Latest / Designing Golf / Great Courses: Riviera (feat. Zac Blair)

Transcript

Great Courses: Riviera (feat. Zac Blair) · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about what makes Riviera Country Club a
0:03
Speaker 1: great golf course. My guest is a professional golfer who
0:07
Speaker 1: has played Riviera in competition. He's also a golf course
0:11
Speaker 1: enthusiast and most recently a golf course developer. His name
0:15
Speaker 1: is Zach Blair. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf,
0:26
Speaker 1: all right. So today's big question is a two parter.
0:29
Speaker 1: Why is Riviera a great golf course and how could
0:33
Speaker 1: it be better? So right off the bat, I'd say
0:37
Speaker 1: that Riviera is one of the best designed golf courses
0:40
Speaker 1: in America. I would put it in the top ten
0:43
Speaker 1: in that regard, probably maybe the top five. Is just
0:47
Speaker 1: an incredibly accomplished work of golf architecture by George Thomas
0:53
Speaker 1: and his associate Billy Bell. And the first thing that
0:56
Speaker 1: jumps out to me about it is the whole to
0:59
Speaker 1: whole variety. Every hole feels immediately distinct and memorable. You know,
1:06
Speaker 1: Jeff Shackelford likes to talk about the drive home test.
1:09
Speaker 1: As you're driving home, how easily can you call each
1:14
Speaker 1: hole to your memory? And I would say Riviera passes
1:17
Speaker 1: that test about as well as any course in the world.
1:22
Speaker 1: And that's particularly impressive to me with Riviera because the
1:27
Speaker 1: property itself doesn't have all that much inherent variety in it.
1:33
Speaker 1: It's definitely not bad, you know, it's just a southern
1:36
Speaker 1: California canyon essentially with a baranka running down one side,
1:42
Speaker 1: so there is some stuff to work with, but the
1:44
Speaker 1: valley floor itself is pretty boring, and there's just not
1:50
Speaker 1: the kind of undulation that you see at other courses
1:55
Speaker 1: that are in Riviera's class. You know, you consider Oakmont
2:00
Speaker 1: or Shinnacok Hills or Marion to be the rivals of Riviera.
2:05
Speaker 1: Riviera just doesn't have what those courses have in terms
2:09
Speaker 1: of topography. And yet each hole at Riviera has its
2:14
Speaker 1: own distinct personality. So why don't we walk through a
2:18
Speaker 1: stretch of holes that I think really exemplifies this characteristic
2:23
Speaker 1: of Riviera's and that for me is holes four through eight.
2:29
Speaker 1: So starting with the fourth hole, this is a long
2:32
Speaker 1: par three built right into the canyon wall. It's sort
2:36
Speaker 1: of George Thomas's version of a Ridan template. So the
2:40
Speaker 1: green is protected front left and its slopes as well
2:44
Speaker 1: as angles front right to back left, and then there's
2:49
Speaker 1: this big kicker slope coming off the canyon wall feeding
2:53
Speaker 1: into the green. Just a really striking, beautiful rendition of
2:58
Speaker 1: a ridan. Then you get to the fifth hole, a
3:01
Speaker 1: muscular par four, slight dog leg to the left, plenty
3:05
Speaker 1: of room on the right, but if you bail out
3:07
Speaker 1: to the right, your approach is going to be blocked
3:10
Speaker 1: out by this big mound that sits front right of
3:13
Speaker 1: the green. So it's all about hugging the inside of
3:16
Speaker 1: the dog leg there going left if you can. All right,
3:20
Speaker 1: Now we go to six, which is the famous doughnut
3:23
Speaker 1: par three with the bunker right in the middle of
3:26
Speaker 1: the green. Incredibly bold choice by Thomas, but it's also
3:31
Speaker 1: functional because if you know the contours of the green,
3:35
Speaker 1: you can usually put around the bunker. If you're on
3:38
Speaker 1: the wrong side of it. You see a lot of
3:40
Speaker 1: players in PGA Tour events chipping over it, and yeah,
3:43
Speaker 1: that's an option, but really you can put to almost
3:46
Speaker 1: any pin position on that green if you know how
3:49
Speaker 1: to use the contours very clever. Then you go to
3:53
Speaker 1: the seventh hole, which is a strategic par four playing
3:56
Speaker 1: along the main baranka of the property. It's short enough
4:01
Speaker 1: to be gettable, but the baranca is on the right.
4:04
Speaker 1: And then there's this big bunker that comes in diagonally
4:08
Speaker 1: from the left, so the fairway sort of pinches in
4:11
Speaker 1: and that forces you to make a decision off the
4:13
Speaker 1: tee about how far up you want to push. Finally,
4:18
Speaker 1: the eighth hole is a split fairway par four with
4:22
Speaker 1: the baranka running right down the middle, and once again
4:25
Speaker 1: decision time off the tee. You have to choose between
4:29
Speaker 1: two completely different routes, each with its own potential advantages
4:34
Speaker 1: and disadvantages. So right there in the span of five holes,
4:38
Speaker 1: you've got a long redand type par three and a
4:43
Speaker 1: tough par four, both along the canyon wall. You've got
4:46
Speaker 1: a shorter par three with a bunker right in the
4:48
Speaker 1: middle of the green. You've got a short, strategic par four,
4:53
Speaker 1: and then a double fairway hole. That's a lot of variety,
4:57
Speaker 1: and I think it really speaks to Tom Skill in
5:01
Speaker 1: giving each whole some distinctive characteristic that lodges in the
5:06
Speaker 1: player's memory, and it also shows Thomas's facility with strategic design.
5:12
Speaker 1: All of the par fours in that stretch have some
5:14
Speaker 1: kind of risk reward element. On five, it's about pushing
5:20
Speaker 1: toward that left edge. On seven, it's about how much
5:24
Speaker 1: you want to take on the bottleneck, and on eight
5:28
Speaker 1: it's about choosing between two entirely different fairways. So you've
5:33
Speaker 1: got three distinctive flavors of what I would call the
5:37
Speaker 1: strategic school of golf architecture right there. But each one
5:42
Speaker 1: is very well thought out, very well balanced, just ingeniously
5:46
Speaker 1: conceived by George Thomas. Okay, So another thing that makes
5:51
Speaker 1: Riviera special is the quality of its earthworks, Especially for
5:56
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, which is when the course opened. Hers
6:00
Speaker 1: Thomas and Billy Bell, who was his associate and kind
6:03
Speaker 1: of lead construction guy, moved quite a bit of dirt
6:07
Speaker 1: to make everything at Riviera work, and they actually used
6:12
Speaker 1: some newish technology in this process. They used what were
6:16
Speaker 1: called road scrapers, basically motorized earth moving vehicles. But when
6:24
Speaker 1: you visit Riviera for the first time, you don't really
6:27
Speaker 1: notice that the land was significantly manipulated. You don't notice
6:32
Speaker 1: the work of those road scrapers, and that's because Thomas
6:36
Speaker 1: and Bell were very skilled at concealing their cuts and fills.
6:42
Speaker 1: Everything looks natural and effortless, and I think the most
6:46
Speaker 1: impressive example of this work is along the canyon wall
6:50
Speaker 1: at the northwestern end of the site. That's where you'll
6:55
Speaker 1: find holes four, five and eighteen. Four and five we've
6:59
Speaker 1: already talked about from a strategic perspective, but one thing
7:02
Speaker 1: I'd recommend doing on four and five is walking down
7:05
Speaker 1: to the left of those greens and looking back up.
7:09
Speaker 1: That's when you'll see how big those fill pads are
7:13
Speaker 1: that prop up the greens against the canyon wall. You
7:18
Speaker 1: just don't see that when you're playing the holes unless
7:21
Speaker 1: you hit your ball down there, but if you look
7:23
Speaker 1: at them, you just see those are massive, right. And
7:28
Speaker 1: then there's eighteen, which is hugely manufactured. Initially, there was
7:33
Speaker 1: this twenty foot gully running along the base of the
7:37
Speaker 1: hill below the clubhouse and right where they wanted to
7:41
Speaker 1: put the eighteenth green, and so to build that green,
7:45
Speaker 1: Thomas and Bell filled in the gully and then raise
7:48
Speaker 1: the green another ten feet to get what you see now.
7:53
Speaker 1: But when you look at it today, you would not
7:56
Speaker 1: guess that the terrain was originally totally different, and that's
8:01
Speaker 1: a sign of quality construction. So, yes, Riviera is a
8:06
Speaker 1: brilliantly designed golf course. In its current form, however, I
8:12
Speaker 1: think it falls well short of its potential. So let's
8:16
Speaker 1: talk about a few specific issues that Riviera has. The
8:21
Speaker 1: first is the Kakuya grass, which is the primary turf
8:26
Speaker 1: found in the fairways and rough at Riviera. This is
8:29
Speaker 1: not the original turf. It was probably introduced in nineteen
8:34
Speaker 1: thirty eight to reinforce certain sections of the property after
8:38
Speaker 1: a massive flood damaged the course. But it's an incredibly sticky,
8:45
Speaker 1: grabby turf type, which means that the ball doesn't bounce
8:49
Speaker 1: and run all that much. And that's a shame because
8:53
Speaker 1: Thomas designed Riviera to be played along the ground. He
8:57
Speaker 1: wanted players to be able to run shots into green
9:00
Speaker 1: and to use all those interesting slopes and contours that
9:04
Speaker 1: Thomas and Bell built. But that's not really the reality
9:08
Speaker 1: at Riviera anymore. It is primarily an aerial golf course.
9:14
Speaker 1: The second problem is that the greens and fairways have
9:17
Speaker 1: shrunk considerably over time. This is an issue you see
9:21
Speaker 1: at a lot of classic golf courses. Mowing lines creep
9:24
Speaker 1: inward and suddenly you've lost significant portions of the playing surfaces.
9:30
Speaker 1: And when that happens, you lose some of the character
9:33
Speaker 1: of the design. You lose width, you lose strategic angles,
9:37
Speaker 1: you lose a sense of scale. Right the golf course
9:40
Speaker 1: matching the scale of the land, everything gets kind of muffled,
9:44
Speaker 1: and that's what I think has happened at Riviera. The
9:48
Speaker 1: third issue I'd point out is the lack of vegetative
9:53
Speaker 1: texture on the property. Right now, Riviera is dominated by cocua,
9:59
Speaker 1: grap and eucalyptus trees, and that makes for a pretty
10:03
Speaker 1: limited visual palette. If you just compare Riviera with the
10:08
Speaker 1: North course at Los Angeles Country Club, I think you'll
10:12
Speaker 1: see what I mean. LACC has that indigenous southern California look.
10:18
Speaker 1: It has scrubby vegetation, It has a wonderful variety of trees.
10:23
Speaker 1: The barankas are colorful and rugged, all of which is
10:28
Speaker 1: a credit to Gil Hans and the restoration that he
10:32
Speaker 1: did there fifteen years ago, and also to the club's
10:35
Speaker 1: stewardship since then. But I think Riviera could do something similar,
10:40
Speaker 1: and I wish it would. Finally, and relatedly, the eucalyptus
10:45
Speaker 1: trees at Riviera are a problem in some places, specifically
10:50
Speaker 1: on the thirteenth hole, and this one drives me kind
10:52
Speaker 1: of crazy. It's a part four with a baranka running
10:57
Speaker 1: along the left side. The fairway should go all the
11:00
Speaker 1: way to the Baranka, and not only does it not,
11:04
Speaker 1: but there's a stand of eucalyptus trees between the baranka
11:08
Speaker 1: and the fairway, So the whole has this wonderful natural
11:12
Speaker 1: hazard that it's just disregarding right now. Now, if Riviera
11:18
Speaker 1: removed the trees, I'm sure that scores would be lower,
11:21
Speaker 1: and maybe that would be a problem for the club.
11:23
Speaker 1: Maybe that would be a problem for the PGA Tour,
11:26
Speaker 1: but it would be a much more interesting and attractive
11:30
Speaker 1: hole in my opinion. So big picture here, Riviera is
11:35
Speaker 1: a phenomenal golf course. It is one of the best
11:39
Speaker 1: designs ever, but I do think it could be much
11:44
Speaker 1: much better. All right, so let's continue talking about Riviera
11:49
Speaker 1: with Zach Blair. Zach is the developer and one of
11:52
Speaker 1: the design brains behind the Tree Farm, and he's also
11:56
Speaker 1: a PGA Tour professional who has played Rivia in the
12:00
Speaker 1: tournament now known as the Genesis Invitational. So I thought
12:05
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to get his perspective on the
12:08
Speaker 1: golf course, both as a pro and as a golf
12:12
Speaker 1: architecture aficionado. All right, let's jump to my conversation with
12:16
Speaker 1: Zach Blair. All right, Zach Blair, welcome to the pod.
12:25
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.
12:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
12:28
Speaker 1: So we're talking about Riviera today, a place with which
12:32
Speaker 1: you're very familiar. You're passionate about the golf architecture there,
12:37
Speaker 1: you've actually written about it before, written about the Tempole
12:40
Speaker 1: at the very least, but also you have kind of
12:43
Speaker 1: a professional golfer's perspective on this place as well. So
12:47
Speaker 1: what was the first time that you played Riviera and
12:50
Speaker 1: what were your initial impressions.
12:53
Speaker 3: I think it was probably twenty fourteen, maybe during the
12:59
Speaker 3: It used to not an elevated event, so someone like
13:03
Speaker 3: me used to get in. But I mean I had
13:07
Speaker 3: heard a ton about it, had played a couple other
13:09
Speaker 3: places in La and you know, had had been asked
13:12
Speaker 3: the question, you know, what do you like more?
13:14
Speaker 2: Which place do you think is better?
13:16
Speaker 3: But I had never played riv so it was cool
13:19
Speaker 3: to to kind of see it for the first time
13:22
Speaker 3: in that sort of kind of setting.
13:24
Speaker 2: During the I don't even know what it was called
13:27
Speaker 2: back then. I think it was the Trust, yeah exactly.
13:31
Speaker 3: It might have been something, it might have been something
13:34
Speaker 3: before that, but anyways that I think that was maybe
13:36
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen was the first time I saw.
13:38
Speaker 1: It, Okay, And what what stood out to you the
13:41
Speaker 1: first time you played the course.
13:45
Speaker 3: I mean when you walk up to the first t
13:46
Speaker 3: it's a pretty cool uh you know, it's a pretty
13:49
Speaker 3: cool setting kind of right there by the clubhouse, kind
13:51
Speaker 3: of hitting down.
13:52
Speaker 2: To that narrow you know, that narrow fairway on that
13:54
Speaker 2: short part five.
13:55
Speaker 3: But I think just like the thing that stood out
14:00
Speaker 3: to me was just how many good holes there were
14:02
Speaker 3: out there, and just you know, all the greens were
14:04
Speaker 3: really cool. And just like anytime somebody asks, like, what's
14:11
Speaker 3: your favorite course on the PGA tour, it's like a
14:12
Speaker 3: pretty easy answer that you know, that's mine. But yeah,
14:18
Speaker 3: just I think just like just a really really cool property.
14:22
Speaker 3: The way it's routed and the way they used kind
14:23
Speaker 3: of all the barancas and stuff like that to move
14:26
Speaker 3: water around on on like not a super interesting site,
14:31
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, But they did a really
14:32
Speaker 3: cool job kind of getting you from one to eighteen
14:35
Speaker 3: with a bunch of different looks. And I think, you know,
14:38
Speaker 3: you do a bunch of different stuff out there. You
14:40
Speaker 3: can hit driver a lot, you can hit different clubs.
14:44
Speaker 3: You got a bunch of different looks into the greens,
14:46
Speaker 3: and then you know, the greens are really cool too,
14:48
Speaker 3: So I mean it's like you wish you played that
14:51
Speaker 3: thirty times a year on the PGA Tour, you know.
14:54
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, the opinion that Riviera is one's favorite course
14:59
Speaker 1: on the PGA Tour is pretty common among PGA Tour players.
15:04
Speaker 1: You're not when it comes to golf course architecture. You're
15:06
Speaker 1: not the typical PGA Tour player. You have you have
15:09
Speaker 1: kind of a keener interest in it than than maybe
15:11
Speaker 1: most do. And yet there does seem to be a
15:15
Speaker 1: widely accepted opinion among tour pros that that Riviera is
15:19
Speaker 1: one of the best courses. If you ask a lot
15:21
Speaker 1: of different pros what their favorite course is, they often
15:24
Speaker 1: say Riviera. Do you have any any theories about why
15:27
Speaker 1: that is, especially given that Riviera has has some definite quirks,
15:31
Speaker 1: you know, as a green with a bunker in the
15:33
Speaker 1: middle of it, and et cetera, et cetera. So why
15:35
Speaker 1: is it the pros are so taken with the course,
15:37
Speaker 1: do you think?
15:40
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's not a ton of great
15:43
Speaker 3: places we play, so I think it certainly sticks out that,
15:47
Speaker 3: you know, how far ahead of everything else that it is.
15:51
Speaker 3: I think for anyone it's pretty easy to I mean,
15:54
Speaker 3: you don't have to be like a super golf nerd
15:56
Speaker 3: to to see how cool it is. It's just a
15:59
Speaker 3: bunch are really really good golf holes. And I think
16:03
Speaker 3: it is one of those places where it does kind
16:06
Speaker 3: of reward doing the right stuff. You know, you drive
16:10
Speaker 3: it well or you hit it well. You know, you
16:12
Speaker 3: can put good out there. But it is tricky, you know,
16:15
Speaker 3: on the greens. Being Poe, you always hear kind of
16:19
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of three putts inside of ten
16:21
Speaker 3: feet that week, you know, old school greens. But I
16:26
Speaker 3: think probably just just from the fact that we don't
16:29
Speaker 3: play many golf courses, I would say, outside of a
16:32
Speaker 3: handful or outside of the majors that are even kind
16:35
Speaker 3: of in that realm of how good it is. And
16:40
Speaker 3: you know, so that carries some weight for sure.
16:43
Speaker 1: When you think about the different skill areas that a
16:46
Speaker 1: course might might test. What comes to mind at Riviera
16:52
Speaker 1: is there is there a kind of skill area that
16:54
Speaker 1: that course emphasizes more than the more than the average
16:58
Speaker 1: venue for.
16:58
Speaker 3: You, well, I think the kind of the green complexes
17:04
Speaker 3: and just the way it's bunkered and kind of everything
17:08
Speaker 3: around the greens.
17:11
Speaker 2: You know, you got.
17:12
Speaker 3: To do the right stuff. You got to know where
17:14
Speaker 3: to hit it. You got to hit your numbers, and
17:17
Speaker 3: you can get like severely penalized if you miss, you
17:21
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So they're they're able to, you know,
17:25
Speaker 3: get some of those pins right over. Some of the
17:27
Speaker 3: bunkers are kind of tucked back into some corners that
17:30
Speaker 3: you know, have some big contours that that kind of
17:33
Speaker 3: help defend it. So you know, you've got to be
17:38
Speaker 3: doing the right stuff, executing what you're trying to do.
17:42
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't know exactly like what the
17:45
Speaker 3: winning score there typically is, but I mean when it's firm,
17:49
Speaker 3: you know, and that's just kind of a crapshoot. I
17:52
Speaker 3: guess year and in year out, but like when it's
17:54
Speaker 3: when it's firm, you know, it's it's like a legit test,
17:59
Speaker 3: you know. And I think, you know, there's a there's
18:02
Speaker 3: a handful of at least I haven't played it in
18:05
Speaker 3: the event, you know, in a while. But you know,
18:08
Speaker 3: there's some long holes and there's some short holes, and
18:11
Speaker 3: there's a couple of long par threes and a couple
18:13
Speaker 3: of short ones. It's kind of got everything, you know,
18:16
Speaker 3: the par fives, it's like you got the really short
18:19
Speaker 3: one on one and seventeen can kind of play long.
18:22
Speaker 3: So it's just I think it's just a really good
18:26
Speaker 3: test of kind of everything you got to drive it. Well,
18:28
Speaker 3: there's the you know, the trees kind of play a
18:31
Speaker 3: factor when you kind of get offline. You know, you
18:35
Speaker 3: got the tenthole that you know can kind of be diabolical,
18:38
Speaker 3: but you can.
18:38
Speaker 2: Also make a two on it. So it's it's really just.
18:44
Speaker 3: You know, kind of got everything you want from a
18:46
Speaker 3: from a golf course aspect, and they can kind of
18:49
Speaker 3: tune it up for the tournament to kind of play
18:51
Speaker 3: even better for professional golf, which is cool.
18:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it gets windy, it I mean it can
18:57
Speaker 1: be brutal. I remember a few years ago they actually
19:00
Speaker 1: stopped the event because you know, the greens were firm
19:03
Speaker 1: and it was starting to blow a little bit and
19:05
Speaker 1: they got spooked. Yeah, so it's it can it can
19:09
Speaker 1: definitely have teeth. It's an interesting course. I mean, it
19:12
Speaker 1: is very balanced, as you're saying, it doesn't seem to
19:16
Speaker 1: discriminate against any particular type of player, though though longer
19:21
Speaker 1: hitters have tended to do pretty well. At the same time,
19:25
Speaker 1: it's there are kind of weird results at Riviera historically,
19:29
Speaker 1: you know, like it, Bubba Watson plays so well there,
19:33
Speaker 1: Adam Scott plays so well there. Tiger Woods has never
19:36
Speaker 1: won there. Jack Nicholas never won there, and I just
19:40
Speaker 1: I wonder if that just is sort of a set
19:41
Speaker 1: of random results, or if there's a reason that Riviera
19:45
Speaker 1: just seems to be different from other tour courses in
19:49
Speaker 1: the way that it elevates some players and gives other
19:53
Speaker 1: players fits.
19:55
Speaker 2: Don't.
19:55
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have a theory about that
19:57
Speaker 1: or thoughts about that, but it's just something that has
19:59
Speaker 1: always saddled around in my head about Rivier. It's like,
20:01
Speaker 1: why is it that this course seems to be different?
20:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't, I don't really know.
20:07
Speaker 3: I'm surprised that Tiger's never won there, and Jack, obviously,
20:13
Speaker 3: I want to say when I played, I had Andy
20:16
Speaker 3: Martinez caddie for me a few few years out there,
20:19
Speaker 3: so I think Johnny Miller had probably won out there
20:21
Speaker 3: because he'd always you know, tell me stories about him
20:24
Speaker 3: hitting some cool shots into eighteen. And but you know,
20:28
Speaker 3: Bubba and Adam Scott maybe like statistically maybe not the
20:33
Speaker 3: best putters, but have also like wanted Augusta and won
20:36
Speaker 3: there like you know, some crazy greens with some big,
20:41
Speaker 3: big kind of slopes and contour kind of tilt on
20:45
Speaker 3: him that you know, kind of maybe lets you use
20:48
Speaker 3: your imagination more. And you know, you get so many
20:51
Speaker 3: putts that are kind of outside the hole there that
20:56
Speaker 3: it's just kind of a crap shoot, you know what
20:59
Speaker 3: I mean. You got to you got to use your
21:00
Speaker 3: imagination a bit more than like, Hey, it's you know, inside.
21:03
Speaker 2: Right all day and that's that's what you get.
21:06
Speaker 3: I would say, on a lot of normal tour courses, right,
21:09
Speaker 3: you get a lot of putts that are kind of
21:11
Speaker 3: inside the hole.
21:13
Speaker 2: But not not at Riviera. You know, you get a
21:15
Speaker 2: lot of.
21:16
Speaker 3: Putts that are very uncomfortable and you know, if you miss,
21:19
Speaker 3: they kind of get further away. And but yeah, I
21:22
Speaker 3: don't really know why, Uh, nothing really sticks out to
21:27
Speaker 3: me why certain people have not been successful there that
21:31
Speaker 3: are kind of, you know, the best in the world.
21:33
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it could be the Kakula effect.
21:36
Speaker 1: I don't I don't really know, but we'll we'll talk
21:39
Speaker 1: about that later. But it's yeah, it's just something I've
21:41
Speaker 1: I've always kind of kind of wondered about let's get
21:45
Speaker 1: into some particular holes. So just to start off, is
21:48
Speaker 1: there a hole at Riviera that you think doesn't get
21:51
Speaker 1: enough play? Is there is there an underrated hole that
21:54
Speaker 1: you often think about.
21:57
Speaker 3: I want to say, uh, like the seventh hole is
22:01
Speaker 3: pretty cool. I always had a you know, that green
22:07
Speaker 3: was just kind of fell off in the right spots
22:10
Speaker 3: and the you know, the ground kind of got you
22:13
Speaker 3: into some trouble, you know, on the t shot, so
22:18
Speaker 3: that one kind of sticks out. You hear a lot
22:19
Speaker 3: about eight, obviously, and you hear a lot about six
22:22
Speaker 3: and ten. There's a couple holes on the back like
22:29
Speaker 3: maybe like thirteen or thirteen or something like that. That
22:34
Speaker 3: that's a pretty good one that you know, I'm not
22:37
Speaker 3: sure you hear a ton about. But I mean the
22:40
Speaker 3: cool thing about the course is like every hole is
22:42
Speaker 3: really really good and it's also an interesting course that
22:48
Speaker 3: it's like nothing makes them like.
22:51
Speaker 2: Outrageously hard, you know what I mean.
22:53
Speaker 3: It's not like you're, oh, you know, hazard lining the
22:56
Speaker 3: left side. I can't go there, you know, like the
23:00
Speaker 3: water hazard in front of the green or something. It's
23:02
Speaker 3: just where they can get the pins and you know
23:06
Speaker 3: where you.
23:07
Speaker 2: Have to be to kind of attack.
23:09
Speaker 3: Those places can kind of change from day to day
23:13
Speaker 3: and wind and you know how firm the golf course
23:16
Speaker 3: is playing, So it's it just I think it has
23:20
Speaker 3: kind of a lot of flexibility and you know, pretty versatile,
23:25
Speaker 3: you know, in what you have to do to score
23:27
Speaker 3: well and get balls close to the hole. But yeah,
23:32
Speaker 3: I would probably say seven is the one that comes
23:34
Speaker 3: to mind that I always thought was. It's not that
23:38
Speaker 3: long either, you know what I mean, And it feels
23:42
Speaker 3: like you can kind of screw that hole up pretty easily.
23:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you get in the wrong position around the green,
23:48
Speaker 1: you can you can get into some ridiculous spots. Yeah,
23:52
Speaker 1: seven is is mine too. I think that's my favorite
23:55
Speaker 1: hole on the course that this is actually what I've
23:58
Speaker 1: said traditionally, though there are other holes that would be
24:01
Speaker 1: in the running, but none that are sort of as
24:03
Speaker 1: unheralded as as seven. But it's this. It's this super
24:08
Speaker 1: interesting middle length to even on the shorter end for pros,
24:12
Speaker 1: especially par four running along that baranka that that lines
24:18
Speaker 1: one side of the property, so that baranka is on
24:20
Speaker 1: the right, and then there's this big fairway bunker kind
24:23
Speaker 1: of cutting diagonally in from the left into into the fairway,
24:29
Speaker 1: and the fairway kind of bottlenecks, and so you have
24:32
Speaker 1: to make a choice about where you're gonna where you're
24:34
Speaker 1: gonna play. And then the green is is pretty small,
24:38
Speaker 1: pretty pushed up, lots of interesting contours, runoffs, places you
24:42
Speaker 1: really don't want to be around it, and and so
24:45
Speaker 1: really it does help to kind of be as close
24:48
Speaker 1: as possible on your approach because you want to be
24:50
Speaker 1: able to get at the target. You don't want to
24:53
Speaker 1: miss anywhere around the green, but there is some risk
24:56
Speaker 1: in pushing your ball up. And it also helps to
24:58
Speaker 1: to kind of be a little it along the along
25:01
Speaker 1: the right side. There are maybe some trees that should
25:03
Speaker 1: come out to really open up that play, but that's
25:05
Speaker 1: maybe another subject. But yeah, it's it's like a it's
25:09
Speaker 1: a super interesting uh part four, isn't it is? Is
25:11
Speaker 1: that a hole where you I mean, do you hit
25:14
Speaker 1: driver there? What? What do you what's your approach there?
25:17
Speaker 3: I always hit driver, but I'm I'm on the you know,
25:20
Speaker 3: shorter side, so you definitely see people not hit driver.
25:26
Speaker 3: But it's kind of like the you know, it feels
25:28
Speaker 3: like the fair way over close to the bunker kind
25:30
Speaker 3: of kicks into the bunker a teeny bit, and like
25:33
Speaker 3: you said that, you know, you don't want to hug
25:35
Speaker 3: it down the right and get blocked out by the trees.
25:38
Speaker 3: You know, it's just got so much going on, and
25:41
Speaker 3: it's just like the fractional little things where it's like, oh,
25:43
Speaker 3: I'm just not in the right spot, or oh my
25:46
Speaker 3: ball just kicked in the bunker. Oh that pins just
25:49
Speaker 3: in the back left corner. I can't get at it
25:51
Speaker 3: from this angle. So I always thought that was just
25:57
Speaker 3: a super interesting hole. But you know, so many of
25:59
Speaker 3: the other ones out there, you know, can kind of
26:02
Speaker 3: fall in line with that as well.
26:10
Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by the new Cobalt
26:13
Speaker 1: QZ six slope rangefinder. The QZ six represents a significant
26:19
Speaker 1: leap in golf rangefinder technology. Most rangefinders have fixed magnification,
26:25
Speaker 1: but the Cobalt QZ six has an optical zoom feature
26:29
Speaker 1: ranging from six x to twelve X. So when you're
26:33
Speaker 1: on the golf course with the QZ six, you can
26:35
Speaker 1: just see your target better. You can identify your exact
26:39
Speaker 1: landing spot more clearly. You can assess the contours of
26:43
Speaker 1: the fairway or the green that you're hitting to. You
26:45
Speaker 1: can actually see the characteristics of the pin placement. All
26:50
Speaker 1: that stuff is pretty useful information and not something that
26:53
Speaker 1: you typically get with a rangefinder. In addition to Zoom,
26:57
Speaker 1: the QZ six has COBALT's proprietary sense and Surge technologies,
27:02
Speaker 1: which makes locking onto the flag fast and reliable, and
27:07
Speaker 1: it offers a total performance ranging from five to two
27:11
Speaker 1: thy five hundred yards, including six hundred plus yards to
27:14
Speaker 1: a pin and two thousand yards to a tree. This
27:18
Speaker 1: thing is built for golfers who prioritize accuracy, consistency trust
27:24
Speaker 1: in their equipment. Every Cobalt rangefinder is backed by a
27:28
Speaker 1: lifetime warranty and sold direct to consumer, ensuring uncompromising quality
27:34
Speaker 1: without the usual retail markup. So go to Cobalt dashgolf
27:39
Speaker 1: dot com and enter the code fried egg Pod fifteen
27:44
Speaker 1: for fifteen percent off. That's fried egg Pod fifteen at
27:48
Speaker 1: Cobalt dashgolf dot com. Check it out. All right, let's
27:53
Speaker 1: get back to my interview with Zach Blair. It kind
28:01
Speaker 1: of represents what you were talking about earlier, where there's
28:05
Speaker 1: no big flashy thing about seven. It's just the accumulation
28:09
Speaker 1: of all these little different difficulties and subtleties that end
28:13
Speaker 1: up making it like a tricky hole where you can
28:16
Speaker 1: really get into into some trouble. But you can also
28:19
Speaker 1: you can also just play it in the most boring
28:21
Speaker 1: way possible. You can hit the fairway and hit it
28:23
Speaker 1: within five feet and make bloody. I mean, there's nothing
28:26
Speaker 1: preventing you from doing that. But but once you get
28:29
Speaker 1: a little bit off the beaten track, it's it's tricky. So,
28:32
Speaker 1: speaking of which you've you've talked publicly about about the
28:36
Speaker 1: tenth hole before. This is the hole that most people
28:40
Speaker 1: will be most familiar with at Riviera, the short to
28:44
Speaker 1: driveable part four with the big necklace bunker and the
28:48
Speaker 1: fairway and the and the green that slopes off severely
28:53
Speaker 1: from kind of right to left slash kind of back
28:55
Speaker 1: to frontish and you know the ring of bunkers around
28:59
Speaker 1: the green. So, uh, take me through your your approach
29:03
Speaker 1: to to this whole. How do you how do you
29:05
Speaker 1: think through the way you attack number ten?
29:09
Speaker 3: I think the first handful of years I played it,
29:13
Speaker 3: I don't think you know, I don't like analytics and
29:18
Speaker 3: data certainly wasn't where it is today with you know,
29:23
Speaker 3: people kind of having hard numbers to to see like oh.
29:27
Speaker 2: Wow, it, you know, you definitely shouldn't lay up.
29:30
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, my first few years, I
29:34
Speaker 3: think you saw a lot more people kind of hit
29:36
Speaker 3: a iron or whatever and got a full number in,
29:40
Speaker 3: and towards the last couple of years I played, I
29:43
Speaker 3: think it was like rarely did you ever see anyone
29:48
Speaker 3: not kind of push it up at least like, uh,
29:52
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you would occasionally see like an aggressive
29:55
Speaker 3: layup where it was like a three wood to you know,
29:58
Speaker 3: to the left side or something like that. So my
30:01
Speaker 3: first couple of years I definitely laid up most of
30:04
Speaker 3: the time because I kind of couldn't get there unless
30:09
Speaker 3: it was kind of like perfect conditions. I couldn't have
30:12
Speaker 3: any wind. And that bunker, you know, if you hit
30:16
Speaker 3: it in that bunker, that's short left, like I don't know,
30:18
Speaker 3: fifty yards short left, Like that's not a great spot
30:21
Speaker 3: to be either. And if you I would say, I
30:25
Speaker 3: tend to kind of miss balls to the right, and
30:28
Speaker 3: if you miss anything right that's short of the green,
30:32
Speaker 3: you're basically chipping off the left side anyways, or you're
30:35
Speaker 3: going to hit it in the bunker short and then
30:37
Speaker 3: chip off into the left side. So I always kind
30:39
Speaker 3: of felt like, hey, if I could hit an iron
30:41
Speaker 3: over to ninety yards, I can get this on the green.
30:47
Speaker 3: But that became, I think a little more challenging than
30:50
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, and kind of I eventually saw
30:53
Speaker 3: the light of hey, I'm just going to blast one
30:56
Speaker 3: over there to the left and try and chip it
30:58
Speaker 3: on the green, and if I get lucky and keep
31:00
Speaker 3: one on, you know, in one, that's great. But I
31:04
Speaker 3: don't think I necessarily had a ton of success on
31:07
Speaker 3: that whole, you know, the handful of times that I've
31:09
Speaker 3: played at.
31:11
Speaker 1: Well so have have distance games and kind of analytics
31:17
Speaker 1: ruined the tenth hole at Riviera? Have they made it
31:20
Speaker 1: a less interesting hole in the in the past few years?
31:23
Speaker 1: Do you think?
31:25
Speaker 3: I think it's still super interesting because it's so severe,
31:29
Speaker 3: you know, it's just so penal If you kind of
31:32
Speaker 3: are in the wrong spot and you see a lot
31:34
Speaker 3: of really like crazy stuff around the greens, especially from
31:38
Speaker 3: you know, the best players in the world.
31:39
Speaker 2: You know, you see people putting it off.
31:41
Speaker 3: The green or chipping it, you know, into the back bunker,
31:44
Speaker 3: you know, and you're just kind of like, man, how
31:46
Speaker 3: can you not get that one close? But it's just
31:48
Speaker 3: the contours and the slopes around that green or are
31:52
Speaker 3: just so severe that I don't think it's less interesting,
31:55
Speaker 3: But you definitely don't see you know, you don't see
32:00
Speaker 3: really like the option, you know, the choice of somebody
32:04
Speaker 3: laying up, just because I think the numbers have like
32:07
Speaker 3: they're pretty black and white that it's kind of like, not,
32:11
Speaker 3: you know.
32:11
Speaker 2: This right play.
32:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not the right play to not just blash
32:15
Speaker 3: driver over to the left.
32:17
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess what continues to make it interesting
32:20
Speaker 1: is kind of what you're gesturing towards that there's there's
32:23
Speaker 1: still this amazing range of potential outcomes. Yeah, when you
32:28
Speaker 1: blast it up around the green, and so it's still
32:30
Speaker 1: incredibly entertaining to watch because you don't know what's going
32:33
Speaker 1: to happen, like you and you see kinds of shots
32:36
Speaker 1: and kinds of outcomes that you you really don't see
32:40
Speaker 1: on any other hole on the PGA tour. But certainly
32:43
Speaker 1: the strategic aspect of the hole, the classic kind of
32:47
Speaker 1: Golden Age strategy of the hole, where where you're choosing
32:50
Speaker 1: between kind of hitting a conservative long iron a way
32:54
Speaker 1: out to the left and giving yourself a nice little
32:56
Speaker 1: wedge approach versus being more aggressive that's no longer there
33:01
Speaker 1: for the pros. It might be there for me if
33:03
Speaker 1: if I were to to play the hole, but but
33:07
Speaker 1: for the pros, it's it's, you know, it's kind of
33:10
Speaker 1: solved what what you should do. I think Justin Thomas
33:13
Speaker 1: may have been one of the one of the last
33:15
Speaker 1: holdouts because he's such a great wedge player. He just
33:19
Speaker 1: I think he figured until maybe last year or the
33:22
Speaker 1: year before, like I can just rely on my wedge
33:26
Speaker 1: game here, but but everybody else.
33:29
Speaker 3: Pretty much, it just takes. It takes one bad I can.
33:33
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a good wedge player, you know, it takes.
33:35
Speaker 2: It takes one bad eighty yard ledge back.
33:38
Speaker 3: Right, you know flag and you kind of catch one
33:41
Speaker 3: a little low and it skips into the back bunker
33:43
Speaker 3: and plugs, and you're kind of like, okay, I can
33:45
Speaker 3: get there in one instead of two, uh, you know.
33:49
Speaker 3: And and I think, honestly, like there's just more build
33:53
Speaker 3: up and build up and build up in that front
33:55
Speaker 3: kind of right bunker that just makes the you know,
33:58
Speaker 3: makes the pitch kind of towards the back just more
34:02
Speaker 3: severe and more severe every year that it really just
34:07
Speaker 3: like you're kind of saying, it's just not really worth.
34:10
Speaker 2: It anymore to do anything.
34:12
Speaker 3: And I think most people kind of hit it far
34:15
Speaker 3: enough now too that they can kind of take that
34:19
Speaker 3: bunker that's fifty yards short or whatever out of play
34:22
Speaker 3: pretty pretty easily. But I mean, it still really is,
34:26
Speaker 3: you know, such a fun hole to watch because you
34:28
Speaker 3: see two's and sevens and hole outs and long putts
34:31
Speaker 3: and people putting it into the bunker and spinning it
34:34
Speaker 3: off the green that you know, it's so severe that
34:37
Speaker 3: it's fun.
34:39
Speaker 1: That's the thing. It's it's you know, you might it
34:42
Speaker 1: might not hold up to the kind of classical strategic
34:45
Speaker 1: analysis anymore, but it's undeniably like that's the hole that
34:48
Speaker 1: you that you want to watch, yeah, when you're watching
34:51
Speaker 1: the tournament, And just to put a finer point on
34:53
Speaker 1: the timeline here, you played the tournament twenty fifteen through
34:58
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, and that was kind of when this was
35:02
Speaker 1: starting to change, this shift that we're talking about from
35:05
Speaker 1: like half the field laying up to nobody laying up.
35:09
Speaker 1: That was right at the beginning of that shift. And
35:12
Speaker 1: you can see the story on shot Tracker and Shotlink
35:16
Speaker 1: over over time, like there's a remarkable kind of push
35:20
Speaker 1: of all the dots to the area around the green,
35:25
Speaker 1: and that has accelerated since you've played the tournament for sure,
35:30
Speaker 1: you know with ten, Like, I don't know if this
35:32
Speaker 1: was your action the first time you saw it, but
35:34
Speaker 1: the first time I saw that whole in person, the
35:38
Speaker 1: thing that stuck out to me was just the way
35:41
Speaker 1: that that green sits on that tilt. It almost looks
35:44
Speaker 1: like a skate park, like something you would see at
35:46
Speaker 1: a skate park as opposed to of golf course. Like
35:49
Speaker 1: it's really just so propped up there, and probably that
35:53
Speaker 1: kind of sand splash build up effect in the front
35:56
Speaker 1: right bunker that you're referring to has had an influence there.
35:59
Speaker 1: But it's just like, you know, sitting there on a big,
36:02
Speaker 1: big tilt, and that's the whole. That's the game of
36:05
Speaker 1: the hole, right, is like trying to figure out how
36:07
Speaker 1: to navigate that.
36:08
Speaker 2: Yeah?
36:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well let's talk about some some other
36:13
Speaker 1: holes at at Riviera. Is is there another one? Like
36:16
Speaker 1: so we just talked about the kind of lost strategic
36:19
Speaker 1: aspects of ten. Is there a hole where where you
36:22
Speaker 1: think like some strategy is is still there where where
36:26
Speaker 1: you're where you're still kind of caught between caught between
36:30
Speaker 1: thought patterns and shot types and have to really make
36:33
Speaker 1: a tough decision.
36:36
Speaker 3: For me, eight was always kind of like, you know,
36:41
Speaker 3: do I go left or do I go right?
36:43
Speaker 1: I couldn't double fairway hole with the braaka cutting right
36:46
Speaker 1: up the middle right.
36:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know there were again I kind of
36:51
Speaker 3: tend to lose it right a little more regularly, so
36:55
Speaker 3: I always was kind of scared to go down the
36:57
Speaker 3: left to hit it too are right into the branca
37:01
Speaker 3: and kind of lose my ball. But you know, there
37:04
Speaker 3: were certain pins where it was super advantageous to be
37:07
Speaker 3: on that side. So I mean that was one that
37:10
Speaker 3: you know, I haven't seen it in the last couple
37:13
Speaker 3: of years. They obviously didn't play it last year, but
37:17
Speaker 3: I would assume you still get a pretty even split
37:21
Speaker 3: on that whole, just based on people's comfort level of
37:25
Speaker 3: you know, where they want to be and you know
37:26
Speaker 3: what they're trying to kind of, you know, do on
37:29
Speaker 3: their approach shot, so that you know that one kind
37:34
Speaker 3: of comes to mind.
37:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would.
37:40
Speaker 1: Say eight is, and that again is one where the
37:44
Speaker 1: shot tracker kind of tells a story. It's one of
37:47
Speaker 1: the few holes on the PGA too are in general
37:51
Speaker 1: where you see different players taking different approaches and where
37:56
Speaker 1: pin position can can change the way that people which
37:59
Speaker 1: fair way they choose. There's still kind of a split.
38:02
Speaker 1: There's not you know, a solved strategy yet, which is
38:06
Speaker 1: definitely a credit to the whole. I do wish that
38:09
Speaker 1: some of the reshaping went a little bit differently there
38:13
Speaker 1: that they did, but the the strategy of the hole is,
38:17
Speaker 1: you know, once they restored that double fairway, it was
38:20
Speaker 1: it was pretty awesome. Is there a is there a
38:23
Speaker 1: hole that you that you'd like to see restored? I
38:26
Speaker 1: don't know if you've dug too much into the history
38:28
Speaker 1: of Raviera, but is there one where you're where you're
38:32
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the presentation of the hole currently
38:34
Speaker 1: and thinking, well, if they just made a tweak here
38:37
Speaker 1: or tweak there, and it would probably be a little
38:39
Speaker 1: bit cooler.
38:42
Speaker 2: For the par three is one that kind of jumps out.
38:46
Speaker 3: I don't know how different it is now versus you know,
38:50
Speaker 3: when they built it or whatnot, but it the way
38:54
Speaker 3: it plays right now, you can't, you know, you can't
38:57
Speaker 3: really work the ball in from the right side. I
39:02
Speaker 3: don't know if it's the grasses or the contours or
39:05
Speaker 3: shaping or whatnot. But you know, most people just kind
39:08
Speaker 3: of bang one long and you hope it stays on
39:10
Speaker 3: the back. So I you know that that seems to
39:14
Speaker 3: be like an easy one to jump to that It's like,
39:16
Speaker 3: I think there's probably some stuff they could do there
39:20
Speaker 3: to make it a little more interesting of a golf hole.
39:25
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to think there's there's probably some holes
39:32
Speaker 3: you know that if you added some length that would
39:37
Speaker 3: probably be more interesting. Like you know, if you could
39:40
Speaker 3: just snap your fingers and add fifty yards to number
39:43
Speaker 3: one or eighty r like you know whatever. You know,
39:46
Speaker 3: you'd probably see some different stuff going on there. But
39:52
Speaker 3: I mean they're still all really cool and you know,
39:54
Speaker 3: really fun to play.
39:56
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course, yeah. I mean the the bones
39:59
Speaker 1: are still there. But I mean one is for the pros.
40:02
Speaker 1: That's that's turned into a par four and maybe not
40:05
Speaker 1: that long of a par four, And it would be
40:08
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to see how those second shots
40:11
Speaker 1: would turn out if it were more kind of on
40:14
Speaker 1: the edge of the distance that that somebody could achieve
40:18
Speaker 1: in two shots. But yeah, going back to four. You
40:22
Speaker 1: know that four has been a big subject of discussion
40:25
Speaker 1: recently because it's it's pretty clear that you know, nobody's
40:28
Speaker 1: trying that that run up shot from the right, yeah,
40:32
Speaker 1: you know, and it's a This is George Thomas's version
40:34
Speaker 1: of a ra dan hole. The whole idea is that
40:38
Speaker 1: you do have the option of going straight for the
40:40
Speaker 1: green over the kind of front left bunker, but there's
40:44
Speaker 1: a nice big ramp feeding in from the right that
40:47
Speaker 1: you're also supposed to be able to use. But it's
40:51
Speaker 1: become I don't know if it's become harder to use
40:54
Speaker 1: or if it was always hard to use, but certainly
40:56
Speaker 1: if you look at it now, it's it's just not
40:59
Speaker 1: a very reliable shot to send it out there, because
41:02
Speaker 1: often it will get hung up, and if it doesn't
41:04
Speaker 1: get hung up, then it's probably going to run through
41:07
Speaker 1: the green. My theory is that, you know, this is
41:10
Speaker 1: the the combined effect of the cokuyu, which is a
41:15
Speaker 1: sticky grass in the in the run up to the green,
41:19
Speaker 1: so that you know, trying to use it as a
41:21
Speaker 1: as a ramp is a little bit tricky because you
41:24
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to bounce or if it's
41:25
Speaker 1: going to stick, and then the green just being very
41:28
Speaker 1: very fast, right, So once you get onto the green,
41:32
Speaker 1: the ball is just going to keep running through, whereas
41:36
Speaker 1: back in the day, presumably the run up was faster
41:39
Speaker 1: and the green was slower, which which would have been
41:43
Speaker 1: a better combination for trying trying to use that run
41:46
Speaker 1: up shot. So that's at least my kind of working hypothesis.
41:50
Speaker 1: But but I'm curious in general when it comes to
41:53
Speaker 1: the cocua at at Riviera is does it does it
41:58
Speaker 1: change your approach at all? Did did it factor into
42:01
Speaker 1: your game plan? Did you use like different wedges or
42:04
Speaker 1: anything at rivi Era? What how did you experience that?
42:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never I never changed like equipment, you know
42:12
Speaker 3: for the grass, but you could definitely, you know, see
42:14
Speaker 3: it kind of playing a role in what was going on.
42:17
Speaker 3: And you know, pretty hard to bounce shots in. And
42:21
Speaker 3: there are definitely some holes that you know, you wish
42:23
Speaker 3: you would be able to cause there, at least for
42:26
Speaker 3: me again, I was I'm one of the shorter players.
42:30
Speaker 3: You know, there are a few kind of like four
42:32
Speaker 3: and a half holes out there that you're like, man,
42:35
Speaker 3: I got a long iron in like you know, I
42:38
Speaker 3: remember twelve kind of being pretty long and two being
42:42
Speaker 3: really long, thinking like man, it would be nice to
42:44
Speaker 3: be able to, you know, scoot a shot in here
42:46
Speaker 3: and four, and it's just not really you know, doesn't
42:54
Speaker 3: really allow that. And I also felt like the Cucuya
42:59
Speaker 3: kind of made driving it a teeny bit easier out
43:02
Speaker 3: there because it wouldn't kind of get away from you,
43:04
Speaker 3: and especially as you got into the rough, you know,
43:09
Speaker 3: you usually got pretty decent lies.
43:13
Speaker 2: And it kind of.
43:14
Speaker 3: Would almost be a little bit of a bumper and
43:17
Speaker 3: not allow you to kind of get into trouble. I
43:20
Speaker 3: always thought the place would be a little better of
43:24
Speaker 3: a test if it was kind of, you know, got
43:26
Speaker 3: the fairways like much wider and you know, let the
43:30
Speaker 3: ball kind of run into trouble, almost kind of like
43:33
Speaker 3: what they've done to Augusta in the last handful of years,
43:36
Speaker 3: kind of getting rid of that you know, second cut
43:38
Speaker 3: and letting balls kind of chase into.
43:40
Speaker 2: The trees a little deeper.
43:43
Speaker 3: But it's still the cucui You probably even if it
43:48
Speaker 3: was all fairway, you know, still might have a hard
43:51
Speaker 3: time doing some of that. So I don't know if
43:53
Speaker 3: they've ever wanted to change or thought about changing, but
43:56
Speaker 3: it seems like it's always kind of a discussion every
43:58
Speaker 3: year when when the turnam there.
44:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, my understanding is that it would be hard to
44:03
Speaker 1: change because Kakuya's is invasive and and really stubborn and
44:09
Speaker 1: and that kind of you know, once once it's there,
44:12
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's kind of not leaving. But I'm sure
44:15
Speaker 1: that there's you know, if you look at for instance,
44:19
Speaker 1: l ACC North and bell Air, you know, the two
44:22
Speaker 1: other great George Thomas courses in LA I don't know
44:25
Speaker 1: how how recently you've played either of those, but the
44:29
Speaker 1: the Bermuda grass that they use in the fairways there
44:32
Speaker 1: is under the right conditions, very bouncy and and and
44:38
Speaker 1: very nice, you know, and in southern California recently kind
44:43
Speaker 1: of these new strains of Bermuda have proven pretty successful.
44:47
Speaker 1: So I just wonder how much Riviera would improve if
44:50
Speaker 1: they had the l A CEC grass or if they
44:52
Speaker 1: had the bel Air grass, if that would I don't know,
44:55
Speaker 1: is your experience of playing those other courses different from
44:58
Speaker 1: from Riviera and in that respect.
45:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think kind of what I was
45:03
Speaker 3: getting to before was like, you know, you would you
45:06
Speaker 3: would see a lot of like a more penal side
45:12
Speaker 3: to hitting it in the rough or balls kind of
45:14
Speaker 3: chasing and running away versus you know, kind of getting
45:18
Speaker 3: that just like perfect teed up you know, shot in
45:21
Speaker 3: the rough where you know you.
45:22
Speaker 2: Still lose a little bit of predictability.
45:24
Speaker 3: But when you get that kind of jumper out of
45:27
Speaker 3: the rough or or the ball really is kind of
45:29
Speaker 3: bouncing into trouble, you know that that plays like a
45:34
Speaker 3: big role into a couple of those places where where
45:36
Speaker 3: the ball is just kind of flying away from where
45:39
Speaker 3: you want it to be versus kind of sticking where
45:41
Speaker 3: you want it to be. So yeah, I think you know,
45:45
Speaker 3: you kind of nailed it with with those those other
45:48
Speaker 3: places can kind of tune it up to to get ripping,
45:52
Speaker 3: you know in the fairways where I mean you see that,
45:55
Speaker 3: you see that a teeny bit at Riviera, like when
45:59
Speaker 3: it gets really really firm. But I think it just
46:02
Speaker 3: takes such a more optimal you know run up to
46:07
Speaker 3: the event, plus you know, the four days of the
46:10
Speaker 3: tournament to to kind of get it to that spot.
46:15
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think it would be cooler if you
46:17
Speaker 3: if you had the Bermuda.
46:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to be clear, like they do about
46:21
Speaker 1: as good a job with coquas as you can probably do.
46:25
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up playing on cocuta because I
46:27
Speaker 1: grew up in Southern California, so very familiar with it,
46:30
Speaker 1: and what you're saying about the ball kind of being
46:31
Speaker 1: teed up is totally true about cocua. It's actually kind
46:35
Speaker 1: of funny to go from playing on that kind of
46:38
Speaker 1: grass to firm fescue because it feels like you have
46:44
Speaker 1: less of a margin for error all of a sudden
46:47
Speaker 1: with your especially with your iron shots, because the cocuie
46:51
Speaker 1: it makes it feel like you can really go after
46:53
Speaker 1: the ball and there's almost like this sponge beneath there. Yeah,
46:57
Speaker 1: that will that will help you out a little bit.
47:00
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I mean clearly with the ball on
47:03
Speaker 1: the ground. LACC North bel Air Valley Club of Montecito,
47:07
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've played there recently, but the
47:11
Speaker 1: turf there is unbelievable and it's like a Santa Ana
47:15
Speaker 1: hybrid Bermuda grass and it's just so so good and
47:19
Speaker 1: you're like, Wow, if Southern California golf could be like
47:22
Speaker 1: this all the time, then it would be absolutely amazing.
47:26
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I mean I kind of wonder what
47:28
Speaker 1: the future that is going to be. So I'm curious.
47:31
Speaker 1: You know, you've you've now gone through the process of
47:35
Speaker 1: helping to design and build your own golf course at
47:38
Speaker 1: the Tree Farm. You know, I remember when when you
47:42
Speaker 1: first came on my Radarzac in the kind of mid
47:46
Speaker 1: twenty tens as this this interesting PGA tour player who
47:49
Speaker 1: was also interested in golf course architecture and talked about
47:53
Speaker 1: golf course architecture in a compelling way. Now you're a
47:56
Speaker 1: lot more experienced right in the in the actual practice
48:00
Speaker 1: of building golf courses. Has that experience like changed your
48:04
Speaker 1: perspective at all on courses like Riviera? Do you look
48:08
Speaker 1: at those courses differently now? Do you see different things
48:11
Speaker 1: than you used to before you actually went through the
48:15
Speaker 1: Tree Farm process.
48:18
Speaker 3: Maybe a little bit just of you know, oh, kind
48:21
Speaker 3: of understanding from a construction standpoint of why they would
48:27
Speaker 3: maybe do certain things. I feel like I had a
48:29
Speaker 3: decent idea of you know, you know, water moving and
48:35
Speaker 3: kind of getting something from here to here, and.
48:38
Speaker 2: Why they would do certain things.
48:39
Speaker 3: But then you know, actually doing it and having someone
48:42
Speaker 3: like Kai, you know, be super helpful and really explaining
48:48
Speaker 3: why you don't want to do that here.
48:50
Speaker 1: And this is Kai goldby by the way, who was
48:53
Speaker 1: the construction head at the Tree Farm and definitely one
48:58
Speaker 1: of the industries leading instructuring gurus. Guy knows just knows
49:02
Speaker 1: what he's doing that it comes to building golf courses.
49:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think maybe just kind of a finer
49:09
Speaker 3: understanding of why certain things would be done, why they
49:16
Speaker 3: would put a bunker here, not put a bunker here.
49:19
Speaker 3: You know, why this slope on the green might do this.
49:23
Speaker 3: You know, from from my understanding from doing it and
49:27
Speaker 3: working with those guys, they're always kind of thinking about
49:31
Speaker 3: like where the water's going. So I don't know if
49:34
Speaker 3: I necessarily had that deep of an understanding of it initially.
49:38
Speaker 3: I feel like I kind of had an idea of
49:41
Speaker 3: some of that stuff before, but it definitely, you know,
49:44
Speaker 3: gets your kind of brain spinning, you know, seeing some
49:47
Speaker 3: really cool places after, you know, building the tree farm,
49:52
Speaker 3: and you know kind of going like wow, these guys
49:54
Speaker 3: were like super super with it. You know, they they
49:57
Speaker 3: definitely knew what they were doing even back then, So
50:01
Speaker 3: it's definitely cool to see those those great places.
50:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, towards the beginning of our conversation here, you did
50:06
Speaker 1: mention that that the way that water moves around Riviera
50:10
Speaker 1: Is is something that stands out to you. Are there any
50:13
Speaker 1: details there that that that you think of with Riviera,
50:17
Speaker 1: like what how how the drainage works. Do you have
50:21
Speaker 1: you noticed anything about that on the course.
50:24
Speaker 3: Well, obviously you have like all the all the barankas
50:27
Speaker 3: kind of you know throughout the golf course you.
50:30
Speaker 2: Know, on almost like almost the entire place. You know,
50:35
Speaker 2: you kind of see it. And I only played it.
50:40
Speaker 3: One of the years i played it, there was crazy,
50:42
Speaker 3: crazy storms and you kind of actually got to see it,
50:45
Speaker 3: you know, working where you really see kind of water
50:50
Speaker 3: running through there. Usually they're just kind of dry and
50:53
Speaker 3: you know, sandy and have grasses in them.
50:56
Speaker 2: But it's pretty kind of remarkable.
50:59
Speaker 3: It's to think that back then, you know, people were
51:04
Speaker 3: thinking that much about moving water, but they obviously they
51:08
Speaker 3: knew a lot. Not not thinking that they weren't smart
51:13
Speaker 3: or anything, they obviously knew what they were doing. So yeah,
51:18
Speaker 3: I want to say, I think I might have like
51:21
Speaker 3: a book on it, so I kind of read, you know,
51:24
Speaker 3: read about them building those for that kind of specific purpose,
51:28
Speaker 3: and it is cool to kind of see it in action.
51:31
Speaker 1: It's almost like a you know, the baranka on that
51:34
Speaker 1: one side of the property is sort of the main
51:38
Speaker 1: river in the system, and then you have all these
51:41
Speaker 1: different tributaries, yeah, winding through the holes and leading to
51:45
Speaker 1: that main baranca, which is a very natural way to
51:49
Speaker 1: do drain This is the way that drainage naturally happens
51:52
Speaker 1: on a landscape because the water kind of carves these
51:54
Speaker 1: little areas. And so maybe some of that was intact,
51:57
Speaker 1: was it was just kept there by to allow for
52:01
Speaker 1: the natural drainage, but clearly some of it was also built,
52:05
Speaker 1: and there was you know, there was an awareness that
52:08
Speaker 1: this is how it should function. It the water should
52:10
Speaker 1: be moving across the holes down to this main baranca
52:13
Speaker 1: system and then the brink eventually you know, goes down
52:16
Speaker 1: through the canyon and feeds out into the ocean. And
52:19
Speaker 1: so it's it's very sensible the way it works. But yeah,
52:23
Speaker 1: as you say that, I think I remember that year
52:25
Speaker 1: when when images were circulating of the kind of of
52:27
Speaker 1: the water moving through the golf course, and it's it's
52:30
Speaker 1: pretty cool to see that, isn't it.
52:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
52:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I just remember being out there because we
52:36
Speaker 3: were finishing one of the rounds and then we you know,
52:40
Speaker 3: got called off and had to come back the next morning.
52:43
Speaker 3: But like being out there that one day where it
52:45
Speaker 3: was like dumping and thinking like, man, how are they
52:49
Speaker 3: going to play like the next day, and then going
52:52
Speaker 3: out there and being like I can't believe there's not
52:55
Speaker 3: I can't believe, like we're golfing today and I can't
52:57
Speaker 3: believe the golf course is like dry, you know, I can't.
53:01
Speaker 3: I can't believe we're not just playing out of puddles everywhere,
53:04
Speaker 3: and being pretty amazed that, you know, seeing it the
53:08
Speaker 3: day before and kind of seeing everything run towards where
53:12
Speaker 3: they're supposed to go and and like you say, get
53:14
Speaker 3: to that kind of like main that that main Baranca
53:18
Speaker 3: where it kind of gets all taken away.
53:20
Speaker 2: But uh yeah, pretty.
53:22
Speaker 3: Pretty cool and definitely something that you know, always kind
53:27
Speaker 3: of stuck with me, you know, and and Kai kind
53:30
Speaker 3: of always talking about water moving and you know, surface
53:33
Speaker 3: draining and and everything like that is pretty pretty neat.
53:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, last question related to Riviera for you. You have
53:44
Speaker 1: ten rounds to split between Riviera and the other two
53:48
Speaker 1: big Thomas courses in l A, l ACC North and
53:52
Speaker 1: bel Air. How are you splitting those rounds?
53:56
Speaker 2: I've never played bel Air, h okay, but I've I've played.
54:00
Speaker 1: L A Okay well, maybe just between l A and
54:03
Speaker 1: and Riviera.
54:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think honestly both of them. There
54:08
Speaker 3: there's a there's very few of these like debates of
54:14
Speaker 3: of places that have that great of you know, two
54:18
Speaker 3: golf courses when you're talking like National and Shinnacock and
54:23
Speaker 3: riv and l A, and there's very few of them
54:29
Speaker 3: that I think are you know, I don't really care
54:33
Speaker 3: what somebody else says. I can kind of get down
54:36
Speaker 3: with h with their opinion. I think both of them
54:40
Speaker 3: are like really really good. And I would probably go
54:45
Speaker 3: like six four l A just because I think the
54:52
Speaker 3: way the golf course plays with the grasses and and
54:56
Speaker 3: the times I've played it, it's been just like so firm,
54:58
Speaker 3: and you know, you really you really have to think
55:01
Speaker 3: about where you're going to be, and just I think
55:04
Speaker 3: the green complexes from a shape standpoint are are maybe
55:08
Speaker 3: a little more kind of weird and wild and you
55:13
Speaker 3: see just some some different stuff. So I would probably
55:18
Speaker 3: go six four l A c C. But I know
55:23
Speaker 3: like tons of people that are like I would go
55:24
Speaker 3: seven three RIV And I'm kind of like, oh, you know,
55:27
Speaker 3: I totally I can totally see that, And I think
55:33
Speaker 3: just the aesthetic maybe at LACC, the kind of rugged,
55:38
Speaker 3: you know, just all the little details, is a little
55:42
Speaker 3: more thoughtful and kind of like my style versus RIVS.
55:49
Speaker 3: Maybe like a little more of corporate factories not the
55:54
Speaker 3: right like.
55:55
Speaker 2: Word, but you know, I mean it's a little it's just.
55:59
Speaker 3: A little bit of a different vibe. So I think
56:01
Speaker 3: that plays into it. But just like from.
56:04
Speaker 2: Golf hole to golf hole, a golf hole to golf hole.
56:07
Speaker 3: One through eighteen, I would probably say RIVS better, but
56:12
Speaker 3: I enjoy LACC a little more.
56:15
Speaker 2: That That's kind of a weird take, but you know
56:17
Speaker 2: that's my take.
56:18
Speaker 1: I no, I agree with one hundred percent of what
56:21
Speaker 1: you just said, because LACC, I mean, the big difference
56:24
Speaker 1: here is that la CC North went through a recent
56:28
Speaker 1: and very good restoration. Yeah, and Riviera just has I
56:32
Speaker 1: mean Corn Crenshaw worked there in the mid nineties, but
56:34
Speaker 1: there was only so much that I think they were
56:36
Speaker 1: allowed to do, and so la CC North is closer
56:41
Speaker 1: to what it what it needs to be, right, Yeah,
56:44
Speaker 1: Riviera is Riviera is not really there in that process.
56:48
Speaker 1: But the holes at Riviera are so good. The design
56:52
Speaker 1: is probably George Thomas's best design, and maybe maybe one
56:55
Speaker 1: of like top three, top five Golden Age designs period, Like,
57:00
Speaker 1: it's so brilliant, but it's just not you know, L A. C.
57:03
Speaker 1: C Has all that texture, right, they brought it back. Yeah, yeah,
57:07
Speaker 1: they brought back all that wonderful like California feel, and
57:10
Speaker 1: that's not there at Riviera, right yeah, and so it's
57:12
Speaker 1: just it's different that way, right Yeah, yeah, cool. All right, Well,
57:18
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the Podzac. It's
57:20
Speaker 1: it's been very fun to talk to you about Riviera.
57:24
Speaker 1: Do you have any Do you have any plans coming
57:26
Speaker 1: up that people should be aware of. Are you seeing
57:28
Speaker 1: any cool golf courses coming up? Are you anything people
57:31
Speaker 1: should pay attention to.
57:33
Speaker 3: Heading down to South America to Argentina, going to see
57:36
Speaker 3: the Jockey Club for the first time, so I'm pretty
57:40
Speaker 3: excited about that. And then I don't know, haven't been
57:44
Speaker 3: to the Tree Farm in a few months, so kind
57:47
Speaker 3: of itching to get back there and you know, play
57:49
Speaker 3: some play some rounds out there.
57:51
Speaker 1: But Masters week is kind of approaching, so it's yeah,
57:55
Speaker 1: that's a big, big week for all those Ache and
57:57
Speaker 1: area courses exactly.
58:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
58:00
Speaker 3: But other than that, kind of just it's been crazy
58:03
Speaker 3: weather in Utah, Like you know, the golf courses have
58:06
Speaker 3: been open all winter, so it's been kind of easy
58:09
Speaker 3: to stay here. And you know, even though it's a
58:11
Speaker 3: little chilly Sundays, it's still you know, five minutes away
58:15
Speaker 3: right down the street to go play with some friends.
58:17
Speaker 3: So nothing major on the horizon for me.
58:22
Speaker 1: Very cool, all right, Thanks for coming on, Zach.
58:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks.
58:31
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
58:35
Speaker 1: Thank you Will. If you like these kinds of deep
58:39
Speaker 1: dives into particular golf courses, then make sure to join
58:43
Speaker 1: Frida Egg Golf Club go to the Frida Egg dot
58:46
Speaker 1: com slash membership. One of the things that we offer
58:49
Speaker 1: in FEGC is weekly course profiles, so written pieces on
58:54
Speaker 1: golf courses that we think are interesting, along with great
58:58
Speaker 1: photos taken by our team here at Friday Golf. So
59:02
Speaker 1: FUGC is a lot of fun. It's a great community
59:05
Speaker 1: that we're building of avid golfers in there, so come
59:08
Speaker 1: join us. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back
59:10
Speaker 1: again soon with another episode.