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Pete Dye’s Design Legacy (feat. Scot Sherman) · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: Pete Dye had one of the most unusual and fruitful
0:03
Speaker 1: careers in the history of golf architecture, and in this
0:07
Speaker 1: episode we're digging into it. My guest is Scott Sherman,
0:11
Speaker 1: the lead designer at Love Golf Design. Last year, Scott
0:15
Speaker 1: and Love Golf Design carried out a major restoration of
0:19
Speaker 1: Pete Dye's Harbor Town golf Links, and they're also in
0:22
Speaker 1: the midst of a multi year series of renovation projects
0:27
Speaker 1: at TPC Sawgrass, another pivotal Die Design. We're going to
0:32
Speaker 1: talk about all of it. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this
0:35
Speaker 1: is Designing Golf, all right. Today's big question why do
0:45
Speaker 1: golf architecture nerds love Pete Dye. If you spend any
0:50
Speaker 1: time looking at what enthusiasts say about golf course design,
0:54
Speaker 1: and since you're listening to this podcast, I assume that
0:57
Speaker 1: you do, you might have noticed a contradiction. The same
1:02
Speaker 1: people who criticize golf courses for disregarding the natural terrain
1:07
Speaker 1: or being too difficult for the average player, or having
1:10
Speaker 1: too many trees, or being too narrow to accommodate strategic angles,
1:15
Speaker 1: or relying too much on water hazards, those same people
1:19
Speaker 1: will often tell you that Pete Dye was a great
1:23
Speaker 1: golf architect, which is strange because Pete Dye's courses did
1:28
Speaker 1: all of those things that I just mentioned. They usually
1:32
Speaker 1: feature a lot of water, some of them are pretty
1:35
Speaker 1: narrow and have a lot of trees. Most of them
1:38
Speaker 1: are very difficult for an average golfer to play. And obviously,
1:43
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a Pete Die course, you know
1:46
Speaker 1: that he wasn't all that interested in naturalism. So what's
1:51
Speaker 1: going on here? Why is Die so beloved by people
1:55
Speaker 1: who would otherwise seem inclined to criticize them. I think
2:00
Speaker 1: there are three main reasons for that. One, Pete Dye
2:05
Speaker 1: was genuinely original and innovative. He was constantly trying to
2:10
Speaker 1: find new ways of doing things. So, for example, in
2:15
Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties, Die and his wife Alice made
2:18
Speaker 1: a trip to Scotland to study the Classic Links courses.
2:22
Speaker 1: And I should point out here that this itself was
2:25
Speaker 1: unusual for a golf architect at the time. So when
2:28
Speaker 1: Dye came back from Scotland, he had this foundation of
2:31
Speaker 1: knowledge that not a lot of American golf architects shared,
2:35
Speaker 1: and he processed that knowledge in a really interesting and
2:39
Speaker 1: original way. He didn't just go about trying to replicate
2:44
Speaker 1: Scottish links golf. Instead, he came up with his own
2:49
Speaker 1: versions of certain features that he had seen. Famously, he
2:53
Speaker 1: started building pop bunkers and shoring up hazards with wooden bulkheads,
2:58
Speaker 1: often made out of railroad ties, but he also experimented
3:01
Speaker 1: with contour. He captured the eccentricity and irregularity of links
3:07
Speaker 1: undulations without just reproducing links undulations. He created a variety
3:14
Speaker 1: of rugged textures at his golf courses. A lot of
3:18
Speaker 1: these have faded over time, but initially he used many
3:22
Speaker 1: different kinds of grasses, different kinds of bunker sand. Even
3:27
Speaker 1: basically after his trip to Scotland, Dye reintroduced some wildness
3:33
Speaker 1: to American golf course design, and the results were completely
3:37
Speaker 1: different from anything else being built at the time. This
3:41
Speaker 1: is a fact that he was very conscious of. Pete
3:45
Speaker 1: Dye was a contrarian. He wanted to be different. I
3:49
Speaker 1: often think about the famous story behind the inspiration for
3:54
Speaker 1: Dye's design at Harbortown Golf Links on Hilton Head Island.
3:59
Speaker 1: At the same time he was designing Harbortown, A Robert
4:02
Speaker 1: Trent Jones golf course was under construction on Hilton Head
4:06
Speaker 1: as well. This course was called Palmetto Dunes. Robert Trent Jones,
4:11
Speaker 1: of course, was the dominant golf architect of the era.
4:15
Speaker 1: Everyone was trying to catch up to him by imitating
4:19
Speaker 1: what he was doing. But Die, instead of just imitating
4:25
Speaker 1: what he saw at Palmetto Dunes, thought to himself, I'm
4:29
Speaker 1: going to do the opposite of that. Here's how he
4:32
Speaker 1: describes it in his book, Bury Me in a pop bunker,
4:35
Speaker 1: which I would highly recommend to anybody. He writes, as
4:39
Speaker 1: I watched the big machinery carve out long teas, huge bunkers,
4:43
Speaker 1: and large greens, I wondered how I could design something
4:47
Speaker 1: that would separate my identity from his. Somehow, the concept
4:52
Speaker 1: of designing small greens and a low profile course crept
4:55
Speaker 1: into my brain. Instead of long teas, flowing fairways, and
5:00
Speaker 1: elevated large greens, I deliberately chose to design multiple tea positions,
5:06
Speaker 1: small to medium size, shot demanding greens, undulating fairways, long
5:11
Speaker 1: waist areas, and abrupt, steep pop bunkers. So, in other words,
5:18
Speaker 1: Di was intentionally zagging on the Harbor Town project. He
5:22
Speaker 1: was thinking like an artist rather than a business person
5:27
Speaker 1: or a member of a resort development team, and that's
5:31
Speaker 1: something that golf architecture nerds really appreciate. Now. It is
5:36
Speaker 1: true that I could occasionally go a little too far
5:40
Speaker 1: in his effort to be novel. A quick example would
5:43
Speaker 1: be the so called volcano bunkers that he built at
5:46
Speaker 1: French Lick in Indiana, which are unique and memorable and
5:50
Speaker 1: I would imagine have their fans, but I consider them
5:54
Speaker 1: pretty silly, and I can't imagine that they're easy or
5:58
Speaker 1: cheap to maintain. Even in cases like that, Though I
6:03
Speaker 1: like that Di went for it, his missteps came from
6:07
Speaker 1: the same source as his best work, which was a
6:11
Speaker 1: genuine willingness to push an experiment, and in a field
6:16
Speaker 1: full of people who play it safe, that quality stands out.
6:22
Speaker 1: Another reason design enthusiasts love Pete Dye is that he
6:26
Speaker 1: knew how to make difficult courses interesting. Anyone can design
6:31
Speaker 1: a golf course that produces high scores, but it takes
6:35
Speaker 1: real ingenuity and skill to design one that's enjoyable and
6:40
Speaker 1: engaging while it's dishing out punishment. And that's what Pete
6:45
Speaker 1: Dye was able to do over and over the stadium
6:49
Speaker 1: course at TPC Sagrass is maybe the best example of this.
6:54
Speaker 1: When Die designed it, his brief was to build the
6:58
Speaker 1: most difficult golf course in the world. Usually that kind
7:01
Speaker 1: of brief does not result in interesting golf courses, but
7:05
Speaker 1: the stadium courses stood the test of time, and a
7:08
Speaker 1: big reason for that is that the holes don't just
7:11
Speaker 1: punish poor shots, they also test decision making. They test
7:16
Speaker 1: risk tolerance. So consider the eighteenth hole, by any standard,
7:22
Speaker 1: a very difficult finishing par four. At last year's Players Championship,
7:26
Speaker 1: it was the second hardest hole on the course. But
7:29
Speaker 1: it's not just straightforwardly sadistic. It's actually a very nuanced hole.
7:36
Speaker 1: Off the tee, what you're looking at is a fairway
7:39
Speaker 1: running on a right to left diagonal, with a lake
7:42
Speaker 1: hard against the left side and trees on the right.
7:46
Speaker 1: The fairway is at its widest point about two hundred
7:49
Speaker 1: and sixty yards from the back tee, But if you
7:51
Speaker 1: play to that relatively safe spot, you'll have a two
7:55
Speaker 1: hundred yard approach into a green that tilts toward the
7:58
Speaker 1: water and is also guarded by mounting in a pot
8:01
Speaker 1: bunker front right. That's a really tough shot. So most
8:07
Speaker 1: players try to push up a little more. But the
8:10
Speaker 1: problem is the more you push up, the more left
8:13
Speaker 1: you have to go, because that's where the fairway is moving.
8:17
Speaker 1: So this means you either start your ball over the
8:20
Speaker 1: water or carve a right to left t shot into
8:25
Speaker 1: the fairway, both of which are very uncomfortable plays, especially
8:30
Speaker 1: for right handed pros who are used to hitting a fade.
8:34
Speaker 1: So a lot of players end up in the trees
8:36
Speaker 1: on the right, which is obviously better than the water
8:39
Speaker 1: on the left, but still a very tough spot to
8:42
Speaker 1: be you're making par or bogie from there pretty much certainly,
8:48
Speaker 1: so every year we see a surprising number of players
8:52
Speaker 1: flirting with the water. And I think that's because if
8:55
Speaker 1: you pull off that te shot, a three is there
8:58
Speaker 1: for the taking its base a short iron or even
9:02
Speaker 1: a wedge into a decently receptive green from that angle,
9:06
Speaker 1: and on the final whole of the day, when you're
9:09
Speaker 1: trying to make the cut, or win the tournament, or
9:13
Speaker 1: just make up ground on the field, that is a
9:16
Speaker 1: very tempting proposition. So, yes, a difficult golf hole, but
9:22
Speaker 1: fascinating to play and watch. All Right, we've talked about
9:27
Speaker 1: Dye's originality, and his way of achieving difficulty and interest simultaneously.
9:34
Speaker 1: Another big reason he's so beloved by golf architecture nerds
9:38
Speaker 1: is that he reintroduced design build methodology to the game. Now,
9:44
Speaker 1: this topic deserves a podcast of its own, so I
9:46
Speaker 1: won't go as in depth here as I want to,
9:50
Speaker 1: But the short of it is that when Dye started
9:52
Speaker 1: his career, Robert Trent Jones was turning golf architecture into
9:57
Speaker 1: an office job. His approach was to draw up a
10:00
Speaker 1: set of plans and then hand them off to a
10:03
Speaker 1: construction company, usually a construction company that he himself owned.
10:07
Speaker 1: This allowed Jones to scale up his business and to
10:11
Speaker 1: design a tremendous number of golf courses across the world.
10:16
Speaker 1: Die didn't work this way. He was famously averse to
10:20
Speaker 1: formal plans and he much preferred to work things out
10:24
Speaker 1: in the ground with a shovel and a bulldozer. He
10:28
Speaker 1: was intensely collaborative. His wife, Alice, his most trusted design advisor,
10:35
Speaker 1: made critical contributions to every project that Dyes company was
10:39
Speaker 1: involved in. So the courses evolved as they were being built,
10:44
Speaker 1: and the effect of this is that die'es courses have
10:47
Speaker 1: a handmade quality to them. Yes, they are clearly manufactured,
10:52
Speaker 1: but they're interesting to look at because they're shaped with
10:56
Speaker 1: such care and individual attention. You don't see a lot
11:00
Speaker 1: of cookie cutter stuff at Die's best courses. His features
11:05
Speaker 1: are really varied and irregular. His mounding, for instance, is
11:10
Speaker 1: chaotic and unpredictable, very different from the tidy containment mounding
11:16
Speaker 1: that was typical on courses built during his period. There's
11:22
Speaker 1: just an appealing strangeness to Dye's shaping that I think
11:27
Speaker 1: comes from his devotion to the on site boots on
11:31
Speaker 1: the ground craft of golf architecture. And this approach turned
11:36
Speaker 1: out to be very influential because Die passed it on.
11:40
Speaker 1: He was like an NFL coach who produces a lot
11:44
Speaker 1: of other really good NFL coaches. Pete Dye trained Bill Corr,
11:49
Speaker 1: He trained Tom Doak. He trained Rod Whitman and Jim
11:53
Speaker 1: Orbina and Tim Liddy and Bobby Weed and many others
11:58
Speaker 1: who in turn a huge number of the up and
12:02
Speaker 1: coming designers who will define the next era of golf architecture.
12:08
Speaker 1: Often their courses look nothing like Dies, but his methods
12:13
Speaker 1: are in their DNA. So that's your answer to the
12:17
Speaker 1: apparent contradiction that I started with. Certainly, Pete Dye did
12:22
Speaker 1: a lot of things that current enthusiasts claim to dislike,
12:26
Speaker 1: but he did it with such originality and such a
12:30
Speaker 1: contrarian spirit and such a sense for the nuances of
12:35
Speaker 1: strategy and psychology that people who are passionately into golf
12:40
Speaker 1: architecture just can't help but love his courses. And on
12:44
Speaker 1: top of that, he introduced a design build workflow that
12:48
Speaker 1: has produced most of the greatest golf courses of the
12:51
Speaker 1: past thirty years. That's why golf architecture nerds appreciate and
12:56
Speaker 1: respect Pete Dies so much, even if his work doesn't
13:01
Speaker 1: really resemble what we usually like. All Right, I'd like
13:06
Speaker 1: to dive deeper into a couple of specific Pete Die
13:09
Speaker 1: golf courses. For that, I'll bring on Scott Sherman, who
13:12
Speaker 1: is the lead designer at Love Golf Design alongside Davis
13:16
Speaker 1: Love the third and Mark Love. Scott has developed a
13:20
Speaker 1: kind of specialty in Pete Die renovation and restoration. He
13:24
Speaker 1: helped to prepare the Ocean course at Kiawa Island for
13:27
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one PGA Championship, and he restored an
13:30
Speaker 1: excellent early Die Design called Delray Dunes in Florida. Most recently,
13:36
Speaker 1: and most relevantly to this episode, he and Love Golf
13:40
Speaker 1: Design carried out a restoration of Harbortown Golf Links last year.
13:44
Speaker 1: This is the host of the annual Heritage Tournament on
13:47
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour, and they are also heading up an
13:51
Speaker 1: ongoing renovation plan at the stadium course at TPC Sawgrass,
13:55
Speaker 1: the annual site of the Players Championship. Basically, there's a
13:59
Speaker 1: lot going on in Scott's world related to Pete Dye,
14:04
Speaker 1: so I thought this would be a good time to
14:05
Speaker 1: bring them on and talk specifically about what's happening at
14:09
Speaker 1: Harbortown and Sawgrass. Let's get to it all, right, Scott Sherman,
14:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast.
14:21
Speaker 2: Good morning, Garrett. How are you.
14:23
Speaker 1: I'm doing pretty well. How about you?
14:25
Speaker 2: So keeping busy but as I said, better than I deserve.
14:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, you you have certainly been very busy lately, and
14:33
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about a little bit of
14:37
Speaker 1: what you've been doing lately. But first of all, I
14:40
Speaker 1: want to I want to chat a bit about your
14:43
Speaker 1: your history with Pete Dye. The subject of this episode
14:46
Speaker 1: here is Die his design style, some of his courses.
14:51
Speaker 1: You began your career, as I understand it, working with
14:55
Speaker 1: Pete and Alice Dye at Kiwa Island.
14:58
Speaker 2: That's where I met them. Actually, like a lot of us,
15:02
Speaker 2: I was captivated as a teenager by the first watching
15:07
Speaker 2: TPC Sawgrass on television, not knowing that I would want
15:12
Speaker 2: to be a golf designer one day. Fast forward many
15:16
Speaker 2: years in the first time I really thought about being
15:21
Speaker 2: in the business was in college. And the first time
15:26
Speaker 2: I had ever set foot on Harbortown, ironically, was in
15:31
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. That was called the Nabisco Championship back
15:35
Speaker 2: in those days, the forerunner of the Tour Championship walked
15:39
Speaker 2: that golf course after the fourteenth hole, I thought to myself,
15:43
Speaker 2: I need to go find Pete and Alice. So made
15:48
Speaker 2: my way to Kiowa while it was under construction, and
15:51
Speaker 2: that's really where I connected with some of their staff.
15:54
Speaker 2: To be honest with you, some of the guys out
15:56
Speaker 2: in the field, but Pete and Alice had moved there
15:59
Speaker 2: to do that project at Kiowa. So I wrote them
16:04
Speaker 2: a letter and got a response from Alice, a letter
16:08
Speaker 2: I have to this day kept in my file. So
16:12
Speaker 2: that would have been you know, late eighty nine, early
16:15
Speaker 2: ninety and lo and behold, they connected me with Perry
16:20
Speaker 2: Dye who was working on some projects with them, and
16:24
Speaker 2: I first, you know, went to work with the Die
16:27
Speaker 2: family out in Denver, Colorado as part of their bigger staff,
16:32
Speaker 2: and got together with Pete and Alice out there actually,
16:37
Speaker 2: and then was sent to Hawaii to build my first
16:39
Speaker 2: golf course, which was not bad duty, but it was
16:42
Speaker 2: a very difficult project. So that's how that sort of happened.
16:48
Speaker 2: And ironically having been at Harbor Town and now all
16:51
Speaker 2: these years later helping them with their work there and
16:55
Speaker 2: the ocean course at Kiowa and as you mentioned, TPC
16:58
Speaker 2: Sawgrass as we're working right now. So it's just crazy.
17:03
Speaker 1: What are some of the initial experiences you had in
17:08
Speaker 1: the kind of Die family system that taught you things
17:12
Speaker 1: about golf course architecture and construction.
17:16
Speaker 2: Well, so my first memory of anything at all would
17:21
Speaker 2: have been walking on the ocean course, which was just
17:24
Speaker 2: it looked like the moon, you know, just a big
17:27
Speaker 2: old moonscape out there of sand and movement and whatnot.
17:32
Speaker 2: So I didn't have a clue what I was looking at.
17:35
Speaker 2: And when I got to Denver, it was hired properly
17:40
Speaker 2: Perry their son, their older son, said hey, look, you
17:44
Speaker 2: need to understand what we do in our style. And
17:47
Speaker 2: I had a feel for it. But he was gracious
17:50
Speaker 2: enough to send me to some of their golf courses
17:53
Speaker 2: that were well known and had been built years before,
17:56
Speaker 2: and he immersed me in photography that was sort of
18:01
Speaker 2: archived at their office in Denver. Their their photographer, Kenny May,
18:06
Speaker 2: their family photographer, availed me of any any golf course
18:11
Speaker 2: that they had ever built all over the world, and
18:14
Speaker 2: so I immersed myself in photography, which many years later,
18:19
Speaker 2: ironically has has come back. So that's where it sort
18:23
Speaker 2: of started. Get a feel for what we do, and
18:26
Speaker 2: then they started teaching me about the strategy. Here's how
18:30
Speaker 2: we think about golf holes. Pete always mentioned building in
18:34
Speaker 2: a third dimension, you know, as you know, there's there's
18:38
Speaker 2: lots of features that cast shadows and look more intimidating
18:43
Speaker 2: than they really are. So my earliest memories are of
18:46
Speaker 2: really studying their golf courses over a pretty short period
18:50
Speaker 2: of time. And then off I was sent to Hawaii
18:53
Speaker 2: to build this golf course in the middle of the
18:55
Speaker 2: Monowilly Valleys as they call it, and that's where it's
19:00
Speaker 2: or started.
19:01
Speaker 1: Do any stories come to mind from these early years about,
19:07
Speaker 1: you know, how construction was done on a Pete Dye
19:10
Speaker 1: golf course. I mean, clearly, this firm, this family had
19:16
Speaker 1: an approach to golf course construction that was different from
19:20
Speaker 1: that of other golf architecture firms. You may not have
19:24
Speaker 1: been aware of that because this was your you know,
19:26
Speaker 1: this was these were some of your first experiences in
19:29
Speaker 1: building golf But what was distinctive about the way that
19:33
Speaker 1: construction was done in the kind of die method?
19:36
Speaker 2: Well, and of course I knew nothing different other than
19:41
Speaker 2: when I got to my first project. So I was
19:43
Speaker 2: partly a design associate and partly construction manager as it were,
19:49
Speaker 2: and I was put in a ditch right from the
19:52
Speaker 2: beginning and told you need to learn how to build
19:54
Speaker 2: these golf courses from the ground up, which has served
19:57
Speaker 2: us well to this day. So I really didn't know
20:01
Speaker 2: any other way than to really build a golf course
20:05
Speaker 2: and designed it. At the same time, I think Pete
20:07
Speaker 2: would have even said he was a golf course builder
20:11
Speaker 2: much more than a golf course designer, and certainly didn't
20:14
Speaker 2: use the term too much golf architect. But we learned
20:18
Speaker 2: to build golf courses, and that's how we still do it. Yes,
20:21
Speaker 2: we have to deal with AutoCAD and plans and permitting
20:25
Speaker 2: and all that sort of thing, but that only gets
20:28
Speaker 2: you about eighty percent of the way. And we build
20:31
Speaker 2: a golf course and the features sort of reveal themselves
20:35
Speaker 2: as we impose our will here and there and work
20:39
Speaker 2: with sites, you know, somewhat minimalistically sometimes, but sometimes we
20:44
Speaker 2: have to impose our will. But we're really, we're really
20:47
Speaker 2: at the heart of it, golf course builders. And that's
20:50
Speaker 2: just how I learned, and of course is I got
20:53
Speaker 2: to know other people in the business and other people
20:56
Speaker 2: that work for the Die family. That's exactly how they
20:59
Speaker 2: learned to bill golf courses, folks like Bill Coohr and
21:03
Speaker 2: Tom Doak, and you go on and on. I'm really
21:06
Speaker 2: sort of the third generation, you know, Pete and Alice
21:10
Speaker 2: being the first generation, and folks like Bill Cooorr being
21:14
Speaker 2: you know, the second generation. I'm a younger generation, and
21:17
Speaker 2: I certainly didn't work on as many golf courses as
21:21
Speaker 2: lots of other guys did and gals, but certainly was
21:26
Speaker 2: very very influenced by the building process, much more so
21:31
Speaker 2: than the design process, and to this day it's a
21:35
Speaker 2: necessary evil to get things on paper and be able
21:39
Speaker 2: to permit and land plan and all that sort of thing.
21:42
Speaker 2: But I guess the instinctive part of what we do
21:47
Speaker 2: is the building part, the part that's fun, the part
21:50
Speaker 2: where you just feel, I feel comfortable standing on the
21:54
Speaker 2: ground and making it happen. You know, with all the
21:57
Speaker 2: fellows that we deal with the golf course builders at
21:59
Speaker 2: this point one.
22:01
Speaker 1: Were you building greens at this point?
22:05
Speaker 2: Yes? Absolutely, you know, how did.
22:08
Speaker 1: That process go?
22:09
Speaker 2: It was?
22:09
Speaker 1: I mean, because different architects have different approaches to building greens,
22:12
Speaker 1: and it's pretty interesting. I mean, Bill Corer and Tom
22:15
Speaker 1: Doak approach building greens differently. Tom Doak kind of has
22:18
Speaker 1: his associates go out and mess around with it and
22:22
Speaker 1: come up with these ideas, and then Tom comes in
22:24
Speaker 1: and edits. You know, these are very broad strokes here.
22:28
Speaker 1: Bill is more like, you know, he'll he'll figure out
22:31
Speaker 1: the concept of the green and have a pretty specific
22:33
Speaker 1: idea of what he wants done, and then they go
22:36
Speaker 1: out and execute that. What was the nature of that
22:38
Speaker 1: process for you in the die system.
22:40
Speaker 2: Well, at the beginning, so interestingly enough, I was sent
22:46
Speaker 2: to Hawaii, and the crew that built the ocean course
22:50
Speaker 2: at Kiowa for the ninety one Ryder Cup left Kiowa,
22:54
Speaker 2: picked me up in Denver, and we went to Hawaii
22:56
Speaker 2: to build this golf course. So that crew of folks,
23:00
Speaker 2: Steve Mann, Keith Sparkman, lots of guys that were at
23:05
Speaker 2: Kiawa taught me here's how you do it, and they
23:09
Speaker 2: would hand me bundles of flags and put my rear
23:12
Speaker 2: end on a sand pro or a tractor. I tried
23:15
Speaker 2: to do some work on a bulldozer' maybe too a
23:18
Speaker 2: d D and too impatient to sit on a bulldozer
23:21
Speaker 2: all day. I've got to be roaming the site. But
23:24
Speaker 2: I did learn to run some small equipment and do
23:27
Speaker 2: that a little bit less now these days, but still
23:30
Speaker 2: enjoy doing that. But we would literally you have a
23:35
Speaker 2: green site that was roughed in, and the guys would
23:39
Speaker 2: flag it out or I would flag it out, and
23:41
Speaker 2: we would just start playing with the dirt. As I say,
23:44
Speaker 2: the construction part of it have kind of a concept.
23:48
Speaker 2: I guess I have personally moved on to doing some
23:51
Speaker 2: green sketches, which helps us sort of anchor where we
23:55
Speaker 2: start and move the dirt around back in those days
23:59
Speaker 2: build in USGA green, we would build the core of
24:02
Speaker 2: the green, in other words, sixteen inches down in the
24:05
Speaker 2: in the dirt. And I always struggle with that. I
24:08
Speaker 2: like to like to build the whole green complex with
24:11
Speaker 2: all of the features as they would be finished, and
24:15
Speaker 2: then core it out and build, you know, ourselves a green.
24:20
Speaker 2: But so you know, it's always very different how we
24:23
Speaker 2: do these things. But that's that's the way. I started,
24:26
Speaker 2: just out in the field flagging out greens and figuring
24:29
Speaker 2: out the best way it fits in there strategically, and
24:32
Speaker 2: then we would mess with the contours physically with the
24:35
Speaker 2: sand pro, with the box blade and the tractor.
24:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard I've heard versions of that from various
24:43
Speaker 1: people who have worked with Pete Dye and with Perry
24:46
Speaker 1: Dye and others associated with the family, that that is
24:50
Speaker 1: kind of the problem. You really go out and play
24:52
Speaker 1: with it for a while and see what works, and
24:54
Speaker 1: then and then you come in kind of with the
24:57
Speaker 1: critical mind and shape it from there, which is a
25:00
Speaker 1: very interesting process, and it's it's got to be one
25:03
Speaker 1: that's that's tough for clients to deal with sometimes because
25:07
Speaker 1: you don't know what you.
25:08
Speaker 3: Have no idea yes, they're scared to death, but you know,
25:13
Speaker 3: at this point in our career we have a history,
25:16
Speaker 3: uh that that sort of shows them that that we
25:19
Speaker 3: kind of know what we're doing.
25:20
Speaker 2: But yes, it can scare them to death because and
25:23
Speaker 2: I learned some freedom from Pete by watching him answer
25:28
Speaker 2: questions of clients who would say, well, what are you
25:31
Speaker 2: going to do here? And what are you going to
25:32
Speaker 2: do there? And why did you do this or why
25:34
Speaker 2: did you do that? And he would just say, I
25:36
Speaker 2: don't know. Just felt right, I don't know, Okay, I mean,
25:42
Speaker 2: it is a creative process, you know. It's it's you're
25:45
Speaker 2: not building a four wall structure that walls have to
25:48
Speaker 2: be in a certain spot. So it just gave us
25:51
Speaker 2: some some freedom. And I guess to carry that on
25:56
Speaker 2: a little further. And I didn't see Pete do this much.
25:59
Speaker 2: He did it a little bit and taught us how
26:01
Speaker 2: to float greens. Originally, we would take a sand pro
26:04
Speaker 2: in a three by eight by about ten feet long
26:10
Speaker 2: board that was drug around with the sand pro that
26:13
Speaker 2: he stood on. It was like he was water skiing,
26:16
Speaker 2: and we would call it skiing the green and he
26:18
Speaker 2: would float contours with his feet and again I didn't
26:21
Speaker 2: see him do it much, but the guys that came
26:24
Speaker 2: from Kiowa taught me a little bit about how to
26:27
Speaker 2: do that, which is a very tiring process actually, And
26:31
Speaker 2: so Pete would make changes in the green, sometimes substantial.
26:35
Speaker 2: You know, you're supposed to only have twelve inches or
26:38
Speaker 2: so of greens mix in the profile of a green,
26:42
Speaker 2: and sometimes it would be a little less or sometimes
26:44
Speaker 2: a little bit more. But that was again part of
26:47
Speaker 2: the creative process contouring. You know, Bill Koorr calls it
26:51
Speaker 2: grading the green. So just right from the beginning, I
26:55
Speaker 2: was so fortunate to dive right into everything that was
26:58
Speaker 2: under the ground building this guy course in Hawaii, all
27:01
Speaker 2: the way to the finished contours. And then we were
27:04
Speaker 2: in charge of the whole construction process, so grassing and
27:07
Speaker 2: irrigating and the whole deal. So it was it was
27:11
Speaker 2: quite the education. I got my master's for sure, building
27:15
Speaker 2: two golf courses in Hawaii.
27:19
Speaker 1: All right, So we've got the Players Championship coming up
27:23
Speaker 1: soon here, so let's talk a little bit about TPC sawgrass,
27:27
Speaker 1: all right, And I love golf designs work. There you
27:32
Speaker 1: are in the early phases of what I understand to
27:36
Speaker 1: be a very long renovation timeline. So could you give
27:41
Speaker 1: me an idea of what the overall vision for the
27:45
Speaker 1: stadium course is and the changes that will be made
27:48
Speaker 1: in the coming years. Is this a restoration, is it
27:51
Speaker 1: a modernization? What is it?
27:54
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, yes to both, that's right, and so we
27:59
Speaker 2: we're engaged in the process. Gosh, it's been almost three
28:03
Speaker 2: years ago now, so we have done some summer work
28:06
Speaker 2: for the last two years. We were all just there
28:10
Speaker 2: yesterday preparing for the summer work that's coming up this year.
28:15
Speaker 2: Partly we go there during tournament set up so that
28:18
Speaker 2: we can see how I mean, obviously it's built for
28:22
Speaker 2: tournament golf, so see how what we are about to
28:25
Speaker 2: do would affect circulation and the fan experience and obviously
28:30
Speaker 2: the architecture of the golf course. So this was a
28:36
Speaker 2: tough thing to start because and I have to be
28:40
Speaker 2: very careful how I say this. I don't want to
28:42
Speaker 2: be critical, but I just want to be factual about
28:45
Speaker 2: what's happened over the years, over these thirty some years
28:49
Speaker 2: to the golf course. I think the tour recognized that
28:53
Speaker 2: they were they have taken everyone's input over these thirty years, players,
28:58
Speaker 2: rules officials and administrators, fans, TV folks, media folks. They
29:06
Speaker 2: have slowly but surely over the years taken input from
29:09
Speaker 2: lots of folks, and one little thing at a time.
29:12
Speaker 2: The golf course changed and changed and changed. And the
29:16
Speaker 2: thing that we've noticed the most is and of course
29:19
Speaker 2: I know a little bit too much to be dangerous
29:21
Speaker 2: when it comes to the greens, but the greens in
29:25
Speaker 2: particular have become softer. The slopes are less pronounced, the
29:30
Speaker 2: transitions are less pronounced, the greens are generally bigger than
29:34
Speaker 2: they were originally. And as you know, I know, you've
29:37
Speaker 2: traveled all over the place and you have seen everything
29:42
Speaker 2: in this day and age. To challenge the best players
29:45
Speaker 2: in the world, it's all about the greens. We can
29:47
Speaker 2: keep moving teas back as far as we want. But
29:51
Speaker 2: the great golf courses that host majors, that do a
29:55
Speaker 2: great job of trying to challenge the player but yet
29:57
Speaker 2: still be enjoy for the member are the ones that
30:01
Speaker 2: have some really interesting, maybe severe greens. You think of
30:05
Speaker 2: the oak monts in the wing foots of the world, well,
30:08
Speaker 2: tpc sawgrasses. Greens really have become soft, slope wise, whole
30:15
Speaker 2: location wise. They're just not as difficult as they were,
30:19
Speaker 2: so we sort of start there and eventually in twenty
30:22
Speaker 2: twenty eight, as we understand it, we will focus on
30:26
Speaker 2: the greens and the green complexes. But leading up to that,
30:29
Speaker 2: there have been so many changes. For example, originally the
30:36
Speaker 2: golf course was very rough, you know, and how far
30:39
Speaker 2: back in the roughness do we go? And we have
30:43
Speaker 2: lots of documentation from day one really during construction. We
30:48
Speaker 2: have lots of documentation of the golf course plans to
30:53
Speaker 2: the extent that those are helpful, lots of photographs, lots
30:57
Speaker 2: of tournament video and so forth. We have lots of
31:00
Speaker 2: influence that you know, it's sort of like when Marion
31:04
Speaker 2: had to decide what era were they going to go
31:06
Speaker 2: back to, and we have sort of settled on about
31:09
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine as far as features go. And so
31:13
Speaker 2: for example, you know, there was lots of quote, waste areas,
31:17
Speaker 2: areas where you could ground your club, that were sandy shelley,
31:21
Speaker 2: areas that were strategic and a little you know, gave
31:25
Speaker 2: you a little uncertainty when you hit a shot out
31:27
Speaker 2: of those areas. And of course you fast forward to
31:30
Speaker 2: today and there's none of that. Every bit of sand,
31:34
Speaker 2: there is a bunker a bunker proper. So we're going
31:38
Speaker 2: through the process of deciding what if any of those
31:42
Speaker 2: areas do we restore as native through the green shell
31:47
Speaker 2: sand screening areas. And then you look at the architecture
31:51
Speaker 2: around all of that, and so much has changed, partly
31:55
Speaker 2: because it needed to. Some of it was too severe
31:57
Speaker 2: for you know, fan use, spectator use, some of it
32:02
Speaker 2: was too severe to maintain and that sort of thing.
32:05
Speaker 2: So we walk around constantly, and I have a computer
32:09
Speaker 2: full of photographs and photographs and miss Alis sent us
32:13
Speaker 2: their family photographer, Kenny May, who's photographed the place for
32:16
Speaker 2: years the tour, and we look, you know, really, square
32:21
Speaker 2: foot by square foot, what were those features like and
32:26
Speaker 2: how different are they today? And why can't we put
32:29
Speaker 2: this back? So it's really it really is more of
32:32
Speaker 2: a restoration. But again to keep up with the modern
32:36
Speaker 2: tour player who is six foot six or taller and looks,
32:42
Speaker 2: as Davis says, looks like a linebacker when he goes
32:45
Speaker 2: to the locker room, they all look like linebackers standing
32:49
Speaker 2: in the you know, golf locker room. So these guys
32:51
Speaker 2: are physically, and I would even say women are physically
32:57
Speaker 2: very fit and capable of hitting the ball a long way.
33:01
Speaker 2: They have a lot of certainty about their game, and
33:04
Speaker 2: so you know, as far as a restoration goes, the
33:08
Speaker 2: architecture is restorative. But again we have to think about
33:12
Speaker 2: it in the modern context, not only playing the golf course,
33:16
Speaker 2: but also maintaining the golf course. We are not going
33:19
Speaker 2: back to nineteen eighty three. You've probably seen pictures and
33:23
Speaker 2: how really really rough that place was. It was rougher
33:27
Speaker 2: than Pine Valley ever thought about being, to be honest.
33:31
Speaker 2: So there's a happy medium there. But there are so
33:34
Speaker 2: many neat features that we are picking up here and
33:37
Speaker 2: there that we will restore throughout the golf course. And honestly,
33:42
Speaker 2: there's some golf holes from nineteen eighty nine in a
33:45
Speaker 2: little bit earlier we don't even recognize. The second hole
33:48
Speaker 2: is completely different than it was originally, the sixth hall.
33:54
Speaker 2: I could just go on and on, and so it
33:56
Speaker 2: is really a massive download of information that we have.
34:02
Speaker 2: Aesthetics that Pete created, funkiness, strangeness, coolness, you know, you know,
34:08
Speaker 2: funky good stuff that we're trying to slowly but surely
34:12
Speaker 2: put back into the golf course and will really more
34:15
Speaker 2: effectively be able to do it when we close in
34:17
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight. That's a very long answer to say
34:22
Speaker 2: that we are locking arms with the tour and their
34:26
Speaker 2: agronomy staff and their rule staff and their competition staff,
34:30
Speaker 2: and walking down every golf hole with them leading the
34:34
Speaker 2: process and really relying on you know, Pete's the golf
34:37
Speaker 2: architect here. He was the builder. He and Alice designed
34:41
Speaker 2: and built this place, and we're just being totally influenced
34:44
Speaker 2: by what was there and trying to make sure that
34:47
Speaker 2: we can be respectful of that and make it work
34:50
Speaker 2: because it was, you know, for its day and even
34:53
Speaker 2: for this day, it was crazy. We want to go
34:55
Speaker 2: back a little bit more to the crazy and a
34:58
Speaker 2: little less to the perfect. And if you're a keen
35:01
Speaker 2: observer of that tournament and that golf course, you're slowly
35:05
Speaker 2: but surely seeing that, partly due to the agronomic staff
35:11
Speaker 2: who is taking a lot of the ornament ornamental material out,
35:15
Speaker 2: bringing more native landscape material in and trying to keep
35:20
Speaker 2: with that more native look of the golf course.
35:23
Speaker 1: There's a lot of interesting stuff in there in that answer. Okay,
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Speaker 1: Check it out. I'll pick out one idea at a
37:27
Speaker 1: time here. I think maybe we should start with the
37:30
Speaker 1: the former ruggedness of Tpcsawgrass. Right, as you mentioned, the
37:36
Speaker 1: course originally had a pretty wild look.
37:40
Speaker 2: You know.
37:41
Speaker 1: I remember talking to Jerry Pate about it one time
37:44
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, you were you were almost
37:47
Speaker 1: thinking that wild animals were going to come out of
37:49
Speaker 1: the jumble attack.
37:51
Speaker 2: And we've seen pictures that really look like that.
37:53
Speaker 1: It's just oh yeah, I mean it's a it's a
37:55
Speaker 1: Florida swamp. It felt like a Florida swamp initially with
37:59
Speaker 1: some I mean, there was something pinehursty about it maybe
38:03
Speaker 1: towards the beginning as well. Yes, and so it was
38:06
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah, it was pretty raw at the beginning,
38:10
Speaker 1: and it gained some refinement over the course of the eighties,
38:16
Speaker 1: But even even by nineteen eighty nine, which is the
38:19
Speaker 1: year you've pointed out, the course was much more rugged
38:23
Speaker 1: looking than it is now now. It's kind of like
38:27
Speaker 1: Augusta National, Florida. In a lot of ways. You can
38:30
Speaker 1: see the influence of Augusta National's maintenance practices on what
38:35
Speaker 1: the stadium course has become. So how do you find
38:40
Speaker 1: that happy medium? What are the features or what are
38:44
Speaker 1: the presentation practices that allow you to reintroduce some of
38:50
Speaker 1: that initial wildness without pushing it to the point where
38:55
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour says, hey, hey, we don't want our
38:59
Speaker 1: home of golf looking like it's downtrodden or dilapidated. Right,
39:05
Speaker 1: because clearly the PGA Tour has an interest in presenting
39:08
Speaker 1: the courses as as very shiny looking. And so what
39:13
Speaker 1: do you what do you do there? What are the
39:15
Speaker 1: places where you can can bring back some of that
39:18
Speaker 1: original look, and what are the what are the things
39:22
Speaker 1: that you just can't do?
39:23
Speaker 2: Okay? Well, So in defense of the tour as our client,
39:31
Speaker 2: you know, I would compare TPC sawgrass Uh currently in
39:36
Speaker 2: a modern context in a similar way, I would think
39:39
Speaker 2: about what we see at Oakmont. You know, I remember
39:43
Speaker 2: one time hearing John Zimmer's I think, say to Paul
39:47
Speaker 2: Latshaw or someone, you go out to that golf course
39:50
Speaker 2: the Monday of the US Open a few years ago.
39:53
Speaker 2: You go try and find something that's imperfect about Oakmont,
39:58
Speaker 2: You're not gonna find it. I mean, we we are
40:00
Speaker 2: so good, I'd say we the agronomic staff everywhere in
40:04
Speaker 2: the world, especially at these high level of facilities hosting
40:09
Speaker 2: big tournaments, are so good at creating perfect that that's
40:14
Speaker 2: a standard that that's going to stay, you know, the perfection.
40:19
Speaker 2: You go to Pinehurst number two. Although it's rugged, there
40:23
Speaker 2: are times when teas, fairways, greens are you know, they
40:26
Speaker 2: may be a little off color, but the conditions are
40:29
Speaker 2: great and then it sort of fades to its you know,
40:31
Speaker 2: native look. So in defense of the tour, they're going
40:35
Speaker 2: to create conditions that are fabulous for the tournament. For sure,
40:39
Speaker 2: because it's in March, it will be overseated as long
40:42
Speaker 2: as it stays in March. I'm sure that's the case.
40:46
Speaker 2: So having said that, you know, again, we can't go
40:50
Speaker 2: back to nineteen eighty three, just can't. It's it's you know,
40:53
Speaker 2: there was massive areas of the golf course that you know,
40:56
Speaker 2: spectators couldn't get around in. Really it was a coadd
41:00
Speaker 2: It was really a kind of a mess, honestly, and
41:04
Speaker 2: when you're hosting, I don't know, three hundred thousand people
41:07
Speaker 2: at an event, You've got to be careful about that.
41:10
Speaker 2: But having said that, slowly but surely, as I mentioned,
41:13
Speaker 2: first off, there was a landscape palette that sort of
41:16
Speaker 2: crept in that was more ornamental, honestly, literally knockout roses
41:21
Speaker 2: and tea plants and things that were, you know, too
41:24
Speaker 2: much color for this native of a sight. So that's
41:29
Speaker 2: slowly but surely going away, maybe not completely, but as
41:33
Speaker 2: we think about how we fade into the native Florida swamp,
41:38
Speaker 2: you know, we are replacing a lot of that vegetation
41:42
Speaker 2: with things that were there before, wire grass and mully
41:45
Speaker 2: grass and things that are native to the area. We're
41:48
Speaker 2: certainly moving big trees. You may be aware of some
41:53
Speaker 2: big trees that we've moved there.
41:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that in a second, okay,
41:58
Speaker 1: you know.
41:58
Speaker 2: And preserving the oaks, the palms, and the pines that
42:01
Speaker 2: are indicative of that site. And then as we get
42:05
Speaker 2: closer to the golf holes, as we get closer to
42:08
Speaker 2: the center line of the fairway, that's where we're in
42:10
Speaker 2: sort of a discussion about as I said, these native
42:15
Speaker 2: quote waste areas that once were that at least give
42:19
Speaker 2: the golf course a little bit different contrast. Again, I
42:22
Speaker 2: don't want to be critical, but if you were to
42:25
Speaker 2: view the golf course maybe two years ago, it was
42:28
Speaker 2: so perfect and so contrasting between green and white. It
42:34
Speaker 2: was just as you say, Augusta National is wonderful, it's marvelous.
42:39
Speaker 2: I have no bad things to say about their esthetic.
42:45
Speaker 2: But TPC Sawgrass was not that, and it just seemed
42:48
Speaker 2: a little sterile to us. So as we started the
42:50
Speaker 2: conversation and we had a very receptive audience who said, yes,
42:55
Speaker 2: we look at these old pictures, we see what this
42:57
Speaker 2: used to look like, and so let's try to use that.
43:00
Speaker 2: But there's going to be a limit, you know, there's
43:02
Speaker 2: going to be a place or two where we just
43:05
Speaker 2: can only go so far with that. And the tournament
43:09
Speaker 2: is growing. I think that's always going to be the case.
43:11
Speaker 2: There will be more and more interesting to some extent,
43:14
Speaker 2: and maybe they will allow more more fans. So again,
43:18
Speaker 2: you know, Pete had the idea of sort of unique
43:21
Speaker 2: to him, these big long waist areas. One of our
43:25
Speaker 2: discussions yesterday is back in twenty sixteen, the waste areas
43:30
Speaker 2: were removed and the ones that were waste areas stopped
43:35
Speaker 2: and then the bunker, for a rules standpoint, picked up.
43:40
Speaker 2: So there was always a separation between the waste area
43:42
Speaker 2: and the bunker, and those don't exist anymore. So we're
43:46
Speaker 2: trying to understand what we would be allowed to do
43:49
Speaker 2: to bring back the waste areas and separate them from
43:52
Speaker 2: the bunkers aesthetically, rules wise, and again that's very restorative.
43:58
Speaker 2: I mean, we're working on the fourth hole right now
44:00
Speaker 2: thinking about all those details. So again as a as
44:06
Speaker 2: a place to start as an anchor, you know, Pete
44:08
Speaker 2: and Alice gave us an anchor from nineteen eighty two
44:10
Speaker 2: or three, and we will navigate that whole by whole,
44:15
Speaker 2: area by area to get that look and that strategy
44:18
Speaker 2: into the golf course, which is already there. You can
44:20
Speaker 2: see it, but it just looks. It looks a little
44:23
Speaker 2: bit more perfect than maybe it should.
44:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can. You can even see that contrast between
44:30
Speaker 1: what are intended to be waste areas and what are
44:32
Speaker 1: intended to be bunkers in the design of the course
44:34
Speaker 1: where you have these huge, long bunkers often along the fairways,
44:40
Speaker 1: and those are now maintained as bunkers and every inch
44:44
Speaker 1: of them is has become perfect over time.
44:47
Speaker 2: Right.
44:47
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there's a difference between those and the smaller
44:51
Speaker 1: bunkers that are off in green Side, and so that's
44:54
Speaker 1: that's an interesting contrast to TPC sagrass. And it would
44:57
Speaker 1: it would seem to stand a reason that you would
44:59
Speaker 1: present those two different types of hazards differently. So that's
45:04
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to to seeing that
45:06
Speaker 1: change for sure. Now. The most talked about change at
45:09
Speaker 1: TPC Sawgrass last year was, as you alluded to, the
45:15
Speaker 1: replanting of this massive oak tree next to the sixth
45:19
Speaker 1: te so that players were forced to hit a kind
45:24
Speaker 1: of relatively low trajectory t shot from a certain tea position.
45:28
Speaker 1: It wasn't all tea positions that were affected, as I
45:31
Speaker 1: understand it, but but yeah, so but you know, if
45:35
Speaker 1: you put the tea in a certain place, then then
45:38
Speaker 1: players kind of they couldn't just blast away with their
45:40
Speaker 1: towering you know, hit up on it driver. They would
45:43
Speaker 1: have to to carve a different type of shot under
45:46
Speaker 1: the tree limbs and add onto the fairway. This was
45:49
Speaker 1: a restorative project. This wasn't just a you know, a
45:52
Speaker 1: funny idea that that you and and love Golf Design had.
45:56
Speaker 1: This was there originally, and the and the tree was
45:59
Speaker 1: it was I think it had disease or something.
46:02
Speaker 2: And yeah, the previous one was leaning and leaning, and
46:06
Speaker 2: they cabled it so it wouldn't lean too much. And
46:08
Speaker 2: then I forget whether a storm or just decay took
46:12
Speaker 2: it out and it was gone for several tournaments.
46:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so how do you feel that that change
46:18
Speaker 1: worked out? What were some of the impressions that you
46:20
Speaker 1: got from the tournament about the effects of that replanting.
46:25
Speaker 2: Well, so I'll let the statistics speak for themselves, but
46:30
Speaker 2: before I say that, you know, one of the things
46:34
Speaker 2: I learned, and I didn't know that I was learning
46:36
Speaker 2: this until well into my career, as I would build
46:39
Speaker 2: golf holes and take direction from the Dye family and
46:43
Speaker 2: my future design partner Bobby Weed. You know, sometimes all
46:48
Speaker 2: you have to do is get into a player's head,
46:51
Speaker 2: and especially when you're talking about the highest level, they
46:54
Speaker 2: have so much certainty about their game, especially today, that
46:58
Speaker 2: the mental part is what you're Realllian challenging. So whether
47:02
Speaker 2: this was intended on the sixty by Pete or not,
47:05
Speaker 2: it was there visually and you know, shot tracker back
47:10
Speaker 2: in the day would have been really great to you know,
47:13
Speaker 2: tell us how much did it affect the flight of
47:15
Speaker 2: the golf ball. Well, now we know from last year's tournament.
47:19
Speaker 2: You know, prior to the tree being moved and replanted,
47:24
Speaker 2: I believe that hole played during previous tournament or the
47:28
Speaker 2: previous year. I believe that hole played thirty under par
47:32
Speaker 2: for the field. And then last year with the tree
47:36
Speaker 2: in place, and only one player actually hit the tree
47:39
Speaker 2: all week, that hole played twenty over par. There's a
47:44
Speaker 2: fifty shot difference. And all we did was create a visual.
47:48
Speaker 2: We didn't build a bunker, we didn't put a wall,
47:51
Speaker 2: there's no railway sheds or anything. But it's just the visual.
47:56
Speaker 2: And now that we do have shot tracer and shot tracker,
47:59
Speaker 2: we could kind of predict how it might affect their ballflight.
48:04
Speaker 2: And everybody hit everything. There were players that hit driver.
48:07
Speaker 2: I played with a tour player prior to opening the
48:10
Speaker 2: golf course and he hit driver, no problem, just a
48:12
Speaker 2: little bit lower. But they just had to think about
48:15
Speaker 2: it so visually, so then mentally, this is where I
48:19
Speaker 2: guess Pete taught us how to maybe affect a player's
48:25
Speaker 2: game and the way they think about playing the golf o.
48:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, the psychological dimension of design was something that Pete
48:32
Speaker 1: Die thought about a lot and implemented at his courses
48:36
Speaker 1: better than probably anyone who has ever designed courses for
48:40
Speaker 1: elite players.
48:41
Speaker 2: That's right.
48:42
Speaker 1: Right. He knew exactly how to bother top level players,
48:47
Speaker 1: and that's right. I think that's part of what makes
48:48
Speaker 1: his courses stand the test of time.
48:50
Speaker 2: Right, that's right. And you know I learned early on
48:55
Speaker 2: to try to get certainly the best players to think
48:59
Speaker 2: about shots. You want to make them move the ball
49:02
Speaker 2: back and forth with every shot. That's where sort of
49:05
Speaker 2: the idea of an S shaped golf hole came from.
49:09
Speaker 2: You want to make the player work the ball in
49:11
Speaker 2: one direction off the tee and another direction into the green.
49:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like to call them switchback holes.
49:17
Speaker 2: That's right.
49:17
Speaker 1: You see a lot of these par fives at Pete
49:19
Speaker 1: Die courses that kind of move one direction off the
49:23
Speaker 1: tee and then come back the other direction like a switch,
49:25
Speaker 1: like a you know, switchbacking road going up a mountain,
49:27
Speaker 1: that's right.
49:28
Speaker 2: And you can go all the way back to a
49:30
Speaker 2: place like a teeth of the dog in the Dominican
49:32
Speaker 2: and you can see that all over the golf course.
49:36
Speaker 2: Even if you want to really study par threes, you
49:39
Speaker 2: know there are it's always great to have different hole
49:41
Speaker 2: locations on a par three. So very often he would
49:44
Speaker 2: build a par three that sort of had an S
49:46
Speaker 2: shape to it. And at TPC sawgrasp between Dean Beamon
49:52
Speaker 2: and Pete and miss Alice and Bobby Weed. I learned
49:56
Speaker 2: originally his thinking about how to set up greens. You know,
50:01
Speaker 2: originally when the greens were built, they were a bit smaller,
50:05
Speaker 2: and he had in his mind four whole locations for Thursday, Friday,
50:09
Speaker 2: Saturday and Sunday. And he was trying to make you
50:14
Speaker 2: realize that it was best to attack a whole location
50:17
Speaker 2: with a proper shot shape. And if you didn't, you know,
50:22
Speaker 2: come into that whole location with the correct shape, it
50:25
Speaker 2: might repel the ball. If you use the right shape,
50:28
Speaker 2: it might hold the ball in place. And so some
50:32
Speaker 2: of that has been lost. We're trying to understand how
50:36
Speaker 2: what kind of whole location cupping slopes we can create.
50:40
Speaker 2: You know, you go to Wingfoot, I don't know if
50:43
Speaker 2: there's a two point four percent slope on any green
50:46
Speaker 2: at Wingfoot. And we've always i say always for a
50:49
Speaker 2: long time we've been concerned about not putting whole locations
50:53
Speaker 2: at TPC on anything greater than a two point four
50:56
Speaker 2: percent slope. Well, I think we have some freedom to
50:59
Speaker 2: exceed that now, regardless of the speed. These players are
51:03
Speaker 2: so good that's the place to really challenge them at
51:07
Speaker 2: the greens. And so we're studying and we have maps,
51:10
Speaker 2: believe it or not, from nineteen eighty three with shots
51:14
Speaker 2: of every green meaning great shots of every green and
51:18
Speaker 2: the shapes and the sizes. So that's where we're really
51:21
Speaker 2: starting to focus on. How do we recapture these compartments
51:26
Speaker 2: that Pete had originally, but yet still keep these greens fair.
51:33
Speaker 1: So will there be anything new at this year's players,
51:36
Speaker 1: any changes that have been made since last year?
51:39
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, we've been tinkering a little bit this year.
51:45
Speaker 2: So the twelfth hole is an interesting hole out there,
51:48
Speaker 2: and Pete himself changed that booger over and over.
51:53
Speaker 1: And just to give people some background here, the twelfth
51:55
Speaker 1: hole used to be kind of a drive and pitch
51:59
Speaker 1: part for with some kind of semi blind elements. It
52:04
Speaker 1: was not a particularly popular hole. I would say some
52:08
Speaker 1: had some affection for it. I'm probably one of those people.
52:11
Speaker 1: I kind of I kind of, I kind of liked it,
52:14
Speaker 1: and but it you know, with distance gains it it
52:17
Speaker 1: it lost a little bit of its strategy, probably it
52:20
Speaker 1: and it just kind of became a drive and pitch
52:22
Speaker 1: exercise for the pros. A number of years ago, several
52:26
Speaker 1: years ago at this point, it was turned into a
52:28
Speaker 1: driveable par four with water along the left side, and
52:32
Speaker 1: the idea was that that we would create some excitement here.
52:35
Speaker 1: So that's the context. But but yeah, I was gonna
52:37
Speaker 1: ask about the twelfth hole. Is that what? What are
52:39
Speaker 1: your thoughts about it?
52:40
Speaker 2: Well, so the like on the left at the green
52:43
Speaker 2: has now been extended all the way back towards the tea,
52:46
Speaker 2: so it's much more visible from the tea up the
52:50
Speaker 2: right side. We built a much larger bunker that sort
52:55
Speaker 2: of as you talk about angles there, there's now a
52:59
Speaker 2: bunker in the ridge on the right side. That gives
53:02
Speaker 2: you sort of some decision points. Again, you know, I
53:06
Speaker 2: always talk about the five decisions on a drivable par four.
53:11
Speaker 2: Do you go whatever the hazard might be, do you
53:13
Speaker 2: go left of the hazard, right of the hazard, short
53:16
Speaker 2: of the hazard, over the hazard, or do you go
53:18
Speaker 2: for the green and so this is introducing some more decisions.
53:22
Speaker 2: So it's a fairly large bunker along the right side
53:26
Speaker 2: that is at an angle from the tee, and it's
53:30
Speaker 2: reminiscent of a bunker on the sixth hole. And we're
53:33
Speaker 2: sort of testing here a little bit, to be honest,
53:35
Speaker 2: because we're going to have another shot at this entire
53:38
Speaker 2: golf hole in twenty twenty eight. So you'll notice that
53:42
Speaker 2: the water is much more visible. The bunkers on the
53:46
Speaker 2: right did not exist before. And you know, all in
53:51
Speaker 2: the context of and I know this for a fact,
53:54
Speaker 2: sitting with Pete and talking about drivable par fours, he
53:58
Speaker 2: would say, well, then it's a par three.
54:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what This is what Alice said after
54:06
Speaker 1: this version of the whole was initially built. She said, well,
54:10
Speaker 1: you know, Pete didn't didn't really believe in drivable par fource.
54:14
Speaker 1: He thought that was just the long part three.
54:17
Speaker 2: Well, and and so you know I I in my youth, uh,
54:23
Speaker 2: and probably improperly said to him, well, then, Pete, how
54:28
Speaker 2: about the sixteenth hole at TPC Sawgrass. It's a reachable
54:32
Speaker 2: par five, So do we call it a par four?
54:35
Speaker 2: And he scowled at me, And you know, it's it's
54:38
Speaker 2: a risk reward. It's sort of the same good.
54:40
Speaker 1: Point though, it's a good point. Why why why that
54:42
Speaker 1: double standard?
54:44
Speaker 2: Exactly? And and so he just sort of scowled at me.
54:46
Speaker 2: And so we never really dove into that any further.
54:50
Speaker 2: Uh So, suffice it to say, there's a lot to
54:53
Speaker 2: study there. You know. Again, there's a lot of constituents
54:58
Speaker 2: that that brought that into the into the golf course.
55:02
Speaker 2: I think there's some minor things that we will probably
55:04
Speaker 2: do once the green is rebuilt, to maybe make it
55:07
Speaker 2: feel like it fits in with the golf course a
55:10
Speaker 2: little bit better. It's not it's not a complete outlier
55:13
Speaker 2: for sure. It's certainly not the golf hole that he
55:16
Speaker 2: built originally. And and to give your your listeners a
55:19
Speaker 2: little bit of context, that golf hole was somewhat repeated
55:22
Speaker 2: multiple times. The original twelfth. You know, there's the fifth
55:26
Speaker 2: at Long Cove. It was similar to the original twelfth
55:29
Speaker 2: at TPC. I believe it's the fifth at Old Barsh
55:33
Speaker 2: was recreated. Yeah.
55:35
Speaker 1: Old Marsh is like an alpshole almost, that's right.
55:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I've seen you know, now, we've worked on
55:42
Speaker 2: so many of Pete and Allie's golf courses. We've seen
55:46
Speaker 2: some of their I'll put in quotes templates, you know,
55:48
Speaker 2: they they did take a general idea, you know, a theme,
55:53
Speaker 2: and did variations on that theme and a few few
55:57
Speaker 2: different designs. You know, island green. I put in quotes
56:01
Speaker 2: that were surrounded by sand or surrounded by water. This
56:04
Speaker 2: alpsehole he created, you know, various places. Sixteen at TPC Sawgrass,
56:10
Speaker 2: he created various places. So you know, they had a
56:14
Speaker 2: theme and a strategy that they would vary everywhere. So
56:19
Speaker 2: the twelfth hole is not what it was. But we
56:22
Speaker 2: we hear what the tour is saying. We understand what
56:25
Speaker 2: the fans like to see. As far as excitement and
56:28
Speaker 2: going for the green. I love, I personally love a
56:32
Speaker 2: drivable par four. I have been chuckling for a week
56:37
Speaker 2: now about this whole discussion of ten at Riviera. You know,
56:40
Speaker 2: it has been so revered for so long, and you know,
56:44
Speaker 2: our modern tour player is so intent on certainty, you know,
56:49
Speaker 2: knowing that if they hit the three hundred and ten
56:51
Speaker 2: yard tee shot with you know, only three yards of
56:54
Speaker 2: cut or fate, that I'm going to be rewarded with
56:57
Speaker 2: a golf shot that goes exactly where I wanted to go. Well,
57:01
Speaker 2: the tenth at Rivier is none of that. It might
57:05
Speaker 2: repel a perfect golf shot. Okay, that's golf. So that's
57:10
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why I love the dragable part
57:12
Speaker 2: four because a bad player like me, you know, somebody
57:15
Speaker 2: that's a handicapped player, and a tour pro, we kind
57:18
Speaker 2: of come together when it comes to that kind of
57:21
Speaker 2: golf hole because length is not the determining fact.
57:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it'll be it'll be interesting to see if
57:28
Speaker 1: the twelfth hole can be manufactured into into something that
57:32
Speaker 1: creates that that kind of tension that the tenth hole
57:35
Speaker 1: it at Riviera has. It has been tinkered with a
57:38
Speaker 1: lot over the past several years. But but I I
57:42
Speaker 1: trust that it'll get it'll get figured out in the
57:45
Speaker 1: in the next few years. So looking forward to seeing
57:48
Speaker 1: those small changes work out this year and then twenty
57:51
Speaker 1: twenty eight, I guess we'll probably see a larger kind
57:54
Speaker 1: of transformation of the of the of the entire course,
57:57
Speaker 1: not just the twelfth hole.
57:59
Speaker 2: That's that's right, and we've done a few other things
58:01
Speaker 2: that are you know, less noticeable. Of course, for last
58:05
Speaker 2: year's tournament, we restored the right side of fourteen it
58:10
Speaker 2: was very gnarly and it had become less gnarly. And
58:14
Speaker 2: this year we've done some work at the fifteenth tee
58:19
Speaker 2: to get us ready for some work we're going to
58:21
Speaker 2: do this summer down by the fifteenth green and starting
58:24
Speaker 2: to prepare for hopefully reinstituting some of these waste areas.
58:29
Speaker 2: So nothing big like the tree deal on number six,
58:34
Speaker 2: you know, previous previously, but this year that's probably the
58:38
Speaker 2: biggest change that you will see is at twelve and
58:41
Speaker 2: again we're testing a little bit. The twelfth hole is
58:45
Speaker 2: sort of the one that's really given us the most
58:48
Speaker 2: to think about from the tea to the fairway to
58:52
Speaker 2: the green, So we're testing a little bit right now.
58:54
Speaker 2: We'll see what happens. I guess really two years from now.
59:04
Speaker 1: Hey, I wanted to jump in here to talk about
59:06
Speaker 1: a new partner that we're very excited to be working with,
59:10
Speaker 1: the Golf Course Superintendent's Association of America or GCSAA. This
59:16
Speaker 1: partnership makes a lot of sense for Friday Golf. GCSAA
59:20
Speaker 1: supports more than twenty one thousand members worldwide, from superintendents
59:25
Speaker 1: and equipment managers to students and educators. This year, GCSAA
59:30
Speaker 1: is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary, and it will continue
59:34
Speaker 1: to ensure that its members are on the forefront of research, education, innovation,
59:39
Speaker 1: and advocacy through a range of programs and services. One
59:43
Speaker 1: thing to keep an eye on is the gcsaa's program
59:47
Speaker 1: Rounds for Research, where you can bid on more than
59:50
Speaker 1: two thousand rounds at some of the most exclusive and
59:54
Speaker 1: well known courses in America. Rounds for Research addresses a
59:58
Speaker 1: critical shortage of fundation for ongoing university based agronomic programs.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: You can help foster sustainability with a donation or by
1:00:08
Speaker 1: bidding on rounds during the online auction. If you would
1:00:12
Speaker 1: like to support GCSAA through Rounds for Research, we'll have
1:00:16
Speaker 1: more information on the program in April. In the meantime,
1:00:20
Speaker 1: go check out GCSAA dot org. It's a great organization
1:00:24
Speaker 1: that does a lot for the game. All right, let's
1:00:27
Speaker 1: get back to the episode. Okay, let's chat a little
1:00:35
Speaker 1: bit at the end here about Harbortown. Now you have
1:00:40
Speaker 1: completed Love Golf Design has completed a big project at Harbortown,
1:00:46
Speaker 1: you know, whereas the changes at TPC Sawgrass recently have
1:00:51
Speaker 1: been have been relatively subtle, just targeting certain things, doing
1:00:56
Speaker 1: making adjustments here and there, preparing for a large project
1:01:00
Speaker 1: down the line. Harbortown happened all at once, basically last year.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: This was a major project at a course that the
1:01:09
Speaker 1: PGA Tour goes to annually. Now, this was characterized as
1:01:14
Speaker 1: a restoration of the golf course. So you know, going
1:01:19
Speaker 1: into this project, what kind of research did you do
1:01:23
Speaker 1: and what archival resources were especially helpful, Which era of
1:01:27
Speaker 1: the course was was especially inspirational, you know, given that
1:01:30
Speaker 1: this was restorative work.
1:01:32
Speaker 2: Right well, so there's lots of questions there. We had
1:01:36
Speaker 2: a lot of archives. One of the main archives we
1:01:40
Speaker 2: had was a Sports Illustrated article that was done in
1:01:44
Speaker 2: the early seventies that documented photographically the golf course as
1:01:48
Speaker 2: it pretty much was when it opened. And it was
1:01:51
Speaker 2: quite different, quite different, needless to say. Maintenance and all
1:01:56
Speaker 2: of that was one of those things. But it was
1:01:59
Speaker 2: a bit more wild than it is today for sure,
1:02:03
Speaker 2: And as we studied that for years actually, as you
1:02:06
Speaker 2: can imagine, you know, except for the superintendent, John Wright,
1:02:09
Speaker 2: who's been there for a long time, and folks like
1:02:12
Speaker 2: Kerrie Corbett who ran Sea Pines for a long time
1:02:16
Speaker 2: for the owner and John Ferrell. Those folks know that
1:02:19
Speaker 2: golf course intimately and have known it for forty plus
1:02:22
Speaker 2: years intimately. But when it comes to golf designed, folks
1:02:27
Speaker 2: that Mark Love, Davis Love, and Scott Sherman have probably
1:02:31
Speaker 2: spent more time on that golf course than any golf
1:02:34
Speaker 2: design people period, including the mecurate golf construction guys that
1:02:39
Speaker 2: they have worked at Harbortown a long time and they're
1:02:42
Speaker 2: longtime friends of ours and colleagues of ours. So having
1:02:46
Speaker 2: said that, we had a lot of information that we
1:02:49
Speaker 2: already knew. Like I said, I was inspired to reach
1:02:52
Speaker 2: out to Pete Alice the first time when I left
1:02:55
Speaker 2: the fourteenth Green and saw that pop bunker with the
1:02:58
Speaker 2: steps down into it, the latter that was straight down
1:03:01
Speaker 2: into that bunker, I was like, I got to call
1:03:02
Speaker 2: Pete or find out how do you do that? Where
1:03:06
Speaker 2: do I find them? So anyway, we were influenced a
1:03:09
Speaker 2: lot by the original golf course, to be honest with you.
1:03:12
Speaker 2: So for one, there were stack sawd bunkers everywhere, not
1:03:19
Speaker 2: just pop bunkers. There were edges sixteen that the big,
1:03:24
Speaker 2: the original waist bunker of all waist bunkers was the
1:03:26
Speaker 2: bunker on sixteen. Pete named it that for a funny reason.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: He had a pipe break and fill that thing with
1:03:33
Speaker 2: waste and that's where the.
1:03:34
Speaker 1: Name came from.
1:03:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, during construction, I don't know if it was
1:03:39
Speaker 2: a sewer line or a dredge line or whatever, but
1:03:42
Speaker 2: a pipe broke and filled that thing with a bunch
1:03:45
Speaker 2: of waste material, and so he coined the phrase waste bunkers.
1:03:49
Speaker 2: So that's where that name came from. And you know,
1:03:52
Speaker 2: it was a waste bunker for a long long time.
1:03:56
Speaker 2: But the edges there, certainly on the left were stack
1:03:59
Speaker 2: soad edge, and he back in the day used you know,
1:04:02
Speaker 2: real sod, meaning probably centipede and behavio grass and that
1:04:07
Speaker 2: sort of thing. And because it was natural sod in
1:04:10
Speaker 2: the South, it didn't last very long. So slowly, but surely,
1:04:15
Speaker 2: you know, some of the pop bunker, all of the
1:04:17
Speaker 2: pop bunkers, all of the stack side was removed completely,
1:04:22
Speaker 2: and for years they have been thinking about how do
1:04:25
Speaker 2: we bring that back but make it lasting. So we
1:04:29
Speaker 2: identified several bunkers, mostly what I would say are pop bunkers,
1:04:34
Speaker 2: to do a modern version of sod stacking. The industry
1:04:39
Speaker 2: has gotten much better at creating artificial revetting that looks
1:04:44
Speaker 2: pretty natural. It's off colored. We allow it to sort
1:04:49
Speaker 2: of age and you know, get some plant material in
1:04:52
Speaker 2: it or whatever's happening. And what's interesting is at Harbortown
1:04:57
Speaker 2: this is sort of a side thing, but these two
1:05:00
Speaker 2: all bunkers that we did sid stacking on are such
1:05:03
Speaker 2: a contrast between the oversea during the tournament, you know,
1:05:06
Speaker 2: we really we were really trying to think is that
1:05:09
Speaker 2: a good thing? Is that a bad thing? You can
1:05:12
Speaker 2: see them, you don't. You can't miss these things, the
1:05:14
Speaker 2: ones that are visible from the fairway, you can't miss them.
1:05:18
Speaker 2: And if you look at the old photographs, same thing.
1:05:22
Speaker 2: You just couldn't miss those stack side bunkers that lasted
1:05:26
Speaker 2: for a few years in the original Harbor Town. So
1:05:30
Speaker 2: that was a restorative aspect, believe it or not. We
1:05:34
Speaker 2: moved a tree at Harbortown as well, on the fifth hole.
1:05:40
Speaker 2: That's a funny story. Apparently Pete originally built the green
1:05:44
Speaker 2: too close to the property line, and once a house
1:05:47
Speaker 2: was built there years after the green was built, it
1:05:51
Speaker 2: became a problem. So several several years ago he and
1:05:55
Speaker 2: mccurate Golf moved that fifth green to the left, still five,
1:06:01
Speaker 2: but the trees were really not in play like they
1:06:03
Speaker 2: were on other holes. If you think about the second
1:06:06
Speaker 2: hole there, your second shot to number two green, there's
1:06:09
Speaker 2: a big old tree, you know, that kind of hangs
1:06:12
Speaker 2: over and you've got to work your ball around that tree.
1:06:14
Speaker 2: So we moved I guess a fifty foot oak tree
1:06:18
Speaker 2: about thirty or forty feet towards towards the green so
1:06:22
Speaker 2: that it's more intervening and again creating more of that
1:06:26
Speaker 2: s hole or that switchback hole as you call it.
1:06:30
Speaker 2: So we took cues from the old golf course from
1:06:35
Speaker 2: We didn't really settle on a particular era, but we
1:06:39
Speaker 2: stacked up and added up the old and the mid
1:06:43
Speaker 2: life of things that we liked and restored it to
1:06:46
Speaker 2: that degree. As we rebuilt greens, we sped up some contours,
1:06:51
Speaker 2: which is very typical. Those are very small greens, as
1:06:55
Speaker 2: you know, so you have to be very careful about that.
1:06:58
Speaker 2: But by and large, to create some more challenge, we
1:07:01
Speaker 2: actually enlarged some greens. Those greens were small anyway, so
1:07:05
Speaker 2: we needed to get a little bit more space. So gosh,
1:07:09
Speaker 2: except for I would say, well, pretty much every hole
1:07:12
Speaker 2: was touched in one way or another beyond just the reconstruction.
1:07:16
Speaker 2: There was something restorative about every golf hole there and
1:07:21
Speaker 2: some things that we sort of updated. The ninth Green
1:07:24
Speaker 2: was elevated slightly slightly more. Pete elevated it years ago
1:07:29
Speaker 2: in one of his renovations, and we elevated it a
1:07:32
Speaker 2: little bit more, really trying to create a situation where
1:07:36
Speaker 2: the guys stand on the tee and don't just waiale
1:07:39
Speaker 2: away and think that they might hop up there. So
1:07:42
Speaker 2: things like that. But it was all over the golf course.
1:07:46
Speaker 1: So it's a really interesting project and not uncommon in
1:07:52
Speaker 1: this era of golf course restoration that we're seeing. In fact,
1:07:55
Speaker 1: actually Gil Hans's recent work at Oakmont was kind of
1:07:58
Speaker 1: took this greatest Hits right where you know, you have
1:08:02
Speaker 1: this sort of thirty to forty year period at Oakmont
1:08:05
Speaker 1: where the classic course took form but was altered many
1:08:12
Speaker 1: times over that period. So you know, do you choose
1:08:15
Speaker 1: one year or do you kind of look at a
1:08:18
Speaker 1: range of years and choose what you think are the
1:08:21
Speaker 1: coolest features and add up to the best golf course.
1:08:25
Speaker 1: Sounds like you did a little bit of that at Harbortown,
1:08:28
Speaker 1: but with the stack sad bunkers specifically. There was some
1:08:32
Speaker 1: chatter online about this when the when the course reopened.
1:08:35
Speaker 1: I guess some people were surprised to see this style
1:08:38
Speaker 1: of bunker on a Pete Die golf course because he
1:08:40
Speaker 1: didn't often do this later in his career. Though he
1:08:43
Speaker 1: attempted to do it a few times early in his career,
1:08:46
Speaker 1: it just didn't seem to work out practically. You know,
1:08:50
Speaker 1: using some artificial material, you're able to make those bunkers
1:08:53
Speaker 1: more durable, and I suppose that's that's part of why
1:08:56
Speaker 1: you can do it now. But you know, when you're
1:08:59
Speaker 1: making decision to bring back those stacked sad bunkers, you
1:09:05
Speaker 1: are saying, basically, the first few years of the course
1:09:09
Speaker 1: that these existed is what we're looking at here. That's
1:09:13
Speaker 1: the source of inspiration.
1:09:15
Speaker 2: That's right.
1:09:16
Speaker 1: We're not going to be considering the changes that were
1:09:19
Speaker 1: made later on. And you have to make a lot
1:09:22
Speaker 1: of judgment calls like this at a Pete Die course.
1:09:24
Speaker 1: Because he was a tinkerer, he made a lot of
1:09:26
Speaker 1: changes at his golf courses. And so when you're making
1:09:29
Speaker 1: a decision like that one, how do you differentiate between
1:09:35
Speaker 1: the early version of the course and the later version
1:09:38
Speaker 1: of the course that often die himself oversaw. How do
1:09:43
Speaker 1: you give more credit to one of those than the
1:09:46
Speaker 1: other when making specific decisions.
1:09:49
Speaker 2: Well, you know, to be deferential to Pete, Alice, I
1:09:54
Speaker 2: can just tell you site visit after site visit after
1:09:57
Speaker 2: site visit, John Fair, Gerrel, John Wright, Davis Love, Scott Sherman,
1:10:04
Speaker 2: Alan mccurric, Tom Webber. Those are the folks that made
1:10:08
Speaker 2: it happen. We stood there together and you know, we
1:10:12
Speaker 2: leaned on each other and just had discussions about how
1:10:17
Speaker 2: you know, we were afraid to make any missteps. But
1:10:20
Speaker 2: on the other hand, the best way to finish a
1:10:23
Speaker 2: project is to start it. So we had to make decisions,
1:10:27
Speaker 2: and we had so much information that we very much collaboratively.
1:10:32
Speaker 2: And I would say the same is true at TPC Sawgrass.
1:10:34
Speaker 2: As you said, the best of versions of Harbortown and Sawgrass.
1:10:40
Speaker 2: We very much thought in those terms and tried to
1:10:45
Speaker 2: as best we could. You can't think like Pete. He
1:10:48
Speaker 2: was original. He thought of things out of the box.
1:10:51
Speaker 2: So we tried to grab things that he himself did
1:10:54
Speaker 2: and institute them, reinstitute them where they were and to
1:11:00
Speaker 2: be honest with you, we had a as always, we
1:11:03
Speaker 2: had about an eighty percent idea of what we were
1:11:05
Speaker 2: going to do hole by hole. But as we stand
1:11:08
Speaker 2: there and as we take it all in, as we
1:11:10
Speaker 2: walk the ground, as we look at this documentation, as
1:11:14
Speaker 2: we talk about our experiences with Pete and Alice on
1:11:18
Speaker 2: that property, decisions came. Sometimes we would build something in
1:11:23
Speaker 2: the dirt and we thought we had a good decision,
1:11:26
Speaker 2: and we'd all get back together and look at it
1:11:28
Speaker 2: and say, Nope, that's not right. That does not look right.
1:11:31
Speaker 2: Everybody will look at each other and say, that's right,
1:11:32
Speaker 2: that doesn't look right. Let's tinker with that. Let's get Victor,
1:11:37
Speaker 2: our shaper, and let's tinker with that. Let's get Tom
1:11:39
Speaker 2: Weber over here, let's tinker with that. So it was
1:11:43
Speaker 2: very collaborative, which in a lot of respects when I
1:11:48
Speaker 2: lead a project on my own, I can make decisions,
1:11:51
Speaker 2: keep moving, throw flags, request things to be done, move on,
1:11:56
Speaker 2: move on, move on. But in this circumstance, there's so
1:11:59
Speaker 2: much we need to consider, and we are committed to
1:12:01
Speaker 2: considering that. It's actually kind of difficult to be honest
1:12:05
Speaker 2: with you. Is there a right answer? No, But there's
1:12:08
Speaker 2: also not a wrong answer. In the confines of what
1:12:11
Speaker 2: we have from Pete's history there and the documentation, we
1:12:16
Speaker 2: have something to choose from, as you say, the best
1:12:18
Speaker 2: of we have something to choose from that we're going
1:12:22
Speaker 2: to use to go back to he's the architect of
1:12:24
Speaker 2: the golf course. And in that context, that's where we
1:12:28
Speaker 2: were able to choose those tools. We didn't run off
1:12:31
Speaker 2: and do something crazy. We didn't go off the script.
1:12:35
Speaker 2: If it were if it was not there in the
1:12:37
Speaker 2: last sixty years, it really didn't get reinstituted into the
1:12:41
Speaker 2: golf course. Now, having said that, we did need to
1:12:45
Speaker 2: deal with some length. We didn't need to get a
1:12:47
Speaker 2: little bit creative. For example, the second t is now
1:12:52
Speaker 2: and has been for a couple of years left of
1:12:53
Speaker 2: number one green, so you hit across the street. The
1:12:57
Speaker 2: part five, you hit across the street now under a
1:13:01
Speaker 2: leaning tree, which was not original, but hey, in the
1:13:04
Speaker 2: context of the fifth hole at Harbor Town and the
1:13:07
Speaker 2: sixth hole at TPC, we were like, that's that's going
1:13:10
Speaker 2: to get into these guys heads. So it adds an
1:13:14
Speaker 2: added difficulty to the golf course. So anyway, again, even
1:13:18
Speaker 2: that decision was we're going to move this back. Pete
1:13:21
Speaker 2: would have added length, and he likes the fact that
1:13:23
Speaker 2: there's something to look at and something to think about
1:13:26
Speaker 2: off the team.
1:13:27
Speaker 1: Another constituent in this renovation you talked about all the
1:13:32
Speaker 1: voices that were in the room and the trickiness of that.
1:13:37
Speaker 1: Another constituent is the tour players. The tyre players love Harbortown, right.
1:13:42
Speaker 1: Why do you think they like the course so much?
1:13:45
Speaker 2: You know? Gosh, I wish I was of that ability
1:13:50
Speaker 2: to kind of understand it. But having said that, I've
1:13:53
Speaker 2: done this long enough and been around enough good players
1:13:56
Speaker 2: and worked for enough tournament venues, I think Harbortown is
1:14:02
Speaker 2: one of those where almost anybody can win if you're
1:14:06
Speaker 2: playing well. If you know, it doesn't cater to the
1:14:10
Speaker 2: long player, it doesn't cater to one shot shape, you know.
1:14:15
Speaker 2: There we we often say there is a there is
1:14:19
Speaker 2: an intangible vibe there, regardless of what the golf holes do.
1:14:24
Speaker 2: There's an intangible vibe on that property that is just wonderful,
1:14:28
Speaker 2: no matter what the golf hole looks like. Over the
1:14:32
Speaker 2: years they have they have curated that play so well.
1:14:36
Speaker 2: And of course Pete set the stage. Pete and Alice
1:14:39
Speaker 2: set the stage and Jack Nicholas set the stage. Charles
1:14:42
Speaker 2: Fraser set the stage for a very natural setting. So
1:14:46
Speaker 2: the setting is is fabulous. But I would say, you know,
1:14:49
Speaker 2: you've got Davis who won five times, very long player,
1:14:53
Speaker 2: but you know also his shot shape tended to be straight,
1:14:57
Speaker 2: so if he was in control of his ball, he
1:14:59
Speaker 2: knew where it was going. And if you're if you're not,
1:15:02
Speaker 2: that's not your week. And again, you know, the greens
1:15:05
Speaker 2: are tricky in that they're small and there's not a
1:15:09
Speaker 2: lot of contour, there's a lot of slow So as
1:15:12
Speaker 2: long as you're in control of your your putting stroke,
1:15:14
Speaker 2: you know, you don't have a lot of crazy double
1:15:16
Speaker 2: breakers and that sort of thing. So I would say
1:15:19
Speaker 2: if you look at both Harbortown and the modern version
1:15:22
Speaker 2: of Harbortown to some degree is TPC sawgrass, lots of
1:15:26
Speaker 2: different types of players can win there. If you're on
1:15:30
Speaker 2: your game, you don't necessarily have to be long, You
1:15:33
Speaker 2: just have to be in control of your golf ball
1:15:35
Speaker 2: in the air and on the ground.
1:15:38
Speaker 1: Well, I'm looking forward to seeing this renewed version of
1:15:41
Speaker 1: Harbortown at the Heritage this year. Congratulations on that project,
1:15:45
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
1:15:48
Speaker 1: It was really fun to chat with you guys.
1:15:49
Speaker 2: Oh, glad to you. Guys are so prolific and go
1:15:53
Speaker 2: so many places. I'm honored to be included in your
1:15:56
Speaker 2: in your discussions, and I've enjoyed watching where you been.
1:16:00
Speaker 1: Oh, it's very kind of you to say thank you.
1:16:09
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
1:16:13
Speaker 1: Thank you Will. If you've been enjoying Designing Golf, then
1:16:17
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