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Can Golf Courses Help Us Be More Human? · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: How is designing a golf course like designing a city.
0:04
Speaker 1: According to bo Welling, the goal is the same, to
0:07
Speaker 1: help people feel and be more human. Bo Welling is
0:12
Speaker 1: the principal architect of bo Welling Design and in addition
0:15
Speaker 1: to collaborating with Tiger Woods and designing courses like Bluejack
0:19
Speaker 1: National and the Fields Ranch West Course at PGA Frisco,
0:23
Speaker 1: Bo is an experienced landscape designer and urban planner. So
0:28
Speaker 1: today we're talking about the links between creating golf courses
0:32
Speaker 1: and creating places. I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing golf.
0:44
Speaker 1: So Bo, what came first for you? Was it golf
0:46
Speaker 1: course design or was it landscape design, land planning, urban
0:51
Speaker 1: planning that whole area?
0:53
Speaker 2: I mean very much golf course design with maybe an asterisk.
0:58
Speaker 2: But I grew up a golfer, And you know, I
1:02
Speaker 2: just told you. I turned fifty five yesterday and I
1:06
Speaker 2: started playing golf when I was two, So fifty three
1:08
Speaker 2: years of this maddening experience. But I was very fortunate
1:13
Speaker 2: as a young person to go around and traveled to
1:17
Speaker 2: lots of places, both with golf, but like also just
1:23
Speaker 2: like as a traveler, my grandparents, my parents are all travelers,
1:27
Speaker 2: like going to Europe with something that would have done
1:29
Speaker 2: at a younger age, and you know, and sort of
1:31
Speaker 2: found you know, public spaces and Europe very interesting. But
1:35
Speaker 2: golf was really my deal. And I was fortunate that
1:37
Speaker 2: we had family friends that were Augusta National members and
1:40
Speaker 2: family friends that were Cyprus Point members, and so you know,
1:46
Speaker 2: these two places were very impactful to me as a
1:48
Speaker 2: younger person. Going to experience these cathedrals of golf, if
1:51
Speaker 2: you will, and sort of learning that each were designed
1:54
Speaker 2: by the same man, like that was just unbelievable to me.
1:56
Speaker 2: And so the first time I remember hearing of golf
1:58
Speaker 2: course design, it was learned that Alistair McKenzie had designed
2:01
Speaker 2: both of these places. And I went and got every
2:03
Speaker 2: book i could on mackenzie to learn about that. Not
2:07
Speaker 2: because I wanted to be a golf course designer, it
2:09
Speaker 2: was just I was like a nerdy kid just sort
2:10
Speaker 2: of interested in all this, and so all that sort
2:14
Speaker 2: of became very interesting to me. And so fast forward,
2:18
Speaker 2: you know, I played golf at the NCAA brown Bear
2:21
Speaker 2: University and Proference Rhode Island, and ground's kind of a wacky,
2:25
Speaker 2: weird place and where there's no curriculum and grades are optional,
2:29
Speaker 2: and I was debating do I do I study something
2:32
Speaker 2: around science or do I just study something around art?
2:35
Speaker 2: Like That's how coherent I was. And I literally literally
2:39
Speaker 2: woke up one morning with this epiphany. I'm like, wait
2:41
Speaker 2: a minute, golf course design sort of engineering and technical,
2:43
Speaker 2: but artistic and creative. And right across the street was
2:46
Speaker 2: the Rhode Island School of Design and they had landscape architecture,
2:50
Speaker 2: and so I started taking classes there. Tom Fazio was
2:54
Speaker 2: building a golf course in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina,
2:58
Speaker 2: and I started bugging him how this one. I'm a
3:00
Speaker 2: golf course designer and my father was one of the
3:03
Speaker 2: developers of this golf course, and so Tom was sort
3:05
Speaker 2: of forced to answer my phone call because I was
3:07
Speaker 2: like a son of a client, and that ultimately led
3:10
Speaker 2: to me going and working for him as a summer
3:12
Speaker 2: job kind of all throughout college, and then years later
3:15
Speaker 2: it would altmately have, you know, go to work for
3:17
Speaker 2: him full time. And so golf was very much you know,
3:21
Speaker 2: how I started out in this whole design universe. But
3:26
Speaker 2: I had been an appreciator I think of public space
3:29
Speaker 2: kind of along the way and ultimately lived in Europe
3:32
Speaker 2: twice before I went to go work for Tom full time.
3:35
Speaker 2: And I think how we kind of ultimately got into
3:38
Speaker 2: more of the urban thinking and planning is I had
3:43
Speaker 2: gotten involved in golf course design because I was a golfer,
3:46
Speaker 2: you know, the test of the game, greens, teas, bunkers,
3:49
Speaker 2: and somewhere along my Fazio journey, I started to realize
3:53
Speaker 2: that the projects that I thought were the coolest, Yes,
3:56
Speaker 2: they had great greens, teas, bunkers, but I started observing
4:00
Speaker 2: that the golf was a much bigger thing than that.
4:04
Speaker 2: It was a driver of connection amongst people. And I
4:09
Speaker 2: started to really look through golf through the lens of
4:11
Speaker 2: place and like noticing how the game drove human connection,
4:17
Speaker 2: promoted community. And then to me, the places that worked
4:22
Speaker 2: the best they had spaces and places that allowed that
4:25
Speaker 2: connection to happen once people got off of the golf course.
4:28
Speaker 2: And so I got really interested in this idea of
4:31
Speaker 2: golf as a promoter of human connection and community, and
4:36
Speaker 2: that ultimately led us to start thinking more and more
4:39
Speaker 2: about what happens around the eighteen holes of golf, and
4:42
Speaker 2: sort of from that, ultimately that started to drift into
4:45
Speaker 2: more planning around golf. And then somewhere along the way,
4:50
Speaker 2: I had a friend colleague that said, you know, you
4:53
Speaker 2: don't have to have a golf course be in the
4:55
Speaker 2: middle of all the stuff that you're proselytizing about about
4:59
Speaker 2: trying to get people put phones down and actually talk
5:01
Speaker 2: to people and stuff like that. And so he happened
5:04
Speaker 2: to be a big commercial urban developer, and so he's
5:06
Speaker 2: the one that kind of got us first involved in
5:08
Speaker 2: a project that started to take us in this direction
5:12
Speaker 2: of sort of things without golf. But golf still is
5:17
Speaker 2: what got us here. It's still the bread and butter,
5:18
Speaker 2: It's still what I'm super passionate about. I just think
5:21
Speaker 2: we've found the opportunity to take some of our skill
5:24
Speaker 2: set and apply it in a holistic, big picture way
5:27
Speaker 2: around golf. And I think there have been people, I
5:29
Speaker 2: guess thankfully, that have appreciated that thinking, that have taken
5:32
Speaker 2: us to go look at and do some projects that
5:34
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with golf as well. Long win
5:37
Speaker 2: it answers your question.
5:38
Speaker 1: No, that's great. For those who don't know your firm,
5:41
Speaker 1: Bowelling design is distinctive in the sense that, yes, you
5:44
Speaker 1: designed golf courses, but You've also taken on some projects
5:48
Speaker 1: that are not golf courses, that in fact branch well
5:53
Speaker 1: out of that area, and that's part of the reason
5:56
Speaker 1: that you're such an interesting person to talk to about
5:59
Speaker 1: some of these. You mentioned earlier that in your childhood,
6:03
Speaker 1: during your travels, you saw some public spaces in Europe
6:08
Speaker 1: that fired up your imagination and got you thinking about
6:12
Speaker 1: how space and place promote human connection. What were some
6:16
Speaker 1: of those places in Europe? But what's an example of
6:20
Speaker 1: how that kind of public gathering place can promote community
6:27
Speaker 1: or whatever else?
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Speaker 2: I mean, I think, I you know, it would be
6:30
Speaker 2: you know, it could be big famous plazas and piazzas
6:33
Speaker 2: in Italy. It could be smaller little town squares in Switzerland.
6:38
Speaker 2: You know, it could really anywhere throughout Europe. You see
6:41
Speaker 2: these sort of squares and plazas and stuff. And I
6:44
Speaker 2: think one of the things that has always been cool
6:46
Speaker 2: to be Like, I'm not sure I put this connection
6:49
Speaker 2: together when I was visiting as a fourteen year old,
6:51
Speaker 2: but like later in life, I think you see how
6:55
Speaker 2: space really flexes, and so like, you know, one moment,
6:59
Speaker 2: there's a flower market, you know, and then all of
7:01
Speaker 2: a sudden, by lunchtime, it's transitioned to a food hall,
7:05
Speaker 2: a food sort of consumption. All of a sudden, there's
7:07
Speaker 2: some sellivatory you know, communal event happening in the evening,
7:12
Speaker 2: but it becomes the life of the city. You know
7:14
Speaker 2: that it's all sort of coming together. And you know,
7:16
Speaker 2: I did take this path through risty and studying landscape architecture,
7:20
Speaker 2: and so I think there's an academic side of this
7:23
Speaker 2: to me too. And so like if if Alison mackenzie
7:26
Speaker 2: and there's a big golf course design influence, I think
7:30
Speaker 2: on the planning side it would be frederickal Olmsted, which
7:35
Speaker 2: might be more park or you know, urban public space centric,
7:40
Speaker 2: but there also be a Danish urbanist named Jan Gale,
7:43
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, if you look just sort
7:44
Speaker 2: of cerebrally at things that they talk about, it's to
7:47
Speaker 2: me it's all super interesting. And you know, Olmsted talks
7:49
Speaker 2: a lot about a park in terms of it's you know,
7:51
Speaker 2: a place for humans really have all walks of life
7:54
Speaker 2: to come together and connect in a way, for human
7:57
Speaker 2: soul to connect with nature, and that it's more than
8:01
Speaker 2: just a park. It's it's something that it relates to
8:04
Speaker 2: humans wanting to have this this respite from the den
8:08
Speaker 2: of the city. And and then you look at Gale,
8:10
Speaker 2: and Gale's you know, talks a lot about that life
8:13
Speaker 2: happens between buildings, not really in buildings. And so I
8:17
Speaker 2: think when we think about what we're passionate about about golf,
8:21
Speaker 2: you know, we've kind of into the mackenzy sque sort
8:23
Speaker 2: of idea of like, you know, surely the greatest golf
8:26
Speaker 2: course is the one that provides the greatest pleasure to
8:28
Speaker 2: the greatest number of people. And so it's it's almost
8:31
Speaker 2: this olm steady and sort of idea of like, you know,
8:34
Speaker 2: here's the thing for everyone. And so we're super into
8:37
Speaker 2: all of those things. And uh, you know one of
8:40
Speaker 2: my favorite Mackensey quotes, you know, he talks, he talks
8:43
Speaker 2: about golf and other games being like, you know, the
8:46
Speaker 2: whole purpose of them is to generate the communal welfare
8:50
Speaker 2: and health and happiness and all this kind of stuff.
8:52
Speaker 2: And so when I look at our practice, the sort
8:55
Speaker 2: of disparate practice of golf. And then as you're alluding
8:57
Speaker 2: to a couple of big urban projects that have nothing
9:00
Speaker 2: to do with golf, I mean it comes across as
9:03
Speaker 2: almost schizophrenic, but like the theme, the thread that ties
9:07
Speaker 2: all this together, I think is this idea of trying
9:10
Speaker 2: to use space in place to affect human connection. And
9:16
Speaker 2: so to answer your question, it's another long winted answer,
9:18
Speaker 2: but it's like it's gathering, it's places for gathering, like
9:21
Speaker 2: that when when we're involved in urban stuff. It's that
9:25
Speaker 2: in essence, like it's what golf is too. It's a gas,
9:27
Speaker 2: a means and a reason to gather. But the effect
9:30
Speaker 2: of this gathering is something that's greater than just a scorecard,
9:34
Speaker 2: numbers on a scorecard, or just getting through life of
9:37
Speaker 2: going to your job or what have you. It's it's
9:40
Speaker 2: a moments to pause and do something and connect, and
9:43
Speaker 2: it's this sort of gale life life happening. And I
9:46
Speaker 2: think the interesting thing about I'm not ansed landscape architect,
9:52
Speaker 2: and I think what's interesting is neither on Set or Gale,
9:54
Speaker 2: where either they were just sort of observational people. And
9:57
Speaker 2: so I think I come at this more from life experience,
10:00
Speaker 2: an observation. Then it's like I'm just rigorously trained, you know,
10:05
Speaker 2: planner or urbanest kind of thing.
10:07
Speaker 1: What do you think is the difference between space and place.
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Speaker 1: Is it partly what you're talking about here? When when
10:13
Speaker 1: when a space becomes a you know, a location in
10:17
Speaker 1: the world where people gather and connect on a human level.
10:20
Speaker 1: Is that what turns a space into a place.
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Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, I think it's like I
10:26
Speaker 2: actually come from a long line of accountants, and I
10:28
Speaker 2: can always this is how bizarre my Sunday dinner table was,
10:31
Speaker 2: you know, people talking about tangible assets and intangible assets,
10:34
Speaker 2: and and I've always sort of looked through the lens
10:37
Speaker 2: of these intangible assets of you know, whether it be
10:40
Speaker 2: brand or IP or you know, whatever it is. But
10:43
Speaker 2: I think space is to me like the physical construct
10:47
Speaker 2: of that. But then place it starts to be this
10:49
Speaker 2: intangible witness to it. There's something about it. You know that,
10:52
Speaker 2: you know it when you're there, you recognize this. And unfortunately,
10:56
Speaker 2: the word placemakings I think radically overused, but it's overused
11:01
Speaker 2: because it means there is something to all of that.
11:03
Speaker 2: And I think you recognize when you go to a
11:05
Speaker 2: great place, I mean you immediately it resonates with you.
11:08
Speaker 2: And I think part of that's geometry and proportion part
11:11
Speaker 2: of that is what's happening there. The part of the
11:14
Speaker 2: fact is that we as a species feel comfortable coming there.
11:17
Speaker 2: It feels sort of all put together. I mean people
11:20
Speaker 2: sometimes ask me like, well, you know this sort of
11:22
Speaker 2: non golf planning, like what do you do in that part?
11:26
Speaker 2: And you know, if someone called us to say, hey,
11:29
Speaker 2: I want to plan some strip shopping center with a
11:31
Speaker 2: bunch of parking, like, we wouldn't be interested in that
11:34
Speaker 2: at all. But if it's, hey, I want to do
11:36
Speaker 2: something will be super small, but like it's going to
11:38
Speaker 2: be built around a little plaza, a little square, you know,
11:42
Speaker 2: we'd be super excited about that because it's sort of
11:44
Speaker 2: doing this sort of same thing where you create reasons
11:47
Speaker 2: for the humans to sort of slow down and do something.
11:51
Speaker 2: And so sometimes it's gonna be really big, huge scale
11:53
Speaker 2: things that we're involved in, and then sometimes it could
11:56
Speaker 2: be like super small. I mean, like we've even worked
11:59
Speaker 2: on people's like backyards with a couple of fire pits
12:01
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. So but you know, but I
12:05
Speaker 2: think that's that's what it is. And and and this
12:08
Speaker 2: light bulb that went off back to that golf was
12:11
Speaker 2: more than this, is that I started to realize that
12:15
Speaker 2: like literally half my memories of my father were from
12:18
Speaker 2: the golf course, and I started looking around at my
12:20
Speaker 2: friendships and realizing that, like so many of them were
12:23
Speaker 2: either people I grew up playing golf with, or people
12:25
Speaker 2: I'd come to play golf with, or even people I'd
12:27
Speaker 2: met playing golf and that and that's where it became
12:30
Speaker 2: really powerful to me. And I think sometimes for my detriment,
12:33
Speaker 2: I can talk about this too much because I think
12:35
Speaker 2: a lot of people want us just to talk greens, tease, bunkers,
12:37
Speaker 2: you know, strategy, you know the game. And it's not
12:41
Speaker 2: that we're not passionate about that, we super are, but
12:44
Speaker 2: it's just we really feel like that that golf can
12:46
Speaker 2: do something so much more than that. And you know,
12:50
Speaker 2: I'm I'm prone to believe that, you know that if
12:54
Speaker 2: the world had more golfers, the world would be a
12:56
Speaker 2: better place. I mean, it's like a game based on
12:59
Speaker 2: values and honor, but it's also based on this camaraderie
13:03
Speaker 2: and human connection, and so I think anything that we
13:05
Speaker 2: can do to help promote that, like, that's what we
13:08
Speaker 2: get excited about.
13:09
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think the reason this subject is
13:12
Speaker 1: so important to discuss alongside of all the usual subjects
13:17
Speaker 1: of green design and bunker placement, et cetera. Is that
13:22
Speaker 1: golf plays a role in modern society, or can play
13:25
Speaker 1: a role in modern society getting people out of their houses,
13:29
Speaker 1: away from their screens, away from virtual connection, and into
13:34
Speaker 1: embodied connection, into kind of cohabitation of the same place.
13:39
Speaker 1: Golf is a powerful lure for that. And the extent
13:43
Speaker 1: to which design can enhance those connections that are made
13:47
Speaker 1: when people are out of their houses and away from
13:51
Speaker 1: their screens is very important. And that's why I think
13:55
Speaker 1: about it a lot, and I think that's probably why
13:57
Speaker 1: you think about it a lot as well.
13:59
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean I think we all went through COVID
14:01
Speaker 2: and you know, quickly found out like it's not super
14:04
Speaker 2: fun just to be cooped up in the house or
14:05
Speaker 2: you know, not with other people. I mean think the
14:07
Speaker 2: species need, you know, inherently needs to be with others.
14:11
Speaker 2: And I think technology, as great as it is, it's
14:13
Speaker 2: allowing us to go do this. But it has created
14:16
Speaker 2: a dynamic where we are more connected and yet more
14:21
Speaker 2: a part at all the same time. And there's lots
14:25
Speaker 2: of great science on this and speakers on this, and
14:28
Speaker 2: if you go look at any sort of measure of
14:30
Speaker 2: sort of loneliness in the United States, it's like going
14:32
Speaker 2: through the roof. But to your point, I think that
14:34
Speaker 2: golf is a real counterpoint to that in that it
14:38
Speaker 2: does get you off of a screen and it gets
14:41
Speaker 2: you out, you know, with others. And you know, I'm
14:44
Speaker 2: a big believer in walking while playing golf, and it's
14:49
Speaker 2: it's not exercise per se. Well, that's great, but what
14:52
Speaker 2: I find is that when when we walk, when we
14:54
Speaker 2: play golf, we talk, Whereas if we're driving on a cart,
14:57
Speaker 2: all of a sudden there's a means to pick up
15:00
Speaker 2: a phone or what have you. And so for us,
15:03
Speaker 2: it's this is this is throughout everything that we believe.
15:07
Speaker 2: So it's not just that like we do greens, teas
15:09
Speaker 2: and bunkers over here, and we think about places or
15:12
Speaker 2: spaces outside of golf in terms of how we design golf, Like,
15:16
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do is create an experience that
15:19
Speaker 2: can be enjoyed truly by everyone, regardless of skill level.
15:22
Speaker 2: And like every golf architect in the world says that,
15:26
Speaker 2: but I think to go do that is a whole
15:28
Speaker 2: other thing. And not to be critical of anybody, but
15:31
Speaker 2: I think, you know, everyone says that, and then lots
15:34
Speaker 2: of people go put sand everywhere. Well sand, you know,
15:36
Speaker 2: a good player plays out of sand really well, not
15:38
Speaker 2: so good player doesn't. And so, you know, we talk
15:41
Speaker 2: about playability, this idea of you know, delivering a good
15:44
Speaker 2: experience to a person regardless of skill level. But it's
15:47
Speaker 2: more than that for us, like we want people at
15:50
Speaker 2: different skill levels to be able to play together at
15:53
Speaker 2: the same time and also have a good experience. And
15:56
Speaker 2: that light bulb went off to me. You know, twenty
15:59
Speaker 2: years ago we done a Fassio project called Sage Valley
16:02
Speaker 2: and just sort of across the river from against the
16:05
Speaker 2: Nationals pine trees and lots of grass and pine straw,
16:08
Speaker 2: and it's like super op super playable, like you miss
16:11
Speaker 2: your golf ball kind of anywhere and go find it
16:13
Speaker 2: and play it again. Not that it's easy. But one
16:15
Speaker 2: of my lifelong friends is not a really good golfer,
16:19
Speaker 2: but in the nature of his business, he entertains a
16:22
Speaker 2: lot of people on golf course and so he started
16:25
Speaker 2: asking me to help him bring his clients to Sage
16:28
Speaker 2: and I thought at first it was because it was
16:30
Speaker 2: a destination place with great service, great food, you know,
16:33
Speaker 2: on site accommodation. He has them all there But what
16:36
Speaker 2: I started to realize is that he is a non
16:38
Speaker 2: Ish golfer. He plays golf, but he didn't grow up
16:40
Speaker 2: playing golf. Probably like a twenty six handicap. It was
16:43
Speaker 2: an environment that he felt comfortable entertaining his scratch handicap
16:47
Speaker 2: clients because he never felt like his game got in
16:50
Speaker 2: the way of their game, Like he didn't have to
16:52
Speaker 2: have them to help him look for golf balls and so,
16:57
Speaker 2: and he could keep up and he could keep pay
16:59
Speaker 2: some plate, even though his school or might not be great,
17:01
Speaker 2: he could be with them, and that it was a
17:04
Speaker 2: connection thing that he was talking about. When I thought
17:05
Speaker 2: he was talking about the prestige of the place and
17:08
Speaker 2: the big stake and expensive wine and all this kind
17:10
Speaker 2: of stuff, it was so much more fundamental to that.
17:12
Speaker 2: And so I think that's a big part of what
17:13
Speaker 2: we're trying to do, is create a place where the
17:16
Speaker 2: golf experience where everyone enjoys and enjoy together. And so
17:19
Speaker 2: sometimes I talk about that in that like, I don't
17:22
Speaker 2: want to have to have my friendships segregated by handicap, right,
17:25
Speaker 2: I don't want my family to have to be segregated
17:27
Speaker 2: by handicap. I want to be able to go with
17:29
Speaker 2: people that are way better than me and people that
17:31
Speaker 2: are not as good as me, poor souls and be
17:34
Speaker 2: able to go together and have a great experience.
17:37
Speaker 1: I want to take a slight detour here away from golf.
17:40
Speaker 1: We'll come back to golf and talk about the implications
17:43
Speaker 1: of all of this for the design of the golf
17:45
Speaker 1: course itself. But I want to hear just a little
17:48
Speaker 1: bit about some of the pure site design or land
17:53
Speaker 1: planning or urban planning projects that you've done. Could you
17:56
Speaker 1: maybe just choose one as an example, like an elegant
18:00
Speaker 1: example of this type of project for people who may
18:03
Speaker 1: not be familiar with this kind of work. What would
18:06
Speaker 1: be a good example of a project that you've worked on,
18:08
Speaker 1: What were the goals of that project, and what did
18:11
Speaker 1: that kind of all look like from a broadstrokes level viewpoint.
18:16
Speaker 2: Sure, so the kind of two that come to mind.
18:18
Speaker 2: So one is this the first one really that we
18:20
Speaker 2: got involved in, which was one hundred and eighty one
18:22
Speaker 2: acres in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, which is the state capitol,
18:26
Speaker 2: and so it's called Bull Street and it was done
18:29
Speaker 2: by Greenville based developer and it was the old South
18:31
Speaker 2: Ground Department of Mental health campus, which is why there's
18:34
Speaker 2: so much acreage there, which was originally built around a
18:37
Speaker 2: sort of eighteen fifties era asylum series of buildings, and
18:42
Speaker 2: so it very much was wanting to be the concept
18:47
Speaker 2: that developer wanted. It was this sort of walkable community,
18:50
Speaker 2: mixed use, lots of public space, gathering space, and so
18:54
Speaker 2: we have a minor league baseball stadium built and developed
18:57
Speaker 2: right in the middle of it. We have a big
18:58
Speaker 2: central green, there's lots of you know, mixed use buildings
19:03
Speaker 2: sort of around that. We have a twenty acre park
19:06
Speaker 2: because lots of big trees and a stream going through,
19:09
Speaker 2: and then pretty intense development though in other zones. And
19:12
Speaker 2: so that was sort of the first one, and so
19:15
Speaker 2: we would have been involved helping with the master plan
19:17
Speaker 2: and all the streets, gates, all the public space. But
19:20
Speaker 2: it was complicated because the duration of the development was
19:23
Speaker 2: going to be twenty five thirty years, and so we
19:25
Speaker 2: had to plan in lots of lots of flexibility because
19:27
Speaker 2: it was so large. And so now the South University
19:30
Speaker 2: Ofuth kind was medical schools under construction there on site,
19:33
Speaker 2: and so it was really big, and so that one
19:37
Speaker 2: sort of got us going with the first real big
19:40
Speaker 2: thing outside of golf, and then that probably started in
19:43
Speaker 2: twenty eleven or twelve in terms of conceptualizing it, and
19:46
Speaker 2: you know, it's still ongoing in terms of its development.
19:49
Speaker 2: The one really not far fromhere I'm talking to you
19:51
Speaker 2: from right now, those in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina.
19:54
Speaker 2: It's a place called Camperdown and it's a four acre
19:57
Speaker 2: site that is mixed use of office, residential, hotel, retail.
20:04
Speaker 2: And it's right almost at the corner of Main and Maine,
20:07
Speaker 2: if you will. It's a corner Maine and Broad Street.
20:09
Speaker 2: And it was a tricky thing and that the city
20:14
Speaker 2: had design guidelines that and s it's all buildings had
20:16
Speaker 2: to front streets, but we wanted to have this central
20:20
Speaker 2: plaza via in ess behind buildings, so in other words,
20:22
Speaker 2: we wanted buildings to front. Had to have buildings front
20:24
Speaker 2: of the street, but we wanted to a front on
20:26
Speaker 2: the central plaza as well. And Greenville's but as one
20:29
Speaker 2: of these places has been lauded as you know, one
20:32
Speaker 2: of the great places to live in, great public spaces
20:34
Speaker 2: and all this kind of stuff. But it's very linear,
20:36
Speaker 2: like up and down Main Street, like these great sidewalks
20:39
Speaker 2: and outdoor cafes and stuff, but it's very much if
20:41
Speaker 2: you would put a light on somebody a pedestrian and Greenville,
20:44
Speaker 2: they're literally walking in a line all the time. So
20:47
Speaker 2: this is a real opportunity to do with an eddy
20:49
Speaker 2: like to get people to sort of stop and sort
20:53
Speaker 2: of operate in a different way. Because this plaza is
20:55
Speaker 2: really big, and so to make all that work though,
20:57
Speaker 2: we had a big parking challenge, and so the street
21:00
Speaker 2: is on a grade and so it extended the grade
21:02
Speaker 2: out for the plaza and have three rows of subterranean
21:06
Speaker 2: parking three decks of subterranean parking below. And so it's
21:10
Speaker 2: really been a super fabulous thing and there's all kinds
21:13
Speaker 2: of awesome stuff that happens on the plaza. There's a
21:16
Speaker 2: whole sort of nod to the history of Greenville starting
21:19
Speaker 2: a textile place and sort of morphing into a very
21:23
Speaker 2: modern textile slash automotive place. And it's really accomplished I
21:28
Speaker 2: think a lot for the city in terms of, you know,
21:30
Speaker 2: being able to have events without having a closed main
21:32
Speaker 2: street and things of that nature. And that's only four acres,
21:35
Speaker 2: but it's like it's lots and lots of square footage
21:38
Speaker 2: of office, retail, hotel, and retail, and it's a very
21:41
Speaker 2: active thing. And so all that's been really neat. And
21:46
Speaker 2: I happened to be with the developer of that project
21:48
Speaker 2: this morning and we're out under construction at the golf
21:51
Speaker 2: course where I grew up, and I was given him
21:52
Speaker 2: a tour and he was asking me what am I
21:54
Speaker 2: most afraid of with this golf project, and I said, well,
21:57
Speaker 2: you know, I don't get this right. I'm gonna have
21:59
Speaker 2: to leave town. We both laughed because we said the
22:01
Speaker 2: same thing. We were building the site in downtown Greenville.
22:04
Speaker 2: The reason four Acres existed is that it was it's
22:08
Speaker 2: where the newspaper used to be, and so as the
22:11
Speaker 2: newspaper industry has evolved, there's all this need for all
22:15
Speaker 2: this production and all these buildings all a space, and
22:17
Speaker 2: so the site was purchased from the Greenville News and
22:20
Speaker 2: redeveloped into this pretty magnificent mixed use space in downtown Greenville.
22:25
Speaker 1: Well, that's such an interesting project. I'll sort of focus
22:29
Speaker 1: on the Camperdown project for a minute, because what you're
22:32
Speaker 1: describing is initially a very linear downtown where the tendency
22:38
Speaker 1: of people might be to walk up and down and
22:41
Speaker 1: not really settle. And what you were trying to do
22:44
Speaker 1: was to create a place to settle and concentrate the
22:49
Speaker 1: population of people that is outside and hanging out at
22:53
Speaker 1: a particular moment and give them a reason to stop
22:57
Speaker 1: and be with each other.
22:58
Speaker 2: It sounds like right, and so it accommodates for you know,
23:03
Speaker 2: lots of outdoor sort of cafe seating, but lots of
23:05
Speaker 2: just seating and spaces on the plaza itself. We have
23:08
Speaker 2: a stage there. It's curated at different events that happened.
23:12
Speaker 2: You know, on the plaza there's a very elaborate sale
23:14
Speaker 2: structure that goes over part of it that's really cool,
23:17
Speaker 2: really modern looking and sort of part of the story
23:21
Speaker 2: of the theming of the thing. And so before the
23:25
Speaker 2: Greeble news that was it was a big textile operation there,
23:28
Speaker 2: and so how it's all been designed on the plaza's
23:31
Speaker 2: a nod to the textile history. So some of the
23:33
Speaker 2: tiling looks like the fabrics that were made there. And
23:37
Speaker 2: we had a Urius Suzuki as a friend and great
23:41
Speaker 2: sculptor artists sort of as symbol an artist team to
23:43
Speaker 2: do all these different sculptures for us that are interactive
23:46
Speaker 2: in nature as well in terms of like you know,
23:50
Speaker 2: you can things look like a thread part of the
23:55
Speaker 2: textile process, and the kids can hit on them and
23:57
Speaker 2: they make sounds and lights and stuff like that. It's
24:00
Speaker 2: all really super lit up and so it's a really cool,
24:02
Speaker 2: really cool space at night. And the sort of curation
24:06
Speaker 2: of events kind of goes back to that story I
24:08
Speaker 2: was trying to explain about Europe, about how different things
24:10
Speaker 2: could happen in the public squares throughout the day. There's
24:13
Speaker 2: very much an element of that of what we try
24:15
Speaker 2: to do at Camperdown is a way to get people
24:17
Speaker 2: to come out and hang out there. And said differently,
24:21
Speaker 2: you'd be kind of thing, you know, we almost wanted
24:25
Speaker 2: people to think, hey, if I'm going to meet somebody downtown,
24:28
Speaker 2: you'd say, well, I'll just meet you at Camperdown, and
24:30
Speaker 2: like you would just go there and you'd find yourself
24:32
Speaker 2: on the plasta. Like you might park wherever you park,
24:34
Speaker 2: but you go there. It's a sort of meeting point
24:36
Speaker 2: and aggregation point.
24:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of a representation in miniature of what
24:42
Speaker 1: has happened generally with place design over the past century
24:50
Speaker 1: or so. You know that the automobile. The automobile has
24:54
Speaker 1: stretched things out, has made things more linear. We have
24:56
Speaker 1: strip malls, right, and it's all it's all very kind
25:00
Speaker 1: of spread out and and along one line. But of course,
25:05
Speaker 1: old places, and there's a reason why a lot of
25:08
Speaker 1: these places are in European cities. Old places designed before
25:13
Speaker 1: the highway, before cars were a big part of daily life,
25:18
Speaker 1: tend to be just different in structure. They tend to
25:22
Speaker 1: have these kind of gathering places, places for people to
25:26
Speaker 1: get together and do their business. And they have to
25:29
Speaker 1: be designed in a way that people can walk to them,
25:32
Speaker 1: and so if you stretch them all out, then then
25:34
Speaker 1: they don't work. But of course there's something really pleasing
25:39
Speaker 1: about those places. There's some there's something that really suits
25:42
Speaker 1: our nature as social beings to have places that are
25:47
Speaker 1: not linear, that are not spread out. But now we
25:50
Speaker 1: need to kind of intentionally reintroduce them, because the economic
25:55
Speaker 1: logic of development is more to not do that right,
25:59
Speaker 1: and so we need to intervene in the process almost
26:02
Speaker 1: and say, no, we want some of these plazas, we
26:05
Speaker 1: want some of these gathering points because they suit our humanity.
26:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt, like the like the
26:13
Speaker 2: cities that emerged organically, you know, originally very much sort
26:17
Speaker 2: of very dense, clustered together. It's almost a species like
26:20
Speaker 2: we want to be together. And even going way back,
26:22
Speaker 2: like the common land was like the land sort of
26:24
Speaker 2: outside the city, and in essence that's how golf started.
26:28
Speaker 2: Actually it was just on common land, you know, that
26:30
Speaker 2: linked the urbanity down to the sea. But if you
26:34
Speaker 2: look at America, like you know, our evolution, we're a
26:37
Speaker 2: much newer place, and you know, we the automobile influenced
26:40
Speaker 2: us dramatically and created suburbia. You know, I think the
26:43
Speaker 2: theory was we should live here, and you should work
26:46
Speaker 2: over here, and you should go play over here, and
26:48
Speaker 2: so that spread everything out and I think as we
26:50
Speaker 2: I think we started to realize, as you know, living, working,
26:53
Speaker 2: playing in the same place, there's some value in all
26:55
Speaker 2: of that. And so you know, you see this sort
26:58
Speaker 2: of new urbanization re urbanization of places that are trying
27:03
Speaker 2: to do this. We could really put density, you know,
27:07
Speaker 2: close together, but then how space places for that density
27:12
Speaker 2: then go be common The only challenge now is we
27:15
Speaker 2: have to deal with the automobile. And whereas you know,
27:18
Speaker 2: way back when when Florence was happening that nobody's worried
27:22
Speaker 2: about automobile and stuff like that, and so I mean
27:25
Speaker 2: not to be too much of a futurist, but like
27:28
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons the planning folks are
27:30
Speaker 2: super excited about, you know, advancements with you know, autonomous
27:34
Speaker 2: vehicles is like, you know, the amount of infrastructure that's
27:37
Speaker 2: dedicated to the automobile in urban areas is unbelievable, whether
27:42
Speaker 2: it be service parking lots, you know, streets themselves, you
27:45
Speaker 2: know parking structures, and so if that ever changes in
27:49
Speaker 2: a big way, it's going to be a real, really
27:51
Speaker 2: unique sort of opportunity. I think to reimagine a lot
27:54
Speaker 2: of public space and a lot of downtown urban space,
27:57
Speaker 2: and I think that could be like super super exciting.
28:06
Speaker 1: Today's episode of Designing Golf is brought to you by
28:09
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28:14
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Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to the episode. So I
29:51
Speaker 1: want to apply some of these ideas to golf. Now,
29:54
Speaker 1: there are a number of different ways that we could
29:57
Speaker 1: do that. Maybe we could just start by talking about
30:01
Speaker 1: the location of golf courses within one of these new
30:08
Speaker 1: planned urban developments, because that is complicated. My understanding is
30:12
Speaker 1: that a lot of urbanists don't really like golf, maybe
30:15
Speaker 1: for the understandable reason that golf takes up a lot
30:18
Speaker 1: of land, and you know, building golf courses tends to
30:22
Speaker 1: require cars, tends to require you know, locating the golf
30:27
Speaker 1: course in a far off spot so there's enough space
30:29
Speaker 1: and people drive out there, and that kind of goes
30:32
Speaker 1: against a lot of these principles that we're talking about.
30:34
Speaker 1: So I guess, first of all, how how can golf
30:37
Speaker 1: courses be made part of a development like this that
30:43
Speaker 1: prioritizes walkability and human connection? Is that possible with golf?
30:49
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I think so, I mean think golf
30:50
Speaker 2: developments complicated, you know, for many factors in terms of costs, regulation,
30:55
Speaker 2: et cetera. But you know, I think an example of
30:58
Speaker 2: sort of these two universes sort of coming together that
31:00
Speaker 2: at least we've been involved in would be PGA FRISCO. So,
31:04
Speaker 2: you know, our role there is We did the west
31:06
Speaker 2: course and did all the practice facilities and then guilded
31:09
Speaker 2: the east course. We collaborated on the short course that
31:12
Speaker 2: we serve as the planners of the whole thing. And
31:14
Speaker 2: so what's happening there outside of golf is a five
31:17
Speaker 2: hundred room omni hotel, PGA's headquarters, a bunch of golf
31:21
Speaker 2: oriented retail and entertainment facilities and structures, as well as
31:25
Speaker 2: the North Texas Sections headquarters. And so how that worked
31:32
Speaker 2: there is the site six hundred and sixty acres, but
31:35
Speaker 2: only about sixty seventy acres was really outside of the floodplaine,
31:40
Speaker 2: and so the golf in essence, a lot of the
31:43
Speaker 2: golf occupies the floodplaine because that wasn't going to be
31:46
Speaker 2: buildable develople in any way. But the development has happened
31:50
Speaker 2: around it, from the hotel to retail village, to the
31:56
Speaker 2: clubhouse to Sections and America's headquarters. All that's very much
32:02
Speaker 2: linked on a big pedestrian access. And so when people
32:05
Speaker 2: go to PJ Frisco, like it feels chaotic, but that's
32:10
Speaker 2: by design, Like it's it's literally like an urban space
32:13
Speaker 2: has met golf. And I think one of the things
32:15
Speaker 2: that's really cool about PJ Frisco is that you've got
32:19
Speaker 2: people learning the game of golf at the North Texas
32:21
Speaker 2: Sections Facility. You obviously have these championships, the Women's PG
32:26
Speaker 2: Championship that will happen this year on the East course,
32:30
Speaker 2: and you've got lots of tourist people coming to play
32:34
Speaker 2: these two great championship golf courses, but you have a
32:36
Speaker 2: lot of local people in Frisco going there to hang out.
32:39
Speaker 2: And because this is the cool environment. You know, the
32:41
Speaker 2: two acres of putting is free, and it sort of
32:46
Speaker 2: centers the retail village, which there's you know, different food
32:48
Speaker 2: and beverage outlets and whatnot. And so it very much
32:51
Speaker 2: has the sort of den of a of a public
32:55
Speaker 2: urban space in many many ways. But yet it all
32:58
Speaker 2: sort of worked in that the golf was sort of
32:59
Speaker 2: down in the flub. Maybe that's a unique situation, and
33:02
Speaker 2: you know, one could argue that Frisco itself is a
33:05
Speaker 2: unique place in America. But I think that even in
33:09
Speaker 2: some of our more traditional let's call it private club
33:13
Speaker 2: new development stuff, you know, it used to be that
33:16
Speaker 2: residential wanted to have you know, on golf or the
33:19
Speaker 2: big View or what have you. But what we're finding
33:22
Speaker 2: now is what the market values the most is actually
33:25
Speaker 2: density around the clubhouse or around the core as we
33:28
Speaker 2: call it, because it allows for you to have this
33:31
Speaker 2: walkable kind of experience. And so, you know, we're very
33:34
Speaker 2: much into trying to design more residential oriented places and
33:38
Speaker 2: resort oriented places where if you show up, whether you're
33:41
Speaker 2: a member or guest or what have you, that you
33:42
Speaker 2: park your car and the stays you're own property. That's
33:45
Speaker 2: really the only time you're in an automobile. Maybe you're
33:48
Speaker 2: in a golf cart. But we're trying to get it
33:50
Speaker 2: where it's like really logical to walk to lots of places,
33:53
Speaker 2: and I think that resonates on lots of levels, but
33:58
Speaker 2: it's also this human level I'm trying to speak too,
34:00
Speaker 2: because like as soon as you're walking to you know,
34:03
Speaker 2: from your cottage or house or what have you, to
34:05
Speaker 2: the club, like, you're running into other people while you're walking,
34:08
Speaker 2: and it's not just that you're zooming into a parking
34:09
Speaker 2: lot and running into a building. And so I think
34:12
Speaker 2: this sort of permeates to you know, lots and lots
34:14
Speaker 2: of stuff that we do. You know, I think golf,
34:18
Speaker 2: you know, we're seeing a lot of you know, golf redevelopment,
34:21
Speaker 2: you know, of taking existing golf courses, are existing failed spaces,
34:27
Speaker 2: what have you, and trying to sort of reimagine redevelop golf.
34:31
Speaker 2: And I think that allows us to get into sort
34:34
Speaker 2: of more closer to urban sort of situations. But there's
34:38
Speaker 2: no doubt, like in the layout of new greenfield construction,
34:41
Speaker 2: there's substantial greater connectivity that's happening amongst the different uses
34:46
Speaker 2: on site.
34:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, part of what you're saying makes me
34:50
Speaker 1: think of how the design of a golf course, the
34:57
Speaker 1: land planned of a golf course in relation to whatever
35:01
Speaker 1: development is closest to it, or whatever city is closest
35:04
Speaker 1: to it, could could change a little bit. Instead of
35:08
Speaker 1: kind of stringing out houses along the golf course, maybe
35:12
Speaker 1: instead we think about concentrating residential and retail in these
35:18
Speaker 1: particular course as you put it, and having the origin
35:22
Speaker 1: point of the golf course also be near that core.
35:26
Speaker 1: But then the golf course gets to wander out and
35:29
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily need to be developed all along its
35:34
Speaker 1: fairways right strung out so that that you know, the
35:39
Speaker 1: development is all over the place. Instead, the buildings are
35:42
Speaker 1: kind of in one spot where you can walk from
35:45
Speaker 1: place to place and then you can also go to
35:47
Speaker 1: the first t of the golf course, but the golf
35:49
Speaker 1: course then takes you out somewhere else. Does that make
35:54
Speaker 1: sense as a kind of structure for one of these
35:56
Speaker 1: places and is that sort of what you tried at Frisco?
35:58
Speaker 2: I guess yeah it does. I mean every place is different,
36:02
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of zoning and what like what
36:04
Speaker 2: the rules are, and kind of going back to the
36:06
Speaker 2: evolution of the American city and the rise of suburbia,
36:10
Speaker 2: you know, just sort of separating housing and working and
36:13
Speaker 2: shopping like all that was highly driven by zoning. And
36:17
Speaker 2: so you know, some degree you have, you know, regulatory
36:22
Speaker 2: attempts to preserve land by having large acre zoning. But
36:27
Speaker 2: what that actually does is it just spreads it all out,
36:31
Speaker 2: you know, and it spreads infrastructure out. And I think
36:34
Speaker 2: what we're seeing, you know, both is to sort of
36:37
Speaker 2: returned to urbanism, and so sometimes it manifests Elsa's new urbanism.
36:41
Speaker 2: But the whole idea of clustering development allowing denser development
36:45
Speaker 2: to happen in those clusters and sort of in trade
36:49
Speaker 2: for more open space, and so sometimes we get into
36:52
Speaker 2: locations where golf is counter is open space. Sometimes it's
36:55
Speaker 2: not counters open space, but where it is count as
36:58
Speaker 2: open space, you know, it's much easier to start talking
37:01
Speaker 2: about the sort of style of development that you just mentioned.
37:04
Speaker 2: And obviously as golfers like, we really like that. You know,
37:06
Speaker 2: that harkens back to what I tried to say too earlier.
37:09
Speaker 2: The origins of golf were exactly that.
37:10
Speaker 1: It was that the old course, basically the.
37:13
Speaker 2: Structure come out to the sea and then you come
37:16
Speaker 2: back to urban and so I think there's something that's
37:19
Speaker 2: that's really neat about that. You know, sometimes we're not
37:21
Speaker 2: able to do that with underlying zoning. Sometimes you know,
37:25
Speaker 2: clients don't want that. But I think what we're finding
37:29
Speaker 2: when I was trying to speak to earlier was like
37:30
Speaker 2: the marketplace is increasingly wanting something different I think than say,
37:36
Speaker 2: when I got involved in this business in the late eighties,
37:39
Speaker 2: where golf was like a string of pearls, you know,
37:42
Speaker 2: homes going out, I mean golf holes going out with
37:44
Speaker 2: homes on each side. Like, it's very rare these days
37:48
Speaker 2: that we were dealt with a situation where we're looking
37:51
Speaker 2: at routing, consider like have housing on each side. So
37:54
Speaker 2: at a minimum, we're starting to put you know, two
37:56
Speaker 2: holes together, if not all holes together, and any sort
37:59
Speaker 2: of other use happens sort of outside of the golf.
38:04
Speaker 1: When it comes to the golf course itself, how do
38:06
Speaker 1: you think about making a golf course a place as
38:11
Speaker 1: opposed to an empty space?
38:15
Speaker 2: I mean, so I think it starts with the golf
38:17
Speaker 2: experience itself of having, you know, something that's fun, enjoyable,
38:21
Speaker 2: and it's dramatic and there's something special about it, and
38:24
Speaker 2: you know how it's maintained what it is, And I
38:26
Speaker 2: think that's that's obviously a big part of it. But
38:29
Speaker 2: I think what happens the exponential things that happen in
38:34
Speaker 2: it and around it become super important and how that
38:38
Speaker 2: works and flows. It sort of gets back into what
38:40
Speaker 2: you're saying earlier about the concept of a cluster, like
38:44
Speaker 2: but you could have a cluster of stuff, but it's
38:46
Speaker 2: like all got to work and be intuitive and how
38:48
Speaker 2: we flow and this kind of stuff. And we've certainly
38:51
Speaker 2: seen the sort of rise of of sort of outdoor
38:55
Speaker 2: sort of food and beverage and spaces that are very
38:58
Speaker 2: much activating to say, practice facilities or short courses or
39:02
Speaker 2: short game areas as well as you know, you know,
39:05
Speaker 2: the word comfort station on the golf course is starting
39:07
Speaker 2: to morph into you know, its own huge thing. But
39:10
Speaker 2: they're to gain a common part of these things though
39:14
Speaker 2: in my mind, they're all ways to slow people down
39:17
Speaker 2: and sit and engage. And I think that's what it is.
39:20
Speaker 2: And so it's unique landscape, unique you know site, great
39:25
Speaker 2: golf real nod to flow and function that all flows
39:30
Speaker 2: and functions well as well as providing these eddies again
39:33
Speaker 2: or spaces where people can can stop and whether it
39:37
Speaker 2: means sitting and having a drink or of something to eat,
39:39
Speaker 2: or just literally a place to sit and talk or
39:42
Speaker 2: what have you. And so every site is unique and different,
39:45
Speaker 2: you know, I think that, and every project is. I
39:48
Speaker 2: think when I got bobbed in this nearly thirty years ago,
39:50
Speaker 2: I thought there'd be some sameness to projects, and I
39:53
Speaker 2: think i'm I mean, every year, I've always sort of
39:58
Speaker 2: shaken my head like how wrong I was about that,
40:00
Speaker 2: because everything always is sort of unique and different. And
40:03
Speaker 2: I think part of that is people, like the people
40:06
Speaker 2: you're working for are different. Part of it's the land
40:09
Speaker 2: itself is sort of different. And then the world is
40:11
Speaker 2: sort of changing all the time, and so you know,
40:13
Speaker 2: we talk about things now that we never used to
40:16
Speaker 2: talk about. And I was down somewhere last week and
40:20
Speaker 2: someone was trying to commit someone they needed to convert
40:24
Speaker 2: part of their course to into a short course, and
40:30
Speaker 2: and I started getting questioned a lot about well, you know,
40:32
Speaker 2: how do you know that this isn't a fad? You know,
40:34
Speaker 2: maybe a short course is just a fad. And like you,
40:37
Speaker 2: I can't predict the future. I don't know, maybe it is.
40:39
Speaker 2: But like I could see someone saying a practice range
40:41
Speaker 2: is not just going to be a fad, you know,
40:44
Speaker 2: I did, And I think, what's what's happening is that
40:49
Speaker 2: of digressed me your question. But it used to be
40:51
Speaker 2: people call you up and say I want eighteen holes
40:52
Speaker 2: and the expectations want eighteen holes at a practice range. Now
40:55
Speaker 2: when they say, hey, we're designed new eighteen old golf course,
40:57
Speaker 2: they really mean eighteen holes practice range, big time, short
41:02
Speaker 2: game areas, short course, lots of activated outdoor space, you know,
41:06
Speaker 2: all kinds of things. And so I think that it's
41:08
Speaker 2: it's all changed, and I'm very respective of the past.
41:13
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the beauties of the game
41:15
Speaker 2: is that it is the royal and ancient game. But
41:17
Speaker 2: I'm very much a forward thinking person and so it's
41:20
Speaker 2: very much about the future, and so I try to
41:22
Speaker 2: be aware of like how things are changing, and I
41:25
Speaker 2: happen to be involved in Olympic stuff and this whole
41:28
Speaker 2: other story. But Thomas bott, the current president, I see,
41:32
Speaker 2: you know, talks about change or be changed, and so
41:35
Speaker 2: I'm very much into the how do we change and
41:38
Speaker 2: adapt to, you know, because the species is constantly changing
41:40
Speaker 2: and adapting.
41:42
Speaker 1: So do you think that these amenities that many developers
41:46
Speaker 1: now want on golf courses, like short courses and you know,
41:50
Speaker 1: well designed practice facilities and Himalayas style putting greens and
41:55
Speaker 1: things like that, are those opportunities for more place building
41:59
Speaker 1: at golf facilities in your mind?
42:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, total one hundred percent. So I mean that's what
42:03
Speaker 2: I think I was trying to say, and I got
42:04
Speaker 2: off track there, but exactly, I mean, I think those
42:07
Speaker 2: very much are. And you know, they resonate a lot
42:09
Speaker 2: of levels too, because if you look at recreational activities
42:14
Speaker 2: in the United States sort of prior to COVID that
42:16
Speaker 2: were really growing quite dramatically. They all were what I
42:21
Speaker 2: what we call they were unstructured in time, meaning you
42:24
Speaker 2: could decide to do them for fifteen minutes, you can
42:27
Speaker 2: decide to do them for fifteen hours, and so they
42:29
Speaker 2: tend to be things like running, hiking, biking, walking, you know,
42:31
Speaker 2: things like that. Golf has always been very very structured
42:35
Speaker 2: in time, in that you know, if you and I
42:36
Speaker 2: want to play golf, we have to show up at
42:38
Speaker 2: ten ten and go march out for four or five hours.
42:41
Speaker 2: The thing that's been unstructured in time is practice. But
42:44
Speaker 2: they're people like me that get bored just hitting golf balls,
42:47
Speaker 2: and so part of the rise I think of short
42:50
Speaker 2: courses and short game areas and all this sort of
42:52
Speaker 2: what i'd call exponential practice is a much interesting way
42:56
Speaker 2: to go do something in a short amount of time
42:57
Speaker 2: and amount of time that you can control. I think
42:59
Speaker 2: that's very interesting. And then we're big data people. So
43:03
Speaker 2: if you look at how a good player outperforms a
43:06
Speaker 2: lesser player, it's it's not putting like we've been taught,
43:10
Speaker 2: you know, drive for show, putt for dough. But the
43:12
Speaker 2: reality is nobody really can putt like a PGA tour
43:15
Speaker 2: player missus fIF ten foot putts. But what a short
43:18
Speaker 2: course does. It starts to eliminate some of the shots
43:21
Speaker 2: that it's hard for so many people. And it starts
43:24
Speaker 2: to bring people closer together in terms of skill level
43:28
Speaker 2: and performance possibilities. And so that could be you know,
43:33
Speaker 2: you and I, but it could be you know, you
43:37
Speaker 2: and your children, or you and your father. Whatever it is.
43:39
Speaker 2: It's just a way to really bring people together. And
43:42
Speaker 2: I think that's really really interesting. And I think, you know,
43:45
Speaker 2: if you have these interesting places, that's more than just greens,
43:48
Speaker 2: teas and bunkers. That contributes to place and contributes to
43:51
Speaker 2: what's special. I think what we're changing though, like how
43:54
Speaker 2: we how the species values place, it's changing. And so
44:00
Speaker 2: not to throw too many stats since you but seventy
44:02
Speaker 2: one percent of all rounds of golf since COVID been
44:05
Speaker 2: played by people under the age of fifty, and so
44:08
Speaker 2: as this youth movement in golf is happening, the expectations
44:12
Speaker 2: are very very different, something less formal, more adaptive to
44:17
Speaker 2: their lifestyle. You know, all this stuff I'm trying to
44:20
Speaker 2: speak to, and so like what might you know, like
44:23
Speaker 2: I send people sometimes to Bluejack National place we do
44:25
Speaker 2: with Tiger outside of Houston, and every once in a while,
44:28
Speaker 2: I send like an older sort of traditionalist and like
44:30
Speaker 2: they don't like it, they find it unsettling, like that
44:33
Speaker 2: it's too much. But you send a younger person and
44:35
Speaker 2: like this is like adult Disneyland kind of thing. And
44:38
Speaker 2: so I think we're in this sort of flux mode.
44:41
Speaker 2: But you've got to realize that who's playing golf is
44:45
Speaker 2: very much changing, and there's lots of stuff wormholes. I
44:48
Speaker 2: can go down about that too, of this new demographic
44:51
Speaker 2: or demographics that are coming into golf. And frankly this
44:54
Speaker 2: is because of all this I'm trying to speak to.
44:56
Speaker 2: It's like the most exciting time in my thirty years
44:58
Speaker 2: of golf is literally right now.
45:02
Speaker 1: Part of this is the different offerings of a golf course.
45:05
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like there's a bit of a
45:08
Speaker 1: move away from the conventional eighteen hole round and toward
45:12
Speaker 1: a more varied experience at a at a golf facility.
45:15
Speaker 1: I've seen this pulled off in some really great ways
45:18
Speaker 1: and in some less effective ways. I think it's probably
45:22
Speaker 1: all in the execution of these things. But certainly, if
45:25
Speaker 1: you look at a short course like the Cradle at
45:28
Speaker 1: Pinehurst that's been extremely successful, I think partly because of
45:32
Speaker 1: its footprint and its location. It's right there in amongst everything.
45:36
Speaker 1: It is a kind of concentration of activity and energy,
45:40
Speaker 1: and you can't help but want to be part of it.
45:42
Speaker 1: And that seems to be something that's really crucial to
45:46
Speaker 1: the success of one of these short courses or putting
45:48
Speaker 1: courses is just where they are in relation to everything else.
45:53
Speaker 1: You know that that can be the make or break decision.
45:57
Speaker 2: Theretive I was trying to speak to earlier about the
45:59
Speaker 2: flo and the connection and so the functionality kind of
46:02
Speaker 2: how all this works. I don't think to me, the
46:05
Speaker 2: stuff is it's additive. It's not like in lieu of
46:09
Speaker 2: so like to me, you still have to have great
46:11
Speaker 2: eighteen yearl golf course. It's just I think the expectation
46:13
Speaker 2: is that these other manifestations of golf, and you know
46:16
Speaker 2: what the National Golf Foundations, you know, have stats on
46:19
Speaker 2: what they call off course golf, which is all the
46:21
Speaker 2: golf entertainment stuff, and then on course golf. But it's
46:24
Speaker 2: the only a matter of time for the word is
46:26
Speaker 2: going to be used around all of this, because it's
46:28
Speaker 2: it's starting to just overlap kind of everywhere. And I
46:31
Speaker 2: think that's going to continue. So it's it's not to
46:33
Speaker 2: me that there's not a need for traditional eighteen holes
46:36
Speaker 2: of golf. I think that's very much is. It's just
46:37
Speaker 2: that there might be times in your life or in
46:39
Speaker 2: your day where you want to have another version of golf.
46:42
Speaker 2: And you know, the one thing that's happened in the
46:44
Speaker 2: course of my lifetime is just the options we have
46:47
Speaker 2: as consumers just going to keeps going up and up
46:49
Speaker 2: and up. You know. I remember a day when there
46:51
Speaker 2: were there were three televisions, three stations, three channels on
46:56
Speaker 2: the Welling household television. And now you look in there
46:59
Speaker 2: their thousand and some different you know, channels or stations.
47:03
Speaker 2: And my kids don't even watch television or television, so
47:06
Speaker 2: like it's all sort of changing. And I just think
47:08
Speaker 2: golf is sort of stuck in this box for a
47:09
Speaker 2: long time. It's stuck might not be the right word,
47:12
Speaker 2: but we were in this box for a long time,
47:14
Speaker 2: and I think that box is very much changing or
47:16
Speaker 2: and so to me, it's very exciting. It's like very
47:20
Speaker 2: very innovative, like you know what's going to be next,
47:22
Speaker 2: and you know, obviously with TGL and the screen stuff
47:25
Speaker 2: that you see happening. You know, there's no doubt that
47:27
Speaker 2: there's going to be a big virtual component to this
47:29
Speaker 2: going forward. And we've been for years now working on
47:33
Speaker 2: various ideas around virtual of how do we take advantage
47:37
Speaker 2: of everything in the virtual but still have human connection
47:39
Speaker 2: and place making kind of around it. So I just
47:43
Speaker 2: think the runway for what's going to happen in golf
47:45
Speaker 2: is just going to continue to evolve, which is exciting.
47:49
Speaker 1: Well, when it comes to the traditional eighteen whole round itself,
47:52
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's necessarily going away, even if it's
47:56
Speaker 1: no longer as fully central to a golf facility perhaps
48:01
Speaker 1: as it used to be. But when you design an
48:04
Speaker 1: eighteen whole course a regulation golf course, are there different
48:08
Speaker 1: ways of routing the course or different things that you
48:11
Speaker 1: think about doing that can enhance connections between different players,
48:17
Speaker 1: even between players in different groups.
48:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we've known to go through fifty seventy
48:24
Speaker 2: one hundred different versions of a routing plan before we
48:26
Speaker 2: settle on something. But you know, we're worried about individual
48:30
Speaker 2: golf holes and having enough space and width to play
48:33
Speaker 2: because we think that's what allows to create an experience
48:36
Speaker 2: where everyone can enjoy if it's to be super narrow,
48:39
Speaker 2: that it starts to be not so fun for higher handicappers.
48:43
Speaker 2: But we really like the idea of looping golf in
48:45
Speaker 2: different ways and PJ. Frisco is a good example where
48:50
Speaker 2: you know, the one is relatively close to the core,
48:54
Speaker 2: but eighteen's kind of far. But like we go hit
48:56
Speaker 2: the sort of central overlook amenity, you know, three different times,
49:00
Speaker 2: and that's somewhat by design, Like we wanted the idea
49:03
Speaker 2: of you know, you're there on a buddy's golf trip
49:05
Speaker 2: and you've you've met somebody at the restaurant to the
49:08
Speaker 2: hotel the night before, you run into them with the range,
49:10
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you're both playing in the
49:11
Speaker 2: west course and you've run into each other two or
49:13
Speaker 2: three different times the sort of overlook. So like all
49:16
Speaker 2: this by a design and there's some intentionality to it,
49:18
Speaker 2: and that overlook has fire, piss and ways to stop
49:20
Speaker 2: and hang out. And so we're I think we're kind
49:23
Speaker 2: of thinking through all of that, thinking about the game itself,
49:25
Speaker 2: of how to have this experience that everybody can play
49:28
Speaker 2: and play together, But then we're also thinking about, you know,
49:30
Speaker 2: can we have these moments and it put people together,
49:34
Speaker 2: and we're hap to be fortunate. Right now, we're doing
49:37
Speaker 2: blue Jack Ranch. I mentioned blue Jack National down in Houston.
49:40
Speaker 2: We're doing his cousin now in Fort Worth. And you know,
49:44
Speaker 2: there's been such success of these comfort stations a Bluejack
49:47
Speaker 2: National that that's a central thesis of the development of
49:51
Speaker 2: you know, not just the golf, and like, how can
49:53
Speaker 2: these things be accessible to people within the community and
49:56
Speaker 2: they become an essence venues or gathering spots to help
49:59
Speaker 2: them knit the whole entirety of the community together.
50:03
Speaker 1: Well, Bo, this has been a really interesting discussion a
50:06
Speaker 1: topic that maybe doesn't get talked about that much, but
50:10
Speaker 1: you are really great at explaining some of the finer
50:14
Speaker 1: details of it. So it's been very interesting for me
50:17
Speaker 1: to hear you get into it. Thanks so much, and
50:20
Speaker 1: good luck with your all the projects you have going
50:23
Speaker 1: on right now.
50:23
Speaker 2: You can always like new things or different perspective, and
50:27
Speaker 2: so you get a triple gold star. So I really
50:30
Speaker 2: appreciate you having me on to think about these things,
50:32
Speaker 2: talk about these things. So thank you very much.
50:34
Speaker 1: All Right, thanks so much. Bub This episode of Designing
50:42
Speaker 1: Golf was produced by PJ.
50:44
Speaker 2: Clark.
50:45
Speaker 1: Thank you PJ. If you've been enjoying the Designing Golf podcast,
50:49
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50:51
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50:56
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50:58
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51:01
Speaker 1: in there that you would be interested in if you've
51:04
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51:08
Speaker 1: next week. Actually we're usually on this every two week cadence,
51:12
Speaker 1: but we have a Master's themed episode that we just
51:16
Speaker 1: wanted to get out before Master's Week itself started, so
51:20
Speaker 1: look for that coming to your feeds pretty soon. Thank
51:24
Speaker 1: you for listening, and I'll see you again next week.