Zac Blair Hires Doak and Goalby for the Tree Farm

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by us the Frida Egg Pro Shop.

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Speaker 2: Check it out.

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Speaker 1: Go to the Frida egg dot com and then there's like a pro shop button in the top corner. If you click there, you can go peruse or different offerings. I might recommend the white b Dratty Polo.

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Speaker 2: We just got them in. They're sharp.

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Speaker 1: Everybody always needs a good white polo. You know, people spill on them. I spill on mine all the time, so that's why I need a lot of white polos.

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Speaker 2: So anyways, check out the pro shop.

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Speaker 1: If you like what we do, support us by buying a hat or a shirt or something. That's always a nice way to support us and rep the brand at your local club course, wherever that may be. Today's episode is with none other than PGA tour player Zach Blair. Zach and I have obviously had a few discussions of path many podcasts. It has been a little while and is a full disclosure with this conversation about his project, The Tree Farm, which is kind of an offshoot of the Buck Club. I'm a little biased. I'm friends with Zach. I've notned this project for a long time. I've been on site at the proposed Utah site, and obviously a lot has changed over the last few months, and that's why we wanted to do the pod and to just run down a timeline for those who might be saying, I have no clue what you're talking about. Zach Blair, PGA Tour player once is building his dream golf course. This all started back in probably about twenty fifteen. Twenty sixteen is when he had voiced his dream to do this, and since then, obviously the golf course has been very public. It's got a lot of exposure on social media. Zach has built up a brand around the Buck Club and it's taken a lot of public turns and twists. And it started as a project that was based in Utah. We go into the details of why Utah didn't work initially right out of the gate, and why it might be something that comes back in the future. Then it moved to South Carolina, and you know, he had King Collins attached to it, and since then that has ended and we discussed that on the podcast and everything that went into that decision. And today's show is really about the latest news. So There's been a lot that's happened with this project. It's very public, as I mentioned, and that will afford much more info in the future. So without further ado, here is Zach Blair discussing the most recent developments with the tree Farm.

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Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my.

00:03:03
Speaker 3: Ball in a bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg egg bride egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off the dump.

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Speaker 2: CB. How are you?

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Speaker 3: What's up? Man? Doing good? How are you doing doing well?

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Speaker 1: First time on the pod in a while then, Uh, yeah, we're regular guests though.

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Speaker 3: For sure.

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Speaker 2: What's uh what's to do? How how's your shoulder doing?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, shoulders doing good. Uh, you know, kind of in physical therapy right now. Got a little bit of range of motion, not a lot of strength, but hopefully we'll be back in a few few months.

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Speaker 2: What have you been doing to keep yourself busy with? Uh?

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Speaker 1: With no golf, you're maybe maybe the biggest golf nut in the world that I know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I got the baby, you know, that's taken up some time got the uh got the project down in South Carolina, uh, you know, which is moving along nicely and uh so those things have definitely been been taken up a lot of the time. It's nice. It's nice to be home with the family a little bit, you know, not having to worry about catching flights every week to to get to a new place.

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Speaker 1: What uh you want do you? You've been watching a lot of golf for you know, what are you?

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Speaker 2: What are you doing?

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Speaker 3: Uh? You know, not really. I like to watch golf, like when Tiger's in contention, but other than that, I don't. I don't watch a ton of golf. You know. I'll watch like the Majors and I'll turn it on here and there. I was watching a little bit yesterday because you know, Tony was kind of in the hunt. But man, I've just been uh I've been busy doing doing everything, watching some playoff football, everything like that. But uh, yeah, it's been good.

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Speaker 1: It's never a good time for like an injury that requires extensive rehab. But given uh the project at everything, I imagine it wasn't the worst timing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah it was, you know, it was just like exactly like you said, it's never good when you got to have surgery. But at least I had a few things that were kind of, you know, able to spend some time on that were, you know, things that kind of take my mind off it. So you know, it's not it hasn't been the end of the world. Hoping that I can get back and play a little golf soon because I do have the itch a little bit.

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Speaker 1: So are you watching people play golf is gives you that you know, it's bad, It's it's crazy, you know. It's like I remember when I was in Florida years ago, the Minor League Golf Tour tournament director told me that after the Masters was always their highest sign up day for many tour events, like the night of and the next day they would always sign up more than any other time of the rest of the year.

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Speaker 2: Was right after the Masters.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I mean I think I was down at a hoopie with a bunch of guys, kind of went and took my dad out there and he was playing kind of filling in for me, and yeah, definitely kind of being around it and just watching it like in person, you're like, yeah, like this sucks, Like I would love to play right now, but yeah, just trying to get healthy. You know, it's I think it's kind of like a slow process for this thing to get back to like one hundred percent where I can play seven days a week, you know, multiple weeks in a row, traveling on tour. But I'm hoping that in the next few months I'll kind of be able to at least play some casual golf, which, yeah, that's enough for me.

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Speaker 2: All right.

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Speaker 1: So we're here to talk about your project. You know, it's been years since we talked about this on air. A lot's change and let's get an update. Obviously, the Tree Farm as it's being called now is you're somewhat underway.

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Speaker 2: You've got land.

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Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about the property and what drew you to the Aiken, South Carolina area for your golf course.

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Speaker 3: You know, one of the things for me when the Utah project kind of got you know, stalled a little bit with the land, I always knew that kind of of the East Coast is so much more realistic for a golf course, for like a destination club, you know, to get a lot of people there easily. It's just so much easier traveling on the East Coast, you know, a lot of you know, a lot of the great golf courses are on the East Coast. It's just easy to get to and from that part of the world for a lot of people. So you know, I literally just started looking like on a website for like sandy soil, like tracts of land kind of you know, somewhere in the southeast where I could get kind of a year round type club, and ended up finding that place just on a website. So I want, I was trying to find something kind of close to the Masters so you can kind of take advantage of that week. You know, it's just such a biggest golf tournament in the world, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, So I know, if we could kind of dip into that, that would be nice, like a nice little kicker. So ended up finding this place about thirty minutes from Augusta National So it's pretty cool.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, describe the land.

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Speaker 1: Uh, you know, ninety nine point nine percent of the people that listen to this podcast don't know what the land looks like. So you know, what what type of characteristics are are you talking about with the land?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the property is really cool, has a lot of you know, a lot of natural topography, you got some ridges and balls, and I think there's a really big opportunity to create some very exciting, you know, dramatic holes that aren't crazy, you know, but they that you can provide that that kind of wow factor, you know, with with the role out there and some of those you know features like the bulls and the ridges. So I know, everybody that gets out there seems to be pretty excited. So it's, uh, it's something that'll be fun. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And obviously one thing I you know, interested to hear about. This has been an alertic process for you, I imagine, I mean from when we first talked, I mean five years ago almost now at the don Die to now, I imagine you've learned quite a bit about not just golf architecture, but development and the idea of building a golf course and what it takes. What type of difference in just sheer economics are we talking about from building in South Carolina versus where you were looking in Utah.

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Speaker 3: I mean the start of that is just the you know, price for land in Utah is just extremely you know, crazy high. You can't find anywhere, you know around Salt Lake. You know, within a couple of hours of Salt Lake. For you know, that's even decent land for anything reasonable. So that was kind of one of the huge drawbacks to the Utah project and kind of why it got put on hold, you know. And in South Carolina, you know, we got this nice, you know, four to five hundred acre piece of property, sandy soils, natural movement, you know, a really cool you know mixture of flora and fauna. Got some nice trees and some nice plants out there, and uh, I mean it's just so much easier to build a golf course on something like that than having to create you know, basically the whole thing in Utah. So that was you know, it was kind of a no brainer to kind of put the Utah you know, the TBC project on hold and kind of shift focus to this, you know, the Tree Farm project. And you know it's yeah, like you said, it's been super eye opening, very much a learning experience. Thankful to have you know, a team of people around me that you know, was a lot smarter than me and knows a lot about this stuff. But it's been fun. I've enjoyed learning about it. I've enjoyed meeting a ton of people kind of you know, picking their brains and digging in asking them some questions about everything, and I'm just excited, man.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean, it's interesting what you think about it.

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Speaker 1: And this is you know, in Utah at that project, you're talking about more cost just to buy the land, and then it's you know, to create a golf course that you want, it's gonna cost more too, just because of the natural benefits of South Carolina the sand, and you're gonna have to bring stuff in and you're gonna have to move more dirt and Utah is what you're.

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Speaker 3: Saying, right, Yeah, yeah, everything, you know, move, move more dirt, bring materials in. The raw cost of just the property was like literally almost as much as you know, we're probably gonna be able to build the golf course for hopefully in Aiken. So you know, it was a no brainer.

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Speaker 1: And you know, obviously you've built the Buck Club up. It's it's a brand on its own, and now you've got the tree farm. Talk a little bit about the two visions and how they differ and if they are there is there any planned one day of melding together or you know, talk just a little bit about that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So obviously, you know, the Buck Club, you know, was this vision to build this golf course like a destination club in Utah. You know, I had traveled around seen a bunch of really cool places and was like, man, I want to do that. That would be so cool to bring one of those to Utah. And basically with everything I just mentioned, you know, the cost of the property, just the you know, the just traveling in and out of Utah being kind of like a remote place. Even though they are direct flights and everything like that, there's no real like people aren't driving past Utah to get you know, to get somewhere realistically. So all of those things, it was kind of like, man, I'm not sure this is going to work here, this type of club or this type of vision. But at that point we had already built up this huge following of people that had kind of bought into this vision and supported it and thought it was a really cool idea. And that was really eye opening to me just sitting back going like, wow, you know, there are a lot of people like believing in this, just like I'm believing in it, and you know, wanting to see it happen. And so I think That was kind of when we started doing some of those events and you know, started creating some of this merch and you know, this following of people you know, was growing and building and everything like that, and then when it kind of got put on hold, it was like, Man, this sucks. But at the same time, we have this huge network of people. We have this huge, you know kind of golf society. We started hosting the Ringer and everything like that, and and right after that we kind of you know picked up on the South Carolina project and the Buck Club project kind of shifted at that point. You know, I started realizing that, you know, the public side of golf in Utah is like a really big draw. You know, there's there's so much good public golf. You know, there's so many people that love golf. You know, the destination club type vibe isn't that big, you know, in this part of the country or this state or whatever. So I kind of shifted the TBC thing to, you know, if we could build this really cool public golf course somewhere, hopefully like a nine hole public course, and then maybe like something for the junior golf side of things, that would be cool. So that's kind of where the vision with TBC is at right now. And then you know the Tree Farms, you know, it was kind of born out of the same idea, but it's you know, its own, it's its own thing.

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Speaker 1: So so talk about the vision of the Tree Farm. But what what type of club? It's obviously, you know, the vision, as you've talked about, is the you know, destination private club model. What what are you trying to achieve and how are you looking to differentiate from other clubs around the area, around that region.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think for me, the biggest thing is just creating a place where people that love golf can go have fun. That obviously starts with, you know, building a really good golf course that kind of takes care of a lot of a lot of the things that follow it. But you know, we want a place, you know, where you can go, you can stay there, you eat there, you kind of do everything, and once you get on property, you know, you can kind of check out from the real world and just focus on, you know, having fun for a couple of days. How we differentiate, I think is just finding you know, those peace people that love golf and want to be involved because you know, they kind of bring in a bunch of other good people, and I think setting that kind of vibe and having that really relaxed kind of atmosphere for people to not not really have to worry about everything. They can kind of let their hair down and just go enjoy it.

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Speaker 1: Through your events, the rigor and then the events we've done, I'm always just amazed after them at just the passion, how many passionate golfers there are, and you know that are just as sick and demented as I am.

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Speaker 3: Totally yeah, I mean literally, that first ringer that we did was fifty strangers. I knew five people that were at the event, and they were basically like you you know, Tron, you know Sally, and like a couple of guys from Utah. It was so crazy to see people traveling from literally all over the world to come to this event and just be like, holy cow, these guys are just like me, just total degenerates, love golf, just want to be out here. From sun up till sundown. They were pulling the you know, they were pulling the cars out to the putting green or the ninth Green and like chipping and putting all night and it was like that's really when I was like, hey, I think we got something here. I think this could be really cool.

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Speaker 1: So I might be burying the lead here like twenty minutes into the podcast, but you know, big news on the front with the with the tree farm is you hired Tom Doke to do a routing and Kay Golby, a long time construct golf construction expert for a number of architects, including Tom Dok, Bill Corr or Gil Hants, you know, among others.

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Speaker 2: You hired them.

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Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about that process and why why you went to hire Tom to do a routing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's so cool having you know, all those guys on board. You know, I know they're excited. I'm excited. Kind of everybody you know involved with the project is excited. But you know, I knew that the site was really really good, had a lot of cool features, a lot of natural movement, and I knew that that was kind of the one thing that you can't screw up, right, you know, if you screw up a green or you screw up a you know, a fairway bunker like you could you could fix that, you know, down the road, but if you screw up the routing. You're kind of stuck, you know, with with what's there. So I wanted to make sure that I, you know, had a little bit of help in that process. And you know, who better to who better to bring in than Tom Doak. You know, he's he's such a talented golf architect and you know that's you know, one of his you know, skills that he's known for is that routing process. So it's been really cool to kind of see him work, work that process and kind of learn from him. And yeah, his routing's a lot better than mine.

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Speaker 1: So what what about his process and the routing amazing the most.

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Speaker 3: Well, the property you know, does have that that topography that I talked about, you know, there is some movement out there. And the way he kind of worked all the holes and you know, got him together and and you don't really feel like you're ever like going up and down the hills. That was kind of the most eye opening thing to me. You know. I felt like, you know, I felt like when I had a bunch of my holes kind of that I thought were good, you know, good ideas, you were still kind of going up and down, you know, and I thought that was like a good idea right to you know, to to really feel the topography and you'd get these holes that you know are really part of that. And he somehow did it like way better than me, where you still get that feeling, but you're never walking like up and down. So I think that was kind of the point where it was like, Okay, wow, this is like I didn't even see this type of hole being here, didn't even know that that would possible or would have never thought of that, and then somehow tied it all back together kind of how I wanted. And I think it's going to be really special.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I want to back up.

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Speaker 1: You know, obviously we're talking about routing, and just for you know, in terms of layman terms, the routing is the manner in which the holes are laid out over the property and and you know the importance of it is it facilitates the journey that a golfer goes on through a property, and you know those the different things that you see when you're playing golf often the different parts of the property that you see, and how the holes, you know, fit the land. And I'm curious between your routing and Tom's routing, what do you think you know, what will what will be?

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Speaker 2: How is it tied together? Better? Beyond just not going up and down the hills as much.

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Speaker 3: He did a really good job of, you know, if you're basically never more than two holes away from the clubhouse, if you ever wanted to go play a few holes kind of late at night or whatever, you know, you can always loop back in. You know, he did a much better job of not really having to move a bunch of dirt. Not that my routing was going to require, you know, a ton of earth moving, but he found a lot of really good green sites that you know, when when in my routing, it was always kind of like, well, what should we do with this green? You know what, what could we do here? And with his it's kind of like, okay, that's what you do with this green site, or that's what this green is going to be this it's just it's just already there. So that was kind of one of the more eye opening things that I was talking about with you know, a friend that had been out there a few times with me. We were always trying to figure out, well, what green should we do here? What green should we do there? And that's definitely not the case with his routing, which is nice. You can see it a lot more, you know when you're when you're out there walking the property and you know some similarities that there were a few holes that were kind of in the same spot. There were a couple that were pretty much the same. And the one thing that he did that I was trying to do was kind of explore the whole property because it is a you know, it's a five hundred acre property or you know, four hundred and ninety seven acre property or something like that. And I had always tried to kind of go and see all the different parts of it. And he did that as well, which I thought was cool because I always loved that idea. He just did it way better.

00:24:03
Speaker 2: With it.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, you know, the original TBC project, the plan was to hire Rob Collins and Tad King. Talk a little bit about, you know, the parting of ways there. You know, what happened in in what led to eventually hiring Tom from from that situation. You know, obviously there's a big question. I think everybody in the golf world has a little bit and you know, just a little bit behind the curtains of you know, obviously the projects have changed substantially from when you hired them originally to do the Utah project.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, kind of like I mentioned earlier, the one in Utah, there was like a lot of creating involved, which I think is you know, one of Rob and Tadd's things that they're kind of known for in the few projects that they've done. And then another thing you kind of mentioned was, you know this is I mean it is it's a completely different project. It's not really TBC anymore. You know, it's the Tree Farms, its own its own thing, its own projects. So when it when it all was kind of shaking out, you know, we were in a position where we didn't really have kind of like a firm start date. We had kind of an idea, and you know, they're busy, they're you know, popular, popular and in demand right now, and they had their thing going in Nebraska and you know Mississippi and New York. They had a bunch of stuff on their plate, and you know, it was just a situation where you know, the timing wasn't really working out, and uh so we ended up kind of you know putting that on hold, kind of telling them that you know, we needed to kind of maybe go a different route, and uh, at that point Tom kind of wasn't involved at all, and we were we didn't have anybody and we were just kind of out there trying to figure out what to do. And that's when Kai got involved through through like guys like you and some other mutual people in the project had kind of, you know, talked about he might be a good person that kind of knows all about it, has been through it and everything like that, and he was very happy to help out, which was really cool because he knows so much more about it than, you know, than any of us. And then randomly I was just like on the phone talking to Tom one day about elevation changes. I had, you know, a question about my routing that I was trying to work out, you know, is this hole too uphill? Is? I was reading his book and you were actually the one who was like, you should just reach out to Tom, like he would be happy to talk about it. And I was like, really, like I don't know him, like, you know, sure enough, called him, asked him about it. We're on the phone for you know, twenty or thirty minutes talking about this, and that was kind of that. And I was on the phone the next day with Kai, and he was kind of like, hey, I don't know what you and Tom were talking about, but you know, he seemed pretty interested in the project. You should you should see if he would want to help out with the routing. And again I was like, do you think, like, is that even an option? Like you think he would want to And uh yeah, gave him a call, you know, wanted to see what he thought about it, and you know, he was very very willing to help, very willing to get involved, which which I thought was so cool because, like I mentioned, the routing is so important, such a key aspect to the whole design, and you know, he's kind of the perfect person to kind of you know, lead that part of the project and get us in a place where we can go build a really great place.

00:27:48
Speaker 1: That's you know, I'm obviously a biased human being. I've recorded a lot of podcasts with Tom, but I feel like he gets like a bad rap or sometimes a misconception about him is like he's a little surly. But if you want to talk golf architecture of golf in general, there is not a more welcoming and uh, you know, eager human being to talk about golf and golf architecture than Tom Doak, and uh, I think, you know, it's it's interesting, like you just perked his interest.

00:28:18
Speaker 2: And then it just went from there. It seemed seemingly.

00:28:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know that's kind of what you kind of nailed it. And Kai was kind of saying the same thing, like, look, this dude loves golf, loves golf course architecture, loves routing, you know, loves all of this stuff, loves a good sight. You know, give him a call, like, you know, like see what he thinks. You know, maybe maybe he you know, wants to give his opinion on a on a hole here or there. And then it turned into something you know, so much bigger than that, and uh, it's it's really been a really cool thing to have him involved, you know, arguably, you know, one of the best architects in the world. So it's been it's been great.

00:29:00
Speaker 1: He had been on site before, correct.

00:29:03
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the the craziest thing potentially about this whole project and this property and and everything is like I said, I found this property on the internet. I remember showing it to you before, saying like that, there's this really cool, you know site outside of Aichen, and honestly, you were the person who was like, dude, Aichen has like some sick land, like you should you should look around Aichen. I remember, you know, I.

00:29:32
Speaker 2: Feel like I drove by this.

00:29:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:29:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think because I text.

00:29:38
Speaker 1: I remember I was driving from Charleston to Aiken and I was passing all this unbelievable land for sale and I was like, aichn, you got to look at the Acon area.

00:29:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's when I started looking, you know, like for sandy sites you know, big enough, you know, around kind of that part of the country. And found this place like on the internet, started calling the guy talking about it, whatever, whatever. And during quarantine, I was literally just like sitting at home doing nothing, and I was like, dude, we got to buy a piece of property, like this place is sick. We just we got to get it. We got to figure out a way to get this done. It'll make everything so much, you know, so much better and more real. And went out there, took a spin around it, came home and got it under contract, like you know, in a few days. And I got a I got a call or a text, a direct message on Twitter from Jeff Warren, who I didn't know at the time, but you know, he's an Augusta, Augusta native, he's the GM up at the Bridge and the Hampton's you know, asking me, you know, is this property you closed on? You know, and he gave me some address and I'm like, I honestly don't know. You know, I know that it's just south of I twenty, just outside of Aiken. You know, That's all I really know. But here's my number. If you want to call me about it tomorrow, I'd be happy to talk about it. And sure enough, he calls me the next morning and he was like, I had had you know, Tom Doak and Brian Schneider down there on that property like five years ago or something like that, looking to do a golf course. And that was that was a that was a really cool moment for like all of us going like okay, like okay, we got a cool piece of property, like if they were looking to do a golf course here before, like you know, that was kind of the moment where everything was like, yep, we did something good. So you know, now Jeff's involved a little valid Yeah, yeah, exactly, Now Jeff's involved. He was involved kind of you know, right, at that point, and then now Tom, you know, now Tom's involved, So everything is kind of come full circle with this property in this project for you know a lot of people, and uh, I mean, I can't wait to see what you know, Tom and Kai and everybody else that's involved can kind of pull off here because it could be really special.

00:31:59
Speaker 1: Now, obviously golf courses cost a lot of money to build, especially, you know, and and with club passes everything. So where are you at at this point in the funding process, and tell us a little bit about your model, you know, and and you know the membership recruitment that how you got you're going about it.

00:32:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we just kind of kicked things off like I would say, a week ago with with all of that, and you know, obviously I'm not a billionaire or your typical you know, golf development you know person. You know, there's no real estate play behind this, you know, which is even more peculiar for somebody like this to kind of roll with it. But we're kind of doing it pretty old school, you know, going going and finding a bunch of people that love this project and love golf like I do, to come in and be founding members and then going to have a you know, a solid group of you know, a couple of hundred national members around the country to come and enjoy this place a few times a year and bring bring more people that love golf. So that's kind of how we're that's kind of the model. You know, it's a it's a little bit different. You know, we're kind of going with this no dues thing, which is you know, I think enticing for a lot of people on the national membership side of things, because you know, if you don't come one year, you're not really on the hook for you know, for for a bunch of money or anything like that, which I think is something that's how how.

00:33:39
Speaker 1: Does that work? Just for people that probably are perking up right now, no dues? How does that work financially? Where where's the catch? Where's the catch there?

00:33:51
Speaker 3: Well? You you, you know, you would pay your you would pay your you know, initiation fee or whatever it's called, you know, to have access to the club, and then you pay when you come, which a lot of people are like, well, you know, why would I pay if I'm a member, and you know, you start breaking things down for them. Like the example that I always use is, you know, my friend's a member at bally Neil and this year, you know, say he paid X amount and dues. Let's just say, like four thousand dollars. I don't know if that's the number, but let's just say it is. And he only went two times. You know, he played three rounds of golf there this year. Like those are expensive rounds of golf. Like you know, you might think you're not paying for golf or green fee or whatever, but like at the end of the day, you are. So at this place. You know, when you come, you pay for you know, everything, you pay for your green fee, you pay for your lodging, and you pay for your food and beverage, which you pay for your food and beverage at those other places already. So you know, that's kind of the model. You know, you don't feel like you're out of pocket if you know you don't make it, you know, on a trip that year or whatever. So you know, just after a bunch of people that love golf, I know they're out there. You know, We've seen that with some of the events we've hosted. I've seen that with just the people that have hosted me. You know, certain places throughout these last five or six years, and you know, I really truly believe we can find a really great group of people that love this project, love golf, you know, love the area, and want to be a part of something you know, pretty cool.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: So yeah, in a way, people that make annual visits to stream Song in the winter. It's essentially set up the same way, except I imagine the benefits are you are on much less crowded golf course. It's your golf course, you know, your golf course that you're a member of, and you know, probably a little bit cheaper food and beverage price.

00:35:55
Speaker 2: It's depending on how you like to eat.

00:35:57
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we we're doing something pretty cool. I think we're going to cap the capacity of people out there at like forty eight or fifty six people because, like you mentioned, I would say, the the biggest downside of when you go to some of those really cool places like stream Song or Sand Valley or Bandon or any of those really cool even like Pinehurst whatever, You get out there and it's slammed a lot of the time, especially when it's good weather, you know, and the rounds can take a long time. You might not be able to get more holes in based on when your tea time is. So we think that you know, we can we can offer this really cool product of a great golf course and a great experience at this you know, still this you know, intimate number of people that allows you to kind of still meet and greet hang out with some other people that love golf, but at the same time be able to play like as much golf as you want. So, you know, it's kind of this boutique you know, golf retreat, you know club you know, for most of the year. And then the one thing we do, you know, you ask me how we want to differentiate from a lot of these destination clubs, and I think the one thing that we are going to do is have this really really cool club culture. You know, try and do you know, a handful of events throughout the year for the members. Try and do some of these members weekends that are or these member weeks that are you know, very you know, inspired by some of the stuff that goes on in the UK, and really get that like sense of being in a club where you know, some of these destination clubs are transactional is not the right word, but there isn't really that sense of like, you know, like some of those tournaments and some of those weeks where a bunch of members get together. And I think Pine Valley is a club that does like an unbelievable job at that they run like all of these awesome events. All the members are so stoked to go play in these things, and that's kind of that's something that I feel like we can do at this place, you know, that will make it feel much more like an actual club than just like a place where I can go, you know, on a trip with some of my friends.

00:38:16
Speaker 1: I'd be remiss to not ask how how's the average Joe, you know gonna Are they ever going to have an opportunity to play the Tree Farm?

00:38:27
Speaker 3: For sure? Yeah, I think so. You know, even though this is a different project than TBC, it was all kind of born out of the same idea, the same vision. So we definitely want to do something, you know, because we because I understand that whether it's like a lottery system or whatever, like every month or or anything, or you know, if you know, you write a letter and come out and play kind of like the sand Hills or the Terry Edie deal where they have where you can kind of write a letter and go out there, you know once or whatever. And then Master's Week obviously, you know there's that ten or twelve days around the Masters where you know, we're hoping that people want to come play this place. So that's uh, there are definitely ways that you know, people will be able to come play this place. And I think that's very important, you know, because what good is like another unbelievable golf course if just like this one percent of the people will ever get to see it. So yeah, yeah, definitely want to definitely want to make that possible.

00:39:35
Speaker 2: I love the lottery idea. I can't get enough of it.

00:39:39
Speaker 1: I think that you know where you just it would be like it also like not only is it is it cool? If you did it every month, like a year in advance, it would give people something to look forward to, Like think about the Master's lottery. Obviously it wouldn't be like the same as Master's tickets, but people get like amped up about that. I mean it's like, am I going to get them?

00:40:01
Speaker 3: And I'm not, Well, I think we've seen that. I mean I've seen that at least I've seen the lottery kind of work with the ringer, you know, the ringers become so popular and have no clue how to be besides like trying to host more of them, have no clue how to get like all of these people that want to be involved involved. So we you know, this is the second time we've done the lottery. There were five thousand people that signed up to like we only had like ten spots or something available or five spot. I don't even know what it was. And like, you know, so it's one of those things where hopefully there will be that much demand for it where and I think there will be. You know, people have seen this vision, supported it, you know, asked how they could be involved outside of you know, joining or whatever. And you know, being involved is kind of just keep keep spreading the word, keep you know, talking about it, supporting it, and you know, need to be involved if you can. And I think the lottery is kind of a cool way to accomplish that.

00:41:06
Speaker 1: With the just community involvement and how golf you know, tell us a little bit about some just random people you didn't know before you started this whole journey that now are integral pieces and I'm just curious how they came about. And I think that's one of the neatest things about this, Like typically, you know, for your sake, you know you've got you probably are a little half the time you love all the the uh openness of the project. The other half you might be cursing it sometimes because of what people, you know, the hater say on internet. But you know, I think one of the neat things about this whole you know journey, really is the not only usually golf courses are extremely secretive when they're coming to be, you know be people don't like construction photos, people people don't like to be open about the membership process. And what happens is they just opened and then everybody's like, whoa, this is an awesome golf course. Here we've gotten, you know, in the entire world that's followed you has gotten almost an open book on how everything's gone. But as you know, one of the benefits for you has been you've also gotten to meet and hear from so many people that probably have wanted to be a part of it. I'm just curious if there's been anything that stands out, anyone that stands out that you know you wouldn't have met headed up been for social media and the internet in general.

00:42:40
Speaker 3: Well, you you're you know, you were you were one of the first people you know that kind of talked about the project. I didn't know you before, you know, meeting you that time at the John Deere, you know what I mean. So there are so many people that are either a involved be you know, kind of sign up to be a member, you know, come out, talked about the site everything like that. There is just like an endless list of people, which is the coolest thing. And like you said, I, you know, whether it's good or bad, that's kind of how I wanted it to be. You know, show people like the process, Show people, you know that it's not just like, oh gosh, this golf course opened, Like that's what everybody thinks, right, they think that that just like all of a sudden, somebody pays like twenty million dollars, this place pops up, and like people start joining. There's so much more that goes into it. And I kind of, you know, publicly declared that I wanted to do this. So I'm I'm I'm able to kind of take the criticism and the haters and you know, I get it whatever. But there's been you know, ten times the amount of support. Sometimes you only see or hear the negative side of it. But there's so many people kind of behind the scenes that think this is so cool and want to be or now are involved, you know, with the project, whether they're members or builders or you know, people helping with the routing, you know, people designing the course, all of that stuff. You know, none of it really would be kind of possible without some of the people that I've met throughout this process, and you kind of touched on it perfectly. I think one of the major benefits we have going for this project is everyone does know about it, or not everybody, but like a huge amount of people know about this project. Where you said, usually it's just like this course pops up and then they're like, hey, we're looking for members, like let's go. We feel like we can you know, get a bunch of people like involved or you know signed up or as members, like before the course even opens, which will be the coolest thing ever to kind of have this huge group of people ready to go day one when this thing pops off.

00:44:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:44:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, it's funny because like I think about the whole journey and one of my favorite criticisms that people would make would be like, why, you know he plays on the PGA Tour, why doesn't he build it himself. It's like, do you have any clue how much it cost filled the golf course?

00:45:13
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it's expensive.

00:45:15
Speaker 1: It's not like it's at APGA Tour players just a drop of the bucket for them. Hey, I'm curious, you know, being on tour week in, week out and there's a strong contingent of players from that area, what what's the reaction been like with players on tour. Are there players that are interested in being a part of it?

00:45:33
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think right, like, as soon as the project moved to South Carolina, which you know, there's a huge contingent of people that are based kind of you know, southeast right down you know, within a couple of hours at that place, it was all of a sudden on everybody's radar. You know, Hey, I heard you're building this place and naked. Hey, you know, you know, what's it going to be? Like, Oh, could I come take a look where it's like, you know, this project it kind of been out there for a while and you know, a handful of people would come up to me and talk about it. But now you know, the handful has kind of grown, you know to a lot of people, which is really cool because you know, I uh, I love kind of talking about the vision. I love you know, telling people all the ideas and like what we're trying to do. So it's been cool to see this support from you know, my professional side of the world grow, you know to where I can have these conversations with some of those guys and yeah, like you know all those guys from the aching area, and I'm sure I'm gonna miss you know a few of these people, but you know, your your Kisner's, your Scott Brown's, You're Hendrik Norlanders, Wesley Bryant, Luke List, you know, Von Taylor's out there at like Champions Retreat. There's definitely more. But you know, like all of these people have like reached out and you know talked about it, you know, said it would be cool to kind of see what happens and see if they could get involved somehow. So I'm definitely excited just to build another cool place for people that love golf. You know, there's a bunch, but golf is so big in that area. People love golf obviously with the Masters and everything like that. It's like a huge part of the economy. It's a huge part of everybody's lives. So I couldn't have couldn't have picked a better place if I was going to move it.

00:47:23
Speaker 1: I love aching, obviously. We hosted event atn Acin Golf Club. Paul Metto's amazing place. It just is a really cool town, Like I would. I love hanging out there, Like my wife and I hung out there for a couple of days after our event. You know, they got polo matches every weekend and acon. It is a really neat town and good, good restaurants and uh that you got to be excited you're going to have a place a little bit warmer to hang out at in the in the winter.

00:47:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, we were just yeah, we were down there this week. It was snowing back in Utah. Me and me and a buddy went out for a couple of days to go walk the routing and h you know, take a couple of people around it and it's like sixty seven degrees, you know, January twenty twentieth or something like that. You're like, okay, like I could do this. It's definitely you know, I love the snow. I love skiing. I love Utah. But you know, when I'm able to play golf again, I'm like, yeah, you know, sixty five in January sounds pretty nice. And I know that's not every day in January, but still we were down there for three days and it was in the sixties every day. So that's better than Utah.

00:48:32
Speaker 1: Well that's I was just in recently in Charleston and people are like, oh, it's not nice.

00:48:38
Speaker 2: It's like fifty five and sunny.

00:48:40
Speaker 3: I'm like, what are you talking about from Chicago?

00:48:43
Speaker 2: This is wonderful.

00:48:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, seriously, it's like this.

00:48:47
Speaker 2: Is we could do. You could do whatever you want in this weather.

00:48:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you know you but yeah, that's and that's I think something big with Utah versus South Carolina is obviously like national membership model, and you alluded to this a little bit. Why it doesn't work there is like, you know, you're asking people to leave some of the best golf destinations in the Northeast, the Midwest and the you know, they only get six months.

00:49:20
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a Chicago really you only get like four.

00:49:23
Speaker 1: Good months, maybe two good months, depending on how pick you are, but you only get a couple of months and then to this club in Utah. You're asking people to leave. They're really good months to come to Utah to play versus this club. It can be year round, but you know, when it's gonna be playing, I'm assuming you're gonna let it go dormant if if you if you say you aren't, I'm gonna hang up now and maybe never talk to you again. But you get the opportunity to go down and play on you know, near links like conditions with dormant Bermuda in the winter and when you can play in your your predominant area.

00:50:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, the the dovetail in the seasons for those kind of northern clubs or you know, anywhere really in America. I guess that it gets cold and your courses close. This is kind of the perfect place for you to you know, for you to come out to. And that was something early on that I didn't fully grasp on the Utah side of things. You know, it was kind of like, well, they'll do it, Like Utah's cool. It's a direct flight to Salt Lake, which is super easy. They have those from everywhere in America basically. But then you kind of hit the nail on the head there with like why is a dude from like Chicago gonna leave like their peak time in the year to come out to Utah for a couple of days. It makes a lot more sense for that guy in Chicago to leave Chicago when it's you know, three below, you know, and can't golf to come down to somewhere where it's sixty five degrees and you got this, you know, prime place to play golf.

00:51:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and well we're excited, and what what's the timeline for what's the hopeful timeline in terms of you're obviously fundraising member finding members at this point, say, everything goes great, what are we talking about breaking ground and potential opening of the golf course on a timeline basis.

00:51:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you know, if everything kind of goes according to plan, you know, we're clearing the corridors kind of later this summer, you know, later like fall time. Then sometime in the winter you kind of get shape in the course that goes through kind of till spring or summer and your grass in the place. And I think you kind of have some preview play going on early twenty twenty three with kind of a grand opening in the fall of twenty three. So everyone one kind of thinks that that's that's a legit timeline, you know, that gives it a full year to grow in, that gives you plenty of time of shape that everything like that. So that's kind of what we're going on right now. And obviously, like I said, it is a different project in that I'm not I'm not like the sole person funding the place. You know, we are looking for like those national members. We are looking for those founders to kind of be, you know, kind of the cornerstone to this getting this project going. So a lot of it kind of depends on that. But we are off to a really good start, which is fun. You know. We we just kind of got the deck kind of circulating a little bit in the last few days and you know a lot of people have heard about it, but not everybody. So we're going to kind of take that process, you know, be very deliberate with who we get involved and you know, make sure there are people that love love the whole thing just as much as me and uh, you know, want to be want to be a key part to it. So a lot of it depends on them too.

00:53:00
Speaker 2: People want to get involved, where do they go? How do you how do you.

00:53:04
Speaker 3: I mean, as crazy as it sounds not to sign, but inquire. I mean, you know, you get a hold of me. I'm an easy guy to get a hold of, though. You know, you shoot me a message on Instagram or something like that, or you know, you call Andy and they and they they, he puts you in touch with me. So I, like I said, I love I love talking to people.

00:53:24
Speaker 2: Nobody reach out to me.

00:53:27
Speaker 3: I love talking to people.

00:53:29
Speaker 2: I'm a black hole.

00:53:30
Speaker 3: I love talking to people about this project. And there there are plenty of people involved right now that I literally had never met before. I talked to them on social media or you know, emailed with them or had a phone call or whatever. So you know, you reach out to me or somebody else that's involved, and we get in touch and talk about it, and you know, maybe we go down to the site and see it and get to know you a little better and boom, next thing, you know, you're you're in.

00:53:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I mean, it's neat in a way that you're you're doing something a different way that anybody's ever done it before. And uh, it has its strawbacks of you know, it's out in the open.

00:54:12
Speaker 2: Everybody could comment and see it.

00:54:13
Speaker 1: But it's also you know, it could be a bridgeway for the future of how more golf courses get built by back by you know, public demand.

00:54:22
Speaker 3: Really yeah, totally, totally. It's uh, it definitely is new, definitely is different. There's not really kind of a playbook for this, but uh man, it's just been cool meeting everybody. It's been cool, you know, getting the people that are involved involved. It's just like again, we were we were on our way like back from back from the property the other night and my friend was like, man, dude, you were like you were like doodling holes on like lined like school paper, like six years ago, and now like you have Tom Doak involved, like you know, you have of like a membership, you know, a group of people that are ready to like back this thing and support it and kind of run through a door for you. It's been so cool to see it get from there to where it is, and it obviously still has a little more ways to go, but it's definitely on the right track and we've got a really really great group of people, Like you said, dude, like Kai has built some of the best courses in the whole world, you know, with Tom and other people. So he's going to have a really really good group of guys helping him out with that. And you know, having arguably the best router in the world throw together this routing has been really fun to be a part of too.

00:55:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when you think about it, say twenty sixteen is when you think, like, that's probably when the real talk of even doing this started. Seven years, if everything goes on plays, seven years from idea to open for a golf course is not a.

00:56:04
Speaker 2: A long time.

00:56:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's just that everybody see, like golf courses take a shitload of time.

00:56:10
Speaker 3: To build well with everything, just like the permitting, the fundraising, the you know, buying the property, you know, getting the people involved. Like like people never see any of that stuff. You know. Usually it's a billionaire developer that you know, can do everything himself basically, you know, and like, we're not doing it that way, Like I'm not I'm not a billionaire, you know, So it had to it had to be different. We had to do stuff in a new way. And it's been so cool to just see how many people like love it and want to be involved and want to support it. And I've just met so many good people that it's it's you know, for you know, if if nothing else happened, that would have all of these like really cool people to you know, to go play with, which is nice.

00:57:02
Speaker 2: All right, zb uh.

00:57:04
Speaker 1: We're looking forward to watching this over the next few months and maybe we'll do another pod when when there's the next big big news you know.

00:57:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah for sure. Man, sounds good.

00:57:15
Speaker 2: All right, Man, be well you too, m

00:57:32
Speaker 3: Hm.