Can Golf Courses Help Us Be More Human?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: How is designing a golf course like designing a city. According to bo Welling, the goal is the same, to help people feel and be more human. Bo Welling is the principal architect of bo Welling Design and in addition to collaborating with Tiger Woods and designing courses like Bluejack National and the Fields Ranch West Course at PGA Frisco, Bo is an experienced landscape designer and urban planner. So today we're talking about the links between creating golf courses and creating places. I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing golf. So Bo, what came first for you? Was it golf course design or was it landscape design, land planning, urban planning that whole area?

00:00:53
Speaker 2: I mean very much golf course design with maybe an asterisk. But I grew up a golfer, And you know, I just told you. I turned fifty five yesterday and I started playing golf when I was two, So fifty three years of this maddening experience. But I was very fortunate as a young person to go around and traveled to lots of places, both with golf, but like also just like as a traveler, my grandparents, my parents are all travelers, like going to Europe with something that would have done at a younger age, and you know, and sort of found you know, public spaces and Europe very interesting. But golf was really my deal. And I was fortunate that we had family friends that were Augusta National members and family friends that were Cyprus Point members, and so you know, these two places were very impactful to me as a younger person. Going to experience these cathedrals of golf, if you will, and sort of learning that each were designed by the same man, like that was just unbelievable to me. And so the first time I remember hearing of golf course design, it was learned that Alistair McKenzie had designed both of these places. And I went and got every book i could on mackenzie to learn about that. Not because I wanted to be a golf course designer, it was just I was like a nerdy kid just sort of interested in all this, and so all that sort of became very interesting to me. And so fast forward, you know, I played golf at the NCAA brown Bear University and Proference Rhode Island, and ground's kind of a wacky, weird place and where there's no curriculum and grades are optional, and I was debating do I do I study something around science or do I just study something around art? Like That's how coherent I was. And I literally literally woke up one morning with this epiphany. I'm like, wait a minute, golf course design sort of engineering and technical, but artistic and creative. And right across the street was the Rhode Island School of Design and they had landscape architecture, and so I started taking classes there. Tom Fazio was building a golf course in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, and I started bugging him how this one. I'm a golf course designer and my father was one of the developers of this golf course, and so Tom was sort of forced to answer my phone call because I was like a son of a client, and that ultimately led to me going and working for him as a summer job kind of all throughout college, and then years later it would altmately have, you know, go to work for him full time. And so golf was very much you know, how I started out in this whole design universe. But I had been an appreciator I think of public space kind of along the way and ultimately lived in Europe twice before I went to go work for Tom full time. And I think how we kind of ultimately got into more of the urban thinking and planning is I had gotten involved in golf course design because I was a golfer, you know, the test of the game, greens, teas, bunkers, and somewhere along my Fazio journey, I started to realize that the projects that I thought were the coolest, Yes, they had great greens, teas, bunkers, but I started observing that the golf was a much bigger thing than that. It was a driver of connection amongst people. And I started to really look through golf through the lens of place and like noticing how the game drove human connection, promoted community. And then to me, the places that worked the best they had spaces and places that allowed that connection to happen once people got off of the golf course. And so I got really interested in this idea of golf as a promoter of human connection and community, and that ultimately led us to start thinking more and more about what happens around the eighteen holes of golf, and sort of from that, ultimately that started to drift into more planning around golf. And then somewhere along the way, I had a friend colleague that said, you know, you don't have to have a golf course be in the middle of all the stuff that you're proselytizing about about trying to get people put phones down and actually talk to people and stuff like that. And so he happened to be a big commercial urban developer, and so he's the one that kind of got us first involved in a project that started to take us in this direction of sort of things without golf. But golf still is what got us here. It's still the bread and butter, It's still what I'm super passionate about. I just think we've found the opportunity to take some of our skill set and apply it in a holistic, big picture way around golf. And I think there have been people, I guess thankfully, that have appreciated that thinking, that have taken us to go look at and do some projects that have nothing to do with golf as well. Long win it answers your question.

00:05:38
Speaker 1: No, that's great. For those who don't know your firm, Bowelling design is distinctive in the sense that, yes, you designed golf courses, but You've also taken on some projects that are not golf courses, that in fact branch well out of that area, and that's part of the reason that you're such an interesting person to talk to about some of these. You mentioned earlier that in your childhood, during your travels, you saw some public spaces in Europe that fired up your imagination and got you thinking about how space and place promote human connection. What were some of those places in Europe? But what's an example of how that kind of public gathering place can promote community or whatever else?

00:06:28
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, I you know, it would be you know, it could be big famous plazas and piazzas in Italy. It could be smaller little town squares in Switzerland. You know, it could really anywhere throughout Europe. You see these sort of squares and plazas and stuff. And I think one of the things that has always been cool to be Like, I'm not sure I put this connection together when I was visiting as a fourteen year old, but like later in life, I think you see how space really flexes, and so like, you know, one moment, there's a flower market, you know, and then all of a sudden, by lunchtime, it's transitioned to a food hall, a food sort of consumption. All of a sudden, there's some sellivatory you know, communal event happening in the evening, but it becomes the life of the city. You know that it's all sort of coming together. And you know, I did take this path through risty and studying landscape architecture, and so I think there's an academic side of this to me too. And so like if if Alison mackenzie and there's a big golf course design influence, I think on the planning side it would be frederickal Olmsted, which might be more park or you know, urban public space centric, but there also be a Danish urbanist named Jan Gale, And I think, you know, if you look just sort of cerebrally at things that they talk about, it's to me it's all super interesting. And you know, Olmsted talks a lot about a park in terms of it's you know, a place for humans really have all walks of life to come together and connect in a way, for human soul to connect with nature, and that it's more than just a park. It's it's something that it relates to humans wanting to have this this respite from the den of the city. And and then you look at Gale, and Gale's you know, talks a lot about that life happens between buildings, not really in buildings. And so I think when we think about what we're passionate about about golf, you know, we've kind of into the mackenzy sque sort of idea of like, you know, surely the greatest golf course is the one that provides the greatest pleasure to the greatest number of people. And so it's it's almost this olm steady and sort of idea of like, you know, here's the thing for everyone. And so we're super into all of those things. And uh, you know one of my favorite Mackensey quotes, you know, he talks, he talks about golf and other games being like, you know, the whole purpose of them is to generate the communal welfare and health and happiness and all this kind of stuff. And so when I look at our practice, the sort of disparate practice of golf. And then as you're alluding to a couple of big urban projects that have nothing to do with golf, I mean it comes across as almost schizophrenic, but like the theme, the thread that ties all this together, I think is this idea of trying to use space in place to affect human connection. And so to answer your question, it's another long winted answer, but it's like it's gathering, it's places for gathering, like that when when we're involved in urban stuff. It's that in essence, like it's what golf is too. It's a gas, a means and a reason to gather. But the effect of this gathering is something that's greater than just a scorecard, numbers on a scorecard, or just getting through life of going to your job or what have you. It's it's a moments to pause and do something and connect, and it's this sort of gale life life happening. And I think the interesting thing about I'm not ansed landscape architect, and I think what's interesting is neither on Set or Gale, where either they were just sort of observational people. And so I think I come at this more from life experience, an observation. Then it's like I'm just rigorously trained, you know, planner or urbanest kind of thing.

00:10:07
Speaker 1: What do you think is the difference between space and place. Is it partly what you're talking about here? When when when a space becomes a you know, a location in the world where people gather and connect on a human level. Is that what turns a space into a place.

00:10:23
Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, I think it's like I actually come from a long line of accountants, and I can always this is how bizarre my Sunday dinner table was, you know, people talking about tangible assets and intangible assets, and and I've always sort of looked through the lens of these intangible assets of you know, whether it be brand or IP or you know, whatever it is. But I think space is to me like the physical construct of that. But then place it starts to be this intangible witness to it. There's something about it. You know that, you know it when you're there, you recognize this. And unfortunately, the word placemakings I think radically overused, but it's overused because it means there is something to all of that. And I think you recognize when you go to a great place, I mean you immediately it resonates with you. And I think part of that's geometry and proportion part of that is what's happening there. The part of the fact is that we as a species feel comfortable coming there. It feels sort of all put together. I mean people sometimes ask me like, well, you know this sort of non golf planning, like what do you do in that part? And you know, if someone called us to say, hey, I want to plan some strip shopping center with a bunch of parking, like, we wouldn't be interested in that at all. But if it's, hey, I want to do something will be super small, but like it's going to be built around a little plaza, a little square, you know, we'd be super excited about that because it's sort of doing this sort of same thing where you create reasons for the humans to sort of slow down and do something. And so sometimes it's gonna be really big, huge scale things that we're involved in, and then sometimes it could be like super small. I mean, like we've even worked on people's like backyards with a couple of fire pits and stuff like that. So but you know, but I think that's that's what it is. And and and this light bulb that went off back to that golf was more than this, is that I started to realize that like literally half my memories of my father were from the golf course, and I started looking around at my friendships and realizing that, like so many of them were either people I grew up playing golf with, or people I'd come to play golf with, or even people I'd met playing golf and that and that's where it became really powerful to me. And I think sometimes for my detriment, I can talk about this too much because I think a lot of people want us just to talk greens, tease, bunkers, you know, strategy, you know the game. And it's not that we're not passionate about that, we super are, but it's just we really feel like that that golf can do something so much more than that. And you know, I'm I'm prone to believe that, you know that if the world had more golfers, the world would be a better place. I mean, it's like a game based on values and honor, but it's also based on this camaraderie and human connection, and so I think anything that we can do to help promote that, like, that's what we get excited about.

00:13:09
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think the reason this subject is so important to discuss alongside of all the usual subjects of green design and bunker placement, et cetera. Is that golf plays a role in modern society, or can play a role in modern society getting people out of their houses, away from their screens, away from virtual connection, and into embodied connection, into kind of cohabitation of the same place. Golf is a powerful lure for that. And the extent to which design can enhance those connections that are made when people are out of their houses and away from their screens is very important. And that's why I think about it a lot, and I think that's probably why you think about it a lot as well.

00:13:59
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean I think we all went through COVID and you know, quickly found out like it's not super fun just to be cooped up in the house or you know, not with other people. I mean think the species need, you know, inherently needs to be with others. And I think technology, as great as it is, it's allowing us to go do this. But it has created a dynamic where we are more connected and yet more a part at all the same time. And there's lots of great science on this and speakers on this, and if you go look at any sort of measure of sort of loneliness in the United States, it's like going through the roof. But to your point, I think that golf is a real counterpoint to that in that it does get you off of a screen and it gets you out, you know, with others. And you know, I'm a big believer in walking while playing golf, and it's it's not exercise per se. Well, that's great, but what I find is that when when we walk, when we play golf, we talk, Whereas if we're driving on a cart, all of a sudden there's a means to pick up a phone or what have you. And so for us, it's this is this is throughout everything that we believe. So it's not just that like we do greens, teas and bunkers over here, and we think about places or spaces outside of golf in terms of how we design golf, Like, what we're trying to do is create an experience that can be enjoyed truly by everyone, regardless of skill level. And like every golf architect in the world says that, but I think to go do that is a whole other thing. And not to be critical of anybody, but I think, you know, everyone says that, and then lots of people go put sand everywhere. Well sand, you know, a good player plays out of sand really well, not so good player doesn't. And so, you know, we talk about playability, this idea of you know, delivering a good experience to a person regardless of skill level. But it's more than that for us, like we want people at different skill levels to be able to play together at the same time and also have a good experience. And that light bulb went off to me. You know, twenty years ago we done a Fassio project called Sage Valley and just sort of across the river from against the Nationals pine trees and lots of grass and pine straw, and it's like super op super playable, like you miss your golf ball kind of anywhere and go find it and play it again. Not that it's easy. But one of my lifelong friends is not a really good golfer, but in the nature of his business, he entertains a lot of people on golf course and so he started asking me to help him bring his clients to Sage and I thought at first it was because it was a destination place with great service, great food, you know, on site accommodation. He has them all there But what I started to realize is that he is a non Ish golfer. He plays golf, but he didn't grow up playing golf. Probably like a twenty six handicap. It was an environment that he felt comfortable entertaining his scratch handicap clients because he never felt like his game got in the way of their game, Like he didn't have to have them to help him look for golf balls and so, and he could keep up and he could keep pay some plate, even though his school or might not be great, he could be with them, and that it was a connection thing that he was talking about. When I thought he was talking about the prestige of the place and the big stake and expensive wine and all this kind of stuff, it was so much more fundamental to that. And so I think that's a big part of what we're trying to do, is create a place where the golf experience where everyone enjoys and enjoy together. And so sometimes I talk about that in that like, I don't want to have to have my friendships segregated by handicap, right, I don't want my family to have to be segregated by handicap. I want to be able to go with people that are way better than me and people that are not as good as me, poor souls and be able to go together and have a great experience.

00:17:37
Speaker 1: I want to take a slight detour here away from golf. We'll come back to golf and talk about the implications of all of this for the design of the golf course itself. But I want to hear just a little bit about some of the pure site design or land planning or urban planning projects that you've done. Could you maybe just choose one as an example, like an elegant example of this type of project for people who may not be familiar with this kind of work. What would be a good example of a project that you've worked on, What were the goals of that project, and what did that kind of all look like from a broadstrokes level viewpoint.

00:18:16
Speaker 2: Sure, so the kind of two that come to mind. So one is this the first one really that we got involved in, which was one hundred and eighty one acres in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, which is the state capitol, and so it's called Bull Street and it was done by Greenville based developer and it was the old South Ground Department of Mental health campus, which is why there's so much acreage there, which was originally built around a sort of eighteen fifties era asylum series of buildings, and so it very much was wanting to be the concept that developer wanted. It was this sort of walkable community, mixed use, lots of public space, gathering space, and so we have a minor league baseball stadium built and developed right in the middle of it. We have a big central green, there's lots of you know, mixed use buildings sort of around that. We have a twenty acre park because lots of big trees and a stream going through, and then pretty intense development though in other zones. And so that was sort of the first one, and so we would have been involved helping with the master plan and all the streets, gates, all the public space. But it was complicated because the duration of the development was going to be twenty five thirty years, and so we had to plan in lots of lots of flexibility because it was so large. And so now the South University Ofuth kind was medical schools under construction there on site, and so it was really big, and so that one sort of got us going with the first real big thing outside of golf, and then that probably started in twenty eleven or twelve in terms of conceptualizing it, and you know, it's still ongoing in terms of its development. The one really not far fromhere I'm talking to you from right now, those in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. It's a place called Camperdown and it's a four acre site that is mixed use of office, residential, hotel, retail. And it's right almost at the corner of Main and Maine, if you will. It's a corner Maine and Broad Street. And it was a tricky thing and that the city had design guidelines that and s it's all buildings had to front streets, but we wanted to have this central plaza via in ess behind buildings, so in other words, we wanted buildings to front. Had to have buildings front of the street, but we wanted to a front on the central plaza as well. And Greenville's but as one of these places has been lauded as you know, one of the great places to live in, great public spaces and all this kind of stuff. But it's very linear, like up and down Main Street, like these great sidewalks and outdoor cafes and stuff, but it's very much if you would put a light on somebody a pedestrian and Greenville, they're literally walking in a line all the time. So this is a real opportunity to do with an eddy like to get people to sort of stop and sort of operate in a different way. Because this plaza is really big, and so to make all that work though, we had a big parking challenge, and so the street is on a grade and so it extended the grade out for the plaza and have three rows of subterranean parking three decks of subterranean parking below. And so it's really been a super fabulous thing and there's all kinds of awesome stuff that happens on the plaza. There's a whole sort of nod to the history of Greenville starting a textile place and sort of morphing into a very modern textile slash automotive place. And it's really accomplished I think a lot for the city in terms of, you know, being able to have events without having a closed main street and things of that nature. And that's only four acres, but it's like it's lots and lots of square footage of office, retail, hotel, and retail, and it's a very active thing. And so all that's been really neat. And I happened to be with the developer of that project this morning and we're out under construction at the golf course where I grew up, and I was given him a tour and he was asking me what am I most afraid of with this golf project, and I said, well, you know, I don't get this right. I'm gonna have to leave town. We both laughed because we said the same thing. We were building the site in downtown Greenville. The reason four Acres existed is that it was it's where the newspaper used to be, and so as the newspaper industry has evolved, there's all this need for all this production and all these buildings all a space, and so the site was purchased from the Greenville News and redeveloped into this pretty magnificent mixed use space in downtown Greenville.

00:22:25
Speaker 1: Well, that's such an interesting project. I'll sort of focus on the Camperdown project for a minute, because what you're describing is initially a very linear downtown where the tendency of people might be to walk up and down and not really settle. And what you were trying to do was to create a place to settle and concentrate the population of people that is outside and hanging out at a particular moment and give them a reason to stop and be with each other.

00:22:58
Speaker 2: It sounds like right, and so it accommodates for you know, lots of outdoor sort of cafe seating, but lots of just seating and spaces on the plaza itself. We have a stage there. It's curated at different events that happened. You know, on the plaza there's a very elaborate sale structure that goes over part of it that's really cool, really modern looking and sort of part of the story of the theming of the thing. And so before the Greeble news that was it was a big textile operation there, and so how it's all been designed on the plaza's a nod to the textile history. So some of the tiling looks like the fabrics that were made there. And we had a Urius Suzuki as a friend and great sculptor artists sort of as symbol an artist team to do all these different sculptures for us that are interactive in nature as well in terms of like you know, you can things look like a thread part of the textile process, and the kids can hit on them and they make sounds and lights and stuff like that. It's all really super lit up and so it's a really cool, really cool space at night. And the sort of curation of events kind of goes back to that story I was trying to explain about Europe, about how different things could happen in the public squares throughout the day. There's very much an element of that of what we try to do at Camperdown is a way to get people to come out and hang out there. And said differently, you'd be kind of thing, you know, we almost wanted people to think, hey, if I'm going to meet somebody downtown, you'd say, well, I'll just meet you at Camperdown, and like you would just go there and you'd find yourself on the plasta. Like you might park wherever you park, but you go there. It's a sort of meeting point and aggregation point.

00:24:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of a representation in miniature of what has happened generally with place design over the past century or so. You know that the automobile. The automobile has stretched things out, has made things more linear. We have strip malls, right, and it's all it's all very kind of spread out and and along one line. But of course, old places, and there's a reason why a lot of these places are in European cities. Old places designed before the highway, before cars were a big part of daily life, tend to be just different in structure. They tend to have these kind of gathering places, places for people to get together and do their business. And they have to be designed in a way that people can walk to them, and so if you stretch them all out, then then they don't work. But of course there's something really pleasing about those places. There's some there's something that really suits our nature as social beings to have places that are not linear, that are not spread out. But now we need to kind of intentionally reintroduce them, because the economic logic of development is more to not do that right, and so we need to intervene in the process almost and say, no, we want some of these plazas, we want some of these gathering points because they suit our humanity.

00:26:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt, like the like the cities that emerged organically, you know, originally very much sort of very dense, clustered together. It's almost a species like we want to be together. And even going way back, like the common land was like the land sort of outside the city, and in essence that's how golf started. Actually it was just on common land, you know, that linked the urbanity down to the sea. But if you look at America, like you know, our evolution, we're a much newer place, and you know, we the automobile influenced us dramatically and created suburbia. You know, I think the theory was we should live here, and you should work over here, and you should go play over here, and so that spread everything out and I think as we I think we started to realize, as you know, living, working, playing in the same place, there's some value in all of that. And so you know, you see this sort of new urbanization re urbanization of places that are trying to do this. We could really put density, you know, close together, but then how space places for that density then go be common The only challenge now is we have to deal with the automobile. And whereas you know, way back when when Florence was happening that nobody's worried about automobile and stuff like that, and so I mean not to be too much of a futurist, but like I think one of the reasons the planning folks are super excited about, you know, advancements with you know, autonomous vehicles is like, you know, the amount of infrastructure that's dedicated to the automobile in urban areas is unbelievable, whether it be service parking lots, you know, streets themselves, you know parking structures, and so if that ever changes in a big way, it's going to be a real, really unique sort of opportunity. I think to reimagine a lot of public space and a lot of downtown urban space, and I think that could be like super super exciting.

00:28:06
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00:30:49
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I think so, I mean think golf developments complicated, you know, for many factors in terms of costs, regulation, et cetera. But you know, I think an example of sort of these two universes sort of coming together that at least we've been involved in would be PGA FRISCO. So, you know, our role there is We did the west course and did all the practice facilities and then guilded the east course. We collaborated on the short course that we serve as the planners of the whole thing. And so what's happening there outside of golf is a five hundred room omni hotel, PGA's headquarters, a bunch of golf oriented retail and entertainment facilities and structures, as well as the North Texas Sections headquarters. And so how that worked there is the site six hundred and sixty acres, but only about sixty seventy acres was really outside of the floodplaine, and so the golf in essence, a lot of the golf occupies the floodplaine because that wasn't going to be buildable develople in any way. But the development has happened around it, from the hotel to retail village, to the clubhouse to Sections and America's headquarters. All that's very much linked on a big pedestrian access. And so when people go to PJ Frisco, like it feels chaotic, but that's by design, Like it's it's literally like an urban space has met golf. And I think one of the things that's really cool about PJ Frisco is that you've got people learning the game of golf at the North Texas Sections Facility. You obviously have these championships, the Women's PG Championship that will happen this year on the East course, and you've got lots of tourist people coming to play these two great championship golf courses, but you have a lot of local people in Frisco going there to hang out. And because this is the cool environment. You know, the two acres of putting is free, and it sort of centers the retail village, which there's you know, different food and beverage outlets and whatnot. And so it very much has the sort of den of a of a public urban space in many many ways. But yet it all sort of worked in that the golf was sort of down in the flub. Maybe that's a unique situation, and you know, one could argue that Frisco itself is a unique place in America. But I think that even in some of our more traditional let's call it private club new development stuff, you know, it used to be that residential wanted to have you know, on golf or the big View or what have you. But what we're finding now is what the market values the most is actually density around the clubhouse or around the core as we call it, because it allows for you to have this walkable kind of experience. And so, you know, we're very much into trying to design more residential oriented places and resort oriented places where if you show up, whether you're a member or guest or what have you, that you park your car and the stays you're own property. That's really the only time you're in an automobile. Maybe you're in a golf cart. But we're trying to get it where it's like really logical to walk to lots of places, and I think that resonates on lots of levels, but it's also this human level I'm trying to speak too, because like as soon as you're walking to you know, from your cottage or house or what have you, to the club, like, you're running into other people while you're walking, and it's not just that you're zooming into a parking lot and running into a building. And so I think this sort of permeates to you know, lots and lots of stuff that we do. You know, I think golf, you know, we're seeing a lot of you know, golf redevelopment, you know, of taking existing golf courses, are existing failed spaces, what have you, and trying to sort of reimagine redevelop golf. And I think that allows us to get into sort of more closer to urban sort of situations. But there's no doubt, like in the layout of new greenfield construction, there's substantial greater connectivity that's happening amongst the different uses on site.

00:34:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, part of what you're saying makes me think of how the design of a golf course, the land planned of a golf course in relation to whatever development is closest to it, or whatever city is closest to it, could could change a little bit. Instead of kind of stringing out houses along the golf course, maybe instead we think about concentrating residential and retail in these particular course as you put it, and having the origin point of the golf course also be near that core. But then the golf course gets to wander out and it doesn't necessarily need to be developed all along its fairways right strung out so that that you know, the development is all over the place. Instead, the buildings are kind of in one spot where you can walk from place to place and then you can also go to the first t of the golf course, but the golf course then takes you out somewhere else. Does that make sense as a kind of structure for one of these places and is that sort of what you tried at Frisco?

00:35:58
Speaker 2: I guess yeah it does. I mean every place is different, you know, in terms of zoning and what like what the rules are, and kind of going back to the evolution of the American city and the rise of suburbia, you know, just sort of separating housing and working and shopping like all that was highly driven by zoning. And so you know, some degree you have, you know, regulatory attempts to preserve land by having large acre zoning. But what that actually does is it just spreads it all out, you know, and it spreads infrastructure out. And I think what we're seeing, you know, both is to sort of returned to urbanism, and so sometimes it manifests Elsa's new urbanism. But the whole idea of clustering development allowing denser development to happen in those clusters and sort of in trade for more open space, and so sometimes we get into locations where golf is counter is open space. Sometimes it's not counters open space, but where it is count as open space, you know, it's much easier to start talking about the sort of style of development that you just mentioned. And obviously as golfers like, we really like that. You know, that harkens back to what I tried to say too earlier. The origins of golf were exactly that.

00:37:10
Speaker 1: It was that the old course, basically the.

00:37:13
Speaker 2: Structure come out to the sea and then you come back to urban and so I think there's something that's that's really neat about that. You know, sometimes we're not able to do that with underlying zoning. Sometimes you know, clients don't want that. But I think what we're finding when I was trying to speak to earlier was like the marketplace is increasingly wanting something different I think than say, when I got involved in this business in the late eighties, where golf was like a string of pearls, you know, homes going out, I mean golf holes going out with homes on each side. Like, it's very rare these days that we were dealt with a situation where we're looking at routing, consider like have housing on each side. So at a minimum, we're starting to put you know, two holes together, if not all holes together, and any sort of other use happens sort of outside of the golf.

00:38:04
Speaker 1: When it comes to the golf course itself, how do you think about making a golf course a place as opposed to an empty space?

00:38:15
Speaker 2: I mean, so I think it starts with the golf experience itself of having, you know, something that's fun, enjoyable, and it's dramatic and there's something special about it, and you know how it's maintained what it is, And I think that's that's obviously a big part of it. But I think what happens the exponential things that happen in it and around it become super important and how that works and flows. It sort of gets back into what you're saying earlier about the concept of a cluster, like but you could have a cluster of stuff, but it's like all got to work and be intuitive and how we flow and this kind of stuff. And we've certainly seen the sort of rise of of sort of outdoor sort of food and beverage and spaces that are very much activating to say, practice facilities or short courses or short game areas as well as you know, you know, the word comfort station on the golf course is starting to morph into you know, its own huge thing. But they're to gain a common part of these things though in my mind, they're all ways to slow people down and sit and engage. And I think that's what it is. And so it's unique landscape, unique you know site, great golf real nod to flow and function that all flows and functions well as well as providing these eddies again or spaces where people can can stop and whether it means sitting and having a drink or of something to eat, or just literally a place to sit and talk or what have you. And so every site is unique and different, you know, I think that, and every project is. I think when I got bobbed in this nearly thirty years ago, I thought there'd be some sameness to projects, and I think i'm I mean, every year, I've always sort of shaken my head like how wrong I was about that, because everything always is sort of unique and different. And I think part of that is people, like the people you're working for are different. Part of it's the land itself is sort of different. And then the world is sort of changing all the time, and so you know, we talk about things now that we never used to talk about. And I was down somewhere last week and someone was trying to commit someone they needed to convert part of their course to into a short course, and and I started getting questioned a lot about well, you know, how do you know that this isn't a fad? You know, maybe a short course is just a fad. And like you, I can't predict the future. I don't know, maybe it is. But like I could see someone saying a practice range is not just going to be a fad, you know, I did, And I think, what's what's happening is that of digressed me your question. But it used to be people call you up and say I want eighteen holes and the expectations want eighteen holes at a practice range. Now when they say, hey, we're designed new eighteen old golf course, they really mean eighteen holes practice range, big time, short game areas, short course, lots of activated outdoor space, you know, all kinds of things. And so I think that it's it's all changed, and I'm very respective of the past. I think that's one of the beauties of the game is that it is the royal and ancient game. But I'm very much a forward thinking person and so it's very much about the future, and so I try to be aware of like how things are changing, and I happen to be involved in Olympic stuff and this whole other story. But Thomas bott, the current president, I see, you know, talks about change or be changed, and so I'm very much into the how do we change and adapt to, you know, because the species is constantly changing and adapting.

00:41:42
Speaker 1: So do you think that these amenities that many developers now want on golf courses, like short courses and you know, well designed practice facilities and Himalayas style putting greens and things like that, are those opportunities for more place building at golf facilities in your mind?

00:42:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, total one hundred percent. So I mean that's what I think I was trying to say, and I got off track there, but exactly, I mean, I think those very much are. And you know, they resonate a lot of levels too, because if you look at recreational activities in the United States sort of prior to COVID that were really growing quite dramatically. They all were what I what we call they were unstructured in time, meaning you could decide to do them for fifteen minutes, you can decide to do them for fifteen hours, and so they tend to be things like running, hiking, biking, walking, you know, things like that. Golf has always been very very structured in time, in that you know, if you and I want to play golf, we have to show up at ten ten and go march out for four or five hours. The thing that's been unstructured in time is practice. But they're people like me that get bored just hitting golf balls, and so part of the rise I think of short courses and short game areas and all this sort of what i'd call exponential practice is a much interesting way to go do something in a short amount of time and amount of time that you can control. I think that's very interesting. And then we're big data people. So if you look at how a good player outperforms a lesser player, it's it's not putting like we've been taught, you know, drive for show, putt for dough. But the reality is nobody really can putt like a PGA tour player missus fIF ten foot putts. But what a short course does. It starts to eliminate some of the shots that it's hard for so many people. And it starts to bring people closer together in terms of skill level and performance possibilities. And so that could be you know, you and I, but it could be you know, you and your children, or you and your father. Whatever it is. It's just a way to really bring people together. And I think that's really really interesting. And I think, you know, if you have these interesting places, that's more than just greens, teas and bunkers. That contributes to place and contributes to what's special. I think what we're changing though, like how we how the species values place, it's changing. And so not to throw too many stats since you but seventy one percent of all rounds of golf since COVID been played by people under the age of fifty, and so as this youth movement in golf is happening, the expectations are very very different, something less formal, more adaptive to their lifestyle. You know, all this stuff I'm trying to speak to, and so like what might you know, like I send people sometimes to Bluejack National place we do with Tiger outside of Houston, and every once in a while, I send like an older sort of traditionalist and like they don't like it, they find it unsettling, like that it's too much. But you send a younger person and like this is like adult Disneyland kind of thing. And so I think we're in this sort of flux mode. But you've got to realize that who's playing golf is very much changing, and there's lots of stuff wormholes. I can go down about that too, of this new demographic or demographics that are coming into golf. And frankly this is because of all this I'm trying to speak to. It's like the most exciting time in my thirty years of golf is literally right now.

00:45:02
Speaker 1: Part of this is the different offerings of a golf course. You know, it seems like there's a bit of a move away from the conventional eighteen hole round and toward a more varied experience at a at a golf facility. I've seen this pulled off in some really great ways and in some less effective ways. I think it's probably all in the execution of these things. But certainly, if you look at a short course like the Cradle at Pinehurst that's been extremely successful, I think partly because of its footprint and its location. It's right there in amongst everything. It is a kind of concentration of activity and energy, and you can't help but want to be part of it. And that seems to be something that's really crucial to the success of one of these short courses or putting courses is just where they are in relation to everything else. You know that that can be the make or break decision.

00:45:57
Speaker 2: Theretive I was trying to speak to earlier about the flo and the connection and so the functionality kind of how all this works. I don't think to me, the stuff is it's additive. It's not like in lieu of so like to me, you still have to have great eighteen yearl golf course. It's just I think the expectation is that these other manifestations of golf, and you know what the National Golf Foundations, you know, have stats on what they call off course golf, which is all the golf entertainment stuff, and then on course golf. But it's the only a matter of time for the word is going to be used around all of this, because it's it's starting to just overlap kind of everywhere. And I think that's going to continue. So it's it's not to me that there's not a need for traditional eighteen holes of golf. I think that's very much is. It's just that there might be times in your life or in your day where you want to have another version of golf. And you know, the one thing that's happened in the course of my lifetime is just the options we have as consumers just going to keeps going up and up and up. You know. I remember a day when there were there were three televisions, three stations, three channels on the Welling household television. And now you look in there their thousand and some different you know, channels or stations. And my kids don't even watch television or television, so like it's all sort of changing. And I just think golf is sort of stuck in this box for a long time. It's stuck might not be the right word, but we were in this box for a long time, and I think that box is very much changing or and so to me, it's very exciting. It's like very very innovative, like you know what's going to be next, and you know, obviously with TGL and the screen stuff that you see happening. You know, there's no doubt that there's going to be a big virtual component to this going forward. And we've been for years now working on various ideas around virtual of how do we take advantage of everything in the virtual but still have human connection and place making kind of around it. So I just think the runway for what's going to happen in golf is just going to continue to evolve, which is exciting.

00:47:49
Speaker 1: Well, when it comes to the traditional eighteen whole round itself, doesn't seem like it's necessarily going away, even if it's no longer as fully central to a golf facility perhaps as it used to be. But when you design an eighteen whole course a regulation golf course, are there different ways of routing the course or different things that you think about doing that can enhance connections between different players, even between players in different groups.

00:48:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we've known to go through fifty seventy one hundred different versions of a routing plan before we settle on something. But you know, we're worried about individual golf holes and having enough space and width to play because we think that's what allows to create an experience where everyone can enjoy if it's to be super narrow, that it starts to be not so fun for higher handicappers. But we really like the idea of looping golf in different ways and PJ. Frisco is a good example where you know, the one is relatively close to the core, but eighteen's kind of far. But like we go hit the sort of central overlook amenity, you know, three different times, and that's somewhat by design, Like we wanted the idea of you know, you're there on a buddy's golf trip and you've you've met somebody at the restaurant to the hotel the night before, you run into them with the range, and all of a sudden you're both playing in the west course and you've run into each other two or three different times the sort of overlook. So like all this by a design and there's some intentionality to it, and that overlook has fire, piss and ways to stop and hang out. And so we're I think we're kind of thinking through all of that, thinking about the game itself, of how to have this experience that everybody can play and play together, But then we're also thinking about, you know, can we have these moments and it put people together, and we're hap to be fortunate. Right now, we're doing blue Jack Ranch. I mentioned blue Jack National down in Houston. We're doing his cousin now in Fort Worth. And you know, there's been such success of these comfort stations a Bluejack National that that's a central thesis of the development of you know, not just the golf, and like, how can these things be accessible to people within the community and they become an essence venues or gathering spots to help them knit the whole entirety of the community together.

00:50:03
Speaker 1: Well, Bo, this has been a really interesting discussion a topic that maybe doesn't get talked about that much, but you are really great at explaining some of the finer details of it. So it's been very interesting for me to hear you get into it. Thanks so much, and good luck with your all the projects you have going on right now.

00:50:23
Speaker 2: You can always like new things or different perspective, and so you get a triple gold star. So I really appreciate you having me on to think about these things, talk about these things. So thank you very much.

00:50:34
Speaker 1: All Right, thanks so much. Bub This episode of Designing Golf was produced by PJ.

00:50:44
Speaker 2: Clark.

00:50:45
Speaker 1: Thank you PJ. If you've been enjoying the Designing Golf podcast, then I can just about guarantee that you would like Club TFE. Club TFE is Frida Egg Golf's membership. You can find out more at the Frida egg dot com slash membership, but basically, we do a lot of content in there that you would be interested in if you've been into this podcast. So Designing Golf is coming back next week. Actually we're usually on this every two week cadence, but we have a Master's themed episode that we just wanted to get out before Master's Week itself started, so look for that coming to your feeds pretty soon. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you again next week.