Latest / Designing Golf / Golf Architecture 101: Greens

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Golf Architecture 101: Greens · Designing Golf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On any golf course, the greens are the center of gravity.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: About forty percent of the shots you hit in a
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: given round on a regulation course will be putts. Around
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: half or more than half of the shots that you
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: hit will be either putts or chips, and any approach
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: shot that you hit, at least any decent approach shot
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: you hit, will interact with the green or it surrounds.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: So today's topic is a very important one. In this
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: installment of our Golf Architecture one oh one series, we're
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: talking about greens, how they're designed, how they're built, and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: what makes a good one. I'm Garrett Morrison and this
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is designing golf as usual in Golf Architecture one oh one.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I am joined by my colleague PJ Clark. How you doing, PJ? Hello.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I'm excited for this one.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Unlike I would say the majority of our prior Golf
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Architecture one on one experiences, I truly have no idea
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: what I'm walking into today, so I'm very excited for this.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: So what is it about the topic of greens that
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: that kind of opens up possibilities for you or it
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: makes you wonder where we might be gone with this?
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: I feel like in prior episodes there was maybe a
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: little bit of homework, So I have I had done
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: something no homework. I've done absolutely nothing to get prepared
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: for this. There's not like a It's very open ended,
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: as you just alluded to. Feels like a lot of
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: directions we could go here. Whereas you know, we were
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: doing a history lesson or Mackenzie thirteen principles all things
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: like that, it's very confined to this one specific segment.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Whereas greens there are a lot of them. There's actually
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: eighteen of them on basically every golf course possible, So
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: I feel like there's unlimited possibilities that you're about to
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  Speaker 3: hit me with right now.
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  Speaker 1: It's a big topic, partly because of how important greens
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: are in golf architecture. So yeah, a number of different
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: things that we could talk about related to greens. You know,
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  Speaker 1: just to start off, do you have any takes about greens?
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  Speaker 1: Have you have you thought about green design, green architecture before? What?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: What do you like or not like in greens? Have
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: any thoughts come to your mind about this area of
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: golf course design before?
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Not particularly, I'm when I'm out there playing golf poorly,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: I'm really just focused on how am I getting the
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: ball in the hole. So I think, you know, there
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: are greens, you know, like punch bowls or funnels, you
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: know those are fun for somebody that's bad that I
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: get to, like, you know, ride a little ridge that
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: could get me closer to the hole. Again, the ball
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: of the games about getting the ball in the hole.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: But no, I can't say it's something that I actively
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: think about. I understand I'm probably wrong in doing that,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: so excited to learn why.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: No, there's no wrong or right here. You know, if
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you enjoy punch balls, you enjoy punch bowls, that's you know,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: who doesn't on occasion like to see their ball actually
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: go toward the hole when it gets on the edge
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of a green Once in a while, Yeah, just once
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  Speaker 1: in a while. So you know, I wanted to do
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: this episode partly because we have to do this episode
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: in any kind of one on one series, you got
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to talk about greens eventually, but also more specifically because
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I've often seen a divide in the way that greens
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: are discussed among golfers. When non architecture geeks say that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: a course has good greens, they're typically talking about the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: condition of those greens, right, they're talking about whether they
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: roll smoothly and quickly. That's good versus bad grains. Good
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: greens are in good shape, bad greens are in bad shape.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Is that's something that you've you've picked up on among
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: just among the among the gem pop.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely than thousand percent.
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  Speaker 3: That would would basically be the way I or any
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  Speaker 3: of my friends would refer to to greens on whether
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  Speaker 3: they're beat up or not more than anything else.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, if you want to get along with people
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  Speaker 1: in a normal way, if you just want to be normal,
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  Speaker 1: then this is this is how you talk about greens.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I get that, So I certainly have that box check.
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  Speaker 1: Now when architecture heads say good greens, I think they
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  Speaker 1: mean something very different, right, And and that's gonna that's
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  Speaker 1: going to kind of be the governing principle of our
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: episode here. What makes a good green beyond it just
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  Speaker 1: being smooth and fast? In other words, what makes a
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  Speaker 1: green well designed, not just well conditioned. A lot of
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  Speaker 1: this is obviously subjective, so so we'll discuss that as
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: we go along. You know, not everybody has to like
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  Speaker 1: the same type of design and greens. But I think
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot more to this subject than just the
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  Speaker 1: condition of the greens, though we will talk about how
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  Speaker 1: greens can come to be well conditioned because that has
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: to do with design and construction as well. So admittedly
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  Speaker 1: a pretty daunting topic to cover in one episode. You know,
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  Speaker 1: in my intro I talked about how many of the
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  Speaker 1: shots we hit during a normal round that interact with
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  Speaker 1: greens thirty to forty putts per round, depending on how
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: we're putting, you know, a handful of chips and pitches
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and recoveries from greenside bunkers, and then of course eighteen
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  Speaker 1: approach shots assuming those approaches get somewhere in the vicinity
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  Speaker 1: of the green. All of these all of these shots
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  Speaker 1: are in some way or another engaging with the design
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  Speaker 1: and the condition of the greens. So it stands to reason,
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  Speaker 1: of course that a golf architect would put an inordinate
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: amount of effort into the design and construction of greens.
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  Speaker 1: So very high stakes portion of the golf course for
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: an architect, right.
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  Speaker 2: It's a good way of putting it a tie stakes.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is arguably the most important part, as you
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: said there, So yeah, that's a good way of putting it.
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  Speaker 1: If you screw up the greens. Nobody's happy with you.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, now you're spending a lot of time on them,
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, that makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: All the details need to be right. And the result
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  Speaker 1: of this is that greens are the most heavily artificial
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: components of any golf course, especially on a modern golf course.
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  Speaker 1: They are more intensively shaped than anything else. They have
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: more drainage and irrigation infrastructure than anything else. So if
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  Speaker 1: you really want to assess the abilities of an architect
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and a construction crew, you need to start with the greens.
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  Speaker 1: You look at the greens first to see to see
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  Speaker 1: how an architect has performed, and besides that, they just
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: naturally attract the attention of the golfer. CB McDonald had
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  Speaker 1: a great quote about this, our old friend C. B. McDonald.
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  Speaker 1: He said, putting greens to a golf course are what
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the face is to a portrait. The clothes the subject wears,
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  Speaker 1: the background, whether scenery or whether draperies are simply accessories.
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  Speaker 1: The face tells the story and determines the character and
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  Speaker 1: quality of the portrait, whether it is good or bad.
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  Speaker 1: I think that puts it pretty well. If you have
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: good greens, you probably have a good golf course. The
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  Speaker 1: character of the greens is, to a significant degree the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: character of the golf course. When we take photos of
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: golf courses, think about what you're pointing your camera at.
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  Speaker 1: You know, usually you're pointing it at a green, and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: that is because, yes, indeed, the greens are are the face,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and you know, the golf course doesn't really make sense
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  Speaker 1: without them. Now, before we get to what makes a
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  Speaker 1: good green, because that's the main thing I want to
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: talk about today, what makes a good green, let's talk
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: quickly about Volume two of Frida Egg Golf's coffee table book,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Got to do This right, PJ.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of greens in this In this book, I
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: would assume a.
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  Speaker 1: Lot of photos of greens, a lot of discussion of greens,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff about if you're interested in
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: green design. It's available for pre order right now. Volume
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: two of our Coffee table book. This is our second
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: collection of course profiles, and I think they really give
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a sense of what we prioritize in golf course coverage.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: You know, we do hit some we do hit some
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: legendary courses like like Oakmont, North Barrack, Fisher's Island or
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: All Saint George's Pineish number two. But we also show
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the other side of the coin. Courses like wild Horse
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: in St. Andrew's Beach, two of the best that you
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: can play anywhere for less than one hundred dollars. Both
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: have fantastic greens. In fact, actually Saint Andrew's Beach, a
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: green at Saint Andrew's Beach is going to come up today.
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  Speaker 1: We also have a little chapter on on North Haven,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: a tiny nine holer on the on an island off
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the coast of Maine, one of my favorite chapters the book.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So you know, a big range of golf course coverage here,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and you know this is volume two of our of
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: our coffee table book. But it's not like you have
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to read volume one in order to understand Volume two.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: This is this is a fresh new collection with its
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: own identity, and we're really proud of it. I think
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it's extremely beautiful. And I can say that because I
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: had very little to do with the uh you know,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: only a few of my photographs are actually in the book,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and the design of the book was completely out of
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: my hands. And so yeah, it looks it looks awesome.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Pre Orders are open now through September fourth to begin
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: shipping on October seventh. Go grab yours at pro shop
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: dot the fried egg dot com. All right, PJ, Let's
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: get into the factors that make a good or well
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  Speaker 1: designed green. The first factor is obviously location. Now we
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: talked a bit about this in our one oh one
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  Speaker 1: episode on routing right. Finding well suited compelling sites for greens.
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  Speaker 1: That means you can, you know, construct the green in
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  Speaker 1: a simpler and more efficient way, and you get more
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  Speaker 1: natural results. You don't have to completely manufacture a green
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  Speaker 1: if you find a good site for it. You want
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  Speaker 1: a variety of green sites throughout the course. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you can put greens on ridges, you can put them
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  Speaker 1: in valleys, you can put them on knolls or in saddles.
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  Speaker 1: You can put them on slopes of various kinds, you know,
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  Speaker 1: back to front, front to back side slopes. You know,
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  Speaker 1: one thing that I always do when I'm walking through
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  Speaker 1: a golf course is I look at what the green
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  Speaker 1: site is. And sometimes it's hard to tell, because again
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: greens are heavily artificial, and it can be tough to
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  Speaker 1: tell what the natural environment initially was. But if you
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: look around the green, look at the terrain, look at
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: what the general kind of movement of the land is doing.
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  Speaker 1: Then you can get a sense for what the original
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: location of the green was and get a sense for
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  Speaker 1: how much variety the course has achieved in green sites,
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  Speaker 1: Courses where every single green is on a ridge or
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: every single green is in a valley are likely to
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  Speaker 1: start to feel a little bit repetitive. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: my favorite greens, I think are the ones that really
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: use their natural landscapes and don't rely too much on
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: manufactured features for their identity. They may have manufactured features,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: but the essential character of the green kind of comes
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: from its location. Does that make sense?
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that.
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  Speaker 3: I'm now going through I haven't played a ton of
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: DELF recently, but I got to play yesterday. So now
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: I'm going through yesterday and trying to think back to
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: of green sites and seeing if I came up with
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: anything or missed anything.
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  Speaker 2: This is a great picture here.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I just brought up a slide show. Now for
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: those who are listening audio only, don't worry. I'm going
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to describe what's on the slides in a basic way,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and it's not going to be totally essential to the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: experience of this podcast, but we will show some photos
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of various greens on you in this slide show and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: they'll be available on YouTube and all that. So the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: green that I'm showing PJ right now is the third
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  Speaker 1: green at Saint Andrew's Beach, a lovely tom Doak golf
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  Speaker 1: course in Australia on the Mornington Peninsula. And the reason
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  Speaker 1: I chose the third green is that it just has
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a wonderful natural location and the green just sits in it.
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  Speaker 1: It basically sits in a high saddle. There's a ridge
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  Speaker 1: and there's kind of a natural notch in that ridge
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: where the green is sitting. And you know, this green
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: derives its character from the landscape. A great site was found,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a natural site was found for this green, and that's
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: where it gets its personality from. So these are the
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: kinds of greens that I personally really enjoy, you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: because you're not relying too much on artificiality to create interest.
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  Speaker 1: So that is the third green at Saint Andrew's Beach.
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  Speaker 1: Any impressions from this photo as you're looking at it
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: right now, PJ.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean it looks like it's supposed to be there,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: which I think is kind of what you're getting at right,
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: like it looks obviously trees or bushes, shrubbery was cleared out,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: but it looks like it is just fits in the
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: surrounding environment, like it was just a patch in the
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: middle of these trees that they stuck a flag in.
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  Speaker 3: Like it doesn't look like anything was, you know, move
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: too much or out of place, which is appealing to
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: the eye certainly, like it.
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  Speaker 1: Was meant to be a green, and it might be
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: something that you don't even notice as you're playing golf.
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  Speaker 1: You're just like, oh, there's a green. But that can
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: be a good thing that a you know, a green
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: does not take you out of the flow of the round,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't take you out of the experience. You just feel
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: like you're experiencing the landscape and that the holes are
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: sitting on the land in a way that feels inevitable
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: or natural, and it doesn't even jump out to you.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: That can be a good thing because you can focus
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: on other things you don't you aren't focusing on what
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the architect did. But the architect did a lot here.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Tom Doak chose a really good site for the green
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and made the choice not to do much to it.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: So that's three at St. Andrew's Beach. That's an example
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of how we'll go through some of these slides here.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: We won't again it's an audio medium primarily here, but
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: you'll see some of this stuff on YouTube if you
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: want to. All Right, the second big factor PJ that
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I think makes a good green after choosing the location
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: is drainage. This isn't the sexiest topic in the world,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: but it is probably the aspect of green design that
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: architects think about the most and players think about the least. Yeah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and yeah, and yet it's it's so important, right it is.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: When you talk to architects about building greens, they just
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: talk to you about drainage. I mean, the fund design
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: stuff is it comes up later. One component of drainage
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: is obviously site selection. What we just talked about location.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: You know, you choose locations that naturally drain well, which
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: is why on older courses you often see greens on ridges,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: greens on high points, or if they're lower, you see
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: greens kind of next to creeks or natural ditches or
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: other drainage elements that were just in the landscape, so
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: that the water goes off the green and onto this
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: lower ground. So finding sites where there's lower ground around
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: it can really help and saw that with the the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: third hole at San Andrew's Beach. Even though it's kind
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: of sitting low in its a media environment, there are
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: places where it naturally water will naturally drain away from it.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Another component of drainage is conjuring. Greens need to be
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: molded so that the water funnels off and either spreads
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: out or goes into drains. So you can't have places
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: on the green where the water pools right, and there
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: are various ways of doing this. You know, this is
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: sometimes where architects can get into a little bit of
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: trouble because if you're contouring the greens so that it
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: drains off, sometimes you do that in ways that don't
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: look very natural or that look contrived in some way.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And you know, often on greens that I would consider
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: kind of poorly shaped or poorly executed. You see what
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: are called catch basins, right, and catch basins are these
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: kind of swales around a green with drains at the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: bottom of them. Sometimes you see them in fair ways
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: as well, where you know the water will obviously just
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you know, run into the swale and go down the drain.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: But when you look at them, it's like, oh, well,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that's just that's basically just a gutter sitting there around
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the green. And you know, catch basins can be necessary sometimes,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: especially on sites that don't naturally have soils that drain quickly,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: but they have to be executed in ways that don't
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: call attention to themselves. And I'll show you an example
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: here from Bandon Dunes of a green surrounded by catch
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: basins that I think kind of jump out to the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: eye and do call attention to themselves in a way
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: that I don't find particularly attractive. So this is the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: third hole Abandoned Dunes. It's a photo from behind the green,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and what we see are kind of these symmetrical swales
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: all around the green, each of which has a drain
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: at the bottom of it. And I just think this
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: green could have been carried out in a more kind
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of naturalistic way that these drainage elements could have could
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: have been executed better. Now I love this golf course.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I think Bandon Dunes is a great golf course, but
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: this is one green where where I think, you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: probably the construction crew could have could have done a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: little bit better. Does that does that?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Can you see what I'm talking about in in this
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: uh in this image PJ.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I I mean it, at least in a way
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I understand your your critique from this aerial view. At
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: least it's like, I don't think it's unappealing to look
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: at I I I don't mind like the symmetry. It
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: looks a little kind of even on all sides there
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: that in the catch basins, but the existence of the
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: catch basins, I understand what you're you're you're getting at
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: for sure.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, that was a quick rundown of green construction and drainage.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: You know. Just keep in mind that this is what
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: this is what architects are talking about when they talk
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: about building greens.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: This is something I've never thought of before in my
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: entire life. So I'm I'm I'm here, this is this
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: is already a win. I think for this episode of
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Golf Architecture, what I want.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Perfect Let's get to the third factor that I think
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: makes for a good green, and that is the green's
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: relationship with the rest of the whole. We've talked about
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: this before on Golf Architecture one oh one. This is
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: kind of the central aspect of strategic golf architecture, What
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: is the relationship between the green and what's going on
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: in the fair way and the tea shot. A good green,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I think determines the strategic character of the whole. That's
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the green to tea thinking that we have developed in
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: some past episodes of golf Architecture one O one thinking
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: from the green backwards. The green is really the first
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: thing that you need to contemplate before you understand a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: golf hole, and I think it's good greens that give
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: you something rich to think about. So the first aspect
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: of the relationship between the green and the rest of
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the hole is size and receptiveness. Generally, the longer the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: average approach shot, the bigger and more receptive the green.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Large greens allow for more margin for air and kind
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of suit. The dispersion patterns of longer clubs, broad open
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: fronts with contours that help the ball onto the green
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: can also be used when you're dealing with a long
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: approach shot, so a long par three, a long par four,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Generally what you want to see is a larger and
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: more receptive green. And so an example of the distinction
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: between a green that can receive a short approach shot
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: versus a long approach shot would be on the one hand,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the seventh hole at Pebble Beach par three, famous par
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: three about it, you know, one hundred or so yard shot,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and the green is tiny. Now it has shrunk over time.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: It's probably smaller than it should be, but certainly it
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: was designed to be partly because the shot that you're
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: hitting into it is very short, and that that size
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: suits the scale of the shot. At the other end
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of the spectrum, maybe you have a green like the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: third at Chicago Golf Club, which is a Birt's template,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: a long par three where players are supposed to be
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: hitting long irons or even woods. And what you see
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: here is a nice big run up into the green,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a broad open front. The bunkers are along the sides
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: of the hole, and what you have is a nice
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: big fairway where you can land your ball and let
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: it run up onto the green. And then the green
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: itself is very large, broad receptive, accommodating, but still interesting
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: because you have that little swale in front of it,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and so you can kind of run your ball through
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that swale. And you know, of course it's not an
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: easy shot still because the size of the green is
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: suited to the size of the possible misses that you
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: would have with those longer clubs. So green size is
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a key component of that relationship between the green and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the rest of the hole. But I do think that
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: sometimes this rule is worth violating because it can create
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: really interesting and exciting situations if the green is out
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of scale with the length of shot being hit. So
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: think about the road hole. What makes that hole exciting, Well,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: it's the fact that the green is too small for
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the length of second shot that you're heading into it.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: And probably part of the reason it's that size is
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: that the hole started as a part five and people
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: were expected to be hitting short third shots into it
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: as opposed to long second shots. But now that we're
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: more commonly hitting long second shots into the well, that's
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that's really quite a moment because the green is so
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: fiercely guarded and it provides such a fine margin for
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: error that you just have to pay attention when somebody
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is hitting hitting a shot into the seventeenth green at
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Saint Andrew's. So architects can play with the scale of
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the green in ways that can be interesting, right, And
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: that's one of the kind of mysteries of golf architecture.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: That's that's where some of the art comes in. When
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: does an architect violate the usual norms of golf course design?
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well it feels like certainly something you not to
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: say that you can't, but you you shouldn't overdo, right.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: I think there's there's probably a level to having too
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: many small greens for longer approach chats and ending up
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: and too many bunkers or whatever else that that green.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Is not receptive too.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: But I definitely think some you know, it's always good
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: to get a visual or even strategic kind of change up.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Like if I saw this screen at Chicago Golf Club, Like, yeah,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: there's a lot there's a lot of room for error
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: because you're presumably hitting a longer club in I think
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: there's a way to me, I feel like, I don't
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: know when I look at that, there's way more It
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: seems more fun. You could get way more creative than
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I you know, the seventh Old Puebble Beach where there's
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: not you have one option, right, like you have to
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: fly it all the way down there and whatever happens happens.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Where you could run run something up here and run
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: it through the middle and get it to the back
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: tier there. I if you gave me the option, I
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: feel like, I don't know, seeing the ball on the
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: ground more, I would take that over the alternative.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Which is why long approach shots can be so great, right,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: And it's what we're missing in pro golf right now,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: is that that spectacle of the ball on the ground.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's part of why us opens off
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and have a long par three makes the players really mad.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: But guess what, when you have long par threes, the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: ball is much more likely to be on the ground
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: in entertaining ways. So yeah, I mean going back to
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the seventh green at Pebble Beach, if you had this
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: green on a two hundred and fifty yard hole, I'm
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: not saying that that would be a good or exciting
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: hole at all, right, you know that would be you
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: could critique that hole for having a green that's kind
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of out of scale, out of character with the nature
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of the approach shot. But the example of the road
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: hole tells you that there's some wiggle room there, there's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: some room to play there. You can you don't have
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to just follow the rules when it comes to the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: size of the green in relation to the length of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the approach shot. Okay, so size of green is one
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: important factor in the relationship between the green and the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: rest of the hole. The other big factor that I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: want to touch on briefly, and only briefly because we've
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: already discussed it so much in past episodes of Golf
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Architecture one on one has to do with the orientation
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of the green and the hazards around it. You can
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: have an angled green that provides the friendliest landing zone
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to you know, the advantageous side of the fairway that
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: kind of opens up to one side of the fairway
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that is maybe difficult to get to and you want
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: to give the player a reward for forgetting to that
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: side of the fairway. You can have uneven hazard arrangements,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: so a bunker in front of one side of the green,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: but not in front of the other side of the green.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Bunker's just just on one side, just guarding one side,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: so that you can kind of play around and have
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: an opening into the green. Now, those two factors can
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: be certainly combined. Right, have an angled green, you can
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: have uneven hazard arrangements on the same green. The same
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: is true of the third factor here, and that is
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: tiltep the most underrated component of a strategic golf hole.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I think a tilted green that provides a backstop for
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the advantageous side of the fairway, and if you're kind
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of on the wrong side of the fairway, then the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: green runs away from you a little bit. And one
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: of my favorite examples of the use of tilt in
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: strategic golf architecture is the tenth hole at Augusta National.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: This green is so tilted from right to left, and
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: then there's also a bunker just on the right side,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: So that's an example of an uneven hazard arrangement around
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the green. Clearly, the preferred side of the fairway is
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the left here, because you're hitting into the tilt of
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the green. If you're on the right side of the fairway,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: which is where the photo happens to be taken from
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that we're looking at right now, then you're really kind
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: of playing across that slope in the difficult way. Your
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: ball is going to land and kind of shoot forward,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: whereas if you get over to the left, then your
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: ball is going to have more of a tendency to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: stop on the green. But it's tough to get to
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the left side of the fairway because you have to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: hook it around the trees, et cetera. This is how
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: green design can enhance strategic golf architecture. So I would
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: say if the green's orientation and hazards correspond in some
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: kind of logical and interesting way to the design of
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the rest of the hole, that is a big part
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: of saying this is a good green. You know, that
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: is a key component, all right, So that does it
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: for the greens relationship with the rest of the hole.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: We have a few more ideas to get to about
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: what makes a good green, but first I want to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: talk about our friends at the Golf Course Superintendent's Association
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: of America or GCSAA. This partnership makes a lot of
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: sense for us at Friday Golf. Really, our company would
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: not exist in its current form today without the help
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and kindness of superintendents. Many of these photos that I'm
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: showing to PJ right now in this episode our photos
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that we took because we kind of snuck onto the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: golf course through the maintenance facility. Many mornings we have
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: arrived early and emparked our cars in the maintenance facility
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and then gone out onto the golf course to explore
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it and take photos. GCSAA supports more than twenty one
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: thousand members worldwide, not only golf course superintendents, but also
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: equipment managers, students, and educators. Celebrating its one hundredth anniversary
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: this year, GCSAA continues to ensure that its members are
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: on the forefront of research, education, innovation, and advocacy through
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: a range of programs and services. To learn more, go
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: to GCSAA dot org. Check it out. Great organization and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: we're very proud to be working with them. Okay, Next
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: up on the docket, PJ for what makes a great green?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I think we have to consider the examination of a
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: player's skill here, and this brings in the subject of
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: severity and the subject of consequences for poorly played or
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: inaccurate approaches. The right amount of severity and consequence can
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: make greens very exciting and properly testing of a player's skill. Right.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: The test is of approach, play, short game shots and putting.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Augusta National is the ultimate example. Those greens are so
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: testing partly because of their severity. Shinnecock Hills also has
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: some great ones, very severe greens not in the same
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: way as Augustus, though, whereas Augusta Nationals greens have severe
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: undulation and tilt, a couple of Shinnacock's have some tilt
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: as well. A lot of the danger at Shinnecock Hills
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: as greens is around the greens, Right, it's the consequences
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: from misplayed approaches. So severity and consequence are are key
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: parts of what makes a green testing. But you can
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: also have too much of those things, right, Yeah, it
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: can also become absurd or one dimensional. Do you do?
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: You do?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: You do you have an idea of where that line
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: is for you?
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I if I do, just off
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: the top of my head, but I definitely agree with
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: the the theory of it being too one dimensional. Like
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: if every hole is so rounded by bunkers, if every
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: green is surrounded by bunkers and there's no you know,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: runoff area, or if it's just very thick rough around
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: every hole and it's the same thing repetitive, I think
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: it would be.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: I think it would be just more repetition than anything else.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: If you get up to every green and you're missing
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: in the same spots and you're left with the same
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: type of shot I feel like that could get very boring.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: We will talk about that later. I think that that
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: fits into another category that I want to get into.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: That the nature of the recovery shots that you hit,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: and that is I think that's a super important aspect
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: of a great green. It's the variety of recovery shots
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: that result from it. But yeah, you know, as it
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: relates to severity and consequence, I think that there's such
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: a difference between seeing a tournament played at a place
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: like Augusta National or Shinnecock Hills and seeing a tournament
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: played at a place like Royal Birkdale, or probably the
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: better example is Quail Hollow, where there isn't the same
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: sense of severity and consequence When an approach shot is
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: sailing into a green at Quail Hollow, generally you weren't
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: on the edge of your seat wondering what's going to happen,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: whereas you are at augustin Nashvill, you are at Shinnacock
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and you're on the edge of your seat because you're like,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you know, there could be many outcomes here. And also
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: this player is in the midst of demonstrating great skill.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: If they pull off this shot, then they've really done something,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you know, and if they don't, then something's going to
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: happen to them. And that is I think, very satisfying
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to us. But there is a line. There is a line,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to do with fairness, I don't think.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I think it just has to do with the fact
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that overly severe greens, overly punishing greens, do become one
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: dimensional ultimately, and I think an example of that is
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that Shinnacock Hills, the seventh hole, the ra Dan hole
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: at Chinnacock. Now, I just said Shinnecock's greens are fantastic.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: It's one of the greatest golf courses in the world.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: But I do think the seventh hole at Shinnacock maybe
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: just goes a touch too far with the severity. There
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: are very few pen positions, and so really it just
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: there's one type of shot that you hit on this hole.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: The margins are so fine that, especially when the wind
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: is up, I'm not sure it's really a test of
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: a player's ability. I think it has more to do
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: with just the luck of hitting one patch of grass.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: It's like one yard left of the other patch of grass. Now,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: the main problem here, I think is likely green speeds,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: which we'll talk about later. Okay, the green has become
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: so fast that the tilt of it has become too much.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: There are only a couple of places that you can
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: really put the pin and have the ball stay stay
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: in place, and so I think that's that's more the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: source of the problem than the design of the green.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: But it's definitely still it's entertaining to play. It's a
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: tense moment in the round. There is a joy factor
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of watching great players tackle this hole and either get
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: rejected or be relieved when when they aren't rejected. But
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: for me, it's just it's just a little bit too much.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: It's just over the line. I don't know what your
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: reaction to it was. During during the US Open, PJ
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the seventh green at shnakok Ay, I.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Mean it it did.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: It kind of felt like the same everybody just ended
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: up in the same not the same spot, but it
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: didn't feel like anybody was just hitting the green. I
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: sat there for a while, I think on Friday, and
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: it was just like every group that came through it
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: was kind of the same thing. It was everybody would miss,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: maybe one guy would stick it, but it was not like.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: I do think there's an aspect to.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Almost like fifteen at Berkdale last week, Like, I think
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: there's something to be said for like a par feeling
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: like a birdie and like a major championship round, like
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: you're picking up a shot. Three at Shitnacock was like
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: that during the weekend too, I think on Saturday, like
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: everybody was bogeying three. I do think, like, I think
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: there's a real benefit to that in that you can
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: gain a shot on the field by just making par.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: But I do think when it's you know, you're getting
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: into a spot where everybody is playing the same shot
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: or getting rejected to the same area because of a green, Like, yeah,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: that could be a little boring and repetitive for sure.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I have my issues with the framework of test that
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: we often use when we talk talk about championship golf courses,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: But I don't think we should throw that entirely out
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: because you know, certainly part of the role of a
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: golf course is to examine a player's skill and to
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: identify a worthy champion. And there is a point at
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: which a test becomes too unachievable. If a test is
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: is not passable at a reasonable rate. Then it no
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: longer feels like a proper test. And that's the line
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: that the seventh hole at Shinnacock is at least right
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: at and maybe over now at the other end of
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the spectrum from seven at Shinnacock, you have bowl greens,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: punch bowl greens, greens that funnel to the middle, you know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: while fun in moderation. While I think they definitely have
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: a place on any golf course, they can wear thin
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: quickly because they do flatten the difference between rate good
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and average shots, and they and they narrow the range
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: of potential outcomes. It it becomes again one dimensionality becomes
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: an issue. So this, this subject of the test of
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: the player's skill is it's not something that I that
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I think about that often unless I'm like talking with
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Joseph lamani Our, a colleague who who covers professional golf,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and you know, if I'm if I'm looking at the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: competitive scene, then I'll then I'll think about test more.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: But the more I I I contemplate this this category,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the more I think, yeah, it is. It is an
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: interesting It is an important aspect of of green design
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: that the amount of severity, the amount of consequence dialing
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: that in to the right level is pretty key, all right.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Next factor that makes a good green, and we just
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: sort of touched on it with seven at Shinnakok. The
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: variety of pin positions. A good green I think offers
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: a well differentiated range of pin positions pins and different
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: sectors of the green. So right, left, back, front, pins
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of varying difficulty. Right, you have some on knobs, some
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: on shelves, some in bowls, some near punishing hazards, right,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: some kind of on the edge near it, near a
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: bunker where it's the opportunity for recovery is really difficult,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: you know, and then others that offer more margin for air. Yep.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: When you look at a green, when you're playing a green,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: you only see one pin position. But I think a
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: good thing to do is to look at the rest
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of the green and consider where the pin can go.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: That's a practice that I think allows people to appreciate
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: golf architecture at another level. Not just look at the
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: pin that you're playing that day, but look around the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: green and see where the pin could be put. Because
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: occasionally a change in pin position changes the character of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the hole. And here I want to look at the
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: ninth Green at Harbortown. Now, if I can describe this
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: for audio listeners, it's a crazy looking green, but it
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: basically looks like Mickey Mouse. You have two big ears
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and the green kind of forms a boomerang, a reverse boomerang. Right,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Is that? Have I described that correctly?
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. It's like a reverse the Mickey Mouse.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: The Mickey Mouse is.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: The Mickey Mouse. Yeah, just just imagine, just imagine a
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: silhouette of Mickey Mouse. So you have these two big
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: lobes on the right and the left, and if the
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: pin is on the on the one on the right,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: well you kind of want to be on the left
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: side of the hole. If the pin is on the
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: lobe on the left, well you kind of want to
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: be on the right side of the hole. And so
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: here the pin position does determine a lot about the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: character of the whole. And I think something that can
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: make you say that's a great green is if the
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: pin positions are like that. The pin positions really do
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: provide a different experience from day to day.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Again, I don't know that it's something that I've ever
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: consciously thought about until right now, but yeah, especially if
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: it's a course, you're playing a lot. Like you just said,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: the shot on this whole would completely change if it's
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: you know, tuck to the right and there's that fall
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: off there, like you know where you have to be,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: and it's asking a different question, which is I don't know.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: I think it's cool to have that optionality. I think
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: it's probably cool when you're setting up the golf course
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: to have an.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Option to.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Make people do something completely different. I think it's cool
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: if you're playing it for the second or third time whatever,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: that you have a different shot than you had before.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I I you know, just.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Me knowing nothing objectively speaking, Yeah, it seems like a
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: lot of pimpositions is great because why wouldn't it be something.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Different creates a course within a course, or multiple courses
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: within the same course, and that you know, a lot
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of golf courses, especially in the in the early part
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, were built with the assumption that
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: people would be playing them over and over and over again.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I think we've started to move away from that assumption
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: in some modern golf architecture, especially at destination resorts, where
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the assumption is more that people might just be playing
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: this course once, Yeah, But there is a level of
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: complexity that I think comes from golf architects believing that
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: people will play their courses many times. Because if they
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: believe that, then they will probably design greens more like
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: this one at Harbortown, the ninth Green, where different pin
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: positions really do provide a different experience because they're thinking,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you know, people aren't just going to see one pin
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: position at this green, They're going to see multiple ones.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: At tournament courses. It's a good thing to do because
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: on different days it's it's a different test, and you
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: keep players on their toes. You don't allow them to
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: settle into a groove, and that's something you really get
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: from the ninth at Harbortown because it is the host
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: of the RBC Heritage.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: You also need to make sure that that you don't
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: only have pin positions on the right side, because that
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: it would not benefit drawers of the golf ball and
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: people might tweet about that. So you've got to be
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: able to, you know, make sure you stay out of
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: the crosshairs from any potential burner accounts on Twitter that
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: would tweet about course set up and where the flags
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: might be on a given tournament.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Round the main thing, the main that's the I think.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's the main thing behind decisions and
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: course set up, that kind of thing.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: This ever happened before, but if it were to happen,
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: you know, you might.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Want to avoid that.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that would be crazy if that happened. All Right,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: it's worth taking a little break here, I think to
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: talk about green speeds, yeah, because it relates very much
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: to this notion of variety and pin positions. So greens
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: like those that at Augusta National or Oakmont were designed
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: for stimp meter readings in the single digits. Yeah, Oakmont
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: has always had relatively fast greens. Augusta National has always
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: had relatively fast greens, but relatively is doing a lot
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: of work there because back in the you know, even
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: just thirty years ago, even forty years ago, greens were
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: just way way slower than they are now. The expectations,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: the standards around green speeds were so different just a
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: few decades ago. Now, Augusta and Oakmont regularly push thirteen
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to fifteen on the stint meter, and this reduces the
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: amount of pinnable area, meaning that pins are put in
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: fewer and less interesting positions. When you start to get
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: greens that fast, you can't put pins on slopes anymore.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: You have to find the flat areas of the green,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: and again that reduces the amount of pinnable area. It
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: reduces the dynamism of the experience from day to day
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: because you're taking away from the variety of pin positions. Now,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: that's a less complex test of skill, first of all,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: because puts are going to break less when you put
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: pins in flatter areas. If you have pins on slopes,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: then you're more likely to have short puts that you
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: have to aim outside the hole to make them. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: so you know, green speeds flattened the test in that way.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: But the main problem is this is this this issue
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: of variety of pin positions. The faster you're greens, the
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: fewer the areas that you're going to be able to
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: put your pins. And the really unfortunate consequence of high
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: green speeds is that a lot of clubs end up
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: feeling that they need to soften the slopes of their greens,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: They need to redesign their greens, take away the severity
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: and character of their greens, make them flatter, because speeds
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: have made the greens dysfunctional have made it so that
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: they need to put the pins in the same places
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: from day to day. And one thing that happens when
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: you put pins in the same places from day to
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: day is that the greens get really worn down in
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: those particular areas that the wear and tear is not
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: spread out as much. And so green speeds are one
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: of the biggest problems for golf architecture right now. But
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: it's something that people rarely talk about, and it's something
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: that it just feels like there's no going back. It
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: feels like these clubs are just gonna gonna keep pushing
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: the envelope when it when it comes to green speeds.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Who will be brave enough to go back to single
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: digit green speeds?
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Who? Who?
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: And when we call on you, yeah, yeah, I mean
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: to an extent, Shinnakawk Hills what during this last US
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: Open was remarkable because they were only in the ten
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: to eleven range.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: It was like, wow, but that's still really fast, you know,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: And it's it is what you're pointing out there, PJ
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: is the issue. Who is going to do that? Who's
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: gonna stick their neck out and say I'm gonna have
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: slower greens? Yeah, you know, there's there's almost kind of
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: like a macho aspect to this, where where clubs can't
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: be seen as the as the as the WUS that
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: has the slower greens, But of course it would be.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: It would be so much better for for the playability
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: of the golf course and and for the integrity of
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: the design of the greens. So I've just gone on
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: a bit of a rant there. I want to do
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: a sense check with you. Does that make sense how
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: green speeds would relate with design in that way?
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I feel like you can't. I don't know,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: if you have a great amount of slope in these greens,
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: or you have a pin on a spot where it's
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: not reasonable to you basically have to make it, or
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: else you're in ginormous amounts of trouble on a high
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: speed green, then like, yeah, of course that's not I
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: don't want to call it unplayable, but it's certainly not enjoyable.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Like I mean, do I care from a professional golf
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: standpoint if the pros playing are enjoying the golf course, No,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: But from a.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: Recreational play standpoint, like, yeah, I think you got to
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: just you know, give a dog a bone almost here,
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: and give people like a fighting chance.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: If you want to do this at a a professional tournament, please,
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: by all means turn it up. I'll root for I'll
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: root for carnage and.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: People complaining no matter what, because it's it's better for
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: everybody that way. But I think who will have the
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: courage to go back to intricacies on the greens and
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: single digit green speeds. I'm happy to throw that gautlet
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: out on your behalf right here.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Anybody who's not hosting a major tournament, yeah, I think
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't have an excuse. I think you can love that.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: You can do it. You know, you get You're free,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: You're free of the shackles of big time professional golf.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Your greens can be slower, you can retain some character
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: in those greens. You can put the pins in interesting places.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: You just need to grow the grass a little bit higher.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: It doesn't doesn't always need to be doesn't always need
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: to be slick. All right, Let's go on to the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: next factor that I think makes for a great green,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: and that is the variety of recovery shots, something that
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: you referred to earlier underrated aspect of green design when
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: you miss a green, what happens and is it engaging?
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Is it varied? You know, this really highlights the design
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: of what's around the putting surface, right, which is just
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: as important as what's on the putting surface. When you
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: think about recovery shots and what happens when you miss
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the green, then you start to think about something that
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: people often don't think about, and that is the design
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of the surrounds. You can have a combination of short grass,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: rough native grass, bunkers, and other hazards, and that combination
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: can generate a great deal of variety in the short
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: game shots around the green. So can contouring right interesting
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: contours around the green. Unexpected contours, unpredictable contours can also
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: increase the the energy and dynamism of the short game
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: shots that you hit around the green. It's it's a
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: way for architects to define better and worse misses around
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: the greens. Maybe some places it's really hard to recover.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: From other places you're faced with with more of a simple,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: straightforward chip back onto the putting surface. So there are
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of possibilities that you can pursue around greens
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: to create a variety of recovery shots. Now this is something.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: It's something I always look at when I walk onto
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: a green that I haven't seen before, I look around
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: at the surrounds and I consider, well, what if I
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: miss there, What would that be like to get back
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: onto the putting surface? What if I missed over there?
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Would it be different? Would be interesting? Right? That's it's
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: a it's a key set of questions that that you
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: could ask about greens to appreciate their design more. And
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: you know, the frustrating thing can be sometimes that you
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: look around and you're like, well, no matter where I
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: miss around this green, it's kind of the same shot.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's surrounded by bunkers and it's just a bunker shot.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe in the worst case, is simply surrounded by rough
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: without much interesting contouring, and you're like, well, that sort
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: of flattens the variety and the entertainment factor of missing
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the green here. On the other hand, when greens have
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: a good amount of short grass around them, I think
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: that's when you're really cooking with gas, right. Short grass
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: can bring in that unpredictability and that variety of short
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: game shots that I'm really looking for when I consider
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: this aspect of green design, and one of my favorite
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: examples is the eighth Green at Augusta National remarkable green,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: a very strange green in many ways, just surrounded very
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: long and narrow and surrounded by these huge mountains, and
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: it's all short grass. And if you miss far to
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: the left, you're gonna be in the pine straw and trees.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, when you miss this green,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be in amongst over on the other side,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: of on top of wherever, around these big short grass mounts.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: And there are so many different shots that you could
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: potentially face if you miss this green, and so many
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: different ways that you could approach those shots. This is
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: what I think contour and short grass around the greens
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: can bring that just rough and just bunkers never could
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: so Eighth Green at Augusta, Nashal I have a great
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: example of that.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it brings creativity for sure, and I think it
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: adds a level of skill.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Like if you're just.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: In the rough on every hole and you're getting swallowed
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: by long grass, that becomes a kind of a Rulette's
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: spin on.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: Do you have a lie? Do you have a lie?
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Like that kind of takes a I think a lot
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: of the fun out of it. You could just be
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: totally hosed, So you could be sitting up and you
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: could have have an accurate chip shot, and that certainly
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: gets repetitive after every hole. I think eight and Augusta,
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: n Ashville is a great example.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: I I know a guy who hit a shot over
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: the screen, wrote it up one of the other mounds
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: and came back down the other side and then made
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: a putt to lead the Masters on Sunday like that.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: That Who was this hero and it was this remarkable,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: remarkable and very appealing man.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah it could be Cameron Young, who's to say, But
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: I think that's like a perfect example of a level
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: of creativity. Like when he set up for the shot,
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: the broadcast wasn't sure if he was intending to do it,
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: like it confused.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, They're like, oh, that's shot, so where's he going.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Nobody knew what was happening.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: Everybody just thought he sculled the chip and then it
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: came right back down off the mound, and obviously it
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: was intense. And I think that is just a level
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: of creativity. Even if you don't have like the skill
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: necessarily to pull it off, it makes you think more
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: than you know, I gotta get up and down of
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: a bunker, or oh do I have a lie in
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: the rough?
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Like it?
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: Just again, it all comes back to for me, like
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: I like as somebody who doesn't hit the ball very
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: high or anything like, having the ball on the ground
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: is cool to me because I think I don't know,
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: more things can happen. It adds a lot more variability
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: in good ways and bad.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Makes it more fun and honestly easier for regular players
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: like you and me, but introduces a different level of
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: challenge for guys like Cameron Young. Now I'm not saying
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: that short grass around the greens is going to produce
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: higher scores. What's going to produce higher scores is if
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you grow up the rough right around the greens and
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: make it a super thick and yeah, if your goal
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: is to have a plus eight winning score, then that's
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: what you're gonna do. But as we saw in the
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: past at Shinnacok Hills when they had rough right up
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: around the greens, it yes made those chips difficult when
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: you're chipping back onto a fast and fern putting surface
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: from a buried lie in the thick rough, but it
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: also stopped the ball from going to interesting places. Yeah,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you'd miss over the back of the eleventh green at
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Shinnacock and your ball would stop on that slope. It
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: wouldn't run away from the hole on that slope. And
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: so that's the trade off. That's what we have to
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: keep in mind when we say rough around the greens
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: or rough anywhere is the key is that it it
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: grabs that ball and the next shot may be very difficult.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: It may be easier to hit a chip off of
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: short grass than it is to hit a chip out
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: of deep, deep rough. But the t eat off is clear.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: You get you get more interesting shots, You get more
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: varied shots after missing a green when you have a
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: good amount of short grass, or at least if you
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: have some combination of rough and short grass and bunkers
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: and and other other hazards around the green. So variety
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: is the key.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: It can't be the same thing every time like that
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: that and and if it is the same thing every time,
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I would prefer it be short grass just because of
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: the variability aspect of of what you what players can
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: do from from there, more than anything else.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: I'm with you on that next factor that makes a
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: great green originality we'll talk just a little bit about originality, creativity,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: inventiveness of design. Kind of a tricky thing to talk
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: about because it's really it's really a you know it
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: when you see it thing, right, And it also depends
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: on your experience, right if you if you're somebody who
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: hasn't seen a lot of different greens at a lot
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: of different courses, you may not have an immediate sense
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: of what's original and what's not, because it's presumably all
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: pretty new to you. But to me, the greens that
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: make you stop and say, I haven't quite seen anything
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: like that before are the most engaging ones, or at
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: least the ones that make you feel like you're dealing
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: with some kind of fresh execution of a standard concept.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: And that can be the case in template greens on C. B.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: MacDonald and SETH Rayner courses. I wouldn't call those greens
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: original because by definition they're not original. But when you
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: play the Burt's at Chicago Golf Club, which we just
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: looked at, or you play the particular rendition of the
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Dan at National Golf Links, then you really do feel
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: like something fresh is happening there because of the location
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: of the green, because of the particular execution of the details,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: and so there is this sense of freshness and originality
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: to any great green. Now, the easiest and probably best
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: route to originality is taking inspiration from the specificities of
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the natural train. Nature is an endless source of originality,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: and if you just follow its cues, then then you're
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: going to have results that feel new, you know, because
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: there's no other patch of ground like that in the world.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: And if you just rely on that, then then you
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: are generally in pretty good shape. Great example of this
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: is the is the fourth green at Royal Saint George's.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: I have it labeled on the screen right now, is
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: the fifth green, And that's killing me. But only only
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: the YouTube audience is going to see that, So I'm
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: sorry that was a typo. This is the fourth green
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: at Royal Saint George's.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is crazy, and look at that.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to even really try to describe it,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: but it's basically just this big green that's draped over
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: a natural shelf. It's tilting strongly from left to right,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: and it's just sitting there right, It's just sitting there
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: on the ground and it's a great piece of ground
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: and that's all the green is doing. Now, I could
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: go into how it corresponds to the strategy as a whole,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: and it does its job brilliantly in that way. But
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: when you look at this green, you think, I haven't
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: seen anything like that before. And the reason you haven't
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: seen anything like that before is that this piece of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: land is its own unique thing, and the green just
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: uses it. It is just set on it, and it's
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: quite beautiful, and it is the fourth green and not
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the fifth green. Now, manufactured originality is definitely possible, but
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: it takes a lot of skill because a lot of
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: people try to manufacture originality and fall short. Because we're humans,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: We're limited. We don't have the same creative capabilities of nature, right,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and we have to admit that in humility to we
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: have to admit our limitations sometimes.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: But yes, can't go Jurassic Park golf course. Unfortunately.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah you can, but you need to have extraordinary skill.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: And you can really tell when when somebody has that
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: talent of being able to manufacture originality. Now, no architect
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: I think can do it on every green, on every
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: golf course that he or she builds. You know, you
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: have to sometimes be more natural in your approach. But
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: I think that the course Old Barnwell, a recent design
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: by Brian Schneider and Blake Conant, has some very manufactured greens,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: like the eighth green, which we're looking at right now,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: that do feel original and don't seem particularly contrived or
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: or you know, overly based on other sources, or or
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: just like they you know, they don't belong there, that
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: they're executed really well. But some of them are very artificial.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: The key, however, is a variety. And you know, sometimes
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: the most daring thing that you can do, the most
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: original thing you can do, is just set the green
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: on the land. And another example of that would be
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: at the same golf course, the eighteenth hole at Old Barnwell.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing here, PJ.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: It's it's just sitting in the middle of a patch
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: of grass, right, It's just yeah, there's nothing there, It's
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: just a flag.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: And then the putting surface.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: It is completely unified with the land around it. There's
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: there's basically nothing that you can see that was constructed here. Now.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I do know that, you know, if you things a
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: few contours, a few details are pushed here and there,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: but the putting surface the eighteenth hole at Old Barnwell
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: just really sits on the land. Now, what you can't
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: really see in this photo is that it is very
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: significantly tilted right because it sits on terrain that naturally
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: tilts it. There is there is a strong pole toward
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: the left side of the green as you're as you're
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: playing into it. But uh, this is the the kind
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: of variety that that you need in approaches across a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: golf course. You had the eighth green, which is heavily
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: manufactured but does feel original, does feel like a fresh idea,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: and then you have the eighteenth green, which is literally
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: just sitting on the ground. Okay, so originality key component.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Often that originality is going to come from nature, but
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes if you have real proficiency, then as an architect
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: you can create some originality. The next factor that I
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: want to talk about PJ and I. I want to
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: follow up originality with this for a reason, and that
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: is elegance. Sometimes architects do try too hard to be
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: original and the result of that is a chaotic mess
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: of contours and just craziness. Right, Wildness is not the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: same thing as originality, And it seems to me that
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: occasionally architects are really trying to manufacture that sense of freshness,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: but they forget that elegance is also an important component.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: You know. Probably my favorite greens are the ones that
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: achieve everything we've talked about to this point while being
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: relatively simple, or at least not seeming to have any
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: unnecessary elements. Right, Elegance in design is achieving what you
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: need to achieve with exactly the right number of moves
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: and no more. If the architect makes too many moves,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: then the green design can become muddled and incoherent, and
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: you're looking at the contours and you're you're saying, Okay, well,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: why is that there? What does that correspond to in
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the rest of the hole? What's the purpose of that?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Is that really creating extra interest in the short game,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: recovery shots or a pin position that is that is
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: genuinely interesting or or is that just not needed? So
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: I love greens that do a lot while seeming to
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: do relatively little. Good example of that is the fifteenth
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: green at the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: This is a short par three. In this image PJ,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: we're looking at the green from the back. It is
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: a crescent shaped green, very narrow in some parts of it.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: The back section of it is wider than the front
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: section of it, and between those two sections back in front,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: there's a big bump, yep, just like a buried elephant
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: right there in the middle of the green. And that's
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: it right Otherwise there's some bunkers around it. But this
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: green is really just about that shape that I described,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: the crescent shape and that bump in the middle, and
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: think about all the variety that you can get from that.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: You can put the pin in the front this very
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: very narrow, tiny sliver of putting surface. It is the
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: shortest shot, but it's very exacting because you really have
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: to you have to hit a narrow area. Then you
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: have the back section where yeah, more margin for error
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: back there, but it's a longer shot and it's somewhat
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: concealed from the tee. And then you have that bump
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: in the middle. Just imagine what you can do with
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: that bump. You can put the pin right behind it
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: if you want to, you can put it right in
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: front of it. That bump is It can can create
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: so much much fun stuff in this hole. But again elegance,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: It achieves a lot with relatively few moves.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's really not a lot going on here, but
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: it is. You could do a whole bunch of that.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: It's very cool, Yeah, and that's that's that is I
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: think the factor that gets lost in modern design. Sometimes.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that a lot of architects are going for originality.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: They're going there. They want to make something fresh and new,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and that's a good impulse, but that has to be
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: tempered by elegance, because I think that you know, any
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: any kind of art that that I love, has this
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: aspect of elegance about it. I don't know about upj,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: but you know, I like literature where the author doesn't
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: seem to be doing much and yet a lot is achieved,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: or movies where you know it it doesn't seem overly intricate,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: but but actually there's there's a lot there when when
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: you look at it. This is It's a common theme
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: for me in the stuff that I really respond to.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I know not everybody feels the same way. There are
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: those who embrace maximalism and like that exuberance of a
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: piece of art where there's a lot going on, But
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: personally I take the most joy in things that are
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: are simple yet subtly complex. How do you feel.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: I can tell by this conversation you're really fired up
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: about the Avengers doomsday trailer from this week. Oh God,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: you're really You're ready to go December eighteenth. You're gonna
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: be there at midnight. You're ready.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: I just watched this trailer yesterday. I was like, oh God,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: that looks bad.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: What would you say? The Avengers, Douesday of Greens are.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe that? God, it's said that Ryder cup Course, Marcos Simone,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: this is a lot going on. Just threw everything at it.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: But there's not, you know, not much of a point
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: aside from making money.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: I like that. That's good. I like that.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it doesn't look like a doesn't look like
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: a good movie. There have been some Marvel movies. I like,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: what what happened.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: Here looks like it's gonna be real bad, very very concerning.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: But I mean it just doesn't look you look at
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: the trailer. There's some shots where it's like, oh, they're
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: just standing in like a back lot in Burbank, and
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: it's just they're surrounded by c g I and it
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: feels that way.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: So here we'll tie this back to golf courses down.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on the Odyssey and all of
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: the practical effects. There's a lot going on, but it's
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: it's a real piece of art. How would you relate
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: that to to to a green and door golf course?
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Well, this is a really interesting question, PJ. Have you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: seen The Odyssey yet?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: I haven't. It's it's my this weekend. I'm still hoping
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: that I could get.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I'm max screen. Yeah, the seventy millimeter screens are in
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: limited supply. There's one kind of near me that I'm
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: actually thinking about going and seeing it again, but that
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: might be too much. Well, yeah, I think there is
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: an interesting link here. It might not be immediately what
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: we're talking about with elegance, though I think there is
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: an elegance to Christopher Nolan's movies. The dialogue is relatively minimal,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot in it. Though I wouldn't say
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: that that the verbal aspect of Christopher Nolan's movies is
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: like the best thing about them. The writing is not
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: often the thing that you go to see Christopher Nolan
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: movie for, but just this sensation of sitting in a
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: theater and watching something that you know actually happened, not
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: happened historically obviously, contrary to a lot of the online discourse,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: this is a fantastical narrative which we can do whatever
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: we want with. But you know that he filmed so
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: much of what we're seeing on the screen. Yes, there
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: are some special effects, but we know that Nolan. We
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: trust Christopher Nolan to keep that to a minimum. And
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: so when they're on a ship in the storm tossed see,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: we know that what we're seeing on screen was actually
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: experienced by these actors and the people who made the movie.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: We know when they're huddled inside that Trojan horse in
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: close quarters, peeing and pooping on each.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: Other, they shoved an Imax camera in there.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: So they put an Imax camera in there, and they
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: actually put the actors in there in the cold water
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: and experienced that. And there is a visceral excitement to
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: actually seeing something real. And by the way, that is
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: what is sort of alienating about some of the recent
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Marvel movies, where you watch it and you just know
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: that none of this has any weight of reality to it.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: And yes, to me, that does relate to golf course
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: designed to green design in the sense that you look
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: at a green like the fourth Green at Royal Saint
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: George's and you just know there's there's reality to that green,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: that there's there. You are experiencing something topographically real, and
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: that excitement is hard to replace with with anything manufactured.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: Architects of great skill can can get close, but but
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: there's nothing quite like it.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: I think we might need to do a golf architecture
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: one oh one where you just compare famous golf courses
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: to movies for me, because I think that would be
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: really beneficial probably for my life, Like I need to
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: know who the tom Cruise of golf architecture is. That's
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: trying to get everybody to come back out to the
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: out to the movies.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but kind of does the same thing over and
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: over again. Even if that thing is like there's.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: A banger though that thing, that thing goes.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: Well relating it, relating what we were just talking about there.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: That the sense of reality and the sense of actually
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: doing things and capturing them on camera. I think that's
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: a big reason why Top Gun Maverick was such a
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: big hit. It's like, oh my god, these people are
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: in planes. They're actually in there in these planes getting
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: hit by the g forces. Yeah, they're not like shooting
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: at each other. Actually we know that, but you can
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: feel that there is a real thing happening to the
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: actor in the plane, and that is so exciting, and I, yeah,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: I feel the same, so much the same about golf courses.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of meat on this bone.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: I think we might have to come back to this
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: because now I'm extra excited about it.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: You know what we should do sometime soon. PJ is
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: like a golf architecture one on one mail bag where
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: we can kind of get into get into fun topics
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: like this, get some questions from readers. You can come
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: up with questions. I think a mail bag would be
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: would be a good idea. At some point there we
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: go book it final point that I'd love to make
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: about what makes a good green And I do want
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: to apologize in retrospect right now this has been a
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: very biased episode where I've just been talking about things
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: that I like. And you know, the point of a
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: one oh one class is too is to bring the students,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: have the students think their own thoughts and and create
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: their own knowledge, and not to not to press your
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: opinions on that too much as the professor.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about me.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I have strong opinions about this kind
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: of stuff, but I'm I'm always willing to hear pushback.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: The final component would have to be the attractiveness of
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: the shaping and the finished work of a green. So
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: how are the artificial elements of the green shaped to
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: correspond to and blend in with the environment around the green.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: So the shaping that connects the artificial features of a
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: green to the surrounding landscape is called a tie in.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Tie In is a key key term here, and it's
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: it is what it sounds like, tying in your manufactured
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: features if the environment, you.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: Know, I heard a lot about this last week, came up,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: came up quite a bit, the.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: Tie ins at Royal Birkdale. And I will say, you know,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: I and maybe some other architecture nerds can can maybe
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: get too offended about about substandard tie ins at places
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: like Royal Birkdale. And I do think that, you know,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: some of the tie in work, the the the kind
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of interface between the new greens and the natural dune
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: environment at Royal Birkdale. I will stand by that they're
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: not good, but they're also not terrible, you know, They're
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: not They're not the worst I've ever seen, and so
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get too overboard about that. I
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: still think Royal Birkdale is a wonderful championship venue, but
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: that is something that really that especially when you're talking
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: about we began this episode talking about some of the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: differences in perspective between the general golfer and the died
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: in the wool architecture. When it comes to tie ins,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: that is a subject that architecture nerds can take very
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: very seriously, and potentially too seriously. But there's an important
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: point here, and it's that the tie ins make the
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: green feel like it belongs there. There's a lot of
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: different ways to do great golf architecture, and it doesn't
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: necessarily all have to be naturalistic. And I want to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: show you a final photo here of the tenth hole
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: at Cape Arundle, which is a course in Maine designed
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: by Walter Travis. When you look at this green, the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: tenth green, there's kind of a big false front and
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: then it goes to that it rolls into a middle
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: section and then there's a raised shelf in the back
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: and it's all kind of pushed up from the surrounding landscape.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: When you look at this. You aren't necessarily thinking, Wow,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: that's all really nicely connected with the natural environment, though
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: I think the actual tie ins between the high parts
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: of the green and what's around it are at least
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: smooth and nicely, nicely shaped and everything. But you don't
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: look at that green and think, oh, that was just
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: sitting there in the landscape. It's clearly a manufactured thing.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: But I think it looks really beautiful, right, that it
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: looks compelling, and not because it's natural, but just because
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: it itself is an interesting thing to look at, and
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: some skill has been exercised in shaping this thing and
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: turning it into almost like a piece of art. I
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: guess the point is that I don't necessarily think a
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: green's shaping has to be natural in order to be successful,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: all right, So just to quickly summarize the factors that
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: can make a great green. One location, two drainage, three,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: the relationship with the rest of the whole four, the
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: test of the player's skill. Five, a variety of pin positions. Six,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: a variety of recovery shots seven, originality, eight elegance nine
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: the attractiveness of the shaping and finish work. We've covered
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of ground there, PJ. Any takeaways, anythings that
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: will stick with you as as interesting about this particular lesson.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: As somebody who doesn't hit a lot of greens in
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: my day to day life.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: I think I'm most when I walk up to a green,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: I'm most focused on all right, like where where did
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: I miss?
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: Where should I have missed? What is the miss?
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: And it does get I think I'm I might and
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: I'm probably harping too much on it. But from like
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: a recreational standpoint, like where the variety of of of
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: recovery shots I think is pretty important. Like I think
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: you have to give people a you have to give
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: people a chance to even play, but be it shouldn't
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: be the same thing every single time.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: You have to make something happen for them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: you have to give them, give them some kind of
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: reason to engage with the next shot, for sure. And
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: that can sometimes be overlooked because you know, maybe an
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: architect who is a former professional golfer might assume that
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: people aren't really missing greens that much, but we do,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, to us, PJ, what's around the
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: green is extremely important.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: So that's what I think maybe more and I unders
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: says that's probably objectively wrong in this instance. But I
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: do think from a professional golf standpoint, I think the
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: point about are some greens too small or penalizing in
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: ways that could deeply affect a tournament, and the reward
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: is disproportionate for hitting a certain green or finding a
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: certain spot because there's only one pin position on a
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: certain green. I think that is, you know, it's something
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: that that I don't know if I was like totally
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: thinking about on a from a bird's eye view in
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: the middle of a tournament, but I think I have
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: a better understanding of that now for for next time.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think the key for me is
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: that it's not you know, pros would definitely frame this
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: as a fairness issue, but for me, the more important
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: thing is whether the green is still multi dimensional. Because
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: if a green is overly severe or overly penalizing or
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: too small for the shop that's being hit into it,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: it's not that that's that that's wrong or against the law.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: It's more that it just isn't as interesting as it
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: possibly could be, and and that that is a balance
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: that an architect has to strike when designing a green.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: For sure, all Right, well, thank you very much, PJ.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: This was fun as always. Hope you got a lot
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: out of this episode. And yeah, I like the idea
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: of doing a mail bag next time, just trying to
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: just fielding a bunch of random questions. It feels like
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: this one on one series has gotten to the point
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: where we can kind of pause on the topics that
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: we're pursuing and and and see say where people are
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: in this process. But I know a lot of listeners
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: are enjoying these episodes a great deal and I appreciate that.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are are are living
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: it right along with you, PJ.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: Awesome, this was a blast.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: I'm glad we got into movie minute there, but we
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: tried to tie it back so maybe we could do
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: more of that in the mailback.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: But thanks for having me.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: This was a blast. Thanks PJ. This episode of Designing
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Golf was produced by Will Balsam. Thank you. Will keep
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: in mind that Frida Egg Golf Volume two, our coffee
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: table book, is available for pre order right now go
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: to pro shop dot Thefrida Egg dot com. We're proud
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: of what we have produced there. These these course profiles
• 1:22:16
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• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: that Cameron Hurdis and Matt Rushis do are are are
• 1:22:23
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• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: if you want a good deal on your coffee table book,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: then join us in Fridagg Golf Club. Go to the
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: Fridagg dot com slash membership to see what Friday Golf
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: Club is all about. But lots of fun to be
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: had there as well. Thank you for listening and we'll
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: be back again soon with another episode.