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Why Aren’t There More Stadium Golf Courses? (feat. Tim Liddy) · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty, the stadium course at TPC Sawgrass made
0:04
Speaker 1: its debut. Seven years later, another stadium course, this one
0:08
Speaker 1: at PGA West in California, hosted its first PGA Tour event.
0:13
Speaker 1: It seemed like the idea of a stadium golf course
0:16
Speaker 1: was catching on, but then it didn't. So in today's episode,
0:22
Speaker 1: we'll talk about what a stadium golf course is and
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Speaker 1: why there aren't more of them, And to dig a
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Speaker 1: little deeper into a particular stadium course, I'll bring on
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Speaker 1: the architect Tim Liddy, who recently completed a renovation at
0:35
Speaker 1: PGA West. I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing golf,
0:46
Speaker 1: all right, So today's big question is a two parter,
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Speaker 1: what is a stadium golf course and why aren't there
0:53
Speaker 1: more of them? And I'll just say right off the
0:55
Speaker 1: bat that I think the notion of a stadium course
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Speaker 1: is really interesting. It might be one of the most
1:01
Speaker 1: original ideas that has come into golf architecture in the
1:05
Speaker 1: past fifty years, but it hasn't actually spawned that many
1:09
Speaker 1: golf courses. And I'll explore some reasons for that later,
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Speaker 1: but first let's tackle the question of what a stadium
1:16
Speaker 1: golf course is so when golf fans hear the term
1:20
Speaker 1: stadium course, they'll immediately think of the stadium course at
1:25
Speaker 1: TPC Sagrass side of the Players Championship, first stadium course
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Speaker 1: in many ways, the definitive stadium golf course. And then
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Speaker 1: after that some might think of the PGA West Stadium
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Speaker 1: Course near Palm Springs, California. This is one of the
1:41
Speaker 1: courses where the PGA Tour's American Express Tournament is held.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, those are the two big stadium golf courses
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Speaker 1: that most people are familiar with, both designed by Pete
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Speaker 1: die TPC Sawgrass opened in nineteen eighty and PGA West
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Speaker 1: opened in nineteen eighty. Now, the initial idea of a
2:04
Speaker 1: stadium course was developed in the late seventies by Dean Beaman.
2:08
Speaker 1: Dean Beaman was the commissioner of the PGA Tour from
2:12
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four to nineteen ninety four. I interviewed him
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Speaker 1: a few years ago and he told me that his
2:19
Speaker 1: basic goal with TPC Sawgrass was to build a course
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Speaker 1: that was just as focused on the gallery as it
2:28
Speaker 1: was on the players, and for him, that translated into
2:32
Speaker 1: two big design principles. One put the spectator areas on
2:39
Speaker 1: the high ground and the playing surfaces on the low ground.
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Speaker 1: This is obviously a fundamental principle of any sports stadium,
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Speaker 1: but typically golf courses have not been built in that fashion.
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Speaker 1: The second big principle of a stadium course, according to Beeman,
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Speaker 1: was routing the golf holes to create hubs of activity,
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Speaker 1: in other words, having the holes move back and forth
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Speaker 1: instead of being strung out along a single line. This
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Speaker 1: way there will be areas that spectators can watch the
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Speaker 1: action on multiple tees and greens at once. Right, if
3:19
Speaker 1: the golf course is constantly doubling back on itself, inevitably
3:24
Speaker 1: there will be places where the golf course converges with itself. Now,
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Speaker 1: these weren't totally new ideas. For instance, the idea of
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Speaker 1: spectator areas on the high ground. I think Beeman probably
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Speaker 1: got some inspiration there from the Links courses in Scotland
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Speaker 1: and England, where you have dunes around a lot of
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Speaker 1: the fairways and greens. And then for the second principle
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Speaker 1: of routing to create hubs of activity, this is just
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Speaker 1: something that golf architects have been doing consciously since at
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Speaker 1: least the golden age of golf architecture, it's just a
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Speaker 1: smart practice to have a few spots where there are
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Speaker 1: these clusters of teas and greens. For one thing, it
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Speaker 1: allows for easier maintenance because you don't have to walk
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Speaker 1: as much when you're mowing. And for another, it allows
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Speaker 1: an architect to take advantage of particularly good landforms. Right,
4:24
Speaker 1: so if you have a wonderful ridge or knoll or whatever,
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Speaker 1: you don't just want to visit it once. You want
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Speaker 1: to put multiple greens and teas there so that you
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Speaker 1: can really get the most out of it. Augusta National
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Speaker 1: is actually a great example of a course oriented around
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Speaker 1: a few hubs of activity, and incidentally, that's one reason
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Speaker 1: it's such a great spectator venue. I think you can
4:50
Speaker 1: just hang out on that hill where the second, seventh,
4:55
Speaker 1: and seventeenth holes all come together, and you'll have a
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Speaker 1: great time for a few just you know, watching the
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Speaker 1: action on those different holes. This is what Beeman wanted
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Speaker 1: at a stadium golf course, just these places where you
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Speaker 1: could sit above the players and see more than one
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Speaker 1: group at a time. So if you look at the
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Speaker 1: stadium course at TPC Sawgrass, you can see these principles
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Speaker 1: in action. The holes are surrounded by massive mounding, and
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Speaker 1: in the original design there were actually these grass bleachers
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Speaker 1: in a number of spots. They're really cool. They're no
5:34
Speaker 1: longer there. They were removed over time because I'm not
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Speaker 1: sure that the grass bleachers ever drained especially well, so
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Speaker 1: they might have gotten a bit too soggy when it
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Speaker 1: was raining. But in general, I would say the PGA
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Speaker 1: tour has leaned less on permanent infrastructure for spectators and
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Speaker 1: more on tents and grandstands, which is a bit of
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Speaker 1: a shame because the original earthworks of Pete Dies design
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Speaker 1: at TPC Sawgrass, we're really cool and distinctive. On the
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Speaker 1: bright side, though, the elevation of the spectator areas is
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Speaker 1: still there and the sitelines are still there, So the
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Speaker 1: original stadium course does follow through on that Dean Beaman
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Speaker 1: principle of spectators high players low. Now for Dean Beaman's
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Speaker 1: second principle hubs of activity, TPC Sawgrass does follow through
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Speaker 1: somewhat on that one. The routing doubles back on itself
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Speaker 1: pretty frequently, so you know, you can walk the course
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Speaker 1: fairly easily, and then there's a big hub of activity
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Speaker 1: at sixteen, seventeen and eighteen which is just one of
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Speaker 1: the best designed spectator areas in golf, and certainly the
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Speaker 1: greatest and clearest example of what a golf stadium can
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Speaker 1: look like and feel like. But aside from that one spot,
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Speaker 1: there actually aren't that many hubs of activity at TPC Sawgrass.
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Speaker 1: There are some good places to sit and watch, but
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Speaker 1: you don't have those kind of Augusta National type gathering
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Speaker 1: points where you find a bunch of greens and teas
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Speaker 1: in the same place. Sawgrass is a little more spaced out,
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Speaker 1: and maybe that's a bit of a miss in the design,
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Speaker 1: but all in all the course has stood the test
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Speaker 1: of time very well. It's still a fantastic, unique spectator
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Speaker 1: venue and still an exacting and entertaining golf course. Importantly
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Speaker 1: so that brings us to the PGA West Stadium Course,
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Speaker 1: which will host two rounds of the American Express Tournament
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Speaker 1: this week. There are a lot of obvious design similarities
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Speaker 1: between PGA West and TPC Sawgrass. You have the playing
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Speaker 1: surfaces low and you have the spectator areas high. You
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Speaker 1: have classic strategic angles like TPC Sawgrass. You have fair
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Speaker 1: ways that kind of move unpredictably. You have visual intimidation
8:03
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And of course, the finishing stretch
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Speaker 1: at PGA West is very similar to the one at Sawgrass.
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Speaker 1: Sixteen is a risk reward par five with danger around
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Speaker 1: the green. Seventeen is an island par three, which, by
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Speaker 1: the way, Die was reluctant to build because he didn't
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Speaker 1: want to repeat himself, but he was talked into doing
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Speaker 1: it by the developers. And finally, eighteen is a par
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Speaker 1: four with water on one side and an angled fair way,
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Speaker 1: less severe than the one at TPC Sawgrass for sure,
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Speaker 1: but superficially similar overall, though I would not say that
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Speaker 1: PGA West embodied Dean Beaman's principles of the stadium course.
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Speaker 1: The routing at PGA West is very strung out. It's
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Speaker 1: kind of out and back with each nine, and there
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Speaker 1: aren't really any significant hubs of activity that might have
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Speaker 1: been done to create more real estate frontage. There are
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Speaker 1: houses at at PGA West up and down the golf course,
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Speaker 1: so perhaps that was a priority more than the stadium idea.
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Speaker 1: And in fact, later in this episode you will hear
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Speaker 1: Tim Liddy say that he thinks the name stadium course
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Speaker 1: is just a name, more of a marketing label. Than
9:27
Speaker 1: anything inherent to the golf course. In any case, As
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Speaker 1: with TPC Sawgrass, DIY intended at PGA West to build
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Speaker 1: a very, very hard golf course. Here's what Dye said
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Speaker 1: in his book, Bury Me in a Pop Bunker. He wrote,
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Speaker 1: and I quote length alone would not be the ultimate
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Speaker 1: test for the new course, but I believed strategic hazards,
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Speaker 1: deep bunkers, difficult angles across fairways, slightly offset greens, parallel lakes,
10:00
Speaker 1: and desert plants, when combined with cross current wins, could
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Speaker 1: provide the type of course Joe and Ernie expected. Joe
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Speaker 1: and Ernie refers to Joe Waalzer and Ernie Vossler, who
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Speaker 1: were two of the main developers behind the project. So
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Speaker 1: when the PGA West Stadium course debuted at the Bob
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Speaker 1: Hope Tournament in nineteen eighty seven, it did seem like
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Speaker 1: Pete Dye had succeeded in building the hardest course in
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Speaker 1: the world. A lot of players were very, very angry.
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Speaker 1: Raymond Floyd referred to the course as spiteful and belligerent.
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Speaker 1: Tom Watson said, I'm sick and tired of these courses.
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Speaker 1: It requires you to execute shots that no sane golfer
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Speaker 1: should be expected to play. And then after the event,
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Speaker 1: a group of PGA Tour players actually signed a petition
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Speaker 1: to remove the course from the PGA Tour and it
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Speaker 1: was removed. It didn't host the tournament again until twenty sixteen.
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Speaker 1: Now today this all kind of seems funny because it's
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Speaker 1: very clear that the PGA West Stadium Course is not
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Speaker 1: the hardest course in the world. Since twenty sixteen it
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Speaker 1: has actually been one of the easier courses on tour,
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Speaker 1: so it has not retained its difficulty, and I think
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Speaker 1: there are a few possible reasons for that. One is
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Speaker 1: that the American Express is a pro am, so the
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Speaker 1: setup just can't be too hard, otherwise rounds or are
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Speaker 1: going to take too long to complete. Two, the course
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Speaker 1: doesn't really penalize wayward driving all that harshly. PGA West
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Speaker 1: doesn't have trees, doesn't have much rough, and there's water
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Speaker 1: in play on nine holes as opposed to seventeen holes
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Speaker 1: at Sawgrass. The upshot of all this is that PGA
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Speaker 1: West doesn't really take driver out of the hand of
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Speaker 1: players in the way the TPC Sawgrass does. And you
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Speaker 1: know here in twenty twenty six that's a big deal.
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Speaker 1: Right back in nineteen eighty seven, the length of PGA
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Speaker 1: West was a real defense. It is no longer a defense,
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Speaker 1: especially when players can hit driver and then more generally,
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Speaker 1: I just think the PGA West design is slightly watered
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Speaker 1: down in a few respects from the one at Sagrass.
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Speaker 1: The greens are definitely more receptive, you know, they have
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Speaker 1: these kind of feeding contours and maybe fewer rejecting contours.
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Speaker 1: You can just look at the island green at seventeen
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Speaker 1: at PGA West. It's longer than the TPC Sawgrass hole,
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Speaker 1: but the green is bigger and flatter, and the hole
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Speaker 1: just doesn't have that intimidation factor at all. Now I
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Speaker 1: still think the PGA West stadium course is very architecturally interesting.
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Speaker 1: The built features are super cool looking, the strategic concepts
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Speaker 1: are very smart, but it does represent a backing off
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Speaker 1: from the original stadium course of vision. And then after
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Speaker 1: PGA West, we just didn't get the wave of stadium
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Speaker 1: courses that people might have been expecting. Maybe you could
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Speaker 1: call TPC Scottsdale Tom Weiscoff design a stadium course, but
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Speaker 1: it's really the build out there that creates the stadium effect.
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Speaker 1: TPC River Highlands in Connecticut has some stadium aspects designed
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Speaker 1: by Pete Die, but the front nine is really just
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Speaker 1: a housing development course. And then you do have you
13:42
Speaker 1: have some of the recent European Ryder Cup venues like
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Speaker 1: the Golf National and Marcos Simone, which definitely take inspiration
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Speaker 1: from TPC Sawgrass. Maybe don't go all the way with
13:53
Speaker 1: like the permanent spectator infrastructure, but I do see the
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Speaker 1: stadium idea living on a little bit in those venues.
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Speaker 1: For the most part, though, the stadium course idea is
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Speaker 1: basically dead, and there have been some opportunities to revive it. Recently,
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Speaker 1: the PGA of America just built a new headquarters in Frisco, Texas,
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Speaker 1: and they hired Gilhanson bo Welling to design a pair
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Speaker 1: of golf courses meant to host championships. But for reasons
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Speaker 1: that surpass my understanding, neither course appears to be all
14:26
Speaker 1: that well suited to galleries. I mean, this would have
14:29
Speaker 1: been a great opportunity to build a modern stadium golf course,
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Speaker 1: and they just didn't. I'm not even sure that it
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Speaker 1: occurred to the PGA of America to do that. So
14:39
Speaker 1: why is it that the notion of a stadium course
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Speaker 1: has withered on the vine in this way. I've got
14:47
Speaker 1: a couple of thoughts about that. One is that PGA
14:52
Speaker 1: West might have become sort of a cautionary tale. The
14:57
Speaker 1: developers went to all this trouble to build a stadium
15:00
Speaker 1: course in the desert and then the pros rejected it.
15:04
Speaker 1: For thirty years it was just hosting Skins games and
15:07
Speaker 1: Q school tournaments. It's a major risk to construct a
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Speaker 1: stadium course when this might be the outcome. And relatedly,
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Speaker 1: another theory I have is that the PGA Tour, PGA
15:21
Speaker 1: of America and USGA don't really have an appetite for
15:26
Speaker 1: the golf course business anymore, and the risks inherent in
15:30
Speaker 1: the golf course business. They are chasing TV rights deals
15:34
Speaker 1: right now and in the case of the PGA Tour,
15:36
Speaker 1: private equity money. These are much bigger pots of cash
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Speaker 1: than the golf course industry can provide now. Obviously, the
15:44
Speaker 1: PGA Tour does have the TPC network, but it's not
15:48
Speaker 1: clear to me how committed the tour is to that network.
15:52
Speaker 1: They have been offloading some courses recently, so with the
15:57
Speaker 1: exception of PGA Frisco, I just wouldn't expect to see
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Speaker 1: a lot of new, purpose built tournament venues in the
16:05
Speaker 1: coming years. Finally, I'd say that the major golf organizations
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Speaker 1: have just lost a little bit of verve and ambition
16:17
Speaker 1: and vision. It wasn't that long ago that Mike Davis
16:22
Speaker 1: and the USGA were putting their weight behind a big
16:25
Speaker 1: renovation at Bethpage Black and then a big municipal new
16:30
Speaker 1: build at Chambers Bay. That kind of thing just isn't
16:34
Speaker 1: happening anymore, you know. The PGA Tour, the PGA of
16:37
Speaker 1: America and the USGA have grown pretty tentative, pretty conservative,
16:43
Speaker 1: and that means that they're going to go to tried
16:47
Speaker 1: and true traditional venues for the most part, and they're
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Speaker 1: taking fewer big swings at creating the great new championship
16:56
Speaker 1: golf course. Even the PGA Frisco project, which was ambitious
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Speaker 1: in some respects, doesn't seem to have had full conviction
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Speaker 1: behind it. The PGA of America should have been trying
17:08
Speaker 1: to build the next great championship golf course, but it
17:13
Speaker 1: seems like they were just kind of fine with a
17:15
Speaker 1: couple of okay golf courses. And that ultimately is why
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Speaker 1: the idea of a stadium course appeals to me. It's
17:26
Speaker 1: a big vision for a different kind of golf course.
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Speaker 1: The stadium courses at TPC Sawgrass and PGA West weren't
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Speaker 1: just trying to be acceptable to as many people as possible.
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Speaker 1: They were trying to be the hardest, baddest, best championship
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Speaker 1: venues in golf. And they may have fallen short in
17:47
Speaker 1: some ways, but the developers and the architects behind those
17:50
Speaker 1: courses went for it, and I want to see more
17:54
Speaker 1: of that attitude now. If you'd like to see more
17:58
Speaker 1: in depth analyzes of both TPC Sawgrass and PGA West,
18:02
Speaker 1: you can find our profiles of both courses on Frida
18:05
Speaker 1: Egg Golf Club. Fridagg Golf Club is our membership. It's
18:09
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty dollars a year and members get
18:12
Speaker 1: a lot of benefits, including access to our growing library
18:16
Speaker 1: of course profiles. This week, we just published my colleague
18:19
Speaker 1: Cameron Hurdis's profile of the PGA West Stadium course. It
18:23
Speaker 1: has Cameron's thoughts on the course as well as his
18:26
Speaker 1: terrific photos of every whole. So if you're an FEGC member,
18:32
Speaker 1: you can check out that profile right now. If you're
18:34
Speaker 1: not a member, go to the Frida egg dot com
18:37
Speaker 1: slash membership and join us. All right, Next up, I'm
18:42
Speaker 1: bringing on Tim Lyddy to discuss the PGA West Stadium Course.
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Speaker 1: Tim is a veteran golf architect who worked with Pete
18:50
Speaker 1: Dye off and on from nineteen ninety one to mister
18:53
Speaker 1: Dy's death in twenty twenty. Tim also has his own
18:56
Speaker 1: solo practice, and in twenty twenty four he completed a
19:01
Speaker 1: major renovation of the PGA West Stadium course. So I
19:05
Speaker 1: thought it would be fun to get Tim's thoughts on
19:07
Speaker 1: the course's design and learn more about the work he
19:11
Speaker 1: did there. All right, let's get to it, all right,
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Speaker 1: I am here with the architect Tim Lyddy. Tim, thank
19:23
Speaker 1: you for joining me. How are you doing today?
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Speaker 2: Great? Great? It's eight degrees with twenty twenty miles an
19:30
Speaker 2: hour wind, so it's a bit brutal here in Indiana today.
19:34
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, you're in Indiana. It's pretty cold here in Portland, Oregon,
19:38
Speaker 1: so I can imagine that over there in the Midwest.
19:41
Speaker 1: It's savage right now.
19:43
Speaker 2: It's crazy, it's crazy. All right.
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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about some warmer climbs. PGA West, the
19:50
Speaker 1: Stadium course you recently did some renovation work there. But
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Speaker 1: before getting into that, I'd like to just discuss the course. Generally,
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Speaker 1: I find it to be a fascinating golf course and
20:04
Speaker 1: just you know, in general, the notion of a stadium
20:08
Speaker 1: course is very interesting to me as well. So what
20:11
Speaker 1: to you is special about the design of the PGA
20:15
Speaker 1: West Stadium Course.
20:17
Speaker 2: What is special? Well, how much time do we have, Garrett.
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Speaker 1: Well, maybe you could just imagine that, you know, you're
20:24
Speaker 1: talking about with somebody who's never heard of it before.
20:27
Speaker 1: What would be kind of the angle that you would
20:29
Speaker 1: take on talking about why this course is distinctive.
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Speaker 2: Let's go big picture and we can go down smaller
20:35
Speaker 2: and smaller. So big picture, what's cool about it is
20:38
Speaker 2: that it's a flat, desert desert environment. Flat is you know,
20:43
Speaker 2: anything you're going to see. So the first thing they
20:46
Speaker 2: did is they the routing is two golf holes wide.
20:51
Speaker 2: It's a residential golf community and so that's about six
20:55
Speaker 2: hundred seven hundred feet and they cut that down four feet,
21:00
Speaker 2: and they flipped the earth up on both sides and
21:03
Speaker 2: brought the homes up four feet. So now you have
21:05
Speaker 2: an eight foot of vertical separation, which really helps, you know,
21:11
Speaker 2: separate the homes from the from the golf to a
21:14
Speaker 2: large degree. Then they had all kinds of earth left.
21:19
Speaker 2: And so they mounted in between these two corridors typically,
21:26
Speaker 2: and I think this is where Pete was in his
21:31
Speaker 2: career where he said, okay, just go, you know, just
21:33
Speaker 2: go carve it up. I'll look at it. We'll carve
21:36
Speaker 2: it up some more. And they would do several, several,
21:40
Speaker 2: several iterations of that until they got something that they liked.
21:45
Speaker 2: And I think mister Die was just then learning about
21:49
Speaker 2: three dimensions and and and he would call it double dimension.
21:54
Speaker 2: He'd like to see a mound and another mound behind it,
21:57
Speaker 2: and another mound on and on and on and see
22:01
Speaker 2: that dimension which would give you some depth and all
22:03
Speaker 2: the shadows in the desert that you get. Really, you know,
22:07
Speaker 2: it came alive. And then he had a client that said,
22:12
Speaker 2: we want the hardest golf course you can build, bar none.
22:16
Speaker 2: And these were golf pros, which you know, most clients
22:20
Speaker 2: are not golf pros. So having a golf pro as
22:23
Speaker 2: a client is wonderful because they get it. They understand
22:27
Speaker 2: golf is first, you know, that's that comes first, the
22:31
Speaker 2: housing a second, and so they talked about how hard
22:34
Speaker 2: it should be and what makes it hard. And you know,
22:38
Speaker 2: so the bunkers are deep, the holes turn, you know, aggressively,
22:44
Speaker 2: the greens are or severe in some areas, typical die
22:49
Speaker 2: greens where they would turn hard right to left or
22:52
Speaker 2: left or right. He was a big proponent of kind
22:55
Speaker 2: of dictatorial design. You know, I'm gonna make you had
22:58
Speaker 2: a cutshot or I'm going to make you hit a draw,
23:01
Speaker 2: and we're going to balance those shots. You're going to
23:03
Speaker 2: have nine cut t shots, you're going to have nine
23:08
Speaker 2: approach shots the same way. So so it didn't really
23:14
Speaker 2: give anyone an advantage if you hit a draw all
23:16
Speaker 2: the time or you hit a cut all the time.
23:18
Speaker 1: Something that's notable about the stadium course at PGA West
23:22
Speaker 1: is its use of angles. Right, you can look at
23:27
Speaker 1: the golf holes there and sort of see where the
23:29
Speaker 1: green is oriented, trace that back into the fair way
23:33
Speaker 1: and and see, you know what dangers there are for
23:37
Speaker 1: getting to that position that will allow you access to
23:40
Speaker 1: the green. This is maybe something that's that's not noted
23:44
Speaker 1: very often about Pete Dye, but he did seem to
23:47
Speaker 1: incorporate a sense of kind of classical strategic angles into
23:51
Speaker 1: his designs.
23:52
Speaker 2: Very much so. And I guess what you could say too,
23:55
Speaker 2: is that all good architects use angles. They all do
24:00
Speaker 2: some disguise it better than others others. And to me,
24:04
Speaker 2: mister die was very literal. You know. He'd put that
24:06
Speaker 2: hard edge angle across the fairway and juxtaposed it against
24:11
Speaker 2: whatever is out there, you know, mounding and all of that.
24:14
Speaker 2: But you'd have that he loved that hard edge and
24:18
Speaker 2: that was a shot value to him as well, is
24:20
Speaker 2: that he wanted you to see that ball go over
24:23
Speaker 2: that edge and where it should be, you know, where
24:26
Speaker 2: did it land. He didn't want to wiggle because it
24:29
Speaker 2: would be blind and you couldn't see where your ball
24:31
Speaker 2: went over the edge. So he do that on a green.
24:34
Speaker 2: He'd do it on a fairway and usually would counter
24:37
Speaker 2: those edges right to left one way, left or right
24:40
Speaker 2: the other, and vice versa. So he loved that hard edge,
24:45
Speaker 2: and again is for the golfer. The golfer could see
24:48
Speaker 2: if he made it over or not. And then he
24:49
Speaker 2: would do it hard on water, you know, which everyone
24:52
Speaker 2: hates because oh no, right, you're in the water. And
24:56
Speaker 2: I think he brought water to golf design, you know,
25:00
Speaker 2: to scare everybody to death. I think that's the fear
25:03
Speaker 2: factor that that he really brought. So how would you
25:08
Speaker 2: how would you.
25:09
Speaker 1: Describe his approach to green design at the PGA West Course.
25:17
Speaker 2: Let's start at the beginning, I guess. So almost ninety
25:21
Speaker 2: nine percent of his greens are open in the front.
25:23
Speaker 2: So why is that that's the average golfer can bump
25:27
Speaker 2: it on the green. Uh, And he usually would have
25:29
Speaker 2: a shoulder. If the green was turning to the right,
25:32
Speaker 2: he'd have a big shoulder on the left that would
25:34
Speaker 2: kick that ball, feed the ball for the average player
25:38
Speaker 2: to the you know, back right er middle of the green.
25:42
Speaker 2: Then he'd have shoulders around the greens to kind of
25:46
Speaker 2: just add confusion, add some blindness. He would like to
25:49
Speaker 2: blind the middle of a green, but he always wanted
25:52
Speaker 2: to see the back hole location. So we did that
25:58
Speaker 2: quite a quite a bit and and recaptured some of
26:01
Speaker 2: that in the restoration of the stadium. His greens always
26:09
Speaker 2: play smaller than they look, and so a pet die
26:13
Speaker 2: green in the middle of the green is relatively flat
26:16
Speaker 2: and soft, like one two percent one and a half
26:19
Speaker 2: a lot that we found at the stadium. But around
26:22
Speaker 2: the edges they go off three or four percent, five percent,
26:26
Speaker 2: shoulders would come in five percent, so forth up to
26:30
Speaker 2: seven all the way off the green. So what does
26:34
Speaker 2: that do, Well, you have a straight put you're in
26:36
Speaker 2: the Don't tell anybody this because it's kind of a secret,
26:39
Speaker 2: but you'd have a straight put in the middle of
26:41
Speaker 2: the green where the whole locations would be, and your
26:46
Speaker 2: eye is looking at the edges of the green. You're
26:49
Speaker 2: you're relating the surface of the green to the outside perimeter,
26:55
Speaker 2: and so it looks like it's going to break more
26:57
Speaker 2: than it breaks, so it might be one and a
26:58
Speaker 2: half percent. It looks like it's going to fly off
27:02
Speaker 2: the edge of the green. So a combination of that,
27:05
Speaker 2: and he would turn the back corners of his greens
27:09
Speaker 2: so that he really was asking a good player to
27:14
Speaker 2: work that golf ball into that corner left or right,
27:17
Speaker 2: right to the left. There was not a lot of
27:19
Speaker 2: depth in those back corners, but a lot of big
27:22
Speaker 2: area in the front of the greens again for the
27:25
Speaker 2: average player to bump it hit it on. So then
27:28
Speaker 2: at the stadium, the surrounds of the greens. You know,
27:32
Speaker 2: I did a lot of work with him on club
27:35
Speaker 2: golf courses, so we'd have a lot of trouble on
27:38
Speaker 2: one side, and we'd have, you know, a bailout area
27:40
Speaker 2: on the other. Stadium course, forget it. You know, there's
27:45
Speaker 2: trouble everywhere left, you know, left side, right side. You've
27:50
Speaker 2: got to have to pick your trouble. And depending on
27:53
Speaker 2: where that whole location is, a bunker might be a
27:55
Speaker 2: better bailout than a chipping area. Right.
28:00
Speaker 1: So you have these greens, you have this highly manufactured
28:06
Speaker 1: environment that you were describing earlier. You have this use
28:11
Speaker 1: of angles, so this is kind of These are sort
28:15
Speaker 1: of some of the component parts of the of the
28:17
Speaker 1: PGA West Stadium Course. But you know, I'm curious about
28:21
Speaker 1: this term stadium course. Oh obviously it's also applied to
28:25
Speaker 1: the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course. But when you look at
28:29
Speaker 1: at PGA West, what makes it a stadium course in
28:33
Speaker 1: your mind?
28:34
Speaker 2: You know, I'm guessing that they had nine golf courses eventually,
28:38
Speaker 2: so they wanted to have one that was more of
28:41
Speaker 2: a tournament golf course. And so I think stadium and
28:44
Speaker 2: tournament is probably the same as it, you know, are
28:48
Speaker 2: the same kind of terms. That'd be my guess, because
28:50
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like a stadium golf course at all.
28:55
Speaker 1: Right, Well, if I'm comparing and contrasting TPC Sawgrass with
29:00
Speaker 1: PGA West, TPC Sawgrass is much more overt about its
29:04
Speaker 1: stadium elements. I mean, especially at the beginning when they
29:07
Speaker 1: have those you know, grass bleachers and those those big
29:11
Speaker 1: islands in the middle of the lakes where people could stand.
29:13
Speaker 1: And you know, they've gotten rid of some of that
29:16
Speaker 1: over time, but you can still see the kind of
29:18
Speaker 1: stadium bowl effect at a lot of holes at TPC
29:23
Speaker 1: Sawgrass that doesn't seem to have been carried through at
29:26
Speaker 1: PGA West as much.
29:29
Speaker 2: I think it's just a term I really do to
29:31
Speaker 2: designate it differently than the Nicolas Court. I think there's
29:35
Speaker 2: a Nicholas tournament course. Yes, well, I think it's just
29:38
Speaker 2: it's more of a name than it is anything that's actual.
29:43
Speaker 1: In my very interesting Yeah, So that the last thing
29:47
Speaker 1: I'm I want to pick out of of what you're
29:49
Speaker 1: saying about about the Dye's design approach at PGA West.
29:53
Speaker 1: It has to do with his use of artificiality. You know,
29:57
Speaker 1: if you there, there are many you know, architects both
30:00
Speaker 1: current and past, who very much prize and prized naturalism
30:06
Speaker 1: trying to make everything look as though it had always
30:10
Speaker 1: been there. I don't think that was a priority for
30:15
Speaker 1: Pete Die at this particular golf course, or at many
30:18
Speaker 1: of his golf courses. So what would you say about
30:21
Speaker 1: Diye's attitude toward artificiality and he's his use of the
30:26
Speaker 1: kind of obviously manufactured in his designs. Is that something
30:31
Speaker 1: kind of he thought about consciously and implemented at his
30:35
Speaker 1: courses with some intention.
30:37
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a story. I'm working with him on
30:40
Speaker 2: the design of a golf course. I'll keep it unnamed.
30:44
Speaker 2: And there was an old housing pad part three. Go
30:47
Speaker 2: down and back up to this housing pad, and there
30:50
Speaker 2: was a wandering creek along the left side. And I
30:54
Speaker 2: roughed in or I had the crew rough end a
30:57
Speaker 2: grain on top of this pad where the house was
31:00
Speaker 2: look great. It looked great. And he walked out in
31:03
Speaker 2: his typical language, you know, what what are you doing here?
31:08
Speaker 2: I go, Well, it was there, you know, hill was
31:10
Speaker 2: already there. I go it was natural, and he said,
31:14
Speaker 2: he said, he goes, No, the green belongs over there,
31:17
Speaker 2: and sometimes mother nature needs a little hand. So I
31:22
Speaker 2: got the hint, right, I got the hint. And he
31:26
Speaker 2: would also say if it was natural, golf course wouldn't
31:28
Speaker 2: be here. So so what he what I'd like? And
31:34
Speaker 2: it's a total. You know, there's there's some people like vanilla,
31:37
Speaker 2: some people like chocolate. So what I love about what
31:41
Speaker 2: he did is that he just said, if it's abstract,
31:44
Speaker 2: let's just go for it. Let's just keep it going.
31:47
Speaker 2: How far can I go? Yeah, I wanted to look
31:49
Speaker 2: like Scotland. It's never going to look like Scotland, but
31:52
Speaker 2: I can have those design elements and I can have
31:55
Speaker 2: some of my thoughts behind, you know, the balance and
31:58
Speaker 2: the shot value. So I would argue that every golf
32:02
Speaker 2: course is an abstraction, no matter how natural it's supposed
32:07
Speaker 2: to be, It's an abstraction. Everything we do is as
32:12
Speaker 2: golf course architecture is an abstraction. And I love this.
32:17
Speaker 2: I had this quote about Dan Kylie, who was my
32:21
Speaker 2: favorite landscape architect. I don't know if you know much
32:24
Speaker 2: about landscape architecture, but he went to Europe, went to Paris,
32:29
Speaker 2: all the alleys of trees and the grids of trees,
32:32
Speaker 2: and he brought that back and did it in residential design.
32:35
Speaker 2: And he did it. He worked with Sarazon, a very
32:39
Speaker 2: famous architect he did the arch and all of that. Well,
32:43
Speaker 2: he did all these beautiful grids throughout all these great,
32:46
Speaker 2: big parks throughout the nation. So Dan Kylie was a
32:48
Speaker 2: great guy, and he didn't shy away from the hand
32:53
Speaker 2: of man. And when you have that hand of man again,
32:58
Speaker 2: juxtaposed against the natural environment, it's it's strong, it's you know,
33:05
Speaker 2: it's a great statement. It's powerful. It's powerful. When everything
33:09
Speaker 2: is natural, it's like a counterfeit. It has no power. Yeah.
33:14
Speaker 1: Well, I think most, if not all golf architects would
33:18
Speaker 1: would acknowledge that the use of the hand of man
33:22
Speaker 1: is necessary in order to create a functional golf course.
33:28
Speaker 1: But I guess the difference of opinion comes in what
33:32
Speaker 1: you do after the hand of man has intervened. Do
33:37
Speaker 1: you then try to blend the artificial work back into
33:41
Speaker 1: the natural environment and make it look as though it
33:44
Speaker 1: hadn't even been manufactured? Mackenzie right camouflage? Or are you
33:52
Speaker 1: okay with the viewer recognizing the distinction between the surrounding
33:58
Speaker 1: natural environment and what you did at the golf course?
34:02
Speaker 1: And I suppose that that die more than many golf
34:06
Speaker 1: architects working now, including architects who trained with him, was
34:11
Speaker 1: comfortable with kind of leaving artificial looking stuff in a
34:17
Speaker 1: golf course environment that people would recognize as artificial. But
34:20
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting looking, right, and that's that's the
34:23
Speaker 1: justification for it being there.
34:27
Speaker 2: And it's great to have both. That's what's great, you know,
34:30
Speaker 2: to have. You know, look at Rayner. You know, we
34:33
Speaker 2: all love Rayner. I'm sure Rayner influenced Die. I mean that,
34:39
Speaker 2: you know, strong, bold, simple statements into the you know,
34:43
Speaker 2: against the natural environment. I think we all love that. Look,
34:47
Speaker 2: we don't know exactly why. I mean, I I know,
34:52
Speaker 2: I think I know why because it's simple number one.
34:54
Speaker 2: We can understand it. It's not too complicated, and it's
34:57
Speaker 2: just you know that juxtaposition is a great art form.
35:02
Speaker 1: So yeah, And at PGA West there there wasn't a
35:05
Speaker 1: whole lot of a natural environment to work with. It
35:08
Speaker 1: was beautiful, but the ground itself was not particularly well
35:12
Speaker 1: suited to golf. And I think that something I wish
35:15
Speaker 1: they would show better on the telecasts of the PGA
35:18
Speaker 1: Tour tournament that's played there every year is the ground
35:21
Speaker 1: level view of the features at PGA West, which are
35:25
Speaker 1: very interesting, right, They're really compelling looking shapes in the ground,
35:32
Speaker 1: but when you have that camera view from up above,
35:34
Speaker 1: it all kind of gets flattened out and becomes less interesting.
35:38
Speaker 1: But it's actually a really cool looking golf course from
35:41
Speaker 1: the ground, isn't it.
35:43
Speaker 2: It is? And it brings up this point that I
35:45
Speaker 2: love about Guy's work at that golf course is that
35:48
Speaker 2: there'd be a lot of stuff going everywhere, and then
35:51
Speaker 2: there'd be a piece that's very contrasting, big shadow mark,
35:54
Speaker 2: you know, be a bunker, let's say, a huge bunker,
35:57
Speaker 2: and then right here it's really steep, so that's strong. Well,
36:01
Speaker 2: that's your that's your shot line. He would he would
36:03
Speaker 2: show you that shot line in all of this abstraction,
36:06
Speaker 2: you know, boom, and he would do that at Greens
36:08
Speaker 2: he would do that fairway bunkers, which I just thought was,
36:14
Speaker 2: you know, genius stuff. Yeah, that's shaping, that's sculpture.
36:20
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about the work that
36:23
Speaker 1: you and your team did fairly recently at at the
36:27
Speaker 1: Stadium course at at PGA West. This was a twenty
36:30
Speaker 1: twenty three, twenty twenty four project that had its debut
36:35
Speaker 1: at last year's American Express Tournament. And I'm curious about
36:41
Speaker 1: what you did at the course, because it is kind
36:44
Speaker 1: of part of this what I'd call a micro trend
36:47
Speaker 1: of Pete Dye restorations that have happened recently. You don't
36:51
Speaker 1: typically think of Pete Die courses as being the subject
36:54
Speaker 1: of restoration. That's usually applied to courses, you know, that
36:58
Speaker 1: were that were built earlier. But recently we have seen
37:02
Speaker 1: you know, Tom Doak work at at Crooked Stick, We've
37:04
Speaker 1: seen Gil Hant's work at the Honors Course. We've seen
37:07
Speaker 1: Jim or Bina at lob Lolly and kind of and
37:11
Speaker 1: we've seen Davis Love's firm work at Harbor Town and
37:15
Speaker 1: a little bit at TPC Sawgrass and so there there's
37:18
Speaker 1: a little bit of momentum building for bringing back some
37:21
Speaker 1: of mister Dye's original features and your project, to my mind,
37:26
Speaker 1: is kind of part of that micro trend. So what
37:30
Speaker 1: was the impetus for this this renovation project from the
37:34
Speaker 1: perspective of PGA West, Why did they want to have
37:38
Speaker 1: work done and why did they bring you in?
37:40
Speaker 2: It was built in eighty six, really had not been
37:44
Speaker 2: touched since then, so the greens had shrunk a lot
37:47
Speaker 2: twenty feet in some areas, So greens that were originally
37:51
Speaker 2: against the bulkhead. We're now fifteen feet away from the bullhead,
37:55
Speaker 2: so your whole locations were twenty feet away from the water.
37:58
Speaker 2: So they wanted to get the whole locations back to
38:01
Speaker 2: the water's edge. So even though the green would get larger,
38:05
Speaker 2: it would play harder. You'd make it. You can have
38:07
Speaker 2: harder whole locations. Agronomically, you know, you've got to. In
38:13
Speaker 2: the desert, you get a lot of organic material. And
38:16
Speaker 2: so we took six inches of top top dressing off
38:19
Speaker 2: the greens, went down to the original green surfaces, which
38:23
Speaker 2: were very easy to find, floated them out, you know,
38:26
Speaker 2: checked them, tried to some of the longer slopes we
38:30
Speaker 2: would shorten to add some whole locations. But they were
38:34
Speaker 2: relatively soft. I couldn't believe how soft they were for
38:37
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, except the edges, like he loved to
38:41
Speaker 2: get them. So the biggest challenge for us on the
38:44
Speaker 2: desert was to make sure the water surface the surface
38:47
Speaker 2: water got off the greens because they were that soft
38:50
Speaker 2: in many areas. So that was the big challenge, and
38:54
Speaker 2: did that very well. The PGA tour was involved a
38:58
Speaker 2: little bit and they wanted some whole locations for the
39:01
Speaker 2: tournaments that we helped, you know, accommodate, and so really
39:06
Speaker 2: I think we restored the greens to what they were
39:08
Speaker 2: in eighty six. And I asked the client, what do
39:12
Speaker 2: you want? You want eighty six, you want twenty twenty,
39:15
Speaker 2: you want nineteen ninety five, what kind of die do
39:17
Speaker 2: you want? You know, I was around you for thirty years,
39:20
Speaker 2: and they really wanted it to be eighty six. So
39:23
Speaker 2: that's what we did. So there wasn't a lot of
39:25
Speaker 2: design to it. There was just a lot of archaeological
39:29
Speaker 2: you know, discovery. Oh look what look what they lost here,
39:33
Speaker 2: you know, look what's gone and put it back.
39:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so you're talking about some of the green
39:38
Speaker 1: expansions just you know, pushing out mowing lines. This classic
39:41
Speaker 1: thing that happens to a lot of golf courses over time,
39:44
Speaker 1: that the greens kind of creep in because of just
39:47
Speaker 1: maintenance attrition, and then you know, you can do a
39:49
Speaker 1: lot by just pushing them back out. You get some
39:52
Speaker 1: pins back. And it's a good esthetic too, right, because
39:55
Speaker 1: that it may be a little more intimidating because there's
39:58
Speaker 1: not that buffer of rough between the you know, the
40:00
Speaker 1: green and the surrounding hazards, so that was one element
40:03
Speaker 1: of the project. Of course, there was also quite a
40:06
Speaker 1: bit of bunker work as well. Tell me about that.
40:09
Speaker 2: Bunkers and a lot of new drain each but bunkers,
40:11
Speaker 2: and this is typical of all Bermuda golf courses. Bermuda
40:15
Speaker 2: over time, you can't really verify it out. So the
40:19
Speaker 2: organic layer, you know, bermuda grows up and up and up.
40:23
Speaker 2: So can you imagine over you know, thirty forty, fifty
40:25
Speaker 2: sixty years, you know, so, and the sand in these
40:29
Speaker 2: bunkers are flatish. In a die bunker, you know, grass
40:33
Speaker 2: faces flatterish. So in a matter of five years or less,
40:38
Speaker 2: the front of the bunker, the organic material, the bermuda
40:42
Speaker 2: blocks the sand. So all of a sudden, no one
40:46
Speaker 2: can see the sand in the bunkers, and so the
40:49
Speaker 2: members are complaining. So that what's the superintendent do. He
40:52
Speaker 2: goes and edges up the backside of the bunker. And
40:56
Speaker 2: that's a continual process for twenty years, and all of
41:00
Speaker 2: a sudden they look like fasio bunkers when you're done,
41:02
Speaker 2: you know, they're all flashed up in every cove in
41:05
Speaker 2: the end. So so explaining that to owners is half
41:10
Speaker 2: of what I do on a project like this is
41:13
Speaker 2: what do you mean? It's not? This isn't what he built.
41:15
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to explain how bermuda changes. So
41:18
Speaker 2: it actually looks like you had these sharp edges when
41:21
Speaker 2: you build it, and then over time it just kind
41:24
Speaker 2: of melts. The bunker looks like it just melts in place.
41:30
Speaker 2: And so just putting back the green edges, the bunker edges,
41:34
Speaker 2: you know, those edges really made the golf course pop.
41:38
Speaker 2: And I even tried to make him as edgy as
41:40
Speaker 2: I could. But with a sand, we you know, we
41:42
Speaker 2: went back to what was there originally.
41:46
Speaker 1: So what what was kind of the style of the
41:50
Speaker 1: original bunkers at PGA West. You know, you mentioned that
41:53
Speaker 1: they kind of evolved into more of your kind of
41:56
Speaker 1: flash faced, scoopy bunk that you might might see it
42:01
Speaker 1: at many courses, But what was what was that aesthetic
42:05
Speaker 1: and that that shaping style originally?
42:08
Speaker 2: So the floor of a die bunker is typically about
42:11
Speaker 2: a foot above the fairway the floor, and then the
42:14
Speaker 2: sand is in that floor. That way you can see
42:16
Speaker 2: that sand even though it's flatish, and then there's a
42:19
Speaker 2: I call it an eyebrow behind that bunker that usually
42:23
Speaker 2: is directed at the target, whether that's the green or fairway.
42:30
Speaker 2: And why mister Die loved those eyebrows is he said,
42:34
Speaker 2: pretend I sand, just like at Scotland, had been you know,
42:39
Speaker 2: hit out of this bunker for one hundred years, what
42:41
Speaker 2: would happen. It would just build up and point at
42:45
Speaker 2: the target. And so that's that's the look that he loved.
42:50
Speaker 2: And that's you know, we put that back where it
42:53
Speaker 2: was gone. You know, it was gone and a lot
42:55
Speaker 2: of times superintendent's over time, the second or third Superintendent's
42:59
Speaker 2: go I'm tired of moment on this, I'm gonna knock
43:01
Speaker 2: it down right. And we had original photos, so that
43:04
Speaker 2: was that helped us quite a bit.
43:07
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. He wanted his new bunkers to look
43:10
Speaker 1: as though they had been used over a great amount
43:14
Speaker 1: of time.
43:15
Speaker 2: Yes, and so when you when you hit sand out
43:18
Speaker 2: of a bunker for one hundred years, it gets really
43:20
Speaker 2: steep at the edge of the bunker and then really
43:22
Speaker 2: long towards the target. It's kind of it'd be easy
43:26
Speaker 2: to explain, you know, if I was showing you a
43:28
Speaker 2: bunker bit anyway.
43:29
Speaker 1: No, you can see it.
43:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, so it's I call it an eyebrown, and
43:32
Speaker 2: then there are shoulders around that it also do that
43:37
Speaker 2: and you know the other thing. I don't know for sure,
43:39
Speaker 2: but I don't know when the knuckle bucket came about.
43:44
Speaker 2: But there's some such there's some like cool stuff here.
43:46
Speaker 2: I'm going, I wonder if they did that by hand
43:49
Speaker 2: or with a knuckle bucket, because you know, it's changed.
43:51
Speaker 2: It's changed golf architecture, the knuckle bucket. Yeah, especially in
43:55
Speaker 2: the last decade or two.
43:57
Speaker 1: So well, describe what a knucklebucket is for for people
44:00
Speaker 1: haven't seen it before.
44:01
Speaker 2: Knuckle Buckets usually on a smallish excavator and instead of
44:05
Speaker 2: just doing a bucket like this, you can move it
44:07
Speaker 2: like a hand. You can carve anything you want. And
44:11
Speaker 2: of course these guys get so good, you know, they
44:13
Speaker 2: can shave us with that bucket they wanted to. They
44:16
Speaker 2: get so good at it. The hardest part though about
44:19
Speaker 2: that is they're sitting in the machine, so they have
44:22
Speaker 2: a hard time looking beyond what they can see, you know.
44:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the knuckle bucket has become pretty popular in
44:30
Speaker 1: recent golf architecture. Actually, I've talked to the restoration architect
44:35
Speaker 1: and he does new courses as well Andrew Green about
44:39
Speaker 1: using a knuckle bucket to kind of pound out little
44:43
Speaker 1: details in bunker faces. Absolutely, Basically, what it allows you
44:48
Speaker 1: to do is kind of like detail work with a
44:50
Speaker 1: big machine. So you know, typically when you're using big machines,
44:54
Speaker 1: it's a little hard to do the kind of fiddly
44:56
Speaker 1: little stuff. Well, when you have that knuckle bucket, you
44:58
Speaker 1: can kind of get then there and and do some
45:01
Speaker 1: nobbly little details. And so that's so you don't even
45:05
Speaker 1: know this. You know, it's possible that that I was
45:07
Speaker 1: maybe doing some of this with with his bunkers and
45:10
Speaker 1: that's how he got his details, or or maybe it
45:12
Speaker 1: was done by hand.
45:13
Speaker 2: I would think it was done by hand or just
45:16
Speaker 2: very diligently with a straight bunker, you know, a straight bucket.
45:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
45:21
Speaker 2: Wow. And then because you can turn the machine then
45:24
Speaker 2: and you have to turn the machine instead of the bucket.
45:27
Speaker 1: M that's very interesting. We're getting very in the weeds there,
45:30
Speaker 1: but that kind of stuff is uh, that kind of
45:33
Speaker 1: stuff is fascinating to me. So we've talked about bunkers,
45:37
Speaker 1: we've talked about greens. Is there anything else that you
45:39
Speaker 1: wanted to touch on with the renovation project?
45:42
Speaker 2: That you did. Oh yeah, look at notes real quick.
45:45
Speaker 1: Sure.
45:45
Speaker 2: I think I think we covered covered it as an
45:48
Speaker 2: overview pretty well. I guess the trees we took out
45:53
Speaker 2: a lot of trees, and for a desert golf course,
45:56
Speaker 2: I think it helped the look of the golf course immensely,
45:59
Speaker 2: especially on television. You know, a desert golf course line
46:04
Speaker 2: with trees didn't really look like a desert golf course.
46:07
Speaker 2: So as tough as that was initial step, it really helped,
46:12
Speaker 2: you know, that particular golf course quite a bit.
46:16
Speaker 1: So trees had kind of been planted over time at
46:19
Speaker 1: at PGA West, just you know, just gradually, and you
46:23
Speaker 1: you stripped quite a few of those away to recapture
46:26
Speaker 1: the feeling of that desert environment right right.
46:31
Speaker 2: The other thing that I guess you would enjoy a
46:33
Speaker 2: lot is that Pete was a big proponent of the
46:36
Speaker 2: line of charm. And he didn't talk about it like that,
46:40
Speaker 2: he didn't have a term for it, but he was
46:42
Speaker 2: always you know, there's nothing more more boring than standing
46:45
Speaker 2: at the end of a straight fairway and looking and
46:48
Speaker 2: there's nothing between you and the green. So he would
46:50
Speaker 2: always swing something in front of of of that view
46:57
Speaker 2: to support again usually the right to left or left
46:59
Speaker 2: or right. So he was he was a big proponent
47:02
Speaker 2: of that, and that added the fear factor and the
47:06
Speaker 2: you know, the foreshortening and did all those great things
47:09
Speaker 2: that he's known for, you know, hiding stuff all all
47:12
Speaker 2: over the place, hiding.
47:15
Speaker 1: Visual deception. Yeah, well, you say, line of charm. This
47:19
Speaker 1: is a term, you know, invented by Max Bear, you know,
47:23
Speaker 1: more than one hundred years ago, and essentially what Bear
47:28
Speaker 1: meant by it, and I should devote an entire episode
47:30
Speaker 1: just to this term because it is kind of complex,
47:33
Speaker 1: but essentially Max Bear was saying, you know, the line,
47:37
Speaker 1: the true line that the players want to play shouldn't
47:41
Speaker 1: just be straight down the middle of the fairway. The
47:43
Speaker 1: architects should always be doing something to break up that
47:48
Speaker 1: that direct line to the whole and kind of motivate
47:52
Speaker 1: players to swing out to edges of fairways and take
47:56
Speaker 1: an interesting path to the whole. So part of the
47:59
Speaker 1: role of the architect is to is to just like
48:02
Speaker 1: break up that straight line to the whole and make
48:05
Speaker 1: golf more interesting and dynamic.
48:08
Speaker 2: And a very simple way to do that is a
48:10
Speaker 2: center line bunker m and mister did hardly ever did that.
48:15
Speaker 2: I found that interesting. He'd want to slide the whole
48:18
Speaker 2: fareaway one way or the other. He wouldn't say, let's
48:20
Speaker 2: put something he wouldn't he wouldn't want to do it.
48:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean maybe maybe because he knew clients, you know,
48:27
Speaker 1: would would sort of rebel against that idea. And in
48:30
Speaker 1: the time that he was designing courses, I don't really know.
48:32
Speaker 2: So the reason for not doing center line bunkers is
48:35
Speaker 2: that you put him at maybe three hundred yards, Well,
48:40
Speaker 2: that would be the second shot of a lady, and
48:43
Speaker 2: so he would he didn't like that. You know, you're
48:46
Speaker 2: going to catch the second shot of a lady more
48:48
Speaker 2: than you are the t shot of the back teeth player.
48:52
Speaker 1: That's that's interesting. That's good to know. Yeah, okay, Well,
48:55
Speaker 1: he was very attentive to how different types of players
49:00
Speaker 1: would play his golf courses at PGA West specifically, I
49:04
Speaker 1: know he did a lot of work with the with
49:06
Speaker 1: the forward t's, making sure that they were well positioned.
49:10
Speaker 1: And this was of course something that that his wife,
49:13
Speaker 1: Alice Dye would would insist upon and was kind of
49:15
Speaker 1: a guru for the placement of forward ts.
49:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. She was great and a great player. You know,
49:20
Speaker 2: a better golfer. He won the Indiana Amateur, but she
49:23
Speaker 2: I think she won the Florida Amateur a couple of times. Yeah,
49:28
Speaker 2: Ary player a great team. You know, they were a
49:30
Speaker 2: great team, no question.
49:32
Speaker 1: So looking at the course post renovation, Yeah, it's not
49:39
Speaker 1: to me, it's the It's not as important to say
49:43
Speaker 1: is it tougher than to say.
49:46
Speaker 2: Is it better?
49:47
Speaker 1: But let's start with whether you think it is tougher
49:50
Speaker 1: for the pros to play this this golf course post renovation?
49:54
Speaker 1: Do you think it has become more challenging?
50:00
Speaker 2: Can I can? I let me turn the discussion a
50:03
Speaker 2: little bit, because I think this is an interesting question
50:05
Speaker 2: I have. I have that you could develop, and that
50:07
Speaker 2: is was this the last course ever built that was
50:13
Speaker 2: stronger or more tougher than golf equipment? You know, in
50:19
Speaker 2: the eighty six the pro say we're never coming back
50:21
Speaker 2: here to play this golf course again.
50:23
Speaker 1: They signed they thought it was too hard.
50:25
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, Now they love it and it has an
50:29
Speaker 2: amateur tournament on it. You know, it's a pro am.
50:32
Speaker 2: It's not even a professional tournament. I mean it is,
50:35
Speaker 2: but it's a it's a pro am tournament. So so
50:38
Speaker 2: golf equipment has just you know, gone right by it
50:41
Speaker 2: right with middle heads and cavity back irons and you know,
50:46
Speaker 2: great teaching. So I think it's a discussion. Is this
50:50
Speaker 2: the last, the very last course that was stronger than
50:55
Speaker 2: than the pro golfer? I don't know.
51:00
Speaker 1: It depends on what you want to say about setup.
51:02
Speaker 1: You know, there have been US opens since nineteen eighty
51:05
Speaker 1: six that overwhelmed the pros, but mostly for reasons other
51:11
Speaker 1: than design, right, mostly for reasons of the firmness of
51:15
Speaker 1: the golf course or the narrowness or the height or
51:17
Speaker 1: the rough Yeah, yeah, et cetera. It does It does
51:21
Speaker 1: seem that, you know, what was remarkable about about the
51:25
Speaker 1: Stadium course at PGA West in nineteen eighty six is
51:27
Speaker 1: that it was really kind of pure design that made
51:31
Speaker 1: the golf course so hard, and that's that's pretty rare
51:34
Speaker 1: now it's in fact, it's hard to do that now.
51:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So back to your question, is it harder
51:41
Speaker 2: today than it was? I think they can set it
51:44
Speaker 2: up a bit harder. Again. They've got access to edges
51:48
Speaker 2: or they didn't have before, so they can put whole
51:51
Speaker 2: locations to the edges. I added a few bunkers on
51:57
Speaker 2: the on the bailout side of a couple par fives,
52:02
Speaker 2: so that they're not hitting wedges to a par five
52:04
Speaker 2: now they're hitting a nine iron to a par five.
52:07
Speaker 2: So so I don't know, you know, you just can't stop.
52:12
Speaker 2: These guys are too good. I don't think it plays
52:15
Speaker 2: any harder. What's great, though, is that this developer hired
52:19
Speaker 2: a or a management company, hired a couple of great superintendents,
52:25
Speaker 2: and so the conditioning of the golf course is probably
52:27
Speaker 2: the best it's ever been in you know that I've
52:31
Speaker 2: been aware of it. It's really good. Brian Sullivan was
52:34
Speaker 2: at Wiltshire and bel Air before he came, and he's
52:36
Speaker 2: the director of golf and they've got a young guy
52:41
Speaker 2: that's Denver Heart. He's again the golf courses, and I
52:44
Speaker 2: think the pros get that, you know, they appreciate it.
52:48
Speaker 2: You know, they say these are the best greens we
52:49
Speaker 2: play all year, because in those two weeks in the
52:52
Speaker 2: desert they could be the best. You know, just like
52:56
Speaker 2: in any climate, there's a certain window where you can
52:59
Speaker 2: get every thing perfect right, and when when you oversee
53:03
Speaker 2: grains in the desert, this is your window right here is.
53:06
Speaker 1: There a specific hole at PGA West that you think
53:11
Speaker 1: people should pay attention to it when it comes up
53:14
Speaker 1: on the telecast and kind of look at as an
53:17
Speaker 1: interesting hole at the stadium course.
53:21
Speaker 2: Well, sixteen, I think sixteen, seven and seventeen are great,
53:24
Speaker 2: great holes, and you know the pucker factor is strong
53:29
Speaker 2: on both of those, especially for the amateur. You know,
53:33
Speaker 2: it's a pro am so the amateur player, eighteen is
53:36
Speaker 2: a bit of a disappointment to be because they hit
53:38
Speaker 2: three woods I think typically off the tee to avoid
53:40
Speaker 2: the bunker complexes. But it's a fun golf course. It
53:48
Speaker 2: really is fun for these people that you know, the
53:50
Speaker 2: greens are fun. They can get out of the bunkers
53:53
Speaker 2: that used to be you know, awful. You know, now
53:56
Speaker 2: there are sixty degree wedges. You can get out of these.
53:59
Speaker 2: They can get out of them.
54:01
Speaker 1: That's true. One that's true on sixteen, where you know,
54:04
Speaker 1: essentially the world's deepest bunker just left of the green
54:08
Speaker 1: that used to be, you know, a place from which
54:12
Speaker 1: people had trouble recovering. Now you know, you can expect
54:16
Speaker 1: pros to get out of there if they get in there, And.
54:20
Speaker 2: We softened the left side of the green for more
54:22
Speaker 2: whole locations on sixteen. Whether they'll use them or not,
54:26
Speaker 2: I don't know. And you know how pros they're so smart,
54:28
Speaker 2: they're going to play off to the right and put
54:30
Speaker 2: back you know they're gonna they don't. They don't challenge
54:33
Speaker 2: much anymore.
54:35
Speaker 1: Well, when you look at the sixteenth hole, what is
54:38
Speaker 1: it about that hole that makes it great or interesting
54:40
Speaker 1: to you?
54:41
Speaker 2: The trouble is severe even off the tee. The bunkering
54:45
Speaker 2: is twenty feet deep. So but again it kind of
54:49
Speaker 2: comes back to things that we have talked about in
54:51
Speaker 2: the past, and that in this interview is that in
54:56
Speaker 2: eighty six, golf ball curve a lot. Right, it doesn't
55:00
Speaker 2: curve anymore. So I don't know if it's as terrifying
55:04
Speaker 2: as it is today as it was in you know,
55:07
Speaker 2: eighty six, or just because the golf ball doesn't curve,
55:12
Speaker 2: so these guys can hit. They probably aim at the
55:14
Speaker 2: middle of the grain and curve it left where and
55:17
Speaker 2: then off the tee again, there's plenty of room for
55:20
Speaker 2: them to aim at the right edge of the fairway
55:24
Speaker 2: and curve at their ten feet of curve, you know,
55:27
Speaker 2: of their hook, and they're they're fine.
55:30
Speaker 1: Well, this raises an interesting question to me if you
55:34
Speaker 1: were building a stadium course now and trying to create
55:39
Speaker 1: a venue that would truly put the fear of God
55:43
Speaker 1: into current tour pros with their ball that doesn't curve,
55:47
Speaker 1: and you know their their their equipment and their bodies
55:50
Speaker 1: that they make the ball go so far, what would
55:53
Speaker 1: you do?
55:54
Speaker 2: Like?
55:54
Speaker 1: What are what are some of the tactics that that
55:56
Speaker 1: you might use from a design side to to challenge them.
56:01
Speaker 2: You know, the best thing is firm and fast, don't
56:03
Speaker 2: you think. I mean, look at the old course. When
56:05
Speaker 2: the old course, when the fairways were as fast as
56:08
Speaker 2: the greens, they didn't score that well. So it's all
56:11
Speaker 2: about I think the ground surface more than it is angle.
56:15
Speaker 2: I mean, angles are important if it's firm and fast.
56:18
Speaker 2: If it's soft, angles don't matter. So firm and fast
56:25
Speaker 2: it's got to be. And I'm sure that this week
56:29
Speaker 2: it will be firm and fast. I hope it's the desert.
56:33
Speaker 2: You know, they should be able to get it firm
56:35
Speaker 2: and fast.
56:36
Speaker 1: Right. Well, when you when you bring overseating into the equation,
56:39
Speaker 1: that's when it starts to slow down a little bit, right.
56:41
Speaker 2: That's right, But for a week you can do it yeah, anyone.
56:45
Speaker 1: Well, they can do anything now with agronomy, right.
56:48
Speaker 2: Right, that's correct. And you know they got ninety degree weather,
56:52
Speaker 2: no humidity. It's come on. As we used to say,
56:56
Speaker 2: Red Charles can grow grass in this.
57:00
Speaker 1: Well, you know, they probably could dial it up a
57:04
Speaker 1: little bit more. But just the nature of the tournament
57:07
Speaker 1: has not historically been This is the most challenging tournament
57:11
Speaker 1: on the on the PGA Tour. Maybe that's part of
57:13
Speaker 1: what kind of holds the Stadium course back from being
57:17
Speaker 1: really vicious is just the setup is never going to
57:21
Speaker 1: be vicious. The nature of the event is not that.
57:27
Speaker 2: Maybe the last day, but you know they played the
57:29
Speaker 2: country club course and the Nicholas Course. You know the
57:32
Speaker 2: country club course they shoot sixties and it's fifty nine's
57:35
Speaker 2: and sixties, you know, so that but when they come
57:38
Speaker 2: to the tournament the stadium course the last day, I
57:42
Speaker 2: think they'll set it up. I think they'll shoot par
57:44
Speaker 2: one under. I don't think they'll because there's pressure too, right,
57:48
Speaker 2: that helps, That helps Furman fast and all that pressure.
57:52
Speaker 2: That's what you got to have because when they can
57:57
Speaker 2: hit it far, you know you can't. Length is not
58:00
Speaker 2: an issue.
58:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah, it's I mean pressure, pressure
58:06
Speaker 1: still still gets to the best of them. That's one
58:09
Speaker 1: thing that hasn't hasn't really changed. All right, Well, Tim,
58:13
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's
58:14
Speaker 1: been fun talking to you and hoping to hoping to
58:18
Speaker 1: see a firm and fast stadium course at the at
58:21
Speaker 1: the tournament this week.
58:22
Speaker 2: Garrett. Thanks, I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.
58:31
Speaker 1: All right, let's do some quick takeaways from that conversation
58:34
Speaker 1: with Tim Liddy. First of all, it was striking to
58:38
Speaker 1: me that he acknowledged that there's not much that pure
58:42
Speaker 1: design can do to stop tour pros these days. He said, basically,
58:48
Speaker 1: you've got to have firm and fast conditions and that's
58:52
Speaker 1: pretty much it. And I think that's relatively accurate, especially
58:56
Speaker 1: if you want the course to be playable for a golfers. Yes,
59:01
Speaker 1: you can make the fairways fifteen yards wide and have
59:05
Speaker 1: trees and water everywhere, but that's not the kind of
59:08
Speaker 1: work that most golf architects want to do. It's not
59:11
Speaker 1: the kind of work that most developers want out of
59:14
Speaker 1: golf architects. So we're pretty much left with firm and fast,
59:19
Speaker 1: and I would add wind if there's wind. That creates
59:23
Speaker 1: some substantial challenge, but that's not something that you can control.
59:28
Speaker 1: So in other words, we've got to roll back the equipment.
59:32
Speaker 1: The second thing I'd like to pick out of the
59:34
Speaker 1: conversation with Tim is his discussion of Pete Die's approach
59:40
Speaker 1: to artificiality. And what I heard Tim saying is that
59:45
Speaker 1: he likes and Die liked the juxtaposition between artificial and natural.
59:52
Speaker 1: For Tim, that's where the art comes from, and that
59:56
Speaker 1: is a kind of repudiation of popular thinking right now,
1:00:01
Speaker 1: which is the golf courses should blend into their environments,
1:00:05
Speaker 1: that the hand of man should be invisible. So it
1:00:09
Speaker 1: is interesting to hear Tim position Pete Die as the
1:00:14
Speaker 1: alternative to that approach, and I think he's right about that.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: Pete Die' is shaping doesn't look natural, but it does
1:00:22
Speaker 1: have a relationship with the natural environment in the sense
1:00:26
Speaker 1: that it contrasts with the natural environment, it responds to
1:00:30
Speaker 1: the natural environment, and it is interesting to look at
1:00:34
Speaker 1: for that reason. So that's an aspect of Die's courses
1:00:38
Speaker 1: that I think is definitely worth studying. Okay, that's it
1:00:43
Speaker 1: for this episode. Designing Golf is produced by Will Balsam.
1:00:54
Speaker 1: Thank you, Will. If you've been enjoying this podcast, leave
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