The 10 Defining Golf Courses of the Past 15 Years

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Here's the thought experiment. You're a golf nerd and it's twenty fifty five. When you look back on the years between twenty ten and twenty twenty five, what are the ten golf courses that define that period for you? What are the really great ones, or the influential ones, or just the ones that represent the era in some way. In this episode, we're trying to figure out what those courses will be the ten defining golf courses of the past fifteen years. I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing golf, all right. So I'm here with my colleagues Andy Johnson and Matt Ruschius, Andy, founder of Frida Egg Golf. How you doing today?

00:00:50
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, Excited to do this. This is I have to say, I'm a little jealous that I didn't think of this topic for the Fried Egg Pod. So this is a fun thought experiment.

00:01:02
Speaker 1: And Matt you're here as well. How are you doing doing well?

00:01:06
Speaker 3: Excited to hear what you guys have to say, because I feel like you can kind of take the word defining in very many different directions. So I'm curious to see you guys's point of view and see how it differs from mine.

00:01:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, first of all, before we get into the discussion of what constitutes defining, I should address the timeframe that we've chosen here, twenty ten to twenty twenty five. First of all, I need to acknowledge that that is in fact sixteen years. The time from the beginning of twenty ten to the end of twenty twenty five is in fact sixteen years, But I'm calling it the past fifteen years because I just really don't feel like calling it the past sixteen years. In any case. The idea behind this timeframe is that what we're dealing with here is the post recession era, and the recession was a major shock to golf course development and golf course architecture. It changed the way that things had to be done. And so what we're talking about is this is this odd little time period from about twenty ten to to the current day where the golf course industry had to reinvent itself in some ways. And then there was another shock in the middle of it in COVID. And of course things have changed big time once again during the twenty twenties. So I thought it was a good moment here at the end of twenty twenty five to kind of reflect on what this period has meant in the golf course industry and talk about some of the courses that have stood out in some way. But yeah, I've chosen this adjective defining for the episode. There are a number of other you know, there are various various adjectives I could have gone with here. I did not go with best for a reason. You know, this is not a list of the best courses that we're going to do because I was a little bit less interested in speaking in those terms. Yeah, when you guys think of what constitutes a defining course, what do you think of, Andy, what comes to mind when you think of a defining golf course?

00:03:10
Speaker 2: I think one of the keys here is you're prompt of is twenty fifty five, and you're thinking back to this period of time, and it would be the courses that jumped your mind, and I kind of think of defining into different superlative buckets. This is not the best they are to me, golf courses that that they could be the best, Like you're going to have like what you think is the best of that period, but also there are other bins that you could put it in as most influential things that changed the way people thought of certain types of golf. And I think that's the premise here which makes this a really fun discussion, because it isn't necessarily the.

00:04:03
Speaker 4: Best golf courses.

00:04:05
Speaker 2: It is the ones that kind of changed the way that the general public thought about a certain type of golf. Is my kind of way I'm I'm approaching this or the way that maybe it possibly influenced and changed the way golf courses were built, or how it changed the trends in golf course architecture. Like that's the way I'm thinking about it a little bit.

00:04:32
Speaker 1: Yes, and these can be changes for better for worse. Yes, you know, I think most of the courses that we'll talk about we would probably argue for better. We're not going to talk about many, if any straight up bad courses. But these are not necessarily, as you say, the best courses. They are there, they just loom large in the historical period. They are historically important in some way, Matt, anything to add to that with this you task of trying to define what defining means?

00:05:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Andy summed up kind of what I immediately thought to of when you kind of gave this prompt to us. One thing that I kind of like keyed in on was trying to identify golf courses from this era that like set a precedent and then kind of like were these trailblazers for a new model of golf or like a kind of radical way of thinking, So trying to pinpoint like that origin golf course that kind of like paved this way for other courses to come from behind it. So that was one thing that I kind of used to try and target, like one that's more defining than another, because a lot of them can fall in the same buckets when you go through the list.

00:05:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, which course first of all came first and which course actually brought about the change, you know, because sometimes some courses come first, but they don't have quite the effect that the second effort has. I think we'll talk about a couple of those examples in this episode. But it's interesting how history works sometimes where something might be first, but it doesn't necessarily change everything right away. It is the second thing in that genre or in that vein that really pushes it. But being first is important, and the things that are that come the earliest will we'll definitely get some priority here. So yeah, I mean when I think of defining, I break it down into a few different buckets. A course can be defining in like a number of different ways, and it doesn't necessarily have to be any one of these things. It doesn't have to be all of these things. So a course can be defining just by being really great. So that's one thing, right when we think of the defining courses of the of the nineteen teams in the US, those are National Golf Links and Pine Valley, maybe a couple others, but they're the really great courses. And so that's one thing that you certainly need to consider. But you don't necessarily need greatness to be defining. You can also have influence. It can be an influential course, which is a lot of what you guys are speaking to. A course that changes something, changes the way that people view architecture or development. You can have a course that's sort of representative of a larger trend. That's another way a course can be defining. A course that kind of embodies a broader historical dynamic that is going on in the period in which the course was built. And then finally there's there's you know another category that I want to consider here, and that is uniqueness. And so this is almost sort of opposed to being representative of a larger historical trend, right because if you're representative, you're by definition not not unique. But I think courses can be defining by by having some thing about them that is just different, and they can stand out for that reason. So I think really any of those factors can be can be at play here. So all right, so's those are our general criteria. I want to dive now into actually picking some courses, and as we as we pick courses, we can kind of talk about some of the broader macro trends of golf architecture and development over the past fifteen years, which I think are very interesting. But the way we're going to do this is kind of draft style. But it's not a competitive draft necessarily. We're not selecting courses so that we have the best three courses or whatever. We're trying to sort of collaborate here to come up with the best list of ten courses, and we'll alternate choosing one course at a time until we get to nine, and then at the end we'll, you know, together, we'll kind of choose a tenth course that we really think should be on the list. So that's kind of the method that we'll use here, and I will, you know, make a note before we start picking courses that, you know, for our international listeners, we are three Americans here. We all live in the US. We are most familiar with US courses. Now, we we aren't necessarily going to be choosing all courses that we have seen. We can select courses that we haven't been to but we know to be defining in some way. But just the fact that we live in the US and have been involved in a golf World discussion that that kind of revolves around us, you know, talking to other Americans and seeing American courses, that's going to put an idea in our minds that American courses kind of are are maybe a bigger deal than they would be to somebody who lives in South Africa or somebody who lives in New Zealand. So we'll try to be we'll try to make some gestures toward international news, but this is our list. We are three Americans, and just take it. Take it in that spirit. We're not trying to be We're not trying to be defining with our defining list. All right, why don't we start with Andy's pick? Andy, I'm gonna give you the first pick.

00:10:12
Speaker 2: And you're being so deferential giving me the first pick here.

00:10:16
Speaker 1: It's it's very kind of me. I know that we all really wanted to have the first pick. Andy. What do you? What do you? What are you gonna? Where are you gonna go with for our first defining golf course of this period?

00:10:29
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:10:29
Speaker 4: I this is this is hard to pick first.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: I know. I looked at it myself and I tried to figure out which course I would pick first, and I could not figure it out.

00:10:41
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with Terry d number one.

00:10:44
Speaker 1: Going international right off the bat. That's great.

00:10:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I just am picking this because it this golf course and the the success of it, leading to the tri I golf courses being built, has thrust the North Island of New Zealand into like dream trip for ardent golf fans, golf travelers. It has made New Zealand a you know, extremely you know, desired golf destination. And there were great golf courses on New Zealand, you know, in New Zealand before Terry Dy there were but Terry Edy and the level of that it's reached on I think on one of the world lists it's in.

00:11:36
Speaker 4: The top ten.

00:11:37
Speaker 2: The impact that it then that then followed with the building of a world class resort that's open to the public. I think this you're talking about lifting an entire country's you know, tourism economy and making it a world class golf destination.

00:11:58
Speaker 4: To me, if i'm you know.

00:12:02
Speaker 2: Comes down to it, I think it completely changed the golf landscape in New Zealand and will continue to change the golf landscape in New Zealand.

00:12:10
Speaker 4: We're seeing more.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: And more development there and I think we will continue to see more and more development there and New Zealand. You know, if it's the year twenty fifty, I think New Zealand will be among you know, the most sought after golf vacations as people have more time and travel becomes easier.

00:12:29
Speaker 1: Matt Any thoughts about this course.

00:12:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, the one thing that kind of jumped to my mind, and this is sort of a recency bias take here, but there's a lot of people talking about Children's Hall course getting into golf dot COM's top one hundred world rankings at seventy third, and I looked back and when Tera Edy debuted in their same rankings, it was twenty ninth. Yeah, so nearly like forty places higher than all this like talk came about out with Children's Hall joining in at like seventy fourth or whatever it was. So it had this like enormous splash in kind of the modern golf ecosystem when it was debuted, and it continues to climb in like every publishing ranking. I know when I was like younger, and I was like I created a list of like courses I wanted to visit at some point in my life when I was probably like fifteen or sixteen years old, when I was starting to get into golf architecture, and Tara Edie was like one of the first that I wrote down on my list. So like, I feel like that kind of puts it in perspective someone who doesn't really know that much and is getting into it as already like pinpointing this golf course is something notable, and it seems to be like kind of a consensus that it's it's the best modern golf course since since essentially like Sandhills that fits in this time zone that we're talking about Matt.

00:13:55
Speaker 1: Just the fact that you were fifteen or sixteen and tara Edy existed is kind of blowing my mind right now because this course opened in twenty fifteen. So that's yeah, I'll just I'll just leave that behind. But yes, it is. It has to be said that tara Ed is the highest ranked golf course in this period that we're talking about, and it's not really that close. I don't think when you look at the world top one hundred rankings, and of course you know, put whatever stock you want to in these rankings, I don't personally put a ton, but it is representative of influence and definingness. Right ta Ed is blowing away the twenty ten to twenty twenty five competition right now, and I think that's probably because one, the golf course is really really excellent, wonderfully designed in an incredible location. And also I think a factor here is the model of Tara Edy. This is a destination private club that is connected now to a destination resort. And if we're talking about what the broader historical trend is that Tera Edy represents between twenty ten and twenty twenty five the rise of the destination private club and the continuing predominance of the destination resort is a big, big story. I think tera Edy fits right into the middle of that. It is relatively remote, not easy for many people across the world to get to, but it is attracting people because of how spectacular it is and because of what people are saying about the course after they play it.

00:15:50
Speaker 2: I you know, I would agree with all of that. But I think when you're looking at this, you know, twenty five years from now, you're talking about the creation of a royal county down a La hinch A, you know, Sunningdale in a country, a royal Melbourne of New Zealand. And to me, that's the thing, is like, there are a lot of courses, great courses in New Zealand that I want to go see, but nothing of the world class caliber. And I think to be a great golf destination, you know, to be one where you know, loads of tourists are coming to and flocking to, you have to have the top of the top, the top shelf, and at that, no matter what else do you want to say, it could have any model in the world, it could be daily fee, it would still be at this point, you know, A good question would be is it Would it be as highly rated if it was a daily fee.

00:16:53
Speaker 1: That's that's what I sort of sort of doubt it because the experience would be different, but you know it wouldn't be I don't think it would drop out of the top one hundred.

00:17:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is a golf course that literally will define New Zealand golf for the next one hundred years. And that's why, like I when you know, you put the gun to my head, number one pick, this is it, Like, I don't think anything else can touch it, because no other golf course that has been built in the last fifteen years will have a cultural impact on an entire country the way that Terry is having on New Zealand.

00:17:37
Speaker 1: Okay, very persuasive, Matt. I'm going to give you the second pick. What are you going with?

00:17:43
Speaker 3: I thought this one was going to maybe be the first pick, so shocked to that it's still here. But I'm going to go with the Lido at Sand Valley.

00:17:53
Speaker 2: This was, in my purview, was probably.

00:17:57
Speaker 1: Toward the top of all of our lists. Second Tom Doak course in a row, though this one was a collaboration between Tom Doak, Brian Schneider and C. B McDonald.

00:18:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, I guess you can put it that way. I feel like it's a very hard one to pinpoint who's is the true true the.

00:18:18
Speaker 1: Robots built it, maybe, yeah, maybe Peter Floory built it.

00:18:21
Speaker 4: Brian Zeger would be.

00:18:23
Speaker 1: Brian Zager is very important, Yeah.

00:18:26
Speaker 2: Peter Floory, Yeah, They're all important in this.

00:18:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:18:30
Speaker 3: But this is a golf course that was built at one period of time and essentially lost from its original location. With tons of historical research, data collection, creativity, and some brilliant golf architects and golf mines came together and essentially recreated a golf course that is nearly over one hundred years old and lost and created it in what seems like near like as close as you possibly could with the information that was present and the style that they did it using GPS bulldozers where you're essentially plugging in data and essentially elevations on the ground and these bulldozers are just spitting out what that data is telling it to. It was sort of a revolutionary way to build a golf course and certainly a trail blazing style of golf course construction. And we've already now seen more golf courses using the same technology, even just this year building a new golf course in Florida. So I think you have to include this golf course of this era for defining.

00:19:52
Speaker 1: This any thoughts about the Lido and its position in history, Andy.

00:19:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Matt hit on it at the end.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: This is a golf course that's going to revolutionize the way golf courses are built. That's going to be it's a lasting impact. It's a great it's super fun golf course to play, It's a great golf course. It it has a super interesting model which I think will be a similar model to you know how some more courses, like we saw Forest Dunes is something doing something very similar, uh in terms of model with Skyfall. But to me, we're going to see so many golf courses built in similar fashion with GPS, do dozers and the idea of mimicking.

00:20:40
Speaker 4: You know, some.

00:20:41
Speaker 2: Features of famous golf courses, and I think we've already seen it. Sand Glass is a new course that's would be on this list that use that technology and a you know, and it's a much different version of this. The twenty one Club is another course that is opening. I think next year you know they're doing some some preview play now, but you know they'd be a twenty twenty six course that uses this type of technology. And I think, like what it's long term effect will be, you know, as we go forward, is it's going to change the definition of what a great site is because of how wonderful this technology is is that you don't necessarily have to have a site with like the most sensational natural gifts where you have that like rolling dramatic sand dunes. I think what the bigger you know, kind of pull out here will be if you have deep sand, it can be flat and you can build a great golf course. Because you see with the Lido, it is not a naturally blessed site, but there is a great golf course on it. Sand glass from what I have not been on site, from what I've been told, you know, not a naturally gifted site, but very deep sand which allowed them to create elevation by going both down and putting that stuff up. So I think the big thing here is those GPS, GPS dozers and the you know, the ability to punch in that is going to really change the golf construction world. And that's going to be something you know, twenty years from now, where that is going to probably be pretty normal in golf course construction.

00:22:40
Speaker 1: There could be a historical shift in a couple of ways with the LIDO. I think this point that you make andy about it potentially redefining what makes a good site for golf is an important one because a major overall narrative of the twenty ten to twenty twenty five period, and you could extend this period before that, is the search for great sandy rolling sites, the search for great golf land that isn't enormously expensive, and so that has really driven a lot of development and a lot of the best architecture of the past fifteen years. Maybe that might be starting to change. We can start to look at sites that are a little bit closer to population centers potentially and do something interesting with them. Now, I'm not suggesting that this will be cheap or that this will be an accessible way to do architecture for every kind of client an architect and client base, but it certainly would be a very interesting shift. The other thing about the LEADO that's kind of representative of the period that we're talking about. You know, we've talked about the ways in which the Lido is changing how things will be done. But it also represents kind of the culmination of this love for Golden Age architecture, and more specifically the love for the architecture of CB McDonald and Seth Rayner. As of thirty years ago, or even twenty five years ago, CB McDonald and Seth Rayner were not the most highly respected Golden Age architects. Their profile was starting to increase a little bit among golf course architecture officionados, but in the general golfing public, I don't think that they were nearly as well regarded as your Alistair McKenzie's or your Harry Colt's or your William Flynn's. Right, they were considered sort of a relics of a previous era to an extent that has changed a lot in the past twenty years or so, and the Lido really shows how far advanced that that trend is now, where we're literally we're trying to recreate with as much accuracy as possible. The work of these architects, who, you know, thirty to forty years ago were not probably considered worth this effort, and so that's that's one way in which the Leedo kind of is a sign of the times that we live.

00:25:25
Speaker 2: In when you when you look ahead. Also, there's going to be bad actors. Well I'll call them bad actors, but you could say they aren't bad actors. With this technology, are we going to see let's just say, a Augusta National remake it built in Saudi Arabia or Vietnam. I don't think that's a crazy thought that that might happen, or you know, maybe not Augustin National, but other famous courses. Does someone have to find a really sandy site and build a t a pine valley remake to as much just back as possible in a far flung country. The number you know, the why you know a lot of regarded as the greatest golf course in the world. That could happen with this and that it will be fascinating if that happens. To see how it is received. I think there will be a lot of people that'll be like this sucks. I think there will also be a lot of people that are very happy, especially if it's accessible to the public.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: Could be a Pandora's Box moment for sure. Yes, all right, so we have got Terry Edy and the Leado I'm going to give my third pick here. I'm just going right across the street in Nikusa, Wisconsin. I'm choosing Mammoth Dunes.

00:26:52
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I was I was gonna I My pick was San Valley from from there, but now I'm going to scratch that from my.

00:27:01
Speaker 1: So there were a couple of options that I was considering here, aside from just totally different golf courses which are also in contention. I think for me Gamble Sands. I could have gone with Gamble Sands here, and I'd like to discuss that I'd be willing to be swayed off of Mammoth Dunes and toward Gamble Sands. I do like Gamble Sands better as a golf course. Gamble Sands was a David McLay kid course that was built a couple of years before Mammoth Dunes and really represented the shift in kids' philosophy toward maximal playability. And Mammoth Dunes I think confirmed that philosophy and pushed it even further. But the reason Mammoth Dunes might be to pick here is that I think it probably is going to be more influential ultimately than Gamble Sands more people have seen this golf course. It's in a location that is easier to get to for most people, and it's at a resort that does a lot, a lot, a lot of business. Gamble Sands is relatively remote. It does a good business as well, but it's got two courses and a short course. At this point, Sand Valley is a mecca and Mammoth Dunes is an example of David Kidd's refreshed philosophy of golf architecture. In the middle of his career, Kid went more towards difficulty and kind of extreme features. With Gamble Sands, he returned to what he characterized as his kind of original principles of playability and fun. He also is trying to rethink this idea of visual intimidation visual deception. Since the Golden Age, golf architects have generally believed that visual deception is a good thing, that you should fool golfers into thinking that a shot is more difficult than it actually is through visual trickery. David Kidd is saying no, no, no. What we should be doing is giving golfers confidence when they stand on the tee. They should pull out a driver and feel confident that they can whale away at the ball. We want to encourage golfers to play well, to have fun, to rip driver, and to shoot their lowest scores. Ever, we want them to hit approaches that end up closer to the whole than they thought they would, not farther away than they thought they would. And you can argue against this philosophy, and I definitely would, but there's no doubt that it is a highly original way to approach golf architecture. And the reason why it's important is that architects and developers now have to react to it, whether they disagree with it or agree with it, because of what Kid did at Gamble Sands and then at a higher profile at Mammoth dunees because of what he did at those courses, now everybody else has to react. And it should be said that Mammoth Dunes is an extremely popular and beloved course by the average golfer, and certainly as the years unfold and golfers continue to react that way, probably to Mammoth Dunes and to Gamble Sands, developers and architects are going to think, well, maybe this is a good idea. And I suspect that we'll see more courses along these lines.

00:30:41
Speaker 2: I think an interesting component to this one is that this was the pushing of the width trend, which really started in I would say the early two thousands, you know, really started in the late nineties with with like sand Hills, the idea of giving space, and you know, Tom Doak and Bill cor and we're really you know, fundamental to this idea. And I think what happened this was like the Big Mac era of golf courses, where David Kidd builds Gamble Sands, builds Mammoth Dunes, Gil Hants builds a stream Song Black, which is also very much in this one of the things that and this is just an anecdote.

00:31:38
Speaker 4: I've never I never hear someone say that.

00:31:43
Speaker 2: Mammoth Dunes is like Goofy Golf for tricked up or you know, I hear people love stream Song Black. I hear people say that, but I also hear people come off frustrated by stream Song Black. She tells me that Gil Hans executed the really big wide golf better than David Kid. The job of in my opinion, and this is, you know, the whole debate about Mammoth Uns is the job of the golf course to be a defender, an active and willing defender to the golf golfer.

00:32:20
Speaker 4: You know, that is to me.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: The underlying tension and golf and what we love about golf and what makes it different than bowling in darts and and this is what makes general sports really fun, whether it's tennis or or you know, playing basketball, is you have an opponent that you're playing against in golf. You know from your youngest ages, if you're playing competitive golf, you're not playing the other golfers. You're playing the golf course. And and this type of golf that David Kidd had introduced with the gamble sands kind of took the defender out of play and it's more of a shoot around the course is a helper, Yeah.

00:33:08
Speaker 1: The golf courses your is your fluffer.

00:33:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like playing baseball with a t so, you know ball. And I think that there's been a reaction in the golf industry that is pushed back on this, and we're seeing more narrow golf courses since this. I think there was a general reaction after Mammoth Dunes that said we've gone too far on this.

00:33:40
Speaker 1: I found it interesting that as soon as Mammoth Dunes opened, you saw Tom Doaks start talking about how maybe width had gone too far, yes, and start talking about his interest in building some narrower golf courses. And so certainly it's something that's on the minds of architects, and that is that is basically my argument for why this course is going to end up being defining.

00:34:03
Speaker 2: What I find fascinating is the difference between Mammoth and stream Song Black.

00:34:08
Speaker 4: For example.

00:34:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, stream Song Black has very severe greens. You know, they're big, they're huge, but they have these different pockets. So where Mammoth Dunes, most of the greens I think twelve of the eighteen greens have are basically punch bowls, which you know, they corral of the ball in. So you have these big helping fairways that a lot of them are also punchable fairways where you have like helping slopes that corral balls in, and then you also have corralling.

00:34:47
Speaker 4: Greens.

00:34:48
Speaker 2: There is no real defense at stream Song I think is an interesting blend where they might be as severe of greens as gill Is built, but he's giving you all the room in the world off off the tee and what you can do with those severe greens is work yourself into positions.

00:35:11
Speaker 4: And this is the one.

00:35:12
Speaker 2: Of the things that I've thought about, and I'd be curious your guys thoughts.

00:35:16
Speaker 4: You know, I'll finish this thought real quick.

00:35:18
Speaker 2: But you can work yourself into positions that create those bulls that Mammoth has, but they aren't all easily discernible on first play or just like completely laid out for you.

00:35:33
Speaker 4: This is just a big bull.

00:35:37
Speaker 2: A question I have is should architects is the best architecture at resources where the vast majority of people only play at once or maybe once every three years. Should it be really fascinatingly intricate? And this is the thing. Mammoth Uns is the most popular golf course at at Sand Valley, and I would say, of all, almost every golf course that I've played on this list the least intricate.

00:36:07
Speaker 3: That's a really interesting question because something I thought about. I had Mammoth Dunes as the number two course on my list, and the reason I got there is because for so long golf has been about difficulty in trying to challenge the golfer and creating difficult golf courses. And then you have like the USGA rating system of slope and rating, and it seems like it seemed like there was a period of time where people were seeing how hard of golf courses we could build, and then David McLay kid comes along and essentially flips that question on top of itself and says, how easy of a golf course can I build? And in turn, the way I see this is if golf courses are puzzles. We're building these very complex, intricate puzzles that were very difficult and you had to think in many different ways to solve them, and then this is a much more straightforward puzzle, Like you could say that this is like the two x two Rubiks cube compared to the three y three Rubik's cube. It's like there's this exponential difficulty in solving from one to the other. And I just think it's fascinating that it took so long in golf history to like kind of come to this moment where we're actively trying to make a golf course fun and easier for the average golfer to play. Because everyone always talks about golf is like, oh I suck at golf, No one's good at golf. Everyone's always degrading their own game. And maybe that's because we've just been building difficult golf courses for the past one hundred years, and now finally we have a golf course that seems to be one of the first. At least, if I had to pick one out, this has to be the first golf course that was built with the sole purpose of being fun, which in turn makes it easier for most people to play.

00:38:02
Speaker 1: Kid was turning a lot of long held assumptions among golf architects, specifically, not among players necessarily, but among golf architects. He was turning a lot of those assumptions on their head. The idea, since again the Golden Age, has been that intricate golf architecture is better. Golf architecture should be intellectually engaging for the educated gentlemen and gentlewomen. Golf courses should engage their minds at a high level. And Kidd came in and said, well, actually, I think the most important thing is that people have fun and that they come away from their round with confidence and a sense of elation. Now Andy kind of gestured at the potential problem with this approach to golf courses is that it wears thin after a few Once you figure out that the golf course is helping you, you don't really have a motivation to play it again and again and again. So I think a lot of the architectural philosophy established by the Golden Age was based on the idea that we were building member courses. We were building courses that people would play over and over again, and we had to build sufficiently interesting and intricate courses for members to like them for a long time to come. But Sand Valley Golf Resort is a different context. This is dream golf. This is a couple of times in your lifetime usually golf, and perhaps that requires a different approach. Now, again, I have my issues with this philosophy of golf course design, but it's hard to say that it's dumb. It's not dumb. Actually a really smart shift of priorities. And so I think that's what's interesting about Mammoth dudes.

00:40:07
Speaker 2: You know, like, at the end of the day, and Matt, you're an architecture major, Garrett, you're a You're an English major, so you're much more men of the arts than me an environmental science major.

00:40:19
Speaker 4: You know, very much more men of the arts.

00:40:21
Speaker 2: But I mean at a certain level, golf architecture as an art form is it's an art form. What you're trying to do with art is evoke reactions. And I think one of the greatest achievements of Mammoth Dunes is it evokes a very wide range of reactions. And I think that has a lot of merit and and I you know, there are a lot of courses on this list that we have that don't do that and when and I think this one might evoke, you know, like you either love it or hate it. And I appreciate that now. It's what's interesting. And you know, I'm not going to pick this one as my next one. Is I had Sand Valley, you'd be at three golf courses at the Sand Valley Golf Resort if you pick Sand Valley. And my point with San Valley would be it's the kaiser, you know, kind of.

00:41:17
Speaker 4: Expansion beyond me.

00:41:20
Speaker 1: It's like we can do it outside abandon And.

00:41:23
Speaker 2: We're seeing now with with wild Spring Dunes, Rodeo Dunes, their project in Florida, that this is that Sand Valley was the start of something else. And I think, but that being said, maybe Sand Valley is just the epicenter of this era in terms of of development, and what I find fascinating is at its core. You know, I don't think I don't think that anybody would take Sand Valley and Mammoth Dunes are not the greatest golf course is of this era, but they might end up being some of the most influential, and I think that's interesting. I guess this takes it to my next pick and I I'm gonna go here with Sweeten's Cove.

00:42:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was high on my list as well.

00:42:21
Speaker 2: This is this is the first internet golf course. This is the golf course that proved that a if you build something interesting and people like it, that that will break the mold and can be the model, the standalone model. It is a field of you know, people say Bandon Dunes is a field of dreams type situation. I'm sorry, it's sand On on an ocean. It is not South Pittsburgh, Tennessee. Nine holes, which you know a long standing like you can't there can't be a nine hole destination golf course. The people didn't believe you could have an eighteen hole destination golf course. But this golf course was really pre golf Internet. And what I mean by Internet is I mean social media, you know, pre social media, and you could say social media, maybe it's better as a social media course pre social media and golf and like really golf, Instagram and Twitter explosion. This golf course was basically going to close. It was not going to exist. They were on the brink it. I remember having so many conversations with Rob Collins as I started my business and he was in the Sweetens Cove business about like how we didn't know how long either of us were going to make it, and the and the golf business. But this is where, you know, the the world of the internet world, the social media world took a golf course and completely changed its business trajectory and business model. And I think it shows that if you build something interesting for public golf, there is a great market there. And what happens is that all the people, the influencers in the social media accounts go and their followers go, and Sweeten's Cove became this pilgrimage and really changed the way people thought about the business of golf at a public level.

00:44:34
Speaker 1: Matt thoughts about Sweeten's Cove.

00:44:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't have a ton to add to that I think Andy summed it up pretty well. But the one thing I think about, uh with Sweeten's Cove is how like everything is going against it. Essentially, it's in a floodplane, it's not the best soils, it's in a very odd location, and above all else, it somehow made it through through all of these difficulties. And the reason because of that is social media and people posting pictures of it and people saying how amazing it was to go there with their buddies and loop around this nine hole course four or five six times in a day. And that's all it was. There's nothing else to it. It's just go play golf and there's a shed up at the top with a porta potty behind it if you need to use the bathroom. So that's like my biggest takeaway is how it's literally just a golf course in a floodplain in this valley, and social media is able to prop it up on this pedestal because it is an interesting golf course and it got people to go there and travel and be a successful business.

00:45:43
Speaker 2: I've said this before on the Friday Egg Pod, but you know, and there were a handful of people that went probably before I went, but I went. I think they had three hundred Instagram followers at the time. And I went on a Saturday morning in late May and it was a beautiful day, beautiful like seventy five and sunny. And I got there, I wanted to say, at eight am I was the only car. Maybe seven thirty, I can't remember with the time change, I was the only person there. I teed off before anybody was there, played alone. I got back. Patrick Boyd was sitting there. There's one other group on the golf course. Nobody was there. This was, you know, pre it really hitting the thing. It was a failing business. Nobody played it. And I think if you talk to the original people, they had a small contingent of people that knew this golf course was provocative and had substance that no other course in the area really possessed of, Like it had a lot of this modern this with these greens that required you to be in certain places. And they had this legion of believers that were very powerful, and they added to the experience of people like me and others that showed up that there was the Sweetens Cove mafia. Really is the way I would describe it that that helped push this golf course into it because it is a thing of cultural relevance. I think it's less so today than maybe, you know, eight year or seven years ago. Seven years ago, it was like have you been to Sweeten's Cove? People talked about the pilgrimage to go to Sweeten's Cove, and I think, you know, from that standpoint, it will change the way it has already and you know it is it incredible story in terms of a golf course making it.

00:48:03
Speaker 1: But Sweeten's Cove also proved that that is a hard way to do things, because eventually what they needed to do was bring in some money and recently bring in private equity to turn the property into something that feels maybe a little bit more like a conventional destination golf resort, though still hanging on to a lot of the quirks that it had originally. I think the spirit of the place is probably still intact, but there's no doubt that, you know, the days of the of the shed and the sense that you were out in the middle of nowhere at this random, miraculous golf course. I think those days have passed. And the reason they've passed is that it's a tough it's a tough business model, right, The Little Course that Could is a tough business model.

00:48:52
Speaker 2: I think that there's a lot of different playbooks that could have gone down at different paths. And you know, I think like one of the challenges was, you know, one of the owners is one of the hottest architects in the world at this point, Rob.

00:49:08
Speaker 1: Collins, he can't be there everything, can't be.

00:49:11
Speaker 4: An operator anymore.

00:49:12
Speaker 2: And I think there, you know, there's there's pathways to where if somebody wanted to make that business work as a single owner, totally feasible. And yeah, you might not get to the fullest returns that private equities. You know that that's what private equity is looking to do. How do we maximize the returns? You know, And you could have gone a lot of different directions, but at the time I think they it went the right direction. And I think people can criticize or anything, but it went the right direction for the course at the moment in time that the person that ran the course and needed it to go.

00:49:55
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I'm very very happy for the fact that the that paid off. Rob Collins put everything on the line and it worked. And that's massive credit to him. I also wanted one last thing I want to mention about Sweeten's Cove is I think it's probably architecturally influential as well. Right, what we saw with Sweeten's Cove was King Colin's absorbing influences not just from the usual suspects, but also from Fazio and Gary Mark Strants and Gary Player, right whom Rob Collins worked for earlier in his career. You know, King and Collins were very familiar with the trendy influences. They love Donald Ross, they love Golden Age architecture, loves loves Pinehurst number two. They think that Corn Crenshaw are the best in the world. So they have They had all of the usual influences, but they mixed them with something a little bit less fashionable, the kind of Fazio Play or Strants end to things, and produced something really interesting out of that, strategically interesting golf with features that just looked a little bit different. And I think that you see in a lot of new courses, especially courses that are trying to capture some attention visually, the influence of Sweeten's Cove. I think you see a lot of architects trying to to kind of do what King and Collins did at Sweeten's Cove, and that's going to be that's going to be a trend that I would expect to continue because part of what made Sweeten's Cove pop is that the features were so bold. You saw a picture on Instagram and you're like, well, I got to go there, right, that looks that looks incredible. So I just wanted to note that we do have to keep moving through the courses here. Why don't we Why don't we have the discussions? Yeah, go ahead.

00:51:50
Speaker 2: The other thing is the idea of like pre selling and selling out your tea times right like they're all day. They did some like very revolutionary I you know, concepts with the experience, the lo Fi shed experience that became like, you know, a cultural thing like they did some stuff of like if we strip away everything and make it just about the.

00:52:18
Speaker 4: Golf, this can succeed.

00:52:19
Speaker 2: Now private equity gets involved, be'st no more you know in the long range plans. But the idea of some of the business ideas of them actually being a real scrappy, lean startup in golf leads to innovation and then you see that with Landman later with this pre sale time and they've had massive success selling out their t sheet.

00:52:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good note. All right, Matt, what is your next pick? I'm gonna go.

00:52:53
Speaker 3: So this is more so of a holistic kind of golf course. But the one that I'll pin point that I think is kind of the genesis of this is the Cradle at Pinehurst. I think the Cradle was one of the first most popular short courses or alternate styled golf courses that aren't you know, two par three's, two par fives and the rest par fours eighteen hole golf courses, and a few predecessors to this would be banned preserve. And then also even before that is the horse Course at the Prairie Club in Nebraska, which was actually even more revolutionary I think than some of these short courses that have followed. But I mean, you look in the last ten years and the amount of short courses that are getting built at resorts and private golf clubs and even just like there's short courses being built standalone, and I think that's primarily because of the popularity of the Cradle, and I did so I did mentioned Bandon Preserve and the horse Course, which were before the Cradle. But I think because Pinehurst is such a more accessible resort than Bandon Dune's and the Prairie Club is the reason that it had more of an impact. They built it, what right after the US Open was held there, and it just became this central hub of activity at the Pinehurst resort and it kind of yalvinized the idea that short courses are great for resort business models and getting more rounds in a day that don't take four hours long, and then also just unconventional styles of golf. And I think it's absolutely exploded since the popularity of the Cradle.

00:54:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something that we didn't touch on at length in that Sweeten's Cove discussion. Part of why Sweeten's Cove is important is that it's a nine hole golf course and it's really an experimentation with models other than the regulation eighteen hole golf course. And I think this is something that you really saw pop up in that post recession era. What are the different forms of golf that we can have other than this kind of old model of this somewhat expensive to build and maintain regulation eighteen hole golf course. Now, the promise of the short course maybe hasn't really come to fruition in the twenty twenties because we've seen them primarily pop up at resorts as kind of an additional amenity. That's sort of how these a lot of these courses function. They are the place that you go in the afternoon after playing one of the big courses earlier in the day. But certainly it's been a very very important trend, especially in the destination sector. It's almost like a requirement at this point that you have one of these par three courses or unconventional, non standard short courses at your facility as as something for people to do when it's four o'clock in the evening and you want to get in a quick fun round, drink a couple of beers, and hit some golf shots. So's it's definitely been a key shift in these past fifteen years. I'm glad you shouted out the horse Course because they really were first, and then Band and Preserve kind of confirmed the trend, and the Cradle is probably the most broadly recognized example of it. It's the one that most probably the most people have experienced.

00:56:44
Speaker 2: The last piece of the cradle that I don't think should go untalked about is that it it was the signal the risk. It was a big risk from the resort to do something different. And they had done the Pinehers number two restoration, but that was just you know, brushing up their you know, existing course. The cradle was the signal and the start of the effective redesign of Pinehurst as a golf facility, which I would say, along with Bandon and sand Valley now entering the ring, these are the pillars of accessible high end golf in America, and and the cradle would be the If the cradle failed, I don't think we would have Pinehurst ten and now Pinehurst eleven under construction. I don't know if Pinehurst four gets redone. So you're also talking about a huge moment in the redefining of a you know, of America's I would probably say, the most recognized resort in America.

00:57:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, all right, Now, before I move on to my pick, I want to give a shout out to Friday Egg Golf Club. Friday Golf Club is the sponsor for this episode of Designing Golf, and of course it's a project and a community that's close to all of our hearts here.

00:58:13
Speaker 4: You could shout out the book too. It just got mine.

00:58:16
Speaker 1: Andy's if you're watching us on video, Andy's holding up our new book, which Frida Egg Golf New Friday Golf Club members got a good deal on. That book contains course profiles that we've been writing for the past few years. A lot of courses that have been important to our lives in golf are featured in that book, so that that has been an amenity that some members have really enjoyed. And also, if you've been a member of Friday Golf Club since the beginning, then you've already seen a lot of these course profiles show up in digital form as part of your membership. So Friday Golf Club, go to the fridagg dot com slash membership and see what it's all about. We have a new disc Russian forum in Friday Golf Club that's been a lot of fun. Is kind of bringing our community closer and closer together, So come join us. It's really great. It's been a very fun feature of our lives for the past few years here, and now that the holiday season is approaching, maybe it's a good time to join yourself or to give the gift of membership. All right, So my next pick is going to be Old Barnwell, a recent pick designed by Brian Schneider and Blake Conan in Aiken, South Carolina. A lot of action in Aiken. Old Barnwell's not the only achin course that has been significant. But the reason I'm picking Old Barnwell here is that I think it is part of an answer, maybe maybe a full fledged answer to a big question that a lot of architects and golfers have been asking for the past fifteen years. And that question is is there a world beyond Corn Crenshaw, Tom Doak, Gill Hans. Is there a place to go beyond neo classical quote unquote minimalist. I'm putting minimalist in very heavy scare quotes, but is there a place to go beyond this kind of naturalist, neoclassical minimalist architecture that has held sway at the top of the profession for the past thirty years, basically since sand Hills. Now, of course, there has been a lot more going on in the golf course development industry than just the work done by the likes of Bill Krer, Tom Doak and Gil Hans. But if we're talking about what's really representative of the cutting edge of golf architecture, that's really what we're talking about. If we're talking about the kind of architect that most young architects aspire to be, we are talking about those firms. And so a lot of people have been wondering for at least a decade maybe more, is it time to move beyond that? Are we out of innovations? Is it necessary to find a new style, a new way of doing things? Is it part of the responsibility of the golf architect to to continually push into new territory. And I think that Old Barnwell is a really interesting answer to that, because to me, the design represents a lot of what's great about the previous couple of decades of high end golf architecture from the likes of Bill Core and Tom Duck. But it also shows some new way forwards with this incorporation of Golden Age influences, but different Golden Age influences, These features that are just built stylized in a different way, new ideas being incorporated into the golf course. And so I think that's that's what Old Barnwell is doing. That's why it's one of the defining courses, and I think it's also just probably one of the best courses that has been built in recent years, and that's one reason why it'll, you know, endure as a significant course. What are our thoughts on Old Barnwell, you.

01:02:27
Speaker 3: Hit on a lot of what I was thinking about. It is this like conjunction of minimalists and built and not trying to blend it into to nature so much. One thing that I really appreciate about it is some of like the ditches they built on hillsides to catch water and to keep valleys dry, like overtly building things that are unnatural and more so utilitarian and just going with all of the same I guess trends that golf architecture was going for in the last twenty years.

01:03:10
Speaker 1: So those are just a.

01:03:11
Speaker 3: Few things that I admire most about that design.

01:03:14
Speaker 1: And any additional thoughts there.

01:03:16
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I I added this to the sheet right when we started recording. Do Brian Schneider and Blake Konick get hired without Lanark?

01:03:29
Speaker 4: Maybe not?

01:03:31
Speaker 2: That would be one that I would I would say, is the real introduction of this style, which is a fascinating course that flies under everybody's radar.

01:03:43
Speaker 4: It's outside Philly, and this is.

01:03:45
Speaker 2: Like the the birth of the Brian Schneider, you know, Blake style that that you're talking about at Old Barnwell. I would have had Tree Farm in this location, and it would have been around the idea of the ache and golf explosion and this previously rather sleepy, cool golf town with Palmetto and Aichn and Sage valleys there near augusta kind of a if you know, no place to on the map golf golf locale for the ardent golf traveler. And I think like Tree Farm in Old Barnwell is its own fascinating. We never get this type of situation. They're friends, I know, they just had their holiday matches where they play each other. They're friends, friendly with each other, but inherent rivals in the sense that they had, you know, two golf courses being built in the same small town at the same relatively the same time. I think Tree Farm beat them to the punch on terms of like we're doing this project in Aiken, but they were so closely mirrored. I don't I think you could go either way, but just you know, I had it here as a you know, I had those two courses here less So for the architectural style, I think there's merit to.

01:05:13
Speaker 4: The the Brian Schneider, Blake Conant.

01:05:16
Speaker 1: Hey.

01:05:17
Speaker 2: This might be what you know, the next architecture wave looks like, or one facet of the next architecture wave looks like. But this is an area that's been put on the map as a great golf area that otherwise was a very you know, small group of people knowing you have you know yet to come online. Twenty one Club, New Holland Golf Club, the Jeff Warren project. So and that's gonna be done by Brian Schneider and Blake, I think as well. So I think it's I think I don't have a problem with with going old Barnwell here over tree Farm. But it's that's the other aspect to this, beyond what you said, is that the idea of this small town in South Carolina that has become a must visit area for golf golf golf nerds.

01:06:08
Speaker 1: All right, Andy, what's your next pick back to you?

01:06:10
Speaker 2: All Right, I'm surprised it's still here. I'm taking a hoopy match club. I think that a lot of these courses on this list probably don't happen if it wasn't for a Hoopye match club.

01:06:24
Speaker 4: Is Hoopie the greatest golf course built on this list?

01:06:28
Speaker 3: Now?

01:06:29
Speaker 2: Is it the golf course that has become kind of the gold standard in terms of models.

01:06:37
Speaker 4: Atmosphere?

01:06:38
Speaker 2: It introduced a whole new way to experience a destination golf club with their all inclusive day rate. Most importantly, Michael Walrath what he developed this golf course was young, a young person who had had a lot of success in life, and I think he brought a level we talk about like how golf has become so cool in pop culture. I think he brought a level of it's really cool if you've got hundreds of, if not billions of dollars to own a golf course. And people saw how how Michael Wallrath has has become, you know, within golf circles. Most people probably don't know Michael Wallrath, but within golf circles, Michael ware Wrath is you know, golf Royalty because he built this really cool place.

01:07:33
Speaker 4: And I think.

01:07:33
Speaker 2: That's led to a lot of more golf courses being built by wealthy people that look at this as hey, you know, I have a friend Colin Shean. He talks about he's behind a lot, He's developed a lot of these great golf courses. He talks about how you could spend hundreds of millions of dollars and be a minority sports sports owner, sports franchise owner, and if the team sucks, people hate you, or be the majority owner and people hate you. Or you can spend you know, one hundred million dollars and build one of the greatest golf courses in the world and everybody will love you. And I think that a Hoopie has had just a massive cultural impact on Destination Private golf club, which has been the defining trend of this era. It is it is a place that a lot of people talk about, if we could build this could be like a hoopie when you're talking about building a new place. So I think a Hoopie has to be on this list for many, many reasons. And I know people built destination Private golf before a hoopie, but a Hoopie had a special sauce that made this appear appear very, very, very appealing to a lot of wealthy people who have since built Destination private golf.

01:08:57
Speaker 1: It's so interesting with the history of the destination private golf club that really the the you know, originating modern example is sand Hills Golf Club, right, and sand Hills Golf Club is the is the origin point for so many different trends in modern golf architecture. But that too, that the idea is that it's a destination private club, and yet a hoopie is the one that everybody talks about now when they're building a new destination private club. After a hoopie, we saw a wave of these start being built and and so I think there's there are a number of reasons for that. There are some economic trends that underlie this incoming inequality is probably probably a big deal here. The fact that there there are people who can build these courses and buy these memberships and are looking for these kinds of experiences and have the money to do it. That's that's a huge factor here. But also it's just it's one of the surest ways to make a golf course successful these days. If you're committed to creating a golf course that is going to survive and be successful, then a hoopye is sort of the example to follow, and that that's a major major change of these past fifteen years that we've been talking about. Mad any additional thoughts There.

01:10:30
Speaker 3: Something I just thought of when Andy was kind of talking about this special sauce at a hoopie. This is probably pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I think their logo also has had an influence on a lot of golf courses that followed, as it's kind of mysterious, it has no relationship to golf whatsoever. It's an onion if you've never seen it. Their logo is like a little yellow onion, and I think I think there's been an influence in logo design of trying to create really unique, eye catching logos that make people question, hey, what is that on your shirt?

01:11:10
Speaker 1: There? What's that on your hat?

01:11:12
Speaker 3: And it's sort of driven this kind of I guess notion that having a great logo attached to your golf course is not necessarily essential, but it's a great way to drive a lot more revenue in merchandise sales and whatnot. So that's just a little note that I think is pretty funny and potentially, Like I mean, there's probably other examples of really unique, cool logos like this, But when I think back of courses in this era, it feels like a Whoopie is kind of one that that stands out for sure.

01:11:48
Speaker 1: Maybe MacArthur is kind of a significant one there too. Yes, I mean there's recognition clouds and it has become kind of an essential for a lot of these clubs. They put a lot of effort into this now that may not have been put into the same thing before. All right, let's go to Matt. What's your next pick here?

01:12:06
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with another Tom dop design in the Loop at Forest Dunes. I guess my main reason for picking this is number one. I think it's a brilliant design if you're unfamiliar with it. It is a fully reversible golf course. So there's eighteen greens and you can play into these greens from two different directions, So essentially you have thirty six different unique golf holes across the footprint of one eighteen whole golf course. And I think I know that the course at Sylvie's Valley Ranch, I believe kind of claims being one of the first reversible golf courses. Obviously, the old course at Saint Andrew's is famous for having this same style but I feel like the loop is the first fully realized example of a reversible golf course. It's truly eighteen holes, eighteen greens that are reversible and you can play from two different ways, and I just think that it opens up this kind of can of worms for different concepts, like picking a concept for a golf course and going all in one percent and kind of exploring all different ways of doing that. And I'm just going to be curious to see how other concepts like this formulate afterwards. Is there other styles of reversibility or multiple greens, multiple roots, similar to like the horse course at Prairie Club where it's to choose your own adventure. It's essentially a field with golf holes and you can pick where you want to go. So I think it's really influential in that point of view. And then also it helps out a lot specifically at that resort, the goal was to get people to stay on their property in their beds for more than just one or two nights. They wanted people to stay for longer than that, and this was sort of Tom Dokes's answer to that question is, Oh, if you can only play the reversible golf course one direction each day.

01:14:28
Speaker 1: It forces people to.

01:14:29
Speaker 3: Come here and stay and experience the design in both directions. So I think it was revolutionary in that sense of driving more revenue to the resort as well.

01:14:40
Speaker 1: I'd love to see the loop become more influential than I think it has been strangely for the past several years. Yes, we've seen people attempt various different iterations of a reversible golf course, but it's still kind of relatively rare. And one reason I like it so much is that there is such an efficiency of maintenance and footprint with a reversible course. You really get two courses in one. And so I think, as we're thinking about in this new, you know, maybe slightly scary era of the world's environment that we're entering into, if you can have a course that is efficient like that, then that's got to be appealing and it would be great to see more innovation on this front. But definitely the loop is the result of Tom Doak thinking through this question that I was talking about when we were discussing Old barnwell, where can golf architecture go next? But at the same time basing that on the oldest source possible, which is the old course at Saint Andrew's right. We've seen Tom Doak really build three different courses in this twenty ten to twenty twenty five period that are simultaneously something that something very new and based on the old course in Old MacDonald, The Loop and the Lido. These three courses take such inspiration from the old course, oftentimes direct template style inspiration from the old course, and yet all of them feel fresh, like they're introducing new ideas into the bloodstream of modern golf architecture. And so it just shows how kind of the oldest influence can still produce something something new.

01:16:33
Speaker 2: I am a huge, huge fan of the Loop.

01:16:37
Speaker 4: It's one of my favorite modern designs.

01:16:41
Speaker 2: I don't think it's had as much influence as it should have had to date. I think, like if you said purely concept based, this would jump to the top of my list, but I think it's hamstrung by its location right now and it's type of golf. I think if this was a golf course that was close to a metro area and open accessible, you know, accessible to the public like it is now. If it was close to a metro area, people would rave about this course being as ingenious as any course in the world. But I think it is a you know, it's in an area the Midwest with a lot of golf resorts, and what happens is people go try different resorts. They go to Sand Valley, they go to Forest Dunes, they go to Lasnia, they go to Boyne, they go to these different they go to Arcadia, and what happens is people do not play this with as much regularity to under the amount of regularity they need to to understand the sheer.

01:17:53
Speaker 4: Brilliance of it.

01:17:54
Speaker 2: And I think this is my where I didn't have. I would say it's on in terms of just pure design as influential and it, but in its current application it doesn't get there for me because I don't think.

01:18:12
Speaker 4: I think if this had been a.

01:18:16
Speaker 2: Private country club that redesigned this course, this course would be lauded as more so, many more courses have gone reversible because of this golf course if it was daily fee, similarly, but because it's a resort, very remote resort.

01:18:34
Speaker 4: It hasn't.

01:18:35
Speaker 2: It hasn't broken through into cultural society, into the cultural golf society as brilliance. When I would say that, if you said just sheer design, it might be number one for me.

01:18:49
Speaker 4: In this period of time.

01:18:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's give it some time, because.

01:18:54
Speaker 2: Because it's twenty forty the year is twenty forty nine, right.

01:18:57
Speaker 1: These things work in funny ways, you know. Sometimes sometimes golf courses, just like any other kind of cultural product, have their day, and sometimes that day comes comes a little bit later than you expect. But I think you're right on that that it's it's almost the opposite of Mammoth Dunes, where it's an extremely intricate, worthy golf course that is just kind of in the wrong place and the wrong kind of resort right now for as many people to appreciate it as possible, and that that is a shame because it is clearly brilliant. So I'm going to kind of it's my pick. Now, we've picked eight courses, and I'm just gonna sort of send me punt a little bit, or at least ask for some assistance because we've got two more spaces on this list. And I think that there are a couple of contingents that at this point are going to be mad at us. One is anybody who lives outside of the US, So you know, your Australians, your Canadians. Yeah, well, we started with We started with Terry. Ye'll, maybe that'll please, maybe that'll placate some people, but it's been all American courses since then. Cabot Links is just kind of sitting there. Obviously an important course in the sense that it launched the Cabot brand and it and it again. It likes Sand Valley. It was sort of a proof of concept, but this time beyond the Dream Golf brand, that this kind of thing could work, not outside of Dream Golf, because Mike Kiser is obviously an important investor in in Cabot Links initially, but it proved that that other, you know, outside of the Kaiser family, there were developers who could pursue this type of model, and since then Cabot has become extremely important. Now another contingent who might be rightfully mad at us at this point is the muni golf lovers. I don't believe we have any municipal golf courses on our list yet. And a really important set of trends in the past fifteen years has been experimentation and innovation, new kinds of stuff, surprising amount of development at certain municipal golf courses. So the ones that come to mind immediately from the period that we're talking about. For me are Winter Park, which I would categorize as a redesign, even though they maintained the pre existing routing, they turned that into a different golf course. Yeah, Keith reb and Riley Johns did. They turned it into a new golf course through what they did, and it was a very very affordable type of renovation that I wish we saw more of. So certainly that one is on the list for me and maybe hasn't been as influential as it should have been. The other municipal candidate I have in mind would be the Park, which is a completely different way of approaching a municipal renovation, where you is a great deal of money to do something very impressive for the community. You charge a healthy rate for out of towners, but provide affordable services to the people who live around the course, and in the bargain you get a terrific gill Hants golf course. So those are some candidates there. We have two slots left. What do you guys think? Where do you think we go with this?

01:22:25
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I had the Park on my list, and I also was like really considering Winter Park because I think Winter Park was sort of a genesis for taking a golf course that is close to a population center that is vastly underutilized and I guess not interesting in very many ways. And we're starting to see it more like the park was a golf course that was just sitting there. It was abandoned. It wasn't necessarily a great golf golf course in the town. But I think Winner Park set this precedent of, oh, if you have a golf course, you can do a relatively affordable renovation, have really smart golf course architecture, and make it a really interesting, engaging golf course that becomes this almost invaluable community asset. Another course that has recently, like literally just opened that did this exact same thing as Miami Lakes in Florida. It was a golf course that was essentially sitting in a swamp, had little to no interest. And now Bruce Heppner comes in, builds some interesting greens, some smart bunkering. And now I haven't been back yet, but I was there during construction and by all means what I saw it seems like it's going to be a very very interesting golf course. So that's what I think. Winter Park did so well is sort of show all these courses that have followed that you can take these underutilized golf sites and turn them into something that's really interesting and then begins to start to attract people from outside of that community or outside of that city.

01:24:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd throw Golden Gate Park into the mix as something that's followed this.

01:24:22
Speaker 4: I think the.

01:24:24
Speaker 2: Story of Winter Park and what followed, even though some end up being really high priced projects, but the idea that golf architecture good golf architecture doesn't have to be more expensive and doesn't have to be inaccessible to the public, that I think is a very important aspect of this. And I think I think Winter Park probably deserves to be there because it was the trailblazer.

01:24:55
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's our number nine. Winter Park. I think it richly deserves and that story really blew up too. That story had an effect on people, and the Miami Lakes project actually was very much inspired by Winter Park. The owners there looked at Winter Park and said, hey, why can't we do this.

01:25:14
Speaker 2: I think the Golf Channel coverage of it was huge in Winter Park success.

01:25:20
Speaker 4: They were regularly there.

01:25:22
Speaker 2: I know some of the producers at Golf Channel or former producers.

01:25:26
Speaker 4: Live on the golf course.

01:25:28
Speaker 2: Matchinello was there regularly, and I think that it led to, you know, they and the PGA Show. Honestly, the PGA Show being there every year. The Winter Park was the hub starting in like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen of the PGA shows where everybody played golf around there.

01:25:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it's so it's an influential project and at the same time something that hasn't been fully replicated yet, and that's there are a lot of reasons for that. But I guess Park Golden Gate Park is a good example. Yes, absolutely, I think Golden Gate Park maybe gets pretty it gets pretty close, and and Miami Lakes has has a lot of a lot of those those features as well in it. But uh yeah, I mean, I guess I was you know, I was hoping for an explosion of these kinds of projects in the wake of Winter Park. We haven't seen an explosion. We've seen we've seen a trickle rather than a flood. But uh but that's that's slotting in at number nine. Now for number ten, I'm going to open this up to discussion. I've already mentioned Cabot links as a possibility. What are the others that are in the mix for you guys and the ones that don't get that number ten spot we can consider honorable mentions. So Andy, why don't you go ahead and give us what the rest of what is? Uh? What is rattling around in your head?

01:26:54
Speaker 2: For these I already put sand Valley for more reasons. I also have Rodeo Dunes. I think the the closeness of that site to to Denver and the Denver Airport is going to really I that thing is going to be a popular or popular.

01:27:18
Speaker 1: Place U The twenty golf course though.

01:27:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, it is, That's true. I just I put it down technically they.

01:27:27
Speaker 1: Are preview loop open in twenty twenty five.

01:27:30
Speaker 2: But for other ones that I have on my list, I think I think Brambles is a going to be a massively influential golf design for any golf course in the western half of the United States in terms of its use of Zosia grass that even though the joyste of grass wasn't really recommended to use, and they dealt with the the the challenge of growing it in, but they've created something that provides a supreme playing service without a lot of water, which is going to be you know, kind of the name of the game in water restricted and what in places with water issues, So brambles would be in my consideration.

01:28:20
Speaker 4: I think.

01:28:23
Speaker 2: I would say that the golf course I think is the best American golf course that I have seen in the last fifteen years is probably Childress Hall. So I would put this in the discussion if we're talking about twenty forty nine. I think I said this on fried Egg with all the ranking outrage, that's the lowest it's going to be. So I think that deserves some sort of.

01:29:00
Speaker 4: Know highlight.

01:29:00
Speaker 2: I haven't seen every golf course built in the last fifteen sixteen years, but I've seen most, so that would be my my kind of ones that are in the running. I also think like Medina three has a chance in terms of the renovation. I like it more than some of the other kind of modern renovations. And here you know, and I think that one has a chance of like this is what we do with all these big, outdated championship golf courses.

01:29:38
Speaker 1: All right, Matt, any any others to throw in the mix?

01:29:41
Speaker 3: Interesting? Early enough, I had all three of those kind of on on my list left Media number three Rambles and then also Childress Hall. I wanted to hit on because, like Andy said, I think Childress Hall is probably the best golf course that I've seen built in the last fIF teen years, and it feels like by a wide margin.

01:30:03
Speaker 2: Wow.

01:30:05
Speaker 3: I was really I really like the idea of Madna number three because it feels like it's almost the first course to take a very historically significant golf course in the grand scheme of things. And it's not a holistic, like complete redesign, but they took away like some of the most famous holes to seventeenth kind of became this Darling part three over the water and they completely eliminated it. They changed the routing and it's essentially a new golf course from what was there. So it'll be really really interesting to see if other big name clubs go this direction, and it almost feels like Medna number three could be could be the trailblazer for that type of change in the future.

01:30:56
Speaker 1: And it's an OCM golf course. I think OCM are going to be one of the most prominent firms of the next twenty years, very likely, and.

01:31:05
Speaker 2: So they have a lot of projects right now.

01:31:08
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and they're they're they're going to continue to get projects because they're very good at what they do, and they also have Jeff Ogilvie on their side, and and Jeff is is just going to be one of those one of those people who's able to get jobs because he's so thoughtful and of course he has he has his profile as as a professional golfer. A couple I'd like to uh to shout out would be I think Seven Mile Beach has a chance of being a very significant golf course from this era, but it's very very new, so it's so it's hard to say exactly what its profile is going to be. It's basically just kind of tentatively opening up right now out in Tasmania, but it's right next to the Hobart International Airport on an amazing piece of land Mike Clayton and Mike Devreeese design that looks like it's going to really impress people. Ocum's project at Peninsula Kingswood was a very big deal in transfer forming that golf course, adding something to one of the world's great golf regions in the Melbourne sand Belt, and also setting Ocum on the path that they're on now.

01:32:10
Speaker 4: One other thing with that.

01:32:13
Speaker 2: Fascinating case study of sell your really valuable land by new land that might be better for golf, and the idea of cash like you you don't you're not just selling off like the Frail family.

01:32:33
Speaker 4: And taking away. You're selling off.

01:32:36
Speaker 2: And maybe upgrading the entire club like which is I thought, I think that is a pretty interesting proposition for some of these some of these clubs that sit on really valuable land. We've seen it before. This happened the Hermitage Club in Richmond. The original the you know course was the Belmont was Belmont, which got redesigned by or renovated by Davis Love's group, the you know, tilling Hass course in Henrico County. But they the story of that course was they effectively sold their original course and bought land further outside because they wanted thirty six holes like expansion. So it used to be something that happened, you know. San Francisco had this happen with so many courses at Old CITYO was basically four different clubs or really yeah, so I think this is this is something that's happened over time. We haven't really seen it happen in America. But it's an interesting kind of proposition where you could you know, and I don't know if the economic how the economics would work on some of these, but you know, you talk about like you know, the ultimate one would be you know, and they would never do it because it's on such a divine golf land, but like you know, the the appraisal value of LACC if they sold and what they could build, you know, turn it wouldn't be anywhere near where it is now and they would never do it. But like that type of idea of like you always hear how valuable that real estate is, well, can we take it build something you know, a little bit further away, but have it be maybe better because we you know.

01:34:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's an interesting model.

01:34:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. So Peninsula Kings would definitely in the mix for me. The Rio Olympic golf course, uh is one that was this really interesting and definitely significant to Gil Hanson's career.

01:34:35
Speaker 2: I think that one too, if they if it, if it hadn't been, if it doesn't have just just like this dark cloud of like what's really happening there hanging over it. I think this one, like if they had if they had created tournaments that continued to go back. Yes, but it's just this though it had this thing and we don't really hear about it ever because it had such a great debut in that in that Olympics, but there's no This is where golf in a way as a professional sport has failed the global game, is that its use has not you know, met up with you know, yeah, it's purpose.

01:35:20
Speaker 1: It's it's it would be such a wonderful regular tournament course, but it just hasn't become that. So very unfortunate. Yeah. A couple others to mention would be Scottsdale National, a pretty stunning effort by Jackson con Design that takes desert golf architecture in what feels like a new direction. And then I've heard great things about Saint Patrick's Lynx, another Tom Doak course, but that's one that's extremely highly rated and will probably be regarded as, if not one of the defining courses of the era, definitely one of the best courses of the era. And then I should mention Cape Wickham as well along those those lines. That's also an extremely highly rated but fairly remote golf course. All right, So those are the honorable mentions. What do you guys think goes in number ten? I'm Cabot Links is a possibility. You guys both mentioned Brambles and Childress Hall and Madna number three. How does it feel at this point?

01:36:21
Speaker 4: I'll let Matt vote first. I had to pick first.

01:36:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of like my Dina number three because it feels like an outlier from all the other ones we picked. I could very easily just go with Childres because of how incredible the golf course is. But I think we already kind of selected one in that vein with Terry Dy. So my vote would be MDNA number three, and it's kind of redesigning a historically significant golf course.

01:36:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't have We don't really have one of those kind of complete overhauls of a historically significant golf course on our list. I mean Winter Park was a renovation, obviously, but Medina was on a completely different scale. How does how does that strike you? Andy?

01:37:10
Speaker 4: That works for me?

01:37:13
Speaker 2: Sorry, Canada, I think you know I I yeah, I do think Tree Farm deserves deserves thought because I think it's one of the more unique how I built this golf course thing in the sense of we picked a lot of courses that were built by very wealthy people. Or you know Zach Blair. Yeah he plays on the PGA Tour, but he the way in which he built the golf course completely revolutionary.

01:37:43
Speaker 1: M okay and yeah, so we think maybe maybe the Tree Farm should replace Old Barnwell or else all I mean you put a mention of it in there.

01:37:54
Speaker 2: I just think the Tree Farm being grossly overlooked because it was the first and Aiken and the manner in which it was built is unlike any other golf course in that we have talked about today and the way the course was financed, the way you know it. It was the public version of it, and I know that like drawed, iire of people. You know, it bothers people the way that it went down. But guess what he made everything like transparent from this get go. And ideas change. They have to change, they have to evolve to get things done. You know, my original idea for Friday Golf is not what it is today. Wasn't It didn't follow the exact path that I thought it would follow. But I think that that project, like and I've been on the record, I like Old barn Wall as a course more but I think that project is like so so unique in the way it was built, and I think it's been overlooked, honestly.

01:39:02
Speaker 1: Probably because of its location and because Old Barnwell has, for whatever combination of reasons, kind of caught the hype train. I think for good reasons. I'm not saying the hype is unjustified. I think it's an absolutely terrific and kind of pathbreaking work of golf course architecture, but it's it has loomed a bit large in the discourse about Achen, and maybe the tree Farm will will eventually have its day here, all right. So that is basically the list we have Terry Edie, the Lido, Mammoth Dunes, Sweeten's Cove, the Cradle at Pinehurst, Old Barnwell Slashed, the Tree Farm, the Hoopy Match Club, the Loop Winter Park, and Medina number three. I think that's a really good list. I think that's a that's a pretty strong ten defining courses of the past fifteen years. Thank you guys for joining me for this exercise. This was really fun and appreciate your time and your thought that you put into this.

01:40:09
Speaker 4: Thanks Garrett.

01:40:10
Speaker 1: Thanks This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam. Thank you Will. If you've been enjoying Designing Golf, then go leave us a review in iTunes or wherever it is that you're listening to us, Not for really any particular reason. I just like hearing feedback from time to time. So if you've listened to the podcast this year, enjoyed the podcast, if you have thoughts about the podcast, then then leave a rating and review. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful holiday. We'll be back on I think it's going to be January eighth, but we're taking this holiday season off, so a couple of blank weeks here and then we're gonna start up with a Vengeance in the new year. So again, thanks for listening. We'll see you next year. Twenty twenty six