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What’s New in Public Destination Golf? · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: One of the biggest stories in the golf course industry
0:02
Speaker 1: over the past thirty years has been the rise of
0:05
Speaker 1: the destination golf resort, starting with Bandon Dunes in the
0:10
Speaker 1: nineties and still going strong today with the post COVID
0:14
Speaker 1: surge and development. So where are we now with public
0:19
Speaker 1: destination golf? How has it changed over the past three
0:22
Speaker 1: decades and what have been its effects on golf architecture.
0:27
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about in this episode. My guest
0:31
Speaker 1: is Mike Kaprowski, the golf architect behind the first course
0:35
Speaker 1: at a new destination in the Carolina sand Hills called
0:39
Speaker 1: Candy Root Lodge. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is Designing Golf,
0:52
Speaker 1: all right. Before we bring on Mike Kaprowski to discuss
0:55
Speaker 1: Candy Root Lodge, let's talk about the current state of
1:00
Speaker 1: public destination golf. You know, the interesting thing about the
1:05
Speaker 1: surge in golf course development since COVID is that it's uneven.
1:12
Speaker 1: You know, there hasn't been like a general expansion of
1:16
Speaker 1: the game's footprint like we saw in the twenties or
1:20
Speaker 1: the sixties or the nineties. What we've gotten instead, I think,
1:25
Speaker 1: is a focus on certain regions and certain types of
1:29
Speaker 1: golf courses, especially if you're talking about new build projects,
1:33
Speaker 1: that is, projects that produced golf courses where there weren't
1:37
Speaker 1: previously golf courses. In the US, in particular, we've seen
1:42
Speaker 1: a lot of new build action in Texas, the Carolinas,
1:47
Speaker 1: and Florida, and a disproportionate emphasis on destination golf. There
1:53
Speaker 1: have been renovations and restorations and redesigns of existing properties
1:57
Speaker 1: happening as well, But if you're talking about new build
2:01
Speaker 1: golf development, what you're really talking about is these regions
2:06
Speaker 1: and destination golf. So I want to give you a
2:10
Speaker 1: snapshot of the public destination golf projects happening right now.
2:16
Speaker 1: And this is not an exhaustive list. I'm just going
2:19
Speaker 1: to talk about the projects that I find especially notable
2:23
Speaker 1: or interesting. First, the one we're talking about in this
2:27
Speaker 1: episode Candy Rout Lodge in South Carolina, about an hour
2:31
Speaker 1: and a half from Charlotte, North Carolina. I get my
2:34
Speaker 1: Carolinas mixed up all the time, by the way, I
2:36
Speaker 1: think I've said a number of times that Candy Root
2:38
Speaker 1: Lodge is in North Carolina, which it's not, but it's
2:41
Speaker 1: close to, relatively close to Charlotte first course designed by
2:46
Speaker 1: my guest Mike Kaprowski. He's also helping to build a
2:52
Speaker 1: short course alongside Michelle Wee West, Okay. Outside of Candy Route,
2:58
Speaker 1: we have a space eight of developments spearheaded by Michael
3:03
Speaker 1: Kaiser Junior that is the son of Mike Kaiser, the
3:07
Speaker 1: founder of Bandon Dunes. First, there's the Commons at Sand
3:11
Speaker 1: Valley in Wisconsin. This is a twelve hole short course,
3:16
Speaker 1: not really a short course, more of an executive course
3:18
Speaker 1: right an afternoon course, designed by Jim Craig. It'll open
3:23
Speaker 1: for resort play in July this year. Then there's Rodeo
3:27
Speaker 1: Dunes new resort about forty five minutes northeast of the
3:32
Speaker 1: Denver International Airport. The first course, designed by Corn Crenshaw,
3:36
Speaker 1: will open to the public in twenty twenty seven. Jim
3:39
Speaker 1: Craig is working on the second course at the resort.
3:44
Speaker 1: Then there's Wild Spring Dunes in East Texas, about two
3:48
Speaker 1: and a half hours from both Dallas and Houston. The
3:51
Speaker 1: first course is designed by Tom Doak. It'll open in September.
3:56
Speaker 1: And then there's a Corn Crenshaw course under constructions to
4:00
Speaker 1: be completed in twenty twenty seven. Finally Old Shores in
4:05
Speaker 1: the Floor to Panhandle. The first course by Tom Doak
4:09
Speaker 1: is under construction now with a grand opening possible in
4:12
Speaker 1: fall twenty twenty seven, and the second course will be
4:15
Speaker 1: designed by Brian Schneider. So those are all destination golf
4:21
Speaker 1: projects currently underway in Michael Kaiser's growing empire. A lot
4:27
Speaker 1: happening there. Michael Kaiser recently founded his own company Sanborn
4:32
Speaker 1: and so he's making definitely some significant moves on his
4:36
Speaker 1: own and these three brand new resorts extraordinary that the
4:40
Speaker 1: three of them have been founded in the twenty twenties alone.
4:43
Speaker 1: Rodeo Dunes, Wildspring Dunes, Old Shores are really his projects.
4:48
Speaker 1: Another big player in the destination golf market right now
4:51
Speaker 1: is Cabot. There's Cabot Highlands in the Scottish Highlands, very
4:56
Speaker 1: close to Inverness. Before Cabot purchased this resort, it was
5:02
Speaker 1: known as Castle Stewart and it featured one seaside course
5:06
Speaker 1: by Gil Hants. There's now a new course called Old
5:09
Speaker 1: Petty designed by Tom Doak. It opened for resort play
5:14
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. Another ongoing Cabot project is Cabot Revelstoke.
5:20
Speaker 1: I think I pronounced that correctly, but I'm not sure
5:23
Speaker 1: this is in British Columbia. In the Canadian Rockies, as
5:26
Speaker 1: far as I understand, very remote, very mountainous. The first
5:30
Speaker 1: course is designed by Whitman, Exland and Cutton. It's under
5:35
Speaker 1: construction and expected to open for preview play in fall
5:39
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six and for resort play in twenty twenty seven.
5:43
Speaker 1: So Cabot and Michael Kaiser Junior by themselves are generating
5:48
Speaker 1: a lot of the current energy in the destination golf market,
5:53
Speaker 1: but there are some other interesting projects by other developers.
5:58
Speaker 1: Seven Mile Beach in Hobar, Tasmania, the South course by
6:02
Speaker 1: Mike Clayton and Mike Devrees had its full opening in
6:06
Speaker 1: December twenty twenty five, and the north course at seven
6:10
Speaker 1: Mile Beach will be designed by King Collins Dormer and
6:14
Speaker 1: is looking to come online in twenty twenty nine. Going
6:18
Speaker 1: back to the US, stream Song Resort in Florida is
6:22
Speaker 1: continuing to expand with a new course called Bone Valley.
6:26
Speaker 1: This is in addition to stream Songs existing Red, Blue
6:30
Speaker 1: and Black courses, as well as its short course called
6:34
Speaker 1: the Chain. Bone Valley is a David McLay kid design,
6:39
Speaker 1: which has set an opening date of January twenty sixth,
6:42
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven. Now. Lastly, the two og American destination
6:49
Speaker 1: golf resorts, Pebble Beach and Pinehurst, are also making moves.
6:54
Speaker 1: Spanish Bay Golf Links, owned by the Pebble Beach Company,
6:58
Speaker 1: is undergoing a redesign by gil Hants right now. It'll
7:02
Speaker 1: reopen in April twenty twenty seven, just in time for
7:07
Speaker 1: the US Open at pebble Beach, and Pinehurst is in
7:10
Speaker 1: the midst of building Pinehurst Number eleven with Coren Crenshaw
7:16
Speaker 1: next door to Pinehurst Number ten the recent Tom Doak design.
7:21
Speaker 1: These two courses constitute Pinehurst sand Mines, which is kind
7:25
Speaker 1: of an outpost of the resort, a little bit removed
7:29
Speaker 1: from the main campus of Pinehurst. It'll have its own
7:33
Speaker 1: lodging and practice facilities eventually, and the Number eleven course
7:39
Speaker 1: is expected to open in fall twenty twenty seven. So
7:43
Speaker 1: that's just a quick spin through the ongoing projects in
7:48
Speaker 1: the public destination golf sector that I'm interested in. It's
7:53
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, there are a ton of courses
7:56
Speaker 1: of this type opening in twenty twenty seven alone, but
8:01
Speaker 1: there are some unifying themes and trends that I'm noticing here.
8:06
Speaker 1: So if I can kind of summarize all these projects
8:10
Speaker 1: and make them make sense as a group, I would
8:14
Speaker 1: say that we are seeing some interesting changes in what
8:17
Speaker 1: public destination golf means. First of all, location. A lot
8:23
Speaker 1: of these developments are starting to prioritize proximity to major
8:29
Speaker 1: metro areas, and this is a shift away from the
8:33
Speaker 1: band in Dune's model, which was effectively, if you build it,
8:37
Speaker 1: they will come. It doesn't matter where it is. If
8:39
Speaker 1: the land is extraordinary enough, if the golf is exceptional,
8:43
Speaker 1: then people will seek it out. These new resorts are
8:46
Speaker 1: more conveniently located, and I think this has to do
8:50
Speaker 1: with the discovery that golfers are willing to go back
8:54
Speaker 1: to certain destination resorts over and over again. There's more
8:59
Speaker 1: repeat business at these places than I think even they're
9:03
Speaker 1: founders expected, and this has to do with broader social
9:08
Speaker 1: shifts in family life and country club usage. It's more
9:13
Speaker 1: common now for homes to split labor between parents, for
9:20
Speaker 1: there to be two salary earners in a household, and
9:24
Speaker 1: for childcare to be shared. And what this means is
9:28
Speaker 1: that there's maybe a little bit less time in people's
9:31
Speaker 1: everyday lives for a country club, and to an extent,
9:34
Speaker 1: for some people, the destination golf resort has replaced the
9:38
Speaker 1: country club. You go on these occasional trips, you play
9:41
Speaker 1: a lot of golf, you have your fun, you maybe
9:43
Speaker 1: even do it a couple of times a year. But
9:45
Speaker 1: then when you're home, you're not going to the club.
9:50
Speaker 1: And so these new destination resorts that are an hour,
9:54
Speaker 1: two hours, two and a half hours from big cities,
9:59
Speaker 1: what they're saying is you can use us as a
10:02
Speaker 1: sort of home away from home. This is a frequent retreat,
10:07
Speaker 1: not a once in a lifetime retreat. And in that sense,
10:11
Speaker 1: a lot of these new destination places are more regional
10:16
Speaker 1: in their appeal. Yeah, they want to attract players from
10:19
Speaker 1: all over, but they're looking for repeat customers right in
10:22
Speaker 1: their region, and that is a major difference. The second
10:27
Speaker 1: big trend I'm seeing in these new developments is related,
10:31
Speaker 1: and it's a willingness to move away from the golf
10:34
Speaker 1: only model that defined Bandon Dunes. Bandon Dunes was a
10:39
Speaker 1: reaction to residential golf and all the unnecessary stuff around
10:43
Speaker 1: golf that had become assumed to be necessary. Right Bandon
10:49
Speaker 1: Dunes was stripping it all away and saying we're just
10:51
Speaker 1: doing golf here. Well, these new destination resorts are saying, yeah,
10:57
Speaker 1: this is a pure golf experience, but also so maybe
11:00
Speaker 1: there's a wellness spa like in the case of Candy Root,
11:04
Speaker 1: or maybe there are different sports you can play here,
11:08
Speaker 1: like tennis, or you can do some whitewater rafting. Maybe
11:11
Speaker 1: there are some family activities that appeal to kids and
11:15
Speaker 1: non golfing spouses. In many cases, there is a real
11:19
Speaker 1: estate component. Cabit as a company is very invested in
11:24
Speaker 1: real estate. Now they remove the houses a little bit
11:28
Speaker 1: from the golf course, but the real estate is there
11:31
Speaker 1: and it's a big revenue source for the resort. So overall,
11:35
Speaker 1: I think what's happening is this attempt to balance the
11:40
Speaker 1: spirit of that Bandon Dune's idea with offerings for the
11:45
Speaker 1: full family and additional revenue streams. That's a lot of
11:51
Speaker 1: I think what these new resorts are are trying to accomplish.
11:55
Speaker 1: The final big trend is on the architectural side, and
11:59
Speaker 1: that has been another balance. This balance, I think between
12:05
Speaker 1: maintaining the status quo of the past thirty years and
12:09
Speaker 1: exploring new avenues in golf course design, we are seeing
12:14
Speaker 1: a lot of the same architects get these jobs. You
12:17
Speaker 1: may have noticed it as I was going through the
12:20
Speaker 1: list of ongoing projects. A lot of Tom Doak, a
12:23
Speaker 1: lot of Corn Crenshaw than David McLay Kidd and Gil
12:26
Speaker 1: Hans get a few of the other jobs. And then
12:28
Speaker 1: there's you know, kind of next generation architects, but those
12:31
Speaker 1: are primarily architects who were trained by Tom Doak or
12:35
Speaker 1: Bill Court. So there is a broad affinity between a
12:39
Speaker 1: lot of these new destination golf courses. But we're also
12:44
Speaker 1: seeing developers and architects push in some new directions. The
12:48
Speaker 1: recent courses at San Valley are a good example. You
12:51
Speaker 1: have the Leado, a reproduction of a lost C. B.
12:54
Speaker 1: McDonald design. Then you have Sedge Valley, a more compact
12:59
Speaker 1: Part sixty nine golf course than the Commons twelve holes, sporty,
13:05
Speaker 1: family oriented afternoon course. So my hope for destination golf
13:12
Speaker 1: in the future is that this kind of architectural experimentation continues.
13:19
Speaker 1: I don't want to see developers and architects grow complacent.
13:23
Speaker 1: These resorts could be a great laboratory for new and
13:28
Speaker 1: different kinds of design, and so it matters to me
13:31
Speaker 1: less that lots of different architects are hired, and it
13:36
Speaker 1: matters to me more that the architects who do get
13:39
Speaker 1: these jobs are pushing to do new things because at
13:44
Speaker 1: these resorts they do not have to meet the conventional
13:47
Speaker 1: standards of championship golf. They are serving people on vacation,
13:52
Speaker 1: and those people should be open to unusual experiences because
13:58
Speaker 1: they're on vacation, they're having fun, they're not competing, they're
14:03
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily maintaining their handicaps, and so different types
14:07
Speaker 1: of golf should have a home at these at these
14:10
Speaker 1: destination golf resorts. So I hope, I hope that developers
14:15
Speaker 1: and architects see that as an opportunity and don't underestimate
14:21
Speaker 1: the so called retail golfer. Now, one architect that I
14:25
Speaker 1: do think is willing to try new things is Mike Kaprowski,
14:29
Speaker 1: my guest for this episode. Mike, as I mentioned before,
14:33
Speaker 1: is designing the first eighteen hole course at Candy Rout Lodge.
14:37
Speaker 1: He was also the co designer of Broomsedge in South
14:41
Speaker 1: Carolina with Kyle Franz. But Mike actually has not been
14:45
Speaker 1: in this profession for very long. He made a career
14:49
Speaker 1: previously in the military and then in politics before deciding
14:54
Speaker 1: to jump into golf architecture. His first golf course project
14:57
Speaker 1: was just a few years ago, helping Kyle Friends with
15:00
Speaker 1: a renovation of Southern Pines Golf Club. So, you know,
15:04
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting story and i'd recommend finding
15:08
Speaker 1: out more about Mike. It's not the subject of this episode,
15:11
Speaker 1: but Mike did an interview in November twenty twenty four
15:15
Speaker 1: with Andy Johnson on the Friday Golf Podcast, and I'd
15:19
Speaker 1: really recommend listening to that because it's you know, if
15:23
Speaker 1: you've ever fantasized about changing careers in your mid to
15:27
Speaker 1: late thirties, then Mike's story is going to resonate with you.
15:31
Speaker 1: But in this episode, we're talking about Candy Root and
15:35
Speaker 1: about the state of destination public golf. Let's get to it,
15:45
Speaker 1: all right. Mike Kaprowski is here. Mike, thanks for being
15:48
Speaker 1: on the pod.
15:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, excited to be here. Love what you're doing
15:52
Speaker 2: with this pod, So happy to be a part of it.
15:54
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. So we're talking about public destination
15:58
Speaker 1: golf in this episode today, and you are in the
16:01
Speaker 1: midst of a big public destination golf project at Candy
16:06
Speaker 1: Route Lodge outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. You're designing the
16:12
Speaker 1: first course at Candy Route and co designing a short
16:15
Speaker 1: course alongside Michelle Wee West. Now, the usual way that
16:20
Speaker 1: golf course projects work is that, you know, a developer
16:24
Speaker 1: finds a piece of land and then brings on an architect.
16:28
Speaker 1: But in the case of Candy Route, my understanding is
16:31
Speaker 1: that it was the other way around, right, You found
16:34
Speaker 1: the land and then brought on the developer. Is that accurate?
16:37
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Well, I guess in my golf career so far,
16:41
Speaker 2: I've never done things in the normal way, so why
16:44
Speaker 2: start now? But yeah, that's exactly right. It was just
16:48
Speaker 2: as so Broomsedge was opening up.
16:52
Speaker 1: Broomsedge is is the course that you designed alongside Kyle
16:56
Speaker 1: Franz and in Rembert, South Carolina opened up, I guess
17:01
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago.
17:02
Speaker 2: Correct, And so, I mean I had so much fun
17:06
Speaker 2: doing broom Sedge, and so I was just kind of
17:10
Speaker 2: like Broom was just opening up, and and I was
17:13
Speaker 2: thinking about, you know, what's what's next, And you know,
17:16
Speaker 2: there were some other projects, but there was there was
17:20
Speaker 2: a great appeal of being able to sleep in my
17:23
Speaker 2: own bed and work on a new golf course. So
17:25
Speaker 2: that was really really nice. I have young kids and
17:28
Speaker 2: my wife was in law school at the time, so
17:29
Speaker 2: we had a lot going on, and so I was
17:32
Speaker 2: thinking of, you know, the potential of a public golf
17:35
Speaker 2: course somewhere in the somewhere in the sand Hills. You know,
17:40
Speaker 2: just had fun with fun with Broom and figured why
17:43
Speaker 2: why I stopped the party? So I had had my
17:46
Speaker 2: eye on kind of the sand Hills is a strange
17:50
Speaker 2: little cord or. It's like only thirty five miles wide,
17:53
Speaker 2: and it goes from North Carolina to South Carolina kind
17:56
Speaker 2: of into Georgia. But there's this little portion of the
17:58
Speaker 2: sand Hills that actually juts up north. There's like a
18:01
Speaker 2: little finger that juts north up towards Charlotte, and so
18:06
Speaker 2: you can actually get you know, a sandy site within
18:09
Speaker 2: an hour of Charlotte. Charlotte's known for its sort of
18:12
Speaker 2: you know, red clay, but there was this little finger
18:16
Speaker 2: that I was interested in. I'm like, jeez, you could
18:17
Speaker 2: actually get decently close to a major metro area. In
18:22
Speaker 2: this particular area, there was like, I don't seven million
18:25
Speaker 2: people within a ninety minute drive, So it felt like
18:28
Speaker 2: this could be a really cool spot for public off
18:31
Speaker 2: in the sand hills. You know. Of course, most of
18:33
Speaker 2: the explosion of new builds in the Carolinas has been
18:38
Speaker 2: almost exclusively private. And so there was a timber company
18:44
Speaker 2: that had just they had just listed a bunch of
18:48
Speaker 2: acres for sale kind of in the exact spot that
18:50
Speaker 2: I had been eyeing. And this is sort of this
18:54
Speaker 2: is kind of how they do it. They clear cut sites,
18:56
Speaker 2: and then they realized, well, you know, there's it's twenty
18:59
Speaker 2: years before we're gonna make any money on the on
19:00
Speaker 2: these trees again. And so then they just listed for sale.
19:03
Speaker 2: And so I was just drive along. I had seen
19:06
Speaker 2: this listed on I don't know, some some website or something,
19:09
Speaker 2: and just was I think en route either to broom
19:13
Speaker 2: Sedge or from Broomsedge, uh to my house in Pinehurst,
19:19
Speaker 2: and I was gonna drive right by it anyway, So
19:20
Speaker 2: I figured out, what, you know, what the hell stopped
19:23
Speaker 2: by it. And because it was just clear cut, you
19:26
Speaker 2: could literally just kind of walk a few feet onto
19:28
Speaker 2: the property and you could see the see the vistas
19:31
Speaker 2: out there because there it wasn't a jungle like Broomsedge,
19:33
Speaker 2: was it was. It was pretty much a clear cut
19:36
Speaker 2: and immediately said, like, whoa, this one's gonna push the
19:40
Speaker 2: limits of what's topographically possible. I didn't know that the
19:44
Speaker 2: sand Hills could be that steep in, that aggressive, but
19:48
Speaker 2: but holy cow, and so long, very long story short,
19:53
Speaker 2: a guy by the name of Aaron Oberman, who is
19:56
Speaker 2: the owner and developer of Candy Route, I had gotten
20:01
Speaker 2: a know erin through broom Sedge. Aarin was the first,
20:05
Speaker 2: really the first guy to ever give us money for
20:09
Speaker 2: the planning process for broom Sedge. And so Aarin kind
20:12
Speaker 2: of took an early leap of faith with us and
20:15
Speaker 2: gave us some money for just early like permitting and
20:17
Speaker 2: planning purposes. And then Aaron stayed in a in a
20:20
Speaker 2: minority owner capacity throughout Broomsedge, and so Aarin kind of
20:24
Speaker 2: had a front row seat, but he wasn't driving the bus,
20:27
Speaker 2: if you will. And I think Aaron got you know,
20:30
Speaker 2: got the bug through that process. And he had been
20:32
Speaker 2: talking to me about, you know, wanting to do something
20:37
Speaker 2: in the southeast that was a sort of a major
20:39
Speaker 2: public golf resort. And so you know, our pass crossed
20:44
Speaker 2: again and Aaron took over that initial parcel that I
20:49
Speaker 2: had been eyeing from you know, from the road, and
20:52
Speaker 2: then since then Aaron and his brother Ethan have a
20:54
Speaker 2: masked twelve hundred some odd acres. Most of that is contiguous,
20:59
Speaker 2: some of it's just a little bit, you know, four
21:01
Speaker 2: minutes down the road. But yeah, I mean, their their
21:04
Speaker 2: plan is, you know, go big. They want to do
21:07
Speaker 2: four golf courses and uh, you know, four regulation courses
21:11
Speaker 2: in a in a short course. I have the first
21:14
Speaker 2: course of course that's under construction right now. We've we've
21:17
Speaker 2: been grassing for the past couple of weeks. So the
21:21
Speaker 2: cool thing is, you know, the course that I'm doing
21:22
Speaker 2: now is I'm the land that I initially identified. So
21:26
Speaker 2: that that's been really cool and we should be you know,
21:30
Speaker 2: open for previewplay this fall. And then yeah, Michelle, we
21:34
Speaker 2: is gonna do the short course along with my help,
21:39
Speaker 2: and we've got along really well so far, and I
21:40
Speaker 2: think we'll do something really cool there. And then whenever
21:43
Speaker 2: Aaron's ready, I think he'll he'll announce course you know,
21:46
Speaker 2: courses two, three, and four. Architects. But it's cool. I mean,
21:51
Speaker 2: it's it's a really it's a really cool site. It's
21:55
Speaker 2: it's conveniently located in the middle of nowhere as a
21:58
Speaker 2: as I've said about Broom, but this is even more
22:00
Speaker 2: conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. Literally you can
22:03
Speaker 2: fly into Charlotte and you're there and in an hour.
22:06
Speaker 2: But it still feels very you know, still feels very
22:09
Speaker 2: rural when you're out there, So that that's sort of
22:12
Speaker 2: the origin story. But yeah, I essentially brought the brought
22:15
Speaker 2: at least a portion of what ultimately will become Candy Route.
22:19
Speaker 2: I brought that portion of land to Erin and the
22:21
Speaker 2: rest is history.
22:23
Speaker 1: So take me back to that specific moment when you
22:26
Speaker 1: when you saw the land for the first time. What
22:30
Speaker 1: what did you see that got you excited about the
22:33
Speaker 1: potential of this property for golf. You mentioned that it's
22:37
Speaker 1: pretty dramatic or severe unexpectedly so for the Carolina sand Hills.
22:43
Speaker 1: By the way, the Carolina Sandhills is also you know,
22:45
Speaker 1: the same it's the same system that you see the
22:48
Speaker 1: Pinehurst courses sitting on, and so it extends up to
22:53
Speaker 1: to where you're building this course. But you know, at
22:56
Speaker 1: that moment when you're kind of driving up to it,
22:59
Speaker 1: what are you looking at and what's resonating with you
23:02
Speaker 1: about about this piece of land.
23:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really when I first drove up to it,
23:06
Speaker 2: I really hadn't done any homework at all. I mean
23:09
Speaker 2: I hadn't even downloaded atap a map, so I really
23:12
Speaker 2: didn't know this was haphazard. Pull over to the side
23:15
Speaker 2: of the road and see what it looks like. And
23:17
Speaker 2: I pulled over to what is now sort of close
23:21
Speaker 2: to the tenth te box, which, by happenstance, is one
23:25
Speaker 2: of the best fistas on the on the property. No
23:28
Speaker 2: surprise that the logging road is carved in at the
23:31
Speaker 2: at sort of the highest ground, So I just used
23:33
Speaker 2: a logging road to go in there. And I looked
23:35
Speaker 2: out over the site and really the first thing I
23:38
Speaker 2: saw was almost a a ridge so steep that I
23:42
Speaker 2: think you would probably classify it as a as a
23:45
Speaker 2: slip face, sort of the backside of a dune where
23:48
Speaker 2: it gets extremely extremely sharp slip face. I think that's
23:54
Speaker 2: what it's called.
23:55
Speaker 1: I've never I've never heard that before. No I would.
23:57
Speaker 1: I would dress you to know the terminology, but that's
24:00
Speaker 1: I'm going to use that.
24:01
Speaker 2: I'll feel like an idiot if I got the wrong one.
24:03
Speaker 2: But I think that's what it is. But it's I
24:06
Speaker 2: mean it's really sharp off off the backside, sharper than
24:09
Speaker 2: anything I had seen in the area. And I live
24:12
Speaker 2: in this area, so I'm always, you know, driving down
24:14
Speaker 2: inside of the road looking at stuff. But it was
24:16
Speaker 2: super steep, almost to the point where it looked almost
24:19
Speaker 2: cliff like to where you I mean, if you you know,
24:23
Speaker 2: if you drove something off it, you you would die.
24:26
Speaker 2: And so that was appealing from a golf standpoint of
24:30
Speaker 2: this is holy cow. I mean, this is incredibly aggressive.
24:33
Speaker 2: I could imagine hitting off it, hitting around it, hitting
24:36
Speaker 2: into it, and then just kind of walked around a
24:41
Speaker 2: little bit and and realized that not only were these
24:44
Speaker 2: sort of abrupt features out there, but it was also
24:48
Speaker 2: a very steep site as well. So the entire courses
24:53
Speaker 2: is sort of benched into a big side slope. It's
24:57
Speaker 2: a it's a descending sand hill, and it's all going
25:00
Speaker 2: down to this major creek that sits below. And so
25:05
Speaker 2: the whole thing was just kind of sitting on a tilt,
25:09
Speaker 2: but not a single plane tilt right it was it
25:12
Speaker 2: was dissected by these massive kind of valleys and fingers,
25:16
Speaker 2: so that the property doesn't just descend predictably, it descends
25:22
Speaker 2: with these long, narrow fingers and in between these fingers,
25:25
Speaker 2: just like centuries of erosion have shaped these these deep gullies.
25:29
Speaker 2: And in some of the cases the gullies actually became wetlands,
25:32
Speaker 2: which of course we have to avoid in the routing.
25:35
Speaker 2: But other times they stayed dry and we're not wetlands,
25:39
Speaker 2: and so we actually run holes through those low valleys.
25:42
Speaker 2: So it was, Yeah, it just struck me as a
25:45
Speaker 2: different type of landform than I had seen before in
25:49
Speaker 2: the sandhills, and so immediately it sparked my interest. And
25:52
Speaker 2: then at that point, Broy, the minute I got home,
25:55
Speaker 2: you know, go to the state's website, download the top
25:58
Speaker 2: o map, look at the soils, pretty sandy based on
26:01
Speaker 2: what I saw, but starting to download the soils maps
26:03
Speaker 2: and all that sort of stuff, and then you just
26:04
Speaker 2: start to kind of you know, then from there you're
26:07
Speaker 2: like ooh, okay, okay, and then you start to play
26:10
Speaker 2: with some routings and you say okay, and then you
26:13
Speaker 2: start to visualize it in some kind of three D fashion,
26:15
Speaker 2: and then you start walking your routings, and before you
26:18
Speaker 2: know it, you feel pretty confident that a world class
26:20
Speaker 2: course could could be out there. So yeah, and It
26:25
Speaker 2: had all the other sort of business advantages to it
26:29
Speaker 2: as well, in terms of its location and within an
26:31
Speaker 2: hour of Charlotte, and the fact that the public golf
26:34
Speaker 2: scene in Charlotte's I think leaves some to be desired.
26:37
Speaker 2: I think there's certainly a market there we can tap into.
26:39
Speaker 2: Even the private scene in Dallas or in Charlotte.
26:44
Speaker 1: Is interesting Freudian slip there, because I.
26:47
Speaker 2: Did live in Dallas once upon a time, so I'm
26:50
Speaker 2: going back to those days.
26:51
Speaker 1: Yeah No, But Charlotte's you know, growing city. A lot
26:54
Speaker 1: of wealth has come into that city and the twenty
26:57
Speaker 1: twenties and it's a it's a rope.
27:01
Speaker 2: Yep, it is. It is. And you know, based on
27:04
Speaker 2: what I've researched and talked to folks in the Charlotte community,
27:08
Speaker 2: even the private scene is I mean, there's not a
27:11
Speaker 2: single club that's not on a serious wait list right now.
27:14
Speaker 2: So there's a you know, Charlotte is growing incredibly fast,
27:17
Speaker 2: and I don't know that the golf supply has really
27:19
Speaker 2: kept up. So it had all the kind of the
27:21
Speaker 2: business advantages. It was something that I felt could be
27:23
Speaker 2: world class from a golf standpoint, and yeah, ran with it.
27:29
Speaker 1: You talked about putting together the routing and kind of
27:32
Speaker 1: general terms, what does the routing key in on in
27:36
Speaker 1: this piece of land? Are there are there certain features
27:38
Speaker 1: that are kind of the center of gravity in the routing.
27:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a little bit of a bow tie element
27:43
Speaker 2: to it where it kind of intersects a couple times
27:47
Speaker 2: with itself. So more or less, the routing starts at
27:52
Speaker 2: the high ground and then it immediately I guess it's
27:55
Speaker 2: shinnakaki and in some ways in the sense that it
27:57
Speaker 2: immediately descends into the low ground, and you play in
28:02
Speaker 2: the low ground for the first you know, five holes,
28:07
Speaker 2: and then on six you kind of start to hop
28:11
Speaker 2: scotch your way back up into the higher ground. But
28:15
Speaker 2: really there's these there's just these fingers that that jut down,
28:18
Speaker 2: and so the routing is really about how do you
28:22
Speaker 2: intersect with these fingers in the most unique varied ways possible. So,
28:29
Speaker 2: like you know, sometimes we would the ridge itself is
28:33
Speaker 2: wide enough to drape an entire golf hole over it,
28:37
Speaker 2: and so on some holes we can, you know, we
28:39
Speaker 2: can ride the ridge the entire way, and it's kind
28:41
Speaker 2: of like a little bit of a gentle hogs back
28:44
Speaker 2: type fairway, which is essentially what we what we're doing
28:46
Speaker 2: on the sixteenth hole. There's some where, you know, we
28:51
Speaker 2: just bench a green sort of into the side shoulder
28:54
Speaker 2: of a ridge, kind of like prairie dune style, right,
28:57
Speaker 2: just bench it halfway up. We do that on the
29:00
Speaker 2: third hole a number of other holes. Sometimes we can
29:03
Speaker 2: play perpendicular to a finger, where we actually hit over
29:06
Speaker 2: one finger into the into the next one, and so
29:09
Speaker 2: there's some blind elements out there as well. There's playing
29:14
Speaker 2: kind of diagonal from one finger to another, right, and
29:19
Speaker 2: we do that on the eleventh. The eleventh is where
29:22
Speaker 2: you most prominently hit over that big slip face, so
29:24
Speaker 2: you're sort of on one lower ridge and then you
29:27
Speaker 2: hit over this huge wetlands valley over the slip face
29:31
Speaker 2: on top of on top of that ridge. But it's
29:33
Speaker 2: kind of a diagonal shot where the more you the
29:35
Speaker 2: more you chew off, the better your angle is into
29:37
Speaker 2: the green. Sometimes we play through the bottom of one
29:41
Speaker 2: of these gullies, in between the fingers of these really
29:44
Speaker 2: big gullies. So I would say you spend most of
29:46
Speaker 2: the time riding higher ground on the site, but then
29:51
Speaker 2: every now and again you dip way down and you
29:53
Speaker 2: can't see anything, and you're like where, you know, where
29:55
Speaker 2: did this come from? So we do that with seventeen,
29:57
Speaker 2: and then sometimes you can get out of those val
30:00
Speaker 2: with an infinity green. So seventeen has like this really
30:03
Speaker 2: sharp dog leg where it rides the valley low and
30:06
Speaker 2: then it takes a hard right turn up to the
30:09
Speaker 2: up to the ridge line and we have a little
30:10
Speaker 2: infinity green up there with nothing but sky and beyond.
30:14
Speaker 2: So you know, it was a challenging It was a
30:19
Speaker 2: challenging routing. There was a bunch you know, there were
30:21
Speaker 2: a bunch of iterations that I went through, and some
30:25
Speaker 2: of it does I think tests like the limits. You know,
30:28
Speaker 2: there's there's some serious side slope out there. There's there's
30:31
Speaker 2: some side slope out there that's probably you know, old
30:35
Speaker 2: town ish. You know, if you think of like this
30:37
Speaker 2: sixteenth tole at old Town, I mean that fairway's tipping it,
30:40
Speaker 2: I don't know, twelve fifteen percent, like we have some
30:43
Speaker 2: of those. We have some of those fairways out there
30:45
Speaker 2: that are really unpronounced side slopes, and so it'll it
30:49
Speaker 2: really pushes the limits there too. So we you know,
30:51
Speaker 2: tried to you know, tried to get a routing that
30:54
Speaker 2: was that was walkable, that was playable, but also intersected
30:57
Speaker 2: with these ridges in unique ways.
31:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're dealing with a severe site, it seems
31:03
Speaker 1: like the main puzzle for you to solve is how
31:07
Speaker 1: do I use this with variety? Because the danger is
31:10
Speaker 1: like when you have a severe site that there's just
31:12
Speaker 1: one thing that you can do with the golf holes
31:14
Speaker 1: because there's only one way for them to be functional.
31:17
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you tried to find a bunch
31:18
Speaker 1: of different ways to use the features, even if the
31:22
Speaker 1: features were in places pretty severe.
31:25
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely, it was kind of interesting because that, you know,
31:29
Speaker 2: at Broomsedge, I would say the routing came together pretty quick. Ultimately,
31:32
Speaker 2: what we ended up doing on Broomsedge was more or
31:35
Speaker 2: less a Napkins Gifts that I did early on, whereas
31:37
Speaker 2: this site, it was sort of I knew that it,
31:42
Speaker 2: you know, it had all the feels, but it was
31:44
Speaker 2: so severe in some spots that I wasn't sure that
31:47
Speaker 2: you could pull off eighteen holes without one or two
31:52
Speaker 2: holes that were just overly severe. And so there was
31:54
Speaker 2: a lot of iterations with the routing and walking it,
31:58
Speaker 2: and as time went on, the site got more overgrown
32:02
Speaker 2: and more overgrown with you know, briers or whatever, so
32:04
Speaker 2: it became increasingly hard to walk and kind of feel
32:07
Speaker 2: with your feet. So it was just an iterative process
32:11
Speaker 2: of you know, tweaking things around and then even in
32:13
Speaker 2: the field. I mean, I don't know if you've seen
32:17
Speaker 2: the map I've changed the routing in the field.
32:19
Speaker 1: Oh did you I have? I mean there's a there's
32:21
Speaker 1: a routing map that's available on Candy Roots website that
32:26
Speaker 1: I that I have looked at. But but you made
32:28
Speaker 1: some alterations in there.
32:29
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah. I mean you you know when a site
32:32
Speaker 2: is kind of overgrown. I mean you can run all
32:33
Speaker 2: the topo analysis and you know, measure all the elevations,
32:36
Speaker 2: but until you can see that ground with your eyes,
32:39
Speaker 2: you don't really know. And I think that's the beauty
32:41
Speaker 2: of design build is you got to you gotta be
32:43
Speaker 2: able to stand in that spot and do you feel
32:45
Speaker 2: a golf shot on it? Do you feel that it's
32:48
Speaker 2: you know, do you feel that it's a great golf shot.
32:50
Speaker 2: And there was one particular portion where I think on
32:52
Speaker 2: the initial routing, I had the fourth hole as a
32:55
Speaker 2: as a par four that had to jump over the
32:57
Speaker 2: wetlands on the second shot, and I felt like it was.
33:00
Speaker 2: I felt like it was I felt like it was doable.
33:04
Speaker 2: But then when I actually, you know, when I when
33:06
Speaker 2: I stood on the fairway and I you know, you
33:09
Speaker 2: could start to feel how slopy that Pharaoh was. You
33:11
Speaker 2: realize that the drives were going to end up in
33:14
Speaker 2: all sorts of different spots, and so in that sort
33:18
Speaker 2: of uncontrolled environment where you know you could potentially, uh,
33:22
Speaker 2: you know, based on the wind conditions that day, you
33:25
Speaker 2: could be seventy yards apart based on where you were
33:28
Speaker 2: yesterday in a different wind condition. There there were certain
33:32
Speaker 2: scenarios where I felt like the jump would just not
33:35
Speaker 2: be doable for some players. And so that was a
33:39
Speaker 2: quick just like you know, well, it wasn't quick. I
33:41
Speaker 2: felt it when we first cleared it. You know, I
33:44
Speaker 2: talked about it with Joe and he's like, just you know,
33:46
Speaker 2: sleep on it. We still got a shape one green,
33:48
Speaker 2: you know, let's just we don't have to make that
33:50
Speaker 2: decision now. And so but as I got closer and
33:53
Speaker 2: closer to time to shape, I pulled the trigger and said,
33:56
Speaker 2: you know what, this is gonna be a shorter part
33:58
Speaker 2: for and then we're gonna jump the wetlands with a
34:01
Speaker 2: with a par three and then the next hole we're
34:03
Speaker 2: going to change into a par five. So the entire
34:06
Speaker 2: routing changed right then and there. So I I never
34:10
Speaker 2: like to go in too overly committed to the plan,
34:12
Speaker 2: particularly when you're dealing with a site that is you know,
34:17
Speaker 2: very very jungly. You know, it's it's hard to see
34:21
Speaker 2: what you're it's hard to really get the feels out
34:23
Speaker 2: there until the site is cleared.
34:24
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I did notice in looking through the
34:27
Speaker 1: routing map that there are some creek crossings, you know,
34:29
Speaker 1: some some some jumps over over the creek, which is
34:33
Speaker 1: you know, obviously one thing that you have to do
34:35
Speaker 1: it to keep those creeks intact, which you must, you know,
34:38
Speaker 1: you have to cross them from from time to time.
34:40
Speaker 1: But it but it sounds like one of the early
34:42
Speaker 1: round creek crossings has has now been re arranged a
34:46
Speaker 1: little bit. But yeah, obviously things like that happen all
34:49
Speaker 1: the time.
34:49
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I felt like, if we're gonna because part of
34:52
Speaker 2: the it's not just the creek itself, it's sort of
34:55
Speaker 2: the environmental regulatory environment of what buffer you need to
34:59
Speaker 2: keep off the creek, and so it depends on whether
35:01
Speaker 2: it's an intermittent stream or perennial stream. But there's certain
35:04
Speaker 2: buffers that you have to creep, so it's not just
35:06
Speaker 2: a matter of simply hitting over an eight foot wide creek.
35:09
Speaker 2: You you might have to keep one hundred feet of
35:11
Speaker 2: vegetated buffer on each side of the creek. And so
35:13
Speaker 2: when you add it all up, it's like, oh, we
35:15
Speaker 2: got a seventy yard jump here because it's a perennial stream.
35:18
Speaker 2: So you're always factoring in those those buffers. And you know,
35:22
Speaker 2: I mean, look in a this is one of the
35:24
Speaker 2: areas that I think it's interesting to compare and contrast
35:27
Speaker 2: kind of the classical era versus versus now, and sort
35:32
Speaker 2: of the flexibilities that architects had back then that are
35:35
Speaker 2: you know, often not available now, having a creek side
35:38
Speaker 2: hole or being able to jump creeks.
35:40
Speaker 1: Or an ocean side hole, you know, or an ocean
35:43
Speaker 1: side cliffs. Could you could you build Pebble Beach with
35:46
Speaker 1: all those you know, holes just teetering off the edge
35:48
Speaker 1: of the cliff. Probably not, no chance. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
35:54
Speaker 1: So you know, as you were getting into building the
35:57
Speaker 1: course and shaping the course, are there any particular influences
36:02
Speaker 1: that were top of mind as as you were going
36:04
Speaker 1: through that process. Any specific architects or courses that you
36:08
Speaker 1: took inspiration from or talked with your shapers about or
36:11
Speaker 1: anything like that.
36:12
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I mean you're you're always curating, but I
36:16
Speaker 2: would say there's there were certain inspirations that were relevant
36:22
Speaker 2: to a particular element of the course. I wouldn't say
36:24
Speaker 2: that we you know, there was just yeah, but like
36:28
Speaker 2: so so a good example would be the greens. So
36:33
Speaker 2: the greens are actually very small, not even by modern standards.
36:39
Speaker 2: They're they're pretty small. And we didn't, like I didn't
36:43
Speaker 2: set out to do that in the in the plan.
36:46
Speaker 2: But as we you know, we're probably about a third
36:48
Speaker 2: of the way through the greens, and as I'm kind
36:50
Speaker 2: of like approving, Yeah, that feels good, then we get
36:53
Speaker 2: the you know, we get the measurement station out and
36:55
Speaker 2: we realize, wow, these greens are trending small and that's okay,
36:57
Speaker 2: it feels right. But you know, the vast majority are
37:02
Speaker 2: under six thousand square feet. There's a lot that are
37:04
Speaker 2: under five thousand square feet. There's a good chunk that
37:06
Speaker 2: are under four thousand square feet, and you know, it
37:10
Speaker 2: just felt right, and I think part of that, maybe
37:12
Speaker 2: that was a subconscious kind of thing. But I've always
37:16
Speaker 2: loved the smaller greens. Maybe I used to caddy at
37:19
Speaker 2: Brookline during during grad school. And you know, my dad
37:23
Speaker 2: grew up on a ross nine hole or in South Krige,
37:26
Speaker 2: Massachusetts called Kohassee, which he'd take me to when I
37:29
Speaker 2: was visiting my grandma. So I would always I always
37:32
Speaker 2: had an affinity for smaller greens. I love the intimacy,
37:35
Speaker 2: I love the focus they create on an approach shot,
37:37
Speaker 2: I love the look. But you know, the one thing
37:41
Speaker 2: that I would sort of quibble with about small greens
37:43
Speaker 2: is often when you see, you know, really small greens,
37:45
Speaker 2: they're surrounded by thick rough. I think, you know, Brookline
37:47
Speaker 2: is a pretty good example of that. So you end
37:50
Speaker 2: up missing a lot of greens just by virtue of
37:52
Speaker 2: the fact they're so small, and so you end up
37:53
Speaker 2: doing kind of a lot of repetitive lob shots out
37:56
Speaker 2: of the rough, whether it's you know, Pebble or Brookline
37:59
Speaker 2: or or you know, any of the others. So I
38:02
Speaker 2: Candy Rude, it was kind of a you know, I
38:05
Speaker 2: live in Pineers, love Pineer's number two, so it was
38:07
Speaker 2: kind of like, what if we did like really small
38:10
Speaker 2: greens but surrounded by a lot of tight grass and
38:13
Speaker 2: a lot of kind of humps and hollows. So I
38:15
Speaker 2: think that's potentially a unique challenge where we have some
38:17
Speaker 2: really small green targets but they're surrounded by lots of
38:21
Speaker 2: tight grass and fall offs and humps and hollows. So
38:25
Speaker 2: that was kind of a curation of it. And then
38:27
Speaker 2: I would say in terms of the internal contours at
38:31
Speaker 2: brims Edge, we did a lot of convex stuff, you know,
38:33
Speaker 2: very kind of number two ish, But here I was
38:35
Speaker 2: I was much more interested in kind of the intersecting
38:39
Speaker 2: slopes idea, and William Flint did a lot of this.
38:42
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously we saw this at at Shinnacok, where
38:45
Speaker 2: a lot of the high points kind of are around
38:48
Speaker 2: the edges of the greens and the slopes kind of
38:50
Speaker 2: come in and they collide into each other inside the
38:53
Speaker 2: green complex. And so I wanted to do more of that.
38:57
Speaker 2: So there were definitely a lot of conversations with me
38:59
Speaker 2: and Joe about how do we do these intersecting slopes
39:02
Speaker 2: and not not doing you know, the purely convex stuff
39:06
Speaker 2: that we were doing at Broomsedge. And I think the
39:09
Speaker 2: greens have ended up really confounding and really really good.
39:13
Speaker 2: I think again that I think we really didn't inhale
39:16
Speaker 2: the green complexes. And in addition to that, because the
39:19
Speaker 2: whole course is benched into a side slope, it is
39:22
Speaker 2: really hard to tell what's uphill and what's downhill on
39:24
Speaker 2: these on these greens, because like you know, if you're
39:27
Speaker 2: at like a three percent descending slope the whole way
39:29
Speaker 2: across the property, if you just flick up a little
39:32
Speaker 2: bit of dirt on a green, it actually looks like, Okay,
39:36
Speaker 2: well I'm downhill for the first a third of this putt,
39:40
Speaker 2: but then the last two thirds I'm actually I got
39:41
Speaker 2: some support in this green. I'm actually going back uphill.
39:45
Speaker 2: But really it's a visual trick that that all we
39:47
Speaker 2: did was slow the descent down. It's just like a
39:49
Speaker 2: wrinkle in the broader descent. And so I think that
39:53
Speaker 2: these greens are going to be I mean, I can't
39:55
Speaker 2: you know, I've been doing this for seven years. Joe's
39:57
Speaker 2: my design partner, Joe Hancock has been doing this for
40:00
Speaker 2: thirty years, and we stand on some of these green
40:02
Speaker 2: and we have no idea if the balls going uphill
40:03
Speaker 2: or down. You know, we don't know until we get
40:05
Speaker 2: the laser out, which is really cool. Sometimes the best
40:08
Speaker 2: things that when you shape until you're confused and then
40:10
Speaker 2: walk away you got a great green. But I think
40:13
Speaker 2: that that's going to be really cool. Another area where
40:17
Speaker 2: I pulled a lot of inspiration was Shinnecock and its
40:22
Speaker 2: fairway movements. One of the things I didn't get to
40:27
Speaker 2: do at Broomsedge was kind of the diagonal sweeping serpentine
40:32
Speaker 2: grassing lines. You know, Broomsedge was on a really tight property,
40:35
Speaker 2: so a lot of holes just had to run in
40:37
Speaker 2: parallel with each other. There's more land at Candy Roos,
40:40
Speaker 2: so we can do kind of more sweeping dog legs
40:43
Speaker 2: and swinging grassing lines, which just by definition, it eats
40:46
Speaker 2: up more acreage, right, Moving holes in that way just
40:49
Speaker 2: eats up more land that we didn't have at Broom.
40:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, the effective corridors wide when you have a diagonal fairway.
40:54
Speaker 1: That's something about Shinnecock is like, yep, tremendously wide hole corridors,
40:58
Speaker 1: but the fairway is just towards sort of lanting down, yeah, down, yep.
41:03
Speaker 2: And I've always I've always felt like, you know, we
41:06
Speaker 2: talk about the roll back, and you know, I mean,
41:09
Speaker 2: even if the governing bodies get it under control, I
41:13
Speaker 2: don't see the ball rolling back that much. I mean,
41:16
Speaker 2: I think we've reached a stage where players are probably
41:19
Speaker 2: going to be pretty darn long forever more, even if
41:22
Speaker 2: we can stop the growth. And you know, I'm not
41:24
Speaker 2: going to build a nine thousand yard golf course, but
41:27
Speaker 2: to me, and I think the Open last week kind
41:30
Speaker 2: of maybe suggested this that that maybe diagonals and kind
41:33
Speaker 2: of grassing lines are how you maybe keep distance under control.
41:37
Speaker 2: I mean, guys couldn't. They couldn't overpower Shinnecock. They laid them.
41:40
Speaker 2: They throttled themselves back all the time. I mean nobody
41:43
Speaker 2: in the lead up to Shinnacock, I mean nobody was
41:45
Speaker 2: talking bomb and gouge prior to the tournament. Some of
41:49
Speaker 2: the I mean some of the longest approach shots I've
41:51
Speaker 2: seen in a long time happened this past week at
41:54
Speaker 2: the Open because guys were throttling back voluntarily. I mean,
41:57
Speaker 2: who was it in on Sunday who had like one
42:00
Speaker 2: eighty into the tenth hole. It's only a four hundred
42:02
Speaker 2: yard hole. They voluntarily decided to have one eighty into
42:06
Speaker 2: that green, and then I was thinking too, I don't know,
42:08
Speaker 2: I haven't thought this totally through, but I was thinking.
42:10
Speaker 2: I was contrasting it with with Ironomy, where I think
42:14
Speaker 2: more holes kind of run straight. You know, there's an
42:17
Speaker 2: occasional bunker pinch here and there, but more or less
42:19
Speaker 2: a lot of the holes that Ironomic run straight.
42:22
Speaker 1: They're more packed in because you know, it is a
42:25
Speaker 1: smaller it's a property, you know exactly.
42:28
Speaker 2: And I mean, you know, you remember all the talk
42:31
Speaker 2: leading up to Ironmic about the bomb and gouge, right,
42:34
Speaker 2: and that I think that ended up probably not being
42:35
Speaker 2: the right the right play as as uh, you know,
42:39
Speaker 2: Aaron Raich showed. But but I think a lot of
42:42
Speaker 2: players at Aronmic saw bomb and gouge is at least
42:44
Speaker 2: a viable strategy going into the tournament, whereas nobody at
42:47
Speaker 2: Shinnikok thought that was viable. And I think it is
42:50
Speaker 2: this diagonal thing, right, I think when players see a
42:54
Speaker 2: hole where really only the line matters, they think bomb
42:58
Speaker 2: and gouge. You know, all I can hit it two
43:00
Speaker 2: fifty on this line, or I could hit it three
43:01
Speaker 2: fifty on this line bonds away. But at Shinnacock as
43:05
Speaker 2: we know, it's the dynamic changes. It's well, I can
43:07
Speaker 2: hit it two fifty on this line, I can hit
43:10
Speaker 2: it two seventy five on this line. I can hit
43:12
Speaker 2: it three hundred on this line. But if I want
43:14
Speaker 2: to carry it over three hundred, well, now that the
43:18
Speaker 2: grassing line just you know, twist back the other direction.
43:21
Speaker 2: So now I got to carry three hundred yards on
43:24
Speaker 2: this line, which is way different than the line I
43:25
Speaker 2: would have taken at two seventy five. So then you
43:28
Speaker 2: factor in the wind and the balance. It's you know,
43:30
Speaker 2: it's why Shinnecock is one of the great championship tests
43:32
Speaker 2: in the world. I because of the severity of the
43:35
Speaker 2: of the site at Candy Rude, I knew that the
43:37
Speaker 2: the golf course wasn't going to be brutally or overly long,
43:41
Speaker 2: so length wasn't going to be its primary thing. But
43:45
Speaker 2: given the ridges and all that stuff. I really took
43:47
Speaker 2: a lot of influence in the grassing lines from Shinnecock
43:50
Speaker 2: and just tried to really emphasize this kind of off
43:53
Speaker 2: balance nature and coupled with the side slopes, I think
43:56
Speaker 2: it's really cool. And then that led to fewer bunkers. Well,
44:01
Speaker 2: so there's a lot less bunkers at Candy Root than
44:05
Speaker 2: than Broomsedge. You know, again like parallel holes. I think
44:08
Speaker 2: we relied more at Broomsedge on on bunkering to you know,
44:14
Speaker 2: kind of induce strategy and make the holes feel different,
44:17
Speaker 2: whereas at at Candy Root, the land contours and the
44:21
Speaker 2: native grasses and the grassing lines are just kind of
44:23
Speaker 2: doing all the work. So I think we only have
44:25
Speaker 2: maybe fifty five or sixty bunkers at at Candy Root,
44:28
Speaker 2: which is which is pretty low. And so yeah, those
44:32
Speaker 2: were those were kind of the influences. But I mean
44:35
Speaker 2: we'rel Dornick is always an influence there. We got a
44:37
Speaker 2: couple of greens that are just kind of perched up plateaus.
44:40
Speaker 2: Prairie Dunes was was a big influence out there. Again.
44:43
Speaker 2: You know, there's a number of greens that are benched
44:45
Speaker 2: into side slopes and you know, nobody did that better
44:48
Speaker 2: the Maxwell at Prairie Dunes. So a lot of I
44:52
Speaker 2: think you're just curating. You know, you're trying to produce
44:54
Speaker 2: an original product, and you're but you're constantly thinking about
44:58
Speaker 2: all the great things that you've seen and just cure.
45:00
Speaker 2: I really like the way Maxwell did this there. I
45:02
Speaker 2: really love what Flynn did here. I really loved them
45:04
Speaker 2: Kenzie did there. And hopefully you put it all in
45:06
Speaker 2: the melting pot and you it comes up with something cool.
45:11
Speaker 1: So one factor you haven't mentioned yet, or one term
45:14
Speaker 1: you haven't used yet, is is the uh the big
45:18
Speaker 1: M minimalism. Candy Roots website does use this term. Now,
45:22
Speaker 1: it's it's it's always unclear to me to you know,
45:24
Speaker 1: how much of a role an architect has and in
45:26
Speaker 1: some of the branding language that that that is presented
45:30
Speaker 1: for for these courses. But but right now on Candy
45:32
Speaker 1: Roids website it says that the course is defined by
45:35
Speaker 1: quote unquote extreme minimalism.
45:39
Speaker 2: Yep.
45:39
Speaker 1: So I was wondering if that's a if that's a
45:41
Speaker 1: term that you actually use and and what your relationship
45:44
Speaker 1: with minimalism is and what this course is relationship.
45:47
Speaker 2: With it is. Yeah, I think it's an accurate description.
45:51
Speaker 2: We the way that I think the way to describe
45:55
Speaker 2: it would be that we never put dirt in a
45:59
Speaker 2: truck and moved it anywhere. All the shaping we did well.
46:03
Speaker 2: First of all, we didn't shape any fairways. We shaped
46:06
Speaker 2: green pad or we shaped tea pads just to get
46:08
Speaker 2: them flat, flat enough, So there was a little bit
46:11
Speaker 2: of localized shaping around the tees, and then we shaped
46:14
Speaker 2: the greens, but we didn't you know, we didn't really
46:16
Speaker 2: bring in any dirt to fill a green. There were
46:19
Speaker 2: really not a lot of significant cuts. Maybe maybe the
46:22
Speaker 2: twelfth green could be the one where we probably did
46:25
Speaker 2: the most dozer pushing, but again, there was no kind
46:27
Speaker 2: of airlift movement going on here. There was no earthwork requirements.
46:32
Speaker 2: So that that's kind of how I feel, I mean,
46:35
Speaker 2: you know, that's kind of how I view extreme minimalism,
46:39
Speaker 2: as you do the absolute minimum to get the golf
46:44
Speaker 2: course to work, and we didn't do anything beyond that.
46:46
Speaker 2: We didn't really do I mean, we didn't do anything
46:49
Speaker 2: in the natives.
46:49
Speaker 1: The natives are just kind of there, so no shaping
46:53
Speaker 1: in the fairways, are very little shaping in the fairways.
46:56
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think one, no shaping. Three I don't
46:59
Speaker 2: think we shaped a fairway now.
47:01
Speaker 1: Wow. So I mean, just to be clear for listeners,
47:04
Speaker 1: this is really unusual. Now, Yeah, that the process now is,
47:09
Speaker 1: you know, the standard process is to bring in a
47:13
Speaker 1: lot of fill and and kind of shape the entire
47:16
Speaker 1: whole corridor. But but this is not no, and it's
47:19
Speaker 1: this is not what architects did in the nineteen twenties. Obviously,
47:22
Speaker 1: right old courses. You know, one of the things that
47:24
Speaker 1: makes an old course differentiated from a modern course is
47:29
Speaker 1: often that you notice that in the old courses that
47:31
Speaker 1: the fairways are quite clearly natural. But but you didn't,
47:35
Speaker 1: you didn't, you didn't do the fairway shaping.
47:37
Speaker 2: No, I'm part of it is. I mean, we only
47:39
Speaker 2: have one shaper. It's Joe Hancock. You know. I'll hop
47:42
Speaker 2: in a machine occasionally when I have time, but we
47:44
Speaker 2: don't have an army of shapers out there. I mean,
47:46
Speaker 2: Joe has shaped pretty much everything out there, and his
47:50
Speaker 2: dozer occasionally all up into an excavator and do a
47:53
Speaker 2: bunker here there or whatever. But like we don't have
47:56
Speaker 2: there's not enough shaping work to do out there. Joe
47:58
Speaker 2: made Joe made a.
47:59
Speaker 1: Fund was very experienced too, by the way, for folks
48:02
Speaker 1: who don't know the name, he's He's been everywhere, worked
48:05
Speaker 1: for everyone, and done a lot of work.
48:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, he made a funny joke early on when we
48:09
Speaker 2: have first cleared eighteen fairway and all these little humps
48:12
Speaker 2: and bumps in there and it looks so cool, and
48:13
Speaker 2: he said, man, this would be a nightmare job for
48:15
Speaker 2: a young shaper. I'm like, what do you mean And
48:17
Speaker 2: he's like, well, I couldn't show how good I am
48:19
Speaker 2: because there's nothing, there's nothing to do.
48:22
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you're trying to show off, that's uh,
48:25
Speaker 1: it's not the that's I mean, that's kind of an
48:28
Speaker 1: issue that I that I've heard certain experienced architects talk
48:31
Speaker 1: about behind closed doors, is you know, my shapers want
48:34
Speaker 1: to understandably make a make a name for themselves, but
48:37
Speaker 1: I just want them to build my golf course. And
48:39
Speaker 1: there's sometimes that tension there. Yeah.
48:41
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now Joe is Joe's my I mean he Joe
48:45
Speaker 2: is mister restraint. You know, Joe is always challenging me
48:47
Speaker 2: in terms of do we do you need that bunker
48:49
Speaker 2: there is that superfluous or we don't need to touch that,
48:53
Speaker 2: you know, Joe. Joe has had such a big influence
48:55
Speaker 2: on me. And one of the things that Joe said
48:58
Speaker 2: that really struck me is, you know, the golfer, Mike,
49:02
Speaker 2: the golfer is variable enough even day to day, the
49:06
Speaker 2: same person is variable enough you don't need to junk
49:10
Speaker 2: it up with stuff. You don't need to have excessive
49:13
Speaker 2: micro contouring in front of greens. You don't need to
49:16
Speaker 2: do all that because the golfer is variable enough. And
49:19
Speaker 2: that that always sticks in my head. And Joe said
49:21
Speaker 2: that to me during during Broomsedge. So it's been great.
49:23
Speaker 2: You know, it's great having Joe around. But that's kind
49:25
Speaker 2: of the mindset that we had at this Now. You know,
49:28
Speaker 2: there are I'll give you two examples of where we
49:31
Speaker 2: actively resisted the desire to, you know, where maybe others
49:35
Speaker 2: would have done an earth move. The first one is
49:39
Speaker 2: is six Fairway, which is one of those ten or
49:41
Speaker 2: twelve percenter fairways. It's humming, it's a steep side slope
49:47
Speaker 2: and you know, I mean that would be such a
49:50
Speaker 2: big earth move to try to level that thing out.
49:52
Speaker 2: And we've been having this conversation to this day about
49:55
Speaker 2: you know, well, this is you know, it's obviously a
49:58
Speaker 2: wide fairway to accommodate. I think we're gon push it
50:00
Speaker 2: to you know, something like seventy yards wide. But there's
50:03
Speaker 2: also agronomic you know, questions here too. I think Brian
50:07
Speaker 2: Schneider did a bit of thing about this, where you
50:11
Speaker 2: know that if you cut the fairways too low, then
50:15
Speaker 2: balls don't hang up on side slopes, and that then
50:18
Speaker 2: you kind of you know, you don't have the challenge
50:20
Speaker 2: of a ball way below your feet or way above
50:21
Speaker 2: your feet, which is an important test. So I think
50:25
Speaker 2: part of it is an agronomic thing. If we need
50:27
Speaker 2: to make sure that the golf course plays firm, but
50:29
Speaker 2: you know, the fairways because of the side slope on
50:31
Speaker 2: this property, the fairways can't be lightning fast, and so
50:35
Speaker 2: that's that's an area where people are going to actually
50:37
Speaker 2: have to shape a shot into a into a fairway
50:40
Speaker 2: to be able to hold the ball. It's it's similar
50:42
Speaker 2: to you know sixteen at Old Town or one of
50:46
Speaker 2: one of those where you are you are fighting the
50:48
Speaker 2: landform there. But I think you know there was there's
50:52
Speaker 2: the temptation to get the big d eight dozers out
50:55
Speaker 2: and turn that thing from a ten percent slope into
50:58
Speaker 2: a six or seven percent slope, but we resisted. We'll
51:01
Speaker 2: see how it goes. Another example would be the seventh Pole,
51:04
Speaker 2: which is a par five long long par five. It
51:07
Speaker 2: kind of moves like waves in the ocean, so there's
51:09
Speaker 2: always a ridge in front of you that's kind of
51:11
Speaker 2: blocking your your visibility, and so your landing area off
51:15
Speaker 2: the tee shot, you land on top of one of
51:17
Speaker 2: these ridges, and then between you and the green is
51:20
Speaker 2: another one of these waves in the ocean where it
51:23
Speaker 2: totally blocks your your view of the green. And actually
51:27
Speaker 2: in the in the plan, I had us knocking down
51:30
Speaker 2: that knocking down that ridge just to get some visibility
51:34
Speaker 2: of the green. And then we got out there and
51:37
Speaker 2: it was just such a beautiful land form and you're thinking, Jesus,
51:39
Speaker 2: we knocked this thing down. How are we going to
51:40
Speaker 2: tie it in. How are we gonna make it look natural?
51:42
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to rearrange everything, We're gonna blow through
51:44
Speaker 2: a bunch of native and two weeks later we're gonna
51:47
Speaker 2: spend a lot of money, and well, we really have
51:49
Speaker 2: a cooler hole because of it. And so what we
51:51
Speaker 2: ended up doing was kind of a spectacle bunker arrangement
51:53
Speaker 2: into that hillside where you know, very much like the
51:57
Speaker 2: spectacles at Carnoustie. You know, it's a par five where
52:00
Speaker 2: you know, maybe we'll get a ten foot flag and
52:01
Speaker 2: you can kind of see it dangling in between the spectacles,
52:03
Speaker 2: but kind of your line is right in between the spectacles,
52:05
Speaker 2: and I think we have a much cooler hole because
52:09
Speaker 2: we didn't move any earth, and we thought more creatively,
52:11
Speaker 2: and we didn't always prioritize visibility. I think if visibility is,
52:17
Speaker 2: you know, always the priority, you're if you have any
52:20
Speaker 2: sort of topographical movement, you're always going to be cutting
52:22
Speaker 2: something to achieve it. But seven was a good example
52:25
Speaker 2: where we just sort of embraced the blindness and made
52:27
Speaker 2: it a strategic feature of the whole. And you know,
52:30
Speaker 2: use some use some you know bunkering to you know,
52:33
Speaker 2: show people where to go.
52:41
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Speaker 1: Code Design check it out. So so far, you've talked
54:26
Speaker 1: about this project in a very site specific and project
54:30
Speaker 1: specific way, your your decisions being dictated by the land
54:34
Speaker 1: itself and by the nature of this specific development. But
54:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to put some context on this and
54:44
Speaker 1: maybe locate this in history, and we'll see if you
54:46
Speaker 1: take the bit or not. You know, there are those
54:50
Speaker 1: who suggest right now that this approach you're describing, if
54:56
Speaker 1: you want to call it minimalist or naturalist or non
54:59
Speaker 1: interventist or whatever you want to call it. That this this,
55:03
Speaker 1: There are those who say that this approach has has
55:06
Speaker 1: really dominated the past thirty years of golf course design,
55:09
Speaker 1: you know, starting with Bill Kohrer and Tom Doak in
55:11
Speaker 1: the nineties popularizing it, and and so the argument then runs, well,
55:16
Speaker 1: the obvious next step if we want to if we
55:18
Speaker 1: want to keep the art form moving forward, is to
55:22
Speaker 1: return to maximalism. You know, whether that means incorporating influences
55:26
Speaker 1: from from Tom Fazio and Mike Strantz or whoever else,
55:31
Speaker 1: or taking inspiration from from some of the bold shaping
55:34
Speaker 1: that we saw in the golden age of golf course design,
55:37
Speaker 1: like from Seth Rayner, Walter Travis or Langford Moreau. It
55:41
Speaker 1: seems like you feel that there's not really a need
55:45
Speaker 1: to move beyond minimalism. Do you feel that way? Do
55:50
Speaker 1: you feel that there's there's a need to kind of
55:52
Speaker 1: provide a counterpoint to the trends of the last thirty years,
55:57
Speaker 1: or you know, how do you think all that through?
55:59
Speaker 2: Sure? Well, I mean I think so much of it
56:02
Speaker 2: is site specific. I mean I think that on a
56:06
Speaker 2: site like Candy Route, I really do think it is
56:09
Speaker 2: it is so unique and it's just god given potential
56:15
Speaker 2: that it would be a tremendous mistake to try to
56:18
Speaker 2: do anything remotely uh deviant from from a minimalist approach
56:23
Speaker 2: on a site that good. Now, I do understand that
56:27
Speaker 2: not every architect is you know, has a has a
56:30
Speaker 2: great site to work with, and sometimes you do need
56:32
Speaker 2: to kind of manufacture some some intrigue in there. And
56:37
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. I'm very much a more of
56:40
Speaker 2: the merrier kind of kind of person where I think
56:43
Speaker 2: there's room in our art form for all types, all
56:48
Speaker 2: walks of life, you know, and I think that's cool.
56:50
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty cool to see some of the
56:53
Speaker 2: unique shapes that at Old Barnwell. I think that, you know,
56:56
Speaker 2: I just I there's enough, there's enough there to try
57:00
Speaker 2: to experiment with it. But where I get very sort
57:04
Speaker 2: of dogmatic about minimalism is when you really truly have
57:08
Speaker 2: a unique site, leave it alone, you know, don't don't
57:11
Speaker 2: have the hubrists to come in and think you're going
57:13
Speaker 2: to do any better than what mother nature did. And
57:17
Speaker 2: so that's kind of where I'm at. But you know,
57:19
Speaker 2: not all sites are not all sites are like that.
57:21
Speaker 2: Some sites need a little bit of a little bit
57:23
Speaker 2: of intrigue here and there. But in terms of, you know, stylistically,
57:27
Speaker 2: I think there's room in this industry for things that
57:32
Speaker 2: are obviously man made. It's you know, and I think
57:37
Speaker 2: everybody's got to kind of play their strong suits. I
57:39
Speaker 2: don't know that I'd be very good at that, you know,
57:43
Speaker 2: but but I think there there are architects that are
57:45
Speaker 2: that can that can pull that off really well. And
57:47
Speaker 2: there's you know, I think for golf architecture, I think
57:51
Speaker 2: it's important for us to have a kind of a
57:52
Speaker 2: big tent in mind and and welcome all those sorts
57:55
Speaker 2: of approaches, because isn't that the fun part, right for
57:57
Speaker 2: us to get on the podcast and talk about all
57:59
Speaker 2: these different roaches and talk about the different styles. I
58:02
Speaker 2: mean that that's the fun part to me. So, but
58:05
Speaker 2: certainly on on a site like Broomsedge and a site
58:08
Speaker 2: like Candy Route, yeah, don't mess with it. It's pretty it's
58:12
Speaker 2: pretty unique as it is. I think you can rely
58:14
Speaker 2: a lot on mother Nature to give you a unique fingerprint.
58:17
Speaker 1: A very reasonable response. But but that is taking the bait.
58:22
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm not going to take the well, especially
58:25
Speaker 1: since I said is he going to take the bait
58:27
Speaker 1: or not? And right, I should have Yeah, if I
58:29
Speaker 1: were really trying to get you, I should have phrased
58:31
Speaker 1: the question different.
58:32
Speaker 2: You should have lulled me into it.
58:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I wonder, I mean, yeah, okay, you know
58:36
Speaker 1: this is this is a widely accepted answer right now.
58:40
Speaker 1: On great sites, we can take a minimalist approach. On
58:43
Speaker 1: less good sites, then maybe we need to do something different. Yeah,
58:47
Speaker 1: I mean even on great sites, though, do you think
58:49
Speaker 1: that there's ever a danger of falling into the orthodoxies
58:55
Speaker 1: of of what architects have done for for the past
58:58
Speaker 1: thirty years on those types of sites. Do you ever
59:01
Speaker 1: feel like that's that's gonna get old?
59:05
Speaker 2: No, I I think that's timeless. I really do think
59:09
Speaker 2: that that is. There's some stuff that's just timeless and
59:13
Speaker 2: a natural a natural site that is, you know, inherently
59:19
Speaker 2: gifted for golf and simply doing as little as possible.
59:23
Speaker 2: That's just that's just not gonna get old. It's just
59:26
Speaker 2: not and it hasn't gotten old yet, and I don't
59:30
Speaker 2: think that it I don't think that it will. But again,
59:34
Speaker 2: I think that the challenge there's is finding sites that
59:37
Speaker 2: that are that are truly unique and really, you know,
59:42
Speaker 2: I think if if a lot of work is done
59:44
Speaker 2: on the site selection process, then I think that saves
59:46
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of effort on the construction
59:48
Speaker 2: process in terms of the minimalist effort and making sure
59:51
Speaker 2: you're not repeating. Because yeah, So that that's kind of
59:55
Speaker 2: where I follow, is that there's some stuff that's that's timeless.
59:58
Speaker 2: It's it's just not going to go away. And so
1:00:01
Speaker 2: I have a lot of faith in mother nature to
1:00:03
Speaker 2: keep producing great golf courses.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: For what it's worth.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: I agree with you, thanks, So, yeah, some stuff doesn't
1:00:12
Speaker 2: Some great stuff just doesn't go out of style.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel, no, Yeah,
1:00:17
Speaker 1: And I think that as long as you're finding unique sights,
1:00:21
Speaker 1: that that itself is a source of freshness and.
1:00:24
Speaker 2: Renewal exactly exactly. Yep. The Beatles aren't going out of style,
1:00:28
Speaker 2: the stones aren't going out of style. You know, like
1:00:30
Speaker 2: it's just stuff, Just great stuff just stays stays true.
1:00:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I want to shift to talking more about
1:00:41
Speaker 1: like destination golf as an idea here as a model
1:00:45
Speaker 1: for golf development. You know, I first heard about candy
1:00:49
Speaker 1: root in I think it was mid twenty five ish,
1:00:55
Speaker 1: and this was before it was called Candy Route. Yeah,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: the pitch at that point, Yeah, there's been a naming. Uh.
1:01:03
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, this is this is always what happens,
1:01:06
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, side note here, people shouldn't
1:01:10
Speaker 1: be punished for being open about the projects that they're
1:01:13
Speaker 1: working on, you know, if you come in and say, oh,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: they they're really indecisive or by their ideas. Well, this
1:01:19
Speaker 1: is always what happens. But some people are just willing
1:01:22
Speaker 1: to talk about the projects early on, which I like
1:01:24
Speaker 1: and appreciate and I think the public should too. But
1:01:28
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, yeah, I went through a couple of
1:01:30
Speaker 1: different names. The pitch at at this early point was
1:01:35
Speaker 1: a public golf course, right, and in fact the ownership
1:01:38
Speaker 1: group wrote on social media that that the idea was
1:01:42
Speaker 1: to provide a public golf course for the Charlotte Metro
1:01:47
Speaker 1: and and to and to kind of give something that's
1:01:49
Speaker 1: different than you know, where we've seen a lot of
1:01:52
Speaker 1: action in golf development, which is in the in the
1:01:55
Speaker 1: private and resort space. Of course, the vision for Candy
1:01:58
Speaker 1: Root has changed sense then, in fact, it has become
1:02:02
Speaker 1: it has turned more to this destination resort model. From
1:02:07
Speaker 1: your perspective as the architect and but also as the
1:02:10
Speaker 1: person who found the piece of land in the first place,
1:02:13
Speaker 1: How did that evolution happen?
1:02:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was you know, a lot of
1:02:17
Speaker 2: this was was priorities that that Aaron brought to the
1:02:20
Speaker 2: table when he kind of took over the you know,
1:02:23
Speaker 2: the business itself. But but I still think there's a
1:02:26
Speaker 2: there's and certainly in the in the business model, there's
1:02:29
Speaker 2: there's still a very strong place for that Charlotte market
1:02:35
Speaker 2: there too. So it's not a it's not an either or.
1:02:37
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, there's definitely a stay and play component
1:02:40
Speaker 2: for nationally you know based individuals, but there's still every
1:02:44
Speaker 2: appetite to you know, be able to come in from
1:02:47
Speaker 2: from Charlotte and you know, play thirty six and head back.
1:02:51
Speaker 2: So I think it's a it's a yes and sort
1:02:53
Speaker 2: of equation. But but definitely, I think in the in
1:02:56
Speaker 2: the very early stages, again, it was just sort of
1:02:58
Speaker 2: a one golf course sort of thing. It was very
1:03:00
Speaker 2: much the idea of let's tap into this this Charlotte market.
1:03:04
Speaker 2: And I think it's I think it's a fair conclusion
1:03:06
Speaker 2: to say that the ambition of the place has has
1:03:09
Speaker 2: grown large because you know, Aaron had a lot of
1:03:11
Speaker 2: ambition coming into this, and so he wanted to not
1:03:14
Speaker 2: only serve the immediate market, but also make this place
1:03:18
Speaker 2: where people will fly in and steady in play. So
1:03:22
Speaker 2: I think it's great, and you know, I I think
1:03:24
Speaker 2: that it's great. I think, you know, my primary task
1:03:28
Speaker 2: is to build a golf course that's good enough to
1:03:29
Speaker 2: make people want to fly in from timbuckto to play,
1:03:32
Speaker 2: right that that's my challenge. And if we do that, well,
1:03:36
Speaker 2: you know, I hope that you know, there's a foursome
1:03:38
Speaker 2: out there with two guys from Charlotte who were able
1:03:41
Speaker 2: to get away for the day and uh, you know,
1:03:44
Speaker 2: two guys from Dublin who flew in because they just
1:03:45
Speaker 2: had to see this place and they're playing together. That
1:03:48
Speaker 2: would be that would be a pretty cool outcome here.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: Did anything shift for you on the design side when
1:03:54
Speaker 1: the idea for the place went from you know, we're
1:03:57
Speaker 1: just going to build this one golf course to we're
1:03:59
Speaker 1: looking to build you know, maybe four or five golf courses.
1:04:03
Speaker 2: Zero not at all, not at all. Had a pretty clear,
1:04:08
Speaker 2: pretty clear idea of kind of what I wanted to
1:04:10
Speaker 2: do with this, and I kind of I'm a little
1:04:14
Speaker 2: bit of a curmudgeon on the on the commercialism thing,
1:04:18
Speaker 2: where you know, even though the commercial ambitions increased on
1:04:22
Speaker 2: the project, I felt like, you know, from a design standpoint,
1:04:25
Speaker 2: you don't want that to kind of creep into your
1:04:28
Speaker 2: your whole designs that a great golf course is a
1:04:30
Speaker 2: great golf course. Whether it's public or private, You're you're
1:04:33
Speaker 2: trying to get the best eighteen holes out of that
1:04:36
Speaker 2: property that you can. And so whether there's a stay
1:04:39
Speaker 2: and play component, whether it's a you know, whether it's
1:04:42
Speaker 2: a local joint, whether it's a private club, that has
1:04:46
Speaker 2: never really impacted my thinking about what I'm going to
1:04:50
Speaker 2: do in terms of routing, in terms of shaping. I
1:04:53
Speaker 2: really mean that it never has.
1:04:56
Speaker 1: Well, I mean we were talking about the or you
1:04:59
Speaker 1: were talking about the green size is early, yeah, And
1:05:02
Speaker 1: when I see that, the first thing I wonder is, well, well,
1:05:05
Speaker 1: how do you how do you balance that with resort playability?
1:05:10
Speaker 1: Because that that is something that I notice certainly at
1:05:13
Speaker 1: certain destination golf resorts where where I've seen this architects
1:05:18
Speaker 1: work on the private side and and it's clear that
1:05:21
Speaker 1: they are much more willing to to to lean into
1:05:25
Speaker 1: difficulty challenge on the private side than on the resort side.
1:05:29
Speaker 1: So when you're building a golf course, it's on a
1:05:31
Speaker 1: severe piece of land, you've got small greens. Is there
1:05:34
Speaker 1: any concern for you like, Okay, this isn't going to
1:05:37
Speaker 1: fit at at the at the five course destination resort.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: That's going to be like a you know, a family destination.
1:05:43
Speaker 1: It's gonna it's going to take all take all kinds that.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: Did that ever enter into your thought process?
1:05:48
Speaker 2: It entered into my thought process, but it never really
1:05:51
Speaker 2: led to a change in action. So you're going now
1:05:54
Speaker 2: you're now you're you're poking the bear here because I'm
1:05:56
Speaker 2: gonna let me go on a rant here about this
1:05:59
Speaker 2: fult because you're getting to something No, honestly like this
1:06:02
Speaker 2: is this is really good?
1:06:03
Speaker 1: So I intend I intend to poke the barrel a
1:06:05
Speaker 1: little yea question?
1:06:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean, okay, so the I mean people
1:06:11
Speaker 2: talk a lot about the differences of you know, like
1:06:14
Speaker 2: the true classical architecture of the early you know, nineteen
1:06:17
Speaker 2: hundreds and and versus the kind of the modern neo
1:06:22
Speaker 2: classical design ushered in by sand Hills, and you know
1:06:26
Speaker 2: the similarities are obvious. Right, there's an embraceive ground game architecture,
1:06:30
Speaker 2: and there's a naturalism. And the differences are noticeable too, Right.
1:06:34
Speaker 2: The greens tend to be bigger today, the fairways tend
1:06:37
Speaker 2: to be wider, there's probably more exposed sand today. Courses
1:06:40
Speaker 2: are probably a little bit longer, but you know, and
1:06:45
Speaker 2: those are stylistic differences. But I mean, to me, the
1:06:47
Speaker 2: most the most fundamental thing that that's changed over time
1:06:54
Speaker 2: is kind of what is seen as the purpose of
1:06:57
Speaker 2: a golf course. And I have this thesis, and I
1:07:00
Speaker 2: there's you know, I can't empirically back it up, but
1:07:04
Speaker 2: but my thesis is that the the great dead architects
1:07:09
Speaker 2: put more emphasis on designing a golf course to be
1:07:12
Speaker 2: an exam of a golfer skill, whereas a live architects
1:07:18
Speaker 2: put more emphasis on fun whatever that, you know, whatever
1:07:23
Speaker 2: that means. And I think that and I'm not assigning
1:07:26
Speaker 2: good or bad here, but I think that that distinction
1:07:29
Speaker 2: really drives a lot of the differences that we're seeing
1:07:32
Speaker 2: in the ground. So to me, that this fault line,
1:07:35
Speaker 2: like when I read the old documents and the you know,
1:07:37
Speaker 2: the old writings, it's it's at least clear to me
1:07:40
Speaker 2: from the from the the Great Dead guys that it
1:07:44
Speaker 2: was about testing the golf. There was a big emphasis
1:07:47
Speaker 2: on that rigorously examining a golfer skill set. It kind
1:07:50
Speaker 2: of you know, exposing a weaker player.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: Right.
1:07:52
Speaker 2: You think of how Crump talked about Pine Valley, or
1:07:54
Speaker 2: how Founds talked about Oakmon or Ross of number two,
1:07:58
Speaker 2: or you know when when they when they were getting
1:08:00
Speaker 2: investors for Pine Valley, they basically said, this is no
1:08:03
Speaker 2: place for the for the duffer, you know, as if
1:08:05
Speaker 2: it was a good thing.
1:08:05
Speaker 1: Right, Well, they wanted to have golf. They wanted to
1:08:08
Speaker 1: build golf courses that would form great players. That was
1:08:11
Speaker 1: like a big motive behind the Philadelphia School of Golf Architectures.
1:08:16
Speaker 1: You know, we're not producing good enough players right now.
1:08:19
Speaker 1: We got to go build golf courses that were iron sharpens.
1:08:22
Speaker 2: Iron right, yes, right, I mean, and they all George C.
1:08:26
Speaker 2: Thomas and his book talked about that, you know, the
1:08:28
Speaker 2: test of a golf hole CEB McDonald, I mean that
1:08:30
Speaker 2: was the templates were sort of like these are the
1:08:32
Speaker 2: best standardized questions on the exam right, Ross, I mean
1:08:37
Speaker 2: that famous sign that's on near the first t on
1:08:39
Speaker 2: Piner's number two where he talks about this is a test.
1:08:42
Speaker 2: You know, William Flynn wrote a little he wrote a
1:08:44
Speaker 2: little blurb in the USJA bulletin in like the late twenties.
1:08:47
Speaker 2: It was like a few paragraphs and he used the
1:08:49
Speaker 2: word test eight times. So I think those guys they
1:08:52
Speaker 2: saw golf as a physical and an intellectual exam and
1:08:56
Speaker 2: I think they designed their golf courses to kind of
1:08:59
Speaker 2: really exacerbate the different outcomes between a good shot and
1:09:03
Speaker 2: a bad shot. Right, the lines were really fine there.
1:09:06
Speaker 2: I mean, look no further than the ten pole at Chinnacock,
1:09:09
Speaker 2: which we just saw right, Like, the line is really
1:09:11
Speaker 2: really fine. But yeah, I mean, you know, drivers over
1:09:15
Speaker 2: an ocean with bunkers long sixteen at Cyprus, or all
1:09:18
Speaker 2: of Pine Valley or you know. I think nowadays, I
1:09:21
Speaker 2: think there's much more attention to the commercialism aspect of things.
1:09:26
Speaker 2: I think developers and architects spend a lot more time
1:09:29
Speaker 2: thinking about how do you narrow the outcomes between a
1:09:32
Speaker 2: good shot and a bad shot. And that seems true
1:09:34
Speaker 2: to me whether it's public or private, but probably a
1:09:37
Speaker 2: little bit more true on the public side to your point,
1:09:41
Speaker 2: And I think you see, I think our fellow nerds
1:09:47
Speaker 2: will fact check me on this. I think you could
1:09:48
Speaker 2: find plenty of examples of the dead guys talking about
1:09:50
Speaker 2: playability and enjoyment. Right, They weren't total massachists, they weren't crazy.
1:09:54
Speaker 1: Well Alistair mackenzie was really the biggest proponent of the
1:09:59
Speaker 1: greatest pleasure for the That was his formulation. But the
1:10:02
Speaker 1: funny thing about it is, and you're you're so right
1:10:05
Speaker 1: to point this out, is that that wasn't necessarily the
1:10:08
Speaker 1: majority view among his peers. You know, we we paint
1:10:11
Speaker 1: Golden Age golf architecture with a broad brush. We think
1:10:14
Speaker 1: it's we tend to talk about it as though it's
1:10:17
Speaker 1: one thing, one philosophy, but it was really not. It
1:10:19
Speaker 1: was many, many philosophies. There was a you know, there
1:10:23
Speaker 1: was a whole, a whole melting pot of ideas during
1:10:26
Speaker 1: that period that we're all, you know, mixed with each
1:10:29
Speaker 1: other and fighting with each other. And I think you're
1:10:31
Speaker 1: right that the probably the majority view among the among
1:10:35
Speaker 1: the great old dead guys of golf architecture is that
1:10:38
Speaker 1: golf shouldn't necessarily be about the greatest pleasure for the
1:10:42
Speaker 1: greatest number. It should be about identifying the greatest player, and.
1:10:46
Speaker 2: I think that that the emphasis has changed a little bit,
1:10:49
Speaker 2: I think since then. So I think, and whether you know,
1:10:53
Speaker 2: I think it's perhaps no surprise that we see more
1:10:55
Speaker 2: with in modern neoclassical stuff. It's I do think you
1:10:59
Speaker 2: see more auto correct features in modern golf. You do
1:11:04
Speaker 2: see more backboards and sideboards, and funnels and bowls and
1:11:08
Speaker 2: concave shapes that kind of funnel things towards the pin.
1:11:11
Speaker 2: You see more counter slopes internally in greens for balls
1:11:14
Speaker 2: to crash into, you know, I mean, it's not a
1:11:16
Speaker 2: four percent tilt anymore where there's nothing to stop you right,
1:11:19
Speaker 2: there's there's more counter slopes. So and I think that's
1:11:21
Speaker 2: a commercial I think some of that is driven some
1:11:24
Speaker 2: of it's driven by agronomy, which I can rant about that,
1:11:28
Speaker 2: but I think some of it is commercialism, right where
1:11:32
Speaker 2: back in the day, you know these guys like, well
1:11:35
Speaker 2: you said it better than I'm gonna say it. But
1:11:38
Speaker 2: but I to kind of circle back to all this,
1:11:42
Speaker 2: I just I feel like that, you know, the golf
1:11:45
Speaker 2: courses that I most identify with, the golf courses that
1:11:49
Speaker 2: I have the most fun playing, the golf courses that
1:11:52
Speaker 2: I think are the greatest in the world. They have
1:11:56
Speaker 2: some level of they are asking you to do something.
1:12:00
Speaker 2: They are they are examining the golfer's skill sets. And
1:12:06
Speaker 2: it's not just like the US Open courses, right, I mean,
1:12:08
Speaker 2: whether it's cypers Well, it's Door Knook, whether it's Old
1:12:10
Speaker 2: Town Perie Dunes, whatever, like, there's there's that, and so
1:12:14
Speaker 2: I try to you know, and I don't think I
1:12:17
Speaker 2: think if people are going to travel great distances to
1:12:21
Speaker 2: play great golf, I don't think they're totally averse to
1:12:24
Speaker 2: dealing with dealing with the challenging golf course. I mean,
1:12:28
Speaker 2: people travel great lengths to get their brains beat in
1:12:30
Speaker 2: by Pineer's Number two or or Pebble or Pebble.
1:12:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, the two the two er you know,
1:12:39
Speaker 1: destination golf courses. Pebble and Pinehurst Number two are US
1:12:42
Speaker 1: Open golf courses.
1:12:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean maybe, you know, maybe if they weren't
1:12:47
Speaker 2: US Open golf courses, maybe then people wouldn't be as
1:12:50
Speaker 2: willing to fork over a bunch of money to get
1:12:51
Speaker 2: their brains beat in. But but nonetheless, I I just
1:12:54
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of this commercialism, it's it's sort
1:12:59
Speaker 2: of cliche at this point, but I do feel like
1:13:01
Speaker 2: the only way to really truly do this work is
1:13:06
Speaker 2: to do something that you like and that rings true
1:13:09
Speaker 2: to you. And that is just the best I can do,
1:13:12
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, the only thing I can do
1:13:14
Speaker 2: when when we're building a golf course, when I'm approving
1:13:16
Speaker 2: a fairway or a green or whatever is I have
1:13:19
Speaker 2: to stand on that green or I have to stand
1:13:21
Speaker 2: in the pharaway and I have to look at that green,
1:13:23
Speaker 2: and I got to say this is a shot I
1:13:24
Speaker 2: want to hit. And beyond that, I don't know what
1:13:27
Speaker 2: other measure I can put to it. I think if
1:13:29
Speaker 2: you start to kind of, you know, factor in too many,
1:13:32
Speaker 2: too many different things of is it too easy, is
1:13:34
Speaker 2: it too hard? Well, maybe I do this in a private,
1:13:36
Speaker 2: Maybe I do this in a public. Yeah, you know,
1:13:39
Speaker 2: I think you could drive yourself crazy with that. I
1:13:43
Speaker 2: think you just got to go with what feels right
1:13:45
Speaker 2: in your bones. And and you know, the golf courses
1:13:48
Speaker 2: I love the most, or ones that they're not afraid
1:13:51
Speaker 2: to ask a difficult question once in a while.
1:13:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, what you're talking about may just be a
1:13:56
Speaker 1: personal preference of yours and and something you want to
1:13:59
Speaker 1: see out of out of your particular golf courses. But
1:14:03
Speaker 1: it is also you kind of standing against the tides
1:14:05
Speaker 1: of history right now, because I would say, you know,
1:14:08
Speaker 1: if if, if we're talking about destination golf in in
1:14:11
Speaker 1: this uh, in this episode, the influence of destination golf
1:14:15
Speaker 1: overall generally, not not necessarily in every single particular course
1:14:20
Speaker 1: that that is a destination golf course, but in general,
1:14:24
Speaker 1: the turn toward public destination golf as a as a
1:14:28
Speaker 1: development hotspot has produced a lot of courses that emphasize
1:14:34
Speaker 1: playability above all and that that that do pursue that
1:14:38
Speaker 1: idea of the greatest pleasure for the greatest number, and
1:14:40
Speaker 1: a few of those courses have pushed that idea about
1:14:43
Speaker 1: as far as it can possibly go. We we are
1:14:46
Speaker 1: going to uh, you know, defend birdie instead of par.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: We are fine with you coming here and shooting your
1:14:53
Speaker 1: best ever score. We are fine with care af fairways
1:14:56
Speaker 1: and greens that that are that are equally you know,
1:15:00
Speaker 1: from from pole one to all eighteen and and and
1:15:04
Speaker 1: some of those courses have become very popular. And so uh,
1:15:09
Speaker 1: you know, working within the destination golf market and saying no,
1:15:12
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm going to push in the other direction.
1:15:16
Speaker 1: That takes some effort, right, you have to you have
1:15:18
Speaker 1: to kind of stand on business in order to do that.
1:15:20
Speaker 2: Sure, I think I think part of it is you
1:15:23
Speaker 2: never want to do something that's physically not possible for
1:15:27
Speaker 2: all players. And as this comes down to the firth carry,
1:15:30
Speaker 2: I mean, this is why we change the fourth hole
1:15:33
Speaker 2: because I didn't know physically, like if you if you
1:15:35
Speaker 2: hit a great shot for you physically, you might not
1:15:38
Speaker 2: be able to jump that to jump that creek, and
1:15:41
Speaker 2: that would be bad design. So I think playability for
1:15:43
Speaker 2: all is is very very important. From like a physical standpoint,
1:15:47
Speaker 2: I think, you know, you can't build a public golf
1:15:48
Speaker 2: course where some of your players just can't physically pull
1:15:52
Speaker 2: the shot off. But but I but I think it's
1:15:56
Speaker 2: okay to ask a question that you you have to hit.
1:15:59
Speaker 2: You have to a really good shot here. You're physically
1:16:01
Speaker 2: capable of hitting this shot. You might be a fifteen handicap,
1:16:04
Speaker 2: but you can do this shot. You might not be
1:16:06
Speaker 2: able to do it this time, or you might not
1:16:08
Speaker 2: be able to do it eighty percent at the time,
1:16:10
Speaker 2: but you can do this shot. And I think that
1:16:12
Speaker 2: Piner's number two is a great example of that. There's
1:16:14
Speaker 2: no force carries. Miss Havercamp can bump everything along the ground,
1:16:18
Speaker 2: run it all up. You know, when Miss Havercamp misses
1:16:22
Speaker 2: a green on Piner's number two, you know, is she
1:16:25
Speaker 2: getting up and down eighty percent of the time? Hell no,
1:16:28
Speaker 2: But she can hit that shot. And I think that's
1:16:31
Speaker 2: what keeps people coming back. And you know, I love
1:16:35
Speaker 2: living in Pinehurst and just being around number two because
1:16:37
Speaker 2: you I mean from a from the thirty handicap to
1:16:40
Speaker 2: the scratch player, you know, you always want to head
1:16:44
Speaker 2: back to number two because you feel like, man, I
1:16:46
Speaker 2: had that shot, I could do that. That's in my repertoire.
1:16:49
Speaker 2: So that's how I think about playability. Is this in
1:16:52
Speaker 2: the repertoire of everybody out here. It might not be
1:16:55
Speaker 2: a high percentage play, but that's what I'm trying to
1:16:59
Speaker 2: do to a chiave out here. But yeah, it is
1:17:01
Speaker 2: a little bit. It is a little bit against the grain,
1:17:04
Speaker 2: I guess. But and I think you're right that the destination.
1:17:08
Speaker 2: So my dad was talking about this earlier. We were
1:17:11
Speaker 2: just looking at I don't know, the top whatever. We
1:17:13
Speaker 2: were looking at top fifty in the world, and we
1:17:15
Speaker 2: were just batting around stuff and and you know, sand Hills,
1:17:20
Speaker 2: I think is the only on most top at least
1:17:24
Speaker 2: top one hundred in the in the US, sand Hills
1:17:26
Speaker 2: is probably the only one. I think that the only
1:17:28
Speaker 2: modern course that cracks the top ten.
1:17:31
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, right, yeah, Pacific Dunes is sometimes. You know,
1:17:34
Speaker 1: he's like thirty. Then the world top one hundred's you know,
1:17:38
Speaker 1: you see terror eedy up pretty high. But is what
1:17:41
Speaker 1: you were noticing that there just aren't that many modern
1:17:43
Speaker 1: courses up there.
1:17:44
Speaker 2: Well, no more that. So he said something and he's like,
1:17:46
Speaker 2: you know, we've been fortunate enough to play a lot
1:17:49
Speaker 2: of places, and you know, he said, you know, it's
1:17:52
Speaker 2: hard for me to think of a you know, like
1:17:56
Speaker 2: a great modern course that I felt was as rigorous
1:18:02
Speaker 2: of an exam as the great kind of classical courses.
1:18:06
Speaker 2: So we were just going through kind of that top
1:18:07
Speaker 2: ten and sand Hills is like my probably my fourth.
1:18:10
Speaker 2: If I did my top five, sand Hills probably like
1:18:12
Speaker 2: fourth on the planet from me. I mean, I absolutely
1:18:15
Speaker 2: love sand Hills. I do think it's the greatest modern course,
1:18:21
Speaker 2: but I don't think sand Hills is anywhere near as
1:18:23
Speaker 2: rigorous as it's kind of ancient peers in the in
1:18:27
Speaker 2: the world top ten or whatever, so like that, that's
1:18:29
Speaker 2: just my opinion. But he kind of brought that out too,
1:18:31
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, these you know, they tended to be
1:18:35
Speaker 2: more difficult back back in the day. And part of
1:18:37
Speaker 2: that too is agronomy of just you know, they were
1:18:38
Speaker 2: they were building things for slower speeds back then and
1:18:40
Speaker 2: now they're faster, so there's an element of that. But
1:18:44
Speaker 2: I do think I think it's fair to say it
1:18:47
Speaker 2: sounds like you agree with me that there's there's a
1:18:49
Speaker 2: little bit less rigor in the modern destination golf course
1:18:53
Speaker 2: than you know, the the great old classics that we
1:18:57
Speaker 2: all admire. I think that's a fair thing to say.
1:18:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think there's there's probably a reason for that,
1:19:06
Speaker 1: and that is that the destination golf course naturally lends
1:19:10
Speaker 1: itself to that. There is a motive for the developer
1:19:14
Speaker 1: and the architect not to test because they're they're aware
1:19:20
Speaker 1: that many golfers will just play this course once and
1:19:24
Speaker 1: if they happen to have a bad round, then they're
1:19:26
Speaker 1: not going to remember the course fondly. Whereas the architects
1:19:31
Speaker 1: that we're talking about who built those other courses in
1:19:34
Speaker 1: the in the top ten or top twenty what they
1:19:38
Speaker 1: were building was a course that they knew members would
1:19:40
Speaker 1: play over and over and over again. They were primarily
1:19:43
Speaker 1: building country clubs, golf clubs, and and and so they
1:19:49
Speaker 1: knew the players would get another crack at it and
1:19:51
Speaker 1: would maybe want to leave something on the table with
1:19:54
Speaker 1: each round, because then they would have a reason to
1:19:56
Speaker 1: come back and try to master the test. Pineer's number
1:19:59
Speaker 1: two great example of this. Part of the reason Pineer's
1:20:01
Speaker 1: Number two is so so interesting and it is that
1:20:06
Speaker 1: you feel like you should be able to score well there,
1:20:08
Speaker 1: but but you just don't, you know, And so it
1:20:11
Speaker 1: does make you want to go back.
1:20:13
Speaker 2: And this cause like the type of the exam matters too. Yeah,
1:20:17
Speaker 2: there's a lot of nuance here.
1:20:18
Speaker 1: Like if it just feels impossible, yeah, right, if it's
1:20:21
Speaker 1: just like you know, ten wide yard ten yard wide
1:20:24
Speaker 1: fairways and trees everywhere and you know, endless rough, and
1:20:28
Speaker 1: then then you're not going to feel like I need
1:20:30
Speaker 1: to go back there and.
1:20:30
Speaker 2: Try to Yeah, nineteen seventy four wing Foot is not
1:20:34
Speaker 2: going to work as a public golf course. Nobody's going
1:20:36
Speaker 2: to do that. But like, yeah, if you don't have
1:20:37
Speaker 2: fun playing Piner's number two, I mean I don't know
1:20:40
Speaker 2: what to tell you. You know, it's just that is
1:20:43
Speaker 2: exactly what you said, Like, that's a that's a doable
1:20:46
Speaker 2: golf course. So it does matter. It's not it's not
1:20:49
Speaker 2: challenging for the sake of challenging, because I do think
1:20:52
Speaker 2: there are a lot of tough exams out there that
1:20:55
Speaker 2: are just no fun. You know, exactly what you said,
1:20:58
Speaker 2: But there are exams out there that are a hell
1:21:00
Speaker 2: of a lot of fun. So you know, it's it's challenging,
1:21:04
Speaker 2: and you got to, you know, think about the design
1:21:06
Speaker 2: of it and make sure that it happens. But I
1:21:09
Speaker 2: just I don't think that it's I don't think that's
1:21:12
Speaker 2: an impossible task to have a challenging golf course that's
1:21:15
Speaker 2: also a hell of a lot of fun. It has
1:21:17
Speaker 2: been done, we know the model, we know what works well.
1:21:21
Speaker 1: This has been a fascinating conversation, Mike. There's a lot
1:21:24
Speaker 1: more beat on this, But we could go on for
1:21:26
Speaker 1: another two hours easily, good we could, but we got
1:21:29
Speaker 1: to cut it off here. You've got things to do. Uh.
1:21:32
Speaker 1: You mentioned this towards the beginning of our of our chat,
1:21:35
Speaker 1: But what is the timeline for for Candy? Read right now?
1:21:39
Speaker 1: For for both the you know course one, the eighteen
1:21:42
Speaker 1: hole course that you design, as well as the one
1:21:45
Speaker 1: your co designed, the short course you're co designing with
1:21:47
Speaker 1: Michelle we West.
1:21:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so then the on course one we are sodding
1:21:53
Speaker 2: right now.
1:21:54
Speaker 1: I've seen pictures. There's there's photos on the Instagram through
1:21:57
Speaker 1: the Candy Root account and showing golf out there, so.
1:22:00
Speaker 2: There's yeah, we're sotting and that we're sprigging the the
1:22:05
Speaker 2: last five greens tomorrow. So if all goes well and
1:22:10
Speaker 2: mother Nature cooperates, we should be you know, open for
1:22:14
Speaker 2: preview play this fall. You know, one of the advantages
1:22:17
Speaker 2: of Bermuda grass is when it gets hot out, it
1:22:19
Speaker 2: grows really fast, and so you know, we we should
1:22:22
Speaker 2: be able to have some preview play this this fall.
1:22:24
Speaker 2: But you know, part of it was because we did
1:22:26
Speaker 2: such a little shaping, we're able to kind of get
1:22:28
Speaker 2: ahead start on all the other on all the other
1:22:30
Speaker 2: things too. So the timeline has been, uh, you know,
1:22:33
Speaker 2: to our advantage here. So hopefully people are out there
1:22:35
Speaker 2: playing golf by this fall, and then on the on
1:22:39
Speaker 2: the short course with Michelle, I think the game plan
1:22:43
Speaker 2: there would be we're just starting to kind of you know,
1:22:46
Speaker 2: tackle kind of some routing elements. So that's not under
1:22:50
Speaker 2: construction yet, but I think the goal would be to
1:22:55
Speaker 2: start construction by by next fall would be the ideal goal.
1:23:01
Speaker 2: I think the best time to kind of start shaping
1:23:03
Speaker 2: in this transition zone. It's kind of like a false
1:23:05
Speaker 2: start date, and then you can shape kind of throughout
1:23:07
Speaker 2: the winter and then all your shaping's done and boom,
1:23:09
Speaker 2: you can grasp it immediately as soon as it gets
1:23:11
Speaker 2: warm out. So that's kind of the ideal timeline. So
1:23:14
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of where we're headed. But you know,
1:23:18
Speaker 2: there's still some things to do in terms of where
1:23:19
Speaker 2: exactly we want to put the Part three course and
1:23:22
Speaker 2: how it kind of fits in the broader site plan
1:23:24
Speaker 2: and then do a routing there within. So that's a
1:23:26
Speaker 2: little bit further off, but we're looking forward to get
1:23:29
Speaker 2: cracking on it and we'll probably you know, start really
1:23:31
Speaker 2: hammering out routings here pretty pretty soon, so we could
1:23:34
Speaker 2: get it into the getting it into the permit cycle
1:23:39
Speaker 2: sounds good.
1:23:40
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to seeing both courses. Congratulations on the project,
1:23:45
Speaker 1: and yeah, have to have you back on the podcast
1:23:48
Speaker 1: soon to talk about talk about the other stuff you're
1:23:50
Speaker 1: going to do anytime.
1:23:51
Speaker 2: Man, Love this podcast, listen to it all the time.
1:23:53
Speaker 1: Thank you, yep.
1:23:55
Speaker 2: Thanks.
1:24:02
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
1:24:06
Speaker 1: Thank you, Will. I have a simple ask for you
1:24:09
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1:24:44
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