Fore Play - Gil Hanse: “Straight from The Architect”

Episode Date: March 3, 2020

Gil Hanse (24:45), one of golf’s most renowned course architects, joins the show for nearly an hour. We talk building The Cradle short course right in Pinehurst’s front yard, creating Pinehurst’s new no. 4 course, restoring Winged Foot ahead of this summer’s U.S. Open, and what he would do with Augusta’s 13th hole. The crew also talks Old Man Golf Media popping back up, a potential Justine Reed burner account, and the Honda Classic!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Frankie, that little psychopath, is not on the show today. He's filming our boss Eat Pizza for the day, so he's out, which is a real shame. I'm sure he's going to have to postpone his takes until Thursday's show. And we got a couple things to get to here. We're going to hold some of it because we have a great interview with Gil Hans, who is, I would say, in the top three at least.

Everybody's got their preferences, but if you do a little bit of course architecture, course design type stuff, knowledge, research, reading, watching, whatever, he could be your number one. He does a ton of restoration work on a lot of golf's biggest, most iconic courses, especially United States of America, Wingfoot, which is having the U.S. Open. He's just finishing up Marion. He's done LA Country Club, which is having U.S. Open. He's done the country club up in Brookline, which is having U.S. Open very soon, just did Southern Hills, which Tiger won the 2007 PGA Championship there.

I was there with my brother. He's done an insane amount of restoration work in golf in a lot of golf's most iconic courses. And then he's also done a lot of originals, a couple of which we've talked about a lot at length very recently, which are Pioneers number four. the cradle at Pinehurst which is the nine hole short course very fascinating after how much we've talked about it hearing Gill who literally created it um he stayed in Donald Ross's house we actually had discussed with him Trent uh ghosts potentially living in the Dornet cottage which is Donald Ross's house yep did he say he's seen any he said that he and well I don't want to give it away too much but he told a little bit of a story about two or three a m. one night he and his

wife um stayed and lived in the Dornet cottage for three months while he was working on the Pinehurst, different projects. And so he talks a little bit about that. But it's just fascinating hearing him talk about creating a part of three short course. They blew up a couple holes that were part of some of the other courses at Pinehurst that are right out in the front lawn of the clubhouse to build that. We get into different, you know, architectural stuff. The Olympic course is what's coming up at Wingfoot.

So there's just Palmetto. They redid Palmetto, I think, in 2007. We famously played that with kids, which that video is coming out in a couple weeks. I've seen the whole thing. It's amazing. But we talked about the pond on one that Frankie hit into, which is basically impossible.

That's coming up in a few minutes. There's definitely a ghost in that house. I just want that out there. Well, yes. If there's any ghosts anywhere, it's definitely in Donald Ross's house. Just because, I mean, we stay there so we know what it's like, but it's got that vibe to it.

There's old paintings everywhere. Especially when you're a course architect, staying in a famous course architect's house, like designing courses right there in his office. Yeah. That ghost is like, this is what I've been waiting for for like a century. Yeah. I come out here and do this and be haunting and ghost-like.

So, yeah, obviously there's ghosts in there. He knew that. He knew that. Yeah. So it's a great chat. That's coming up in a few minutes. I'd like to shout out the Eden Prairie High School Boys Golf Team. Their head coach, David, shot me an incredibly nice note

and asked if we do shoutouts. I was like, well, now we do. I was wondering why you can in Prairie High School got the shoutout And it's just if you ask, we'll do it We'll just give you a shout-outs Yeah Stumbled a ball

Shout out to them Good luck this year You know Yeah Minnesota I don't know I don't get to play For a couple months Up there

One of the main things I wanted to bring up With March Is that it's fucking crazy It's March already Because it's like spring time I mean I think the clocks go back In like a week

Is that right? I think the clocks go back Or yeah Spring forward Spring forward pretty soon. The Masters is in a fucking month, which doesn't make any sense.

Masters week literally begins in like a month. We made it through January, made it through February. We live up in the Northeast where things are going to be a little dicey. I think we're in the clear. I mean, I might have a couple of weeks. The weather today's beautiful.

It's almost 60 degrees outside. We'll have a couple weeks here and there where we'll get a little dicey. But like, we're getting fucking close to golf season, which is, I don't know, it almost doesn't feel right. It was an easy winner. I'm the first one to say it.

Yeah. That's risky to say that, my friend. It was an easy one. That is a very, bringing. I mean, we're still going to have cold mornings and things like that, but I mean, we're almost in the clip. When did we have that blizzard?

Wasn't that in March when we went and filmed that thing that Time Magazine picked up? That was great. I remember you leaving for that. That might have been March. Maybe late February. I want to say it was March. So I'm a little concerned about Lurch's comment right there. We might get one late storm, one late storm, but really, we're on the up and up.

March is great. You got everything's in fronty, and the whole golf. season in front of your golf games in front of you've been thinking about your fucking swing and new stuff you're going to do this year you got new toys you probably got a bunch of golf balls and a bunch of gadgets for Christmas that I've been sitting around for like two months and you just been trying to find little crevices in your apartment or your house where you get like swing you've been putting so the whole fucking golf world is in front of you it's an exciting time golf's picking up right now in terms of we got bay hill and we got the players championship um

which is right up there with the freaking majors everybody wants to debate is the fifth major this that no it's just the player's championship which is cool. People will remember players as he won X amount of majors. He won a players championship. That's just what it should be. So that's fucking next week. Tiger Woods not playing in Bay Hill, which now it's going to limit his starts to if he plays the players and match play, which I can't imagine he won't. But if he plays those, those are going to be the only two tournaments he plays before the Masters, which is crazy. Bay Hill, he's won nine million times there, I believe. You know, Arnold Palmer, he likes to always play the spots where the grades, the

invitationals that kind of celebrate them and him not playing there two years in a row. A little concerning if it weren't for the fact that he did not play last year and won the master's. That's really what you've got to look at. He knows his body better than anybody. I don't like him saying he's still stiff. That sucks. That makes me feel sad. It makes me a little nervous, but he knows better than anybody.

I trust him. Steinberg did release. He said, still stiff and not quite ready. Fine. If you're not ready, fine. It's a horrible line, though. Stiff and not quite ready. It just means like...

This is what we know is normal now, though. I know, I know, I know. But you can't love that lie. Maybe like loose, like getting looser. Give that a positive spin. You don't have to say stiff. You're going to be like getting looser but not right, not there yet. And then you're excited about it.

Like he's just... Stiff and not quite ready. He's like a frozen wooden board like trying to walk through his house. It is a hopeless statement. Not that it's completely hopeless, but there's no hope in that statement, really. It's got a negative connotation to it. You want that uplifting one. He's getting there.

Yes. He's almost ready. There it is. Tiger would have never delivered it that negatively. No. He's too crafty with the media. Steinberg's like he's just in competition. Leave us alone.

Regardless. It's weird the phases that we go through with this man now. I mean, last year ago, when he pulled out of Bay Hill, it was like, oh my God, nightmare time. Then played the players and looked pretty good. And then played the match, played beat Rory. and made it to the semis. And you were thinking, holy shit, it looks great.

Then he won the Masters. He's thinking, oh, my guy, he's the best player of all time again. This is great. And then he pretty much sucked the rest of the year until then he had those minor surgeries. Not sucked, but, like, you know, he didn't really contend the majors, and it just was less than ideal,

especially coming out of the Masters win. And then he reemerged after taking a couple months off in the conclusion of last year's PGA tour season and the playoffs and all that. He wins in Japan. And then he goes to the players or to the president's cup. and looked like he was better than he was when he was 24, playing a course like Royal Melbourne.

He's playing all these shots with firm greens and reading them perfectly. And it was just incredible. And then he goes out at the farmers, nothing special. It looked horrible, really, the last weekend out of Riviera. And now he's just stiff and not ready. I know. What the fuck is going on here? I don't know what to do.

It's an emotional roller coaster. I hope he's loose and ready. come the master's tournament. That's really what we're focused on. That is the key focus. A couple things I want to touch on before we get to Gil. Old Hugsy Pants is back. Sure is.

In physical print form in Australian magazine. Yeah, he's back, but like I couldn't find it. No one could. Somebody tweeted that picture out at us, and I was like, okay, this is something I'm going to at least look at because it's about us and I want to see what he says, regardless of how ridiculous the things that he says are. So I, like, looked up all of the key words that I, I could sort of look at from the picture, and it just doesn't exist.

It's nowhere. It's what is it? It's an Australian magazine. Is that what it is? It was sent to me by someone who was in Australia and was like, we saw this. Even down here, you guys are like, you know, wrestling people up. And it was, and I can't find it anywhere. You have to zoom in on the blurry stuff to try to read.

That's all you could do is just zoom in. I was transcribing it earlier for the podcast. I didn't think they did that anymore. I didn't think they only put something in print. There's no way that's the way they do things anymore. You have to put on the internet for people to see it. it nobody buys magazines anymore news flash this is like 10 years old but like he that's got to be by design he gets his shots in but it doesn't go to the point where we can physically find it and be like

look how stupid this is and that really is probably the funniest part of the whole thing for sure is that he wrote this thing and no one who it pertains to can even find it to read it it's like he only wrote it it's the definition of an echo chamber he only wrote it for people like him that can only read it and print me. The whole thing was very funny. The line at the top, I genuinely feared for my safety and that of my family because of a couple Twitter trolls, which, again, if he saw our mentions every single day, like, buddy, what are you talking about?

This is just the internet. This is how this world looks. Yes, if your argument is that the internet can suck sometimes and people say very careless things like they wouldn't in real life, totally agree. The other part of this that we have seen happen and play out a, um, a, trillion a zillion times here at barcel's sports someone fires the first shot we respond they then cry victim um publicly that's exactly what old hugs he did um he chirped us multiple times uh about our little fist pump with tiger woods he he said journalism of the 21st century ladies and gentlemen

with the like embarrassed monkey emoji yeah he uh chirped us about like imagine this is who the pga tour is giving media credentials to uh first of all we're not journalists one of his lines in this thing was also that so-called, he said, we're so-called journalists. No, we're not. That's not true. Incorrect. Never have ever, under any circumstances,

we called ourselves a journalist. Not once. No one who knows us or understands what we do would ever mistake us for journalists, not even close. No, we say it sarcastically. Like when we get a scoop on something, like with the Patrick Reed thing at the President's Cup,

we sarcasticity to refer to ourselves as journalists. Big Jail. Right. Like that's a joke. It's a joke, Huggsy. I know that he doesn't get it, but there's a joke. So the big line that he is, that again, that triggered him in this piece was Frankie tweeting out,

I want Answer to quit the game of golf when Tiger is done with him today when Tiger and Abraham Answer were going to face off in their singles match at the President's Cup. The fact that that's what this is all about, the fact that that's what really fires him up every time, the fact that he based, one of his two pillars of, like, criticism against us is based off of that tweet. if you actually thought in a literal sense Frankie Borrelli wanted Abraham answer to quit the game of golf and thought that that was like a feasible outcome from the match, then you just,

you don't understand anything. Also, if you took this directly from the article in terms of like pinching your fingers and trying to zoom in and it says announce the wretched Borrelli is just an all-time line. I don't know if I've ever seen that

in another piece of journalist. Announce the wretched Borrelli. That actually was, that reminded me a little bit of when there's one anti-barstool writer who we will not name but she has written some very funny lines before and that actually made me laugh

a lot when he said announced the Richard Borelli. Like we were reading a fucking, like about witches or something like the Richard Borelli. It came out of like Harry Potter. Yeah, I wish Frankie would like change his name to Rretched Borelli on Twitter. I mean he should do that. I'm going to

respond to all of his stuff now and okay, Richard Borelli. But yeah, we were out We were at a wedding, like pretty many cocktails and glasses of wine deep, and I laughed out of that. I called him wretched burroughs. So I didn't really, I sort of looked at the picture. I got the gist of what he was saying. Did he address Frankie saying to put him in a home at all? I don't know.

I don't think so. Yeah, it looked like there was like five columns and I could only see and kind of like work through two and a half or three from the picture I saw. So could have, but again, you can't find it anywhere. Right. Couldn't find it. I know, I can't find it. So anyone in Australia that has that link, send it on over. I don't think it exists.

I don't either. They're going to have to get your mailing address and send you a magazine. That's the only way. Do that. I'd love it. It's crazy. Send it to the office. I mean, part of the beef with him was that he blocked us and then he left Twitter.

And I mean, I said that it's going to come back on him because he doesn't have a place to promote his works like this. But it doesn't matter if you don't put him on the internet. He checkmate on me there because he just doesn't put stuff on the internet anymore, I guess. It's very strange. Yep. And again, it's hard to reiterate this enough. but this is a man who is written an entire piece in some Australian print magazine, physical print, if you can believe that, crying and claiming becoming the victim,

when he went out of his way on multiple occasions to take shots at us, and we had done nothing to him whatsoever, not made a single comment about him, could not care less about him going on about his business, doing his job, whatever he wants to do, fine, good for you, there's probably a place for whatever you do, cool, fine, whatever. Yet he went out of his way to say, first, these so-called journalists were shown high-fiving American Captain Tiger Woods as he walked past and Gittily celebrating in a manner akin to six-year-old children. This was him in this print piece following up on what he was so upset about at the beginning. Pretty funny.

But also. It's hysterical and not all wrong either. Well, Gittily celebrating a manner akin to six-year-old children or like any golf fan on Earth who's not in a position like he was, which he was more biased than us writing this piece because the. reason he's upset is because our lord and savior tiger woods was fucking steamrolling all over the international team on their soil on their crown jewel which is royal melbourne and he was so upset if we were like giddily fist bumping ernie ls he would have loved it he wouldn't have cared at all but because we're going after because we're all pumped up because tiger woods is the fucking man and we were giddy like anyone from six year old children to you know 33 year old adult men who are

misconstrued for journalists sometimes would be he's all upset about it of course we're fucking excited. Everybody listening to the show would be that excited. Fis Popp and Teggowitz. So Hugsie's back. Very funny stuff. Reminder, if you really need some larger context on who this guy is, Jason Sobel, who I believe his Action Network now, is at ESPN forever. He quote tweeted old Huggsy when he was chirping at Max Homa, saying that it was just self-motion when he was making and has continued to do his hilarious bit where he rose people's golf swings, which is all good fun. Everybody loves it. Jason, Sobel responded and wrote,

Speaking as a hashtag old guy in hashtag golf media, kind of a lurch thing there, you're kind of making us look bad. And Matt Janella went on and responded, and I'll read this again. John epitomizes the bitterness and negative attitude that gives the game a bad name. He has used and abused his platform

to air his own regrets and failures as a player and professional. Thankfully, guys like you, for play, have come along to provide fresh air and alternative perspective. That's my favorite quote. So good. That's a hammer quote.

Snatches his soul. just gone. Your soul has been eliminated. So Bell's quote, like funny in nature. Janella's is just a hammer. Yeah. So Bell's is actually almost better because it's someone who, he has self-awareness to the fact that he's one of the older guys,

but he's like even this other older guy is making us look terrible. Because he has made bad decisions on who to critique. So just adding some context there. Quickly, I'd like to remind everyone that we have teamed up. Barstall Sports has teamed up with New Amsterdam vodka and created the signature drink, the Pink Whitney. A lot of Barstville Pond Hockey action the last couple weeks. I was up in New Hampshire at the one a week ago.

The Chicklets crew, look, yes, we had a little bit of a rivalry when I was going to play Whitney, but he had to bail out because he wanted to retain some status, aka who knows what his real reasons were, but he didn't want to play me. Chicklets guys are hilarious. We're not a hockey podcast, but we do like Spitting Chicklets was created by a hockey podcast.

I'm sorry, we do like Pink Whitney, which is created by hockey podcast. The result, it's a seriously smooth vodka infused with fresh pink lemonade flavor. You got to keep this game changer on deck for your tailgates, your pregames, your watch parties, whatever it is. You could find the bottle at your local liquor store, ask them directly to get some bottles in stock if they don't have them. New Amsterdam vodka is the official vodka of barstool sports. And Pink Whitney, you are going to love it. Go get yourself a bottle. Go get yourself several bottles.

Pink Whitney, good stuff, although I would beat Whitney in a match with strokes. Okay. um justine reed so i um an account a an account that um goes by golf facts has emerged and joel of uh golf digest he i believe was the first man on the case this morning maybe it was yesterday evening i can't recall but this account it is uh at use golf facts and fax is capitalized and it just is a very clear pattern of responding exclusively to defend Patrick Reed. And there's no picture, you know, it's just kind of a faceless account here on Twitter. And I'll give you a couple of these examples.

First, responds, and this is where it jumped on Joel's radar. Everyone has heard about at Joel M. Beal and his obsession with Patrick Reed. Look at the articles he's written on Patrick Reed golf for years. It's clearly an agenda to smear reeds name, create controversy, and abuse their platforms at Reed's expense for, quote, clicks. Sick. Then responded to David Farity, where he, of course, on our show and on a few other platforms, has called him Captain Oblivious. He said, at Ferreity, or this account, aka Justine Reed's burner account, to think all this time you had a mind of your own. How sad to see someone like yourself pile on a courageous young man who has had to withstand so many media attacks, play amazing golf,

for people like yourself to abuse your platform to bring someone down. Shame. Another response. Why doesn't anyone ever ask Patrick Reed what he thought about the teammates he had at Georgia and Augusta State? Only one-sided. They never ask him what he thinks of them. Isn't that odd?

In response to people being like, yes, Patrick Reed also has a story of history of not being loved by his teammates in college. Her response, aka, or, you know, use golf facts. Yep, yep. At use golf facts on capitalized facts, you know, responding to the, these criticisms. Another one. This is a completely false statement.

Chris Hack, golf coach, UGA completely dismissed any knowledge of any accusations in college, period, about Badger Creed and later has dismissed for, was dismissed for two out-gall violations when Reed was 17. Get your fag straight. And then another one,

who says they would have to give up majors, talking about the Premier Golf League, which Patrick Reed is rumored to be a massive fan of Premier Golf League. That's not true of official World off ranking points are awarded to these tournaments, which under any circumstances with top 50 players in the world competing, they should be. Then the premier players should be intrigued.

It's just like playing WGCs. So if you add all these things up, context clues, some people are saying this might be someone from the read camp. So I was just going through all the tweets on golf facts just to sort of get a, just to see. Perometer. Yeah, I just kind of want to try to judge for myself to see if I think that it's her. So I went all the way back to Gulfax's first tweet, which was now, it was December 24th, 2019, which if you will remember, that is the day that Patrick Reed followed me on Twitter. At like 1 a.m.

At like 1 a.m. So I'm saying that could be, you know, if it was created that day, and then she also followed me on Twitter. I'm saying that could line up for where it could be her burner account. I think it probably is her, judging from what you've been reading. Like, do you guys think it's her? Yes. Okay. I do. I mean, I try to dig into, like, who they're following, who's following them to see if there was any inclination.

I couldn't pick up much on that. But with some of those consistencies and some of the timestamp tweets from what Riggs just read, like some of those went out at 4.15 a.m. So that maybe that's, you know, the working hour for. Who knows? I've seen, I think people have broken down a little bit of who this account follows. And it is a little bit of, you know, a mixed bag. There's kind of a, uh, people over i think someone said there's like a random houston radio host or something that they follow it's you know the reads live in houston um so i i'm kind of scrolling through right now and trying to confirm that i'm not sure and people might know the radio hosts you know whoever whoever

tweeted that um would know who it is more than we would but um i did do a few searches to see if they responded uh anything we put out for play all of our individual accounts nothing okay leaves me disappointed i will say yeah but we have but with the The only thing that I would say against that is we've been openly, not critical, but we've openly talked about how we think Justine Reed is pulling all the strings behind what's going on with Patrick Reed. So it would almost be a little too on the nose if she responded using this account being like, you guys are being too hard on Justine Reed. Then it looks like her. So that's why I don't. Patrick is his own man.

Why would you? Yeah. Yeah. So it's none of that. It hasn't responded to any of us once. Like I said, I'm a little disappointed by that. Yeah, me too. It's, you know, I see Auburn football has a follow.

Barack Obama and President Trump have a follow. Keep in it down the middle. Bill Gates. BC football. Am I reading that right up? BC football's up there. FSU football. I think that's a little, right.

That's, you know, trying to frame somebody maybe. So it's worth a glance. If you're sitting at home right now, you know, you're a little, maybe you're on the couch, you're watching a game and you're looking during commercials to kill some time. Go throw a follow to at, use golf facts. The handle is incredible. Follows every person that's in Politicoff Channel. Every single one of them.

All lowercase. The only like on the account, the only thing that's ever liked is a Guardian article defending Patrick Reed. Come on. That's the only like ever. If you go to the like, it's only. Yep, you're right. The only like this article is titled, in defense of Patrick Reed. That's so good.

That's one like. That's a giveaway. You know, we're just giving you the contact clues. You can use your own brain. think however you would like. Okay. Next up, we've got Gil Hans, who, again, I gave a little bit of introduction beforehand. It's a very insightful conversation with a man who designs, restores, renovates some of the great

golf courses in the world, and many of which will either already have been showcased very recently or are about to be showcased on the biggest stages in all of golf. So enjoy this chat with Gil. All right, folks, next up, I am joined by Mr. Gilhance of Hans' golf course design. I've been going through and whipping up your little intro. You have restored quite recently, I believe, by my count, five courses in Golf Digest, top 20. A course that we've played and talked about a lot recently, sort of an original design restoration combo, which we'll get into,

Pioneer's number four, original designer of the cradle. of Streamsong Black of the Olympic course of Boston Golf Club and many more. I just listed a few of those so that folks will probably be pretty familiar with those courses. You were last on the show, which we were just discussing. Over two years ago, November 14th, 2017, but Gil, welcome back to the show. I'm very excited to have you. Thanks, Riggs. I appreciate it.

Yeah, it's hard to believe it's gone by that fast. And I was thinking you guys have, you know, now your international celebrities, hanging out the President's Cup and Tiger Woods. I'm glad you had me back on. Yeah, you did try to, you know, you tried to kind of lowball yourself a little bit when we were talking. You're like, I don't know if you want to have me. But, you know, you're one of the most prolific golf course designers.

You're significantly more credible, I would say, than we'll ever be. So, you know, it's nice that we're able to get together yet again and chat. And I have to mention, too, that when we just connected a minute ago, you were literally in a bulldozer and said I have to turn the bulldozer off of her park it real quick. So you're very authentic. I like that. Yeah, no, I'm actually sitting here out of the wind. If you hear the wind, I'm sorry. I've tried to get the bulldozer point in a direction where it won't we won't hear the wind out there. It's a beautiful sunny day, but it is chilly. The windchills. Not very nice. We're in North Texas. All right, we're in North Texas. Well, you sound great right now.

We've had people be on the phone when it's windy or when they're in the car or this, that sounds terrible. He sounds great right now. Cool. So I want to start with Pinehurst. You've had a lot of your work has been very publicized, very much celebrated, talked about that you've done in Pinehurst over the last few years. I made my first trip there. We all did here in the Fourplay crew in November. Went back a few weeks ago with my roommate, a couple other buddies, played Pioneers number four in the cradle yet again. I kind of want to go back to really your first, I guess, relationship or connection with Pioneers because, you know, Pioneers founded. 1895, traditional, as traditional as it gets the cradle of American golf, yet over the last

10 years, it's sort of gone from, it's transformed quite a bit from this, you know, incredibly entrenched traditional sort of place to all of a sudden a little bit more sort of modern, hip evolving quite a bit. You've been a huge part of that. So I just kind of want to hear you talk about really the beginning of the process of getting involved with Pinehurst. Well, you know, I think everything really traces back to when Pinehurst hired Bill Coor and Ben Crenshaw to restore course number two. And, you know, that was the big gamble. And Bob Dedman, the founder of Pinehurst, you know, took a chance with the leadership there to, you know, look at what did Donald Ross do. And then he hired, you know, the best in the business of Bill and Ben.

And they did an amazing job restoring the golf course. I think that really set the framework for the resort to go further. And then I think it's like 2014 or 15. Tom Pashley becomes the president of Pinehurst. And Tom has got his finger on the pulse and hangs out with some of the younger crowd and understand sort of where golf was going and looked around at the golf resort landscape and said, all right, well, what are our competitors doing? And I think he was, you know, somewhat of a visionary to see we need to, need to update our image.

And, you know, how do we do that? And so I think they thought about bringing in somebody to look at the short game area and to look at, you know, is there a potential to build a short golf course? I think having seen Bandon Dunes had the success with the preserve. I think Tom thought maybe that could be something you could do. And then we were, I guess, top of their list to talk to. We came in, we looked at that area, and honestly, for them to entrust us with the front door of the clubhouse and the resort, it's pretty nice. And so we came up with a concept of, you know, Jim Wagner, my partner and I came up with a concept of building this little short course on what was originally course, you know, holes number one on course three and five. is the driving range for the U.S. Open, et cetera, et cetera.

And, you know, we crafted the cradle. We moved the short game area out of that area. And so it was just sort of a big jigsaw puzzle of how do we fit everything into this space. And then Bob Dedman and Tom Pashley were really happy with the way the cradle turned out. During the process of the cradle, we had the discussion about whether we could do something with course number four that might be an, upgrade on it and having seen what Bill and Ben did with Course 2, we kind of knew the look and the style and we wanted to make it feel like it could be compatible with Course 2, which, you know, in its configuration at that time was not, but we didn't want to copy course number 2.

So I think we were able to convince Tom and Bob that doing what we did out there on number four would make the core of the resort. So courses one through five at the core feel a little bit more put together. Yeah, so the cradle, I want to talk about some of those challenges. Because for anybody who hasn't been there, you know, there is the large iconic clubhouse. Several of the courses sort of start and finish there with their first holes and their 18th holes. There's the putting green. And the cradle now occupies a significant portion of sort of the front lawn of Pinehurst,

which like we said, it's been there for, you know, 130 years, were there, like, parameters given to you on, you know, where you can or can't build? Like, what sort of a little bit, like, more detailed challenges were presented for you guys to build sort of this? It's turned out now that everybody praises it, but it's a very bold and kind of ballsy short course right on the front lawn of Pioneers. Yeah, I think it was really more an exercise in just juggling.

where everything, we knew we had to have a short game area, we knew we had to have the putting green, the thistle do, you know, fun putting green, and we knew we had to have the cradle. So it was just Jim and I trying to see what would fit in there. And Tom and Bob didn't give us any, you know, it has to be nine holes. It made it turned out it was nine holes for the cradle. It could have been 10. It could have been eight. It could have been seven. So it was just sort of fit what you can into this space. And, you know, there were a couple things that, you know, we were, we really, Tom Pashy will get a kick out of this, but we lobbied pretty hard for that, the, what is now the pine cone, but we knew that we had a winner with, you know, having

a bar set up somewhere in close proximity to the design. We, Jim and I were talking about something a little bit more formalized, but the pine cone is just perfect. So we, we kind of joked around during this. And like you said, nobody had any idea how successful this could or would be. So I think it was just fill the space. And then once we figured out what would fit in the space, it was let's build something. The first and foremost is going to be fun. I mean, when you think about golf course architecture, a lot of what we're doing is building stuff that has to meet a certain criteria. You know, the shot values have to be right.

You know, the green has to be receptive to whatever shots coming into it, a seven iron or a four iron or et cetera. And, you know, the green has to have a certain slope because if it's too excessive, You know, there's all these rules or more like guidelines for golf course architecture that, you know, if you break those, chances of people aren't going to like the golf course or something's not going to come out right. But there were no rules with the cradle. It was just, hey, let's build nine greens that are diverse and that are going to be fun. Let's build golf holes that you can put from every single T to the green, maybe not on a direct line, but you could put every single hole if you wanted to. And then, you know, I think the magic sauce is let's figure out how we can build something that's going to be challenging for a single-digit handicapper, yet playable and fun for somebody who's never picked up a golf club in their life. And to be able to hold the interest of that really good player and still make it manageable for everybody else, I don't know how we did it.

It's not like we had this secret formula. It just happened to work out that way. And that, I think, is the coolest result of it all. So I want to talk a little bit more about that, about the concept of building something that's playable for everyone, yet still challenging the single digit, sort of the top small percentage of golfers that play the game. And sort of where are you able to do that? Or where are you able to sort of make up that ground where, hey, it's playable, the balls are going to be in play, the folks that maybe go out and they're going to shoot 100 or whatever it is or don't. play that often are still going to love their experience, where can you make up the other ground then of still challenging the better players?

Well, I think what we've locked in on is short grass as a hazard. Oh, actually, wait, take that back. We're not allowed to say hazard anymore. It's a penalty area or whatever that gets called. There you go. You know, just the ability for a target to be somewhat difficult to hit, so the level of precision required to hit that target is pretty high. But the penalty, if you miss it, is you're basically just rolling.

rolling off the side of a green and you can still put back up at the pin, that gives so much latitude for the amount of play. I mean, the expectation of somebody who's never played the game of golf before or as a beginner is not that they're going to go out there and make birdies or, you know, anything like that. They're just trying to keep, you know, not lose golf balls and just have fun. And the better player is actually trying to hit that really small target and, you know, or work a ball off of a slope and feed it towards the hole.

and if they miss it, that little chippy, bumpy, whatever, all those different decisions that they can make as to how they want to play that next shot complicates the matters for a better player. A better player if they're in a bunker or if they're in the rough, they've got that shot down. They know exactly what it is. But once you give them options

and maybe a kernel of doubt creeps into their head that they're not picking the right option, now the battle's even that much harder. So I think it really focuses, around those recovery shots and how they're playable for everybody, yet still can be challenging for a good golfer. Yeah, it's funny when we were to move on a little bit to Pioneer's number four, you know, when I was down there with my most recent group,

when we played it, I think we had everything from a 79 to a 104 were shot, and not one person lost the golf ball. And everyone, you know, once we were pretty much approaching the green, everyone was still sort of in every hole. Now, what happened around the greens is not necessarily something that we wrote home about but that sort of all goes back really to the origins of course architecture of links golf where you know if you play the old course at st andrews like it's pretty difficult to lose a golf ball out there yet they can host a major championship every five years yeah i mean we we had the

the great fortune of working with a gentleman who's no longer with us named mark parson and a castle Stewart in Scotland. And Mark always talked about, and Jim and I to this day still think about this every time we get on a golf courses. He said, the goal of a golf course architect is to keep the golfer hopeful and engaged. When you think about that, it's pretty, it's really a cool saying because, you know, if you're hopeful, that means you think you can accomplish something. You know, you put all of us in a 12-foot deep bunker and we're despondent and we're hoping, you know, it's like, okay, I'm done. But you put us in that short grass and I'm putting and, you know, if I'm hopeful that, hey, maybe I'm, chances are, based on your handicap, you're not going to pull the shot off, but at least you think you can.

And then if you're engaged, that means your ball's still in play. Once your ball's in your pocket, you're not engaged. You're kind of looking at the birds and the trees and, you know, or your buddies, you know, finishing out the golf hole. You're not engaged in the play of that golf course any longer or that golf hole any longer. And so it's, you know, good golf course architecture keeps players hopeful and engaged. And I think, you know, we talked about that on course number four. We certainly talked about that on the cradle. You know, again, it was just that whole fun, fun equation.

And Jim and I, you know, weren't your average golfers. I mean, my index is like 113 and I think his like 10-2. So we're not, you know, we want to have fun. We want, we're the guys that are out there. You know, sometimes we're hitting great shots. sometimes we're not, but we're, so I think that helps us to kind of understand what the average golfer is going through. Right.

And ultimately, you know, we still want people to have to make choices if they're a good player or even if you're an average golfer. You still have to think your way around the golfers. We don't want it to be mindless. But we want, if you make smart decisions, and that generally starts with playing the right tee, you know, most golfers play from way too far back. But if you start making good decisions by the tee you play, And then you think and you make good decisions based on the way you play the game of golf,

you should be able to navigate through our golf courses without, you know, getting dinged up too bad. It's when you make the bad choices, like everything in life. That's when things you can kind of get hurt. Yeah, oh, yeah, quite. We're very familiar with that. And it's kind of what you just described with the handicap index of both of you guys is a lot of what's allowed us to be successful, too, is that, like, you know, we're not sitting here as professional golfers trying to relate. what's going on in the game or on these golf courses to the average, because I think if you're

at 10 handicap, you're better than like 80% of golfers or whatever it is. So I think that helps. Yet at the same time, it's very interesting that, you know, you can be an 11-3 index. You're creating a course like the cradle, which is 789 yards. Anybody can play. You can use a putter. And then you've also got a couple U.S. Opens coming up at courses that you've very recently restored. So it's a very cool mix. I want to get into that. But before we go away from Pioneer Number four, you know, you have it listed. There's different terminologies for restorations, for renovations, for original design. I know it kind of crosses a few different of those boundaries.

So talk about kind of the uniqueness of working on Pioneers Number 4 because the way I understand it, and, you know, I'm playing it a couple times, but outside of that, it's not that deeply. It feels like it was sort of a mix of some original input versus what was there. And so just kind of talk a little bit about how unique that was. Yeah, it is. It's definitely a hybrid. I mean, you know, we look at restoration as sort of when the original architect's design is what style is first and foremost in what we're trying to accomplish. Renovation is when, you know, we get to interject our ideas into that, but we still retain some of what the original architect wanted. And obviously, original design is something where, you know, basically everything we do is predicated on our thought process. So that golf course, and people keep thinking that, oh, well, it was, you know, Pioneers number four was a raw.

course so you guys restored it. Well, no, the course number four that Ross built is gone. It's been long gone. They've sold off part of the property for real estate. It doesn't sit. It sits in some of the same configuration, same corridors, but it's completely gone. But we did look at some of his old drawings and the old photographs of the aerial photos to use some of the bunker patterns as we worked our way through it. And then subsequently, Robert Trent Jones redid the golf course. Rees Jones redid the golf course. Tom Fazio, redid the golf course. So we're, you know, in including Ross's original, were iteration number five. And so I think you're looking at, you know,

there are certain components, certain corridors that we had to use. We couldn't just go and blitz all the trees. So, you know, there were elements of the golf course. But once you got inside the corridors, everything is original. You know, the green complexes, the bunker locations. And it was probably one of the more fascinating jobs you've ever had to do. We had to kind of untrain our cavemen, our shapers, and say, listen, normally we're working with the landscape that we found and we're trying to plug a golf course into it,

we had to go back and reconnect the landscape, put the valleys back where the valleys were, put the ridges back where the ridges were, reconnect the landscape on course four, because it had become disconnected after all these different variations on the design. And so we spent most of our time rebuilding the natural landscape, or at least our perception of it. And then we were like, okay, now where the bunkers fit, and where does the green kind of, it and what we're in what elevation, et cetera. So it was a little bit of ass backwards, a way to put a golf course together. But, you know, we're really, really happy with the way it turned out.

It was, it was. No, go ahead. I was going to say, one of the coolest things about Pinehurst before we leave there is, you know, after course four opened in the cradle that we were at a dinner with Bob Dedman, who's one of the most gracious people in the world. And he said, you know what, now you're part of the Pinehurst family. and that just gave me chills to think about, you know, you've talked about the history of the place and what it means to American Golf and everything, and then to know that,

well, hopefully, at least as long as we're alive, you know, a name will be associated with that and not in the same vein as Donald Ross, but below or down the line from his contributions and a lot of the other great architects who have had contributions there. And so I think that that's one of the coolest things. and then getting to live in Ross's house. Tracy and I spent a little over two months in his house was one of the most meaningful, really, really cool experiences we've ever had. Do you know what the fastest growing mobile marketplace to buy and sell locally is?

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So we stayed at the Dornick Cottage for a few nights as well while we were there. And Mr. Tom Pashley, he basically said, I have to ask you if you saw any ghosts while you were staying there. Yeah. And? I think we had Trent, who, you know, one of our co-hosts, was very concerned every night that there were ghosts roaming the hallways. and he was pretty nervous about it. And Tom said that he thinks you were a little nervous about it as well. We actually, so I will say this.

And I don't know, I don't come down on either side of whether that's true or not. We didn't never saw anything, but there was one night. We both, Tracy and I both woke up and we both said, did you say good night? And she, you know, we know, it could have been one of us saying it in our sleep, but we both heard somebody say good night. and this was like around 3, 3.30 in the morning and we kind of both went back to bed and then in the morning he said,

did we both wake up and it was like, yeah, we did. So I don't know. Interesting. Whether it was or whether it was one of us just talking at our sleep, but we both heard it. So at least if it was his ghost, he was very, very friendly. And you did, you know,

you spent some time in his office, I believe, while you're working on some of the different designs and different concepts. That's crazy. We did. You got, I get sit, and it wasn't literally his desk, but, you know, there was a desk, hopefully, in a similar location to where he worked. And, yeah, I get chills. Little goosebumps doing that.

It was pretty special. That's very, very cool. All right, so I mentioned the U.S. Open wing flip. It's just up the street from us, hosting the U.S. Open just in a few months here in June. You spent, I believe, it was over the course of four years restoring both courses. Is that right? That's correct, yeah. So Wingfoot West will host the U.S. Open.

It will be the first time since 2006. What are some of the biggest changes, I guess, people can expect from then to now when they watch the U.S. Open? I think the primary one is in the Greens. You know, we worked with alongside, you know, I know a friend of yours, Steve Rabidoo, the golf course superintendent, who is one of, if not the best in the business. And so we were working to rebuild the greens so that they would have good substructure with drainage and sand and that such they would drain better. But we utilized the same grass because Steve was at him and he wanted to keep the poe on the green. So we basically ripped up all the greens, put them back to the exact contours, and then put the grass back down on top of it. But in so doing, we expanded the greens back out to their original size.

and we, you know, restored some of the contours that have been lost over time. So the greens themselves are much bigger than they were in 2006. In fact, where, you know, Jeff Ogilvy chipped in on the 17th green, which proved to be the winning margin, the ball where his ball stopped would have actually been on the green now. So you can kind of, there's some significant expansion, and which also has yielded some pretty spicy whole locations that they now. They didn't have access.

S2 back in 2006 because, you know, the greens got bigger. It's not that we made them flatter. It's just by expanding you could get the whole locations closer to the edge now because the edges moved out. So I think that's really the critical thing. I mean, Wingfoot's always all been about the greens and been about the rough and, you know, just a really, really difficult golf course. And so I think that should, you know, should be what we see.

I don't think that's going to change at all. but I think there'll be, like I said, some spicy hole locations and, you know, maybe some more balls that would have, you know, been in the rough like Jeff's ball, now are on the greens, and maybe the guys have a better chance with that. So, and, you know, we added some length and move some bunkers downrange to take care of that kind of stuff. But by and by, I mean, the golf course, it looks and feels like Wingfoot West. Yeah, I think I was lucky to be out there once since the work that's been done on Wingfoot West has been completed. And some of the greens, I want to say maybe 15 is it on Wingfoot West where got out there and some of the multiple different tiers and spots and shelves where you could put pens, I think is going to make it fascinating. And like you were saying with some balls that otherwise might have ended up in the rough, I think some of those spots are going to wish they're in the rough because some of the putting out there

and those things is going to be treacherous and very excited to see that. Yeah, it's the most, I mean, Augusta we see every single year and it has the most demanding greens, but I think when Wingfoot is in the major rhoda the year it's in, it's right up there with Augusta and Pynaston number two and Oakmont for the, you know, the most challenging green contours and surfaces. So I think it'll be it'll be interesting to, watch and obviously, you know, it's going to be weather dependent if we get good dry weather and they can get those greens really firm.

Now that the technology is underneath the greens for them to firm up, I mean, it's, it'll, the people who have been bemoaning the loss of the traditional U.S. Open setup, I think they're going to get it this year with the, you know, the thick rough and the fast greens. Let's go. That's what I want to hear. That's fantastic. How nervous or anxious or any of those types of feelings do you get for an event of the U.S. Open stature being played out upon some of your recent work? Well, we've never had that.

So I can't tell you. I know during the Olympic with the Olympics down in Rio and we've worked on a few tour of venues, primarily TPC Boston, And, you know, we'd definitely get nervous and excited. And, you know, obviously nobody likes to have their work disparaged. So, you know, you're worried that that's going to happen. But I think with the U.S. Open, it won't be as nerve-wracking because the reality of it is that all the decision-making and this was getting back into those buckets, you know, was, it's restoration. So this is really all about Tillinghast.

We didn't put our fingerprints on it. We didn't say this is what we think you should do here. It was really just, and the fact that Wingfoot had this treasure trove of information that we could go back to. I mean, there were so many photographs and so much evidence and things that we could take our cues from. So I really, I've been talking to some of the guys at the USGA who were in charge of setup, and they asked me, you know, how would you characterize this? And I said, you know, if nobody knows our name and nobody knows we were involved in this, that's a hundred percent fine with me because it really should be about Tillinghass.

And the other part of the equation is, you know, if it's a true restoration, then, you know, the conversation should actually be more in that direction. And I frankly hope that we're not mentioned. You know, if people say, yeah, they did the work there, but at the end of the day, it's Tillinghast golf course. That's more than fine with us because I think that, if, If any of the players or the media thinks that we did something to manipulate the golf course or trick it up or monkey around with the original design, that then opens up for whatever conversations that we really don't want to have happen there.

We really want this to be about the greatness of what Tilling has designed, and all we did was go back in and try and restore it and put it back to – So as we've said to the members, I think we're correct in saying that, you know, right now the golf course is probably from a design standpoint as close to what Tilling has built on opening day as it has been, you know, in a long time. And that's satisfaction enough for us. That's awesome. So I want you to set the scene for me a little bit on this idea of you guys going through photos to try to restore a course like Wingfoot to, you know, as close to what. it was on opening day as Tilly has had it. I'm envisioning you guys have like one of those FBI walls with like photos everywhere

and you in general. I think that's a ridge there just short of the green. No, I think that like, you know, how, how kind of real is that actual process? So we are, I'm old, but I'm not that old. We actually have, we have iPads. We load up iPads with all the historical information. And we started doing that wing foot. We did it, Marion.

We're getting ready to work at Baltis Rowland, Oakland Hills. this year. And we've asked the clubs to just, any, dump everything you can into, into the iPad. And, you know, we just character out,

do it by hole by hole, and we can literally stand out there in the field. Because you're right. I mean, if we had the crime wall up, we'd have to be going outside and then coming back in

and to be able to literally stand in the fairway and kind of say, right, well, this picture looks like it was taken from right here because of everything that you see in the photograph.

Because Wingfoot hadn't changed that much. like they hadn't moved greens around or they hadn't filled in bunkers, many. And, you know, so we could literally stand in the middle of the sixth fairway and say, okay, it looks like we're about here. And then look at the green and kind of go back, go up on the green, come back. It was really cool. So I think that kind of technology has been really, really helpful.

And, you know, there obviously are clubs that don't have the sort of archival material that those championship courses have, and that would make it more of a struggle. You know, we've been lucky that we've kind of had an embarrassment of riches as it relates to the documentation that those clubs have. And it's helped us out tremendously. That's amazing. Just standing out there with the same, you know, the same exact spot, same view that they had and trying to piece it together. It's very cool. How much input is the USDA having during these sort of, you know, meetings and discussions about what to do with the golf course?

Minimal. you know, they've been great partners in sort of when we finish, you know, looking at what we've done, and then they come in and say, hey, you know, I think we'd like to change this grassing line or, you know, what were you thinking on this over here? But they have not inserted themselves into, you know, if we ask them to, they'll give an opinion, but they've not inserted themselves into the design process. That's been something that has just been between the club and us. And then after we're finished, the USDA will come out, you know, in preparation for a –

I mean, the good thing is, is, Riggs, we've had – normally we've got three or four years before the championship comes that the golf course can get grown in and can get settled and mature, et cetera. So we haven't tackled anything yet where, like, the U.S. Open's coming next year, and we're making a change this year. So they've had time to let things settle, to digest it. and then come up with some suggestions of, you know, and generally speaking, it's all around grass lines. It's, you know, Tilling has had this fairway at 35 yards wide. You know, we think for the U.S. Open, it needs to be at 28 yards wide.

And so then they ask, and we come in. But on the West course, I think you have to ask Ravidoo, but I think there were like four holes where we narrowed the fairways. Everything else was pretty much they just left alone. That's awesome. That's great to hear. So not too far away, Sleepy Hollow. You guys restored that as well. I've been lucky enough to get out there a few times recently.

I think the 16th hole there has really in the last several years become one of the more recognizable holes in golf, course photographers. Our friend Link's Jim's posting about it all the time. What was the transformation like the process like restoring the 16th with the now iconic one? once again kind of thumbprint green. So we were lucky we had photographs.

It's one of the funnier stories, one of our cavemen who probably would rather remain anonymous, but he was out there and I said, you know, come on, go get started on it. And I came back about an hour later and he hadn't even moved. And I was like, what's wrong? And he's like, I'm not sure I can do this. And so what do you mean?

He said, I can't tear into this. You know, it's like what happens if I make a mistake or whatever? We're like, it's dirt. Just do it. Just blow it up and get going. But it was really cool to me to understand the reverence and how nervous he was. You know, kind of getting into this iconic golf hole and knowing that we're going to redo it. And, you know, we're obviously going to make changes to it because it had softened and evolved over time away from the original horseshoe.

but it was almost like he was paralyzed by the responsibility. And when you think about it, it's really very cool that he has that much respect for it. But it was, yeah, I know now we all look back on it, and it's really has turned out great. But it's, again, it's having the photographs being able to literally to stand, you know, where is now the forward T, which is down kind of on that lower shelf, that's where the original T was, stand there and look at the photograph and walk back and come back to it and get a good sense for it. And then after, you know, he had knocked it in and we'd roughed it in. And then I got on the Sam Pro and kind of dialed it in a little bit further.

And then the contractor went and rebuilt it because we kind of had to shape it first for them then to core it down. So they could laser map it because it had changed so much. So we process, sorry, if I'm geeking out on you. No, it's good. You know, you got to get in there. and basically construct out of the existing material the green that you want, and then they laser map it and survey it, and then the contractor comes and cores it out to get the USGA green built, and then builds it back up to the contour, the shape that we roughed in there.

So it was, you know, even though he had, he was nervous about getting it right, we had all the all the freedom in the world to keep reworking it, reworking it until we could get it to that point. But yeah, it's beautiful. It is. It's stunning. Did part of you guys, like, after you, you know, you kind of shape it, and then you step, you know, you step back a little bit,

you look at it and go like, holy shit, like, that's a green. Like, what a, part of you had to be thinking that. Yeah, there's some element of that. And you also have to realize that, you know, when McDonald and Rainer built that green, it was, you know, green speeds were like, six or seven on the stint meter. And so you've got to look at, okay, yes, we want to make it authentic and get the historic

part of it right. You get the presentation right. But you also have to be able to play it and utilize it at, you know, green speeds that are going to be 10 or 11 or even 12 during tournaments. So you, and as close as we mow greens now, you know, if you build really bold and severe or abrupt contours, you're going to scalp the shit out. Right. You know, when you go to mow them.

So there's other aspects of the thing that you have to kind of figure out, yeah, the original horses may have been a little bit more severe, but we need to, so we need to push it to about as severe as we can make it based on today's maintenance standards, both the physical mowing of the green, but also the green speed. And is that just, in terms of understanding sort of that threshold, is that just at this point you just know kind of the degrees and where you can't go over? Yeah, there's a lot of that. But there's also, you know, the most important guy on site is a superintendent.

He's going to be the guy who takes care of it. So, you know, there was getting Tom Leahy to come over and go, yeah, we can mow that. We can take care of it. You know, so we have our experience and our eyes that we think. But sometimes we've got the, there's like a mathematical equation. You know, you guys curse so I can say it. You know, we call it the architect asshole factor. We always say that to the superintendent, you know, when you're thinking about maintaining something, push it about as far as you'd like to and then push it further because the architect is always going to push it a little bit further and make it really more difficult for you to maintain.

So sometimes we have to temper our enthusiasm because we get a little bit out over our skis as it relates to maintenance. But having the superintendent there to kind of check on everything is always very, very helpful. I love it. That's a business. When you worked on Palmetto in 2007, did you ever envision someone hitting it off the first T into the pond on the right? Yeah, it's, you know, it is the distance thing and the way people. Because you guys play down there. Did you play down there with Kevin Kisner?

Played down there with Kiz in November, and my guy, Frankie, his first T shot went in that pond. He made a nine. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, I think getting, um, yeah, I think getting, um, people yelling for for the people on 15T is kind of a common occurrence, but hitting it short of the tea in the pond is a little... Yeah, it was a bad shot. That's not good. I don't know, Frankie, so I'm not going to say anything else.

Fair. Well, the other people know them. They're going to enjoy that that's just like your brain's not working as you're trying to comprehend how somebody could hit it in that pond, which is... Yeah, I'm kind of thinking, wait a second. That's not that far because first I thought we were going to the whole distance thing and you guys playing with kids and then I'm like no wait the kids would never hit in there yeah no that's not a good shot no it was ugly um just curious how how important

is it for for you guys in your firm to balance um sort of your portfolio of restorations with renovations and original designs like do you do you prefer one to the other do you you know kind of be becoming this restoration you know expert is that what you you envision? Is there a conscious effort to diversify more or to be a little bit more niche? What is your guys approach to that? Well, I think a lot of it, you know, there was a period in time, and it's not like things are great right now, but, you know, there's not a lot of new golf courses being built. And when you kind of got into the period of, you know, you start off as a young golf course

architect. So I started my company in 1993. So there was going to be a period of time where nobody's really going to trust you to build a new golf course anyway. So you have to cut your teeth on renovation, restoration type work. So you kind of build up your portfolio there. And then we got into the late 90s and early 2000s and there were new golf courses being built. And we had, we only wanted to do one at a time, which we still try to focus on. And so we were able to build, you know, a handful, including Boston Golf Club and then get into TPC Boston. And then just as, you know, We were starting to get known. Castle Stewart was 2009, just as we were starting to get known, or a little bit better known for that, then the world blows up, but the economy collapses and now no more new golf courses are being built. And we had been fortunate enough to be, you know, aligned with clubs like Los Angeles Country Club, who were even in the depths of that recession, we're still able to do projects.

And then that led to another project. And so all of a sudden, when there were very few golf courses being built, we were getting known. is, you know, being trustworthy for doing restorations on some important golf courses. So we've, you know, we'd always love to build new golf courses. I don't know. If any architect tells you, they'd rather do something else, they're probably lying to you. But, you know, the opportunities are not, they're just not as many of them right now. So, but we're comfortable filling our schedule with restorations or renovations that we think have the potential to be really important or really, um,

impactful as it relates to putting back a McDonald and Rainer like Sleepy Hollow or, you know, restoring or brushing off a great golf course like Wingfoot. But that doesn't mean that there aren't, you know, the great, like Waverly Country Club out in Portland, Oregon, a really cool Chandler-Egan design or a Savannah golf club, which they're really neat Donald Ross design. You know, they don't all have to be hosting major championships. I mean, we're fortunate and we understand. it that we're being entrusted with some of these great old golf courses where there are

major champions. But we still, you know, we put as much effort in time and thought into restoring some of the lesser-known places that have a really cool architectural pedigree. And Jim and I, I mean, we're kind of knuckleheads. I mean, the thing that we, our criteria is, listen, can we do something exceptional with either with a restoration or with a new golf course? And if the answer is yes, are we going to have fun doing it? Are we going to like going to the place where we're going?

Are we going to like working with the club we work with or the people or the members or the owners? And if the answer is yes to that, then we're in. It's really not any more complicated than that. And I get it. We're fortunate. We're in a position where we can pick and choose. But we don't really spend a ton of time saying, oh, yeah, we're kind of overbooked in restoration. We're just trying to keep our schedule full, which is good, obviously, for business.

and it's good financially, but it also keeps our guys busy. We've got like six or seven shapers that we've been able to keep busy now for seven years straight, which is almost unheard of in the golf business. And so, you know, they have families and they have people that are depending on them. So, you know, we like to keep our guys happy and keep our guys busy. And if we're doing it in really cool places on great projects, then Jim and I are, you know, we're always excited about that i was going to say you're keeping them traveling too and building up those miles yeah yeah we've got that that is for sure um augusta national there's been a lot of talk about the 13th hole

you know they bought some new land i i of course don't want you to come in and have to make some statements on what you think augusta should do but um as one of the more prominent you know uh course architects in the world these days um what are your thoughts on sort of the direction that they might go with 13 and just sort of what problems or what factors even exist that maybe someone like you might think about that someone like me or our listener wouldn't think about. You know, I'm sure they'll do what they think is best for their membership and for the tournament. I think the only thing I would say is that, I mean, that golf hole has been recognized

for a long, long time as the greatest part. five in the game of golf. If you still look at it that way, then I don't know why you would feel compelled to need to do something to it. So I think that seems to me to be the threshold they've set. If and when, they feel like it's no longer the best par five in the world of golf, then they'll probably make a decision to do something that they think will help to restore the way it plays.

But until that point in time, I think there are very few golf. I mean, there's really only three chances, right? You got the best part three in the world, the best par four in the world, and the best part five in the world. And if you already got the best par five, that's pretty damn good. So I think, you know, I'm certain that they will do the right thing when the time comes if they feel that it's necessary to kind of protect the fact that it's the best part five in the world.

And then people might say, well, why is it the best part five in the world? Well, you know, we all watch it. And it asks for an incredibly thoughtful decision to be made, not only off the T, but also with that second shot. And, you know, if you can get a golf hole that asks compelling questions of the best players in the world every single time they play it, that's a really good golf hole. And then even, you know, I neglected the third shot,

but you don't hit a good T shot, or make the right decision on the T-shot, then you really, you've got to pay attention to where you're laying your third shot up to. It's not just, oh, it's okay, just give me an iron, and I'll just slap it out there. Depending on where that whole location is and how firm the greens are,

what angle you want to come in and what distance you want to come into that green. So it asks all the right questions right now. Will it sometime in the near future or distant future stop asking those compelling questions? If it does, then like you said, I think that the club will do the right thing. Yeah, and it is, I feel like from what Fred Ridley said, he's pretty much kind of reinforced that exact same sentiment of, you know,

yeah, we've now acquired the land and there's things that could be done, but for now we're just kind of waiting and seeing, and it still plays out every single year. You still get iconic shots every single year on that hole where people have to make a decision. You still have to shape something around that bend off the T. If you don't, you're going to be up in the pines straw. And so it does still – you see people hit horrible third shots like you were just saying.

You see tigers putted it into the water before. So, you know, the hole still, even though people want to try to claim or what distance or that it's outdated as to that, it still delivers every single year. It does. And that's part of the thing is what's wrong with having a hole that's – I mean, it's not easy. But what's wrong with having a hole where positive things happen? you know, what's wrong with, why does golf have to be settled, or championship golf have to be settled with guys really struggling or falling apart? What's wrong with people making charges and making eagles and, you know, every time I've been there hearing roars from a different part of the property is one of the most chilling, you know, you just, you get goosebumps. And what, what happened? What happened? You know, you're a big sports fan.

there's very few moments in sports no matter what sport you're talking about that have more of an impact than that hole, which is arguably the most important tournament of the year, certainly the most watch tournament of the year, and that hole hasn't as big an impact as any. I mean, 12 and 13 back to back.

Pretty good combo of holes. Yeah, Tiger just said, I think, yesterday, that as long as he's within six shots going into the back nine in Augusta, he thinks he's got a chance, and that's because you can see doubles on holes like 13, you can see eagles and there's multiple holes down that stretch where you can see that, and that's why that is just the most magnetic, exciting, electric stretch of golf ever.

So it is interesting to hear people even consider trying to make pretty significant changes to one of those most iconic holes. And speaking of this, you just reminded me of this, thank God you reminded me of this, but speaking of people doing great things and making great scores, and I mean, you're Mr. Hold on one all of a sudden. And every time I jump on the Internet, I see another picture. Gilhance has another home one. Well, the cradle's been really good to me.

And, of course, my partner, Jim Wagner, who's as good at Bustin' balls as anybody on the planet, he says, that doesn't, they don't count. He said, those are just chippins. You just chipped it in. I just happened to be on a tee. And I said, I've got, one of them was during our Caveman Cup, and our guys can drink. I have a bar bill over $700 from that pine cone.

It proves that it was a real hole in one. So I'm counting both of them. Yeah, it was so exciting. It was really, I've never had one before. And, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Which hole? Well, the first one was on hole two, which Jim actually shaped the green. So I think that's why he was a little bit sour.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And then hole number three, the punch bowl, which I didn't see it go in, because you can't see the surface. I didn't actually see either of them go in because of where the whole location was on number two. But Bob Farron, the director of the grounds at Pinehurst, I hit my shot. I said, that's right where I wanted to hit it,

and he actually ran up the hill. And he's going, oh, oh, oh, oh. And then he just started yelling, jar, jar, and there were a bunch of people up by the pine cone watching, and we had a pretty good celebration. That's incredible because that is probably the best, you know, amphitheater sports. on the entire course. Everybody's at the bar at the pine cone. They can see right down to the

punch bowl. You can't see it from down there. So there's a good place to get it. There's all those chairs out there. I mean, that's like you're just a, you're a showman, I feel like. So that was, you know, we're not, we're smart sometimes. We're smart there. We're not smart all the times, but we built that upper terrace so you could sit up there and have a beverage and look down into that bowl. We thought that that would be a great spot to hang out. And the other cool thing about it is, you know, we talk about the cradle, you can see all kinds of people out there playing. You can see parents sitting up there having a beverage

and their kids are out playing golf because you can see every single hole. You know, there's eightsons, guys out there playing barefoot. There's music playing. I mean, it is, it's just one of the most fun settings. When we were building course number four, we were working on hole number 18

and Seamus, one of our camping, came over, and he happens to have a little cooler full of Coors Light. So in the evening, it was getting misty and dark and we're sitting on the bulldozer tracks having a beer talking about the day. And all of a sudden we hear this hooping and hollering from these guys over at, uh, on this will do. And somebody had made some kind of crazy putt and they're high-fiving and chest bumping

and running around and like a bunch of knuckleheads. And so then I, so I have to walk home from there. So I go walking through there and I kind of come out of the mist and it's like, uh, the guy from Field of Dreams, you know, there's ghosts coming out of the cornfield. And a couple of the guys in the group recognized who I was. thought they were going to pass out. They were running over and jumping on me and like, well, you can't believe this you're doing.

So that, to me is exactly, I've said this before, and people kind of look at me sideways. I think the cradle may be the most successful thing we will ever build in our, in our career as golf course architects. And they're like, no, no, no, you're going to host major championships on golf courses, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, think about what does success mean if it can be used by a great number of people and in a number of ways and can be basically so many people will just derive

happiness from it versus frustration or anger or whatever. That's a pretty cool accomplishment. And so, you know, I think that, you know, it's, who knows, hopefully we'll design something that'll be as interesting or as fun. But right now, it's probably as something as impactful as we've ever done. And to experience, to be able to watch to walk through there in the evenings, whether it's after work or whether we're staying at the resort or whatever and just see it covered in people of all different sizes, shapes, skill levels. It really is an amazing feeling. Well, yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know that anything else will be created there that you guys or anybody could create that will deliver more just total number of hours of pure fun that people are having playing golf. I mean, that's just what it is.

It's like you can't not have a good time. both times that we've played it, everyone in my group has said on like the second or third hole, wait, why are we going to go play like any other kind of golf than this? Like, what are we going to do? And I think we were playing number four in the afternoon. And guys on the first and second tier on number four were like, this whole driver business is like, what we did this morning at the cradle, why are we not just doing that every time we play golf? Yeah.

So, look, Gil, we appreciate the time, you know, you guys in your work, you and Jim, and all the cavemen and everybody you guys have delivered just thousands and thousands of hours of fun, awesome, compelling golf for thousands of people, millions of people around the world. So anybody out there who's listening track down some of your courses. There are tons of them that people can go play from Streamsong Black. Obviously the cradle. We've talked a lot about Pinehurst. You guys have been on multiple continents all over the country. So people should track down those courses, go play some Hans golf course design.

courses if you can and thanks for the time we appreciate it. Greg, they always enjoyed it anytime. Have a good one. Thank you. All right. Cheers. Bye.

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Maybe you should buy the little one just a zillion beers. Yes. It's not a bad idea. Yeah. That's funny stuff, man. All right, go to store. That's sort of parcel sports. com.

Get yourself fitted. Big thanks to Gil, once again, joining the show he um he did literally stop as we began the conversation uh to turn off the bulldozer that he was in down in down in texas he was literally in a bulldozer you can hear it beeping you know when you hit reverse on those things oh yeah you could hear it beeping he's like oh i'm just parking the dozer real quick and then found a place without wind and gave the interview um in a bulldozer so the guy's legitimately in the field lives for it awesome guy um i sort of tweeted out last week when i was

teasing interview a little bit that i love that he's like an 11.3 a handicraft cap index or something and people like what is that pattern i was like well i think when you're designing a golf course it's cool to know that the guy plays golf more similarly to most people than to the heavily skewed best players right totally like an 11 is kind of right in that right in that sweet spot of uh where most golfers lit i think you know the average handicap in the world or everybody that holds a handicap is like 13 or 14 some right there so he's 11 he's very close he plays very similar golf to um literally the median handicapped and and it's therefore going to help him, I think, kind of create features and challenges that are going to relate to and make it most fun for the average golfer.

So I thought that's really cool. He and Jim, who's kind of his partner in the whole thing. They're both kind of similar handicaps. So I like that fact. Awesome guy. Very good interview. Thank you, too, Gil. Honda Classic will kind of wrap up real quick by wrapping up the Honda Classic.

Sanjay M wins his first PGA tour title. He was only 600 par. or par and that won the damn thing which is phenomenal we talked about that going in how um the last six seven eight tournaments whatever it is at the honda classic i think only one time has somebody been double digits under that's won it so the course challenge is the best players in the world seriously there's carnage did you do your sunday morning picks i picked um lee westwood peter milar guy he is i will say this i am i i i think during the open championship i I noticed that he looked skinnier and slimmer and I was like man Lee Westwood looking good he's out there like he didn't have a hat on and he's got great like old man salt and pepper going on yes he does and he had the Peter Millar stuff and I was like fucking Lee West hike old Lee Westwood is hot I was like I'm into that and then I didn't really Robert Rock because he didn't wear a hat yeah Robert Rock was big no hat guy for a while and then um and you know maybe even Lee Westwood was wearing a hat at the open championship but I was wearing a hat at the open championship.

by just like whenever he took it off to fucking shake hands or something. I was like, wow. It sounds like you got a bone reference. Well, I was excited. And so I saw Lee West and he had just won very recently on the European tour. I think it was in Dubai or somewhere in the Middle East. But he won recently. And I was like, you know, Lee Westwood's a great ball striker, not a great putter,

but this is a ball striker's course. Like it's windy. There's fucking water everywhere, bear trap, all that stuff. And I was like, Annie looks hot lately. So I'm going to bet on Lee Westwood. He's only two strokes back on. Well, they showed him in the coverage. And Lee Westwood's gained a couple of.

more pounds back. And I hadn't been watching it all week at a wedding, trying to get up to Vermont, all this, that. I hadn't really seen any of the coverage of him. And he looked like he put on a couple pounds. And I knew right away. Well, I knew right away. It's like that. I need him to be a little slimmer. So maybe that was just the, who knows, but that didn't help. And then he ended up, whatever, three or four shots back, never got it going. I'd like to apologize on behalf of the needle. A lot of, a lot of hype going into the weekend. Shot of 67. He was right there at the top of the leaderboard then went 75, 76, 75. You know, a lot of people reaching out when he was playing well, being like, this is going to be

great. Everybody's going to be excited. He's going to potentially get a win. And then, boy, did it just fall apart. Paul Stranger's course. Well, how about some of these names? Like, it felt like we were in 2003. I know. But it was Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, the needle was up there. It was crazy. Some of these, like, throwbacks in this thing. You remember, like, Patrick Harrington? I think, did he win it, like, a year when he was still kind of getting into. this same age that those guys are in right now. So like, because of whatever it is, you get some, you get some names up there

you don't necessarily expect at the old Honda classic. But, um, fun, fun golf tournament to watch because of how much looming danger there is at all moments. Tommy Fleetwood, uh, him having the lead going into Sunday. That's who I took. He looked good too early. And then, he buried the first two old.

I know. He looked very good. Paul Asinger's 122. Paul Asinger's drop. drawing a lot of criticism for his comments about Tommy Fleetwood and the European tour. Euros are not happy with him. He essentially opened the broadcast by saying what I think almost everyone was saying was that, you know, Tommy Fleetwood has, of course, had a ton of success on the European tour.

He's come close over here on the PGA tour. He's got a handful maybe of second place finishes, including one of the U.S. Open at Shinnock when he made that run, fired like the 63 or 64, whatever it was in the final round, nearly one there. But a lot of people say, you know, in order to like give. over that hump like Colin Montgomery like never won in the United States that's a problem that people talk about it all time in order to you know whatever like elevate yourself and create you got to win on the PJ tour and um and paul a jinger definitely said i think the people were so upset because he at one point said that European tour he was like oh he was like you know

you can win as many times you want on like that European tour and the international very condescending yeah and so people were not happy about that pretty much just saying whatever tour that is doesn't matter. Yeah. And now people were kind of blowing that up. I thought a little bit more than they should, but it wasn't the right way to phrase it because you know people are sensitive about European tour versus American tour versus PGA tour versus like Asian tour and

international stuff and winning worldwide and that matters and all this stuff. So Paul Easing is taking a ton of heat for that. He probably should take a little bit. But the point still stands that like Tommy Fleetwood has not won on the PGA tour. Here he was kind of with the lead in a tournament that I think is starting. to get a pretty good amount of prestige, which is like, you got to be fucking a play. You got to golf your ball to win this damn tournament.

And just couldn't get it done. He's shot that he hit on the 70-second. He only birdied 17 with a phenomenal putt down the hill, roasts won on 18. And then he was only like 235 out or something. I mean, yeah, he has into the win. But, like, other guys, like, couldn't even get there. Most guys were laying up all day.

2.30-something for these guys is, like, that's nothing. I think he had a five-wood or a three-wood in his hands. He usually draws the golf ball, tucked right pin and everybody knows from following this tournament that like that pin looks like it's in the freaking water. But you've got like 120 feet of green to the left of it. Phenomenal golf where all the slope goes down towards a pin. So like he decides he sets up to hit this cut, flares it way right into the water, wasn't even close. It goes on to make bogey lose the tournament by a couple shots.

That was a stunning decision to me because it's a guy that just for him, he just draws the golf ball. I feel like when you when you set up to draw, if he just sets up like 15. 20 feet left of the pin and it's like yeah I'm just going to hit this draw if it stays straight I'll have a decent look at eagle to win the tournament if it draws or even hooks into like one of these bunkers and left I got the whole green to get up and down it's not a big deal I mean try to hit that cut like your miss I feel like is an old like a lot of times is it you can flare it right and it's exactly what he did yep and um and he's not a guy who hits the the cut is often so it kind of felt they did they mentioned that a little bit on the broadcast but to me I've

kind of always thought that same thing like not that I'm like some fucking massive shot shaper but like when you are trying to like for me when I'm trying to you're coming at this from almost sounds like as a man with extensive experience working at left right and right to left let me tell you like Tommy Fleet would listen up you motherfucker I got some advice for you who is taught who I'm talking about it clearly after he hit in the water like oh now what I would have done but that did seem like a peculiar decision to me to try to hit that shot like under pressure trying to win your first pGA tour event um it seemed very peculiar and he had just watched hughes hit in the water as well. So it was a, it was, I thought stunning for a guy Tommy Fleetwood, who's like a ball striker,

he fucking roast the ball. He was so clutch at the Ryder Cup. He's been clutch in big tournaments before, like not necessarily losing it, but other people coming out and just barely beating him when he played good golf under pressure to hit that shot under that. I thought that was like stunning when he hit that in the water. Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with you. And to go at like a very basic level, from where he was, you know, 2.30, 240 out, anything up to the left-hand side, you know, Will kind of filtered down to the right, and their short games are so good that if he could have simplified it maybe and just said, like, anything up or there on the left-hand side,

he's probably got an 85 to 90% chance of getting it up and down from wherever he is. Right. And, you know, Arnold Palmer hit that, like, his last shot right there, right? That little, like, low cutter that burns in there. That was Bay Hill. That was Bay Hill. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, that's a great shot. Yeah. But it is similar. No, it is similar in that. You can miss left. You miss a foot right. You're screwed. So, and that is exactly, like, you.

can, if he sets up in the middle of the green and he over draws it or hooks it by 20, 30 yards even, he's still in the tournament. Yeah, right. If you met, he missed it by like, I mean, we're all saying it was horrific. Like, it landed maybe 20 feet away from the pin, but in the water. 30 feet away from the pin. The miss there is just horrific. Right. You just can't miss two feet right.

You can miss, you know, 50 yards left, even hit the grandstands, which some people were bitched about. And you're fine. So I thought that was just shocking to miss that shot like he did. You can't realistically be standing and thinking like, oh, I need to make Eagle and win it. Like, you know, just find a way to give yourself at least a birdie putt. He's Tommy Flewood. He's phenomenal at golf. We're idiot golf podcasters who, like, a lot of times don't break 90 on camera.

So, fine. I get all of that. Just this is just talking about our surprise of that shot. I'm sure he'll learn from it. I'm sure there'll be a time relatively soon where he'll win and he'll talk about how that experience. Maybe he'll want to talk to you and get your take on it. If he wants some advice on what to do in that situation. On how to win a PJ Tour event.

I'm free. Come see. Come see. Come see. Come Dr. Riggs. I think you can walk you through where the miss is, where it isn't. The strategic kind of good of business. What are you doing hitting this crazy cut shot at the tournament line with the waters on the right?

I just don't get that. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Yeah. From a guy who had money on him, too. I was kind of bummed with that. What were your odds when you teed off? Plus 120. And like from the people behind him weren't that strong.

So I did a little bit of, you know, the rigs of globalization. So I was looking at the field and I was like, this looks great. And it was almost good until it wasn't. You know what I mean? Definitely. That's right. It was really good until it just wasn't good at all. Yep.

Yeah. So that was a bummer for Tommy. He's easy to root for him. Tommy Flewwood's. He's got the hair. He looks like Jesus. He's great. I love Tommy Flewood.

Yeah. He fucks. Frankie said that right to his face. According to the wretched Borrelli. Rretched Borrelli. Okay. I think that's it. I think so.

Oh, shout out to Mike Trout. Yes. Wow. Good call. How far that thing went? 100 miles? I said it was 100 miles. Legitimately.

I think they said the ball speed was 180 miles out. What? How far do those top golf things go back? What the net's? It's kind of vary. Right. But I feel like, no, isn't it? I feel like it's pretty standard.

250 or so? What's the ball speed for long drive hitters? Do we know that? Good question. That can't be up that high. No, 180's like, no. 180 is like the best guys. and Tor, I think, around 180.

I thought they were down like 140, 120. Ball speeds are nearly 220 miles an hour. You're thinking of club head speed. Oh, yes, yes, I am. Yeah, which are very different. What did you say? You said, what speed are we talking about? He said a million miles an hour, I think.

I said the ball went 100 miles. Oh, that's right. Which I think is true. Just something about the top golf setup and the way it gets really dark at the top of the nets. It just looked like that thing went forever. It looks like he hit it into orbit. Yeah.

It is what it looks like. when they do it at night and all that. I agree. If his club head speed was actually 180 in like a fucking top golf as a non, like, professional golfer, that's insane. And that's kind of what they were saying. So it went far. The ball went very far.

Just a very cool video. The walk at the end is the most impressive two steps I've ever seen anybody take. That was some of his better, like, you know, personality too. Yeah, no. Mike Trout's a very quiet person. He doesn't say a lot, doesn't do a lot, but he's roasted that ball. I watched it 100 times probably. Boy, but I loved a rose.

It was very just visually appealing. Yes. Just to watch it. Like, oh, cool. Oh, cool. Shit. That's a cool swing like that. That's cool swing.

Man, was that cool? It almost looked like he was a little embarrassed by it. Just like, holy shit, I really can hit that ball really far. I'm good at everything. Like, Gabby Gilmore when he rose the one finally. Yeah. He's like, tops or misses the first one. And then they're all laughing at him.

He just pounds it. He's like, all right, pay up. They're like, no, you can't. That's not a thing. Nobody does that. That was insane. Awesome. Good for Mike Trout.

Okay, we'll be back on Thursday with the wretched Borrelli. I think he'll be back. Everybody, have yourself a lovely first half of the week. We'll see you Thursday. Hit it hard. Hit it hard. Hit it hard.