What Makes TPC Sawgrass Great (and How It Could Be Better)

00:00:00
Speaker 1: TPC Sawgrass is one of the most recognizable golf courses in the world, but I don't think it's especially well understood. Its design is more subtle and sophisticated than I think many people give it credit for. So in today's episode of Designing Golf, I'm talking with my colleague Joseph Lamania about what makes TPC Sawgrass great. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is Designing Golf, all right, Joseph. I think you're the number one fan of TPC Sawgrass on the Friday Golf staff. That's why I wanted you to be on this pod. Do you think it's the best non major venue on the PGA Tour?

00:00:43
Speaker 2: I do. I also really love Mirfield Village and I think it gives it a run for its money. Also interesting, in doing some prepping for this pod, some of the similarities between the golf course and reading Bury me in a pot Bunker Die's book. In preparation for this pod, Mierfield Village is actually referenced in that chapter about TPC Sawgrass, so I'd say it's one of those too. I would put TPC Sawgrass a little bit ahead of Mierfield Village, but yeah, big fan of this golf course.

00:01:13
Speaker 1: I love the players championship unexpectedly. Also, Glenn Abbey, the longtime former Canadian Open host, is mentioned in that chapter in Pete Dye's book as well. May may come as a surprise to some people who are familiar with Glenn Abbey, but that was actually a reference point for Pete Dye in designing TPC Sawgrass, and we can maybe touch on that later. But a great book that I recommended a couple of episodes ago when I talked with Stephen Proctor about the golf architecture books that everyone should read. Bury Me in a pop Bunker is really essential reading whenever a Pete die course pops up on the PGA tour. So we are going to be cribbing a lot of little factoids from that chapter, probably right.

00:01:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, some explosive quotes, some construction talk. I don't know if we'll get too the construction talk, but I think the explosive quotes and how much players hated it will probably come up.

00:02:08
Speaker 1: Absolutely, the player's reaction to the course was notable, and I think has been somewhat forgotten. And it's especially surprising to see some of the names come up that come up in that story, it's some players complaining about the course that you wouldn't expect, perhaps to complain about interesting golf architecture. So that's all part of the TPC Sagas story. We'll get into some of it in this episode. But our main intention here is just to lay out the things that we love about this course and a couple of things that we think could be better about TPC saga So we each came with three things we like and one thing that we dislike. So let's let's dive into the likes. Is what is your first thing that you love about TPC Sagras.

00:03:00
Speaker 2: I think the one I want to lead with because it may facilitate discussion in some of the other ones that we have prepared. But I love the interaction between the small greens and the hazards at TPC Sawgrass and what that ultimately leads to. I don't want to get too technical with like analytics type jargon, but you essentially have to aim away from hazards, right. That's a huge tenet of modern course management that clearly Pete die understood that pretty well when he was laying out this golf course. It's like a great example is the sixteenth pole, part five that I think most people would recognize where you have a small green and you might be hitting something from you know, two twenty five to thirty out where if you were to aim at the center of that green, you'd be bringing that water on the right side into play. And so what you see is some of the savviest, most course management, sound trained, disciplined golfers like Scottie Scheffler. They're aiming at the left side of that green, and that brings a lot of chip shots into your range of outcomes. And so you see a lot of players who they have other traits as well, but you tend to see a lot of players with short game, with good short game excel on this golf course. And that's a big part of the reason why so Cam Smith, Seewou Kim, these are past champ Justin Thomas, past champions with very strong short game. When that's part of the reason is that you're kind of having to aim away into the fairway, think about where you want to leave it around greens, but taking some of these hazards out of play that are up around the greens, and these if the greens were eight thousand square feet that'd be less of a consideration. But since they're small, they're fifty five hundred square feet on average, you just can't aim directly at the center. You'd be bringing too much penalty into play.

00:04:55
Speaker 1: Would you say that a distinctive thing about TPC sawgrass is how the green side hazards are to certain pin positions, like how they really impinge upon important areas of the green I.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: Think sixteen is a great example of that one thing. I'd be curious for your perspective. I mean, there are some areas where in the fairway a lot of bunkers are keeping balls from going into hazards that it feels distinctly TPC sawgrass. Like I'm thinking of the sixth hole, and there's a number of holes where a fairway bunker kind of lines the side of a fairway, but right up around the greens. Yeah, I mean the fourth hole would be another example. I love the fourth hole. Sixteen's probably the best example. Eleven's a good example, So yeah, I would certainly agree with that.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean from an architectural perspective, not just purely from an analytical or course management perspective. The variety of the green complexes at TPC Sawgrass is outstanding. The greens are contoured differently, they're you know, they're not the biggest, and so finding that variety is sort of a design feat. But the way the hazards interact with the greens, that the interface between the putting surface and the surrounds of the greens is always different. It's different from hole to hole to whole and really inventive, and that's something that I love about this golf course. It's so creative how Dye designed the surrounds of these greens and how many different ways he found to do something unique with each green. Complex. The bunkers are always kind of snaking around the greens in different ways and pushing into the putting surface in different ways. Sometimes there's water, sometimes there's trees, sometimes there are these little nests of mounds. It's always something different, and I think that keeps players off balance a bit going through the golf course and provides some excitement, some variety, and so I think that's something that's that's absolutely outstanding about TPC Sawgrass, and it's something that when you see other architects try to imitate Pete Dye's style, that they don't quite get in the same way, because it takes real skill to design greens in this way, and so that's that's something that's one of the one of the biggest things I really like about about this golf course. So I should roll in then to my first thing that I love about TPC Sawgrass, and it relates to what I was just talking about there. I really like how the kind of overtly manufactured shaping of this golf course actually looks really cool. You know. TPC Sawgrass is a completely fabricated course. The land was essentially a forest that had been flooded as a side effect of the construction of the Intercoastal Waterway, and there was very little of the pre existing landscape that could or should have been preserved. So in manufacturing the course, it was not dies intent to make it look like it had always been there. He was creating something different. He was building a stadium, right. His brief was to build a golf stadium, and the word stadium kind of comes with a with an implication of a heavily manufactured esthetic, and so he was not going for natural. He was going for something a little more heightened, and that doesn't that doesn't always result in in great things. That doesn't always result in great architecture. Often, when when architects go for this kind of maximalist look, they don't end up with something that looks interesting. Usually it looks sort of cheesy. One podcast ago, PJ brought up the waterfalls at Valhalla. That's sort of an example of the result you often get when architects go big like this or come up with something manufactured or heightened. I think Pete Die had really good taste in manufacturing the aesthetics of his golf course, of all of his golf courses. In fact, he kind of gives these shapes a handcrafted, irregular appearance that, especially in the early versions of TPC Sagrass, was really successful. He uses contrast extremely well. You know, think of the contrast between the big long waste areas at Sagrass and then the very tiny, kind of pushed up pop bunkers. So he uses that kind of strange contrast to really striking effect. And then he also has this eye for asymmetrical shapes and arrangements right, and these unexpected flourishes, unbalanced looks, you know, around the greens, you see these kind of sudden nests of pop bunkers, but that's not extended all the way around the green in a regular way. It's always kind of surprising where these little bits of fabricated stuff show up on the course, and so again, it always kind of keeps you off balance. And I think it's a to me, a really pleasing aesthetic that the course has, and just compared to a lot of the other courses that were built in this era, and in fact a lot of the courses that were inspired by TPC Sawgrass and Harbor Town and other Die courses from the sixties, seventies and eighties, TPC Sagrass now does not look nearly as cheap or as dated as a lot of those courses, and I think that's because of Die's control over and eye for the aesthetics of his shaping. Does that resonate with you at all?

00:10:59
Speaker 2: It does. I think TPC Sawgrass is stunning, especially when it's presented in the appropriate light, so to speak. I think there are probably a number of golf courses that are inspired in some way by TPC Sawgrass. One that comes to mind is you're going through that explanation that might I don't know if gaudy is the right word, but might be a little bit more overtly manufactured would be Le golf Nationale in France, which is.

00:11:31
Speaker 1: The great example. I think it has clearly Die inspired, right. It's the point that people often think when they look at the course, well, did Pete die design this?

00:11:40
Speaker 2: It has a lot of resemblance and I think the other trade it shares, which I'm sure there's reasons people want would like to be critical of the Golf national I don't think it's anywhere near the masterpiece that TPC Sawgrass is, but this manufactured these moguls survey a distinct purpose aside from the playability of the golf course, which is offering vantage points for fans, which is something that was clearly a point of emphasis from the construction of TPC Sawgrass, And I think Pete dies brilliance in putting together a routing that was conducive to hosting a big tournament and giving fans strong vantage points without compromising on the architecture is a really impressive part of the story here. So that's one thing I admire about this golf course is to your point, kind of marrying that manufactured look with utility and not disrupting the golf. It's tough to do all of that on a piece of land that was flat and carved out of a swamp.

00:12:42
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, the form of TPC Sawgrass is following its function, right. Its function was to be a golf stadium, and everything that Pete Di did and designing the course kind of was the servant of that purpose. But at the same time, I'm you know, you know, trying to construct a stadium, you might end up with something really regular looking, really constructed looking, and maybe not that interesting because most stadiums are very symmetrical. But with TPC Sagrass, Die was very smart about how he broke up that regularity and made it interesting to look at. And I think that's something that Sagras does exceptionally well that other stadium courses, including ones that Die built later, don't do nearly as well. I think the Golf Nacional is a perfect example. To me, the esthetics of that course, the shaping of that course aren't nearly as pleasing to the eye. They're more regular to me that there's not that kind of flare of the unexpected and the surprising as you go through that golf course and look at its forms. Though, you know, I'm not trying to bash the golf nacional. It's not bad, right, It's not a bad version of this kind of golf. It just doesn't quite get to the high of Sawgrass. So what's your what's your second thing that you like?

00:14:05
Speaker 2: I'll go with something that we probably talked about in the past on Friday channels. But how good the par fives are. I think that it might be the best set of par fives in non major championship golf. It's hard to pick a favorite. I think nine is such an incredible par five tends to be most difficult, Yeah, it tends to be the most difficult of the par fives at Sawgrass. And the care about where you're gonna miss around that green, whether if you put the ball in play off the tee, if you're gonna go for it or not. As a real conversation, it depends on the wind, depends on the pin and where you can leave it, how soft the green is. Like there's that there's way more factoring into that decision than your standard run of the mill par five on the PGA Tour. But you could also pick any of the other three par fives and talk about different elements of them and what makes them fascinating. So I'm a huge, huge fan of the par fives, probably the bright spots of the golf. I mean, there's so many great golf holes out here, but I think the par fives are probably among the best.

00:15:13
Speaker 1: Nine and eleven stand out to me as being just the top of the heap among par fives, not only a TPC Sawgrass, but on the PGA Tour, maybe just in golf in general. They're so creative in how they use this sort of zigzag shape that Pete Dye really liked for par fives. Right. There's kind of an almost double dog leg element to a lot of the par fives that Pete Die designed for his championship courses. And I think part of the point of this is that zigzag shape in a par five creates a couple of options. You can follow the zigzag, which is the conservative way of playing the hole, or you can take some risks and try to make the zigzag straight essentially, try to play straight up the hole, cutting off the corners of the zigzag reached the green in two. Those are the kind of options that a zig zag par five creates for you. And the way that these particular zigzag par five's work makes it so they can't really be dominated by power that much. Right, some holes at some par fives at TPC Sawgrass more than others, have been susceptible to power. I think that sixteen has really changed in the way that it plays, right. It plays more like a long par four now, but a really interesting long par four. But if you look at nine, you just can't dominate that hole with power at all. Really, It's all of the par fives are kind of short by the modern standards of the PGA tour, but somehow or another, through the use of water and trees and this kind of zigzag, these snake shapes that he gave to the par fives, you just can't overwhelm these par fives. I guess.

00:17:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple things there. I mean, one trade of TPC Sawgrass that this is one way in which it's similar to Mirfield Village is that it's kind of most fairways are bound on the outer bounds, either by trees or some kind of hazard, so it does kind of prevent It's like the anti Tory pines where you can miss really wide out there and you're fine. You can't do that at sawgrass, So it prevents players from taking driver, you know, maybe aiming down the right side if there's a hazard on the left and swing freely and not worrying too much if that ball flares out too far to the right. You can't do that at TPC sawgrass because generally there's either some kind of water hazard lining one of the sides of the fairway or trees or both. So that's that's one reason I think with eleven, one thing you're touching on and not to allude to potential negatives that we will get too later. But I don't think there's a better example of a hole that should play firm than the eleventh hole, because what's such a cool part about the challenge of eleven is that to the left of the green there's water. To the right of the green, but to the left of the green it's short grass, and you have to actually control where that approach shot is going to end up. It's pretty rare on the PGA Tour at this point to have long irons into a green surrounded by short grass like that's not the setup of most PGA Tour courses. We've kind of surrounded them all by thick rough and so the more that ball can bounce and travel potentially into bad locations is such a part of the appeal of TPC sawgrass. Not every hole, but I think eleven's a really good example of that. And so when you're talking about you can't just overpower it, both of those factors are at play there, right. You can't just pound a driver or anywhere and not worry about where it ends up. And then on the approach shot, it's not just hitting some kind of moonshot seven iron that you're trying to carry a front bunker and get it to stop. Like on eleven here, you actually have to worry about where it's going to end up if you can control that, especially if it's firm.

00:19:07
Speaker 1: There's a certain randomness left of the eleventh green, And just to give people a picture, if you end up over there on eleven, which is an understandable place to end up because right of the green slash short of the green, you have water, so the bailout is going to be to the left. You have short grass over there. But if you end up over there, you've got a couple of pot bunkers that guard that side of the green or guard that side of the green area in general, and then you have this kind of contoured short grass, so you could end up with these extremely scary chips back to the green. And if it's firm, then you're trying to clip it off of firm turf to a green that's also firm, and you're worried about potentially running through or coming up short in one of these pot bunkers. And so if it is firm, if you bring that element of agronomy that should be there, then that is a very frightening shot. If it's soft, then the top players in the world aren't really going to be all that terrified of missing left on eleven. So I agree that the golf course needs to bring that extra element for some of these holes really to come alive.

00:20:23
Speaker 2: I guess just while we're here, because some of these crossover with Mirefield Village. The only reason I think it's important to keep hammering it is because one of the great players of that era, Jack Nicholas, designed that place, and I do think there's some clear crossover in what Pete Die was thinking and what Jack Nicholas was thinking. But a huge element of Mirefield Village is that when you get offline off the tee, it forces you to lay up because there are a hazard short of the green. This is like a common it's on a lot of the holes at Mirefield Village. Eleven at Sawgrass is another example where having that hazard cut off off the fairway pretty significantly short leaves yourself I don't know, ninety hundred yard wedge in right.

00:21:07
Speaker 1: The layup zone is way to the right too. It's kind of like off of the path to the green. You have to really redirect your your path to the hole in order to lay up on the hole basically exactly.

00:21:21
Speaker 2: So if you're a little bit off line off of the tea, it kind of forces you to hit into that area. Otherwise, like you're trying to hit a really risky shot up by that green, which especially if it's firm, could end up anywhere. So it's one of Mierfield Village really penalizes you by distance, like by forcing you into a wedge if you are offline, and there's a little bit of that at Sawgrass. The eleventh is probably the best example, but it's a cool way to test accuracy and it's a very effective strategy that Pete die deploys here.

00:21:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think this is the element that makes TPC Sawgrass, or one of the elements, but maybe one of the main elements that makes TPC Sawgrass a turnam a golf course, a golf course for professional golf golfers, and Mierfield Village I would say the same, because this characteristic of a golf course does not tend to be very accommodating of average players. This is not a type of design that you would introduce to a golf course that you mean to have the purpose of appealing to average golfers. This is a kind of design that is really suited to tournament play. And maybe that's where these different types of golf courses, the professional golf venue versus the venue for everyone, this is where they diverge a little bit. And I think that there should be both in the world of golf. But I'll always be a little bit challenged to love a golf course that can't do both right, that can't appeal to the average player as well as appeal to the professional player. Which isn't to say that TPC Sagress doesn't appeal to the average player. It seems that average players love going there and playing the golf course, seeing this place and enjoying it, but they do get beat up by it. It doesn't necessarily present a great model for building a golf course for the average player, and part of the reason for that is because of the use of hazards in this manner, where if you want to lay up, you can't get close to the green, you got to lay up way back, and then you're faced with almost an equally difficult shot the next time. This is a type of design that is really suited to tournament play as opposed to everyday play.

00:23:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think TPC Sawgrass is maybe a little more playable than some other very tournament style courses like Mierfield Village. But yes, point taken like the t shot on eighteen at TPC saw Grass is not for the twelve handicap, so I am with you almost entirely. I just think it's slightly more playable than the most aggressive style of that test.

00:24:01
Speaker 1: I agree with that, and I think that a big reason that it is slightly more playable than the likes of Mirefield Village or maybe some other PGA Tour courses or a championship courses. Yeah, Bayhill is a perfect example. One of the reasons for that is that Pete Die really uses diagonals at TPC Sawgrass quite a bit. And this use of diagonals is something that can make a course well suited to high level professional play as well as average everyday play, because when you have a fair way that's moving on a diagonal in relation to the te the good player is looking to cut off that diagonal and to make the longer carry. And it's not that hard for them to make these longer carries these days, but they're looking to cut off as much of it as possible and get up the corridor of the whole, whereas the average player has some room to play short and doesn't have to make as big of a carry in some of these situations. I think because TPC Sawgrass uses diagonal so insistently throughout the course that the course is still relatively playable for average golfers in some way. But you know, just just to dig into this idea of diagonals at TPC Sawgrass, just about every hole, or at least every long hole at TPC Sawgrass has some kind of diagonal element, right. Either it's a fair way that's moving on a diagonal in relation to the t or it's a diagonal hazard that is interacting with the line of play in some way, and Pete Die often uses these diagonals in a classic Golden Age way to create strategy. So the bigger the carry you make, the closer you're able to play to the inside of the diagonal, which might be pressed up against a hazard, the easier your next shot is going to be. But in addition to that, I think Pete Dye uses diagonals just to create discomfort and doubt about club selection. And I think probably the most familiar example of this is on the t shot on the eighteenth hole, where the fairway runs on a right to left diagonal pressed hard against a lake on the left side, and it's just an extraordinarily uncomfortable shot because players today are trained to get as far down the fairway as possible on any given hole, but to do that here you have to really aim out over the water and trust your shot. And if you don't trust your shot, if you bail out to the right and you take too much club, then you're ending up in the trees on the right side of the fairway. I think that's just a very uncomfortable thing for a player to a high level player to confront because they have to marry their intended distance with their line in a really specific way, make a choice and commit to it fully hit a good shot, because the consequences of missing on either side of the diagonal are pretty severe. Another of my favorite diagonals is on the ninth hole, where that canal crosses the fairway on a diagonal itself, and it's a really creative use of a diagonal because in order to get that angle into the green that is not obstructed by trees on the left side of the run up to the green, you either have to play short, like well short of the canal, or you have to play really close to the canal because if you blast it down the fairway, the farther down the fairway you go, the more left you have to go in order to avoid going into the water. But the more left you go, the more blocked out by trees on the next shot you're gonna be. So again, you have to make a choice on this hole. Yeah, if you want to go way down the fairway, then your next shot might have some tree trouble unless you play really close to the water. If you play well short of the canal, then you're just going to have a really long second shot you might be forced to lay up. And so almost every really great hole at TPC Sawgrass has some element like this, these diagonals, and I think it's the secret sauce that allows TPC Sawgrass to be durable as a tournament venue, because Pete Dye uses diagonals and doesn't just give you a straight corridor to play down. If you have a straight corridor to play down, today's best players are just going to move it way down that corridor. But Pete Die's holes are always moving or snaking or slanting in some way, and that's what continues to create the challenge, and that's what the defense against pure distance continues to be at TPC Sawgrass.

00:28:58
Speaker 2: I think I guess just to thoughts on two of those examples you brought up. Maybe I'm reaching a little bit, but this that's just the way that my brain works. I think you know your description of nine, the part five, in some ways it's kind of similar to eight at Augusta National, where you know, if you challenge the right side a little bit, like you're contending with less tree trouble on a very aggressive second shot that you may or may not be able to pull off based on how well you execute your tea shot. So they don't look exactly the same, but what they share is that it's a very long second approach shot where if you go too far left you have to hit some kind of draw in, which is increasingly difficult for the modern player who predominantly hits a fade. So I love the example you used on the ninth. On the eighteenth, I think another really cool element that's related. I think part of the reason that hole has aged so well is because a lot of players increasingly hit a fade off of the te and that hole does call for a draw. And what you'll see is that Scotty Scheffler every time he talks about this in his press conferences, he's hitting a draw there with a three wood. Because the modern driver doesn't really accommodate a draw. It's much more difficult to control. And we almost saw Justin Thomas hit that like snap draw with his driver when in Kent.

00:30:23
Speaker 1: Down at sixteen and eighteen at Zagrass.

00:30:26
Speaker 2: It probably should have gone in the water, right, especially if it we're a little firmer.

00:30:30
Speaker 1: Tiger does it too. Tiger plays that that same shot on eighteen, and it's always a little bit scary because you're like, oh, that that ball seems like it's maybe not completely in control, right.

00:30:39
Speaker 2: And if you were to hit a fade and it didn't fade back right, you could be reteeing versus if you hit a draw. And this is something Scotty talks about. Worst case it bounces into the water, but you know it's crossing up there and you can go, you can drop up there instead of retine. So it's cool a because most players hit a fade and it doesn't call for that. But I think it's also built in, like there's so many stock shots on the PGA Tour, but you kind of know when you get to eighteen, like all right, Scotty's going to hit this little draw with his three wood. It establishes this mental cadence of the hurdles that a golfer has to overcome on the way in. Obviously, seventeen is another example of that where the fan knows what's coming. I think the eighteenth t shot is another cool example of that, where you're going to see some golfers are going to hit their stock fade with driver and aim down the right center. But Scotty's going to hit that draw with a threewood, aim down the right side of the fairway and draw back. I think it's just cool to see those shots and be able to anticipate them.

00:31:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, playing a fade off of that tee feels a little bit insane because your margin for error is so slim, whereas playing that draw gives you a little bit more room to work with and landing the ball and letting it run out the way that it runs out when it's moving right to left. So it's one of those rare holes that kind of encourages shot shaping without the use of trees.

00:31:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:32:00
Speaker 1: I mean, there are trees on the right side of the fairway, but it's not directing the shape of the shot like the trees do on the tenth hole at Augusta National. It is encouraging that shot because of the nature of the landing zone and the hazards that are guarding the fairway, which is pretty cool design in my book. This episode of Designing Golf is brought to you by the USGA Greens Section. One of the biggest trends in golf course maintenance is data collection and no management system today makes collecting data easier than Deacon from the USGA Green Section. Data collection tools like the GS three ball and the new USGA Moisture Meter seamlessly connect and instantly upload data in the Deacon app. Use the data to make decisions to manage inputs and resources more efficiently, to provide consistent playing conditions, improved playability, and increased golfer satisfaction. With the USGA Green Section's latest upgrade to Deacon, you can get enhanced navigation, robust reporting tools, and decreased testing time. Measure what matters. Get your Deacon tools bundled today at GS shop dot us GA dot org. Thank you to the USGA Green Section for supporting designing golf in its early days. Here, let's get back to my conversation with Joseph Leamania about TPC sawgrass. But let's get to your Let's get to your third, your third point, your third thing that you that you love about TPC sawgrass.

00:33:44
Speaker 2: This might be like my favorite part of TPC sawgrass, the cadence of the holes and how well it lends itself to excitement in a tournament that is a television product brilliant foresight by Pete Dide, like the tournament not being over until you have finished the seventeenth hole, and that anticipation from the time you tee off on the first hole, like I got to get through seventeen before this tournament is over. There's such a cool mix of wide range of outcomes. On sixteen you could make eagle, you could make bogie. Then you get to seventeen, especially if there's wind, any numbers in play, you could make a seven. And then having to conquer eighteen, especially that t shot that we just talked about. I guess I have a differing view from some architectural thought that the closing stretch doesn't need to be dynamite. Like I know there's some pretty underwhelming eighteen holes that eighteenth holes that get put under scrutiny. I do think it's reasonable to be critical of an eighteenth hole that doesn't ask that much of a player. And as much as I love Augusta National, the climax of that round comes a little earlier than it a TPC sawgrass, right, it's it's really hairy.

00:35:02
Speaker 1: Fifteenth.

00:35:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say ten through fifteen is like, yeah, the equivalent of sixteen through eighteen at Sawgrass, and to me, there's a lot of value, entertainment value in that coming later versus Okay, you finished fifteen at Augusta. If you're up by two, like you're kind of just coasting the last three holes, especially if you know nobody else is still playing who's in contention, You only just have to get through with a couple pars, maybe a bogie on eighteen, like Tiger and Scotti have done in the past. Like, it's not the most exciting finish. I love Augusta National, to be clear, but Sawgrass in saving that for the end, I think it's really cool cadence and it just makes for a great golf tournament.

00:35:45
Speaker 1: And it's a benefit I suppose of manufacturing the course from whole cloth, because part of the reason the eighteenth hole at Augusta National is underwhelming is because it has a job to do. It needs to get you back up to the clubhouse, and it's a pretty severe upslope. It would have been hard to create an extremely interesting hole there without moving a lot of earth, and Mackenzie and Jones weren't moving a lot of earth when they made Augusta National, and so part of the purpose of that hole is to is practical. It's not just to be an interesting hole. Whereas Pete Die's brief in creating sixteen through eighteen at TPC Sawgrass was to create this stadium, and he did that. He was able to just build that from the ground up. I mean literally, the lake where the seventeenth green at TPC Sawgrass is located was dug by the construction crew because there was good sand there that they were able to use to build golf features elsewhere on the course. And they ended up with this big lake and they're like, all right, I guess we're going to put a green in the middle of it. And that was actually Alice dyes Idea, Pete Diye's wife, and that's how that came about. So it is truly a manufactured environment and its only purpose is to be exciting, and it does that just brilliantly. You know, you think about the opportunity of the sixteenth hole. You can make eagle there, but there's a lot of danger if you decide to take that on. You have to hit two really good shots to get in position to make eagle on the sixteenth hole at TPC Sagas the seventeenth hole is you know, everybody's familiar with it, but there's just that wonderful tension that comes when a player walks up to that tee and when the ball is in the air, is it going to find the green or is it not. It's one of those ab penal designs that is really exciting to see in the closing stretch of a golf course. And then eighteen we've already talked about it. It's a brilliant golf hole, and just the pacing of that finishing stretch, the way that some holes are opportunities where others are ones that you just kind of hold on and survive, absolutely brilliant a triumph. It's been imitated elsewhere, but it's never been replicated. It's never been done nearly as well as this. And you just have to look at PGA West, Pete Die's own PGA West, which tries to achieve this same dynamic, but it doesn't quite get there. It's not quite as good, right, And I think there are a variety of reasons for that. There could be a whole paper on why the finishing stretch at PGA West isn't quite as good as the one at TPC sagas. But it's just to say that not just anybody could create a sequence of holes like this, and it is really an achievement that they are how they are.

00:38:48
Speaker 2: I also think the from like an entertainment value perspective, walking up sixteen and being able to see seventeen and see the group ahead of you play playing it and hearing the groans of the crowd. The proximity there. It's done in a very tasteful and exciting way, and I guess to just take things, you know, it's similar to eleven and twelve at Augusta. Really, like we have the anecdote of Brooks Koepka hitting a shot into twelve in the water and the twenty nineteen Masters and not wanting to show any kind of emotion because he he didn't want Tiger to realize that he had misstruck the iron. And when you have that relationship between players seeing each other on the golf course. They talked about this again at Pinehurst last year at the US Open and how cool it was having the greens and teas in close proximity because you can actually see your playing competitors, like that's another benefit of the closing stretch at Sawgrass. But I guess Garrett to maybe put an exclamation mark on this point. I think if a golf course is being constructed for the purpose of hosting a championship, a high level championship, to me like it should almost be a mandate, not a man and it's too strong of a word, but a strong closing stretch, And I think Sawgrass has set the standard there and sets an expectation for what tournament golf should look like down the closing stretch. And if seventeen and eighteen are kind of sleeper holes, I'm not as inclined. I wouldn't be as inclined to put a championship there.

00:40:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Southern Hills does this really well to name that Golden Age a traditional golf course that really nails its closing stretch. So it's not just modern or manufactured courses that can do this. Also, some more naturalistic courses can achieve this dynamic. But certainly, if you are, as you say, building it for the purpose of a championship, then yes, you've got to nail those last few holes, because the benefits of that are so obvious. Whenever you see a player's championship and the way that closing stretch just always feels there's something about it that is just different. And you know, I think it's so clever. This is the stadium course, right, but the true stadium at the stadium golf course is the second shot on sixteen, the T shot on seventeen, and the T shot on eighteen, and those are all in this same kind of amphitheater rights. That's where the closing stretch really unfolds. And there's this kind of cinematic feel about it because yet you can see across to the as soon as you walk up to the sixteenth green, you can't help but look at the seventeenth green and the eighteenth t and think, I've got to hit those golf shots now, I've got to make that happen. And it's just wonderful, I mean cool. It's so it's so familiar to us now that I think we lose perspective on how great it is, but it is. It is truly great. My last point, my last thing that I love about TPC Sawgrass is what we've been talking about so far here, and that is the centering of the fan experience. The way that the stadium was constructed you know, Dean Beaman, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, gave Pete Die a job to do with the stadium course, and that was to build, you know, this great fan centric golf stadium and two of his ideas. Two ideas that Beaman introduced were that one, the spectator areas would be higher than the playing surfaces, so you kind of build up these structures along the sides of the fairway and the playing areas would be lower. The greens as well as the fairways would be lower so that the fans could sit above the players, just as they do at a football stadium or a basketball stadium. And his second idea was very clever and very sophisticated. He wanted a routing that created hubs of activity or these gathering points where multiple holes would converge and fans could congregate. This is something that Augusta Nast has that that we often talk about these these points on the property where you can sit in one place and watch action on multiple different holes at once. And that's something that Dean Beaman wanted out of Pete Dye's designed at TPC Sagras, and that Die delivered in a number of different ways, and so I think that the way that that Die went about designing the spectator areas as well as the golf elements of TPC Sagas was extremely successful, and you know, to start to push into some of our complaints about TPC Sagras, I think it is a shame that the PGA Tour has decided to eliminate some of the original grass bleachers that that TPC Sagas had and to take away a lot of the original vantage points that Die created. There used to be this huge embankment in the middle of the lake between the sixth and seventh holes that used to be a moat, right that was that was the first that was the first PGA Tour's first moat. But now it's just a big lake. But in the middle of that lake originally was this massive set of grass bleachers where you could walk in there and just watch what was going on on the sixth and seventh holes. They took that away. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe they thought spectator flow would be better if they if there wasn't this kind of you know, I guess walking out onto a peninsula maybe creates a bit of a choke point, and maybe The logic was similar in taking away the peninsula that used to jut into the lake where the seventeenth green is. There used to be this big you know, isthmus is that if that's the right way to I don't know if that's the right way to pronounce the word. It's one of those words I've only seen in print. But there used to be this big structure that went into the lake and where you could sit and watch everything on the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth holes, and they took that away as well. It seems to me that some of the kind of democratic nature of TPC Sawgrass that originally was there, the kind of spectator centered nature of the course has been taken away because the PGA Tour has decided to eliminate some of these really neat looking spectator areas that used to be there. So that's one criticism that has related to something that I really like about TPC Sawgrass, and that is that it is an exceptional spectator venue by design.

00:45:28
Speaker 2: I guess I can go into my negative which kind of parlays off of that. Yeah, I think all the best championships and the best golf courses do everything in mind with maximizing the golf and are unwilling to compromise on that. And Augusta Nationals a great example of that, right, Like you don't have including at other venues like this was pretty clear at Pinehurst last year at the US Open, Like you don't have a lot of concession stamp and things that interfere with the action. I understand that you need grand stands and their logistical considerations, but the best championships don't compromise on that. And I think TPC Sawgrass Pete Dye would not have been the type of person who would have been willing to compromise on the golf at the you know, for the sake of some of these ulterior motives. To me, the move back to March represents that the PGA Tour, right, this championship was in March, and then it moved to May, and then now it's back in March, and you lose a lot of the firmness of the golf course for the sake of displaying the golf course more green and making it look more visually appealing on TV at the expense of the shot value. We've already talked about multiple times on this podcast. Why certain shots benefit from firm conditions. Pete die explicitly and bury me in a pot bunker. He says, while I don't have anything to say about the highly manicured condition of the golf course these days, I do believe the rustic nature of the stadium course has been lost over the years, which has lessened its demanding design features. And he explicitly says that the golf course was originally designed to play firm. And we had Gary Young of the PGA Tour, who's chief referee, very involved in setup on the Frida Egg Pod last year, and he explicitly said that the move to March is much more visually appealing, while understanding that you lose some of the firm and fast nature of the golf course. So to me, like my biggest gripe with TPC Sawgrass is in the Players Championship in particular, is that it's not playing the way that it should play. And I hope it's obvious from this conversation why firmness is additive to this championship. To me, the move to March is a mistake when you add in that major championship venues get a little harder for the PGA as well in May to you know, you're kind of restricted and where parts of the country you can go like that might have made more sense in August, like the old schedule might have made a little bit more sense. And certainly I think TPC Sawgrass makes more sense in May than in March.

00:48:14
Speaker 1: There was the move to March, and then there has also been the the explicit intention of the PGA Tour to make TPC Sawgrass look more like Augusta National. The way the course is presented now is so Augusta cosplay. It's never going to be Augusta National. But the PGA Tour kind of wants to move it in that direction, and that is completely contrary to what Pete Die would have wanted. Now. Pete Die was certainly alive long enough and advising at TPC Sawgrass long enough to see this transformation of the course from its original rustic appearance to what it is now. Very green, verdant, probably softer and more water than it should be with the you know, just with the flowers, and you know, overseed, the overseed, which might be might be necessary if you're going to have the championship in March. But listen, I mean agronomy has advanced so far these days that they're there have to have been some other options. Something clicked for me when I looked at some photos and some footage of TPC Sawgrass in its early days and the early and mid eighties, and that's the TPC Sawgrass originally was very Pinehurst Number two, like very I think that's an underdiscussed influence of both Pete Dies and of TPC Sawgrasses. If you look at those original greens at TPC Sawgrass too, they are much more domed than they are now. They're very pine and I still think they have some of that care characteristic, but they've softened that over the years as well. In fact, they started to soften it in like nineteen eighty three, after the first couple of players championships at TPC Sagras. The players were like, Okay, we've got to tamp this down a little bit. But the initial greens that Die built at TPC Sawgrass very much had a Pinehurst style to them, and I think the entire presentation of the course back then, the way the waste areas were now the waste areas are just big long white bunkers. Originally they looked pinehursty and I think that that was a reference point for Pete Dye, who was very familiar with Pinehurst number two. It was one of his favorite courses and one of the courses that he played and visited the most. I think Pinehurst number two was kind of that reference point for TPC Sawgrass, not Augusta National. In many ways, Pinehurst number two is kind of the anti Augusta National among championship venues. And what I believed I wanted was for TPC Sawgrass to be much more toward the Pinehurst end of the spectrum. The PGA Tour over the last forty years has moved TPC Sawgrass decisively toward the Augusta National end of the spectrum, and I think that is a betrayal of the original intention of the course and a good representation of how the PGA Tour has changed over the years. If you think about the original design of TPC Sawgrass and its original intentions as supplied by Dean Beeman and Pete Die, it was to create this gnarly difficult course that was spectator centric and that was player defiant. They wanted players to suffer, and they wanted the spectators to watch and have a good time, and it's hard to imagine how much the mindset of the PGA Tour has changed since then. You would never see the PGA Tour these days prioritize spectator pleasure over player convenience. But that's exactly what the original conception of TPC Sawgrass was and the way that the course has changed over the years represents the PGA Tour's change in mindset. It's move toward the players and away from the fan. And I think it's still a great golf course. It is still a brilliant golf course, but that's in spite of and not because of the changes that the PGA Tour has made to it. The fact that TPC Sawgrass is still great is a testament to how good it was originally. But the PGA Tour has done its best to make it not as great anymore, and that is a bummer.

00:52:53
Speaker 2: There's so much there. I mean, I think the only pushback on the augustification is that Augusta still plays firm, So you're like, right, Sawgrass.

00:53:02
Speaker 1: They figure it out there. I mean, it's through high technology and everything.

00:53:05
Speaker 2: Understood, but they're not sacrificing on the way the golf course is supposed to be played versus sawgrass in greenifying itself or whatever verb you want to use, is sacrificing explicitly on the firmness. There's more rain in March than there is in May, like it's going to play softer so much so much there that to go in to a lot of directions. I think one thing that's interesting and reading bear me in a pop Punker is seeing Tom Kite's comments in nineteen ninety four where he blasts the setup and says that they've gotten too easy. He talks about tournament officials being in love with the color green and lamenting the deterioration of the test, which is just an interesting example of the direction that professional golf started to go, and some of the conversations that we have now, Like we were upset with the way the Honda Classic and now the Cognizant Classic played this year and last year with all the overseed and how much they've neutered that golf course, trying to get more players to show up and not get beaten up by the golf course. Like some of these conversations have been happening since the late eighties, in the early nineties and That's what's fascinating to me about TBC Sawgrass is it really does tell the story of professional golf, both from a pure golf standpoint, but also from some of the other considerations of the PGA Tour. Like Garrett, they would pace of play is unfortunately a relevant part of this conversation, where some of the decisions they make with setup. If the golf course played a lot firmer and faster and windier like they wouldn't get done the first two rounds in the first two days like they'd be playing on Saturday morning every time. Now you have a little more see it.

00:54:44
Speaker 1: Whenever there's foul weather at the Players' Championship, they don't finish.

00:54:47
Speaker 2: You have a little more daylight in May, right, which is another reason to move it to that date. But it's a practical consideration that unfortunately compromises on the golf course. We'll see what they do with the bumpers this year on seventeen, where they grew up these thick collars for the twenty twenty four tournament. That's stopping balls from going in the water, completely antithetical to the way he died. Never should play, He would never, But again I think the tour would say part of that is for pace of play. If we have a bunch of shots going in the water, then.

00:55:18
Speaker 1: The players are going to call over the officials and be like, can I drop it here?

00:55:21
Speaker 2: Can I d take it's going to take twenty minutes. So it's cool that, both for positive and negative reasons, that Sagas really does tell the story of professional golf.

00:55:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that's a good place to wrap up. Joseph, Thank you so much for coming on the pod. This was a fun conversation and looking forward to the Players Championship, and I hope we've given people an idea of why we really love TPC Sawgrass, even if it looks different and plays different from a lot of the courses that we normally praise on fridayg Golf. This is a fascinating and important golf course and it was very fun to talk about it with you.

00:55:57
Speaker 2: Thanks Kerrett, thanks for having me.

00:56:11
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you enjoy this kind of deep dive that Joseph and I just did into a particular golf course, I can guarantee that you would really love the content. That we do in Club TFE on a weekly basis. We publish extensive course profiles about golf courses that we really love and in some cases golf courses that we don't like that much, and those discussions can be equally interesting. But we're building what we think is a really strong and fun community in Club TFE around this kind of content and this discussion of golf course architecture as well as golf in general, and we would really like you to join that community. So go to the Friday dot com slash membership and see what CLUBTFE is all about. Thank you for listening to Designing Golf, give us a rating and review if you feel like it, and we'll see you again soon for another episode