a pin in the open left side would be open so people can bunp the route ball around, you know, but there was plenty of places where every green was I a would say it was accessible playable, but I could certainly every green has three or four really tasty whole locations that will get the good player. And it's holding up really well. You know, we have a lot of corn fairy qualifiers that play there, that want to practice there. They love the greens, they love you know, the challenge of the place. But you know we also have you know, beginners, kids, special needs kids, you know, five year olds out there playing golf and they can have fun too, So it's it can be done. You just gotta check your ego a little bit and understand what really good golf is. And it's not a lot, you know, like Augusta is what twenty some on bunkers. It's all about contours. So the greens are good. You know, there's some heavy contours in them, but we made sure, you know, Tim Sicico is the superintendent. It's doing a great job. We intended these things not to be over eleven at the most on a championship day and daily is ten on the step meter. So we can hold these contours. And it's you know, tight grass around everywhere. There's tons of fair away. We roll the t you know fairway into the next tee. So if you're missing greens, which most people are gone, you're chipping or putting or something like that, so easy recovery. Mm hmm.

00:36:33
Speaker 1: Well so, and then what's the approach to bunkering when you're trying to build a course with this kind of broad appeal. How do you think about that?

00:36:42
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not gonna like say, I'm not gonnadum me down. The bunkering bunker's really cool. It kind of looks like Flynn, you know, flare it up. So we you know, we use some bunker solutions to keep it in. But you know they're they're the bunkers I did build are cool. They're in the all that you know, it's like the right bunker in the right location. And you don't need five of them, you just need one of them. Or you know, there's one hole that I have a bunch of bunkers. You know, I shot my water in a couple holes. There's a couple of holes that don't have bunkers at all, but they might be the hardest ones because there's some really cool, tasty contours in the approach and you know, knowing we're going to hit long. You know, like the fourth hole doesn't have a bunker on it or green side bunker on it, because I know everybody's going to be coming in it with a three wood into it. So you know, you got to be really accurate. So it's just being judicial. You know. The bunkering is still good. It's really attractive. You know I didn't. But they're all playable. You know, you can get out of them. They're not they're not stupid deep because it's Florida, it's not I don't have that much elevation change. You know, some of the green side bunkers are ape deep something like that, just because of the green sites up that high. But they're you know, they're all maintainable. We have a crew that comes in twice a week, independent contracts that take care of them. These guys are pros. They come in edge them, they know how to edge them, they know how to mow them, and they know how to maintain them. So you know, they're they're maintainable, they're sustainable, and they're in great shape, and they're all in the right spot, and they're generally in the right spot for really good players who want to be aggressive.

00:38:19
Speaker 1: M Yeah, yeah, you know, it strikes me. We're on the second day of the Masters right now as we're talking. This episode's coming out later. The formula is still kind of the same, you know, and people always wonder what can you do to build a course that can be hard for professionals but but also fun for regular players to play. Well. The model is kind of right there.

00:38:44
Speaker 2: You know.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: There are probably a few things that you and I both would would prefer to be different about Augusta National or more similar to the original course of Augusta National, but still the the fundamentals are there. It's a lot of short grass. It's you know, undulating greens where there are some easy pin positions and some really tough pin positions, and it's and it's minimal bunkering, but bunkering in the right place. It you know, the things don't really change that much.

00:39:11
Speaker 2: I guess no, you know, we know, you know they have Golf architecture is nothing new. We're just copying the past. And but a lot of people aren't there, you know, they're copying the wrong things from the past. Or that's why those dollars are going up. You know, it's a lot of people are folk. You know. I think you and I talked about Instagram architecture, and that's kind of what it is. You know, all the new courses are wow flash. But you know some of those Flora courses, the first hurricane is gonna wipe some of that stuff out, you know, all the sandy open stuff. You know, I know from stream Song. You know, we we you know Bill, when they were building them the Red Course and we were building the uh you know, Blue course. We understood rain, we understood what was going to happen, and we designed that. You know, we built of that. So some of these new courses going in. You know all about the flash and that the beauty of it, but you know, Florida is is pretty hostile when it comes to you know, keeping it. You know when you're gonna get especially when they're talking about you know, last year was a dry, dry summer, so they didn't have the hurricane events. But Super El Nino or I was talking about Florida might get whacked this year bad. And some of these new projects that are all open and exposed and tons of sand, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be intrigued to see what happens because you've got to think about that. You know, part of you know what we're talking about sustainability, which is a big buzzword that a lot of people are using. You you gotta you can build the coolest place in the world, but you know, if the guys can't maintain it, it's unaffordable to maintain. It might not be maintainable because Florida grows, you know, all this open sand might fill in with vegetation unless you corner the market on round up. And these rain events, whether it's a hurricane or just a typical five inch rain on a Tuesday afternoon. Sustainability is building something that will hold up to that stuff and understand that's going to happen. And I don't think everybody's I'm interested to watch what happens with some of these courses.

00:41:20
Speaker 1: Me too, And we'll get more into that in a second. But I want to tie a bow on Miami Lakes.

00:41:27
Speaker 2: Here.

00:41:28
Speaker 1: The total cost of the work that you did, at least based on what I've seen. You can correct me if I'm wrong, here was around twelve million.

00:41:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:41:39
Speaker 1: Can you give me a sense of how how that spend was portioned out to different aspects of the project. And I asked this because you know, a lot of people are curious, like what do you you know, what do different projects cost? And what is the kind of the least I could spend to get certain results? And so what was that? What was that math at Miami Likes.

00:42:00
Speaker 2: Believe me, that's a lot of money and the family knows that, but they're comfortable because they're building apartment buildings all the time. But a lot of it was irrigation. They needed a brand new irrigation system. So that was five million bucks right there, okay, And we had to build all the greens we had to lift the golf course. Half of the golf course four feet out of the ground. Hell, I think Seminol's doing that. It's costing twenty thirty million dollars.

00:42:24
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. That was what I was thinking of when you're talking about dredging and lifting. It's you know, the best course in Florida's doing that right now themselves, so you know.

00:42:33
Speaker 2: But they're bringing their they're bringing their sand in from Orlando or something like that. So that's why it's costs a lot. So, you know, we were it's a major renovation. What we did, and in twelve million is a lot more money than I've ever spent anywhere. But it was built, you know, I guess we built them all in the right spots. A lot of it was raising that dirt, you know, lifting that golf course. A lot of it was irrigation, a car pass, a million bucks for car pass, ball the wall, it's Florida and it's all concrete. That included the driving range, included a three hole short game facility, a ten thousand square foot putting green, so they got a lot, all new tea's. You know, it's basically a brand new golf course. You know, it really is. It's brand new. You wouldn't recognize it if you played it before, So you know, it was hard to it was hard to swallow that, but we did as best as we could to keep the costs down for the family. You know, they were the CEO goos. We're okay with twelve. We just wanted to go to fourteen because we know how practice go, and we kept it under twelve. You know, we gave him a good bargain because we figured out how to do it economically and how to do it, build it smart golf course that's sustainable, and that also includes some of the equipment we had to buy. You know, that place was in shambles. He's got a new maintenance facility, so a lot went in out of that twelve million, you know, and it would surprises me some of these you know, typical renovations at these private clubs now at twenty million bucks, and how we did twice as much work there compared to what they do at some of these other places. So you know, that's kind of how it goes. Most of my most of my renovations are two million or less. Yeah, we had we had to rebuild, you know, we had to a lot of was engineering, you know, permitting things like that, you know, tree planting. We we took a lot of trees off of that property, like a lot of trees, and then we had to plant a lot back with the city Organs. So that costs a lot of money. So there's a lot of incidentals outside, you know, the golf itself. I probably Irrigation probably spent less than four million on the actual golf course Tea to green.

00:44:55
Speaker 1: One of the questions I had in mind is what would the four million dollar version of this proce have looked like? And it sounds like that would have been the golf course work, but you wouldn't have been able to do all the kind of infrastructural work that you needed to do in order to do the golf course work in the first place.

00:45:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and then that's that's why it blewed up. But we had to make it work. But we also, you know, we built a big giant driving range and we got you know, beautiful short game that's like four greens over there for the kids to play on. Built a huge you know, putting green. So there's a lot that went into that. But you know, that's why I was pretty proud of that we still kept the actual golf component reasonable, right, you know, compared to most other projects.

00:45:39
Speaker 1: Well, every project is different, and when I talk about twelve million, I'm not coming from a place of critique.

00:45:45
Speaker 2: There.

00:45:45
Speaker 1: I understand what what you did there and what that usually costs. And so when we talk about economy of construction, a project like this, I think fits that bill. You know, to the extent that I know anything about about how money was spent on the project or what decision were made, which you know, as an outside observer you can never really know all the details of that. My impression is that that less was spent on this work than is usually spent on projects of this type. The numbers I usually see for projects of this kind where kind of big things need to be done to the corridors, not just the greens, where irrigation needs to be replaced, where a driving range is being built, where the golf course is truly being overhauled. The numbers I'm used to seeing in the twenty twenties for those projects. And this is the twenty twenties. This is not the twenty tens or before. This is these are specific circumstances in the era that we're living in, those numbers are usually in the twenty to thirty million dollar range. That's what That's what I usually see, and so this is lower than that, And so it makes me curious, like, what what do you think were the main areas where you were able to save and practice economy of construction in this project.

00:47:00
Speaker 2: It's not bloating everything, you know, it's not billy bunkers every you know, bunkers can cost ridiculous if you put too much liners in it, drainage all that. I don't know, you know, it's just you know, i'd last fall I did Westmoreland Country Club in Chicago. It's all of Willie Watson Course. It kind of lost its way and had a couple of bad projects, so I was fixing it. We all new greens, probably one hundred and some odd bunkers, all new te's, all new fairways, all new irrigation system seven million dollars, and the irrigation was four and a half of it. So it's still none of three million dollars of golf where they had brand new greens, all new bunkers with Billy bunkers in them, all new te'es all new fairways and that's what the golf costs. So you know, that's all I know how to do. So hearing the twenty million dollars, I don't know where that money is spent. To be honest with you, I'm like, wow, I don't know where that money goes. I'm glad of what you know, but a lot of clubs are doing that. You know, I'm kicking a lot of clubs of the curb because they're like, well, how come you know we only spent one point seven million and the other course spent twenty What would we do wrong? I'm like, well, you know, it's we're smarter than they are, and that's a lot of money in your pocket. But you know, I get I get moved on because they're buying the grift of this twenty million dollar projects. So I don't know where we saved the money compared to those guys, because all I know is I hear the big numbers. But all I know is, you know, like in the Chicago area, there's a couple near Westmoreland that you know are going to do a fraction what we do, and they're going to spend more than what we did. Moving greens. We you know, we didn't move any greens around. We you know, it's like it in Miami. I built you know, we I kept the existing green pads for the most sake. I re routed three holes, but that you know, they were twenty feet high, and they gave me their I could drop a ten feet and use that dirt and put it out in the fairway. So a lot of the economy was just shaping. Shaping is pretty cheap, you know, pushing that dirt around. We weren't hauling dirt around that much, but we were pushing it around. So that's that's how you can save a lot of money just by smart shaping. Yeah, and good shapers too, you know, ky I was there. I was shaping all the bunkers and doing some of the fairy work. And mc kerrick's got some really good shapers on board that we're working the fairways and the t's, so that's a big savings. You know. Tom always said, well, making changes in the field while it's being shaped is really economical because it's just actually a couple hours. But if architect, famous architect comes in, the greens built in grass and irrigating goes oh, I actually went at thirty feet over there, you're dropping a bottom, you're moving that green over. That's how prices get up. And it also helps that I'm there every day, you know, that's I'm one of the economies of me how I work, which I enjoy working, is being there every day, showing up at seven with the crew, getting everybody in line, going up, building some bunkers or some greens. But it's basically I'm making the decision instantly that's approved, so they're not waiting for architect B to show up every two weeks either compromising it, approve it, or move it. Oh that's not what I was thinking. I know what I'm thinking because I just built it. So that saves a lot. You'd be surprised how much money that saves. Typically ten to fifteen percent of a project is saved by me being there on site because they don't have the budget waiting for Joe Famous to show up and go, you know, drop a bomb on something. You just build right. Well, there's an economy of that, and that's just built in how I work.

00:50:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, things don't have the chance to snowball in a direction that you didn't want them to go because you're there and you know instantly if it's going in the wrong.

00:51:00
Speaker 2: And I had Kai there and we you know, we were We worked from a month and a half straight. We had to get these greens done because he had to get back to Montana and workous project. Yeah, shut up, he shut up January second and hesing a bulldozer for thirty five straight days, you know, trying to bang out nineteen greens as fast as we could. And I had to get ahead of them. I had to get a bulldozer ahead of them because I had to set it up and knock these greens down and let that, you know, let him do his thing. And that saves a lot of money, just because we were fast. You know, Andy, Andy, their project manager. I love him because he does the big dirt projects and he puts the pedal to the metal, and I'm the same way. We kept thinking, all right, it's Florida. January and February really nice in Florida. But april's when the oven starts going on. And we're a couple of Northern boys, and we kept going, we're gonna get out of here by April. Sometimes because I don't, I'll boil. And we did we you know it was it's the economy of speed is really good too, and that Mkurric had that built in because they could get in and out of there also, so there was inherent economies. But compared to the twenty million dollars stuff, I don't know where they spend their money.

00:52:18
Speaker 1: Yes, with you, it's it's a mystery to me as well. But it's good to have the information that you just gave because you know, listeners, especially listeners who are maybe involved in a golf course project right now, can can take that and say, Okay, this is this is kind of where these different aspects of a project should sit economically, and you know, and then and then you can start to ask questions about when when budgets go over that and this is I mean, listen, these might sound like nosy questions that I'm asking, or like I'm inviting people to to ask rude questions, but the fact is that all of these decisions end up affecting the amount that a player play at pays to play the course. It ends up affecting the affordability of the facility. And if that's the biggest issue right now that we're facing in golf course construction and in golf in general, is the affordability component. Then this is where we have to start. We have to start by by looking closely at the at the budgets that these projects are are taking on.

00:53:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've had like elkrap Is all nine holer, buy me up here. It's an old ross course that he was never there, gave him the drawings. It's the coolest little it's almost like a Scottish community. It's the home course. Everybody plays it. We read a bill a bunch of t's and all the bunkers for our budget was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars including me. And it's the coolest place, you know. You know, Percy Warner was one point seven included irrigation Shelby in Nashville's two million. A lot of it is just fix it what it needs to be fixed. Don't don't build this giant memorial to you and your fundraisers. It's public golf. They're just happy with grass half the time, you know. And if there's cool design, that's cool too. But you know, I grew up playing public golf course. We're just we're banging the ball and we're just happy. To have grass. So a lot of these projects get overblown because you know, a bunch of rich people are the donors, and they're you know, they play out of wherever, and they you know, it's aren't we great, We're doing this for public golf. But then you know, you go in the parking lot and there's nothing but Porsches and Mercedes and BMW's because they're the ones that can afford to play there, because you had to get the price. So you know, sustainable, maintainable, accessible golf also has to be cheap, you know, to play. And there's some of these projects, you know, either there be funded to keep the prices down, but you know, some of these thirty million dollars renovations, who are they serving? Are they really serving the people that play at And that's the thing that I'm concerned about that some of these bloated budgets are great now because we do have a lot of paper millionaires, you know, since twenty ten Spot markets doing that, so there's a lot of people new to the game that have flush with cash. There's you know out and you too. My son lived in Utah for a while and they say, you know, the billionaires and moving the millionaires out now to Park City, you know, so there's a lot of money out there, so they just think it's money's easy to come by. But you know, I've been through a few recessions and gas lines and stuff like that, and Help two thousand and eight basically took a dump on the golf business. And so the people coming into power, everything's rosy. You know, there's no there's no war going on there. You know, gas prices are fine, but there's a reality, you know, the public golfers are paying those kind of gas prices, So there's there's a reality of it. And I think some of these projects are in Lalla Land and will happen if we have a you know, economic downturn, which historically we were due. What's going to happen to some of these giant projects. And you know, there's gonna be a lot of places either closing or sold pennies on the dollar.

00:56:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of clubs that are that have a lot of debt right now. That's that's when it becomes unwise to be because you know, there's one thing with these destination clubs that are that are funded by some billionaire who just wants a cool club out in the middle of nowhere, where where he or she and his or her buddies might go to play golf away from it all. You know, those those aren't those A lot of those clubs are not deeply in debt, right, those clubs aren't over leveraged. You know, if a recession comes, then then those ones aren't going to be the first to go. The first to go are the clubs that have have taken on a lot of debt in order to do these extravagant renovation projects. And those are the ones. I'm pretty worried about it. It seems like you are.

00:57:15
Speaker 2: I work on a few of them. Luckily, most of my clients. You know. I redid Blue Mount great rainer course. We did that two years ago, and we did it for less than two million dollars. You know. It's a good wise club. They're smart people. It's a rainer course. You don't have to drop Obama. You know. We didn't have to rebuild the grains. The grass is great. You know. We just redid the bunkering and did a bunch of teas and some treework. But we kept it tight and they're very They're comfortable in their skin and they are going to survive. But you know, the neighbored course that's trying to keep up with the Jones is too much drop thirty million and can't balance their budget, you know, but that's what they thought was the right thing to do. And I've had a couple of clubs this year but really broke, you know, old, old established clubs just broke my heart, like, oh, we're going to go in a different direction. You know, I've been working there forever, and they hired the latest, greatest young architects to give great presentations with graphic artists and all that shit, and they're going to drop a bomb on it. And that's not what the old club was. You know. It's the newer money that taking over that think they need to do that. You know, the elders, aren't you I've worked at clubs for so long. My elders when I was in my thirties were in their sixties and now I'm a few older, and they're they're dying off or getting out a push out of power. So it's the new money kind of coming into power, and they just think that's what they need to do. And I still have some you know, I was at Blue Mountain last week. I have to go to Essex County Club and the next month I still got pipe and Rock to go to. It's I got some great clubs that haven't fallen for the ruse of you got to do that. And like you know, they are kind of Yankee cheap, which is good. You know they've been that way forever.

00:59:04
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's that's Essex for you. I mean, yeah, and it's wonderful. Like it's i mean, the best renovation maybe in this era. And and it's taken a long time. And you know, I've talked to the superintendent there a lot, Eric Diricherson and and and he and you know, part of the story is him and his collaboration with you. But it's also you know, the way he puts it, the club members wouldn't wouldn't want the big project. They would they would say, no way, we're paying for that, and we don't want to close down our golf course. Well that's a good circumstance for that club because they've they've gotten the work that they've gotten, uh, in the proper way.

00:59:40
Speaker 2: And I'm lucky, you know, my resume is full of those kind of clubs, but you know, some are going by the wayside, some are falling for it, and it's just like just breaks my heart. I'm like, damn, you know, if we spent all this time not spending money, Nelson, you're going to spend this much money, somebody's gonna make all this money. But you know, that's my legacy, and that's why I'm pretty proud of the work I've done and responsibly doing it because it is it's still just golf. It's still just a game. You know, where do we keeping up with the Joneses too much? I've said this before. I always try to keep the I always create the mantra we are the Joneses. You know, people are gonna, i know, Westmoreland, they're pretty proud that we only spent that much money because the neighborhood clubs are all doing the big stuff and they're asking, how did you do that? And it's really good, you know, it's really well done. It's a cool club and they're proud, you know, like, yeah, like you guys are the dummies spending twenty million. You know, we get to pocket this, you know, we don't have to spend this much money.

01:00:42
Speaker 1: Right this episode of designing golf is also brought to you by the Golf Course Superintendent's Association of America. Specifically, I want to tell you about something that GCSAA is doing very soon called Rounds for Research. Rounds for Research is a national online auction where golfers can bid on rounds at exclusive courses across the country and the world in support of GCSAA. The auction goes live on April twentieth and runs through Friday, April twenty sixth. Golfers can bid on private, highly rated, excellent courses at a great value. There are stay in plays at Pinehurst Number two available, also French Lick, a beachside forsome at Nanea golf club that's a tough one to get by normal means, and rounds at iconic spots like TPC, Sawgrass and Aaron Hills. Also make sure to check out the bidding on a foursome at Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken, South Carolina, one of my favorite places. Proceeds from Rounds for Research support golf course superintendents, research advocacy and education that keeps the game play and sustainable. Every bid benefits the GCSAA Foundation's work which is supporting golf's future from the ground up. So visit Rounds for research dot com. The four is the number four, So that's Rounds number four research dot com to explore the options and place your bids today. All right, let's get back to the episode. Yeah, and those those that benefit will reveal itself more and more over time as well. And that's how people got to think about it. It's a long term thing. It's not just instant gratification.

01:02:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm doing Belvedere in twenty seven. We're finally going to do the bunches of Belvidere.

01:02:46
Speaker 1: Wonderful course in Michigan that people should should know more. Abouts is a club but has long been accessible as well to the to the public golfer at an affordable rate.

01:02:57
Speaker 2: Yep. Great other than Crystal Downs, it's a great old club up here by far almost equal equal set of greens too. And it's always been a summer club. They're members of Camargo Bellery you know, all over the place. So there's it's a hitting club, but it's always been a summer club. And I'm like, there's just simple oval bunkers, but the greens in the content, it's Augusta. Basically, the greens are insanely cool. The ground contours are great. It's just a great study. I've sent so many architectures sort of the green sits there. It's just phenomenal. It didn't need fancy bunkers. They just had these simple ovals that were done and back in the sixties, even though the course is built in the twenties. But we do have pictures of the old bunkers and it was kind of like Billy Bell looking stuff. You know, Watson worked with Bell a lot. It almost like Billy Bell built these bunkers, so they were really freely la country club looking, but they'd rounded off because it's a summer club. They didn't want to spend any money. And I was perfectly fine with it as long as the routing was good. The greens were great, and I got all the mowing right place is perfect. Now they're you know, they got so much notoriety through you guys and everybody else. It's it's one of the hot stops when you come to northern Michigan. You play Kingsley High Point, you try to get into the downs Forest dunes and you try to get in Velvet there because it is the old kind of Scottish model. There's it's privately owned, but it's a lot of the a lot of money's paid by the outside public and allowed to play. But now that they're charging so much to the outside play, they said, well maybe we should think about finally doing the bunkering. So but you know, my budget is less than a million and a half to do the bunkering because we're gonna we're gonna get cure. It's gonna do it with me and I'm gonna shape it. I'm I live right here, so it doesn't that, you know. And there it was hard squeezing that kind of money out of that old club because it's a summer club. But we finally are doing it, and we're doing it responsibly. It's, you know, not doing anything more than needs to be done to make a good golf. And that's kind of the mantra of public golf. Don't don't fix, fix what needs to get fixed, and check your ego and try not to make a statement. Just make a good golf.

01:05:11
Speaker 1: And that's how this relates to public golf. What we're talking about here, all these clubs doing the big projects because they have this new wave of members coming in who want to who want to spend that money and want to see those results. Okay, that's that's great for certain clubs, especially clubs the host championships. You know, there are there are a number of championship focused renovations that cost a lot of money, where where I kind of understand why that's happening, because you're going to get the return of that championship, and that's going to come back to the club, you know, maybe not financially, but culturally, and it's part of the purpose of the club to keep up with the Joneses, to use your phrase. But when you start to apply that ethic to public courses that are meant to be affordable, that's when the problems begin. And part of the issue is that some of the same people who are funding these extravagant renovations at private clubs are also the ones who are backing the overhaul of the local public course. And that is great, that is very generous of them. What a wonderful thing to do. Thank you for giving back to the game. I mean, you know, absolutely do that. But the problems start when you when you apply the taste that you've developed from your club's extravagant renovation. When you apply that taste and that set of expectations to a public course, it doesn't translate very well. We have to develop a different kind of taste for different courses. Some courses, yeah, go for the extravagant bunkering, the the the you know, spectacular if a little bit in pre tactical features that that you find on some courses. But when you're trying to build a course that is, uh, that is going to be affordable and sustainable for the long term, then that kind of photogenic approach to golf architecture isn't going to work as well. We have to develop a different taste for understated elegance, right, we have to. We have to bring back elegance somehow, and I'm not sure how we do that, and I I think we've gone pretty far in the other direction. But we have to somehow or another convince people to love elegance and simplicity and uh, you know minimalism m h as much as they they love the flashy stuff.

01:07:44
Speaker 2: And I think it's it's the hard part for me is it's usually you know what we're struggling in Nashville because Ted Rohads. Ted Roads Golf Course the next one we're trying to get to and Jim Nantz is involved. We've had the tour represents from the tour, we got backing from you and bigger places than the tour in this because it's you know, home of Ted Rhads. You know, it's it's serving the community there in Nashville. But you know, we're struggling with the municipalities that you know, they struggle bureaucratic red tape and middle management bloat and entitlement, so they're hard to do. But you know those are they're all easy because we're not. We're not servicing you know, Percy Warner. It was mostly Bell Mead and people that we're supporting that because they walk the park and and they also play it, which is kind of cool Ted Rhodes. You know, we're not We're probably gonna have to have corporate money to help support that. You know, there's no money in the community, so it's you know, you gotta you know, to build that, to fix that golf course by minimal everybody's gonna love it because it's more playable, not because it's high end and this flashy bunkering and stuff like that. It's you know, so I think the public golf courses in the city courses, you don't have to play kates to the the rich donors because they're not going to play it anyways. You know, You're just you know, I think that's my mantra there is, like, well, they're not going to play it, so I'm just going to build it for the people that actually play it. You know. Thankfully they're supporting us, you know, Percy, I had to. We had to make it kind of cool because you know, there's a Donald Ross Coast just down the road and these people are there. But Shelby was the East Nashville. Now there's at least played golf course in the rotation. We got two million dollars from the mayor. I fixed all the greens and let them play. And people love it because there's no fancy people over there playing golf off. You know. So it's it can be done, and it just depends on the neighborhood. Like all the CD of Detroit, Rackham and stuff like that. You know. We I worked there for a little bit, but we had you know, we had American golfers putting the money into it, you know, Kemper or something like that, putting money into it where these high profile things. The park is a great example, you know, Paul Beach. It is done for all the right reasons. Forty to fifty million dollars. Dirk Ziff and all those seminal members put all their money and they like hanging out down there because it's kind of a nightclub at night. Yeah, but you go there, you know, and a gilded you know, they brought in gill which is going to be a high end product. They built something phenomenal. The only issue I have with that place is you go to the parking lot. I went there to check it out. It was really cool. It's really expensive to play on a weekends, three hundred and sixty bucks for you know, an outsider to play it. And all the all the cars in the parking lot were German cars unless they were Tessela's and it just becomes a bro hangout. And that's kind of what the park is turned and it wasn't intended to be that. I know a lot of the donors they're giving back to the game and the local people play. There's not that many local people playing that golf course. When you go in the parking lot and you're you know, I had my round car stuck out like a sore thumb because there's nothing but Porsches and benzes and BMW's sitting there. And you go to the first te and it's just a bunch of flat bellies with white belts. You know, who made their money financial money by noon, the day traders, and that's kind of who's hanging out there. And it's super cool, but I just don't know if it's serving its intent and is it sustainable. It's it's a high end gill project. It's really cool. You did a great, great job. It's more like a private country club job than like you say, a public golf course. It's sustainable.

01:11:49
Speaker 1: M Yeah, and you know maybe that's good for that place too, even but is it a model No? Yeah, and that's that's where we have to do some searching.

01:12:06
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, same of you know Mike and Will's project. You know, the Americans trust or links trust, they have their heart in the right spot. Obviously Trump is crapping all over it and muscling them out. But the original intent they were going to spend a lot of money on each golf courses, Like why don't you just fix it? You know, there's just public golfers there. But they get you know, they brought all the high end guys and they're going to be twenty million dollar projects, and that's really hard to raise that kind of money and then make it sustainable at the same time. You know, I don't know if their model was great. You know, they had a lot of famous people throwing money at that, and they've done a great job, you know, Mike and Will, their hearts are in the right spot. I just I'd always like, man, you're just spending too much money. You know, you get you actually have to get out there and do it. You know, I'm lucky I've been. I have four five public projects that work because we didn't spend that much money. I mean, like the natural projects, we always said we're going to cap it at two million. I can fix a golf course what needs to be fixed for maybe two million bucks. And and that's why I think that's what these projects have to be. They have to be less ego, less frill. Who you really serving the public golfer they're just fine, just got on banging the ball. You know, they want they want to put a peg in the ground, there's grass there. They want to put on a green that's full of grass, not dirt. After that, it's pretty fun. You know. It's all good. So I think it's you say it is education, but it's also leading by example. And we're quietly in Nashville and San Antonio. We're doing it out there. We're just not getting a lot of ink about it. You know, the big fancy projects are getting all the ink Cops Creek and stuff like that. Rightfully, so because we're spending a lot of money, the park got a lot of ink. But we're quietly doing this one golf course at the time, and it's it's very doable around the country. You just have to have the right mindset.

01:14:09
Speaker 1: Well, I want to end this on a positive note for what people how people might apply some of the stuff that you're talking about here. I know that every individual golf course is different, but when you look at public golf courses in general, what are like a few low cost things that most any course could do to get better?

01:14:35
Speaker 2: I look, you know I could. I always say I could go to any muni and you know, check my ego at the door and go how do I make this better? A lot of it's just mowing. Get the mowing lines, get the ferries out white a little bit wider, make it more playable, get the greens good. And to manage the trees. You know, there's there's a lot of them are been mismanageder they never hit architects before. And oh we're gonna we're gonna put a new car path system and the freaking car paths going down the mellow the fairway, you know, get it out of the way. Or are they playing a bunch of trees that really affected the golf. But that's a lot of low hanging fruit trees and mowing is pretty cheap, and that fixes most golf courses. You get the trees back out, the grass grows better. But it's you know, fix what you actually play golf on. Have some good teas that aren't dirt, have some grains that aren't dirt, and after that everything's gravy basically, and that that doesn't cost a lot of money. You can go to any golf course, you know, and you know, look at the bunkers. Are they maintained the bunkers, well, you know a lot of them, they're they're just not even maintaining they're just you know, that's the one thing we're having a problem at Miami Lakes. These public golfers don't fix ball marks and they don't rake their damn bunkers, you know. So we're trying to create this culture raak the bunkers please, you know, fix your ball marks. And they're getting better at it. But you know, the general public isn't not that sophisticated. They're just out and cutoffs and a T shirt and a six pack of beer and having fun. And that's it's part of the game. So don't you don't have to give them the country club setting. Just give them something playable. But I think you know that those are the things you can do really cheap. It doesn't cost a lot of money. It's just something, you know, it's just having the brain power to do it, having somebody with an eye to look at and like, oh, yeah, I could fix this. There's some cool there's a cool little nine holer up by a Northport Point club, old private club, old Bendolo, and I just mowed the heck out of it and it is so much fun. You know, there's simple little Bendolo greens. But I rebuild all the bunkers. There's a handful of bunkers, but most of it was just mowing shore grass everywhere and the ball just rolls. It's just basically Scotland, you know. There's not that many bunkers over there. It's all mowing and contours and that doesn't cost a lot of money to fix.

01:16:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you can do a lot, I think, just by making a golf course more functional. If if that's the focus first, then you earn the trust of the golfers because everybody appreciates a functional golf course. Everybody appreciates a golf course where the turf is decent throughout and and it's pretty simple. But if you start with that, then maybe you can start to do some more interesting things with the architecture. But you have to lead with making the golf course functional, because if you can't do that, then again you're not going to earn the trust of the golfers.

01:17:35
Speaker 2: No, yeah, I always laugh. I was, you know, I've been doing this long enough. I know a bit about agrondo. Mute, I said, I see in my lane. My simple agronomy is grass good, dirt bad. And I really care what kind of grass as long as it's grass. I got my ball sitting there. Most people don't know ben grass from bermuda, from dry from anything. As long as you have grass, get rid of the dirt. You play gronk play golf on grass. So focus on that, which is drainage, which is simple, just figuring it out. How do you how do you get the best terf we can? You know, just coverage doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be perfect bank grass you go to I just laugh whenever. You know, we were building the Renaissance Club over in Scotland on Sundays ago to Saint Andrews and Walkett because it was it's public golf course. Dogs and I take a ball, roll around. You look at the fairways, you look down at the fairies. I'm my good god. You know it's a root mat. Basically, it's not even turf. It's just this perfect surface that's a root mat of all kinds of hodgepodgs of grasses. And that's what makes it such a great playable surface and maintainable.

01:18:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, survival of the fittest with agronomy there is just like whatever.

01:18:46
Speaker 2: They have irrigation only to keep it so the grass doesn't dye, not to grow grass. Yeah, and you know, we come over here in America and we have to have these pure mono stands of grass, and you know, darwin logic defeats all that, you know, and you know, a pure standard grass just doesn't survive over time or you have to spend a lot of money to keep it pure. And you know, we go overseas and play golf and we there's one set of teas and you play from a rock as the guy tells you to play it, and you're more unhappy and it's six sixty one hundred yards. You come back to America, you want a perfect live, perfect greens and ten sets of teas. So somehow it's you know, and I don't know if it's an economic hiccup that we have that brings us back to sustainability of what turf really needs to be and what is essential for good golf. I think, like you said, it's the train is running away pretty hard that this, you know, this perceived thought of what good golf is pure stand of grass and perfect bunkers, perf fricked everything, and that's just that nature and that's not what golf is supposed to be, and.

01:20:04
Speaker 1: It's not always the most functional either. You know, it's kind of like, uh, I don't know how you how you feel about dogs or dog ownership. But the dogs that I like the most are are are the mutts. You know, the ones that uh, you know, they just came out of a cardboard box next to the grocery store entrance, and and they've got all sorts of things going on, and their their genealogy and and they tend to be really sturdy, cool dogs. But when you start messing around with the pure breeds.

01:20:38
Speaker 2: How many how many Irish shedters do you see nowadays? Right?

01:20:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were like well fragile seventies.

01:20:44
Speaker 2: They were the most popular that they got inbred so much they disappeared. Cocker spaniels. You don't see right, Chester was in here with me. He just took off, But yeah, I heard them. I'm a big dog guy. I like dogs on golf courses. I love going overseas and seeing a pile of dogs and front porch with a you know, they're an essentral part of the game, and I love them when they're Superintendent's have dogs I have on my phone. I have a I have at least fifty or sixty golf dogs and they're generally mutts. Yeah, that work best on golf courses and everybody loves them. And I was at Blue Mountain Moose there is great I know all the dogs' names, and uh I hang out with them and they're a central part of the game. But that's the same thing. It's like, too too much purity is for the west Manaster show, not for not for a pet. Yeah right, How many of those are real pats?

01:21:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, not many, and they're and they're a little that can be hard to keep up.

01:21:43
Speaker 2: So I main you know, that's the problem. It's it's it's high maintenance. And that's part of the sustainability, the we'd sustainability. It's overused. It has to be maintainable at a reasonable pace. You know. That's the one thing you were talking about. You know, some of these super high in private one owner obs. The kids don't have the same passion as dad, and so when dad passes away, what's going to happen to that really high end one hundred million dollar golf course. Kids are going to sell it or and move it on. You know, rarely do the kids have the same passion as the dad. You know, we all have our own passions. But you know, so that'll be interesting to happen to those you know, the grand there they're recession proof, but they're not inheritance proof that way.

01:22:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, as soon as as soon as you lose interest, then then it goes.

01:22:36
Speaker 2: I got a couple of you know, I got a couple of clubs that where are those you know, real private one owner and they're really worried about the legacy. You know, they're starting to set up endowments because they know when when they pass, who's going to take over and what are they going to do? What my passion was because they obviously live somewhere else. So I have a couple of clients that are concerned about that. We've had those discussions how do we how do we carry this legacy on of these real high end products, and it'll be an issue. We'll see what happens.

01:23:11
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thinking that more people in golf should engage in because golf courses will outlive us, and so we got to think about how we can how we can cause them to do that in the best way possible. And some of these principles that we've talked about in the past hour or so Bruce, I think uh start to get us toward that. So thank you for thank you for coming on the coming on the pod again. Always a pleasure to talk to you, and good luck with your with your golf game and then beyond that the next projects that you've got.

01:23:49
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks man, good talking to you.

01:23:57
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam. Thank you Will. If you've been enjoying designing Golf, enjoying some of these explorations and certain topics in golf architecture, I can just about guarantee that you would love what we're doing in Frida Egg Golf Club. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership to see everything you get with your membership. But one thing I'd like to highlight is our relatively new or at least refreshed member forum, where there's a lot of interesting discussion going on in our community of avid golfers. It's a really fun place to be, great place to just post random thoughts that you have while watching tournaments or playing rounds of golf, and there are people there to discuss it with you. So again, the fridagg dot com slash membership Frida Egg Golf Club. Some people are calling it the hottest club in town. That's not for me to judge. Check it out yourself, all right, Thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode.

01:25:02
Speaker 2: M