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How to Design for Elite and Average Golfers Simultaneously · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: How do you design a golf course that can host
0:03
Speaker 1: major tournaments but still be enjoyable for the average golfer.
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Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about today with Mike Cocking. Mike
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Speaker 1: is an Australian golf architect and a partner with the
0:13
Speaker 1: firm OCM alongside Jeff Ogilvie and Ashley Mead. Recently, OCM
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Speaker 1: completed a redesign of Medina Country Club Course three. This
0:23
Speaker 1: course is scheduled to host the twenty twenty six President's Cup.
0:27
Speaker 1: So in order to understand how golf architects can balance
0:31
Speaker 1: elite tournament golf with everyday amateur play, Mike and I
0:35
Speaker 1: will dig into how he thought through this project at Medina,
0:39
Speaker 1: how he created holes that will test the abilities of
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Speaker 1: the world's best players without making regular members miserable.
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Speaker 2: It's not easy.
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Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing golf. So, Mike,
0:59
Speaker 1: you were a high level amateur player initially before you
1:02
Speaker 1: were an architect.
1:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
1:05
Speaker 1: Did you think about golf architecture differently when you were
1:08
Speaker 1: focused on playing than you do now?
1:12
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, yeah. I think.
1:16
Speaker 3: When I was really young and playing competitively, I'm not
1:19
Speaker 3: sure I really understood why I liked particular holes. I
1:23
Speaker 3: knew there were certain courses I really liked, certain holes
1:26
Speaker 3: I really liked, but I hadn't really joined the dots,
1:30
Speaker 3: you know, And it probably wasn't until a friend gave
1:35
Speaker 3: me The Anatomy of a Golf Course, Tom's book, and
1:39
Speaker 3: I had the Confidential Guide, and that was a big
1:41
Speaker 3: learning curve for me. And then I was playing competitively
1:46
Speaker 3: and traveling a lot overseas playing competitively. Just as I
1:49
Speaker 3: started to get good, I was on different teams and things,
1:52
Speaker 3: you know. So I went to the UK and it
1:54
Speaker 3: was pre internet, so I would reference the Confidential Guide
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Speaker 3: and see, you know, were playing at Hoylake or something.
2:01
Speaker 3: I'd look through and there'd be three or four courses
2:04
Speaker 3: in the area that Tom had raided very well, and
2:07
Speaker 3: he'd sort of pointed out things to look at, and
2:09
Speaker 3: so I'd ride away to them, and then when I
2:12
Speaker 3: was there for the tournament, I'd go and either play
2:14
Speaker 3: or just walk those courses. So that for me was
2:16
Speaker 3: a that was a big learning curve. And then when
2:18
Speaker 3: I came back home as well, I would start looking
2:21
Speaker 3: a bit more critically at the courses.
2:24
Speaker 1: You said you liked, certain courses, but you didn't know why. Yeah,
2:27
Speaker 1: were they the same courses that you like? Now? Was
2:30
Speaker 1: there just?
2:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm motivated. I think visuals play a
2:35
Speaker 3: big part for me. So, you know, I always loved
2:38
Speaker 3: Royal Melbourne, and I think it was the scale of it,
2:40
Speaker 3: and you know, the style of the bunkering and just
2:43
Speaker 3: the general esthetic of the golf course. But then there
2:47
Speaker 3: were holes there that you know, you had to make interesting.
2:50
Speaker 3: They were interesting decisions, you know, whether to take on
2:53
Speaker 3: a bunker or play away from the bunker, and I had,
2:56
Speaker 3: you know, you kind of figure out that no, if
2:57
Speaker 3: I play away from the bunker, that shot into the
2:59
Speaker 3: greensby harder or you know, it's a bit longer, or
3:02
Speaker 3: it's a shittier angle or whatever.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: So I think generally speaking, probably when I was really young,
3:10
Speaker 3: it was sort of at the tail end of that
3:12
Speaker 3: era of where hard was sort of seen as being better.
3:18
Speaker 3: You know, there was that era of you know where
3:22
Speaker 3: people saw places like firestone and stuff and thought that
3:25
Speaker 3: was the you know, so that probably changed for me.
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Speaker 3: You know, as I've got older, I think I typically
3:34
Speaker 3: like courses that are more fun and wider and more
3:37
Speaker 3: interesting rather than necessarily challenging me.
3:40
Speaker 1: Did you believe harder was better for a while? Is
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Speaker 1: that something that you absorbed from people who are around you,
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Speaker 1: and you know it took seriously.
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Speaker 3: Not necessarily. I mean, there was a certain you know,
3:54
Speaker 3: there was a certain sense of pride if you went
3:56
Speaker 3: and played a hard course, you know, and you played
3:59
Speaker 3: well where you hit some good shots. But no, I
4:02
Speaker 3: don't think so, you know, I think you, as good players,
4:08
Speaker 3: you do often fall into the trap of thinking, of
4:12
Speaker 3: course that you played well on is good. You know,
4:14
Speaker 3: that's pretty common. You have a good score there, and
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Speaker 3: therefore it's.
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Speaker 1: Always hard to separate that out, even people who supposedly
4:22
Speaker 1: know a lot about architecture.
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Speaker 2: I absolutely study it. Absolutely.
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Speaker 1: It's trying to separate out that good feeling about playing well.
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Speaker 3: Which is why I mean, to be honest, when I
4:30
Speaker 3: go and see golf course, I actually prefer not.
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Speaker 2: To play it.
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Speaker 3: I prefer to walk it, because you do get a
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Speaker 3: bit too focused on or you look at the course
4:39
Speaker 3: through the lens of how you've played it that day,
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Speaker 3: but also where your ball is on the fairway. You know,
4:44
Speaker 3: if you miss the fairway to the right, you don't
4:46
Speaker 3: know all the cool stuff you didn't see all the
4:47
Speaker 3: cool stuff that was happening down the left of the hole, right.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, these days, in a perfect world, I'd go
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Speaker 3: and walk a golf course in the morning and maybe
4:55
Speaker 3: play it in the afternoon. But you invariably don't have
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Speaker 3: the luxury of that much time.
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Speaker 1: I do that when I can, you know, but it's, uh,
5:02
Speaker 1: it makes for a long day if you see. It's
5:06
Speaker 1: kind of like, if that's the one course you're seeing,
5:08
Speaker 1: then maybe maybe you can do that. So when you
5:12
Speaker 1: were focused on playing, were there particular types of courses
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Speaker 1: that you found particularly challenging? What for you made made
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Speaker 1: a difficult golf course when when you were playing.
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Speaker 3: The first time I went to the States and played,
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Speaker 3: I actually really struggled with the rough.
5:31
Speaker 2: Around the greens, to be honest.
5:34
Speaker 1: Because you just weren't used to it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: You grew up here short grass around the greens for
5:38
Speaker 1: the most part. Yeah, and it's different.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And my short game was probably one of the strengths
5:43
Speaker 3: of my game. It was a good part of but
5:45
Speaker 3: very good chipping, bunkers, pitching, and I didn't hit a
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Speaker 3: lot of greens in regulation. That was probably I wasn't
5:51
Speaker 3: that consistent you know, so here or in the UK,
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Speaker 3: if I missed a green, I would back myself to
5:59
Speaker 3: get up down. And when I went to the States,
6:02
Speaker 3: I found you know, I'd hit ten or twelve greens
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Speaker 3: in regulation, but the six or eight I missed, I
6:07
Speaker 3: just didn't. I couldn't hit that shot. I couldn't master
6:10
Speaker 3: that chart. I still, to be honest, I still struggle
6:15
Speaker 3: a little bit with it. But Jeff's kind of shown
6:17
Speaker 3: me a couple of things I've whizzed him about it. Yeah,
6:20
Speaker 3: it's just not a shot that comes naturally to me.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're design partner. Jeff Ogilvie often says that short
6:27
Speaker 1: grass tends to bother most other players.
6:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I guess.
6:32
Speaker 1: That equation has flipped depending on what your initial experience is.
6:36
Speaker 1: Most players will grow up, you know, especially in the States,
6:40
Speaker 1: will grow up playing with rough around the greens, and
6:43
Speaker 1: so for them, short grass around the greens can be
6:46
Speaker 1: a kind of kryptonate.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and look for most people, and certainly it's an
6:49
Speaker 3: argument that we make a lot of the courses we
6:51
Speaker 3: work out, particularly in America, that we would much prefer
6:53
Speaker 3: to see short grass. It's a bit more it's a
6:56
Speaker 3: more interesting you know, way to treat the area around
6:59
Speaker 3: the green on options, and it can be a lot
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Speaker 3: tricky if for bit applies too. The irony is that
7:06
Speaker 3: for me, it's probably the opposite, the opposite.
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Speaker 1: So really what you're doing is you're going around and
7:12
Speaker 1: building courses make it easy for me.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, all.
7:17
Speaker 1: Right, So let's talk a little bit about the the
7:20
Speaker 1: media Course three renovation. Yeah, you know, we we that
7:25
Speaker 1: our theme today is you know, how to make courses
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Speaker 1: more challenging or more interesting for elite players and maybe
7:33
Speaker 1: doing that at the same time that you make them
7:36
Speaker 1: more fun for amateurs. A lot of people are interested
7:40
Speaker 1: in this question of how that's accomplished. It's a big,
7:42
Speaker 1: big issue for golf architects right now, especially since at
7:45
Speaker 1: the top level of the game, the way the game
7:48
Speaker 1: is played is changing so much and it's it's hard
7:51
Speaker 1: to adjust to that. It's hard for architects to find
7:54
Speaker 1: new ways to challenge players who are constantly breaking through
7:58
Speaker 1: the defenses of of various classic courses. So your firm
8:05
Speaker 1: OCM recently completed a redesign of Course three at Medina
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Speaker 1: Country Club in Chicago. For people who don't know, this
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Speaker 1: is a course that has been highly ranked, has hosted
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Speaker 1: a number of majors, will host the twenty twenty six
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Speaker 1: twenty six Cup. And so how did this job come about?
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Speaker 2: It's a funny story.
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Speaker 3: We were well, I was it Shady Oaks in Fort Worth,
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Speaker 3: which was sort of the first course.
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Speaker 2: We did in America.
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Speaker 3: That was our kind of big break, I would say,
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Speaker 3: And I still remember we were I was on the
8:41
Speaker 3: eighteenth green, it was the last green we would have finish,
8:44
Speaker 3: and an email popped up on my phone from the
8:47
Speaker 3: course superintendent at Madonna then with Steve Cook and asking
8:52
Speaker 3: if we'd be interested in being shortlisted for this Madonna project,
8:58
Speaker 3: which was.
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Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's like it's going to say that seriously.
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Speaker 3: And not two days later, I've got an other email
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Speaker 3: from the Australian government saying if you don't come home now,
9:11
Speaker 3: you may never come home. Because this was when this
9:14
Speaker 3: was when COVID. Yes, this is late, this is better
9:17
Speaker 3: re enter the country. Yeah, this is this is March
9:19
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
9:20
Speaker 2: Okay, wow.
9:21
Speaker 3: So and I think the first whispers of COVID that
9:25
Speaker 3: I that we heard was I think I want to
9:27
Speaker 3: say about December twenty nineteen was when there was sort
9:30
Speaker 3: of a few reports, and I was still going back
9:32
Speaker 3: and forth each month to America. So it went from
9:36
Speaker 3: sort of elation thinking, wow, we'll just you know, I
9:38
Speaker 3: think I spoke to Ashley and Jeff and said, well,
9:41
Speaker 3: I was just trying to arrange, well, let's go up
9:43
Speaker 3: to Chicago and we'll spend a few days there. And
9:45
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, it was, you know, the
9:48
Speaker 3: chances it was getting this job of just diminished. So
9:53
Speaker 3: the club, they were very good, they were very patient.
9:56
Speaker 3: I went home, but we continued to converse and we
10:01
Speaker 3: ended up pitching for the job from Melbourne. We hadn't
10:06
Speaker 3: seen the course. Jeff had seen the course. Jeff had
10:09
Speaker 3: played there in the two thousand and six PGA, which
10:13
Speaker 3: Tiger won. Yes, but his memory of the course was
10:18
Speaker 3: not that clear. I mean it was he played with
10:20
Speaker 3: Tiger and Phil and so there were millions of people,
10:24
Speaker 3: and so you know, you don't get it necessarily a
10:26
Speaker 3: great appreciation of every hole. You're just looking at the
10:29
Speaker 3: twenty two yard wide fairways that you're on.
10:32
Speaker 1: He played with Tiger and fell.
10:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was crazy.
10:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, the first two days and he played well, I want.
10:36
Speaker 1: To say it was that was around the time when
10:37
Speaker 1: he was really yeah. Yeah, he hadn't great forum.
10:40
Speaker 2: Well, he'd won the.
10:40
Speaker 3: US Open that year, he was probably top I think
10:45
Speaker 3: he got to four in the world, it was probably
10:47
Speaker 3: around that time, so he was playing really well. Yes,
10:52
Speaker 3: So we pitched on it. That were very fortunate. A
10:57
Speaker 3: good friend of ours was living in Chicago and was
11:01
Speaker 3: able to take some drone footage of the course, and
11:04
Speaker 3: I remember being on the phone with him saying, well,
11:06
Speaker 3: could you maybe take some photos from this position right
11:09
Speaker 3: at the first green, or can.
11:11
Speaker 2: You go over here? Can you go over there?
11:12
Speaker 3: So we got some very good drone footage, some good
11:15
Speaker 3: ground shots, We had some really good historical records. We
11:18
Speaker 3: had enough to put a pitch together and say, well,
11:21
Speaker 3: if we were to win the job, this is the
11:23
Speaker 3: sort of things that we'd be thinking of. These are
11:26
Speaker 3: the sorts of courses we like. We had a zoom
11:28
Speaker 3: call and then in the end it worked out that
11:31
Speaker 3: Shady Oaks was just about to open, and so we
11:34
Speaker 3: arranged for We couldn't get there, but we arranged for
11:36
Speaker 3: the Madina Green's Committee to go down to Shady Oaks
11:40
Speaker 3: and there they at least got to walk speak to
11:42
Speaker 3: a client and got to see a course. That we're
11:44
Speaker 3: designed and understand what we like and what we don't like,
11:48
Speaker 3: and they saw some things there that they really really liked,
11:51
Speaker 3: so we won that job. We ended up doing a
11:54
Speaker 3: lot of the conceptual work actually still here because we
11:57
Speaker 3: still couldn't travel, couldn't get over there. And then in
12:01
Speaker 3: sort of June or July twenty one, I think, yeah,
12:07
Speaker 3: Ashley and I went over to the States for about
12:08
Speaker 3: eight weeks and that history has shown that was such
12:11
Speaker 3: a critical visit for us. We had to get government permission.
12:15
Speaker 3: It was weird, like, you know that we're in full
12:17
Speaker 3: lockdown here and a day after we landed, we're at
12:22
Speaker 3: Wrigley Field with forty five thousand people with no masks Australia.
12:28
Speaker 3: It was like, what the hell is going on to America?
12:32
Speaker 3: But it was a really it was an important visit.
12:34
Speaker 3: I think if we hadn't have gone, I'm sure you know,
12:37
Speaker 3: the club would have had to look elsewhere. You know,
12:39
Speaker 3: you can't design it from here, so we had to
12:41
Speaker 3: get there. But we also looked at a site down
12:44
Speaker 3: in Georgia which ended up being the Full Line, which
12:47
Speaker 3: is another which is our first new project in America.
12:50
Speaker 3: So that that visit was literally that was the starting
12:53
Speaker 3: point for us of working in America. So it was very,
12:55
Speaker 3: very very important.
12:57
Speaker 1: From the club's perspective, what was the at us for
13:01
Speaker 1: bringing you in changing direction.
13:04
Speaker 3: Look, they even if they didn't want to redesign the
13:06
Speaker 3: golf course, they had to spend a lot of money
13:09
Speaker 3: upgrading it. So it didn't have a drainage system on
13:13
Speaker 3: course three, which is pretty amazing. So of course in
13:16
Speaker 3: Chicago especially, Yeah, so of course one and two did.
13:20
Speaker 3: And a big part of the upgrade of both of
13:22
Speaker 3: those courses was getting like a macro drainage plan in there.
13:26
Speaker 3: The irrigation system was old. Things like card paths were all,
13:30
Speaker 3: you know, in need of upgrade. The greens were really struggled.
13:36
Speaker 3: They'd struggled with turf there for a long time. I
13:38
Speaker 3: remember Steve Cook pointing out that that year that Halo
13:42
Speaker 3: win won, they were spray painting. They were painting fairways
13:47
Speaker 3: and painting the edges of the fairways, so they said
13:50
Speaker 3: they looked green. They struggled with turf, so there were
13:53
Speaker 3: too many trees, greens were too small. I struggled with
13:57
Speaker 3: sort of access and egress, and so they needed There
13:59
Speaker 3: was a certain number of things they needed to do,
14:02
Speaker 3: so I guess their point was, well, if we're going
14:04
Speaker 3: to spend all of this money on upgrading the infrastructure,
14:08
Speaker 3: why wouldn't we look at a redesign. Because from the
14:12
Speaker 3: average members had seen the course, it was very highly ranked,
14:15
Speaker 3: but that had kind of dwindled, and then I think,
14:18
Speaker 3: to be honest, there are a number of people there
14:20
Speaker 3: that recognized that it was a brilliant club, a wonderful club,
14:25
Speaker 3: but looking critically at course three, they really felt that
14:28
Speaker 3: it could be much better than it was.
14:31
Speaker 1: Was part of the brief to make it more challenging
14:34
Speaker 1: for pros. The backdrop of this being yeah, yeah, justin
14:38
Speaker 1: Thomas going out there and lighting the coruscan fire at
14:42
Speaker 1: a PGA Tour event in what twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen,
14:46
Speaker 1: sometime around there.
14:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. I think it was the BMW.
14:51
Speaker 3: And interestingly, if he's since come back and played Madonna
14:55
Speaker 3: with a friend, didn't shoot sixty one again, It's interesting
14:59
Speaker 3: he said, because he was I've sort of heard this
15:01
Speaker 3: story secondhand, but he was playing terribly that week and
15:05
Speaker 3: he was saying that, you know, I spoke to my
15:07
Speaker 3: dad the night before he had that round and he
15:10
Speaker 3: said I really wasn't playing well, and he said, and
15:12
Speaker 3: if you look at that round, he said, like he
15:13
Speaker 3: hold a weg shot, he hold everything. He looked at
15:16
Speaker 3: like it was a you know, he said, I'm so
15:18
Speaker 3: sick of people blaming me for redoing the golf course.
15:22
Speaker 2: I mean, we're not.
15:23
Speaker 1: But yeah, exactly, it's like or is it credit?
15:28
Speaker 3: So it was just one of those rounds that you know,
15:30
Speaker 3: it could have been anywhere. He literally hold everything. So yeah,
15:34
Speaker 3: look it was I mean, I think they are very proud.
15:38
Speaker 3: They're very proud of their tournament history. So they were
15:41
Speaker 3: conscious of that. They didn't want it to be torn up,
15:44
Speaker 3: you know, in the future. But so there was sort
15:47
Speaker 3: of there are a number of different goals.
15:48
Speaker 2: You know.
15:49
Speaker 3: There were those that looked at the architecture, there were
15:51
Speaker 3: those that looked at tournament history, and there were those
15:53
Speaker 3: that looked at the you know, the turf quality and
15:55
Speaker 3: infrastructure and stuff like that.
15:58
Speaker 1: So there are a number of things that you did
16:02
Speaker 1: to chorus three. We can't really go through all of
16:05
Speaker 1: them because it really is quite the reimagining of the
16:09
Speaker 1: golf course. But just to give people an idea, what
16:14
Speaker 1: was the character of the chorus before you started working
16:18
Speaker 1: on it.
16:19
Speaker 3: So I think one of the you know, it was
16:22
Speaker 3: it's three hundred and fifty acres, very big property. There
16:26
Speaker 3: were twenty four acres of fairway. Yeah, not much, not much.
16:30
Speaker 3: It was incredibly difficult for the average golfer. Fairways were narrow.
16:34
Speaker 3: It was a classic sort of order I would as
16:37
Speaker 3: a Melbournian. It was what I would regard as a
16:41
Speaker 3: classic parkland American style golf course. You know, they were lucky.
16:45
Speaker 3: They had beautiful trees, amazing oak trees. There's a handful
16:48
Speaker 3: of trees on that course from the sixteen fifties, which
16:51
Speaker 3: is very cool.
16:53
Speaker 2: Beautiful old oaks.
16:54
Speaker 3: It was narrow, it was lush, it was green. It
16:57
Speaker 3: was a bit monochromatic, you know, just everything you looked
17:00
Speaker 3: at was green. All the green complexes were pretty similar,
17:07
Speaker 3: and a lot of a lot of the course features
17:09
Speaker 3: that had been built looked very looked quite artificial, I
17:12
Speaker 3: would say. So what we did we did a number
17:17
Speaker 3: of different things. We certainly increased the amount of short grass.
17:21
Speaker 3: Probably there's about fifty five acres now, so more than double.
17:25
Speaker 2: There we looked at.
17:27
Speaker 3: It was not a restoration, but there were elements of
17:29
Speaker 3: the original. Tom bendel Our course that we found interesting.
17:34
Speaker 3: Some of the bunkering that he had on the course
17:36
Speaker 3: was really interesting. It looked like, you know, tilling Us
17:39
Speaker 3: had built it like. So that became the idea of
17:42
Speaker 3: the bunkering style. We wanted something much more natural and rugged.
17:45
Speaker 3: We wanted to introduce some longer fescue that would brown
17:47
Speaker 3: off to provide some textural differences. The big thing though,
17:51
Speaker 3: was we re routed the last six holes. That was
17:54
Speaker 3: kind of the That was pretty bold, And to be honest,
17:58
Speaker 3: I think because we're on the other side of the
18:00
Speaker 3: world and we didn't have the emotional ties with that course,
18:03
Speaker 3: it was probably easier for us to suggest that change
18:07
Speaker 3: than if we were like local to Chicago, you know,
18:12
Speaker 3: because we didn't have that you.
18:13
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, the associations with the tournaments and those holes
18:18
Speaker 1: and yeah, there's I mean, I wouldn't say it's the
18:21
Speaker 1: most beloved American course, but certainly people have an image
18:26
Speaker 1: in their minds. Americans have an image of their mind
18:28
Speaker 1: in their mind of what those closing holes at Madina
18:32
Speaker 1: Course three look like and play like, because there have
18:35
Speaker 1: been these memorable shots played there.
18:38
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so we looked at it more simply and thought, well,
18:41
Speaker 3: there's three part threes that all look the same, right.
18:43
Speaker 1: They just crossed the lake there. Yep, it looks it
18:46
Speaker 1: looks kind of like a river in that portion.
18:48
Speaker 2: Of the property. It does its narrow people often.
18:50
Speaker 1: Think it's a river, but the par three is used
18:52
Speaker 1: to just kind of play from one side to the other.
18:55
Speaker 2: That's right.
18:55
Speaker 3: And two of them, in particularly thirteen and seventeen, were
18:58
Speaker 3: even next to each other. They played in the same
18:59
Speaker 3: to they looked like the same hole. They didn't have
19:03
Speaker 3: a they'd built a short part four at the fifteenth
19:06
Speaker 3: that probably hadn't really ticked the box of you know,
19:10
Speaker 3: of the great short par fours of the world, and
19:13
Speaker 3: it just, you know, I just I think water can
19:16
Speaker 3: be a fantastic hazard, but typically it's best when it's
19:19
Speaker 3: on a diagonal when you play across, whether it's a
19:22
Speaker 3: creek or a river or a lake. You know, when
19:24
Speaker 3: you you know things like cape holes, you know, they're
19:26
Speaker 3: interesting because everyone has to deal with the hazard. It
19:29
Speaker 3: doesn't matter how far you hit it, and you kind
19:31
Speaker 3: of have to determine how much of the hazard you
19:33
Speaker 3: want to take on. That's you know, it's just a
19:35
Speaker 3: very interesting way to set up a hazard, and they
19:38
Speaker 3: didn't have that. And the fact that you played directly
19:41
Speaker 3: over the water and the greens were detached from the
19:43
Speaker 3: water meant that good players never hit it in the water,
19:46
Speaker 3: but they were impossible for the average golfer. So I
19:49
Speaker 3: guess we looked at the lake and thought, potentially, this
19:51
Speaker 3: is an amazing hazard, but it doesn't quite work as
19:54
Speaker 3: well as it should. The three part three's were all
19:56
Speaker 3: similar and they didn't have a great short path four,
19:59
Speaker 3: so that was kind of our starting point.
20:00
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, this is what you're saying about. Hazard orientation
20:04
Speaker 1: is really interesting because the previous course there was very
20:10
Speaker 1: linear or perpendicular, and it's in its relationship with that
20:15
Speaker 1: big natural hazard. I guess it's.
20:17
Speaker 2: Natural, yes, sort of. Yeah, okay, yeah, I think so.
20:22
Speaker 1: Even though it at some point it didn't really.
20:24
Speaker 3: Well I think yeah, I think it was a wetland
20:26
Speaker 3: and then they did they damn it.
20:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's ry. It was formalized.
20:29
Speaker 3: Kay.
20:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:31
Speaker 1: So these these par threes, just to use them as
20:34
Speaker 1: an example, would just play straight across it, whereas what
20:39
Speaker 1: what you were looking to do was to shift the
20:42
Speaker 1: orientation of the shots so that it would run along
20:45
Speaker 1: a diagonal.
20:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's try and and and so the we didn't
20:50
Speaker 3: think there was that much variety with the path threes
20:52
Speaker 3: and with the reroute that the new thirteenth hole plays
20:55
Speaker 3: alongside the water, so that gave the club something different
20:58
Speaker 3: as well. So it's a it's a short path three,
21:00
Speaker 3: which again they didn't really have. So this is a
21:03
Speaker 3: hole that I think it's best played at probably about
21:05
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty five yards, so kind of shortish
21:09
Speaker 3: it uses it's got like an infinity green with and
21:12
Speaker 3: you can see the water behind, but then if you
21:14
Speaker 3: miss the green to the right, you're in the water.
21:15
Speaker 3: So it's whereas they were always playing across the water,
21:18
Speaker 3: so we sort of added a different type of hole
21:20
Speaker 3: that's usually played into the breeze. So it's kind of
21:23
Speaker 3: a fun shot with a nine nine or a wedge.
21:26
Speaker 3: And then and then the new seventeenth does play, yeah,
21:29
Speaker 3: directly sort of on a diagonal back across the water.
21:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:34
Speaker 1: So getting back to the theme of challenging elite players,
21:38
Speaker 1: I guess diagonal hazards are one way that you can
21:40
Speaker 1: do that because if it's just a linear hazard, as
21:43
Speaker 1: long as you have the carry number, you can go
21:45
Speaker 1: ahead and.
21:46
Speaker 2: Make that carry.
21:46
Speaker 1: If you're a really good player, you're not gonna come
21:49
Speaker 1: up short necessarily unless it's a really long carry.
21:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:52
Speaker 1: If it's diagonal, then you sort of have to make
21:55
Speaker 1: a decision. If you hit it in a little more
21:58
Speaker 1: in one direction than the other, then you might be
22:00
Speaker 1: in trouble. If you try to buy it off too much,
22:02
Speaker 1: you might be in trouble. So that's one way I
22:05
Speaker 1: suppose that the new course might be more challenging to
22:09
Speaker 1: a top level player.
22:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:10
Speaker 3: I mean, good players are very good at hitting to
22:12
Speaker 3: a particular distance, so that's right.
22:14
Speaker 1: So when they're they're not going to miss that distance
22:16
Speaker 1: very often.
22:17
Speaker 3: No, so when you're playing across a perpendicular hazard, they're
22:19
Speaker 3: unlikely to hit it in it. If it's on the diagonal,
22:21
Speaker 3: you're testing line and length, so that's right. So they
22:24
Speaker 3: do have the ability to misjudge, So that.
22:29
Speaker 2: That was one thing we did.
22:32
Speaker 3: I mean, we certainly tried to improve the relationship between
22:37
Speaker 3: the playing surfaces and the surrounding hazards as well, you know,
22:40
Speaker 3: But being the typical Parkland American style course that I mentioned,
22:46
Speaker 3: there was probably ten yards of rough between the edge
22:48
Speaker 3: of a fairway and a fairway bunker, so that a
22:51
Speaker 3: lot of the bunkering was somewhat redundant. You know, it
22:55
Speaker 3: was a very poor shot to hit in the sand.
22:57
Speaker 3: Usually you were playing from the rough and green side
23:00
Speaker 3: bunkers as well. We're a long way off the putting surface.
23:03
Speaker 3: So whilst we knew we couldn't take it to the
23:06
Speaker 3: extent of say the sand belt, where you have putting
23:09
Speaker 3: surface to the edge of a bunker, we knew we
23:13
Speaker 3: could get a lot closer. So you'll see with the
23:16
Speaker 3: new course the bunkers are really cut up tight to
23:18
Speaker 3: the greens. There is more fairway, the fairwyes are wider,
23:21
Speaker 3: but there's probably a bit more strategy now in terms
23:24
Speaker 3: of being on one side.
23:25
Speaker 2: Of the fairway or the other.
23:28
Speaker 3: One of the keys, to be honest is firmness. It
23:33
Speaker 3: doesn't matter how strategic you make a golf course. You
23:36
Speaker 3: can have all the angles and width in the world,
23:38
Speaker 3: but if it's soft, those guys are so good that
23:41
Speaker 3: they can be out of position even in the rough,
23:44
Speaker 3: and they can hit an eight iron onto a green
23:46
Speaker 3: and stop it if the greens are soft. So firmness
23:50
Speaker 3: is critical, and you know there's a number of greens
23:54
Speaker 3: there that we set up to like the first green
23:56
Speaker 3: falls away from play, which really encourages short and using
24:00
Speaker 3: the ground game a bit more. But the other important
24:03
Speaker 3: aspect is all the drainage that's been added in and
24:05
Speaker 3: so unless you had a three inch storm the night before,
24:10
Speaker 3: being the new superintendent has the ability to really firm
24:13
Speaker 3: that place up, and that will be ultimately that will
24:15
Speaker 3: be the key and firmness combined with all the short
24:18
Speaker 3: grass around the greens, plus the bunker ing, plus the
24:21
Speaker 3: you know, the angles, it's a there's no one thing,
24:24
Speaker 3: it's those. It's sort of four or five different things
24:26
Speaker 3: that I think start to achieve that balance between playability
24:32
Speaker 3: for the average golfer but making it interesting and challenging
24:35
Speaker 3: for the better player.
24:36
Speaker 1: How do you create firmness on a site like Madona's.
24:40
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not the Australian sand belt, this
24:43
Speaker 1: is this is Chicago. I assume it's kind of heavy clay,
24:47
Speaker 1: not typically the easiest stuff to drain or to you know,
24:51
Speaker 1: it's not not the easiest thing to fight the weather
24:54
Speaker 1: in Chicago with your surfaces. So how do you go
24:57
Speaker 1: about creating firmness at a course like this?
25:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's.
25:03
Speaker 3: I mean it is a heavy sight, but it's got
25:05
Speaker 3: quite a thick layer of top soil. They sort of
25:08
Speaker 3: look at it and you know, it's good black dirt
25:10
Speaker 3: will be the comment.
25:12
Speaker 1: Not bad.
25:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's super rocky or anything. No, it's actually
25:16
Speaker 3: quite nice tops oil. There was no sort of there
25:20
Speaker 3: were no. I mean, we strive very hard to We
25:23
Speaker 3: don't particularly like the you know the catch basins close
25:26
Speaker 3: to close to play, you know where you've got a
25:28
Speaker 3: big drainage pit, because that.
25:30
Speaker 1: Would be one way to do it is to build
25:32
Speaker 1: these big swales next to the greens, have the greens
25:35
Speaker 1: run off into those swals and drain down at the
25:37
Speaker 1: center that's right of the catch basin. But that's sort
25:40
Speaker 1: of it can start to seem like predictable or kind
25:44
Speaker 1: of hacky architecture.
25:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's right.
25:47
Speaker 3: So if you were only concerned with the turf and
25:50
Speaker 3: you didn't care about architecture or aesthetics, if you had
25:55
Speaker 3: the series of catch basins all the way down the
25:56
Speaker 3: fairway and all the way around the green, with quite
25:59
Speaker 3: a lot of pitch into those catch basins, you could
26:02
Speaker 3: create fairly dry surfaces because anytime it rained, the rain
26:05
Speaker 3: would hit the surface straight off into a catch bit
26:07
Speaker 3: and that's gone. You know, whereas architects we're trying to
26:11
Speaker 3: do we're trying to minimize the number of catch basins
26:13
Speaker 3: and put them in the raft so you can't see
26:15
Speaker 3: them and not have the big exaggerated hollows. So you're
26:18
Speaker 3: trying to strike a balance between form and function.
26:22
Speaker 2: I guess.
26:23
Speaker 3: So there are there's a few catch basins in you know,
26:26
Speaker 3: in playing surfaces, but they're typically off you know, well
26:29
Speaker 3: off greens and things. And then on top of that,
26:33
Speaker 3: there's also a lot of subsurface strainage around the greens,
26:35
Speaker 3: particularly in their approaches to the greens.
26:38
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have to be clever about how you're
26:41
Speaker 1: draining the surfaces. And that's just one way to do it,
26:44
Speaker 1: I guess. Another way is just good agronomy. You know,
26:47
Speaker 1: you need to try and pay attention to the surfaces
26:49
Speaker 1: and really keep them fresh and you know, not let
26:54
Speaker 1: them age in certain ways in order to keep them firm.
26:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's right.
26:58
Speaker 3: There's certain management practices. I mean, you could destroy the
27:02
Speaker 3: strategy of a golf course if you're a bit heavy
27:03
Speaker 3: handed with the with the hose. So you know, if
27:06
Speaker 3: you were to overwater of course, you know, you're going
27:09
Speaker 3: to it's going to lead to soft playing services, So
27:12
Speaker 3: you know, trying to keep it a little bit lean
27:14
Speaker 3: and keep it firm and keep it bouncy is critical
27:16
Speaker 3: as well.
27:17
Speaker 1: So then in all of this firmness and the challenges
27:22
Speaker 1: that you're trying to create with that, what role these
27:26
Speaker 1: short short grass play with us?
27:29
Speaker 3: I think it's a plays an important role. So a
27:34
Speaker 3: good example we would use with the membership there was
27:39
Speaker 3: if you've got an elevated green, we'll say, then you've
27:43
Speaker 3: got rough up to the edge. Even if the pin's
27:47
Speaker 3: tucked in the corner of the green. Good players will
27:50
Speaker 3: tend not to think twice about shooting for that flag
27:54
Speaker 3: because they know if they miss it, it's just going
27:56
Speaker 3: to get caught up in five or six feet either side,
27:58
Speaker 3: and it's a relatively simple where Suddenly, if you've got
28:02
Speaker 3: short grass cut thirty yards down that bank and the
28:05
Speaker 3: conditions are firm, it forces them back in the fairway
28:08
Speaker 3: to think more about that shot. It puts a little
28:10
Speaker 3: bit of doubt in their mind because they know if
28:11
Speaker 3: they miss it, the ball might finish thirty or even
28:14
Speaker 3: forty yards off the green. Suddenly it's a really tricky
28:17
Speaker 3: up and down. It's tricky pitch, tricky chip shot. And
28:20
Speaker 3: the nice thing is for an average golfer, though, if
28:21
Speaker 3: they missed that shot, they can just pull out a
28:23
Speaker 3: putter and just kind of whack it up onto the green.
28:26
Speaker 3: They're not going to make their part, they're going to
28:27
Speaker 3: make a bowgire a double. But it's a more enjoyable,
28:31
Speaker 3: more satisfying recovery shot for them than just hacking it
28:34
Speaker 3: out of three inches of rough. So and we used
28:38
Speaker 3: that theory in a lot of places at Madina. Really
28:41
Speaker 3: good example is the first where there's a you know,
28:44
Speaker 3: thirty or forty yards of short grass over and to
28:47
Speaker 3: the right of an elevated green. So suddenly it's a
28:51
Speaker 3: difficult shot.
28:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the one thing that's gonna bother players
28:56
Speaker 1: around the green is not necessarily rough unless the players,
28:59
Speaker 1: to you, it sounds like it's putting them farther away
29:03
Speaker 1: from the hole. If you've met if after a miss
29:07
Speaker 1: they're simply farther away, they have a longer shot in
29:10
Speaker 1: they're just going to get that up and down less
29:13
Speaker 1: and less often the farther away they get.
29:15
Speaker 2: That's right.
29:16
Speaker 3: And then if the conditions are fairly firmin bouncy. It
29:19
Speaker 3: just emphasizes that strategy. And then if you sort of
29:22
Speaker 3: work backwards onto the tee suddenly, then then it is
29:25
Speaker 3: putting more more of an advantage for them being in
29:28
Speaker 3: the right position on the faiawaye or the wrong you know,
29:30
Speaker 3: panealizing them in the wrong position. So it kind of
29:32
Speaker 3: works its way back strategically both in the fairway and
29:35
Speaker 3: even back on the tee.
29:37
Speaker 1: You brought up position in the fairway. Let the record
29:40
Speaker 1: show that you brought it up. I want to talk
29:44
Speaker 1: about with yeah. Width of fairways is a controversial topic
29:48
Speaker 1: among those who are interested in tournament golf courses.
29:52
Speaker 2: YEP.
29:53
Speaker 1: There are those who say that if a fairway is wide,
29:57
Speaker 1: and the fairways that at Medina are wider now than
29:59
Speaker 1: they to be, obviously they're quite a narrow before. There
30:03
Speaker 1: are those who say, if a fairway is wide, then
30:05
Speaker 1: it really doesn't matter what you do around the green.
30:08
Speaker 1: Elite players are just going to blast it up the
30:10
Speaker 1: fairway and they'll take whatever angle they get when they
30:14
Speaker 1: get there. And so the argument would go, there's not
30:19
Speaker 1: much thinking there because they're not thinking about position in
30:22
Speaker 1: the fairway. Because they don't have to think about position
30:25
Speaker 1: in the fairway. If you give them a certain width
30:27
Speaker 1: of corridor, they're just going to pull driver and look
30:30
Speaker 1: at their kind of dispersion zone and just find a
30:33
Speaker 1: central point in that dispersion zone and go ahead.
30:36
Speaker 2: And rip it.
30:37
Speaker 1: Not much thought required. Yeah, what would be your response
30:40
Speaker 1: to that?
30:41
Speaker 3: Well, that is true if the conditions are soft. If
30:44
Speaker 3: the conditions are soft, it is just a free heat.
30:46
Speaker 3: But I think there's enough great designs out day that
30:52
Speaker 3: there are examples of the counterpoints your argument. Someone like
30:55
Speaker 3: Augusta is a perfect example a little pond host. I
30:59
Speaker 3: mean the enth at Augusta that fairways seventy or eighty
31:02
Speaker 3: yards wide, and there's you know, a three way advantage
31:05
Speaker 3: in hitting down next to the water both shorter shot,
31:08
Speaker 3: better angle, and flatter eye. And you know every yard
31:12
Speaker 3: you play to the rider gets a much more difficult
31:14
Speaker 3: shot into that green. So if the architecture isn't there
31:19
Speaker 3: and the firmness isn't there, that's right. Players will will
31:24
Speaker 3: will eat up a golf course if it's wide. But
31:27
Speaker 3: I think if the if the green complex is good
31:29
Speaker 3: enough and it's in and it's a fairly firm, fast
31:32
Speaker 3: golf course, I think it will challenge and it will
31:36
Speaker 3: create much more interest because the end of the day,
31:38
Speaker 3: you can't create strategy on narrow fairways. You know, you
31:41
Speaker 3: have to give players choices about where they want to
31:45
Speaker 3: hit to. Ironically, I quite like the fact that the
31:50
Speaker 3: US Open is an arrow golf course because it's just
31:52
Speaker 3: a nice point of difference.
31:53
Speaker 2: With all the other majors.
31:54
Speaker 3: But it's just it gets too much, I think when
31:56
Speaker 3: every week in, week out on the tour is an
31:58
Speaker 3: arrow golf course.
32:01
Speaker 1: Well, you know, one of the reality is when it
32:03
Speaker 1: comes to designing courses for great players right now, is
32:06
Speaker 1: that great players think about course management differently, perhaps than
32:11
Speaker 1: than they used to, or at least they're they're more
32:13
Speaker 1: likely to have a particular method of approaching course management,
32:18
Speaker 1: driven by analytics and data collection and the insights that
32:22
Speaker 1: that has provided. So I wonder if as an architect,
32:26
Speaker 1: you take some of that stuff into account in order
32:30
Speaker 1: to counteract or to account for what players are doing
32:35
Speaker 1: when they think their way through a golf course, when
32:37
Speaker 1: they're choosing targets based on a kind of different set
32:41
Speaker 1: of criteria than they used to, does the architect have
32:44
Speaker 1: to do something different in order to keep the course
32:49
Speaker 1: interesting and challenging for them.
32:53
Speaker 2: It's a it's a really good question.
32:55
Speaker 3: I mean, we haven't spent a lot of time going
32:57
Speaker 3: through you know, shouts to Hull, and we did it
33:01
Speaker 3: at Madina. We looked through a lot of the scoring averages.
33:05
Speaker 3: That was one thing we did do which was interesting,
33:08
Speaker 3: and just the shot dispersion on each hole. But that's
33:13
Speaker 3: probably I would say that's the first time we've really
33:16
Speaker 3: taken a deep dive into just how players, you know,
33:19
Speaker 3: through tournaments had played particular holes in particular shots.
33:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, what'd you do with scoring averages? What was the
33:29
Speaker 1: intention of looking at.
33:30
Speaker 3: That one of them was we wanted to see how
33:34
Speaker 3: they played those path threes and how they played their
33:36
Speaker 3: short puffour so fifteen it was interesting that you know,
33:40
Speaker 3: better players typically didn't hit it in the water on
33:42
Speaker 3: the path threes. The water didn't really have much of
33:44
Speaker 3: a role as a hazard, which is kind of what
33:46
Speaker 3: we thought. And you know, for me anyway, that I
33:52
Speaker 3: think the great short puffers of the world put lots
33:54
Speaker 3: of different clubs in your hand. You know, there's a
33:56
Speaker 3: lot of doubt you see that around the sand belt.
33:59
Speaker 3: You would have seen it in the last few days
34:01
Speaker 3: where there's no single way to play. You know, these holes,
34:05
Speaker 3: you could play anything from a five eye to a
34:07
Speaker 3: driver off the tee, and none of them are the
34:10
Speaker 3: right or wrong. You know, choice just depends on you
34:13
Speaker 3: on the day and the wind and the pin and
34:16
Speaker 3: how you feeling. Whereas it was clear that that's not
34:19
Speaker 3: how they played the fifteenth hole, so I guess it
34:25
Speaker 3: probably just confirmed some of our suspicions I guess about
34:30
Speaker 3: some of the holes.
34:38
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36:09
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to the episode. Tell me
36:18
Speaker 1: about your use of out of bounds at Madonna. This
36:21
Speaker 1: is something that people are going to be curious about.
36:24
Speaker 1: The fence hole. Yeah, in particular.
36:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, So that end of the property, which I
36:35
Speaker 3: guess is the northwestern end, was a prairie originally, so
36:41
Speaker 3: you kind of got these interesting landscapes at Madonna. You've
36:45
Speaker 3: got the holes around the lake, which we talked about.
36:48
Speaker 3: Then you've got the holes through the middle of the
36:49
Speaker 3: property where you've got the beautiful old oaks that kind
36:51
Speaker 3: of frame the holes, and then the top end of
36:53
Speaker 3: the property there was originally a prairie, so didn't have
36:56
Speaker 3: the features of the rest of the golf course. It
36:58
Speaker 3: was pretty open and it had a dirt road running around.
37:04
Speaker 3: In the thirties, you know, there were no houses. There
37:07
Speaker 3: was just a simple dirt track.
37:09
Speaker 2: And when we.
37:09
Speaker 3: Looked at the old aerials, it appeared as though the
37:12
Speaker 3: sixth hole used the boundary as a bit of a
37:15
Speaker 3: strategic hazard, you know, because the hole literally played up
37:18
Speaker 3: against it. There were no trees, and I thought, well,
37:21
Speaker 3: that's kind of interesting, interesting feature. I'm not sure you
37:24
Speaker 3: could ever put that back because there's now houses and
37:27
Speaker 3: roads and cars and things like that. And then we
37:31
Speaker 3: found an old photo that showed the sixth green and
37:33
Speaker 3: there was quite clearly a fence immediately behind the green.
37:36
Speaker 3: I thought that's pretty cool, very interesting, And then we
37:41
Speaker 3: were concerned the view on those holes, particularly six and
37:46
Speaker 3: the old tenth which is now the seventh, was unattractive
37:50
Speaker 3: because you were just staring at the road and cars
37:53
Speaker 3: and an ugly fence, and so in order to improve
37:56
Speaker 3: the backdrop, we wanted to shift those holes away from
37:59
Speaker 3: the outer bound and the club were really lucky they
38:02
Speaker 3: had a lot of space, so we moved those holes
38:04
Speaker 3: forty yards, which gave us an opportunity to then plant
38:07
Speaker 3: out the boundary and to sort of shift your view
38:09
Speaker 3: line away from the outer bounds. But then the question was, well,
38:13
Speaker 3: what do we what do we do now? And we
38:16
Speaker 3: kind of liked the idea of reintroducing some sort of boundary,
38:20
Speaker 3: So that's where the idea of and the fact there
38:22
Speaker 3: was these old photos and we thought, well we could
38:25
Speaker 3: kind of reintroduce an outer bounds, albeit it's a much
38:30
Speaker 3: safer proposition now and with a nicely screened fence line.
38:34
Speaker 3: So we pitched the idea of a postmail fence and
38:39
Speaker 3: it sort of follows all the way down the sixth
38:41
Speaker 3: hole and the seventh hole and the end. We actually
38:43
Speaker 3: continued on the fifth as well, So you have this
38:45
Speaker 3: run of holes five, six, seven where the fence line
38:50
Speaker 3: runs hard up against the edge of the fairway. At
38:52
Speaker 3: the sixth that runs hard up against the edge of
38:54
Speaker 3: the green. But the fairways are wide, you know, they're
38:59
Speaker 3: sixty yards wide, sixty five yards wide, so they kind
39:02
Speaker 3: of that there's a huge advantage for being close to
39:05
Speaker 3: the fence line, but we give that. We give the
39:08
Speaker 3: goal for a lot of space to play away from
39:10
Speaker 3: the fence, but you kind of at some point on
39:14
Speaker 3: those holes you have to deal with the fence line,
39:15
Speaker 3: particularly on the sixth because the green's hard up against it.
39:18
Speaker 3: So if you choose to play away from the fence
39:20
Speaker 3: with your t shot, the second shot now is really
39:22
Speaker 3: difficult because you were sort of aiming directly out of bounds. Now,
39:27
Speaker 3: we didn't think it was that controversial because we've played
39:30
Speaker 3: and seen a lot of courses in the UK and
39:32
Speaker 3: there are a bunch of examples.
39:33
Speaker 1: Royal Liverpool maybe the most famous example on multiple holes
39:38
Speaker 1: that that it's not really a boundary line. It's sort
39:41
Speaker 1: of a boundary line, but the burn sort of comes
39:44
Speaker 1: into play.
39:45
Speaker 3: And you know, I played the British Amateur there. I
39:47
Speaker 3: remember that the first hole there, you know, it's a
39:49
Speaker 3: ninety degree it's a long part for I remember hitting
39:51
Speaker 3: a three im into that.
39:52
Speaker 1: Green played as the third hole in the Open.
39:54
Speaker 2: That's why I believe.
39:55
Speaker 1: But it's really fun as a first hole because it's
39:59
Speaker 1: it's such a hard t shot right off the bat.
40:01
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But then there's lots of other examples, you know,
40:04
Speaker 3: truon fourteenth hole at Saint George's, a bunch of holes
40:08
Speaker 3: at the old Course first pressed week.
40:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a kind of a traditional and for that sake,
40:14
Speaker 1: the road hole is a is a version of it.
40:17
Speaker 1: And so it's a kind of traditional type of hole
40:20
Speaker 1: that the boundary hole on a links course. Absolutely, And
40:23
Speaker 1: as much as everybody else in the world has tried
40:26
Speaker 1: to emulate links courses in building their own work, in
40:31
Speaker 1: other places, the boundary hole hasn't been as much imitated
40:36
Speaker 1: because people look at it and they say, well, that's unfair. Yeah,
40:40
Speaker 1: the stroke and distance penalty as a punishment for missing
40:43
Speaker 1: the fair way, that's not fair. I don't like that.
40:46
Speaker 2: Let's not have that.
40:48
Speaker 1: I'm sure there will be some of that reaction to
40:51
Speaker 1: the use of the boundary at Medina. And yeah, I mean,
40:55
Speaker 1: how do you think about that? How do you think
40:58
Speaker 1: about the issue of fairness when it when it comes
41:00
Speaker 1: to a hall like this.
41:01
Speaker 3: I like it because it puts even more doubt in
41:03
Speaker 3: your mind because the penalty is so severe, right, whereas
41:06
Speaker 3: if it was water. I think people are going to
41:08
Speaker 3: be more inclined to play a little closer to it
41:11
Speaker 3: because they know that they can always drop the ball
41:13
Speaker 3: up near the fairway, you know. So I think I
41:17
Speaker 3: think it's I think it works really well. I mean,
41:19
Speaker 3: and interestingly, there was a little bit of concern about
41:22
Speaker 3: it early on, but now that all of the you know,
41:25
Speaker 3: the long ruffs grown on the other side of the
41:27
Speaker 3: fence and the holes have beard it in, the feedback's
41:31
Speaker 3: been unbelievable. So both from golf's hierarchy to tour players
41:37
Speaker 3: that have come and played it, to the members, I
41:40
Speaker 3: think they understand it, and you know, and those fairways
41:43
Speaker 3: are really wide, so you you know that it's not
41:47
Speaker 3: They've understood that there's a lot of opportunity to play
41:50
Speaker 3: away from the fence. You don't have to play next
41:52
Speaker 3: to it. But I think they enjoy the challenge.
41:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there a particular hole at the new Madina
41:59
Speaker 1: Chorus three that you're specially interested in seeing top level
42:03
Speaker 1: players play in high pressure situations? Maybe something that we
42:06
Speaker 1: haven't talked about yet.
42:09
Speaker 3: I mean, one of the fence holes, the sixth with
42:11
Speaker 3: the fence quite close to the green. I'm really looking
42:15
Speaker 3: forward to seeing how they play that.
42:17
Speaker 1: You could definitely see a ball just kind of roll
42:19
Speaker 1: the out of bounds there. Absolutely, that's a very distinct
42:22
Speaker 1: possibility in approaching that green if you're coming in from
42:26
Speaker 1: a tough angle and you don't have total control of
42:29
Speaker 1: your ball, yep, it's going to go a bee well now.
42:32
Speaker 2: You know.
42:32
Speaker 3: And there was some people had sort of suggested that
42:37
Speaker 3: maybe we should move the fence ten yards further away,
42:39
Speaker 3: you know, And but my argument was that it's no
42:43
Speaker 3: different to a you know, suddenly that hazard stops being relevant.
42:47
Speaker 2: You know.
42:47
Speaker 3: It's no different to imagine you moved a green side
42:49
Speaker 3: bunker ten yards away from the green, well, it stops
42:51
Speaker 3: being hazard, you know. So the whole point of it
42:54
Speaker 3: is that it's close to the playing surface. If you
42:56
Speaker 3: grow five yards of rough or ten yards of rough
42:58
Speaker 3: between the hazard and the whether it's the fairway or
43:01
Speaker 3: the green, it stops being interesting. So fortunately we rode
43:06
Speaker 3: through that, probably the other holes the Kpe hole. So sixteen.
43:12
Speaker 3: So sixteen was the old seventeenth, the part three, and
43:17
Speaker 3: there was a lot of space to the right of
43:19
Speaker 3: the seventeenth, and every time we sort of stood on
43:22
Speaker 3: that tea, our eyes would kind of shift right and
43:24
Speaker 3: you would see the water on the diagonal to the
43:27
Speaker 3: point where we actually you would look across to the
43:29
Speaker 3: fourteenth tes, the original fourteenth t's, and it looked like
43:31
Speaker 3: a really interesting green and an interesting short part four.
43:36
Speaker 3: The ground was quite steep, which we were a little
43:38
Speaker 3: bit concerned about, but that whole worked out particularly well,
43:42
Speaker 3: and that's a good example of everyone in the field
43:45
Speaker 3: there has to deal with the water. You just have
43:47
Speaker 3: to choose how much of it you want to take on.
43:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's going to be a really fun hole to watch,
43:52
Speaker 1: partly because it's set in this kind of amphitheater, this
43:57
Speaker 1: natural amphitheater at the center of the property with the
44:00
Speaker 1: lake there, and I can just imagine the crowds around
44:03
Speaker 1: it and some of the fun tea shots that are
44:06
Speaker 1: going to be played there because there are it's one
44:08
Speaker 1: of those holes where there's real tension on the tea shot.
44:11
Speaker 1: Is this shot going to get where it needs to go?
44:14
Speaker 1: There's going to be some doubt with the ball, with
44:16
Speaker 1: the ball in the.
44:17
Speaker 3: Air, absolutely, and it is. You know, there's a bunch
44:20
Speaker 3: of different We built five or six different teas because
44:22
Speaker 3: we wanted people to be tempted to try and drive
44:24
Speaker 3: the green, So that shot is on for the elite players, absolutely,
44:29
Speaker 3: so I think it'll be fun to see that. And
44:31
Speaker 3: your point about the Amphitheater is a good one too,
44:33
Speaker 3: that there's so much action around the lake now, there's
44:36
Speaker 3: so many there's kind of four or five holes that
44:38
Speaker 3: are all in and around the water there, and the
44:40
Speaker 3: way the sand will kind of carry across the water
44:43
Speaker 3: and from one side to the other, I think has
44:45
Speaker 3: made for a really interesting, you know, finishing stretch of holes.
44:49
Speaker 1: So my final question, Mike, was it really wise for
44:53
Speaker 1: a US club to hire an Australian firm to build
44:58
Speaker 1: a course that would host an America and President's Cup.
45:02
Speaker 1: It feels like this was an opportunity for you to
45:04
Speaker 1: tip the scales in favor of the international team.
45:08
Speaker 2: Wow.
45:08
Speaker 1: I just wonder what.
45:10
Speaker 3: The thinking was here, hopefully. I mean, ninety eight was
45:15
Speaker 3: the only time that the Internationals.
45:17
Speaker 2: Have ever won skills.
45:18
Speaker 3: Maybe it would be good for the skills, it would
45:20
Speaker 3: be nice. Look, it was brave for them to country
45:25
Speaker 3: of origin aside, you know, to not just go with
45:30
Speaker 3: the usual suspects. I would say so, and they so
45:34
Speaker 3: they did make a brave decision there time will tell
45:38
Speaker 3: as successful, but no, they're very pleased with the results,
45:41
Speaker 3: and you know it's look, it's not that rankings are everything,
45:44
Speaker 3: but it's nice that, you know, rankings have come out
45:46
Speaker 3: and shown that it's gone up a staggering number of
45:49
Speaker 3: spots and all of that. But yeah, it has been
45:53
Speaker 3: discussed numerous occasions that you know, if the internationals do
45:58
Speaker 3: win this particular President's Cup, what the reaction will be.
46:02
Speaker 1: Not going to be able to re enter the country problem?
46:06
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for coming on the show man.
46:07
Speaker 2: Thanks Ert.
46:15
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by PJ Clark.
46:19
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