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Jasper Park Rises from the Ashes · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: The golf course at Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta,
0:03
Speaker 1: Canada is among the most stunning golf courses in the world. Certainly,
0:09
Speaker 1: it's one of the key designs of the great Canadian
0:12
Speaker 1: architect Stanley Thompson. So I was really sad to hear
0:16
Speaker 1: last year that the lodge, the golf course, and the
0:19
Speaker 1: town that's nearby were badly damaged by a wildfire. So
0:24
Speaker 1: I've been eager for a while to get an update
0:27
Speaker 1: on how Jasper Park is doing, and that's what's happening
0:31
Speaker 1: in today's episode. I'm talking with Ian Andrew, who is
0:35
Speaker 1: an accomplished golf architect as well as the world's leading
0:38
Speaker 1: authority on Stanley Thompson. Very likely, Ian is currently working
0:43
Speaker 1: with Jasper Park to bring the golf course back to
0:47
Speaker 1: its full strength, so I'm excited to talk with him
0:50
Speaker 1: about that process as well as get into the history
0:54
Speaker 1: and architecture of Jasper Park. I'm Garrett Morrison and this
0:59
Speaker 1: is Design Golf. Hey, so one quick note before we
1:08
Speaker 1: get started here. When I started the conversation with Ian,
1:13
Speaker 1: his mike was sort of rubbing against the collar of
1:16
Speaker 1: his sweatshirt, and so that's what you'll hear in the
1:19
Speaker 1: first few minutes of this podcast a little bit of
1:22
Speaker 1: wrestling that does not continue throughout the interview. We sorted
1:26
Speaker 1: out the problem, just wanted to let you know about that.
1:29
Speaker 1: So for those who are not familiar with Jasper Park,
1:34
Speaker 1: maybe non Canadians out there, where is this course and
1:38
Speaker 1: what is some of the basic top line information we
1:41
Speaker 1: should know about it.
1:42
Speaker 2: So Jasper Park is in Jasper National Park and it's
1:48
Speaker 2: west of Edmonton by four hours.
1:50
Speaker 3: It's north of Beef Springs.
1:52
Speaker 2: By probably the greatest four hour drive in Canada. If
1:57
Speaker 2: you're going to see one or the other both ideally both.
2:02
Speaker 2: It is the single best drive you'll ever find. It's
2:06
Speaker 2: through the rocky mountains and it's glaciers all the way,
2:09
Speaker 2: so it's quite spectacular. It was a course built in
2:13
Speaker 2: a national park. So one of the interesting things is
2:17
Speaker 2: two of our greatest golf courses were built by railroads
2:19
Speaker 2: as destinations. And so what you've got is you've got
2:24
Speaker 2: with CP, you've got bamp Springs and with CN you've
2:28
Speaker 2: got Jasper National Park. So they took over a project
2:32
Speaker 2: that was kind of middling along, and then.
2:38
Speaker 3: What happened was.
2:38
Speaker 2: They end up sort of revisiting it a couple of times,
2:41
Speaker 2: and then finally with Stanley Thompson, they built the eighteen
2:43
Speaker 2: holes that we know today.
2:45
Speaker 1: So there's a small town called Jasper near the lodge. Right,
2:49
Speaker 1: you have the Jasper Park Lodge, you have the Jasper
2:51
Speaker 1: Park golf course, and then the town of Jasper. What's
2:54
Speaker 1: that like.
2:54
Speaker 3: Jasper is a small town.
2:56
Speaker 2: I actually can't tell you the population, but if I
2:58
Speaker 2: was going to give it a guess, maybe something as
3:01
Speaker 2: much as sort of three thousand to four thousand people,
3:06
Speaker 2: might be as much as five Actually, now I think
3:07
Speaker 2: about it, and it's really the support system not only
3:11
Speaker 2: for Jasper Park Lodge, which is not in town, it's
3:15
Speaker 2: just outside of town, but it's also a support system
3:18
Speaker 2: as well for Jasper National Park. So a lot of
3:22
Speaker 2: people live there and then usually end up working with either.
3:26
Speaker 2: There's a series of resorts and hotels and restaurants in town.
3:30
Speaker 2: Fabulous town. I'd highly recommend it as a destination. And
3:33
Speaker 2: then a lot of people also work with the Jasper
3:36
Speaker 2: Park Lodge.
3:37
Speaker 1: So, before we get deeper into the courses architecture in
3:42
Speaker 1: the history, what happened in Jasper and Jasper National Park
3:48
Speaker 1: last year?
3:49
Speaker 2: So last year, there was a wildfire, and the wildfire
3:53
Speaker 2: started up I think near Athabasca Falls, if I'm not mistaken,
3:58
Speaker 2: and it was a lightning strike. And one of the
4:01
Speaker 2: things that's taken place a lot out west is pine
4:04
Speaker 2: beetle has decimated the forests, and so I would say
4:11
Speaker 2: a third or more of the forest was actually dead.
4:16
Speaker 2: So if you can imagine pine beetle decimated the area,
4:23
Speaker 2: then you've got all that canopy that's.
4:27
Speaker 3: In the park that's dried out. And so what.
4:33
Speaker 2: Happened when during a very dry period they had lightning
4:36
Speaker 2: strike that set the area of blaze.
4:39
Speaker 3: The area started to burn.
4:42
Speaker 2: Very quickly, and unfortunately for them when this took place,
4:45
Speaker 2: it was I think thirty forty one hour winds. The
4:48
Speaker 2: winds actually got stronger over time, is the wildflower of
4:52
Speaker 2: fire began to burn.
4:54
Speaker 3: Its way towards Jasper.
4:55
Speaker 2: So essentially it started up the Athabasca River valley and
5:03
Speaker 2: sort of pushed its way towards Jasper town site. I
5:07
Speaker 2: think what caught us all a little off guard was
5:11
Speaker 2: it ended up burning. If I'll apologize if I got
5:14
Speaker 2: this wrong, but I think it's about forty thousand square miles.
5:19
Speaker 2: But as it pushed its way up the valley. Everybody
5:22
Speaker 2: just kind of assumed at some point they would gain
5:24
Speaker 2: control over it, and it just got worse and worse
5:28
Speaker 2: because the winds were so high, and then it ended
5:31
Speaker 2: up burning its way to the golf course. Fortunately for
5:35
Speaker 2: the golf course, it ended up actually protecting the resort,
5:39
Speaker 2: and they kind of made us stand.
5:40
Speaker 3: At the resort because it's.
5:43
Speaker 2: Very historically important resort, and they made us stand at
5:49
Speaker 2: the town site. But about thirty five to town Goup.
5:55
Speaker 3: Burnt.
5:56
Speaker 2: So Jasperin is in recovery mode. A good example is
6:01
Speaker 2: the superintendent lost his house, the director of golf didn't.
6:06
Speaker 2: And that's one of the things about this event is
6:10
Speaker 2: one family survived it, nobody's unscathed. That's sort of the
6:16
Speaker 2: point I was going to make with this is you've
6:19
Speaker 2: got families who have managed to still have their houses
6:24
Speaker 2: standing just because of where they happen to be in town.
6:27
Speaker 2: And then you've got people they work with, their friends
6:30
Speaker 2: or family who have lost their house or their residents,
6:33
Speaker 2: or their or their business. And so everybody who has
6:37
Speaker 2: any connection to jasper is just sort of devastated, because
6:41
Speaker 2: you know, everybody I know.
6:44
Speaker 3: It's sort of a fifty to fifty. It's just a.
6:46
Speaker 2: Flip them on whether things worked out or didn't. But
6:50
Speaker 2: it didn't matter. Everybody's still heartbroken. I think some people
6:53
Speaker 2: are more heartbroken who've actually not lost anything, because they
6:56
Speaker 2: feel it's sort of the survivor's guilt.
6:59
Speaker 3: That comes with that.
7:00
Speaker 2: So with the golf course, the golf course got burnt
7:03
Speaker 2: in the process. The one thing that happened was where
7:06
Speaker 2: you've got all that timber, it was burning so hot.
7:09
Speaker 2: And I'm going to sort of jump ahead a little bit,
7:12
Speaker 2: but it burnt so hot that you actually, rather than
7:16
Speaker 2: burning the pine cones and opening them up for regeneration,
7:19
Speaker 2: it's actually burnt so hot that it's actually decimated the
7:24
Speaker 2: pine cones too, so there's nothing to regenerate. So there's
7:27
Speaker 2: a place a much further up where you can go
7:29
Speaker 2: where you can see regeneration, and beside it you can
7:31
Speaker 2: see areas of no regeneration. What that is is if
7:35
Speaker 2: fires get too hot, there's no regeneration anymore. We've actually
7:38
Speaker 2: got that on the golf course. We've got both further
7:41
Speaker 2: from the golf course where it burnt around on the mountain,
7:46
Speaker 2: there's one of my favorite places for hiking short hike
7:51
Speaker 2: is Malin Canyon.
7:52
Speaker 3: Malign Canyon.
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Speaker 2: Everything is burnt, everything is blown over, there's not a
7:56
Speaker 2: tree standing, and it will not regenerate because there's nothing left.
8:00
Speaker 2: So it's actually soil and everything's washed into the canyon
8:03
Speaker 2: where all the walkways and everything are.
8:06
Speaker 3: So this is sort of what happened.
8:07
Speaker 2: You've got spots where it's decimated the burn where you're
8:12
Speaker 2: not going to even get regeneration. This was a learning
8:15
Speaker 2: curve for me over the last little while.
8:17
Speaker 3: And then you've got.
8:18
Speaker 2: Other areas where the golf course, for example, it burnt
8:21
Speaker 2: into the golf course but never got hot enough to
8:24
Speaker 2: other than burning the trees down. It didn't get hot
8:26
Speaker 2: enough to.
8:28
Speaker 3: Decimate the cones. But the other thing is.
8:31
Speaker 2: Also started to reduce the fire and so it wasn't
8:37
Speaker 2: burning as hot, it wasn't traveling as easy. It actually
8:40
Speaker 2: made it easy for them to make a stand. So
8:42
Speaker 2: there are buildings burnt in Jasper Park Lodge, there's four
8:46
Speaker 2: or five buildings burnt, but they were able to save
8:48
Speaker 2: the lodge and they were able to save the majority
8:50
Speaker 2: of it. So essentially, it's funny we think about golf
8:54
Speaker 2: and get all golf centric, but the great thing is
8:59
Speaker 2: a golf course. When it burns, it's not a big deal.
9:01
Speaker 2: It's just the trace. The ground is still the ground,
9:03
Speaker 2: The golf course is still the golf course, and you
9:06
Speaker 2: can have turf up and going and everything up and
9:08
Speaker 2: going very.
9:10
Speaker 3: Quickly, which they did.
9:11
Speaker 2: The only thing that's interesting was all the theater systems
9:15
Speaker 2: at Jasper Park are all above ground, so that all
9:17
Speaker 2: got burnt, so there's no supply lines anymore, and that's
9:21
Speaker 2: sort of something they're working on now. So it's sort
9:24
Speaker 2: of a long explanation, but that sort of gives you.
9:28
Speaker 2: When I went there, I went there three weeks after
9:30
Speaker 2: the fire and the heart The hardest part for me
9:34
Speaker 2: was I couldn't like I was seeing burnt coming on
9:37
Speaker 2: the way in, and I had a very specific way.
9:39
Speaker 2: I was given a one day pass by Parks Canada
9:42
Speaker 2: to go and review it with Fairmont, and I couldn't
9:46
Speaker 2: bring myself to go anywhere near the town site because
9:49
Speaker 2: I knew what had happened over.
9:51
Speaker 3: On the town site.
9:52
Speaker 2: And even when I stayed there in the spring, it's
9:55
Speaker 2: devastating to be there.
9:56
Speaker 3: You just feel you feel bad for the people.
9:59
Speaker 2: And my wife and I have been to Jasper six
10:03
Speaker 2: or seven times, and we hike there outside of playing
10:07
Speaker 2: golf as well, and it's just hard to not go
10:11
Speaker 2: there and feel for the people. So we go there.
10:14
Speaker 2: I've been there in the spring, and we'll go there
10:16
Speaker 2: again just to try and support the town.
10:19
Speaker 1: Let's go from there. What's going on at Jasper Park
10:22
Speaker 1: right now? And rewind a little bit, go back in history.
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Speaker 1: How did the development of the Jasper Park Lodge and
10:31
Speaker 1: golf course initially come about?
10:34
Speaker 2: So the railroads were looking for destinations and they built
10:40
Speaker 2: places for people to like. They wanted to build some
10:43
Speaker 2: places for people to go to. So that's how you
10:46
Speaker 2: got Bamp Springs, That's how you got Jasper Park Lodge.
10:49
Speaker 3: So Bam Springs is Canadian.
10:51
Speaker 2: Pacific Railway, Jasper Park Lodge is a Canadian National Railway.
10:58
Speaker 2: Two very competitive railways, and that actually plays out in
11:01
Speaker 2: the long run even.
11:02
Speaker 3: With the golf courses.
11:04
Speaker 2: So they had built the lodge first, but you're trying
11:07
Speaker 2: to give people a reasona co mode there. So with
11:10
Speaker 2: Jasper Park Lodge, you've got voting, with Lake Bovert, you've
11:15
Speaker 2: got hiking that you can do. But adding a golf
11:17
Speaker 2: course to that created a destination.
11:21
Speaker 3: So they hired.
11:22
Speaker 2: Stanley Thompson and he built them essentially a destination golf course.
11:26
Speaker 1: And what is Stanley Thompson's stature in the history of
11:29
Speaker 1: golf architecture, Just so people who maybe haven't experiences courses
11:33
Speaker 1: have an idea of who he is.
11:35
Speaker 2: If you're asking me to give you a list of
11:37
Speaker 2: sort of the fundamental seven to ten golf course architects
11:42
Speaker 2: that shape golf course architectural history, ignoring the immediate times,
11:47
Speaker 2: I would put Stanley Thompson on that list. Very Canadian
11:52
Speaker 2: centric career, great architect. Anybody who's gone out to see
11:57
Speaker 2: any of one of I've always referred to them as
12:00
Speaker 2: Big five Cape Breton Highlands now known to Highland Links,
12:05
Speaker 2: Saint George's in Toronto Private Club, Jasper Banff, and then Capilano.
12:10
Speaker 2: If you've seen those five golf courses, you'll know why
12:13
Speaker 2: he's revered by all architects current past. His peers in
12:18
Speaker 2: particular as well, all held him in high regard. He
12:21
Speaker 2: was just sort of the greatest architect in Canada has
12:24
Speaker 2: ever had, and it's going to take a lot for
12:27
Speaker 2: somebody else to knock him off that pedestal. He's the
12:31
Speaker 2: prime influence for anybody. He's a Canadian architect. Scale, it
12:36
Speaker 2: was just a master with scale. But one of his
12:39
Speaker 2: great secrets was extremely well read man and understood the
12:46
Speaker 2: whole concept of borrowed scenery. So I think that was
12:48
Speaker 2: capability Brown if I remember correctly, and he had taken
12:52
Speaker 2: that essentially and probably applied that better than any other
12:55
Speaker 2: architect in history, and I do include every architect and current.
13:00
Speaker 2: I think he was the master of all masters when
13:03
Speaker 2: it came to borrowed scenery.
13:05
Speaker 1: Well, I'd like to eventually get into how he used
13:08
Speaker 1: that concept at Jasper Park. But first of all, what
13:11
Speaker 1: are some of the specifics of the property at Jasper Park?
13:15
Speaker 1: And then how did Thompson route the golf course through it?
13:19
Speaker 2: So it's a surprisingly rolling piece of land. So what
13:26
Speaker 2: he did was he essentially on the front nine worked
13:30
Speaker 2: his way very quickly out to a valley. And so
13:35
Speaker 2: that valley kind of is a prominent spot you keep
13:39
Speaker 2: coming back to. So you get there for three, four,
13:43
Speaker 2: you play out of it in five, but you play
13:45
Speaker 2: kind of back into it on six. There's a step
13:48
Speaker 2: in the land that he goes and uses for seven, eight,
13:51
Speaker 2: nine up top, which is the famous shot for Cleopatra
13:54
Speaker 2: coming back to the valley, but ten is back in
13:56
Speaker 2: the valley, eleven is playing out of the valley. And
14:00
Speaker 2: then what he does he takes you to a spot
14:01
Speaker 2: called Lake Bovart, and so thirteenth is a par five
14:05
Speaker 2: that kind of tumbles down to it. Anybody who's seen
14:09
Speaker 2: a picture of Jasper National Park or j Park golf
14:12
Speaker 2: Course has seen the tea shot on fourteen, which is
14:15
Speaker 2: over Lake Bovart, Bad Baby, the little par three plays
14:19
Speaker 2: along it, and then sixteen again on the approach shot
14:21
Speaker 2: plays over it. Now you on seventeen, it's on your
14:25
Speaker 2: left the whole way, which you never knew it was
14:27
Speaker 2: there because of all the pine trees, and it's actually
14:29
Speaker 2: on the left of eighteen across the road where but
14:33
Speaker 2: essentially he worked around those features.
14:35
Speaker 3: So he's found the valleys and he's found.
14:39
Speaker 2: Sort of steps in the land that he's used within
14:41
Speaker 2: the routing. But there's a really tremendous amount of elevation
14:44
Speaker 2: change on the golf course. The holes have got some
14:48
Speaker 2: pretty regular drops, and then of course you get out
14:51
Speaker 2: to Cleopatra and you've got that incredible te shot where
14:58
Speaker 2: from the tee to the back of the and when
15:00
Speaker 2: I say the back of the green, the fall off
15:02
Speaker 2: of the back of the green, it's got to be
15:03
Speaker 2: about seventy feet the fall.
15:05
Speaker 3: Off of the back of the green. I thinks eighteen
15:06
Speaker 3: feet alone.
15:07
Speaker 1: So and when you say Cleopatra, that's the name of
15:10
Speaker 1: one of the holes, right, yes, it is. I'm curious
15:13
Speaker 1: right away as to where the name Cleopatra for this
15:16
Speaker 1: hole came from.
15:17
Speaker 2: So this has been a fascinating revelation for me because
15:21
Speaker 2: it's there's nothing worse than working hard with researching history
15:26
Speaker 2: and then disproving something and then running into something that
15:30
Speaker 2: appears to reprove something. So with Cleopatra, when he built
15:35
Speaker 2: the hole, originally.
15:38
Speaker 3: The description was it was.
15:42
Speaker 2: Like a naked woman reclining on the ground, and I
15:46
Speaker 2: always thought that that was I don't know if I
15:49
Speaker 2: can swear or not, but BS. Anyway, let's call it BS.
15:53
Speaker 2: So there's definitely a right side mound, left side mound.
15:57
Speaker 3: You've definitely got an advantage.
15:58
Speaker 2: There's a ground option to play on this long part
16:01
Speaker 2: of three between the two hillocks, and it is the
16:06
Speaker 2: ideal way to play. Your perfect way to play the
16:08
Speaker 2: whole is actually it's over two hundred yard hole, but
16:10
Speaker 2: your perfect shot is about one seventy five and let
16:14
Speaker 2: it feed and it's it's foolproof if you find the slot.
16:19
Speaker 3: So it's I always kind of looked.
16:21
Speaker 2: At that and kind of went, yeah, okay, sure, maybe
16:24
Speaker 2: it was named after the fact that it just happened
16:27
Speaker 2: to look that way. But I got an image sent
16:30
Speaker 2: to me by Perry Cooper, who is a former superintendent,
16:34
Speaker 2: and it's got a pond in front of the hole.
16:35
Speaker 2: And if you've ever seen the hole, there's no way
16:37
Speaker 2: your brain can get anything to tell you that there
16:43
Speaker 2: was any way there was any sort of pond in front.
16:46
Speaker 2: It's triangular shaped, it's very small and very deep, and
16:51
Speaker 2: it would be incredibly well placed. So god, yeah, I know,
16:58
Speaker 2: and I didn't know. I honestly didn't know what to
17:00
Speaker 2: do with this when. But the part I couldn't understand
17:03
Speaker 2: was when it was. And then finally I was able
17:05
Speaker 2: to sort of figure out it was early on Hull
17:08
Speaker 2: was renovated. We'll touch on that that Thompson built Jasper
17:13
Speaker 2: Park and then built bamp The people involved with Jasper
17:22
Speaker 2: could clearly tell that BAMF was a better golf course,
17:25
Speaker 2: and what it was was he had learned a lot
17:26
Speaker 2: of lessons while he'd gone out on this grand scale
17:30
Speaker 2: trying to fit the site.
17:32
Speaker 3: Larger greens, larger fairways.
17:34
Speaker 2: Clearing was over one and a half times normal, close
17:37
Speaker 2: to almost one point eight the width of everything he'd
17:40
Speaker 2: done before that scale was great.
17:42
Speaker 3: Other than the fact.
17:43
Speaker 2: That when you look at those photos from I've got
17:45
Speaker 2: all the opening day photos.
17:46
Speaker 3: When you look at those photos, the.
17:49
Speaker 2: One thing is people look incredibly small. They're kind of
17:53
Speaker 2: dwarfed by the setting. He cleared it all out to
17:56
Speaker 2: make use of what you see in the mountains. But
17:59
Speaker 2: what happened was there's human scale to the golf course.
18:02
Speaker 2: He goes to do bamf right afterwards, he clears the
18:07
Speaker 2: same ws but not quite as wide. But what he
18:12
Speaker 2: does is he takes his greens back down to more
18:14
Speaker 2: of a let's say, sort of the six to eight
18:17
Speaker 2: range instead of sort of the eight to ten range.
18:21
Speaker 2: Takes his greens down. What he does is he breaks
18:23
Speaker 2: up all his bunkers. When he's got larger bunkers, he
18:25
Speaker 2: does very elaborate forms with the bunkers rather than these big, large,
18:30
Speaker 2: simple forms on a massive scale. And what he does
18:33
Speaker 2: is he breaks up the bunkers either by numbers or
18:36
Speaker 2: by details to put human scale back in the golf course.
18:41
Speaker 2: And what happens with the golf course is because it's
18:43
Speaker 2: in human scale, it just absolutely works.
18:47
Speaker 3: It is a.
18:49
Speaker 2: Masterclass in how to deal with a grand scale with
18:53
Speaker 2: enough details not to lose the person within the scale.
18:56
Speaker 2: That everything feels within a scale we can understand. And immediately,
19:01
Speaker 2: of course, what happens with cn is they look at
19:05
Speaker 2: that and they go that golf course is way more
19:07
Speaker 2: interesting than ours, even though we've got a better property.
19:10
Speaker 2: Jasper Park is a better property in than BAMP. It's
19:12
Speaker 2: not even a question. And what they did was come
19:17
Speaker 2: back and he did a bunker renovation. And the bunker
19:20
Speaker 2: renovation was to put bays and fingers and noses, even
19:23
Speaker 2: the occasional island, and to put details in. So it's
19:27
Speaker 2: still got the grand scale, but it's got more human details.
19:30
Speaker 2: And what it did was it collapse the scale to
19:34
Speaker 2: a point that people felt more comfortable within it. And
19:38
Speaker 2: what it did was the clearing still works. And the
19:41
Speaker 2: views are better than BAMP. It's actually got better views
19:44
Speaker 2: than BAMF when it comes to the mountains. And the
19:46
Speaker 2: golf course is rooted around the idea of every whole
19:49
Speaker 2: points to a different mountain range, and even the whole
19:52
Speaker 2: names identified that that's what he's doing with the routing.
19:57
Speaker 2: But what it does is there's enough reduction in the
19:59
Speaker 2: scale to me it could feel comfortable as a player,
20:03
Speaker 2: and it brings you back to the space comfortably. And
20:07
Speaker 2: it's a double masterclass and sort of one is just showing,
20:10
Speaker 2: holy crap, I just figured this out, and the other
20:13
Speaker 2: one is I can do all these things, and I
20:15
Speaker 2: can make something that wasn't working to scale come to scale.
20:20
Speaker 1: That's a really interesting application of the idea of scale
20:25
Speaker 1: in golf course construction, because how I'm processing this idea
20:30
Speaker 1: is that in Jasper Park and Banff Springs, Thompson had
20:38
Speaker 1: properties with a lot of natural massive scale, not only
20:43
Speaker 1: in the interior of the property, especially at Jasper, but
20:47
Speaker 1: also in the views around the property, the big mountains
20:52
Speaker 1: that you could see that scale of those properties and
20:57
Speaker 1: their surroundings overwhelmed humans, right, yes, And so I guess
21:03
Speaker 1: part of what these golf course features could do. The
21:06
Speaker 1: features that Thompson apparently learned how to build at BAMF
21:09
Speaker 1: kind of with more detail and more of the human
21:13
Speaker 1: scale to them, is that they kind of serve as
21:16
Speaker 1: an intermediary between the massive scale of the property and
21:21
Speaker 1: its surroundings and the humans playing the golf course, so
21:25
Speaker 1: that the humans feel like they can relate to this
21:29
Speaker 1: property right. They kind of serve as a way to
21:34
Speaker 1: let golfers into the property and not make them feel
21:38
Speaker 1: like they're just being overwhelmed by all this massiveness.
21:42
Speaker 2: I remember, I think it was Jeff Cornish or either
21:45
Speaker 2: that or I found a quote that the talked about
21:50
Speaker 2: Stanley Thompson wanting people at VAMP to pay attention to
21:56
Speaker 2: the golf course, to not just look at the mountains.
21:59
Speaker 2: You know, whether that's ego driven or just driven by
22:04
Speaker 2: common sense, but the idea is he had to do enough.
22:08
Speaker 3: He had to put enough bunker.
22:09
Speaker 2: There's a lot more bunkering at Bamp Springs, and there's,
22:13
Speaker 2: as I said, a lot more detailing. There's also much
22:16
Speaker 2: stronger carry angles in some cases, sort of like Monterey
22:21
Speaker 2: Peninsula Short Course, where Mike Strands is given an enormous scale,
22:26
Speaker 2: and the sort of the genius in what Mike did
22:29
Speaker 2: there was he swung the fairways so wide that it
22:34
Speaker 2: filled the space so it didn't get out of context,
22:39
Speaker 2: and then went with bunkering big enough.
22:41
Speaker 3: Well.
22:42
Speaker 2: Stanley did this back in twenty seven to twenty eight.
22:46
Speaker 2: He created wide swings with the fairways, but he filled
22:50
Speaker 2: it with bunkering. At bamp he did do some swings
22:54
Speaker 2: with the fairways, but not as wild, and he kept
22:58
Speaker 2: the bunkering more so to the side at Jasper, and
23:02
Speaker 2: one of the lessons from it was to go more
23:04
Speaker 2: aggressive with the swings when he went in to bamf.
23:07
Speaker 2: What was interesting was when he made he did make
23:10
Speaker 2: some changes to Jasper how it was bunkered, and he
23:13
Speaker 2: came back.
23:13
Speaker 3: As well after the war.
23:15
Speaker 2: And that's the fascinating part for me was this is
23:18
Speaker 2: recent knowledge for me, but the whole back of the
23:21
Speaker 2: eleventh Green, which is really wild with its elaborate mounding
23:25
Speaker 2: and the back of five, has actually.
23:27
Speaker 3: Done post World War two.
23:29
Speaker 2: He continued to make changes and add more bunkering to
23:32
Speaker 2: it to try and get things moving framing.
23:36
Speaker 3: So he actually did.
23:37
Speaker 2: He did quite a bit of work to Jasper after
23:41
Speaker 2: the fact as well, just adding more to bring your
23:44
Speaker 2: eye to the fairways, to the greens to golf. So
23:49
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that he continued on post World War
23:52
Speaker 2: two in making some adjustments. So I knew stuff happened,
23:59
Speaker 2: I just didn't know the dates till talent and found
24:03
Speaker 2: a report and I got a chance to read that report,
24:05
Speaker 2: and it was full of new news for me.
24:14
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf is brought to you by
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Speaker 1: that's the USGA dot org slash course care all right,
25:25
Speaker 1: let's get back to the episode. You've mentioned a couple
25:34
Speaker 1: of times the concept of borrowed scenery.
25:37
Speaker 3: M h.
25:38
Speaker 1: How does that idea show up in the design of
25:42
Speaker 1: Jasper Park.
25:43
Speaker 2: So the super cool part about Jasper is it's got
25:46
Speaker 2: a whole series of peaks, and it's also got a
25:50
Speaker 2: series of ranges, and every hole lines up with either
25:54
Speaker 2: a range or an individual peak. So Pyramid Mountain is
25:59
Speaker 2: one of the most dominating mountains for all of Jasper, and.
26:02
Speaker 3: Part of it's the color.
26:05
Speaker 2: It's a reddish hue, which is unusual for all the
26:08
Speaker 2: mountains around there, and so it really stands out and
26:12
Speaker 2: when you stand on eleven t the backdrop is absolutely
26:16
Speaker 2: spot on. So I know one of the things I
26:19
Speaker 2: said when I was talking to Talon about it, because
26:21
Speaker 2: we ended up in a conversation about it a while ago,
26:23
Speaker 2: is I believe he had an idea what he was
26:27
Speaker 2: doing on that, and I think what happened was occasionally
26:31
Speaker 2: he realized as he's cleared the hole out that if
26:33
Speaker 2: he shifted something, because if you look at some of
26:35
Speaker 2: the clearing lines, there's sort of a wabble to a
26:37
Speaker 2: few of the clearing lines. So if that's your clearing line,
26:42
Speaker 2: there's all of a sudden, a little wobble and it's
26:44
Speaker 2: set over there. And I think what he did was
26:46
Speaker 2: he just moved a few things around to get a
26:48
Speaker 2: few things to line up. But he also didn't look
26:52
Speaker 2: directly at the peaks, like that wasn't the game he
26:54
Speaker 2: was playing. He wanted to identify what he was sharing.
26:58
Speaker 2: So to Caracut, it's not a lot look at the peaks.
27:01
Speaker 2: It's off to your side. Same with old Man coming
27:04
Speaker 2: down too. Old Man's actually up to your left. But
27:08
Speaker 2: there's no question when you look over knowing that the
27:12
Speaker 2: old Man is a face, and some feel it's an
27:19
Speaker 2: Indian head. There's sort of different views on what it is,
27:22
Speaker 2: but it's clear as day, and it's just.
27:25
Speaker 3: The way the rock is.
27:26
Speaker 2: It's the colors of the rock produce this wonderful face
27:28
Speaker 2: with obviously the shape. You clearly see the nose and
27:32
Speaker 2: it's got really angular nose features, but it almost looks
27:35
Speaker 2: like a human head. It's wild, but he gives that
27:39
Speaker 2: to you at an off angle. But there's no question
27:41
Speaker 2: when you stand looking at the second shot, looking at
27:43
Speaker 2: what you've got to do, everything's feeding towards the left,
27:47
Speaker 2: and when you let your eye wander out there, it is,
27:51
Speaker 2: and so you wander up, you can't miss it. And
27:54
Speaker 2: I remember playing there not knowing about it. I was
27:58
Speaker 2: immediately drawn up to that ridgeline and eventually to that
28:04
Speaker 2: specific shape.
28:06
Speaker 1: So it's not just a matter of like pointing golf
28:09
Speaker 1: holes at certain mountain ranges. It's about kind of varying
28:14
Speaker 1: the perspective in the line through which he might see
28:18
Speaker 1: at one of these borrowed scenery scenes.
28:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what he did was he.
28:24
Speaker 2: Found holes, but I think he had some options on
28:27
Speaker 2: a few of the holes, and I think he manipulated
28:29
Speaker 2: it to.
28:31
Speaker 3: Gain the best way to present. And that's the thing.
28:33
Speaker 2: Sometimes presenting a feature is not rooting it directly at it.
28:39
Speaker 2: Sometimes presenting the best presentation of a feature is working
28:45
Speaker 2: either parallel to it or working on an angle to it.
28:48
Speaker 2: And then what it does is it doesn't dominate the backdrop.
28:52
Speaker 2: It becomes part of the entire composition. And that's where
28:56
Speaker 2: I find.
29:01
Speaker 3: I've always liked.
29:01
Speaker 2: The view, particularly when you get into eight, and I
29:06
Speaker 2: think part of the distant view I just like because
29:09
Speaker 2: it actually shares a series of ridge lines that I
29:13
Speaker 2: really enjoy. But it's the interplay with ones going this way,
29:17
Speaker 2: another one's going that way. And you know, I think
29:21
Speaker 2: Bill Corsone who's always talked about looking for reverse cats
29:25
Speaker 2: or when away the fairway's falling that way and then
29:28
Speaker 2: the green sight's falling the opposite way. Well, think about
29:31
Speaker 2: Thompson doing the same thing, but doing that with the
29:33
Speaker 2: scenery instead.
29:35
Speaker 3: That's that's some pretty cool crap going on. Again. I'm
29:38
Speaker 3: doing good not to swear.
29:41
Speaker 1: I think crap is okay. I think we can I
29:43
Speaker 1: think we can get away with that one. So we've
29:45
Speaker 1: talked about a couple of things that make Jasper Park's
29:48
Speaker 1: architecture special, This idea of borrowed scenery, the use of scale.
29:54
Speaker 1: What were the redone bunkers like at Jasper Park? And
29:58
Speaker 1: now I think that maybe some people have an image
30:01
Speaker 1: in their minds of the bunkers at Bamp Springs with
30:04
Speaker 1: all their kind of wild tongues and capes and bays,
30:07
Speaker 1: and this just a sort of showy bunker style in
30:12
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, they're they're at Bamp. When Thompson
30:16
Speaker 1: came back to make some changes at Jasper Park, did
30:20
Speaker 1: he go for that same style? Is that what the
30:22
Speaker 1: vintage bunkers at Jasper no.
30:24
Speaker 2: And that's one of my favorite things about this is
30:28
Speaker 2: why he's just.
30:30
Speaker 1: The changed The.
30:31
Speaker 2: Pantheon bamp was way more loose edged than it looks
30:36
Speaker 2: even today. It was pretty wild and naturalistic and rough.
30:41
Speaker 2: Jasper even if it was redone had bays and noses
30:45
Speaker 2: and islands, but it had very controlled lines, very organized lines.
30:50
Speaker 3: There were.
30:52
Speaker 2: Wonderfully organic in places, and then they were Again. One
30:58
Speaker 2: of the things I had to learn with doing restoration
31:00
Speaker 2: of his work is you have to learn to build
31:02
Speaker 2: straight lines so something would be straight. And again I'm
31:08
Speaker 2: trying to think who sort of pointed that out to me.
31:10
Speaker 2: It might have been another one of those Jeff Cornish conversations.
31:15
Speaker 2: But if you look up in nature, you find in
31:18
Speaker 2: nature there are straight lines. So if you built everything organic,
31:21
Speaker 2: then it just comes across as organic. If you can
31:25
Speaker 2: mix your straight lines, your curves, your angles, your corners
31:29
Speaker 2: with some organic lines, you get something that's much more natural.
31:33
Speaker 3: Funny enough, natural has.
31:36
Speaker 2: A lot of stuff that I would look for in
31:38
Speaker 2: the wood shop to create straight lines with. And one
31:41
Speaker 2: of the things I had to learn when I was
31:42
Speaker 2: doing Saint George's was to actually build a bunch of
31:45
Speaker 2: straight lines and a bunch of perfect corners.
31:48
Speaker 3: And allow.
31:51
Speaker 2: As you're building and you're finishing, it evolves to something
31:54
Speaker 2: that's not perfectly square, and you just do you let
32:00
Speaker 2: that happen. And you know that as every layer, the
32:03
Speaker 2: topsoil going on, the turf going on, every layer is
32:07
Speaker 2: going to mute the rigid lines. But the funny part
32:11
Speaker 2: was it was Jim or Bean actually we ended up
32:13
Speaker 2: talking about straight lines. This goes back to when Pacific
32:16
Speaker 2: Dunes was first opening. We had a conversation about how
32:19
Speaker 2: you get natural bunkers and it involves way more straight
32:23
Speaker 2: lines than you ever can possibly imagine, and math and
32:28
Speaker 2: math and a lot more math than you would think too.
32:31
Speaker 1: More geometry than you might think. Yep. Yeah, because when
32:34
Speaker 1: people think of naturalistic bunkers they think of kind of
32:38
Speaker 1: the cloud like flowing shapes. That you're saying that there's
32:43
Speaker 1: more linearity involved in creating bunkers like this than they might.
32:48
Speaker 2: If you get everything to if everything flows cloud like,
32:52
Speaker 2: If everything flows, then all you get is something that
32:55
Speaker 2: essentially looks like a cloud. It's not that artistic, it's
33:00
Speaker 2: just moving. But if it's moving really regularly, it's actually
33:05
Speaker 2: almost upsetting to be organic but controlled. So you prefer
33:10
Speaker 2: it to be a little bit organic and a little
33:12
Speaker 2: bit loose, but it's still going to look manufactured.
33:17
Speaker 3: It has to.
33:17
Speaker 2: Have some things that sort of look like erosion has
33:21
Speaker 2: a tendency to be straighter, And if you think about
33:28
Speaker 2: naturalistic bunkers, you've got to start thinking about erosion and
33:31
Speaker 2: what would happen if we built something but we left
33:35
Speaker 2: it for a month, we had four or five major rainstorms,
33:38
Speaker 2: and then we had to finish it because we don't
33:39
Speaker 2: have any equipment on site. That actually is kind of
33:43
Speaker 2: how you make natural bunkers is you've got to think
33:46
Speaker 2: about erosion or evolution. What would happen, Where would the
33:51
Speaker 2: sand splash end up? Or what if a piece of
33:53
Speaker 2: equipment slipped down the side, but we just put all
33:55
Speaker 2: the grass back, because that's actually what the.
33:58
Speaker 3: Really old bunkers we like. Part of it is evolution.
34:03
Speaker 2: It's just they get a little bit of erosion, they
34:06
Speaker 2: get a little bit of damage, they get a little
34:07
Speaker 2: bit of the repairs soften one area out, they sharpen
34:11
Speaker 2: another area up, and it's the inconsistencies that make natural.
34:16
Speaker 1: So would you say that in Thompson's follow up work
34:19
Speaker 1: at Jasper Park that he got even further along in
34:23
Speaker 1: his development as a bunker builder than he was when
34:27
Speaker 1: he built bamf Springs.
34:29
Speaker 2: That is a very interesting question because I'm having to
34:32
Speaker 2: think about that one.
34:33
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like this is what you're implying, though, but
34:36
Speaker 1: this seems like it would be a new idea.
34:38
Speaker 2: Well, there was no question like the first set of
34:39
Speaker 2: bunkers he did were surprisingly plain.
34:43
Speaker 3: And now the thing is, Thompson's.
34:46
Speaker 2: Career started off with he started in the early twenties,
34:49
Speaker 2: and he was limited by what was going on. So
34:53
Speaker 2: you did have some cult examples just at that time,
34:59
Speaker 2: and you had some Willie Park work, but at that
35:04
Speaker 2: point a lot of things were very simple in nature,
35:08
Speaker 2: and even Thompson's earliest work there were some noses, there
35:13
Speaker 2: were even surprisingly in twenty three there were some islands,
35:17
Speaker 2: which that's super early in is he was playing with things,
35:22
Speaker 2: but it was fairly simple, rudimentary, and largely small in
35:27
Speaker 2: context of what he would do later on. So he
35:30
Speaker 2: was evolving as he went and I just think hard
35:35
Speaker 2: to believe, but by Bam Springs he had done half
35:38
Speaker 2: the work he ever would do. So he'd done forty
35:40
Speaker 2: golf courses and we're only talking about seven years, seven
35:43
Speaker 2: or eight years in total. Seven years, eight years, I
35:47
Speaker 2: guess by the end. But you can see as you
35:52
Speaker 2: go through all those golf courses he's trying things, trying
35:55
Speaker 2: new things. I think part of that new people, I
35:59
Speaker 2: think part of that. I do know he was traveling
36:01
Speaker 2: around to see other works, so he was learning as
36:04
Speaker 2: he was going. I do know he went to see
36:06
Speaker 2: Wingfoot when it was being built, so I know when
36:11
Speaker 2: he was during the war, he got out to Glenn Eagles.
36:15
Speaker 3: He even at.
36:16
Speaker 2: One point mentions Pine Valley of he admired it, but
36:19
Speaker 2: didn't want to do it, didn't want to be the
36:20
Speaker 2: one to build something like that. So he was seeing
36:23
Speaker 2: a lot of very interesting ideas. The interesting thing was
36:26
Speaker 2: Cornish told me that every once in a while he'd
36:29
Speaker 2: see something he'd think was clearly way better than he
36:31
Speaker 2: was doing and would actually make him depressed. And yeah,
36:34
Speaker 2: he did have an issue with depression, a little bit
36:36
Speaker 2: of an issue with depression. And he said, whenever he
36:39
Speaker 2: saw something he thought was really great, he was either
36:42
Speaker 2: excited by it or he had the blues, and that
36:44
Speaker 2: was sort of his reaction to it. But I think
36:46
Speaker 2: even if he had the blues, in the end, he
36:49
Speaker 2: was just I think the one thing he doesn't get
36:51
Speaker 2: credit for is being competitive. And I know he's super
36:55
Speaker 2: competitive with tilling Hass because he was pissed off that
36:58
Speaker 2: tilling Hass came to do Scarborough that he didn't get
37:00
Speaker 2: that commission, and so.
37:02
Speaker 3: We had a thing for.
37:03
Speaker 2: That was one of the fascinating parts about him is
37:05
Speaker 2: he had a thing for tilling asked, and yet he
37:07
Speaker 2: had this wonderful relationship with Charles Allison, like they were
37:10
Speaker 2: really friendly and remain friendly. From Allison's period where he
37:15
Speaker 2: came up Toronto golf and to New York downs.
37:19
Speaker 1: He wanted to be better though yes.
37:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we all do, I think, but I
37:26
Speaker 2: want to be better comes with striving to be better.
37:32
Speaker 2: You have to strive to be better to be better.
37:34
Speaker 3: And the other end of it is.
37:39
Speaker 2: You have to be willing to be stubborn. And not
37:42
Speaker 2: all of us, if I'm picking on a personal fault,
37:47
Speaker 2: not all of us have that ability to be stubborn
37:52
Speaker 2: or contentious or or difficult. Even you need to be
37:57
Speaker 2: difficult to be great.
37:59
Speaker 1: And what certainly drives a lot of people.
38:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so it's funny.
38:03
Speaker 2: You can look at you can look at the people
38:04
Speaker 2: who've done really well, even the people with wonderful personalities
38:09
Speaker 2: like to take a Gill or a Bill and they
38:13
Speaker 2: still are. They know when to just hold.
38:17
Speaker 3: Their ground and that's what makes them great.
38:20
Speaker 2: Bill does it in a way that I'm fully convinced.
38:25
Speaker 2: Bill could tell you to f off to your face
38:29
Speaker 2: and have you appreciate the way he said it. He
38:32
Speaker 2: I just think that he's got the ability to inform
38:35
Speaker 2: you that he's not going to do something in a
38:37
Speaker 2: way that you actually appreciate the whole conversation and don't
38:42
Speaker 2: realize it untill after the fact sort of thing. He
38:44
Speaker 2: just he's just got a wonderful nature to him that
38:49
Speaker 2: it comes across at all moments, regardless of whether he's
38:53
Speaker 2: needing to say no, I don't really want to do that.
38:57
Speaker 1: So bringing this back to Stanley Thompson, he did have
38:59
Speaker 1: some with this edge about him. It drove him, you do,
39:02
Speaker 1: he could be difficult things with his golf courses, right,
39:05
Speaker 1: He'd evolved through the course of his career, and part
39:09
Speaker 1: of what makes Jasper Park interesting is that it was
39:13
Speaker 1: because he returned to it and made some changes. It
39:17
Speaker 1: was a document of some of that development. Ye a golf.
39:22
Speaker 3: Architect as a historian.
39:24
Speaker 2: For me, what's interesting is that's that's the moment where
39:28
Speaker 2: I was always trying to figure out when he became.
39:32
Speaker 2: My joke with a friend of mine was Stanley F.
39:34
Speaker 2: And Thompson is sort of when he became great, the
39:38
Speaker 2: person that we all go to study. And I think
39:40
Speaker 2: it was just this continuous evolution to Bamp Springs, and
39:44
Speaker 2: I think of Bam Springs essentially Bam Springs. He said,
39:47
Speaker 2: here's everything I can do, here's every trick I've got.
39:51
Speaker 2: And he never did it again, never built with as
39:53
Speaker 2: many bunkers, never went near his elaborate He actually said, okay,
39:59
Speaker 2: I can. I can throw down bunkers with the George
40:03
Speaker 2: Thomases and the Telling hass And you want to name
40:06
Speaker 2: whoever great bunker builder is, I can throw it down
40:08
Speaker 2: with any of them, and I can kick their ass.
40:11
Speaker 2: I've proven I can do it. And then what was
40:13
Speaker 2: interesting was I would say he added more and more
40:16
Speaker 2: restraint from that period forward and it just kept going.
40:18
Speaker 2: By the time he did Capilana, who he was doing
40:21
Speaker 2: bunkerless holes.
40:21
Speaker 3: By the time he did highland links.
40:23
Speaker 2: He did four or sorry five bunkerless Greens, relied on
40:27
Speaker 2: the land More did way less bunkering. I think he
40:30
Speaker 2: just proved something and then I think he Part of
40:33
Speaker 2: it was obviously circumstance wars, but part of it as
40:37
Speaker 2: well is I think he just I can do this,
40:40
Speaker 2: but I don't need to do that. I'm smart enough,
40:43
Speaker 2: and I think he just showed that he could do
40:45
Speaker 2: it hell of a lot with contours and so there's
40:48
Speaker 2: a lot more reliance on the contrast. That's one of
40:50
Speaker 2: the things I enjoy about Jasper over Banff bamf relies
40:53
Speaker 2: on the bunkering. It's obviously got a couple of moments
40:56
Speaker 2: that don't. Interestingly, Cauldron was without bunkers originally, which is fascinating,
41:03
Speaker 2: and the credit goes to Trent Jones for suggesting to
41:05
Speaker 2: put them in.
41:07
Speaker 3: Fascinating.
41:10
Speaker 2: Stan did it, but Trent suggested it on a report
41:13
Speaker 2: and it's not far removed from what the design is.
41:19
Speaker 2: But what I appreciate about Stan was, you know, he
41:24
Speaker 2: was I think he was flexible.
41:26
Speaker 3: I think the.
41:27
Speaker 2: Beauty of is like even he didn't go back to
41:30
Speaker 2: Jasper and say, well, I'm sorry, it's perfection in my
41:34
Speaker 2: first version, he went back and went, No, this could
41:36
Speaker 2: be way better. I can do something different, And then
41:38
Speaker 2: he went back again and he just continued to tinker
41:41
Speaker 2: away of a little bit more framework would make this
41:44
Speaker 2: whole better. You know, I can do something really elaborate here,
41:47
Speaker 2: And I think he just kept trying stuff. I think
41:51
Speaker 2: really World War two is where it just kind of
41:53
Speaker 2: ended to a degree. He did some interesting things afterwards,
41:56
Speaker 2: but I just think his probables with alcoholism were getting
42:01
Speaker 2: worse going into the war. And also there was only
42:04
Speaker 2: seven commissions after that, and you know, the money wasn't
42:08
Speaker 2: really around till the fifties, so I think he was
42:11
Speaker 2: kind of limited in what he was going to accomplish.
42:13
Speaker 2: But it's interesting. You go to some of the South
42:16
Speaker 2: American work and it's got some it's got some jazz too,
42:20
Speaker 2: Like I think some of the stuff he did at
42:22
Speaker 2: Gabby it was pretty cool.
42:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, Later in his career, Stanley Thompson started working working
42:27
Speaker 1: a little more in South America, experimenting kind of in
42:30
Speaker 1: the same way in that region that Mackenzie did in
42:33
Speaker 1: the early nineteen thirties. But I want to bring this
42:37
Speaker 1: back to Jasper Park and back to the present day,
42:42
Speaker 1: So where is the course at now.
42:45
Speaker 2: After the fire, Glen Griffiths, the superintendent, was able to
42:48
Speaker 2: recover ten greens, so he actually stripped some of the
42:51
Speaker 2: other greens that ended up being resotted. What happened was
42:55
Speaker 2: a number of the greens got burnt thirteen. The green
42:58
Speaker 2: looked like plates, a turf look like that. It all
43:02
Speaker 2: looked like us and it just burnt and curled. There
43:07
Speaker 2: was a lot of intense fire right at that particular spot,
43:11
Speaker 2: and so what happened was resotted those greens, resotted some
43:17
Speaker 2: of the approaches that were lost where trees fell down.
43:19
Speaker 2: There was a lot of trees falling down and burning turf.
43:23
Speaker 2: So we resotted eight greens. We actually expanded three of
43:26
Speaker 2: them back to their original extents. It's twenty feet back
43:30
Speaker 2: to the left on seven. So first time anybody plays
43:34
Speaker 2: with that old pin position back, they're going to think
43:37
Speaker 2: that the pins actually cut off the green because it
43:39
Speaker 2: just doesn't look like there's any green over there. But
43:42
Speaker 2: the old grain used to go back into that corner.
43:44
Speaker 2: So we recaptured a couple of spots more of the
43:46
Speaker 2: kicker on eight and we'll do some of that work
43:50
Speaker 2: over time, so that was done. He saved the fairways,
43:56
Speaker 2: did a lot of overseating there in the middle of
43:58
Speaker 2: doing an irrigation system now and then the big thing
44:02
Speaker 2: is the trees. I would say there's fifty trees left
44:06
Speaker 2: on the golf course in total, and they were individual trees,
44:10
Speaker 2: and unfortunately, because of the way things work, those trees
44:16
Speaker 2: will put out essentially an indication that they're in stress,
44:21
Speaker 2: and beetles are drawn to stress. So essentially even those
44:24
Speaker 2: Douglas were expected to go. And so what we're doing
44:29
Speaker 2: is we're going to plant one hundred and fifty thousand
44:31
Speaker 2: seedlings mixed because the golf course actually breaks down into
44:35
Speaker 2: different forest structures, and then we'll replant with the idea.
44:40
Speaker 2: My mindset is to put it back the way it
44:44
Speaker 2: was when I showed up, when I was first day
44:47
Speaker 2: I was married. Actually we stayed in jasper So and
44:51
Speaker 2: I saw the golf firstam embarrassing or depending on your
44:56
Speaker 2: point of view. But my first day I actually went
44:58
Speaker 2: and played golf by myself and my wife wore a
45:02
Speaker 2: golf woildo button. It was she encouraged me.
45:04
Speaker 3: To do it.
45:06
Speaker 1: That's nice. She knew what she was in for it
45:08
Speaker 1: that way.
45:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
45:10
Speaker 2: And I would like even the individual, the big Douglas
45:14
Speaker 2: fur that it's rooted around. So what we're going to
45:16
Speaker 2: try to do is get Parks Canada to let us
45:20
Speaker 2: collect pine cones and actually get a nursery to grow
45:23
Speaker 2: the pine trees. We need to grow them to about
45:26
Speaker 2: twelve to fifteen years old, otherwise they can be damaged
45:31
Speaker 2: by equipment. They've put the fence back up, so that
45:34
Speaker 2: should keep the elk out. If we didn't put the
45:37
Speaker 2: fence back up, the elk would actually eat all the seedlings.
45:40
Speaker 2: So the idea is that's the only way we're going
45:42
Speaker 2: to get the seedlings to come back up. So we're
45:44
Speaker 2: going to actually try to put it back to what
45:46
Speaker 2: it was. But my view is one hundred year of view.
45:50
Speaker 2: So I've told them I'll we'll put all this arrangement.
45:54
Speaker 2: I may see the bigger trees go in when I'm fading.
46:00
Speaker 2: Hopefully I'm still traveling and I could go see that,
46:03
Speaker 2: and then it's just as you need sort of fifty
46:05
Speaker 2: to one hundred years for that forest to return. But
46:07
Speaker 2: I would like it to be presented the way I
46:11
Speaker 2: saw it, the way some of the views we're going
46:13
Speaker 2: to leave open and all the turf issues that were
46:16
Speaker 2: created by overgrowth. We've actually planted rescue and we've stripped
46:22
Speaker 2: everything out so they can get in a mowe it,
46:24
Speaker 2: so they won't have those issues anymore. In the metal
46:26
Speaker 2: areas will remain metal areas like they used to be.
46:29
Speaker 2: They won't be grown in by aspens, so that'll all remain.
46:33
Speaker 2: But what I want to do is I want to
46:34
Speaker 2: present the property the way it was presented. Would I
46:39
Speaker 2: look at it as a restoration right down to the setting.
46:43
Speaker 1: A restoration of the course as it was when you
46:45
Speaker 1: first saw it.
46:46
Speaker 2: The timeline for the trees is actually the early photos.
46:50
Speaker 3: The nineteen twenties photos.
46:52
Speaker 1: So is there an opportunity here to do something good
46:56
Speaker 1: for the golf course? Obviously this is a sad set
46:59
Speaker 1: of circumstance answers for everybody, the lodge, the town, the
47:04
Speaker 1: golf course itself. But is there something that can come
47:08
Speaker 1: from this that might actually produce a better and more
47:12
Speaker 1: historically authentic golf course than existed before the fire.
47:16
Speaker 2: So you've got some of the views that were lost
47:18
Speaker 2: are back. You're not fighting with the part to try
47:21
Speaker 2: and remove trees, which they were very reluctant to do.
47:24
Speaker 2: We have like seven used to have views on the
47:26
Speaker 2: left looking down over ten and six. You've got those
47:28
Speaker 2: views back. They will stay. We're not putting any trees
47:30
Speaker 2: up in those areas. So any of the larger views
47:35
Speaker 2: that where the aspens had grown in, we've planted fascused
47:39
Speaker 2: and it's going to be fascus again and so you're
47:42
Speaker 2: going to get a little bit more open as it
47:45
Speaker 2: was when you look at the opening day photos.
47:47
Speaker 3: We're working to those where you've got the forest.
47:50
Speaker 2: We're going to establish the forest, which is particularly in
47:52
Speaker 2: the middle of the golf course there was actually a
47:54
Speaker 2: large forested area, and the superintendent's cottage and the maintenance building,
47:57
Speaker 2: we're all in there. And then the big one is
47:59
Speaker 2: trying to get the Douglas fur, which he worked around
48:02
Speaker 2: the individual furs tremendous tree. Is to try and restore
48:08
Speaker 2: those big trees that are actually interwoven into play so
48:11
Speaker 2: they come into play. So what we've done is we've
48:14
Speaker 2: made sure that none of the stuff that grew in
48:17
Speaker 2: can grow back. So we're turning to those old views
48:19
Speaker 2: and those old spaces around the green sites, and what
48:23
Speaker 2: we're trying to do is reaven trying to put the
48:24
Speaker 2: individuals back, and it's only on the first couple of
48:28
Speaker 2: holes and the essentially the last four or five holes
48:33
Speaker 2: where the individual trees actually stood out. What we'd like
48:36
Speaker 2: to do is we'd like to have those individual trees
48:38
Speaker 2: be developed.
48:39
Speaker 1: Now, what about the golf course features. What kind of
48:42
Speaker 1: work do you want to do with the grassing lines,
48:45
Speaker 1: the bunkers, the greens, anything along those lines. That's in
48:50
Speaker 1: your head right now.
48:51
Speaker 2: When we got together in the spring, one of the
48:53
Speaker 2: things I did was I pushed the fairways not out
48:56
Speaker 2: to the full wits, but six acres out. There's six
49:00
Speaker 2: acres more fairway than there was before the fire, and
49:03
Speaker 2: that's just to get some of the old fairway wits back.
49:07
Speaker 3: One of the biggest problems is to get all of the.
49:10
Speaker 2: Fairway wits back, you've actually got to take the cart
49:12
Speaker 2: pass system out, which I'm not seeing Fairmont sort of
49:18
Speaker 2: running to do because most rounds are resort rounds in
49:22
Speaker 2: their cart rounds. So we pushed everything out where we could.
49:27
Speaker 2: We've grassed everything out towards the bunkers where it should be.
49:30
Speaker 2: We've talked about doing some more grassing work later on.
49:34
Speaker 3: We've talked about some.
49:35
Speaker 2: Additional green expansion back out to the greens. The plan
49:38
Speaker 2: I gave them shows all the green expansion. Most of
49:41
Speaker 2: the bunkers are actually intact, but there are some bunkers
49:44
Speaker 2: that have been altered, and so they've actually got plans
49:48
Speaker 2: for how to alter individual bunkers to get and usually
49:52
Speaker 2: it's not the bunker, it's a missing face or a
49:55
Speaker 2: nose that used to extend down that's now been sort
49:58
Speaker 2: of cut off with it's just been trimmed and the
50:02
Speaker 2: shape has been lost. So it's more about lines, it's
50:06
Speaker 2: not about shaping. The only big thing is there used
50:09
Speaker 2: to be a very complex arched over bunker system between
50:13
Speaker 2: six and ten that got completely changed, and if we're
50:16
Speaker 2: going to do it, we would do everything else and
50:19
Speaker 2: then we would come to that and do that last.
50:21
Speaker 2: I got admit that's the one that makes me the
50:23
Speaker 2: most nervous of putting that back in because it's really elaborate.
50:26
Speaker 2: I've got great photos of it, but it is not
50:29
Speaker 2: what the ridge is there.
50:31
Speaker 3: But everything else has changed.
50:32
Speaker 1: So overall, this is a long term project that we're
50:36
Speaker 1: talking about gradually over the course of the coming years.
50:40
Speaker 2: So I would say fairways there may be another push,
50:44
Speaker 2: but i'd say, fairways are largely done.
50:46
Speaker 3: We've talked about a little.
50:47
Speaker 2: Bit of tea work just to address the fact that
50:50
Speaker 2: a couple of fives, in particular, there's abilities to go
50:54
Speaker 2: back on even higher spots to put some of the
50:58
Speaker 2: distances back in.
51:00
Speaker 3: I've played so short.
51:01
Speaker 2: To me, it plays as a long for but all
51:03
Speaker 2: you've got to do is go back onto the next
51:05
Speaker 2: ridge and essentially it would play the way it used
51:09
Speaker 2: to play for distances. So we've talked about a few
51:11
Speaker 2: teas to do a few things like that, but not
51:14
Speaker 2: really concentrated.
51:15
Speaker 3: We don't see that as a priority. But it's there.
51:18
Speaker 2: But even when we've talked about it, it's just like
51:21
Speaker 2: it's there, but it's never going to be in the
51:23
Speaker 2: initial conversation. So it was get fescue down to stabilize
51:26
Speaker 2: the property, and the fescues will remain, plant the trees
51:30
Speaker 2: to slowly develop the setting. Again, we pushed the fairways out.
51:35
Speaker 2: Teas have been recovered. Fairways have been recovered. We will
51:39
Speaker 2: do some more sotting to expand the greens. I don't
51:42
Speaker 2: think that's going to happen this year. I think that's
51:44
Speaker 2: still down the way. They still have to remove a
51:46
Speaker 2: lot of the trees that parks can want them to
51:51
Speaker 2: keep up, essentially as wildlife habitat. But the problem is
51:54
Speaker 2: they're all going to come down within twenty five years.
51:57
Speaker 2: So we've entered into a dialogue of we really would
52:00
Speaker 2: just speed that process up and plant and get the
52:03
Speaker 2: seedlings to come faster.
52:06
Speaker 1: When are players expected back on the course? Now, I apologize,
52:10
Speaker 1: I don't know if they were already back there this year.
52:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, so August first they reopened.
52:14
Speaker 1: Oh how about that?
52:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, they managed to get it all back up and play.
52:19
Speaker 1: That's sort of miraculous, Yes.
52:21
Speaker 3: I actually thought.
52:22
Speaker 2: And so I don't know if it's probably not common news,
52:27
Speaker 2: but I do know quietly.
52:28
Speaker 3: The director of golf and the superintendent.
52:32
Speaker 2: Played together because they're the ones who carried the weight
52:36
Speaker 2: to get this done. So they played together a quiet
52:39
Speaker 2: round in the afternoon, and then they had the opening
52:42
Speaker 2: and they had one of the firemen actually hit the
52:45
Speaker 2: the t shot, so one of the firemen from town
52:49
Speaker 2: and opened the golf course. And they even had a
52:52
Speaker 2: Stanley Thompson Society event there in September. So I provided
52:57
Speaker 2: a video interview for it, but I couldn't attend. I
53:02
Speaker 2: just was kind of stymied with the work that I
53:04
Speaker 2: had to do.
53:06
Speaker 1: Well, that's great, that's really good news. And the fact
53:10
Speaker 1: that there's more work to come at at Jasper Park
53:13
Speaker 1: to recover and improve the golf courses is tremendously heartening
53:18
Speaker 1: after a tough year.
53:20
Speaker 2: So my viewpoint, the golf course is fantastic to play
53:25
Speaker 2: as it is now. Seeing the burnt trees is an
53:28
Speaker 2: interesting dynamic, but is even when I did the walk
53:31
Speaker 2: around after three or four holes, you actually get really used.
53:33
Speaker 3: To it and you start to ignore it.
53:36
Speaker 2: But what you will see in that by next year
53:39
Speaker 2: is you'll just see some more turf improvement, even with
53:42
Speaker 2: the recovery with the fairways, so it'll probably be in
53:45
Speaker 2: pretty good shape. I mean, they had an invasive species
53:49
Speaker 2: in the fairways, so there are always small silver linings.
53:53
Speaker 3: We got the views back that we had lost.
53:55
Speaker 2: We got the greens that were always struggling now have
53:58
Speaker 2: full sunlight. And the problem they had with some of
54:01
Speaker 2: the turf grass actually most of it got burned away,
54:04
Speaker 2: so it's funny it didn't survive the burn very well.
54:06
Speaker 2: So we actually have a I think Glenn's fairways are
54:09
Speaker 2: actually in better shape, but I would say two to
54:11
Speaker 2: three years from now, you'll start to see actually the
54:14
Speaker 2: initial recovery, but the outside will now be fascued some
54:18
Speaker 2: really gorgeous rescues.
54:20
Speaker 3: We rescued.
54:22
Speaker 2: I think it was one hundred and thirty acres, so
54:25
Speaker 2: that's a lot of hydroceating. So I just think it's there,
54:29
Speaker 2: ready to be played and ready to be enjoyed. And
54:33
Speaker 2: I hope we can do a little bit of restorative
54:35
Speaker 2: work over the next ten years and then just let
54:40
Speaker 2: it go, let it evolve back to what it was.
54:44
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for coming on the podcast. Ian. It
54:46
Speaker 1: was great to hear the story about Jasper Park, and
54:49
Speaker 1: good luck with the project moving forward.
54:51
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
54:52
Speaker 2: I'm glad you guys are really interested Jasper. I was
54:56
Speaker 2: asked about twenty years ago, where would you play your
55:01
Speaker 2: last round of golf if you determine that you can
55:04
Speaker 2: only play one more round, and my pick was Jasper Park.
55:07
Speaker 2: Then it's Jasper Park. Now it would be Jasper Park
55:09
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning. It is my single favorite place to play
55:13
Speaker 2: a round of golf.
55:15
Speaker 1: Thanks Ian. This episode of Designing Golf was produced by
55:25
Speaker 1: Will Balsam. Thank you Will. If you've been enjoying Designing Golf,
55:30
Speaker 1: then I can just about guarantee that you would love
55:32
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55:36
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55:39
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55:43
Speaker 1: things that we deliver in Frida Egg Golf Club is
55:45
Speaker 1: regular in depth course profiles and regular updates on happenings
55:50
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55:55
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55:59
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56:02
Speaker 1: We also do fun stuff like a whole design contest
56:05
Speaker 1: where the winning hole will actually get built at a
56:08
Speaker 1: real golf course. That's ongoing right now. We've just gotten
56:11
Speaker 1: all of our submissions. There's some really cool stuff and
56:14
Speaker 1: we're about to go through the judging process for that.
56:17
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56:20
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56:24
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56:27
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