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Great Architects: William Flynn · Designing Golf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is a big year for the golf architect William Flynn.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: First we have the US Open at his masterpiece, shinnacowk Hills,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and then in August the US Amateur at Marion Golf Club,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: where he led construction and served as superintendent. So in
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: this episode we're digging deep into what makes William Flynn
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a great architect. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: all right. Before we bring in Jim Nagel, let's talk
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: about the five essential William Flynn golf courses. Now, a
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: few caveats before we dive in here. One. These are
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: not necessarily Flynn's best courses or even my favorite Flynn courses.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: These are just five courses that you could study and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: come away with a pretty good understanding of Flynn's architecture.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And that leads into my second caveat, which is that
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of candidates for this list. In
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: William Flynn's body of work, he designed a ton of
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: very good to excellent courses. But there's really just one
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: automatic entry and you can probably guess what it is.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It's about to host a US Open. But the four
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: other slots could go to any of kind of like
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: fifteen golf courses probably, so these are just my picks
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: right now. I could easily be convinced to change them.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: The final caveat is that I'm not including three extremely
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: famous golf courses that William Flynn contributed to but did
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: not design completely or on his own, and those are
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Pine Valley, Marion and the Country Club at Brookline. Flynn
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: was an important influence on all of those courses, but
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I'm focusing here on his solo designs, So let's get
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: into it. The first, first essential William Flynn golf course
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: is obviously Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, New York. Now Here
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: at Friday Golf, We've done a ton of content on
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Shinnecock Hills recently. I just did a two hour podcast
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: last week on designing Golf about Shinnacock, so I'll refer
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you to that work instead of going into detail about
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the course here. But briefly, Shinnacock represents everything William Flynn
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: believed in and did well, routing, naturalism, restraint, strategy, challenge,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: green designs, it's all there in Shinnecock Hills, and it's
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: one of the most complete golf courses that anyone ever built.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Okay on to number two, and I've reserved this slot
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: for a Pennsylvania course. Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia area in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: particular were Flynn's home base, and he built many great
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: golf courses in that region. So the one I've chosen
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to represent all of those is Huntington Valley Country Club,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: which is about fifteen miles north of downtown Philadelphia. This
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: course really shows William Flynn's mastery of routing above all,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the course consists of twenty seven holes, but the best
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: known nines are the Toomey and Flynn nines. These holes
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: sit in a big valley with really nice rolling topography.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: The Toomey nine, which is named after William Flynn's longtime
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: construction superintendent Howard Toomey, moves counterclockwise around the outside of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the property on the high ground of the valley, while
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the Flynn nine drops down to the center of the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: valley and moves clockwise. So essentially it's a version of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Harry Colt's outside inside routing at Meerfield, and Flynn just
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: executes it brilliantly. You get all kinds of different lies
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: in the fairway, uphill, downhill, sidehill, and then to top
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: it all off, the course has some of the best
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: inland agronomy anywhere. The club has been a big advocate
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: of minimalistic, low input organic turf maintenance, and the place
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: just plays so firm and fast. It's an incredibly well
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: presented Golden Age golf course and very much represents what
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Flynn would have wanted. So that's why I've picked Huntington
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Valley among all of Flynn's excellent designs in Pennsylvania. But
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I definitely could have gone with any one of several
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: other courses including Philadelphia Country Club, Rolling Green Golf Club,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Manufacturers Golf and Country Club, Lehigh Country Club, Lancaster Country Club,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: all fantastic, all have an argument to be on this list.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: But for now I'm going to leave Pennsylvania and go
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: to my third selection, which is going to be The
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Country Club, not in Brookline, but in Pepper Pike, Ohio,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a great and very underrated golf course. What I find
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: most notable about Country as it's called, is the way
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: that it uses a unique set of landforms. The property
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is defined by a system of creeks, and over the centuries,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: these creeks have carved out a series of big ledges.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Flynn's routing really zeros in on these ledges. Sometimes you
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: tee off from them, Sometimes you play into greens up
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: on top of them. Sometimes fairways run along the edges
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of them. Sometimes holes just kind of, you know, leapfrog
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: over them. This is an outstanding example of Flynn's ability
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to recognize and maximize the best assets of a given site,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and especially after a recent historical renovation by Gil Hants,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the country club certainly deserves to be seen as one
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of Flynn's essential designs. All Right, for my fourth pick,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going east to the Catansit Club in Marion, Massachusetts.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: This is a delightful seaside course. The most photographed hole
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: is the par three third, where the green is built
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: up directly from the beach, but the rest of the
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: course is a lot more subtle and ground hugging. And
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the reason I've included it in this list is that
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I think it shows William Flynn in a different mode.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Flynn is rightfully associated with big browny championship tests on
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: big bronny pieces of land, but Catansit is very much
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a member course. It's not super long, it's pretty much flat.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: There's some chocolate drop mounding, constructed out of rocks that
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: were cleared out from the center lines of holes, has
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: a very old school feel, and this is partly due
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to the person who constructed it, Frederick could so not
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Flynn's usual construction Guy Howard Toomey, and so the course
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: has a different look and feel than most of Flynn's courses.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: And yet the way that the course generates variety from
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: hole to hole is unmistakably Flynn. Each of the par
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: three's is immediately distinct from the others, and the longer
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: holes are always moving in unexpected ways, dog legs, diagonals,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: all the things that Flynn love to do. Fifth and final,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: William Flynn design that I'm going to mention is outside
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: of Miami, Florida. It's Indian Creek country Club. So this
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: was a last minute addition. Full disclosure, I actually had
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Cherry Hill's Country Club in this spot, and before that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I had Lancaster Country Club. Either of those would have
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: been justifiable choices, I think, But my guest for this episode,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Jim Nagel, convinced me that Indian Creek was the way
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to go because it shows what Flynn could do on
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: a blank canvas. Indian Creek was built on a man
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  Speaker 1: made island and there was just nothing for Flynn to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: work with. He had to manufacture everything out of whole cloth,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and that was a big challenge to his governing philosophy,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: which was to take inspiration first and foremost from the land.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So in that context, the results at Indian Creek are
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: very impressive and interesting. There's a lot of variety, some
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: very cool smaller scale undulations, very interesting bunkering patterns and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: strategic whole concepts, and some brilliant greens. So the fundamentals
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: are the same, even though the starting point was very
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: unusual for William Flynn. So those are my five essential
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Flynn golf courses. I've already gone over some of the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: honorable mentions, but I also want to recognize that none
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of the ones I've mentioned are public. There just aren't
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that many well preserved Flynn public courses. I would love
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to see a proper restoration at Cascades in West Virginia.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: That's an amazing course that deserves to be on this list,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: but it needs some attention. And then we have Rock
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Creek Park in Washington, d C. A wonderful municipal property
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: managed by the National Links Trust and about to undergo
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a major improvement project by Gil Hans, so I'm hoping
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: that that turns out well. The intention there is not
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: necessarily to restore the original Flynn course, but instead to
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: introduce some Flynn inspired elements and also develop some other
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: facilities for the local community. There an understandable approach, but
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I think that gil Hans is just as capable as
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: anybody of producing holes that seem like Flynn holes but
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: are in fact his own invention. So looking forward to that.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: But my picks for now are Shinnecock Hills, Huntington Valley,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the Country Club in Ohio, the Catansit Club, and Indian Creek.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Let me know what you think, all right, Time to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: dig a little deeper into William Flynn's career and design approach.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And to do that, let's bring on Jim Nagel. Jim
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: is an architect specializing in restoration and renovation. For twenty
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: five years, he worked with Ron Force, one of the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: og restoration architects in America, and while he was at
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Force Design, he led a number of restoration projects at
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: William Flynn courses in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia Country clubanchaster country Club,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Rolling Green Conquered and Manufacturers. Two years ago, Jim established
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: his own firm, Nagel Design Works, and he's already working
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: at three Flynn Designs in Pennsylvania, the Country Club of Harrisburg,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Eaglesmere and Bala Country Club. So this is really a
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: specialty and a passion for Jim. So who better to
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty of what makes a Flynn
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: golf course a Flynn golf course than Jim Nagel. Real quick, though,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: before we get into my conversation with Jim, I want
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to remind you that Father's Day is coming up. This
• 11:38
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• 11:43
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• 11:46
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• 11:49
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• 11:53
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• 12:11
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• 12:15
  Speaker 1: That's pro Shop dot the fried egg dot com. All right,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I'm here with Jim Nagel. Jim, thanks for coming on
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the podcast.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. Garrett. It's really good to
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: speak with you guys. So what a pleasure.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: It's been a while. The last time we saw each
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: other in person was you know, back to just on
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the on the heels of COVID times over in Lancaster
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Country Club in Pennsylvania, a great course that you have
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: done some work on. And so it's good too, good
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to speak with you again. And we're going to dig
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: into some William Flynn here you are as I understand it,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and correct me if I'm wrong. A Pennsylvania guy, you
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: grew up? Did you grow up?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: It's funny I grew up in Pennsylvania. I was born
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: in Illinois. But you know, world's largest printing company, Donnellying,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: which was located now in Chicago. Then they also had
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: some facilities down in Dwight. Decided they wanted to open
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: four plants in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So at the age of four,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I moved to Lancaster and all of my formative years
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: were spent in Lancaster. And you know, other than some
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: time in school and living in Denver for the summers.
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  Speaker 2: I'm kind of a true, tried and true Pennsylvania now.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Now, obviously the state of Pennsylvania and the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia area specifically were William Flynn's stomping grounds during the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: golden edge of golf architecture. He is sort of the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: undisputed king of golf architecture in that area.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: You know, when you look at the full body of work, like,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: there's nobody who really who really comes close in that area.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Given that you have have lived most of your life
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: in pennsyl what were your earliest experiences with Flynn's work?
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Was it at Lancaster and then? And did you did
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you see his courses before you knew you wanted to
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: be a golf architect.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, I always said, I've told this story. My
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: first exposure Lancaster Country Club was on top of the
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: swimming blocks, trying to look over the fence that was
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: where the current Punning Green is. That was my first exposure.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: I kind of grew up more on the public courses
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: in and around Lancaster, and so my first exposure to
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: that was after I joined Ron and I went and
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: obviously that helped me have a little bit more access
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: to things. So I went and walked around Lancaster and
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: I want to say this was even before Gil might
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: have done his work in the late nineties early two thousands,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: and it was just, you know, it was just a
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: pleasant walk on the golf course and still kind of
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a little green and trying to understand what I was
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: looking at because that golf course was very heavily treated.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: The Gordons at that time still had had a lot
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: of influence on the course because I believe they were
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the ones that really came in after Flynn and had
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: sort of carried his mantle. And then Gil was just
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: starting to do some work there. And then my next
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: visit probably was about two thousand and four when they
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: decided that they were going to bring Force Design on
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: board and so we that's that was my first exposure
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: to Flynn at Leicester. But then also you know, joining
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Ron nineteen ninety eight, you know, at that time he
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: had already been working with Indian Creek, he'd been working
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: a long time with Lehigh, So the Flynn education really
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: started early on with Ron, and of course, you know,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: we were very heavy into ross. You know, there's almost
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: this whole movement of the re restoration of ross courses.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: But when I joined Ron, you know, I think he
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: at that point in the late nineties had you know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: been working on thirty five thirty six Ross courses. So
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: we were very heavily steeped in Ross and Flynn.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Now when you say joining Ron, you of course mean
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: joining Ron Force. Yes, of Force designed there were two
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: rons who'd restored an awful lot of Donald Ross courses
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: in in the eighties and nineties, Ron Pritchard and Ron Force.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: But you worked with Ron Force for for I guess
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: twenty five years, for a quarter century. Yeah, I worked
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: on many many golf courses, including quite a few Flynn courses.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I would say, I'm not sure how many people have
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: worked at more Flynn courses. I suppose Gil Hans, Ron
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Force and you are, you know, have have have locked
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: up a lot of numbers there.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: It's funny, I want to say, you know Flynn originals
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: or you know, Flynn had a heavy hand in the
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: spring Haven club, even did some work at Sunny Hannah.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: And you know, I think it was like fourteen clubs
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: that I could say that I was collaborated with worked
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: with Ron and or was the lead architect, and a
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: lot of that happened by accident, because it got to
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the point where when Ron and I were working together
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: and I was starting to assume the lead role on
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: projects where he had enough trust in me to do that,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: I was driving. It was like a lot of the
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: projects that we'd drive to, and we were based out
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: of southwestern Pennsylvania below Pittsburgh, he'd fly. Well, that just
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: kind of lent itself to all of a sudden, I'm
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: going over Philly and I'm doing Lancaster, and I started,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: you know, I took over Philly Country and conquered and Manny's,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: and you know, I spent thirteen years at Rolling Green,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: you know, just really being exposed to these great Flynn
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: golf courses. And there was always that one exception, which
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: was Lehigh, which to this day, you know, Ron has
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: done such an incredible job at Lee and I He's
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: got a great relationship with them. But for the most part,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I started taking over all these other projects just by
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: circumstance of where they were located.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Right. You ended up being the lead on so many
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of these great flint courses in and around Philadelphia and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: That's obviously a big reason why I'm excited to talk
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: with you about about William Flynn's design style and his
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and his work overall. There there are a few people
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: who have more experience with it. Now, when you're restoring
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a Flynn course, what kind of historical evidence is most
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: meaningful to you? You know, do you put a lot
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of stock in his plans or do you prefer to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: rely on historical photographs? And this question is really getting
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: at you know, Flynn's Flynn's working process, right, Is he
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was he a I know, he came up with beautiful plans,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: some of the most beautiful plans of his era, but
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I also get the sense that he was willing to
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: kind of change things up in the field.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Is this this is the iomic debate?
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, well yeah, I mean that the debate certainly
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: came up during during Ironomic because there are two different
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Ironomic restorations that kind of follow those two philosophies. But yeah,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: when it comes to Flynn.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent photos. Okay, because of the Philadelphia area,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: we have the donalind photographs, we have the archives and
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Philadelphia itself, there is a website and the photos are
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: not you know, their resolution is not very good, but
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: they have nineteen twenty eight photos for most of the
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: areas around in the city. That's a lot earlier than
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: what we always used to be able to get down
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: into the federal archives, which is typically nineteen thirty eight.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, you know historic areas, we start
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: picking things up in the nineteen forties. I'm always looking.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to find those earliest aerial photos because Flynn,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: in reality, like the plan at Lancaster, the plan for Lancaster,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: he didn't have too mey with him when he started there.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know if he sketched the plan or whatever.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: It's very rudimentary. It's nineteen nineteen. Yet he was changing
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: that course not long after that. His plan for Philadelphia
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Country Club nineteen twenty six. Plan opens in twenty seven,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: aerial photo in twenty eight. By the early thirties, they're
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: already making changes to the guy. Of course, then in
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: preparation for the US Open in nineteen thirty nine, he
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: has a type document of his recommended changes, plus the
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: aerial photos to confirm that. So it really depends on
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: one what's the club looking for? You know, do you
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: know Philly set here at nineteen thirty nine. Aerial photos,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: that's what we want. Lancaster had evolved through the years,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: and so Lancaster we could look at some of the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: photos and we didn't really have any really good plans,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: so we had to go to photo documentation other places.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: One phenomenal golf course that's evolved through the years is
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Conquered Country Clubs. It would be listed as Briton Lakes.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: We thought it was a rass course. The features were
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: such a departure from what Flynn would do that we
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: were mistaken. Ron forst and I am like ninety nine,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: two thousand and then literally, as Wayne Marson and Tommy
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Paul are building their archives for the Nature Faker, I'm
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: in Wayne's house in a different room than Ron and
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Wayne and Tommy another gentleman, and I find these plans
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: for Britain Lakes and it was like, oh my. So
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden we started to have plans that
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: confirmed some of the early photos and we knew it
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: was Flynn. So all of a sudden we did a
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: complete one eighty and we're like throw the Ross ideas, wait,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: let's get back on Flinn. So for me personally, it's
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: a long answer to the sure question. It's all about
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: the photos for me.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, but it also seems like it's dependent on
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: on the situation. You know, the availability of photos is
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: sort of inconsistent. You mentioned Wayne Morrison and Tom Paul's
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: work on William Flynn and the importance of that to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: your work at Conquered, and I guess it is pronounced
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Conquered like the one in Massachusetts.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just like Lancaster is Lancaster and the Rancaster.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: It can never be it can never be straightforward with
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you people in the Northeast. But in any case, talk
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: about the importance of of of the nature Faker and
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: some of the kival work that Wayne Morrison and Tom
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Paul did over the years.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: It's really good because it does provide a missing link.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Now again we go back to the dollar photograph. So
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: in the Philadelphia market, we're very fortunate to have those
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: because most times they have photos that were available before
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: clubs started making major changes to their golf courses. What
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Tommy Paul and Wayne's work has done for me personally
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: is as soon as I get a call from a
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Flint course, I'm going right to the nature figure and
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I'm gathering as much information as I can on that
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: golf course. I don't want to say I'm different than
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: anyone else, but I learned, you know, I really learned
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: this from Ron that Wayne and what Tom has done,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: and Brad Klein and Anthony Piappi. All these historians are
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: really really good. But I truly believe that it's in
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: my interest that I'm the person that needs to know
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: as much about that golf course as possible, as much
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: as the historians. So what Wayne and Tom's book have
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: done for me is just to provide confirmation of maybe
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: what my thoughts are with what I'm seeing in photographs
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: by backing it up with maybe written documentation that the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: club had plans that I never maybe had access to,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: to see what the thought process was, and just sort
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: of the architectural evolution of that golf course. I remember
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: the first time I read Wayne's portion on Lancaster, I
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: felt like you needed a PhD to understand the routing
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: changes and everything. And it wasn't until you truly understood
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the golf course that you could understand which hole was which,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: what the routing was, and how things flipped around. But
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: it's just an excellent archive for me.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I feel the same about the various Shinnecock Hills routings.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I still I mean, I'm in the middle
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: of it right now. I still haven't figured it out.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk a little more generally now
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: about Flynn's design style, such as it is. I'm not
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: sure that the term style necessarily even applies here in
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the way that people think, And I've often had a
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: hard time describing what it is that William Flynn does
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: or what makes his courses distinctive. So I'm going to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: toss to you at what's probably a somewhat impossible question here,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: but I'm excited to see how you grapple with it.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: If you were to walk on to a random golf course,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the providence of which you had no idea, right, what
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: if anything is going to tell you that that course
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: was designed by William Flynn.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Tasteful restrain in the greens. Flynn just seemed to know.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And again I'm gonna you guys did a great job
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: on that Shinnacock Now podcast.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Oh thank you.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: One thing you guys mentioned about the bunkering at Shinnacock
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: was he knew when to bunker and when not to
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: bunker and let the land dictate what was going on.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: And I think that's one market thing that you could
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: pick up on a slim golf course. He could Philadelphia
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Country Club had almost one hundred eighty thousand square feet
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: of bunker surface area. That's a lot for of course
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: not located in Florida. But yet then you can go
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: to an eagles mirror where he had rolling topography and
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: rocky material and there was one fairly bump, but the
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: course was still magnificent in its own right. But also
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: if you go to the greens, okay, one telltale sign
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: and I did say that Conquered sort of threw us off.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: But he would almost have three high points on the dial.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: But those high points were never in the same spot.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Like Tilling has to always oftentimes picked up the back
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: corners of his greens and you know, maybe the middle undulated. Flynn,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: it was just it was like rotating them. It was like,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: you know, yo to the baseball game. It's like guess
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: where the nut is under the cup, you know, and
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: they're rotating that around. It's like Flynn doing the same
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: thing on his greens. And what's interesting is when we
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: talk about the Philly School and the evolution. And I
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: told you I'm here at Warwick Hills. Warwick Kills was
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: redesigned in nineteen sixty nine by Joe Lee. Joe Lee
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: worked for Dick Wilson. I had the good fortune of
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: opening up and see our north last weekend. I'm working
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: at another Dick Wilson golf course, Medowrook Club. You can
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: see the evolution of Flynn and his designs in through
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Joe Lee's work, William and David Gordon's work, Dick Wilson's work,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Robert von Hagey at Booker Rio. It just bleeds through.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: So one of the things I would look for for
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: more than anything is that idea of the greens. What
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: did those greens look like? Do they have? And he
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: did do some severe undulations on some courses, not to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: the extent of Ross and Tilling has any others. You
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: guys nailed it when you talked about it. It was
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: more of a can't or you know, I like in
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: some of his greens more to Hugh Allison than the
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: other Golden Age architects. Yeah, and you know when Hugh
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Allison would occasionally get some good undulation in there, but boy,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: those greens were just they were so good that were subtle.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: It was as if, and I've done this on a
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: number of golf courses, it says, when you're building a green,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: you know you'll build it and stake it on a
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: ten by ten grid. I look at it and make sure,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: if I'm on a ten by ten grid, that the
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: four slopes that form the box plus the diagonals are
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: never the same. They are constantly changing from box to
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: box to box. And I think that's what Flynn did.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Now they had the luxury of building a green and
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: letting it sit for a period of time. They didn't
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: have the time constraints that we have, so the wind
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: and the rain and the erosion would form some of
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: those things. So I've kind of taken and said, well,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: if we have to accelerate it, let's just make sure
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: in that subgrade or the surface that it is just
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: constantly changing. Pete Die always said change the rate of change.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I'll do the same thing in the greens and make
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: sure the high points are rotating and converging slopes. And
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: you got William Flynn.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: That's very interesting. Three high points? Was he using those?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Do you think as pinnable areas, or was it just
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: kind of an I don't know, why do you think I.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Think I was forming the horizons of his greens and
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: forming the perimeters of his greens, because it was The
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: beautiful thing was it was never that they were always
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: to the perimeter. Like there could be a high point
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: that was internal. Let's let's take the dit so let's
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: have a green that's just going straight up. There might
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: be one that's offset at one o'clock. And let's say
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the one at one o'clock. Because it was an uphill hole.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: He wanted you to see the back of the green. Okay,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: so you saw the back. So he took the green
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: up on to that high point, and then there were
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: two bunkers, say left and right. The left bunkers say
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: ended at nine o'clock, but that high point was external completely.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: So the green kind of swept up on the slope
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: but stopped the back when it went up on it.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: And then the next thing, you know, say at five o'clock,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: there's a high point that is completely internal to the green.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: So it was they were changing the way they were
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: around the greens. But they could be internal external, or
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: you could have two external one internal you know it
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: was to me, it was it was beautiful and if
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: you if you set foot on a William Gordon green,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Gordon did the same thing, but now the construction game
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: was changing. He took Flynn's high point and like almost
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: doubled them, so the undulations were much larger. That was
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: the one thing at Philadelphia Country Club, their eighteenth green,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: William Gordon built that same premise three high points. But
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you that that he probably added a foot
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: to a foot and a half above where Flynn would
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: have ended, and the undulations were just too much on
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: those greens.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: It's almost like having having a principle of green construction
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that allows you to build a functional green while at
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the same time allowing room for variety, for changing it
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: up so that the player doesn't notice that you're kind
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of using the same principle in a way.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Well, and here's the thing, and I you know, I
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: don't know what Wayne would say to my flought my
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: thoughts here, Flinn, you guys were on and I apologize
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: some people may not listen to the Shinnecock podcast.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: You're referring to the podcast that we just did on
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Design Golf before where I talked to Matt Rusius, my colleague,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: about the course, and then talked to Bob Crosby's about
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: some of the historical issues.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: And so I got to give if you got to
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: listen to it, it's really good just about Shinnecock. It
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: was about the evolution of American golf design. But in
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: that you've talked about the template holes and C. B
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: McDonald and Rayner and all this. Flynn seemed to be
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: one of the architects who was least concerned with a
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: repetition of a theme. But yet he did so many
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: of his par three that would be the other thing.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Your question was, what would I look for? It's the
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: par three, so many of his part three's, and one
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: of the best golf courses people talk about is Rolling Green.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Every one of Rolling Green's par threes is benched into
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: a hillside with either a single bunker high duet low,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: duet high single low single high four low. You know
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: he that was a repetition that he did. You go
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: to Philadelphia Country Club, The seventh hole does that? The
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: fifteenth pole does that? Lancaster has their eight pole Part three,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: whether he has a long diagonal on the outside left
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: and a single bunker on the right, you.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Know, and eleven at Hinnacock maybe.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: To eleven eleven absolutely fantastic golf hole, you know, two
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: and eleven at Chinnacok. It he just seemed to say, Okay,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: these are the sites to you know, these are the
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: part three sites that I want to use. And he
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: also oftentimes he did I think Ron just did an
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: article on golf die just or something on the tenth
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: hole at or it was a USGA journal, the tenth
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: hole at Marion, which obviously was Flynn was probably very
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: instrumental in that because that's when the hole came back
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: across the road and is where it's at now and
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: it's that short dog leg left where similar things at
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: sixteen at Leicester, number one at Philly, which was the
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: sixteenth pole at Philly, I believe it's the fourth, and
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Huntington Valley, the twelfth at Pine Valley, the seventh of
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Cherry Hills. They are all different iterations of this same philosophy.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: But you know, those are some of the things, key
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: things I might be looking for.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf is brought to you by
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the Golf Superintendent's Association of America. Or GCSAA. This partnership
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense for Friday Golf. Really, our
• 32:52
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• 32:56
  Speaker 1: help of superintendents. You know, we go to a lot
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: of courses. We try to learn as much as we
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: can about those golf courses, and the best resources for
• 33:05
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• 33:35
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• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and we're very proud to be working with them. All right,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: let's get back to Jim Nagel. So I think, as
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: we've mentioned a couple of times, Flynn had a memorable
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: nickname that he gave himself, the nature Fake. What do
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: you think it is about Flynn's designs that make them
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: so natural looking? What were kind of the architectural methods
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: behind naturalism as he practiced it on his golf course.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And I think I think it's three things. It was
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: his routings, okay, and how he used the land in
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: those routings, and therefore then the trickle down effect of
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: then citing the green It was, I think too, also
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: the fact that on some of his projects he didn't
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: necessarily bunker it exactly the way he wanted it. He
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: allowed the course to evolve, he watched people play, and
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: then he came back and he would bunker according to that.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: But he always seemed to because of how he routed
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: the holes. A number of his bunkers never seemed forced,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: they seemed to fit in beautifully. And then I just
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: think it's a his green sights because of their overall appearance,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: never seemed contrived, never seemed too tricked up. They just
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: they just fit. And and I think that might be why,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: you know, he takes on this this moniker of the
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: nature figure. And his use of the water too. I
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: never thought about that before, but you know, a lot
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: of guys would sort of shy away from water. He
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: seemed to welcome it and his greens, his green positionings,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I think the thirteenth at Lehigh, the eleventh at Lee High,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Lancaster's twelfth, Lancaster's sixth, A couple of the holes at
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: at manufacturers he was he wasn't afraid to use that.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: And I you know there's there's the par three that country.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Oh shoot yeah, Pepper Country covered Pepper Pike when the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: guilded a couple years ago. I want to say five
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: or was just this beautiful ridge and just the way
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: he positioned it on here and then you go right
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: next door to the pepper like club that has that
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: wash maybe lack of a better term of Baranca moving
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: through there and how he used that land. I think
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: that that in many ways allowed him to have that
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: name of the nature fake or that he just we
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: go back to the original thing where I talked about restrain.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: He knew how to restrain himself. I think from doing
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: too much where whether it was other classic architects where
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: more modern architects today it's more of an ego driven
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: type thing where they have to do more, have to
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: do more, have to do more. I don't think he
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: felt the need to do so.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Or a client driven thing. You know, this course needs
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to to pop. I often when I look at William
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Flynn's courses, that I often think nobody would be able
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: to build this way now because it is so subtle,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it's so restrained. The word that comes to mind for
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: me is effortlessness.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah. And you know it's interesting how you
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: just explained that, because many years ago, Ron Whitten and
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: I some courses together and we looked at Philly Country
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: and then we went over to Lancaster and part of
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: that tour was because Lancaster at one time had been
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: in the Golf Digest top one hundred, so here all
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: of this work had been done, but Lancaster was not
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: making any headway in the rankings. And that could be
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: a whole other conversation about rankings, but Ron Wenten described
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: it wonderfully because you know, he was the guy that
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: really started this whole rankings thing, and he said, the
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: thing about William Flynn is in rankings, especially Golf Digest
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: at that time before things started to be revamped, was
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: it was more about the show. It was more about
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: that first impression. And he said that doesn't mean William
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: flynn golf courses are not great. It just means that
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: a lot of Golf Digest raiders see a golf course
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: once and that's it where William Flynn. It's an intelligent
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: golf course. You have to go back time and time
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: again to truly understand that golf course. And you know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: I rebuilt a couple holes at Conquered Country Club. They
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: had Jeffrey Cornish come in and they sold some land
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: and corners came in and we took a part five
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: and turned it into a four or three. The three
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: was inspired by not copied, but inspired by the eleventh
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: at Shinnikok, and the fourteenth was just our own, my
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: own thing. But I went and studied, you know, I
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: was kind of looking at greens at Indian Creek and
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Lehigh and the best thing I ever got compliment I
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: got back was from a person that was on the
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: green committee where he said, you know, I've been playing
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: this green for three years and I still can't figure
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: it out. But it is a very subtle looking green.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: So I felt like, Okay, then we hit the mark
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: with Flint and what he would have done, not that
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: we really could know what he'd do.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Today, Well you look at his holes and you think, oh, well,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: that's just what was there. But it takes a few
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: times to realize that all the features have a strategic
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: function as well, you know, because all therategic moments are
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: not are not you know, signposted or put in put
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: in bright lights for you that it's just part of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the landscape. But then as you as you play the chorus,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: you realize, Okay, these these things are acting on my
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: ball and influencing play in in a in a certain way.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And so it's and I think that's why. I think
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: that's why, you know, the culmination of his career and
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: the best of his careers be what's on showcase. You
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: know what's going to be showcased next week. And because
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: of the strategy, the use of the land, the variety
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: all of those different things in the greens I think
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: is I personally, I always have the plan for Shinnecock
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: next to my desk, and it doesn't matter whether I'm
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: working on a renovation or restoration or even what architect
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Flynn's plan for Shinnecock. The bunkering concepts, the arrangements of bunkers, singles, duets,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: you know sixteen has five lumped together there the greenside bunkering,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: all of that is to me some of the best
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: golf course architecture that it doesn't matter what course you're
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: working on, or what the concepts may be, you can
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: just draw something from that.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a total masterclass.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: You know, Philly Philly Country to a certain degree. Also,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Philly Country was one of as Wayne has told me,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: it was one of his favorites. And you know that
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: that golf course and how that evolved and the fact
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: that you know, Flynn was there originally opened the course up.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Within a few years. They weren't happy with some of
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: the greens. Flynn wasn't happy with some of the greens.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Maxwell comes in, rebuilds a couple of greens. Flynn comes back.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: He's actually ticked at what had occurred because some of
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: the strategies that were intended were now gone. They rebuild
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: some greens again, they stop rebuilding the others. Then he
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: comes in in thirty seven for the Open and he
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: makes sugested change. And I was thinking that I had
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of windshield time this week and already, and
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about those changes. And the interesting thing was,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I think whether it was player with or the width
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: of the fairways. A lot of the bunkers that were
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: added in preparation for the thirty nine Open were the
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: elimination of bailout areas, and so the fact you know,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: he he was I know, I think he was one
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: of the best best designers of that er, just didn't
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: have the personality of the others to jump to the forefront.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: And then he died right after World War Two, so
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: didn't help.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: That's a factor too. But I think that also that
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the fact that he doesn't get spoken of in the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: same way that say McKenzie and McDonald do is partly
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: attributable to exactly what you're talking about. His restraint and
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: his resistance to showing his architecture right, his courses really
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: don't don't show and so as a result, it's a
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: little bit hard to talk about, As I said when
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: I initially asked the question, it's a little bit hard
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: to talk about his style. It's not really a charismatic style.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: They're just, you know, they're just really good golf courses.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: But the interesting thing is, though, Okay, so we can
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: talk about McKenzie or we can talk about Ross and
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: but if you think about their impact overall, you can
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: actually say that Flynn's impact is still felt today in
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: his influence in architects because of the sort of the
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: passing down of the torch that there are still people
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: that have a connection, you know, back to Flynn and
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Hugh and and really Flynn goes to Hugh Wilson. You know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: the epicenter of it all really is Hugh Wilson and
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: what Flynn learned from Wilson and then carry that torch on.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm I'm like, I'm on this run right now.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Of you know, I got Warwick Hills because of the
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: work at NCR. Well, what was the connection. Well, Joe
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Lee redesigned Warwick Hills. He built NCR in nineteen fifty
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: four with Dick Wilson. And then all of a sudden,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: you know, there's the boker Rio Golf Club, which was
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Robert von Haggie. Von Haggie was working for Wilson when
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: he was building Pine Tree. You know, there's there's all
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: these Flynn is still sort of webbed into all of
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: the fabric of a lot of golf today.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a big Flynn design tree, Flynn and Toomey
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: design tree. And I mention for those who don't know
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Howard Toomey was was Flynn's I don't know how to
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: describe it. The construction he was.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: The he was the Moreau to Langfort. Yeah it's good. Yeah,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: but yeah, he was like his construction foreman and I'm
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: sure engineer and did some many other things.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: All right. So in talking about Flynn's naturalism, you mentioned
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: his routing ability. I've heard you say that that Flynn
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: might be the greatest router of golf courses from the
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: golden age of golf architecture. At least I believe I've
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: heard you say that before I did.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Hopefully this it's not a trap, but yes, I believe it's.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Not a drap at all. No, No, that's not what
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: we do on this podcast. There's no Gotcha's Golf Architecture podcast.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: What do you think what made him so effective at routing? What?
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: What is what is the talent there?
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Hmmm, utilizing the land in almost the most economical way,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: like it didn't take a lot. Now, there was always
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: this great contrast years and years ago because they discovered
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: and we go back to Wayne, that they discovered that
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Flynn had done a routing for the country Covie York,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: and Ron and I had worked at Counch Covie York
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: many many Manion years ago, and we knew that property
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: and when was always like, ah, you know, why didn't
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: they They should have used Flynn's plan. Lynn's plan, And it
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: was like, oh my gosh, like Flyn's plan. Walking that property,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: it would have been a cart only golf course. It
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: was a tough piece of property.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: There's a there's a not famous but famous to me
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: paper on golf club at lists about oh yeah, that's right,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: comparing and contrasting the routings, and Flynn's just involved. Flynn's
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: was a lot more muscular. Let's put it down.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, but you know, okay, so you just
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: used the word muscular brawnye, okay, Philly Country is a brawny,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: big muscular property Lancaster the same way Huntington Valley has
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: aspects of that Manny's. Manny's is different because he basically
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: switched back up the slope where others he would go
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: with the slopes and down and across, and so there
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: were some rounding differences there. But you know, one thing
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: you guys talked about on the Shinnacock thing again, it's
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: triangles and this idea of trying angles and when you
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: look at some of his routings, this idea of these
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: three whole blocks in triangles. It shows you how he
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: was thinking and thinking about the land, thinking about the wind,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: thinking about the contrasting lies above your feet, below your feet.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: You know, what's what is the land going to do?
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: And by having those triangles, he I don't want to
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: say he forced an outcome on you, but he definitely
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: it influenced what could be happening within those sections. And
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: it wasn't always sequentially seven eight nine, you know Philly,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: it's like one eight nine, one, six ten, four, five eleven.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: You know, he had these different triangles that seemed to
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: work with all of the topography. And I like what
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: he used to do. And Wayne and I have talked
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: about this is sort of the reverse can't Part four,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: where a lot of times dog leg Part fours were
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: always like a racetrack, low inside, high outside. Flynn flipped
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: that fifteen at Lancaster seven or two at Philly Country,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: where if you played away from the hazards, you didn't
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: need a hazard to the outside. The land did it,
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: and therefore that lower land seemed to obscure your view
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: towards the green, or he just simply placed a bunker
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: at the green that you had to negotiate but it just, uh,
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know that there's a certain elegance to his routings.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: That's that's kind of how I look at.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they seem simple, right, it's not again, it's it's
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: not a showy thing with William Flynn. It just seems like, oh, yeah,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: that's that's obviously how this land should be routed. But
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: but of course, you know, if you were given, if
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I were given, let's say that the same piece of land,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have come up with as the end
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: of a solution.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: And you know, we don't. We don't have insight. You know,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: he wrote a little bit on some of his principles,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: so it's hard to say, you know, why was it
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: the green sites first? Was he the type that picked
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: the greens first? Was it Okay, I've got a long
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: stretch of land here, I can get a Part four
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: in here, or I've got a stream crossing here, so
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: I want to use this stream. It's hard to say
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: what the actual intentions were, you know, we just we
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: just don't have him here to do that, and he
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: didn't write much down. I guess.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: All right, I have a question here from a member
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of Friday Golf Club I put out a call for
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: questions in our in our Friday Golf Club app, and
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: some people chimed in with things they want to know
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: about about William Flynn. So this is from a member
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: named Ben Dennison, he says, and this is starting to
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: get to you know, Flynn's use of strategic design and angles.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: He says. When I think of flynn courses, I think
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: a lot about diagonals as one of the key aspects
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: of his architectural style. Offset tea boxes, crossing creeks at
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: various diagonal angles, et cetera. Where did this design feature
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: originate for him? Was this a conscious choice he came
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: to or did he just fall into it? Now it
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: might be hard to answer those questions because, as you said, well,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Flynn didn't didn't have a lot of uh didn't didn't
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: write a lot about his craft. But as you assess
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: his courses, does it become obvious to you that this
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: was something that was important to him this this year?
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Very much so, very much so. And I had the
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: good fortune of working for the Die family even when
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I was in college studying golf or studying to be
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: a golf architect. You know, I didn't know that, Yeah,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: you and everybody else went down to the Pete Die
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Golf Club just to see it under construction. It was
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: still being built. I mean, you had a seventeen year
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: window to go see it, and Pete happened to be
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: there that day, and literally by the end of the day,
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: I wasn't working necessary for Pete, but for for Perry
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: who sun in Colorado. But what we're getting out there
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: is for the Die family, angles diagonals were huge, huge influence,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: and I think for Flynn again, we got to go
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: back to this idea of Wilson and Mike Serba, sort
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: of a golf historian in Philly for those that might
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: not know them, did a great presentation on Hugh Wilson
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: and a lot of the principles that you saw coming
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: out of Marion, and he only did all dabble it
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: a little bit in other some other projects. There seemed
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: to be these strong influences on Flynn and that diagonal.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: And you really pick up on that diagonal in the
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: evolution of Dick Wilson as a designer, because then Wilson
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: started taking the role of the ball out and going vertical.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: So those diagonals and how things were coming into lines
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: of play. I thought it was beautiful the way you
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: guys discussed the sixteenth hole at Shinnecock straight line t
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: de green. But he interrupts it with that line of play.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Are we talking about the line of charm? There's the
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: line of instinct, and then we introduce that line of charm.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Great English gardeners talked about s curves and this line
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: of charm and beauty and how you're interrupting things, and
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: then that sort of evolved into golf and you could
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: look at you could do a study of the what
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: was the original eighteenth at Philly Country it's now the third.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: The bunkering concepts versus the land are very similar to
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: the sixteenth at Shinnecok, and so he builds those in
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: on these interrupting lines. I love his It's easier to
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: work on a restoration plan for Flynn when you're getting
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: the teas. You know this general tendency of the modern
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: teas to square everything off. Well, because Flynn did not
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: point everything at the middles of fairways, they were all offset.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: It makes it very easy to say, we don't need
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: to square these things off. We can kind of do
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: some irregular shaped teas and have them juxtaposed off the
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: center line of the whole. It's there's a certain beauty
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: in that also.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Right, you even have to start doing that because if
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: you have a hole where you know, the aggressive play
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: is at a completely different angle from the tee than
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: the conservative play than having like a perfectly squared off
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: t box is going to confuse people, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: that's I think he never thought about the effect on
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: te design.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: I just think it was his evolution as a designer
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: that the diagonals and the ever changing landscape and golf
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: design at that time in the twenties, you know, some
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: of his maybe one of his best years was twenty
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: six and then you know, you get thirty and thirty
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: one with Indian Creak and Shinnecock and how he evolved
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: in that period of time. You take a look at
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: early Lancaster and it was very rudimentary for his standards,
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: not Victorian, but very rudimentary for his standards in Harrisburg
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: and Downingtown and Eagles Mere, very simple designs. But then
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: he you know, something was evolving. Maybe was it the
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: combined efforts of the Philadelphia School and those guys exchanging ideas.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Was it the completion of Pine Valley? Was it? You know,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: him taking over and essentially doing all the work at Marion.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Who's to say so?
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: I've got another question for you here from a Friday
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Golf Club member, but there's a bit of a build up.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: It's on the issue of equipment regulation, and William Flynn
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: happened to be an advocate for more regulation. He saw
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: it as an emerging problem. He spoke out against it.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: You know this is this is one of his utterances
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: that we can actually quote, and it's a remarkable quote.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: I just want to read it. He said, all architects
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: will be a lot more comfortable when the powers that
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: be in golf finally solve the ball problem. A great
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: deal of experimentation is now going on, and it is
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: to be hoped that before long a solution will be
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: found to control the distance of the elusive pill. If,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: as in the past, the distance to be gotten with
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: the ball continues to increase, it will be necessary to
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: go to seventy five hundred and even eight thousand yard courses,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and more yards means more acres to buy, more course
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: to construct, more fairway to maintain, and more money for
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: the golfer to fork out. This might be the single
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: most prescient thing that I think any architect of his
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: era said about equipment and.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: So related to what year was that one.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: I actually don't know what year this quote came from.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Wayne Morrison has quoted it a number of times. We
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: know William Flynn died in nineteen forty four, so I
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Well, here, I'm going to pull up one here for you.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: It's a confirmation of that. And this is very interesting
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: because of what we are still dealing with ninety years later.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: You bear with me here. And so in terms of
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: the equipment, yes, he was unabashed in his philosophies and
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: his thoughts regarding the equipment and where things were going,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: and it just seemed to be something that he was
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: He was actually pretty upset that Ed Dudley, who was
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: a very famous golf pro, spent time at Augusta, was
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: the golf pro Philadelphia Country Club was reaching his par
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: fours or par fives in two So here we go.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: During the last decade, there has been continuous improvement in
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: the golf ball. All the modern club has been made
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: much more powerful and effective by changes in the swinging
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: weight and improvements in the steel shaft. In addition, a
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: new class of golf. And it's crossed out, and he
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: adds amateur and professional professional is what was crossed out.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: He says, amateur also has developed the modern defense. The
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: modern professional has achieved unbelievable distance and accuracy because he
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: not only practices continually and intelligently, but because he goes
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: into physical and mental training for tournament play. This means
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: that the low scores in the Open will be players
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: who are not only in perfect physical condition, but they
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: are mentally tournament hardened in their concentration, and their concentration
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: is always under control. In the last twenty five years,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: there has been very little change in the rule for
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: determining par for a course, whereas there has been a
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: tremendous advancement in the character of play by our best professionals.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: Nineteen thirty eight, in preparation for the US Open at Philly,
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: they actually played that US Open at a tick over
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: sixty eight hundred and fifty yards par sixty nine one
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: part five.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Wow. And that was right around the time that the
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: USGA was starting to get really worried too, and around
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: the time that Robert Trent Jones was going out to
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: US opens and starting to measure drives. But I think yeah, I.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Mean fourteen years later, nineteen fifty one is when he
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: put his stamp on the open, Doctor Monks.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Just as soon as he could after the war basically,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: And it was, yeah, it was in those years that
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: people started, you know, Ralph Gouldall and others started shooting
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: really low scores at the US Open all of a sudden,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: that places like Oakland Hills and so so. Yeah, I
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: mean clearly Flynn was was kind of part of that
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: pushback against the increasing distance that the ball was traveling.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: And this had a lot to do with steel shafts
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: and you know, just improvements and in general. But this
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: is a question from from FEGC member Hunter Lambert, and
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a good one. He's just curious if
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: flynn designs were because Flynn was so you know, sort
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: of worried about this problem or aware of this problem,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: were his designs already distance protected to some degree, and
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: was that purposeful on his part? And I will note
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: here that the Flynn's courses have stood the test of
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: time pretty well. In general, in championship golf.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: There was a certain elasticity I think built into his
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: golf courses, but others there were not. You know when
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: we when we so Force Design started working with Philadelphia
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Country Club in nineteen ninety nine, I had been with
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Ron a year two thousand and when was the last
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: am at Marrion? I think it was five three or five,
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: not a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, But anyway, they
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: lengthened holes for five and then we just redid the
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: course again and we lengthened them some more on the
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: holes that we could. Otherwise that course is backed into things,
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: so how do we handle this distance thing? When the
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: club commissioned me, I was still with Ron, but they
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: said we want our nineteen thirty nine US Open course.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: I said that's great, but you know, holes like two, three, four, eight, nine, ten, twelve,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen, all of the bunker positions are just they're irrelevant.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: So we did and we didn't have the ability to
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: go back on some of those holes. So we went
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: forward or further away with the bunkers only where the
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: ground would allow us to do that. And so Flynn's
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: courses I think have held their own possibly because of
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: his routing his greens and he was really good at
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: bunkering things, and he didn't force he didn't you know,
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: if you have ground that's falling away and you try
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: and put a bunker on, you got to build that
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: ground up. So because Flynn, everything was laid out in
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: front of you. You could see what you needed to do.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: And so with Flynn, he'd I think there was certain
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: flexibility built into his designs. We also saw and have
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: letters from him saying changes that he would have made
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: or he was recommending because of the change of equipment.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: So that gives us a little bit of freedom as
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: architects to sort of pick up on that Lancaster. You know,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: when we started doing preparing Lancaster for the twenty four
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Women's Open, and it's always member driven, but Lancaster, some
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: of those bunkers had started to become obsolete. So we
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: started making adjustments by either adding bunkers, bringing some bunkers
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: that were taken away decades ago, elongating some of the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: bunkers so that we could kind of cover those distances
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: because unfortunately, as you know, with a lot of classic
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: golf courses, those teas are pushed into the corners and
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: we just don't have that room to expand them anymore
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: or extend them, I should say so.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Flynn is often mentioned as part of the Philadelphia School
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: of golf architecture. You've made reference to the Philly School
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: a couple of times so far. He contributed to the
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: designs of Marion and Pine Valley, which were like the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: great laboratories of Philadelphia golf course architecture. And of course
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: he himself designed more great courses in the Philadelphia area
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: than anyone. How would you talk about the influence of
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the Philadelphia School on American golf architecture in general, Like
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: what did it give to golf course design in this country?
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: It's hard to say, because, you know, working on a
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: lot of classic air golf courses, you have a regionalization,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: you know, Warren Smith styles in Van Kleek, kind of
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: Herbert Strong, New England, New York, and a ross all
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: over the place. I think his his lasting impression, his
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: lasting legacy, was the fact that his I feel like
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: his associates Dick will Dick Wilson then breeds a couple
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: other guys and William Gordon. You know William Gordon. It's
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: not a not a name you seek out, but yet
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: he did a fantastic job at Saukon Valley Way Hill
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: and the Grace Course, really good golf courses that there.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: There was sort of this this trickling down. You know.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Maybe it's the minimalistic approach of design, you know, in
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: terms of and you guys talked about it in terms
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: of the approach that maybe Gil, having lived in the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: Philly area, picked up on.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: I can't speak for Gil, so I'm hypothesized, but maybe
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: what Gil saw in the work that he when he
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: was living in Philly and what he saw there. I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: know when Tom was doing Stonewall, apparently he traveled and
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: would go all around Philly looking at some of those
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: golf courses. Maybe there were certain aspects that were picked
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: up there. You know, I remember walking sand Hills with
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Ben Crenshaw and of course Sonny Hannah is primarily tilling.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Has Flynn came in thirty eight or something like that
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: and did some work there, and you know, Ben Crenshaw
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: mentioned how much playing as an amateur he started to
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: notice something at the country club a bookline, and then
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: at Sonny Hannah something about these classic courses. Maybe that
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: there was just something that stuck in the back of
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: their mind. That moved through. But in terms of what
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: did the Philly School give us, I mean, I think
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: you have two of the greatest golf courses in the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: world and examples of different styles of architecture in Marion
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: and Pine Valley.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Flynn's contributions to Pine Valley are kind
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: of focused around a few holes. How would you understand
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: and this is a question I got as well in
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: Friday Golf Club, how would you understand his contributions to Marion.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: I've never quite been able to figure out well, or
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: I should be saying that, you know, Mary is Hugh
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Wilson plus William Flynn or just Hugh Wilson.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: I think it's Hugh Wilson, Hugh Wilson, Hugh Wilson and
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: William Flynn in the sense that you know, Fred Pickering
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: was building a lot of the stuff at Marion, and
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I think there was a connection of marriage or something
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: in law. I'm not a hun percent sure with Pickering
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: and Flynn. Flynn was up in Vermont, brings him down
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: to Marion kind of makes him puts him on the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: construction crew. Flynn was eventually is elevated to basically a
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: construction format and superintendent, and you had to imagine back
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: at that time, a lot of the superintendents were doing
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: the actual design work. It could have been an Irishmen
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: and Englishman, a Scotsman, whomever, and they're doing some of
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: that work. And so the changes that were being made
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: at Marion, there are times that changes were being made
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: after Wilson had passed away. So I think it's obvious
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: then that Flynn probably was taking on some of that
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: role of doing that work. You know, that'd be a
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: great conversation to have with with Wayne or just check
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: in on golf called Batist, because I think that, uh,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: that is has probably been for this, this whole, this whole,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: this whole conversation.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: You know, podcasts like this exists Jen so that people
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: don't have to dig too deeply into those threads, because
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: while I enjoy that, no, it's not for everybody.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: I really, I truly do believe that there are portions
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: of of Mary and they're very much you know, William Flynn.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: I just think that there's just the evolution of the course,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: the timing of everything, and some of the things that
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: you might see at Mary and that get carried out
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: through other golf courses. I think he had to have it.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: I think that's a that's a Toomey, or that's a
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Wilson and Flynn.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'm I'm glad to get a relatively definitive
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: answer there. Do you have time for for a quick
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: lightning round? Just a few quick question or answer answer
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: in a few sentences. Yeah, it's actually a terrible thing
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: that interviewers do. I will admit that. Just saying ahead
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: of time, I'm going to ask you a question, you
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: only get two sentences.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: I'm only joking because you said in a few sentences.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: And if you give a golf architect a platform, they
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: can't say anything in a few sentences.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: That's very true, all right. First one is from Glenn
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: Saunders and fegc. He asks what are some of the
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: more underrated and unknown Flint courses. I'm going to focus
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: this one a bit further. Is there one Flinn course
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: that you think hasn't gotten the recognition it deserves, whether
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: you've worked there or not. Yeah, I mean you don't
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: have to choose just one if that's too hard.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: No, that's the thing, because the one that I think
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: flies under the radar is Manufacturers. But you know, part
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: of its recognition really is becoming just because of some
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: great photos that John, it's hard.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: To become a social media start. Yes, a few of
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: those goals with the that's kind of I think it's.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: Only second to the sixteenth at Sleepy Hollow in terms
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: of posts on online. You know they're Lee High. Not
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: everybody focuses on the Philly courses, And then a lot
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: of people say, so we only a couple of sentences
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: Lee High.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: That's my that's my re Yes, perfect answer. Yes, very
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: very under underrated golf course where Ron Forest has worked
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: for for a.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: Long time, almost thirty plus years.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The next one here is from Matthew Rix and
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: Nephew GC. He asks, you know, we know Flynn did
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: most of his work around Philadelphia, with some exceptions, or
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of his work at least. Is there a
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: chance more Flynn courses exist in New Jersey, New York
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: and the surrounding areas, but their record keeping and histories
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: of lost over time? How you thought about whether there
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: are some courses out there that maybe call themselves Ross
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: but are in fact Flynn as you conquered.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Some might say the opposite for Glenn View, that he
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: really didn't do much there, but it's I don't think
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: so after to see what Wayne and and Tom Paul
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: and I think there was even Mike herdzan in there
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: a little bit, to see all of the information that
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: they had on all of these golf courses. I'm not
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: sure there's anything out there that's that's missing. I agree that, yeah,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: it's just.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: What we can know. We probably do, know, I.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Really think we do. And it'd be wonderful if there
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: was something else out there. But I just I don't
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: see it. Dying, you know, he wasn't one that took
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: on too much work. He died relatively young, you know,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: I don't. I don't think so.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, the last couple quite here from me. Uh, these
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: are not from FUGC members, as you've mentioned, like a
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: number of notable golf architects worked for Flynn, worked on
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Flynn construction crews, including Dick Wilson and Read Lawrence Lawrence.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Is there a golf course by by one of Flynn's
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: acolytes that you think embodies Flynn's principles particularly well where
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: you look at it and you're like, oh, that's Flynn.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: There's two okay, and it's an evolution from one generation
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: to the next. The best, the best golf course architecture
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: education I ever had started at Indian Creek where we talked.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: We started this whole conversation onout Indian Creek from scratch
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: Flynn's principles on paper boom done.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I think we talked about that off without afore we
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: were recording, but we did. You and I had a
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: little discussion of Indian crea Indian.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: Creek, and then you go from Indian Creek to Pine Tree.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: The next day I was at Pine Tree, which is
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: Dick Wilson, and you can see those principles. And Dick
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Wilson designed a hard golf course at Indian or at
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: Pine Tree, and it was the changing of the guard.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: It was the low running, firm golf courses to the
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: aerial approach. But the bunker principles, the pulling bunkers into
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: the foreground and the deception of how much distance there
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: is between them the greens designs. And then you jump
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: forward a couple of years later and Robert von Haggie
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: builds Boker Rio Golf Club and it's even more aerial
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: and more undulation in the fairways. But the design principles
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: from one to the next to the next, they're there.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: If you understand golf design architectural principles, you can pick
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: up Indian Creek and you can find it in Boker
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Real and it just moves through.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: That's a great answer. Have you ever been a desert forest?
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm not Scott's.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: I'd love to get I've only been out there once.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: And but yeah, so cool. So it's a Red Lawrence design. Yeah,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: it has been added in recent years by Zinc And
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: then I think very well, But you know, that course
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: makes so much more sense to me now. I mean
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: it made sense as a golf course as soon as
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: I played it, but now I understand where it came
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: from now that I've been looking into Flynn a little
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: more closely over the past couple of months, because oh, man,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: like so much. Flynn is there in that golf course
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and it's in the desert. You know, you just don't
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: see that kind of architecture very often in the desert.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: It's not a great piece of land. You've got these
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: snaking fairways, these diagonals, these ridge to ridge holes, these
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, just the use of the land, the way
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: the routing works is just flinn to a t I think.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really want to get down and see Ron
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: did a major rebuild at Country for Lauderdale or Ford
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: Lauderdale Country Club. They have two eighteens and Red Lawrence
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: had had some hand I think in one of them.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: So Ron decided he was going to do Red Lawrence
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: on on the course that he renovated. And I know
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: I was talking to Heppner and hep said, he gives man,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: what Ron did over at Fort Lauders was really cool.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: And I know the three of us are going to
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: try and get together at some point, but I want
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: to go down and see that, to see what Ron. So,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: you know, you talk about what was Flynn's contribution, so
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: here today, you know, I think Ron did that course
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: two years ago. So twenty twenty four, there's still this
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: Flynn influence in a major renovation on a golf course
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: that came through Red Lawrence.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's sort of a next step, isn't it. Looking
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: at some of these courses by Dick Wilson. I mean, geez,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: there's so many Dick Wilson designs that probably deserve a
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: closer look. But also some of these, you know, less
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: well known figures like Red Lawrence or von Hagy and
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: kind of considering, all right, well, what can we do
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: here that that would be interesting and representative of the
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: design lineage. And so that's a kind of an exciting process.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Well, and that's you know, I'm Atwick Hills are I'll
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: be at Warwick Hills the next two days in sight
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: of the old Buick Open. And I told them when
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: I first walked this property that there literally are a
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: couple holes here that you could pick up and put
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: in Philadelphia and they would fit in perfectly within Philly.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: And so now you're you know, you're twice removed from Flynn.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: You go from Flynn to Wilson to Elite, and I
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: think I think it depends on when you hit those
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: golf courses. I think, you know, Dick Wilson, the course
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: passing away in the sixties and Joe Lee. You know,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: I have the good fortune now of starting to consult
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: with met the meadow Brook Club. I mean, what a
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: phenomenal golf course, phenomenal piece of land. I mean like
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: eight thousand square feet on average for the greens Lag,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: putting to you know, premium. But the what Joe Lee
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: did there, you couldn't you could almost not tell the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: difference between Wilson and Lee. So I think it depends
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: on when you capture them in their window of time
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: that they're to be some stuff. Because I've played some
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: Joe Lee kind of in Mississippi and in that area.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: And variable quality, yes to say not.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, I think it just depends. But
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: that's that's the evolution of golf right now. You know,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: I'm personally for me now, I'm picking up projects that
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: are not just classic era stuff it is. It's picking
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: up projects in the fifties and the sixties. Some of
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: them are worthy of restorative efforts and others are saying,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: let's let's reimagine what's going on here.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be a great test of architectural
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: ability from the assaulting architects for sure. All Right, final
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: quote unquote lightning round question for you. Do you have
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: a hole at Shinnecock Hills that you're looking forward to
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: seeing in the upcoming US Open? Is there?
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Sixteen, sixteen, and eleven? You know, eleven is absolutely one
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: of the best part threas. I mean, everybody talks about
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: the dand and everything. I just I love eleven. Yeah,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: but I think sixteen I pulled you know, I had
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: to redesign the eighteenth hoole at Philadelphia Country Club, and
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: I pulled inspiration off of that that well to quintup
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: and five bunkers on the inside and just the way
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: the ground was at Philly Country And I just think,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: you know, stretching it out this. I think it's going
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: to play at six fifteen or six thirteen.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: It's going to be around there.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, into the wind. So it'll be interesting to
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: see what the carries are in the second shots. But
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: also because it's my understanding that they're kind of going
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: with the nineteen thirties fairway with, so what does that
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: going to mean for rollout? I'm hoping the wind is
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: blowing because I feel like if the wind's not blowing,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: then you know, who knows what could happen there. But
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: I'm really excited for the sixteenth fole. I just want
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: to see how that one plays.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to play that hole. That's the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: thing about, Like, I don't know if right or left
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: off the tea is preferable. I think we go left
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: if you want to try to reach it in two
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: to It's like not many.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: People because if you go left, because if you go left,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: then that brings that that set of bunkers on that ridge.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: You have to carry those right because you know Philly
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: Country a little bit, the same Philly Country. Off their
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: third hole, you have to go right off of the
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: t there is a bunker left, but if you go right,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: it takes out this big, gaping, deep bunker on your
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: second which almost represents the five that you have at Shinnecock.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: There it's one, but it's deep, and you know, you
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: can play to the left, but then if you play
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: to the left, you it's you have to go to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: the right and then the ground falls away. It's just
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: it's a magnificent golf hole. It's it's that's going to
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: say if you if you guys make that trip to
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: you said you haven't been to Philly. If you guys
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: make a trip to Philadelphia, there's so much to see.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: I do think, and you know it could be biased,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: but I think Philly is a good study of Flynn
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: and his bunkering on something different than Shinnecock because he
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: did a lot of bundering at Philly Country and other places.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: He restrained himself.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, completely different kind of Land. But yeah, obviously if
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: you if you want to study Flynn, then where else
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: do you go other than other than Philly? All right, well, Jim,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the podcast as best.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: I've been wonderful. I appreciate the opportunity.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we got to do it again sometimes, so thanks.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
• 1:17:36
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• 1:17:40
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• 1:17:44
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• 1:17:59
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• 1:18:02
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