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The Four Golf Courses That Shaped Geoff Ogilvy · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: Jeff Ogilvie is a US Open champion and firmly in
0:03
Speaker 1: the pantheon of Australian golfers. He also happens to be
0:07
Speaker 1: one of the sharpest thinkers and most engaging talkers in
0:10
Speaker 1: the game, as well as a golf course architect. His
0:13
Speaker 1: firm OCM is behind some really exciting projects, like the
0:17
Speaker 1: recent redesign of Course three at Medinah Country Club. So
0:21
Speaker 1: today I want to learn more about how Jeff Ogilvie's
0:24
Speaker 1: golf brain developed, and to do that, I'm going to
0:28
Speaker 1: talk to him about the four golf courses that most
0:31
Speaker 1: influenced him. I'm Garrett Morrison and this is Designing Golf, Jeff.
0:42
Speaker 1: I gave you an assignment for this podcast. I asked
0:46
Speaker 1: you to think about four courses that have shaped you
0:50
Speaker 1: or influenced you in some significant way. They don't have
0:53
Speaker 1: to be architecturally great courses or anything like that, but
0:57
Speaker 1: I had you think about that subject before where we talked.
1:00
Speaker 1: Was that was that kind of a fun assignment or
1:02
Speaker 1: was it a pain that I asked you to do this?
1:04
Speaker 2: No? It was It was interesting actually, because I mean
1:06
Speaker 2: you would instantly go to childhood and growing up and
1:12
Speaker 2: obviously grew up in this area, and then other stuff
1:15
Speaker 2: I've played overseas, But if does it really influence you
1:18
Speaker 2: if you haven't played at a lot of times, you know.
1:21
Speaker 2: So I've got one from oversas and three from rod here.
1:23
Speaker 1: Actually, Oh interesting, Okay. I was wondering what percentage might
1:27
Speaker 1: be in the Melbourne area, which is where we are
1:30
Speaker 1: right now. We're actually filming this at Victoria Golf Club.
1:32
Speaker 1: We've just played around out there. Absolutely delightful course and
1:38
Speaker 1: one of many really really good courses in the Australian
1:42
Speaker 1: Sad Belt. So you have kind of a rich array
1:45
Speaker 1: to choose from among childhood courses. I would imagine a
1:49
Speaker 1: lot of people their childhood courses might not be good courses,
1:54
Speaker 1: but for you like it, there might be some some
1:57
Speaker 1: of the world's greatest courses among those you played when
2:01
Speaker 1: you were pretty young.
2:01
Speaker 2: Oh, and I was so lucky. I grew up I
2:04
Speaker 2: don't know, two miles from this spot, probably just over
2:07
Speaker 2: the other side of Royal Melbourne. I was about probably
2:12
Speaker 2: a driver five iron from the fence at Royal Melbourne.
2:15
Speaker 2: So and I was playing golf at a very young age.
2:18
Speaker 2: And when I got my first little golf clubs. I
2:20
Speaker 2: was chipping around in the back garden with Dad following around,
2:23
Speaker 2: and then I think he saw that I was really interested,
2:25
Speaker 2: so I got the little half cut down set out
2:27
Speaker 2: of the mixed barrel, you know, like back in the
2:29
Speaker 2: old days when the pro shops had the loose clubs
2:32
Speaker 2: and the mixed barrels of clubs. Dad made me up
2:35
Speaker 2: a little half set of those, and he used to
2:37
Speaker 2: take me to Sandy which is now Sandy Lynx, but
2:40
Speaker 2: it was centering him golf Gold Golf Club, I guess
2:43
Speaker 2: public golf course most Sundays. I seem to remember. He'd
2:47
Speaker 2: go and play his club golf on Saturday. He was
2:49
Speaker 2: a member at Yariara at first, and he ended up
2:51
Speaker 2: being a member at Victoria, so he would go play
2:53
Speaker 2: on Saturdays, and then Sunday was dad Ny day. And
2:55
Speaker 2: this was from probably seven or eight. We were doing
2:57
Speaker 2: this what felt like to me every weekend. I'm sure
3:00
Speaker 2: it wasn't. When you're a kid, your memories are a
3:01
Speaker 2: bit I think, so Sandy I would have said, I
3:04
Speaker 2: think I told you today. I think eighty of my
3:08
Speaker 2: first one hundred rounds of golf were probably at Sandy
3:12
Speaker 2: at that age, because that age, public golf is the
3:14
Speaker 2: only access you could back then. It's a little different now,
3:17
Speaker 2: but accessing these sand belts and the private golf clubs
3:19
Speaker 2: in Melbourne was pretty much impossible until you were sort
3:21
Speaker 2: of fourteen fifteen sixteen. So the first course that I
3:26
Speaker 2: ever really sort of played a lot and fell in
3:29
Speaker 2: love with it was my home course for Sandy, which
3:31
Speaker 2: is right next door to Real Melbourne. And at the
3:33
Speaker 2: same time while that was happening, there was tournaments. This
3:37
Speaker 2: is in the eighties, sort of from early eighties through
3:40
Speaker 2: to sort of early nineties, there was a tournament at
3:43
Speaker 2: Royal Melbourne. It felt like every year there was a
3:46
Speaker 2: Strain Open. In eighty four there was I think this
3:49
Speaker 2: Rain Open. In eighty five, this Rain Open eighty seven.
3:52
Speaker 2: There was a tournament called the bar Centennial Classic in
3:56
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight, which was half a million dollars to win.
3:58
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty eight was a mega tournament. It was
4:00
Speaker 2: the biggest tournament in the world. I think that year
4:03
Speaker 2: Nicholas came, Norman Game, Fred Kupeles ended up losing in
4:06
Speaker 2: a playoff to a guy called Roger Davis. In Australian
4:10
Speaker 2: Crenshaw was there Payne, Stewart was there, Tom Watson like everybody.
4:13
Speaker 2: Watson won the Australian Open in eighty four. Like the
4:16
Speaker 2: who's who of golf were here in the eighties, at
4:19
Speaker 2: right next door to where I grew up. So I
4:21
Speaker 2: used to sneak up the side of the fence at
4:25
Speaker 2: Royal Melbourne and jump over the fence to get into
4:28
Speaker 2: these golf tournaments to watch these guys play. So I
4:30
Speaker 2: would play golf at Sandy, but I would watch the
4:34
Speaker 2: best players in the world player Royal Melbourne. So those
4:35
Speaker 2: two sort of go hand in hand. One and I
4:37
Speaker 2: was playing a lot, and the other one I was
4:38
Speaker 2: watching the best from the world play. And then eventually
4:43
Speaker 2: I became a caddy at Royal Melbourne where they still
4:45
Speaker 2: had They don't really have caddy programs here anymore. There's
4:47
Speaker 2: caddies that you can get if you sort of order
4:49
Speaker 2: them in then they will caddy at all the courses around.
4:51
Speaker 2: But back then they were the last Melbourne course to
4:54
Speaker 2: have a caddy program, and I was I think thirteen.
4:59
Speaker 2: You could start becoming a caddy and you would caddy
5:02
Speaker 2: on the weekends. You would turn up and you would
5:03
Speaker 2: sit out the back of the pro shop and be
5:05
Speaker 2: beckoned when you were required and go caddy for one
5:08
Speaker 2: of the members. And we've got ten dollars I remember,
5:10
Speaker 2: which I thought was all the money in the world,
5:11
Speaker 2: but maybe not as much money as I felt like
5:13
Speaker 2: five hours out dragging someone's clubs around, and so I
5:17
Speaker 2: caddy a little bit. But the best deal about being
5:19
Speaker 2: a caddy was they let us play the East Course
5:22
Speaker 2: at Royal Melbourne after four thirty full access. You could
5:25
Speaker 2: do whatever you want because the course was empty. None
5:27
Speaker 2: of the members went out there after four thirty, So
5:30
Speaker 2: at four twenty nine one would drop me off at
5:31
Speaker 2: Roll Melbourne and I would go play the East Course
5:33
Speaker 2: every day in summer. For years, we weren't anywhere we
5:37
Speaker 2: went anywhere it allowed anywhere near the West Course, because
5:40
Speaker 2: that was sort of the deal with caddies, which which
5:42
Speaker 2: at the time everybody kind of has always given it. Well,
5:45
Speaker 2: the West Course is better than the East, but it's
5:47
Speaker 2: really not that different. They're really great. The best part
5:50
Speaker 2: about the East Course for me was six of the
5:51
Speaker 2: composite holes, and the composite course is the one that
5:53
Speaker 2: they played the tournaments on were on the East Course,
5:57
Speaker 2: so I got to play these holes that I'd seen
5:59
Speaker 2: Nicholas and Normal and Tom Watson and all these guys play.
6:01
Speaker 2: So those two courses especially were the beginning of my golf.
6:07
Speaker 2: I had the local municipal public course and I had
6:10
Speaker 2: one of the best golf courses in the world. It's
6:12
Speaker 2: right next door to each other. For the experience, it
6:14
Speaker 2: was pretty amazing.
6:15
Speaker 1: So your first two of four would be Sandy Golf
6:18
Speaker 1: Links or Sandringham.
6:19
Speaker 2: It was Sandringham Golf Club golf course at that point. Yeah,
6:22
Speaker 2: and then it's evolved in the Sandy LINKX Yeah and.
6:24
Speaker 1: The East Course at Royal Melbourne. Well, let's talk about
6:27
Speaker 1: Sandy a little bit more for people who aren't familiar
6:29
Speaker 1: with this area or that course. What is kind of
6:33
Speaker 1: the role of that course in this area, what's the
6:36
Speaker 1: course like, what are some of the basics about Sandy
6:39
Speaker 1: Golf Links.
6:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I guess it's a city course owned by
6:42
Speaker 2: the council or it's it's government land, so it's it's
6:45
Speaker 2: a public access golf course. Always been pretty cheap. It
6:48
Speaker 2: had the best pro shop in Melbourne at the time,
6:50
Speaker 2: back when pro shops were really really exciting. Now we've
6:52
Speaker 2: got Taylor made Titlist. Galloway stricks On and a few
6:56
Speaker 2: little bits and hangers on, But back then you had
6:57
Speaker 2: you'd have all the it had sort of there was
7:02
Speaker 2: fifty different companies that made golf clubs. Back you'd have
7:04
Speaker 2: Links and like Honmar was in there, and the Mazino stuff,
7:08
Speaker 2: and we'd have exotic Japanese stuff and all the different
7:11
Speaker 2: Ballada balls, like the rec Stars and all the different stuff,
7:15
Speaker 2: and all the gloves, and they'd have foot Joy Classics
7:17
Speaker 2: in there, and all the pink putters which we used
7:19
Speaker 2: to bore over, and the ping wedges were really cool
7:22
Speaker 2: in the day. And they'd have Walter Hagen Crenshaw grinds,
7:25
Speaker 2: you know, remember those, the blades and Persimmon woods, and
7:28
Speaker 2: he'd had everything. So we'd hang out in the pro
7:30
Speaker 2: shop after the round. Dad loved to pro shop well
7:31
Speaker 2: as well. So it had a great shop that was
7:35
Speaker 2: sort of the we're here at the Ray Drummonds, which
7:38
Speaker 2: is the big golf superstore in America's like Nevada Bob's
7:41
Speaker 2: or something like that. That was one of those that
7:43
Speaker 2: was one of the original, one of those where you
7:44
Speaker 2: would go to buy golf clubs. So it was a
7:46
Speaker 2: great club from that respect. So it was sort of
7:48
Speaker 2: a public golf shop, but it was also a public
7:50
Speaker 2: access golf course that was very busy. You'd get on
7:53
Speaker 2: the phone seven o'clock in the morning on Monday to
7:56
Speaker 2: try to get a tea time, a good tea time
7:58
Speaker 2: on Saturday morning, like all the great busy public courses
8:01
Speaker 2: around the world. And it was not sand belt level
8:06
Speaker 2: golf at that point. It's sort of become that way
8:08
Speaker 2: now and I'll get to that point, get there. But
8:09
Speaker 2: it was sort of where everybody could go play golf
8:12
Speaker 2: because surrounded with all these great sand belt courses, they
8:14
Speaker 2: were all super private and if you didn't know a member,
8:17
Speaker 2: you couldn't get on. That was a way to play
8:20
Speaker 2: golf on the sand Belt for everybody, you know, and
8:23
Speaker 2: pretty cheap. I think I used to I used to
8:25
Speaker 2: be able to play nine holes. I remember when I
8:27
Speaker 2: was really young, we could nine holes during the week
8:30
Speaker 2: was two dollars, which is pretty accessible for anybody. I mean,
8:33
Speaker 2: it's it is two dollars. Isn't what two dollars used
8:36
Speaker 2: to be, but it was probably the equivalent of four
8:37
Speaker 2: or five dollars now. Thirty or so years ago, we
8:41
Speaker 2: could go out and play nine holes with our friends
8:43
Speaker 2: after school and it would cost us two dollars. It
8:44
Speaker 2: was amazing.
8:46
Speaker 1: And when you say that it's next door to Royal Melbourne,
8:49
Speaker 1: it's not like down the street or you know, a
8:52
Speaker 1: little ways away. It's right in there. There's a part
8:56
Speaker 1: of the West Course that's kind of kind of pokes
8:59
Speaker 1: into the property at Sandy a little bit, so it's
9:02
Speaker 1: really now. Yeah, it's part of the same kind of
9:06
Speaker 1: land that all these great courses are part of, which
9:09
Speaker 1: is kind of amazing for it.
9:10
Speaker 2: It's kind of the same like I, like I said,
9:12
Speaker 2: if you could, if you look at the Google Maps,
9:14
Speaker 2: especially when you do it on the satellite version, and
9:16
Speaker 2: you just see all the green and all the golf
9:18
Speaker 2: course around here with Victoria Sandy and Royal Melbourne. And
9:21
Speaker 2: Royal Melbourne has thirty six holes. There's seventy two holes
9:24
Speaker 2: of golf right in the middle of suburbia, all touching
9:27
Speaker 2: each other. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. So the gates of
9:30
Speaker 2: Sandy are directly opposite the gates of Royal Melbourne. And
9:35
Speaker 2: they used to have a great cafe too, and it
9:37
Speaker 2: was used to be we'd watch all the pros like
9:39
Speaker 2: Norman and these guys hit balls on the range and
9:42
Speaker 2: they would go and have lunch. This is pre when
9:44
Speaker 2: this is pre pros didn't get looked after at that point.
9:46
Speaker 2: They would all walk across to Sandy to the cafe
9:49
Speaker 2: to have lunch while they were playing the Australian Open
9:51
Speaker 2: and then come back and play there round at the
9:53
Speaker 2: Australian Open. So Norman would be walking down the drive
9:55
Speaker 2: at Roll Melbourne, across the road up the driveway at
9:58
Speaker 2: Sandy to go have his lunch before his round. So
10:00
Speaker 2: this is sort of how I grew up. With Sandy
10:03
Speaker 2: being the public access version of the sand Belt. It
10:07
Speaker 2: was just sort of your introduction to the game. Really,
10:09
Speaker 2: if you want to get interested in golf, come play
10:11
Speaker 2: Sandy for a while, and if you really get into it,
10:13
Speaker 2: you'll meet a bunch of people and you'll end up
10:15
Speaker 2: knowing a few people who are members at one of
10:16
Speaker 2: these places, and then you can come play you can
10:19
Speaker 2: join one of these clubs. So it's been a really
10:22
Speaker 2: important part of the landscape because golf can be quite exclusive,
10:27
Speaker 2: and in Melbourne aspects of golf is very exclusive and
10:30
Speaker 2: sort of closed door and hard to get in. But
10:33
Speaker 2: right next door is an open arms policy. Everybody can
10:36
Speaker 2: come in from little kids to old people first time
10:39
Speaker 2: you've ever played golf, to beginners to everybody can go
10:43
Speaker 2: there and play pretty reasonably high quality golf course for
10:45
Speaker 2: the price, right in the heart of some of the
10:48
Speaker 2: best golf golf in the world. It's incredible.
10:51
Speaker 1: Now your firm OCM has had an opportunity to do
10:55
Speaker 1: a bit of work at Sandy Can you tell me
10:58
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you did there.
11:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it was a very it was a big
11:03
Speaker 2: project on sort of master planning sort of sense in
11:07
Speaker 2: the Golf Australia, who's our version of the USGA and
11:12
Speaker 2: the PGA of Australia sort of got together with the
11:16
Speaker 2: state government of Victoria and wanted to create sort of
11:19
Speaker 2: a head office for those guys, a center point for
11:25
Speaker 2: the high performance golfers in the state. So great training
11:29
Speaker 2: facilities and they wanted to build it all in the
11:31
Speaker 2: heart of the sand Belt, which is right across there
11:34
Speaker 2: from Royal Melbourne. Role Melbourne was involved because they now
11:37
Speaker 2: sort of have they operate Sandy Links, so they help
11:44
Speaker 2: maintain the course, look after the greens, look after the fairways.
11:48
Speaker 2: So there's an efficiency there with the with all the
11:50
Speaker 2: machines and stuff and it's right there across the road,
11:52
Speaker 2: so it's kind of roll. Melbourne's kind of looking after
11:54
Speaker 2: fifty four holes. So we got a chance. And part
11:58
Speaker 2: of the development is they wanted to build a driving range,
12:01
Speaker 2: one end for public driving range and the other end
12:03
Speaker 2: for the elite golfers. Like I said, so we lost
12:07
Speaker 2: the first and the ninth holes at the traditional golf
12:10
Speaker 2: course and that became the new driving range aslong with
12:14
Speaker 2: a big old clubhouse they built with all the gyms
12:18
Speaker 2: and then all the admin officers for basically golf is
12:21
Speaker 2: run in Australia from that building at Sandy Lynx. So
12:25
Speaker 2: we had to now fit eighteen holes. We thought maybe
12:29
Speaker 2: could we be twelve holes, do we do nine holes
12:32
Speaker 2: and a little path three course or there was lots
12:34
Speaker 2: of sort of options on the table and it seemed
12:36
Speaker 2: like the appetite was really for let's have an eighteen
12:38
Speaker 2: hole golf course. So we then had to fit eighteen
12:41
Speaker 2: holes into the spot where sixteen holes were just in.
12:43
Speaker 2: So we had to make it a bit shorter. There's
12:44
Speaker 2: lots of path threes. It's quite a short course. But
12:48
Speaker 2: we built sand belt greens, especially sand belt greens raw
12:52
Speaker 2: Melbourne like greens. With Rawal Melbourne bunkers and the same turf,
12:55
Speaker 2: the same construction and turf as Royal Melbourne because they
12:59
Speaker 2: were going to be looking after it, and so there
13:00
Speaker 2: was an efficiency in having the same eighteen greens over
13:03
Speaker 2: the road. So now it's even better than what I
13:06
Speaker 2: grew up with. I grew up with typical municipal conditions
13:09
Speaker 2: as you imagined in the eighties, as anyone who did
13:11
Speaker 2: that can probably remember to Now you've got eighteen Royal
13:14
Speaker 2: Melbourn level greens that are firm that bunkers cut right
13:18
Speaker 2: up to the edge like you'll get on the sand belt.
13:20
Speaker 2: So you have a true sand belt experience for forty
13:24
Speaker 2: dollars on a weekend probably for a round of golf
13:28
Speaker 2: and quite short lots of path threes and a really
13:32
Speaker 2: really fun golf course to play, and it's the most
13:35
Speaker 2: it's an even better entry to the game, entry and
13:37
Speaker 2: exit from golf and beginning plays to learn how to play.
13:41
Speaker 2: There's enough there for all the elite players who like
13:43
Speaker 2: playing there. There's sand belt type green so you can
13:46
Speaker 2: have some really tough pins and a lot of slopes
13:48
Speaker 2: and if you want to get good at playing sand
13:50
Speaker 2: belt golf, that is a really good place to sort
13:53
Speaker 2: of learn your craft. It's like a small version of
13:57
Speaker 2: the Biggert sand Belt courses, so it's it was a
14:00
Speaker 2: great place when I was a kid, but it's evolved
14:02
Speaker 2: and there's a great driving range and I said, all
14:04
Speaker 2: the great players will hang out there every morning and
14:06
Speaker 2: stuff and get better. And as I said, it's sort
14:09
Speaker 2: of the heartbeat of Australian golf, all in the one spot,
14:12
Speaker 2: which is very appropriate. That's right across from Royal Melbourne
14:14
Speaker 2: and right in the heart of the sand belt. So
14:16
Speaker 2: it's evolved into a really special place and it was
14:18
Speaker 2: a really fun project for us because all three of
14:20
Speaker 2: us spent a lot of time there when we were
14:23
Speaker 2: kids and sort of we knew how important a place
14:26
Speaker 2: and sort of the Melbourne golf landscape. Sandy took and
14:28
Speaker 2: it came out and it's the finished product is better
14:35
Speaker 2: than we could have imagined to have. All the parties
14:40
Speaker 2: that were involved would usually turn into a bit of
14:42
Speaker 2: a mess, but it actually worked out amazingly well, and
14:45
Speaker 2: with Royal Melbourne sort of the custodians of Sandy, it's
14:48
Speaker 2: sort of preserved, you want to think for a really
14:50
Speaker 2: long time because they're going to look after it like
14:52
Speaker 2: it's their own, you know.
14:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think everybody fantasized is about going back to
14:56
Speaker 1: their childhood course and being able to prove it. So
15:01
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty cool that you got an opportunity to
15:03
Speaker 1: do that basically.
15:04
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, amazing, it was. It was a dream
15:06
Speaker 2: job really. Yeah. Cool.
15:08
Speaker 1: So the second course you mentioned is the East Course
15:10
Speaker 1: at Royal Melbourne. This is the first course I actually
15:13
Speaker 1: played when I came to the sand Belt. I mean
15:15
Speaker 1: this kind of second day of my trip right now.
15:19
Speaker 1: The East Course was my first exposure to to sand
15:22
Speaker 1: Belt golf. Remarkable golf course. Obviously you got to play
15:26
Speaker 1: it a good bit as a as a caddy. This
15:29
Speaker 1: was sort of the accessible, more accessible course of the
15:32
Speaker 1: two at Royal Melbourne. What are some things about the
15:35
Speaker 1: I mean we're getting in now getting into extremely advanced
15:40
Speaker 1: golf course architecture and talking about real Melbourne East. What
15:44
Speaker 1: were some of the things that you noticed about that
15:46
Speaker 1: course when you were playing it in your early days
15:50
Speaker 1: that that helped you learn about what a good golf
15:54
Speaker 1: course is.
15:57
Speaker 2: It wasn't really and I think I'll we chatted about
16:00
Speaker 2: this out in the golf course when we were talking
16:02
Speaker 2: about something else, But I think it wasn't really I
16:05
Speaker 2: played it. I thought that was normal because I'd grown
16:09
Speaker 2: up next door to this. Everyone would tell us, oh, Jeff,
16:12
Speaker 2: you're very lucky you live next door to one of
16:13
Speaker 2: the best courses in the world. But Australians don't really
16:16
Speaker 2: ever believe that sort of thing. We're just like, oh, yeah,
16:18
Speaker 2: it's good. But like you look at the courses in America,
16:20
Speaker 2: they're all green and the sanders white, the big pine trees,
16:23
Speaker 2: and you sort of the grass is always greener, so
16:25
Speaker 2: you aspire to go to other places. Yeah. Literally, in
16:29
Speaker 2: this sense, it wasn't really until so I grew up
16:35
Speaker 2: playing that course, and then obviously later on I got
16:38
Speaker 2: to play the West Course a lot, But it wasn't
16:41
Speaker 2: until I went away that the longer I've played, and
16:45
Speaker 2: the more different courses I've playing, the longer the further
16:49
Speaker 2: I get from the beginning experience, the more I see
16:52
Speaker 2: the genius and the amazing thing that Roll Melwyn actually is.
16:57
Speaker 2: To me, it was just amazing fair ways and incredibly
16:59
Speaker 2: fast greens and really tough bunker shots, and as a kid,
17:04
Speaker 2: you're a little bit sort of sadistic about it. You're
17:06
Speaker 2: always going to try to find the hardest shot you can,
17:08
Speaker 2: and I'd always take my dad's blade one one out there,
17:11
Speaker 2: and I always wanted it to be hard. It was
17:13
Speaker 2: less about the golf course, and it's just stuff. I
17:15
Speaker 2: knew I was getting spoilt having access out there and
17:18
Speaker 2: playing it because it was better than all the other
17:19
Speaker 2: public courses that I'd got to see. But I didn't
17:22
Speaker 2: have any sense of how can you know that it's
17:27
Speaker 2: so special until you go everywhere else, and everywhere else
17:30
Speaker 2: isn't quite as special. You don't know until you've seen
17:33
Speaker 2: the other you know. So I just thought, well, this
17:35
Speaker 2: is the great course that I li vix door too.
17:36
Speaker 2: I didn't appreciate how well it would stack up against
17:41
Speaker 2: the old courses or the Shinnecock's or Augusta National or
17:46
Speaker 2: Cypress Point or whatever it's like. Genuinely, after I twenty
17:51
Speaker 2: years into my traveling golf career and I'd got to
17:54
Speaker 2: all those sorts of places that I sort of realized, Wow,
17:57
Speaker 2: all the things I'm seeing at these top ten, top
17:59
Speaker 2: fifty of courses in the world. That's what I saw
18:02
Speaker 2: at the beginning, but I haven't seen it in the middle.
18:05
Speaker 2: You know, so it was really seeing the other stuff
18:06
Speaker 2: which made me appreciate what I grew up on, if
18:08
Speaker 2: that makes sense.
18:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I mean when you're a kid, you kind
18:12
Speaker 1: of take things for granted. Whatever you're exposed to early
18:16
Speaker 1: on becomes the norm. And it's hard to convince anybody
18:20
Speaker 1: that what they grew up with is particularly great or
18:23
Speaker 1: even particularly bad, because that's just the standard by which
18:27
Speaker 1: you judge everything else.
18:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I guess underneath all that I was learning
18:33
Speaker 2: the lessons, you know, and the sand Belt and especially
18:36
Speaker 2: Roal Melbourne I think teaches you so much sort of
18:41
Speaker 2: deep nuanced golf, like you're sort of getting right down
18:44
Speaker 2: to sort of very high IQ golf is the wrong
18:49
Speaker 2: way to say it, but that's sort of deeply nuanced
18:53
Speaker 2: sort of strategy and all those shades of gray that golf.
18:56
Speaker 2: The better golf is the more it exposes all those
18:58
Speaker 2: little shades of gray that was there at the beginning.
19:02
Speaker 2: For me, I didn't know that was all the shades
19:04
Speaker 2: of gray. But the first hole at the east was
19:07
Speaker 2: the third hole on the composite now and they've changed
19:09
Speaker 2: the order so many times, but I'd seen it played
19:11
Speaker 2: a lot. It's a big, wide fairway typical of a
19:14
Speaker 2: sand belt course, but you just had to be left.
19:17
Speaker 2: If you weren't left, you only had fifty yards of
19:19
Speaker 2: the green, but you couldn't hit the green from the
19:20
Speaker 2: right hand side. You had to be left. So growing up,
19:24
Speaker 2: I didn't know I was learning that, but I learned
19:26
Speaker 2: that some holes you have to be on the left
19:28
Speaker 2: hand side of the fairway, some holes you have to
19:29
Speaker 2: be on the right hand side of the fairway, and
19:31
Speaker 2: when the pin's over there that day, you really want
19:34
Speaker 2: to be on this part of the fairway. And that
19:36
Speaker 2: just became the way I looked at golf without me knowing,
19:38
Speaker 2: I was looking at golf like that, and so many
19:41
Speaker 2: golf courses I ended up playing on tour were if
19:45
Speaker 2: you're on short grass, you're good, and if you're in
19:47
Speaker 2: rough you're bad, or if you're in a bunki you're bad,
19:49
Speaker 2: whereas roll Melbourne, sometimes the rough, if you're on the
19:52
Speaker 2: correct side of the fairway, is better than the fairway
19:53
Speaker 2: on the other side. And I just grew up that
19:58
Speaker 2: was just the way it was, So I didn't know
20:00
Speaker 2: that that was right or wrong. It was just my
20:03
Speaker 2: most efficient path around this course isn't straight at the hole.
20:06
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's over there and sometimes it's over there. And
20:09
Speaker 2: I think that that I didn't learn that lesson until
20:13
Speaker 2: later on. But the DNA was put in there, like
20:15
Speaker 2: the at the beginning of my golf, that was a
20:20
Speaker 2: part of the course that was presented in front of me,
20:23
Speaker 2: that there was questions being asked of these holes, and
20:25
Speaker 2: I have to learn how to answer these questions. Whether
20:27
Speaker 2: I knew I was answering questions or not, I just
20:31
Speaker 2: I was, you know. And I think you could play
20:34
Speaker 2: your whole life and not get to courses like Royal
20:35
Speaker 2: Melbourne or the Old Course or Augusta or any of
20:38
Speaker 2: these sort of those amazing courses and not even know
20:40
Speaker 2: that those questions exist in the sport. They were the
20:43
Speaker 2: first questions ever presented to me. When I played golf.
20:46
Speaker 2: It became more about playing the whole than it did
20:48
Speaker 2: swinging the club in a way, which there's probably advantages
20:54
Speaker 2: to both, but for me working out golf courses, I
20:58
Speaker 2: think was right there at the beginning.
21:01
Speaker 1: How would you compare the East Course to the West Course?
21:05
Speaker 1: And I'll give you actually a take that I heard
21:09
Speaker 1: from Lucas Michelle about this. I played with Lucas at
21:13
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne East and I told him I was going
21:15
Speaker 1: to steal this take, but I'm credit it to him now.
21:19
Speaker 1: What he said basically is that the East Course has
21:25
Speaker 1: very good land and amazing greens. The West Course has
21:32
Speaker 1: amazing land and very good greens. Do you think there's
21:37
Speaker 1: something in that the greens at the East Course might
21:40
Speaker 1: be even better in some ways or even more interesting
21:44
Speaker 1: than the ones at the West Course.
21:46
Speaker 2: Yes, and no. I don't think it's a fair. I
21:48
Speaker 2: don't think it's fair to split the two courses. They're
21:53
Speaker 2: a little bit like Wingfoot, where the East and the
21:55
Speaker 2: West you could kind of play thirty six of any
21:57
Speaker 2: of them and it would all be great, right the
22:01
Speaker 2: East Course, I feel the East Course is a bit
22:05
Speaker 2: of a journey's It feels a little bit more like
22:08
Speaker 2: a sort of Scottish Links, where you disappear off and
22:10
Speaker 2: you cross the road, then you cross another road and
22:13
Speaker 2: you end up so far away from the clubhouse you're
22:15
Speaker 2: in the whole nother neighborhood, and then you play all
22:17
Speaker 2: the way back and you see the clubhouse at the
22:19
Speaker 2: start and at the end. I feel more about the
22:23
Speaker 2: East Court without I don't really think of it as
22:26
Speaker 2: like a inner, which greens are the good greens and
22:28
Speaker 2: which are the less so good greens, and the holes.
22:31
Speaker 2: I feel like the East Course is a journey, whereas
22:33
Speaker 2: the West Course is just pure golf hole challenges. You know,
22:38
Speaker 2: you stay around more around the clubhouse. The routing is
22:40
Speaker 2: a bit more sort of around the one spot. I
22:45
Speaker 2: think that the land on the West Course is definitely
22:48
Speaker 2: better for drama. There's a bit more that's greens up
22:51
Speaker 2: tops of hills, and you hit through valleys, and you've
22:54
Speaker 2: got some hero carries that you don't have on the
22:56
Speaker 2: East Course. I would say the West course everyone if
23:00
Speaker 2: you played them both. If you play them, you play
23:02
Speaker 2: the East Course yesterday, you may say you played the
23:04
Speaker 2: West Coast tomorrow. You would initially say, all the West
23:06
Speaker 2: Course is way better. But I think the longer you
23:09
Speaker 2: played there, the more the East would start to level
23:12
Speaker 2: itself out with the West. I just and it might
23:17
Speaker 2: be a hallmark of I just used to lovingly look
23:21
Speaker 2: over at the West because I wasn't allowed to go
23:23
Speaker 2: out there, you know. But there's a few runs of
23:27
Speaker 2: holes on the West I mean four, five, six, seven, ten, eleven, twelve, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
23:36
Speaker 2: there's just no run like that in golf anywhere, and
23:38
Speaker 2: the East doesn't have a run like that. The best
23:41
Speaker 2: hole they they stick the best hole you've ever seen,
23:43
Speaker 2: Like four, five, six are the three best holes you've
23:45
Speaker 2: ever seen, and they're all next to each other. And
23:47
Speaker 2: then seven, I think is better than those, you know,
23:50
Speaker 2: and then ten. You look at ten from the back
23:52
Speaker 2: of the seventh and it's like just an unbelievable hole.
23:55
Speaker 2: It's like it's just a hole that you just cannot
23:57
Speaker 2: imagine anywhere else, but it's so perfect. So I lean
24:02
Speaker 2: towards the West because of the drama of the land,
24:06
Speaker 2: and I think it's thirty six amazing greens and it's
24:09
Speaker 2: thirty six amazing holes. I think the routings tell the
24:12
Speaker 2: stories and the journey you take on the East Course
24:15
Speaker 2: is such a different style of journey. The West you
24:18
Speaker 2: sort of leave the clubhouse, come back past the clubhouse,
24:19
Speaker 2: you leave the clubhouse, you come back past the clubhouse,
24:21
Speaker 2: you leave, you know what I mean.
24:22
Speaker 1: So it's a it's intertwined, interlocking. It's yeah, the West
24:25
Speaker 1: Course is that style of routing, whereas the East Course
24:28
Speaker 1: is almost out and back.
24:30
Speaker 2: It's kind of an out and back feeling, and it
24:32
Speaker 2: definitely has a different when you get way out the
24:34
Speaker 2: back there on nine and ten on the East course,
24:36
Speaker 2: you feel like you're a long way away from where
24:39
Speaker 2: you started, which is nice. You're on your own, you're
24:42
Speaker 2: out there, there are a cool hole, You've taken a journey.
24:44
Speaker 2: There's some incredible holes out there, So I don't like
24:48
Speaker 2: to compare them against each other. And when we are
24:51
Speaker 2: at the start and you said we picked three courses,
24:52
Speaker 2: I'm going to put all of Royal Melbourne into one.
24:55
Speaker 2: I see at one course because I grew up watching
24:57
Speaker 2: the composite course, which has six the east and twelve
25:00
Speaker 2: on the west, and that isn't a preference thing. That's
25:03
Speaker 2: more of a we don't want to cross roads when
25:05
Speaker 2: we play a golf tournament thing for all the logistical reasons.
25:09
Speaker 2: So there's two different sixteenth holes I've used over the years,
25:13
Speaker 2: so it's almost nineteen holes in the commons. Of course,
25:15
Speaker 2: I would put Roll Melbourne into just one big basket
25:18
Speaker 2: because I think it's thirty six incredible holes and I
25:20
Speaker 2: grew up watching a combo of both. So when you
25:23
Speaker 2: ask me, what do you think of when you think
25:24
Speaker 2: of Royal Melbourne, I think of Royal Melbourne. I don't
25:28
Speaker 2: think of I don't separate the East.
25:29
Speaker 1: I don't think of East West. Yeah, it's just all
25:32
Speaker 1: It's almost like there are all those holes out there
25:35
Speaker 1: and there, and the East and West courses are ways
25:37
Speaker 1: to play those holes. But you could do it in
25:41
Speaker 1: a bunch of different ways, including the composite course obviously,
25:44
Speaker 1: but I'd imagine you could come up with any number
25:47
Speaker 1: of eighteen hole routings that would be highly interesting.
25:51
Speaker 2: Yes, you could come up with all sorts of different
25:54
Speaker 2: all sorts of different ways around it, which I'm sure
25:56
Speaker 2: now golf is getting more popular and there's more people
25:58
Speaker 2: out there, it's probably harder to do. But I'm sure
26:00
Speaker 2: there's a bunch of members over the years who have
26:02
Speaker 2: started on the East, jumped onto the West, jump back
26:04
Speaker 2: onto the East, like gone around, because it's really is
26:07
Speaker 2: thirty six incredible holes, and I would put any of
26:13
Speaker 2: them on either of the courses, you know what I mean,
26:15
Speaker 2: Like they're all great. I feel Wingfoot's very similar in
26:19
Speaker 2: that you lovingly look over at the East holes when
26:21
Speaker 2: you're playing the West, but you lovingly look across at
26:23
Speaker 2: the West holes when you play the East. You know,
26:25
Speaker 2: They're clearly so closely related that it's really the same
26:30
Speaker 2: entity in a way. Everybody always plays them the same way.
26:34
Speaker 2: But I just think Raw Melbourne is a whole property
26:38
Speaker 2: and a club and everything that sort of represents and
26:43
Speaker 2: sort of shows you when you play golf. There isn't
26:45
Speaker 2: a bad hole to play there, and I enjoy playing
26:48
Speaker 2: them all. But if you said where do you want
26:49
Speaker 2: to play tomorrow, I'd choose the West Couse just because
26:52
Speaker 2: I think that hallmark of that was the one I
26:55
Speaker 2: wasn't allowed to play when I was a kid.
26:58
Speaker 1: So we have Sam Golf Links, we have Royal Melbourne
27:02
Speaker 1: the Fall thirty six. As opposed to one course or
27:04
Speaker 1: the other, what would be your third course.
27:08
Speaker 2: Well here has to be arguably as influential. So Victoria
27:14
Speaker 2: Golf Club as influential as those two, because I was
27:17
Speaker 2: a member here from just before sixteen until current day.
27:22
Speaker 2: Still remember so I've probably played the most the most
27:25
Speaker 2: rounds I've played in Melbourne around here, and Victoria is
27:31
Speaker 2: it's an incredibly great golf course. I'm I'm deeply sort
27:34
Speaker 2: of moved by Royal Melbourne in such a way that
27:40
Speaker 2: that to me is an outlier, and that just sits
27:42
Speaker 2: on its own and this will be so spoilt around here.
27:46
Speaker 2: But Victoria, as far as the course that I know,
27:49
Speaker 2: every blade of grass on it, intimately, I've seen it
27:52
Speaker 2: sort of evolve, stay the same, but totally evolve with
27:57
Speaker 2: sort of trees coming out and bunkers getting reinstated from
28:00
Speaker 2: what I grew up with, and the turf changing, the
28:03
Speaker 2: turf conditions just getting better and better better over the years.
28:06
Speaker 2: And we sort of redid the first hole ten fifteen
28:11
Speaker 2: years ago now and now it just feels like the
28:13
Speaker 2: first hole. I kind of remember the old first hole
28:16
Speaker 2: and little bits and bobs. I just that development period
28:19
Speaker 2: between sort of sixteen and twenty one. I always here
28:22
Speaker 2: every single day, so this has to be a big
28:25
Speaker 2: part of the whole thing.
28:27
Speaker 1: How do you think this course has has shaped your
28:30
Speaker 1: views on golf architecture? Has it? I mean, you've been
28:33
Speaker 1: in a member here for a tremendously long time. Any
28:36
Speaker 1: course that you play as much as you've played Victoria,
28:41
Speaker 1: you know, over as many years as you have has
28:44
Speaker 1: to have, you know, shaped your thoughts on golf courses
28:47
Speaker 1: and golf course architecture in some ways? Is there a
28:50
Speaker 1: way that it influences you that's different from what Royal
28:55
Speaker 1: Melbourne does, no.
28:59
Speaker 2: Sim I think the sand belt just in general, the
29:04
Speaker 2: use of short the firm ground, I think is the
29:08
Speaker 2: number one thing which all golf, at least in my experience,
29:12
Speaker 2: golf is just a more interesting game when the ground
29:16
Speaker 2: is firm, when the ball does something when it lands
29:19
Speaker 2: and it keeps going or it stops as the player
29:22
Speaker 2: might have struck the shot, because it matters now how
29:24
Speaker 2: you strike the shot. It matters the flight, it matters
29:27
Speaker 2: the spin, it matters the shape it's coming in. It
29:31
Speaker 2: doesn't just end when the ball lands. I think if
29:34
Speaker 2: the ball stops when it lands, it doesn't really matter
29:36
Speaker 2: how you hit it, as long as you land it
29:38
Speaker 2: in the right spot. But when it's firm, and we
29:40
Speaker 2: grow up with ultra firm conditions here pretty much even
29:43
Speaker 2: in winter when it's soft, it's firm here relatively speaking
29:46
Speaker 2: to everywhere else. It matters how you strike the ball.
29:50
Speaker 2: Like the strike if you get at one groove low,
29:52
Speaker 2: well it's going to be a bit flat, it's going
29:54
Speaker 2: to take a bigger bounce. If you just flub it
29:57
Speaker 2: a little bit and there's no spin on it, well
29:58
Speaker 2: now you're going to be in the back bunker. If
30:00
Speaker 2: you cannot fade it to a right pin, you just
30:02
Speaker 2: cannot hit the green. If you cannot draw it to
30:05
Speaker 2: the left side, you just cannot hit the green. I
30:07
Speaker 2: think that aspect of sam Belt golf is the most important.
30:11
Speaker 2: It is a great development tool because you have to
30:18
Speaker 2: strike and quality of shot, shot shape and flight and
30:23
Speaker 2: strike is so important here. You cannot conquer these. You
30:28
Speaker 2: cannot improve your score and get your handicapped down and
30:30
Speaker 2: improve as a golfer unless that's a big part of it.
30:33
Speaker 2: It's not just hitting it straight and high or long
30:36
Speaker 2: or low, or whatever the case may be. It's you've
30:39
Speaker 2: got to have it all if you want to actually
30:41
Speaker 2: start shooting lower and lower scores. So there's that aspect,
30:44
Speaker 2: and that's it's sad Belt in general. I think Victoria
30:46
Speaker 2: the bunkers. I think it's a bit of a hallmark
30:48
Speaker 2: of Victoria that people seem to be in bunkers all
30:50
Speaker 2: the time, and sam Belt bunkers. People talk about them
30:54
Speaker 2: on tour. We have very uniform bunkers. It feels like
30:57
Speaker 2: we play out of the same sound, of the same depth,
30:59
Speaker 2: of the same rake everywhere. And it's generally speaking, you've
31:04
Speaker 2: got a pretty good lie. And if you get good
31:07
Speaker 2: at that sand, you get good at bunkers. But here
31:12
Speaker 2: that's a very sort of narrow band of skill, and
31:15
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily an easy skill, but once you learn it,
31:17
Speaker 2: you've kind of learned it. Yeah, there's variety. But here
31:20
Speaker 2: the bunkers here have firm bits soft bits. There's sometimes
31:25
Speaker 2: it can be firm under your feet, but soft under
31:27
Speaker 2: your ball. Your ball's always sort of on a downslope
31:29
Speaker 2: or upslope or above your feet. You get the we
31:33
Speaker 2: call them gum trees, but eucalyptus trees in the US
31:35
Speaker 2: would they dropping they're dropping sticks, and they're dropping leaves,
31:39
Speaker 2: and there's like little nuts that fall out of them.
31:40
Speaker 2: And there's always sort of a bit of junk in
31:43
Speaker 2: the bunkers and learning how to read lies and play variety.
31:48
Speaker 2: You'll get up slopes with the sand wet in the
31:50
Speaker 2: morning and you'll get all the spin in the world,
31:52
Speaker 2: but then it'll get dusty in the afternoon. Off a
31:53
Speaker 2: downslope and the ball sits down and all you can
31:56
Speaker 2: do is the ball's going to roll out twenty feet.
31:58
Speaker 2: There's nothing you can do. And learning how to navigate
32:00
Speaker 2: that and read lies and understand. It teaches you how
32:05
Speaker 2: wedge works. It teaches you really how to understand the
32:08
Speaker 2: bottom of a wedge and the bounce, and sometimes you
32:11
Speaker 2: got to have a square stance and square the face up.
32:13
Speaker 2: Otherwise you're just going to bounce the club and it's
32:14
Speaker 2: going to go across the other side of the green.
32:15
Speaker 2: And sometimes, wow, I really have to open this one up,
32:18
Speaker 2: otherwise there's too much sand for my normal act. It
32:22
Speaker 2: teaches you variety out of bunkers, and as I said,
32:25
Speaker 2: the real golden thing is learning how to read lies.
32:28
Speaker 2: I remember, as I first started drifting away from Melbourne
32:31
Speaker 2: and playing high level am of a goal from pro golf.
32:35
Speaker 2: You'd get the pro every now and then would blade
32:37
Speaker 2: a bunker shot and start complaining of the sand. I
32:39
Speaker 2: couldn't see that there was no sand under there, And
32:41
Speaker 2: to me it never made any sense because it's easy
32:43
Speaker 2: to see there wasn't any sand under there. I could
32:44
Speaker 2: have seen it from the other side of the green,
32:46
Speaker 2: but only because we had to learn that here. You know,
32:49
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that that guy did anything wrong, It's
32:52
Speaker 2: just that he never had the experience of learning it
32:54
Speaker 2: with all that variety. So I think those two things
32:56
Speaker 2: from a playing point of view, I think are great
32:59
Speaker 2: and just architecturally, the holes just make sense, which I
33:03
Speaker 2: didn't know again until I went to other places. When
33:05
Speaker 2: you play holes, it don't make sense. But the bunker,
33:10
Speaker 2: usually the fairway hazard is exactly where you want to
33:13
Speaker 2: be coming in from. It's usually on the inside corner
33:18
Speaker 2: of a dog leg, which you have on the second
33:19
Speaker 2: and the third and the fifth arm, And usually the
33:23
Speaker 2: best line into the green was from somewhere near that bunker,
33:26
Speaker 2: so you had to go just short of it, just
33:28
Speaker 2: next to it, or try to go over it. And
33:30
Speaker 2: if you went the wide side of the fairway, you'd
33:31
Speaker 2: hit the fairway all day. But it took you a
33:33
Speaker 2: while to work out, well, if I'm on the wide
33:34
Speaker 2: side of the fairway with the easy t shot, now
33:36
Speaker 2: I can't really get the ball close to the hole.
33:38
Speaker 2: So it taught us to From an architectural strategy point
33:42
Speaker 2: of view, it was just it's a great example of
33:47
Speaker 2: hazards where they should be, and hazards that relate to
33:50
Speaker 2: the green that's at the end of the hole. And
33:53
Speaker 2: it's a great set of greens, and so you learn
33:54
Speaker 2: how to put fast greens and read big breaks, and
33:58
Speaker 2: it's a detriment are on to put on slower grains
34:02
Speaker 2: because we just grew up on crizy foster grains all
34:04
Speaker 2: the time. But when we get to chrysy FoST grains,
34:06
Speaker 2: we get to our pond host it feels like we're
34:08
Speaker 2: at home. So there's advantages and disadvantages, but it's an
34:12
Speaker 2: incredibly amazing place to learn how to play golf, Melbourne
34:15
Speaker 2: in general, but Victoria was a great example of it.
34:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, Victoria. You know, there's it's very playable for average
34:22
Speaker 1: players like me. You can get around out there. You
34:26
Speaker 1: might end up in a few bunkers with shots to
34:29
Speaker 1: greens sloping away from you that you would have a
34:32
Speaker 1: hard time with, but it's not like you're getting punished
34:35
Speaker 1: over and over, and there's usually some space to play
34:38
Speaker 1: on holes, so if you know your way around then
34:41
Speaker 1: you can then you can have a fairly pleasant time
34:43
Speaker 1: of it. But if you're a good player and you're
34:45
Speaker 1: trying to score out there, it seems like one of
34:49
Speaker 1: those relentlessly intense tests of golf. You can score low
34:54
Speaker 1: out there, You can shoot in the mid sixties or
34:56
Speaker 1: low sixties if you're a great player, but you really
35:00
Speaker 1: have to focus the entire round and kind of walk
35:04
Speaker 1: the tightrope constantly because there's no kind of mental letup
35:08
Speaker 1: out there. If you're looking to make birdies.
35:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're looking to shoot a low score, the
35:17
Speaker 2: better you get. The scarier these causes get, I think,
35:22
Speaker 2: because if you're looking to challenge pins, hit it close
35:26
Speaker 2: to the tournament pins if you like, or the challenging
35:28
Speaker 2: pins you really have to take on, like you have
35:30
Speaker 2: to kind of take on the fairway hazards a little bit,
35:33
Speaker 2: but you also have to take on those short sided situations.
35:36
Speaker 2: You have to make decisions. It's like, well, like we
35:38
Speaker 2: talked about sixteen out there, which is this great little
35:40
Speaker 2: uphill par three that just disappears off over the back
35:44
Speaker 2: and it's just terrible. We all end up hitting it
35:46
Speaker 2: way short there because of the fear of hitting it
35:49
Speaker 2: over the back. So the firm conditions and all the
35:53
Speaker 2: short grass it asks a really tough question is that
35:57
Speaker 2: you have to be really brave to shoot low scores
35:59
Speaker 2: out here. When it's set up tough, you have to
36:02
Speaker 2: be brave, and it's it's a learnt brave by getting
36:06
Speaker 2: burnt so many times, by getting it wrong, you know,
36:08
Speaker 2: it's not that obvious seventeenth that saw Grass hit it
36:11
Speaker 2: and you're good. Miss it and you're bad, and there's
36:12
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with that. That's a great question. Sometimes they
36:14
Speaker 2: ask them. The seventy first hole of a tournament's like, well,
36:16
Speaker 2: you better hit a good nine one, you know that's
36:19
Speaker 2: and the eighteenth of saw Grass, for example, it's like
36:21
Speaker 2: left is bad, hit a good shot, whereas here is
36:25
Speaker 2: You kind of have to learn what's good and what's bad.
36:27
Speaker 2: You know, it's not always obvious, and you'll be getting
36:31
Speaker 2: not necessarily long. They're not long in the big scheme
36:33
Speaker 2: of things, but you'll get seven eyes and eight irons
36:36
Speaker 2: and even wed shots that you know, you know what,
36:38
Speaker 2: I'm happy with twenty feet here because if I get
36:41
Speaker 2: this wrong, I'm going to make a five. And if
36:43
Speaker 2: I make a five with a wedge in my hand,
36:45
Speaker 2: I'm going to be annoyed for the next three holes.
36:47
Speaker 2: And so you end up playing really nervous, even though
36:51
Speaker 2: it sort of presents beautiful and it doesn't really look
36:54
Speaker 2: that scary. You get burn a couple of times, and
36:56
Speaker 2: you end up playing nervous. And that's one of the
36:58
Speaker 2: great I feel like, sort of signs of a great
37:03
Speaker 2: golf courses. It makes the good players a bit nervous
37:05
Speaker 2: because they don't want to get it wrong. You know,
37:07
Speaker 2: you think the Masters and the second shot in to
37:09
Speaker 2: thirteen or something is like, guys get all twisted about
37:12
Speaker 2: that shot, and really, on a Tuesday with nothing on,
37:14
Speaker 2: it's really not that scary a shot, but like you
37:16
Speaker 2: get in the masses all of a sudden, it makes
37:17
Speaker 2: you nervous and it makes you make a bad swing.
37:21
Speaker 2: These courses do that a lot.
37:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the and there's no there's no letting your
37:27
Speaker 1: guard down after a miss. On some courses. If you
37:32
Speaker 1: miss the fair way, then the test is sort of
37:36
Speaker 1: over in a way. You've failed the test and now
37:39
Speaker 1: you're going to have a fairly predictable recovery. It's not
37:41
Speaker 1: gonna be pleasant, but you know what you need to do.
37:45
Speaker 1: If you miss out here at Victoria, then there are
37:49
Speaker 1: any number of things that could happen, any number of
37:52
Speaker 1: scenarios that you could be facing and shots that you
37:55
Speaker 1: could be hitting. And so the test is just beginning
37:58
Speaker 1: after a.
37:58
Speaker 2: Miss, absolutely, so it can be exponential. So I mean,
38:03
Speaker 2: there's good misses out here and there's bad misses out here.
38:06
Speaker 2: And if you make a good miss, it's like, well,
38:08
Speaker 2: maybe I don't make Bertie r par, but I can
38:11
Speaker 2: get myself a reasonable par partner if I make it.
38:13
Speaker 2: Great If I miss it, oh well I made a mistake.
38:17
Speaker 2: But sometimes you can miss in some spots. It's like
38:20
Speaker 2: you go from wanting to make birdie on your second shot,
38:23
Speaker 2: but all of a sudden, how do I not make double?
38:26
Speaker 2: Like how do I get this third shot somewhere where
38:29
Speaker 2: I can get the ball up and down from And
38:31
Speaker 2: you can. It's a compounding error place. If you follow
38:36
Speaker 2: an error with a sensible shot, generally you're okay. But
38:38
Speaker 2: if you follow an error with another error, you can
38:41
Speaker 2: rack up a big number with no water, no lost balls,
38:45
Speaker 2: no nothing, really really fast. It can expose your sort
38:48
Speaker 2: of bad decisions and bad execution really really quickly. So
38:54
Speaker 2: it can get scary. And because you know that you're
38:56
Speaker 2: playing like that and it ends up making you play
39:00
Speaker 2: you have to be brave, you know. And if there's
39:04
Speaker 2: a couple of guys in the field who are running
39:05
Speaker 2: away with it and making lots of birdies as well,
39:07
Speaker 2: you've just got to do it. I've got to be brave.
39:09
Speaker 2: But like it's it's a risky thing. Now. It's a
39:13
Speaker 2: fascinating way. It's sort of a delayed penalty.
39:16
Speaker 1: Yep.
39:17
Speaker 2: You know you don't necessarily get penalized on your first
39:20
Speaker 2: on the first bad shot, but the penalty is now
39:22
Speaker 2: coming and you don't know it yet. But you've got
39:24
Speaker 2: to kind of know you've made the mistake before you
39:27
Speaker 2: carry on, because if you just keep making them, you're
39:29
Speaker 2: just going to rack up some really big numbers and
39:31
Speaker 2: be ping ponging like bunker shots across greens or living
39:35
Speaker 2: yourself in spots where how do I get this into
39:38
Speaker 2: a spot that I could actually two put it from?
39:40
Speaker 2: Because it only feels like I can hit this into
39:41
Speaker 2: a spot where I'm probably gonna three part. No, it's
39:45
Speaker 2: fascinating and it sounds really really scary. It's not always
39:47
Speaker 2: like that. That's when it's set up really really tough.
39:50
Speaker 2: But it's kind of a hallmark of these places. It's
39:53
Speaker 2: the firmness and the way the bunkers are and the
39:56
Speaker 2: way the rough is sort of unpredictable that if you
39:59
Speaker 2: start going off, if you start going wrong, if you
40:02
Speaker 2: don't realize you've gone wrong, which is not always obvious
40:04
Speaker 2: at the start, and you don't sort of right the
40:07
Speaker 2: ship or be smart from that point. Yeah, you can
40:10
Speaker 2: rack up big scores really quick.
40:13
Speaker 1: So what's course number four? We're going outside of Australia, Now, I.
40:16
Speaker 2: Gather, yeah, it has to be the Old Course. And
40:19
Speaker 2: I hate to be predictable, but.
40:21
Speaker 1: I think everybody, if I do this interview with a
40:24
Speaker 1: range of people, I think everybody is going to talk
40:27
Speaker 1: about the Old Course at some point. But it's the
40:30
Speaker 1: particular ways that people relate to the Old Course that
40:33
Speaker 1: are interesting, because I think it's different for everybody.
40:36
Speaker 2: So, I mean, I think it's fair to say I
40:38
Speaker 2: kind of wanted to love it before I ever got there.
40:42
Speaker 2: I mean, I was a bit of a golf nerd,
40:45
Speaker 2: I guess, growing up, and I'd read a lot of
40:47
Speaker 2: the books so Jones who tore up his scorecard the
40:50
Speaker 2: first time he went there and thought it was ridiculous
40:52
Speaker 2: and then ended up loving it, And like that, there
40:54
Speaker 2: was always this story that people hated it at first
40:56
Speaker 2: and then ended up love The ones who loved it
40:58
Speaker 2: the most are the ones who hated it the most
40:59
Speaker 2: at the start. So I kind of loved that whole
41:02
Speaker 2: narrative that this place could grow on you so much,
41:07
Speaker 2: you know, but I was very fortunate Dad's my father
41:11
Speaker 2: was from the UK and his mum was getting a
41:13
Speaker 2: bit sick, and in nineteen ninety three I was sixteen,
41:17
Speaker 2: he wanted to go over and see her because he
41:19
Speaker 2: hadn't seen her for fifteen years, so and he took me. Fortunately,
41:23
Speaker 2: whatever happened, he wanted to have a travel mate. My
41:25
Speaker 2: sister had a trip with mum somewhere that year, but
41:27
Speaker 2: I got to go over with Dad and we had
41:31
Speaker 2: a bat a week of him catching up with his mom.
41:35
Speaker 2: But in the meantime he's like, oh, wow, we're here.
41:39
Speaker 2: We might often a playd of golf, and we ended
41:42
Speaker 2: up at the old course and we drove up into town,
41:44
Speaker 2: and I was already in love just driving up into
41:46
Speaker 2: Snatas for anyone who's ever done it, you get closer
41:49
Speaker 2: and closer, and then you see all the signs, and
41:51
Speaker 2: then finally you start seeing glimpses of the town, and
41:53
Speaker 2: it's just it's almost a religious experience just going to
41:56
Speaker 2: the town itself, especially when I'd read so much about
41:58
Speaker 2: it already, and it was clearly sort of the it's
42:02
Speaker 2: the genesis of the sport really in a lot of ways.
42:06
Speaker 2: So I already kind of wanted it. We got up there.
42:09
Speaker 2: We got in there late, about five pm. Obviously it'
42:11
Speaker 2: since summer and it still feels like the middle of
42:13
Speaker 2: the day at five pm and we go up to
42:15
Speaker 2: the start. It's like, well, we're going to be here
42:17
Speaker 2: for the next two days. Is there a chance that
42:20
Speaker 2: we can play the old courses? Like, oh, well, you've
42:21
Speaker 2: got to enter the ballot every night, but you're too
42:23
Speaker 2: late to enter the ballot for tomorrow. So of course
42:25
Speaker 2: I'm devastated. But he's like, well, if you like, you
42:28
Speaker 2: can come here straight away in the morning and you
42:30
Speaker 2: can stand around and if there's a two ball they
42:34
Speaker 2: and I ask, I'll ask if they don't mind if
42:37
Speaker 2: two people join, but they're allowed to say no. But
42:40
Speaker 2: if they say no, we'd be happy to play with
42:41
Speaker 2: two more. You can go on. And we've got there
42:43
Speaker 2: at six thirty in the morning or whenever we could
42:45
Speaker 2: get there, and sat around that little putt and green
42:47
Speaker 2: next to the first tea, and eventually this Swedish couple
42:50
Speaker 2: came along at ten or eleven o'clock in the morning
42:51
Speaker 2: and say, yeah, we'll play with these two. So we
42:53
Speaker 2: got on. So the first morning in St. Andrews, and
42:57
Speaker 2: I loved every moment of it. Shot seventy four. I
42:59
Speaker 2: remember being disappointing because I had a double buggy late
43:03
Speaker 2: on sixteen, but shot seventy four and I was just
43:06
Speaker 2: blown away. The experience of a bit like I talked
43:08
Speaker 2: about with the East Course, sort of starting in the
43:11
Speaker 2: town and disappearing out into the middle of nowhere, and
43:14
Speaker 2: then gradually you see the town get bigger and bigger
43:16
Speaker 2: and bigger you get back in. But I just loved
43:20
Speaker 2: I loved everything Sonandrew's when I first got there, so
43:23
Speaker 2: I played it. I was very lucky and then I
43:25
Speaker 2: played so I played it when I was sixteen, and
43:27
Speaker 2: I got back three years in a row. I played
43:29
Speaker 2: the Snandra's Lynx Trophy, which was the greatest amateur tournament
43:35
Speaker 2: in the world as far as I was concerned, and
43:36
Speaker 2: I think it still happens. It was seventy two holes
43:39
Speaker 2: at Snandrew's. You would for forty pounds you would enter,
43:41
Speaker 2: and it was hard to get in. You were getting
43:43
Speaker 2: ballided out off scratch. But I got lucky at sort
43:46
Speaker 2: of eighteen nineteen twenty. I played it three times. You'd
43:50
Speaker 2: get a practice round around the old you would have
43:53
Speaker 2: eighteen on the new and eighteen on the old first
43:56
Speaker 2: two rounds, and then you made the cut and you
43:57
Speaker 2: got thirty six on the old, So you would get
43:59
Speaker 2: seventy two holes on the old course and one on
44:00
Speaker 2: the new, which I just thought was miraculous for forty pounds.
44:04
Speaker 2: And it was competitive, and that was in the fields
44:06
Speaker 2: where Sergio, Justin Rose, Trevor Immlman like guys who all
44:10
Speaker 2: had great careers. So it was that era. So the
44:13
Speaker 2: highest level British AMAA tournament you could play two weeks
44:16
Speaker 2: before the British AMNA. We would play at the Old
44:18
Speaker 2: Course and I played that three times, so by the
44:21
Speaker 2: time I even turned pro, I was well versed with
44:24
Speaker 2: the Old Course. And it was playing those tournaments that
44:27
Speaker 2: started showing me the genius of it, because if you
44:29
Speaker 2: play it once, you know it in those conditions. But
44:32
Speaker 2: it's different every single day. It changes multiple times during
44:36
Speaker 2: the day. As all the stories everyone'st everyone's told, the
44:38
Speaker 2: tide changes and the wind changes direction. You play the
44:41
Speaker 2: front nine into the wind and then you play the
44:43
Speaker 2: back nine into the wind, or you play the front
44:45
Speaker 2: nine down wind and then you get the back nine
44:47
Speaker 2: down wind. And I've had all, I had all those
44:49
Speaker 2: experiences quite early, and I just I started It helped
44:56
Speaker 2: connect some of the dots that Royal Melwyn and Victoria
44:58
Speaker 2: had taught me about. Bunkers are there because that's where
45:01
Speaker 2: you want to be coming in from and it doesn't
45:03
Speaker 2: really matter today, but what's that bunker doing there? But
45:05
Speaker 2: it's not until you come back on the back nine
45:07
Speaker 2: that all of a sudden, it's that bunk is exactly
45:08
Speaker 2: where you want to be. And it it just showed
45:13
Speaker 2: me how good you needed to be a golf to
45:16
Speaker 2: answer all the questions that a golf course could ask.
45:20
Speaker 2: And I've eventually I sort of I regarded as sort
45:23
Speaker 2: of like the It's almost the Rosetta Stone of golf.
45:25
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't replicate it, and you probably wouldn't
45:27
Speaker 2: want to replicate it. But if you want to build
45:29
Speaker 2: golf courses or understand architecture, just spend a bit of
45:32
Speaker 2: time there. And I think a whole lot of stuff
45:35
Speaker 2: that might have been a bit fuzzy starts coming into
45:37
Speaker 2: focus because I just think all the examples are there.
45:40
Speaker 2: And the coolest part about it, I think was that
45:42
Speaker 2: it basically was just an evolution. It evolved how they
45:47
Speaker 2: were playing the game, so it was almost like humans
45:51
Speaker 2: and nature. Nature taught golfers how to play golf, and
45:55
Speaker 2: golfers taught the Old Course what it needed to be.
45:58
Speaker 2: You know. It was kind of a both. It's sort
45:59
Speaker 2: of a collaboration between nature and humanity to come up
46:03
Speaker 2: with the sport that we love. And I just think
46:06
Speaker 2: it's it plays a bit too short for the way
46:09
Speaker 2: we hit it now, but it's such a It's why
46:14
Speaker 2: the sport is such a great sport, because it started
46:17
Speaker 2: off in such a great place. You know, it's just
46:20
Speaker 2: to me, it's perfect. I think if everybody, I think
46:23
Speaker 2: it's the greatest teacher in the game, I think the
46:25
Speaker 2: golf course, the golf coaches and stuff along the way
46:29
Speaker 2: might disagree with me. Hopefully some of them agree. I
46:31
Speaker 2: think the golf course is the best teacher of the
46:33
Speaker 2: game because that's the questioner the golf course is asking
46:36
Speaker 2: you questions. I think the Old Course is the best
46:39
Speaker 2: teacher of golf. And I think if everybody played their
46:42
Speaker 2: first hundred rounds of golf ever at the Old Course,
46:45
Speaker 2: the level of golf in the world will be a
46:47
Speaker 2: lot higher because it teaches you how to play golf.
46:50
Speaker 2: The correct way, unlevel lies and understanding angles and shooting
46:55
Speaker 2: for pins when you're supposed to shooting away from pins,
46:57
Speaker 2: when you're supposed to give you any choice of loft
47:00
Speaker 2: or no loft or It's very democratic. It lets anybody
47:03
Speaker 2: play any way they want, but it begins to teach
47:06
Speaker 2: you how to play the game if you played enough times.
47:09
Speaker 2: I mean, I just I could speak about it all day.
47:12
Speaker 1: Do you think knowledge of golf architecture does make somebody
47:16
Speaker 1: a better golfer? I kind of go back and forth
47:18
Speaker 1: about this myself sometimes I wonder if that can be
47:21
Speaker 1: overstated a bit. But do you think it should be
47:25
Speaker 1: part of a golfer's education beyond just giving people the
47:28
Speaker 1: pleasure of knowing about golf courses and allowing them to
47:32
Speaker 1: appreciate them, do you think it actually helps them develops
47:36
Speaker 1: as players.
47:37
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think. Yeah. I go back
47:40
Speaker 2: and forward a little bit too, because I think there's
47:41
Speaker 2: disadvantages to knowing too. I think I think playing great
47:47
Speaker 2: courses is great for people's golf. As I said, I
47:52
Speaker 2: think to me, like these lists of course rankings, and
47:58
Speaker 2: we talked about this a bit earlier today, like we
48:00
Speaker 2: all have some people like them to look great. Some
48:02
Speaker 2: people want them to play great. Some people are in
48:05
Speaker 2: the middle. Some people like warm weather, some people like
48:07
Speaker 2: cold weather, wind, whatever it is. Everybody has different ways
48:10
Speaker 2: of measuring how they make their lists of what the
48:12
Speaker 2: best courses are. To me, I view them like their teachers.
48:18
Speaker 2: It's eighteen sets of questions or challenges or puzzles, and
48:21
Speaker 2: I think the better the golf course for me is
48:25
Speaker 2: the one that asks the most interesting set of questions.
48:29
Speaker 2: And so I think from that respect, everyone would get
48:32
Speaker 2: better if they had the opportunity to play the great
48:35
Speaker 2: golf courses, because you see more depth in golf. It's
48:40
Speaker 2: like if you go to a if you're lucky enough
48:42
Speaker 2: to go to a really high level restaurant or a
48:44
Speaker 2: Mischilin Star restaurant or one of those things, you think
48:46
Speaker 2: you've had a steak until you've had one of those
48:48
Speaker 2: guys make you a stake and it's like, oh my goodness,
48:49
Speaker 2: I had no idea it could taste like this. You know,
48:52
Speaker 2: I don't know if you need to know how to
48:53
Speaker 2: do that to a stake, but it's nice to have
48:55
Speaker 2: had the experience to understand how good food can actually
48:58
Speaker 2: get I think golf is the same. I think you
49:01
Speaker 2: don't need to understand sort of basic strategy of a
49:06
Speaker 2: golf course, an understanding while bunkers are better on the
49:09
Speaker 2: inside of dog legs and the outside or whatever the
49:11
Speaker 2: golf snobbery nerdery that we can get into, which really
49:14
Speaker 2: isn't that important for people who aren't that interested. But
49:16
Speaker 2: I think you need to play the examples of them
49:19
Speaker 2: because they'll teach you a better version of golf. They'll
49:22
Speaker 2: make you a better player because you're they're presenting you
49:25
Speaker 2: with more difficult questions or more interesting questions. I guess
49:28
Speaker 2: it's better. So I think they're great teachers. So I
49:31
Speaker 2: rate golf courses on how how good a player do
49:34
Speaker 2: I think I would be if I played this every day?
49:36
Speaker 2: How good would golfers get to play this golf course?
49:40
Speaker 2: Because it would have to make you. It makes you
49:41
Speaker 2: better in the mind, It gives you more shots. It
49:44
Speaker 2: teaches you that you have to move the ball left
49:46
Speaker 2: to right, or you have to hit the ball low,
49:47
Speaker 2: or you have to learn how to land this one
49:49
Speaker 2: short of the green. If you never get asked those questions,
49:51
Speaker 2: you never learn the answers. So I think the important
49:55
Speaker 2: thing about the architecture is it deepens people's sort of
49:59
Speaker 2: golf fight Q if you like, you don't necessarily have
50:03
Speaker 2: to understand why. But I think it's a really great
50:05
Speaker 2: advantage to have access to play them every now and then.
50:08
Speaker 1: So we've got Sandy Golf Links, Royal Melbourne, Victoria Golf
50:13
Speaker 1: Club and the old course at Saint Andrews. Yeah, pretty
50:16
Speaker 1: stout quartet there.
50:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit of golf snobbery there, but like
50:21
Speaker 2: Sandy's a new one that probably most people haven't heard of,
50:24
Speaker 2: which was probably arguably and a lot of ways, the
50:26
Speaker 2: most influential because I probably if that wasn't there, maybe
50:29
Speaker 2: I didn't end up playing golf.
50:31
Speaker 1: Right, you know, So in a way it's the most
50:33
Speaker 1: important one, the most important on border.
50:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
50:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, thank you for coming on the show, Jeff.
50:39
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah.
50:47
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by PJ. Clark,
50:52
Speaker 1: with special thanks to Cameron hurd Us. The next episode
50:56
Speaker 1: will be coming to you in two weeks now. If
50:58
Speaker 1: you haven't already listened to the first two episodes of
51:01
Speaker 1: this new show, those are waiting for you in the
51:04
Speaker 1: Designing Golf podcast feed, which you should subscribe to if
51:08
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, you should also check out Club TFE.
51:12
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this deep dive into the golf courses
51:15
Speaker 1: that influence Jeff Ogilvy, then I can almost assure you
51:18
Speaker 1: that you'll enjoy the content that we do in Club TFE.
51:22
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51:26
Speaker 1: you access to Friday Golf events. We have an amazing
51:30
Speaker 1: roster of courses this year, which include Prairie Dunes Country Club,
51:34
Speaker 1: Lookout mountain Essex County Country Club, Burein Country Club, mid
51:38
Speaker 1: Ocean In Bermuda, Colorado Golf Club, lots of really great stuff.
51:43
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51:47
Speaker 1: really respect. That's the main driving thing that gets us
51:51
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51:54
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51:57
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52:16
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