No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 160: Golf Course Designer Bruce Hepner

Episode Date: August 15, 2018

Golf course designer Bruce Hepner joins to talk about his background working in the industry, working with Tom Doak for 17 years, his current restoration projects, and a ton more. Bruce has worked on some... The post NLU Podcast, Episode 160: Golf Course Designer Bruce Hepner appeared first on No Laying Up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast. Today's episode is going to be with Bruce Hepner of Hepner Golf Design.

Bruce is in town doing some restoration work at the club that we play at Tim Aquana Country Club here in Jacksonville and has an impressive resume of working on golf courses basically at most of his adult life. And for the last almost 30 years, he was worked with Tom Dope for 17 years. You'll hear all about that on the podcast and he's been all over the world, lived in all kinds of different places, worked on Bally Neal, Cape Kidnappers, Pacific Doons, Renaissance Club. I mean, we could have done a lot more than one hour on just all the places he's been and places he's worked in the stories and whatnot.

But I wanted to do a New Zealand episode. I was on that part of the trip, Solo, if you guys have seen our Tourist Saw series. If you have not seen that, I do recommend you check that out on YouTube. Eight episodes, six of them in Australia, two in New Zealand. We also have a podcast that summarizes the Australia leg, but haven't really broke down the New Zealand leg. Thought Bruce would be great to talk to you on that since he was basically in charge of building Cape kidnappers.

He's played down at Tara Edie and he's been up to Curry Cliffs and has all kinds of stories about New Zealand as well. So that's kind of included within this, but also we talk about Pacific dunes and experience out there at Band-In and all kind of stuff. And man but also we talk about Pacific Dunes and experience out there at Band-In and all kind of stuff and man Bruce is seen a lot. And I know I've learned a heck of a lot about golf course architecture from Andy Johnson at the Friday egg and from being fortunate enough to play at a lot of really cool places in the last couple years.

So it's really informative. At least for me to sit down with a guy like Bruce get his feedback on his philosophy on golf courses and design and restoration and all of that. So I really enjoyed talking with him. I think you guys will enjoy it as well. I learned a heck of a lot in the process and I imagine that you guys will too. So I'm thank you for tuning in and I think this is something you guys will enjoy. Before we get started really quick, I want to give a shout out to our friends at Travis

Matthew, our main man Joe sent us a package here at the Kill House. That was not expecting it, just showed up one day. It had my name on it. It was addressed to me, and by the time I got to the box, there was only a couple items left in it, since the crew just ravaged through them, picking out a bunch of stuff.

They sent us a couple X-PAT shirts, which are their polo shirt, which can be worn on the golf course, off the golf course. If you're tuning to the live show, you're going to see that I'm pretty much rocking Travis Matthews stuff in about 90% of the shots here. I wear their shorts every single day. Their T-shirts are my favorite. The Scully Athletic shirt is one of my favorites and then they got a recline athletic shirt, the streak shirt. I mean this is what we wear off the golf course and you can also wear the shorts or yeah perfect for off the golf course

and on the golf course as well. So go to TravisMathieu.com check those out. The summer has not left yet. You can still get plenty of wear out of the short sleeve and short stuff. So without further, here is our podcast with Bruce Happner. Thanks for tuning in. All right, Bruce, we don't do a ton of golf course specific architecture on this podcast, but couldn't resist the opportunity to chat with you while you're in town here at Tim Aquana. So what brings you here?

What brings you in town? What's the purpose of your visit here? Well, I've been working with Tim Aquana Country Club for the last couple of years, and we did an extensive project last winter restoring many of the classic features of Donald Ross, rebuilding the bunkers. We're back building a few teas this week and kind of conducting some shipping areas between some greens. So, just back in for the week, dropping down from Traverse City and getting a little bit

of work done. How's the plan like this work? Do you make a proposal of what kind of changes you'd like to make as a club approach you and say this is what we want to do? How did you end up getting this engagement and what are the steps in that process like? It's a little bit of both. My reputation is now as a consultant. I work at restoring Olga, of course, of all types, all different architects. And so when they called me, I think they got references from different clubs that I was worked at a few Ross courses around the country, quite a few. And so I came in for the interview and a lot, you know, when I interview clubs,

it's a push pull a little bit. It's like, what do you want? And to me, it's investigating where they are, where were they at one time, and is it what's worthy of bringing back? When it comes to restoration and it seems to be clubs almost every historic club in some capacity is going through some kind of restoration, why do golf clubs need restored? What happens to golf courses over time that requires a restoration. I think it's, you know what, one that wasn't a big reverence for the original architects until probably in the early 90s when I came into the business. A lot of us younger architects started studying grade-old courses. I worked for Tom Doke and he has traveled the world and he realized that in the 70s and 80s a lot of courses were remodeled or modernized.

And so they were remodeled just for the sake of either harder or different. And they didn't really know who Donald Ross was. So there wasn't a lot of reverence to the original architect. So then we're studying some of these old drawings and I'm like, man, these courses were pretty good back then. And they really didn't need to be changed. Or you know, neglect like World War II, War II you know filling a lot of bunkers So the more we study

Now we think of down Ross and Alistair McKenzie and out about telling us these great architects They're so great, you know and they they came out of that classic period, which was a strategic They fit the golf course into the land and so a lot of the restoration is putting back What they had originally done because it's still relevant today. Most golf has changed a bit for really good players but for the rest of your average handicap at a club is an 18 now and it was back then so of course there's a really relevant when you when you restore the features.

It's got to be in the challenge you guys face these days with the modern equipment really really really helping the top most talented players and not really changing the game too much for the middle handicappers. It means you've got almost designed two golf courses and one. That's true. And then you have to find out who the great player is going to play your golf course. Right. I've worked at probably, you know, I probably have 40 grade old classic clubs and we've

had a lot of state amateurs and good events and I was telling him, what was the last scoring and really good amateur event? And somebody might have shot close to par or maybe a little higher and that's about it. So it's not like, let's see, I have the tour coming to town. These courses are really relevant for your average really good amateur player. They hold up really, you know, that's 6300 yards. They hold up because the greens are really good. You can tuck the pins and they're not destroying these golf courses.

So you have to pick and choose when you're restored, who you modernizing for or who you are worried about how the best players are and sometimes you're not that good. What is in your restoration work, what is what takes the most amount of time or what is the most familiar? I guess symptom of golf course erosion over time. Is it shrinking of greens? Is it restoring bunkers? What are you typically kind of specialized in, I guess, in that regard?

It's a little bit of everything, but it's mostly trees. Yeah. Yeah. It's restoring the wits, you know, the wits of the fairways to bring the bunkers back into play because they're out there, you know, back in the old days they used to gang mo fairways. They were 40, 50, 60 yards wide and the bunkers were out there on the edge. And you get to a golf course and they're 20, 25 yards wide and the bunkers are relevant because they're way out in the rough. But it's a lot because of the tree lines, the trees have grown, you know, in the 60s, especially in the north,

we lost our Elm trees. American Elm was a great American golf tree Hi, can it be beautiful tree and Dutch Elm took them out so a lot of clubs panicked and they planted for their generations they planted nori spruces You know soft maples that now You know they're playing the 60s now they're dying off, you know because their life expectancy is so a lot of its tree management, it's mowing management, getting the greens back out to the original sizes. That's probably the most important thing you do. When it comes to tree management, maybe that's not the issue that you run into the most with members, but I think, you know, people like their got a lot of members like a golf course

the way that it is. And it's expensive to take trees out, or correct me if I'm wrong, it's expensive to take trees out and whatnot. But I think when it comes like an old course like Tim Aquana, it was built in 1923, that did not look like it currently does in the 20s, where it went down a Rosley this out. It was not, these trees were not this size, right?

So how do you, how do you, is it a difficult battle that you face in trying to convince people like this, this is not the original, I guess, intent of this golf course was to have this overgrown with trees? It's just a struggle. It's the hardest thing we do, but it's, you know, I build it with slow momentum. You know, we take out, first you take out agronomic trees, you blame a lot of things

on the ground. I mean, open up air circulation around greens, where the benefit of taking those trees down is sunlight, air circulation, and moisture. And so you can blame agronomy to fix things because the conditions are going to get better. So that's hard. Or that's the easy part. Next one are design trees, where there's a tree in the middle of a fairway or something like that,

that really block a well-struck shot. If you read any of the old books written in the middle of a fairway or something like that, that really block a well-struck shot. If you read any of the old books written in the 1930s by Ross or telling us, they always talk about trees as enhancing the game, not impeding it, it shouldn't impede a well-struck shot. I peel that layer away. Takes about five years to have really correct a forest. You're three, people really understand. You're just not out there hacking trees.

The tree lovers finally understand there's a rhyme to the reason. And then they understand and you open up vistas, open up air circulation. And I always tell people, we just want the golf course to breathe again. And we're not cutting trees down. We're managing the forest and in the court.

Forests on golf course need to be managed because it's a hyper environment. You know, we're adding moisture of the irrigation. We're adding moisture with irrigation, we're adding nutrients. And so the trees kind of grow exponentially than they would in nature. So you have to manage them. I imagine it's a situation where people might think they don't want trees there and then they're gone and nobody's really like, they should put that tree back in. Or there needs to be tree here.

You don't realize it until they're cleared how much things open up and from a high level standpoint. And for most members, golf doesn't need to be any harder than it already is. And in some way, it makes golf easier. You can still hit it in a bad spot where there used to be a tree. It's not a good place to be, but now you at least have a chance to recover.

That's correct. A lot of the pushback I get is some really good players. Or you're just gonna make it easier, and I'm like easier for who? You're in the middle of the family. Right. When I realized they're selfish, they're like, they're giving, you know,

12 strokes to somebody. You're made easier for them because they're recovering. But, you know, if you're in where the trees are and there's no trees there, you're in a really bad angle and you're probably gonna catch a flyer. So it's not that much easier. You know, it's easier that I tell people, it's easier that the group in front of you is playing four hours

instead of six hours. So what happens, I guess, when you are looking to do some kind of restoration and you look back and see maybe something that an architect did and way longer, maybe a hundred years ago, today you're like, you know what, I don't agree with that. Do you kind of pick and choose what you want to restore

kind of your own modern twist on a restoration? How does that process work? No, you know, I think everybody, you know to restore kind of your own modern twist on a restoration? How does that process work? No, you know, I think everybody, you know, it's still your interpretation of what somebody else did. And you're trying to apply what you've learned of classic principles to a golf course and apply into a more of a modern setting. So, you know, I'm more of a restore, you know, I'm pretty faithful, you know, working at quite a few top clubs, but I don't want my name involved in it, you know, I just, I'm their anarchologist. It's down Ross, of course, or it's telling us, of course, so, you know, I just want to

lay in the weeds, restore as much as possible, and give them all the credit, and let it set, because there's generally it's all pretty good. When you peel through and like, these guys are really good. I've learned a lot from them. It took me time to fully realize, honestly, just like listening to Andy Johnson over the Friday, he helps me realize things that I didn't know that I knew. I used to think that hard, hard golf courses were the best golf courses and were the most fun to play because of the challenge. And the more I started playing kind of these wider golf courses that let you choose routes

and it lets me get away with more shots, to be honest, how much more fun I had playing and I'm like, what are we doing here with golf? What is golf? Golf is not necessarily a race to finish with the best score. It's like, I want to enjoy it from T to green. I imagine that it seems to be kind of a whole, and kind of a renaissance, which you worked for Tom Doked renaissance for.

I think that name was chosen for a reason, and that golf course architecture in the last 20, 20, 25 years is moving way more towards, this should be kind of fun for everyone. Is that a school thought for you as well? That's so true. We're all decent players at one time, but we get off of olders and go play golf,

they match us, so we just play match play, because you never know if you're gonna have an aide or a free at all, but we wanted it to be fun. That's what was the cool thing working for Tom, is we built Subonic and Ballony Nielt the same time. And Subonic was meant to be a hard golf course. He had some ownership and had Mr. Nicholas involved and that was kind of thought it was hard.

And Ballonyield, we were going completely opposite. And I was out running Ballonyield and we were just trying to make it fun and match play oriented. We don't even have team markers. Where it wins the hole, gets to pick the tee ground. We just built tee and ground. And so inherently, a lot of people, the feedback of,

Sabonix is really good and everything, but they just go, man, it's really hard. And people will play ballin' and they just go, man, that plays us in so much fun to play. And I think people do say it's a game. And Hard Golf is one-dimensional. Hit it down the middle of the fairway hit the middle of the green where wider fairways uh... is angles it's smarter golf is wider golf that you have to you know

you you play angles into greens and i think uh... with where people can tend to get lost on it is when it comes to angles into greens the golf course kind of has to be designed from the green backwards. And that angle, if you just take a golf course and widen the fairways, like I'm just taking narrow, narrow course and widen the fairways, that doesn't necessarily mean that you added strategic elements to it because the right side of the fairway might be as good as the left side.

And it kind of took playing the old course to trigger that for me. And you just look, go out there and you get to that second fairway and it's two fairways wide. Like, well, all the trouble's right. I'm just gonna play into 17 fairway. This is easy. Why did they, this golf course kind of dumb? And then you get to your shot and there's a huge hump between you and the whole and you can't get to it.

It's like, okay, that was it. That was my shining light moment. You gave two examples there, Subonic and Ballin, you know, I wanna kind of get in your background eventually. But from my amateur understanding, that's about two polar opposites as far as your freedom to do what, I guess, balling,

and you was kind of a blank slate to, here's your canvas, do what you like with it, and subonic was much more of a dictation from the ownership group as to what kind of golf course they wanted and what kind of style am I accurate in saying that? Yeah, it's definitely, know it was driven that you know it's in a steep neighborhood it's right between Chinnacock and draw

members and it was you know it's a tough club to play and it's a great club and it's a great golf course it turned out really good it's just it's you know it's leaning towards the harder side where he said Valley Neal was destination it's kind of like a sand hills out there and out there you're going to spend a bunch of time having fun. So it's, they're definitely opposite, but built by the same groups.

Time was involved in both obviously. And it's kind of interesting how you could build two separate golf course at the same time. Well, before we get even more lost than we already are, I get a little carried away, I get excited. But I want to kind of get into your background. How you got into golf course, architecture, design, restoration, your background, and to where you are now.

Well, I didn't get into the business until I was almost 30. I was an auditor designer for Chevrolet, went to school for a while, engineering degree, went back, and I went to Michigan Tech, I was a civil engineering degree, and I read Ron Wittens book The Golf Course and has the biography of all the great architects, and I was kind of going through and I'm like, man, I have all these guys actually have civil engineering degrees. I always played golf, I played all the other sports, but golf was something I'd love to do. I love the land forms. I was interested in building, and so I'm like, maybe I can get in this.

And that's what about in the late 80s, was things started booming. So when I graduated, it sounded about 200 to 250 resumes out to everybody. It's six job offers. And Ron Force, he was a big restoration guy, just started a business a year earlier. And my courage has got my resume in Hannitt to Ron

and Ron called me and I'm like, this is a great opportunity. And joined him in 1990 and worked for him for two and a half years. And we were just strictly doing restoration. We were like the first wave of guys that were starting to restore golf courses and stuff like modeling.

Gill had just hired work with Tom, Gill Hans. Brian Silva just started doing restoration work, so it was like we were in the first ground level of that kind of work. So in those two and a half years, three years you worked at Force, what's your role? Are you in the bulldozers?

Are you shaping or what is kind of your role? Now, Rob was strictly an architect, you know, so it's kind of architected associates. So I got to learn about the business, you know, being an associate helping on projects, doing drawings, the basics. But that went the cool thing that I learned from Ron was the love of classic architecture.

Ron and I would go on separate trips on projects and you go work on our golf course, do a master plan or something like that. And then you go visit five courses on that trip. And we come back and, as we all had cameras, three, five millimeter cameras. And we show each other slideshowers. And we spent hours in his office

going through slides of greens and just studying why they were great. And, you know, one of the several moments of my life was the first time I saw pictures of the National Golf Links the time it just or Ron had just gone to. I thought at that time Shina Kaku was probably one of the great courses of the world. Well, I'm going to be holding you know the greatest course and maybe the world was right next door and just blew my mind some of the crazy stuff that was going on.

So you know that was the beauty of working for Ron, is like, gave me the love of classic architecture, the great old courses were good. Why is good national golf links, the greatest golf course in the world? I think it's, you know, you could probably ask any architect, I think of any reverence, Bill Kurr, Tom Dock, any vest, and Gil Khan, so, of course, they're gonna say,

mainly because it's so complex. I just tell people, it's like, you're playing chess, or you're playing chess with Mr. Spock. Yeah, three levels. That's a national. Okay, who you are? Take whatever they have never been or won't ever go take us there. What's it like? It's just you know CB McDonnell was the original architect. He lived there. That was his great golf course and he had time to tinker with it. He sent people overseas. Devo Amata, to survey the great holes of the world, the redan, the beerits, the short hole, all the great holes that he ended up copying. And just influence so much design into there. And so strategic that no matter who you are, and

no matter your ability, you have about two choices or three choices on every shot where to hit the ball It just keeps getting higher level where like it's a simple hard Architecture hard golf is just simple hit the middle of fairway Hit the middle of the green the national and you know There's so many different types of bunkering out there different types of angles the widths the Out of the variety of the greens. There's so complex that it's so much fun because you always have to think your way around the golf course. When you mentioned kind of looking at slideshow, looking at green surfaces and stuff, it was cool.

What in your mind makes a good green surface? You kind of know it when you see it. You see it and you're like, oh, that's a cool green. Like what are characteristics of a great green complex versus maybe an unappealing green complex? That it's so complex that it's a different shot from different sides of the fairway. Different angles into them. When you tuck a pin on the right side, it should be a different shot than on the left or in the back or the front.

Just the variety of shots that you have to manage for actually just to get close to a pin on that day. And that's, you know, great strategic laws you mentioned starts from the green working backwards. So if the flags on the right hand side of the green one day, you're going to have to come in on the opposite side of the fairway that day and you have to read where the flag is from the tea or if you pass by that whole earlier. So you plan your attack depending on where the hole location is and if it's on the left you might play the hole completely different.

And also the bunkers on the right are in play. So it's that complex. And it's high level, that's if you're hitting the ball straight. But even your high is handicapper, if you're a good caddy you can maneuver people around to avoid hazards and know the angles also. See I find if I'm not as an overall rule but if I have you know five, ten foot pots over the course of a day and they're all like double breakers I tend to think that there's just humps and bumps in greens for no real reason or no real theme.

I love long contours to greens that I'm thinking about the contour of it from the fairway. But if there's Humps and Bumps kind of everywhere, the amateur player just doesn't, you can't, I can't, I can't work my way around just random Humps and Bumps on the green. So it's kind of one of those things that's hard to describe in my own art. But you look at something, you're like, that is a cool green. I was wondering if you had a way of kind of thinking about it. And honestly, listen to Tom and Andy's podcast, just hearing him kind of say certain things about like, I don't want people aiming at flags from the fairway. I'm like, oh, man, that is a cool way to kind of think of a way to design a golf

club. Tom and Bill Cuerobi, I still think going into history would be the greatest putting green builders ever. You know, they're so complex and they're so different, but the greens have such great variety and they're such thought of the shots into it. When you're building a green for Tom, he's grinding around and he's thinking about shots. All the different shots, even recovery shots. When you're at average golf or at a club that actually holds a handicap as an 18 handicap, that means they're missing 18 greens.

Tom's always thinking about recovery and you know the different shots and recovery shots that you know that he lets you have. How did you end up working with Tom? How did that process work? And you worked them for what? 17 years? 17 years I was the vice president. Tom, you know, I always kind of knew the myth of Tom when he was young is this, you know, young guy then he started building high point up and knowing they're Michigan. I grew up in Michigan. So I knew about him and even when I. So I knew about him. Even when I was college, I knew about him and called him a couple times. He was just kind of doing this thing, just left Pete.

Then I knew Gil Hans was like one of his associates early on. I was working for Ron, and I heard I construct with Ron Gilhance and I knew he was just about the lead Tom. So I was looking to get back to Michigan eventually because I, you know, my wife is from Michigan and we want to move back and I was going to go work for a kind of a middle of architect Jerry Matthews out of Michigan and Tom caught word of that and he goes, no, you're going to come work for me like perfect. So I got, you know, Jerry Matthews, out of Michigan and Tom Cutt, word of that. And he goes, not you're gonna come work for me. Like perfect.

You know? So I got, you know, a dream come true. I got to live in Traverse City, which I just said, you know, holiday as a kid. And then work for I knew who was gonna be the next big thing, you know. It just knew Tom was that smart. So I caught him early.

And we were still just doing restoration. And he had built high point in a few courses, but nothing really big. So for even for the first three years, we hadn't built a new golf course. We were just kind of living off the restoration and remodeling stuff. And then boom, struck a pretty good

and built Pacific dunes. And then it was off to the races. We had a pretty good run there for a while. He still has a great run, but it was pretty fortunate I was right there in the middle of it all. From your perspective, and you just kind of mentioned something about green design and thinking of recovery shots, but from your perspective, what makes Tom Doe great?

He just understands golf, you know. You see a lot of golf courses being built out there, and I see them all and like, man, it's quite not quite there, you know. They maybe didn't get the golf, but they got the eye candy, the bunkers are brilliant, or Tom is always about routing in the greens and understanding the shots and making it fun and interesting. He's just that smart at it.

And then he understood, he created a creative process that we've nurtured with amongst associates, him and Jim Rabina, myself. You know, now he's still got Brian Slonick Schneider, Eric Iverson, who are some of the best guys in the business. Those guys are really talented and they're all really smart. And he just created a creative culture. We're time to get the routing in.

And he'd always have one guy running and the other guys are shaping it. And we just ask him a few questions. He'd just give you enough information to give you enough rope to go do. Go build what you think is best. And then he's a brilliant editor. He coming in, you think you nailed something really good and he coming in within 20 minutes, make it 10 times better. That kind of a mind. So what was the, you mentioned Pacific Dunons kind of being the thing that really jump

started things. What was, take me through that process was the first time you guys saw that property. And I mean, was it just a million options and kind of overwhelming as to what you could do with that land? You know, Tom and I originally walked the property. Mike Keiser said, you know, David Keiser was about to start banding Doons, but hadn't started yet. And Tom had some connections through Chicago

and befriend in Mike Kaiser, Mike said, well you can go out and look. So time when I went out to the superintendent show in San Francisco, we flew up to band and David had just started cutting center lines through the course. And so time when I went out and spent two days on it walking around, just amazing, you know, property. And there was a barbed wire fence and time I go, we asked the caretaker, Shorty Dow, can we go over and look? He goes, no, you can't go over, that guy's got a gun, you know. And I told Tom, we got to go there. So we lost

shorties somewhere. And Tom and I snuck over a barbed wire fence and looked over to the dune and saw Pacific dunes right there. And Mike had us looking at a property south of Bannon, it's lower property. And when reported back to Mike Kaiser, Tom said, we'd be, you know, if David doesn't do good, you know, we could fill in, but you really should think about buying that property to the north. And a couple of years later, Mike called and said the guy for clothes and I bought it. And then David hogged some of the property, built a couple holes into it. And it was just, we knew it was going to be a life changer for all of us.

I remember the first time we were, you know, Urbina and Tom and I were out there. I think Don Placic flew with us out. And we just knew, you know, it was like, this is gonna be a game changer for all of us. We had all been big fans of the sandhills, which we thought was a big game changer. We knew this was gonna be a big one. And we never took it for granted. We knew the responsibility we had on our shoulders. So you guys were very confident that people were gonna show up and play at this remote location.

It's easy to say now, but at the time, it was very... Well, they already had, you know, it was interesting, while we were building Pacific dunes, you know, bandit was open and the lodge was open. We stayed at the lodge and, you know, in the winter time, Mike, you know, cut the rates. He didn't think anybody would come down the winter because it was raining up in Portland and Seattle. And then they came down and drove. So, when you can't play golf in Portland when it's raining, you could play in Bannon

because of sandy soils. So it was successful year round and actually almost really more successful in the winter time because it brought, people would come down and play golf. And so, you know, they might even know it could be that big of success. But we knew, you know, by living there,

how popular bandin was, and we knew how good ours was gonna be. And we had all the confidence to how good ours was gonna be and We had all the confidence to world. It was gonna be that great and it turned out that good What were the holes that David built into the property into Pacific as a six and seven? Yeah, he just hoggrated But rightfully sells seven and eight I think is like it was on was over the fence. Okay, so how did how does that? You see this incredible piece of property? Obviously your eyes are going towards the shore,

I would think, or towards that coast. I've always looked at, you know, designing golf course like a puzzle piece and whatnot. Do you design from the coast backwards? Do you start drawing out holes? Like what is also like a maybe an example of something that almost happened at Pacific Dunes that ended up not happening?

I mean, I imagine you can draw out a perfect hole and you're like, oh, well, now I can't use that part and whatnot. I mean, how did you guys come up with it? I'm trying to think, you know, it's because time, time would always hug the map. So he did the routing first and he'd give it to us and it was pretty hard to improve on.

Yeah. But you're routing a golf course, you have to have a lot of things in your mind. That's what times a map gene is, too. And so it's a lot of math work. It's like known to 18 holes. You got to have this many parts in there, length, and you're trying to get all the angles of a clock or of the compass. You're always taking advantage of backdrop. You know, we learn that from McKenzie. You know, he's had a great backdrop behind a green.

It wasn't coincidence. There's a mountain behind that green. So there's all these factors. And then getting back, are you bringing nine holes back, are you going to 18 of the loop? That's why, you know, Pacific dunes, you know, Tom took some chances. They have two part of the reason to row. But it fit. You know, we were just, he was just looking for the great piece of ground. He's looking for 18 great holes that fit into that land. And there was some bridge. You had the primary dune right along the water, and then you had some flat ground, and then you had the secondary dune up high.

So you had a bridge between it to, so four and 12 kind of bridge of those gaps, 15. Give you a peek at the ocean the whole way out. But it's great drama. You get out there, and then you go away from you ocean the whole way out. But it's great drama. You get out there and then you go away from me and get back out again. So you don't want to hog at all at one time. You got to loop out to it and back.

We learn that from Valley, Valley Bunyan, places like that. That's why going out and studying great golf courses, that's how you learn from them. You don't shoot at all at one time. You want to get glimpses so you go to the ocean and there's many times as you can and get away from them. And Bannon does that as well.

And does it really well too? Fourth hole, four, five, six. And then 12 goes back out and then 15, 16, what not. So what is, we've all read Tom's confidential guide on golf books and kind of confidential guide on golf courses and seeing how much travel and stuff he's done. You personally done a lot of travel around seeing courses, learning from courses,

is that encouraged by Tom? When you go to work? That's something encouraged by him. We've all done it. Just working for him, you get to travel. I've lived in New Zealand, Mexico, Scotland. We've been all over the world. And while you're at it, you're also going on studying.

So I've played pretty much all the great courses of the world early on when I was working for Tom. And then we all have. And Tom expects that, have you? Because when you're about to build a green, he's like, I'm thinking about the 15th of the Riviera on this green. So it just kind of gives you a little glimpse

of what he's thinking, and you build it. And then he comes in and edits it. But he has that in his mind This is kind of the concept I'm thinking of it worked here this green with this fairway And so you have a pretty good glimpse of what's going on you go build it and then he edits it But he wants you to know all those things and if I'm getting to correct me if I'm if I'm not steering along the path But the next big you did balling eels that after Pacific dunes Yes, and then and then you went to Cape kidnappers and did in New Zealand or was it more in between that? I'm sure there was yeah, because you know the progression was Pacific dunes kind of put us over the map

But you know we'd built some you know beach tree and some some riverfront and lost dunes a lot of you know We were building them in threes and seemed like and then then, in the next three were, I think, like, Ballon Yelsebonic and I think the Lost Ends are at the same time. We had Rock Creek, Apache, you know, we had, we were being in groups and then I think, Kate Kidnapper is the big one that took us all over, you know, all the associates went over. We all shaped. I ran the project. That was the first one where us all over. You know, all these associates went over. We all shaped.

I ran the project. That was the first one where we all went. And just at the time of our last week. I was gonna say, that's the one I'm maybe most excited to talk about, I think. So I made the mistake of playing Cape kidnappers two days after playing Terri Edy. So it was otherwise.

Well, that's the thing, some of the shock value was taken away, which is a shame, but I went in kind of purposely pretty blind to it. Obviously, I've seen the pictures of the back nine and whatnot. And the more I walked away, I was like, man, I really wish I would have shot more footage on the front nine.

I mean, the front nine is almost, I think, defines the course more than the back nine does. There's so much intrigue to all the golf holes that go through that front nine. So I wanna hear the front, when you got, had you, as it was a job already accepted and you guys were doing it,

but first time you saw the property or how did that, how did that work? I get it, I get it, I get it. Yeah. Tom and Floant, Julian Robertson is the owner from New York, Tiger Head Fun, played Pacific Doons. I went to Band-in and went to play Band-in Doons and they said, sir, we can't, we're gonna make you played Pacific Doons or went to band and went to play

band and doons and they said sir you can't we're gonna make you play Pacific Doons and he threw up fit because he didn't he's like I came here to play band and doons. No you know it's full but we're gonna put you in to be fine yeah you'll be fine he was really mad by the end of the round he goes who built this in the any because he had a second course because he had already built curry cliffs So he contacted time flume down which is not a quick flight sure and Helicopter into the project and obviously it's a spectacular site But those that haven't seen it take us to this site. What is it? It's a Cape Caneapis is a is a basically a peninsula that judged up on the Pacific Ocean. It's about

300 feet above the ocean. And at the tip is like a tooth, you know, at the end where the Gannets live. And it's just a big, they come sheep stations. It's a sheep farm, but it's a 5,000 sheep, 5,000 acre sheep farm, up on a cliff, up on a high plateau. but there's one little plateau there where there's huge deep 100 foot ravines where we were able to shoehorn a golf course into. And the ground is actually pretty flat where you play the golf, but it's time accepted the job. I said, I wanna be that.

I wanna be in charge, fly my family down, so I went down. And, you know, the road going up there, we call it 14 stream crossing. It was a stream and it was a two track and you're going through the stream 14 times to get up there. So every day it would take 45 minutes to get to the site.

45 minutes. Yeah, every day. Well, when I went there, I rang the buzzer from the main road to the property and I said, yeah, I got a tea time, come on up. And the guy said, drive safe. Yeah. And I was like, no, I'm here.

I'm ringing the buzzer here. He's like, yeah, drive safe. And it's about a 20 minute drive. Yeah, it's a five kilometer drive winding up and down this, this dream valley. And, you know, took it took a year and a half to build the road to get into it. But we, you know, every day we drove in a two track. And, you know, I'd been up there by myself early on. And, you know, if it rained, if you got, you know, too much rain, you couldn't, you

were going to get stuck up there or you didn't go up. And it's just a spectacular sight. Whether your concerns when Tom saw it for the first time, whether or not you could get equipment up there to build it. Yeah, we had all those concerns. We had a lot. Did we helicopter?

We actually helicoptered the bunker sand into it. It was cheaper to helicopter pick up at the bottom and these tankers can't drop it into the bunkers because it was easier than bringing the semi-zop. So it was a logistic nightmare getting up there. Especially the road was under construction while we were building it. So there was traffic jams. You were stuck in our half way up the hill because we were building a bridge. So it was a difficult place to get to. Once you got up on top, the golf hole's kind of laid in there, but we had to build some pretty expensive bridges that had two or three hundred foot spans that go from one ravine

to the across or ravine to the other. When you saw the fingers of the cape or the back nine stretch, was it as simple as, oh, there's a golf hole, there's a golf hole. Did it take some kind of convincing to build holes out into those fingers? Well, you get out to them, you didn't know how to get back. So they weren't wide enough to have two holes. So you knew you had to get out and jump across the ravine and we knew that was going to be expensive.

So it was simplifying as much as you could to get to the ocean as many times as you could without breaking the bank and building these gigantic bridges, which we did. So it was a very efficient routing. but the beauty is the inland holes were just as good as the holes of the views. Like you were said, there's some great ground, especially in the inland holes. And so much of that is probably lost on visitors.

It was, to me, going into it because I wasn't, it just had no expectation. Yeah, those first six holes are really, really good. Yeah. And then great pieces of ground. We didn't move a lot. Tom was coined the father of minimalism, even when he was 20 some years old, but people on real, minimalism is like,

save as many holes as you can to our natural grade and then move the world to make the other three great. And so we would have disguised moving the world on some of those holes. The beauty is, the biggest compliment to me is even like at Streamsong, you didn't know where we moved the dirt. Because we knew how to go wide enough to tie it into nature. So there wasn't like a zipper around the golf hole.

You started here. We don't want you to know where we started, where we have to move the big amount of dirt. And Cape Canepers, we filled some valleys in and built some green sites that were on the Volcanoes. You just don't know it because we were dedicated to make it the whole place seamless. How do you, those holes in the back nine, 10, 12, 15,

and really 16, 2 in the opposite direction? What's the thought process going to design those two holes for the two extreme wins you might face? I mean, that is an exposed, exposed piece of property. Those wins are extreme up there. Like 15 is sometimes unplayable. You know, it was 6.50 dead into the win. We had the Renaissance Cup, Tom's big tournament there

and it was Howell and Wind. And 15, we had two person match play events, two man teams, and one person would finish the whole, because the wind would howl so much. So I remember hitting like two iron, two iron, two iron, two iron, putter, you know, and hit a two iron, a hundred yards if you could. And it's just the nature of the site.

And you knew one day a week when the winds would shift, there was gonna be really difficult, but the other days were just spectacular. So you just had to accommodate, you know, you try to make the holes as wide as you could, you understand where the prevailing winds were, and you know, hope you didn't catch a bad one. Geez.

I mean, what do you said when you guys got the site that you were super excited about it, you wanted to lead it. What was most appealing to you about that project? One New Zealand, you know, people, you know, there's a romantic quality about New Zealand, everybody has. I'd say what makes New Zealand great, too.

It is, it's just the great variety. You go 100 miles and you're in different national park. You know, you think the entire country would be, Ted Euroso would have made the whole place in a national park. You know, you think the entire country would be Ted Eroso would have made the whole place in a national park and just the diversity, you know, from the tip, the northern tip is tropical to the southern tip, there's panguans. And everything in between the south alps and the wine country, it's just a, it's the size of California, but it's so diverse. How long did you live in New Zealand?

Year and a half. Where did you live? Right there at the base, Te Awango was just right at the base of the hill. And I was living in my five year old son was with me. So we got rented a cottage right in a winery. I was so sorry. It was pretty. It was the perfect time.

It was pretty cool. Do you go back to New Zealand often? Or do you think? I've been back. I did file up postruction, the Renaissance Cup, and then I think I've been back three times. I've been back, I've been back, when we had the Renaissance Cup of Terry

a couple years ago, I was back. That's what I was gonna ask next about Terry, had you seen Terry Edie, what is your, I do my best to try to tell people, explain it to people, and I don't think I've found the proper way. Most people want to have it heard about it too. I tell people I literally think it's the greatest golf Christian in the world.

And people like, what? I'm like, well, I didn't even do it. But it's really the most magical settings because you have the mountains out. I always call it Dr. Knows' layers out there in the ocean, those mountains. Those islands out there, you have the mountains out there. I always call it Dr. Knows' Layers out there in the ocean, those mountains. Those islands out there, you have the best climate. You have one of the most, you know, prettiest sites.

We stole the superintendent from Pacific Dunes. They have some of the best fescue fairways in the world. The design is out of it. I've never seen any that complex and that cool before. Brian Slough, who Brian's a dear friend, and he was one of my original interns. And one of the smartest guys I know in his brilliance is all over at Tom's brilliance.

It's just everything about it. It was the best I'd ever seen of its kind of subject. It's like all of it, what makes all these kind of great modern designs cool in their own way, all kind of combined into one. Yeah, it's like everything they knew for the last 25 years and we're able to pour it into one project.

And I thought Pacific Dune was the perfect project. And I thought Bally knew it was the perfect project, but this is, you know, and it's so quiet, so private, you know, you're allowed to play at once and then you have to join it. So it's a really, you know, secluded, the owner's great, they understand it, understated clubhouse. I remember playing one afternoon, after post-Ranahsai and Sikap, I was playing with Brian Palmer from Show Rakers and we'd plan to go out and play nine holes or six holes that's right by the gun they'll go body surfing for six holes and come

back. You know it's the setting is like I said it felt a bit like walking into the Truman show and that the ocean looks a little bluer than it does it. Perfect place. Perfect. Perfect way. And the sound sounds like amplified in it. You honestly feel like you're playing golf in a simulation. It's the trilliest week. The evening of the Renaissance Cup, they have a cocktail party out front. And then this perfect set of waves come in. It was a perfect curl, like a 10-foot curl.

And then I was sitting there, dolphins jumping in. And somebody says, cue the dolphins. And it was literally like, that's what it is. It's a Truman show. And it's literally man-made. And all the contours are man-made. And it's, Brian had, they call it the art department, the set of three young guys that are brilliant young associates

and young interns that were really into artwork and making it beautiful and natural looking. And it's some of the funnest shots I've ever seen in the golf course you have to you know I I'd played a bunch with Bryant while I was there he's my partner and then we just played a gun golf together out there and he's like aim it over there 30 yards over there watch it feed on him so all the really cool alternate shots were there and sometimes it weren't they like time told Andi's like sometimes I don't want to maim into flag. Sometimes you're even 30 yards left and watch it feed in

with wedges with wedges pretty fun. Yeah, you know, it's just interesting and fun. That's what on the 11th hole is a par five there and I played with Jim Roerstaff out there and he just said all right, play at 40 yards short and left and just watch it disappear and roll up on there and it did. And then the third and 12th hole, par four had wedge in. He's like, play this off that hill to the right of the green. Don't go to that. And we were at Barnabar Gladoons about a week before that. And one of the, I guess, criticisms we had of that was that it just didn't quite play.

Like it looked like the slopes wanted you to play. The greens were just a bit furry and the slopes were just a bit furry. And that's when I blows my mind about golf course design is you guys come up with these percent grade slopes that you're putting into a course and you don't really know how it's gonna play until the grass has grown in

and how you get a something, because once it's built, you can't, I mean, it's pretty you can't I mean it's pretty difficult to just bulldoze it and change the grade over the keys basically. Half a percent. So, how does it even imagine it just so much experience that comes into saying like all right if I want this slope to the right of this green it has to be this grade and it can't be one degree off of that or else it kind of ruins your time.

You just get in one you got to trust the superintendent, you're hoping they can maintain what you are trying to design. Like we knew, we had CJA out there, we already knew from Pacific tunes, so we weren't worried about the turf conditions and the firmness, so you could pull off those shots, and that doesn't always work. Sometimes the grass gets a little, either get a new owner or the owner wants a greener, then we thought it would be. We would need a little browner and a little firmer. And so sometimes the shots don't work.

Yeah. Had you, during your time in New Zealand, did you visit curry cliffs? Yes, he did. Yeah. What was, I mean, were you trying to learn something in that regard to kind of how to fit a golf course into an extreme landscape or what was kind of the take-aways you had from curry cliffs? One, we knew, you know, that was the first place we went.

And when Tom and I landed in New Zealand, also, there's a helicopter waiting for us, which was pretty cool. Yeah, they are not close together. No, and, you know, June was putting on the show and he flew up in a helicopter to the Cari Cliffs and, you know, toured and landed and played it. And, you know, it, Cari Cliffs is really good. It's on a really severe piece of ground. And David Harmer and I think did a great job. He's passed away since, but it's a more of a modern

design. You know, they weren't thinking about the ball running here and there. You know, it's, it's a highly maintained golf course. It's pretty, you know, but it's a pretty setting of there in a Bay Islands. And so it fits it really well. I think what we learned more about it was from our client. What our client was and what we needed to. Even before I flew out to New Zealand, Tom sent me out to the Hamptons, Julian has a place out there. He's a member of National and Chinatown.

I spent two days with him. Just picking his, he goes, go out and pick his brain, what he likes about the national, and what he likes about Chinatown. So we can kind of figure out what we could get away with, what would be acceptable in his mind and did he want a big lush place, what could be, what was his knowledge about. So, I think that was mostly, you know, because we didn't really copy much in Cari Cliffs other than, and you know, we had some of their project managers and their construction crew come up and their maintenance guys, so we got to go know them and learn from their mistakes or their successes

and how could we apply it at our place. One of the things that took away from Cari Cliffs was how they used, in the way they used the land, a lot of your really severe climbs. First of all, you need a golf cart out there. Sure, yeah. But a lot of the climbs, a lot of difficulties are in between holes. Like the golf holes themselves have, there's a couple holes, I think the fifth or sixth holes,

par four that really goes uphill, but the rest of them don't play too extreme from up or down over this crazy wild property. You did a good job, you lay in, you know, and there's some bridges there too, that are enormous. You know, you can build a golf course in real severe ground and just not be implable. And just could be a big dumb golf course. And he, he, he got a good, working good golf course on real severe alone. Did you go down to the South Island,

Jax point at all while you were there? No, we did to play Arrowhead or Arrow Town. You know, it is interesting. You know, when, when you run a project for time, you kind of slaved at the site. Because you want to be, you run it and it's Sundays, I'd be up there by myself or take my kid up in shape and My wife, my son got to travel all over New Zealand while I was living there. I think it to see much because the shapers Always are going on trips and stuff Weekends wave with their wives and I was always kind of slave to it, but since then I've gone to travel a lot and see the rest of it and more just be a tourist than anything else. But you know, paraphrase was great, we played that. You know, there's some great golf still there, but you know, I think Cape and the

Cape and Teriator kind of heads and shoulders above. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of funny, like the local, Jack Nichols was building course up in Toppo and my landlord was like, well, Jack's going to build something better. And he had, because he's greatest course on, you know, golf in the world, like, I think it'd be a surprise how good this is going to be. Yeah. Just thought we were a bunch of, Yahoo's from the United States. You thought it was really arrogant. I'm like, no, this can be really good.

It's going to be pretty well known on a world. And I think when it popped into whatever 25th or something in the world, I said, I'm gonna know it. Mike, I think we did pretty good. We did all right. Yeah, there's just a lot happening with New Zealand golf, especially with Terry Edie

and potentially two new courses going in there at Terry Edie. That's gonna be a true. I mean, as of now, and we just kind of did a video series on it. I mean, I played three courses on the North Island and I mean, it's nine hours and we just kind of did a video series on it, I mean, I played three courses on the North Island, and I mean, it's nine hours of driving between them. It's not a, it's not like the, the sand bell where you throw a blanket over.

You just go there and play golf. Eight world-class courses. It's not a true golf destination just yet, but. No, it isn't. You know, people ask me, I'm like, wow, come on, Rent, because you're going to want to, you're going to want to go on holiday in New Zealand, if you can sneak around a golf and want to, you know, one of the courses great but it's not really golf test station but it's getting there now it's you know they're getting there. Yeah they definitely are. What you know you mentioned some of the travel you've done and all the different places you've lived and stuff but

I'm wondering in your travels what is a place or a series of places you've seen that have had the most influence on you? It was going to the sand belt to Australia. It changed my life quite a bit. It was, you know, we were on tourist visas, we were in New Zealand, so I don't know if we're illegal aliens or what, working there. But every three months we had to bug out, bug out of the country, and, miles would go to Melbourne, but I got a good amount. Dang, I hit to do that.

So we'd go over there and play golf. I knew Mike Clayton really well, and we set up great golf trips over there, and we go for a week and play everything. And the biggest thing for it as a consultant now was the mowing lines in all the sandblad courses, how they mowed greens out to the edge of the bunker. So how they mowed from chipping areas in the next teas,

you know, Kingston Heathers, brilliant woodlands. So I learned how to kind of apply that over here where Ballinill was a product of that. You know, I came back from Louisiana, and my hair was on fire. I'm like, man, now I know how to make some cool stuff in some sandy areas. So Ballinill was a direct product of that

where you were always walking on short grass. You could almost walk the whole golf course on short grass. You know, we connect fairways, or chipping areas of the next teas, and then the next fairways, and then the next green. So, it was just a contiguous, you know, and Terry, is that connected fairways? Can play it with a putter by Technicke.

Yeah, so all those courses after that, we kinda of that was a big mantra in the back of our minds to make things even cooler. Yeah, I think something that triggered me was when it Royal Melbourne and they had and I forgive me because I don't remember the grass types. I'm not an agronomical expert by any means, but they had different landing areas in front of the greens were a different surface than fairways because I wanted you to be able to play run-ups. Now we're talking, like now we're thinking about, you know, how to combine the playability of a course with like grass types. And I think kind of transitioning a little bit towards, you know, we watch a lot of professional golf, you see a lot of professional golf, and how different those courses that they play are from the courses that I've enjoyed playing the most. And so almost everything comes back to two things to me. Once technology, they have to go to golf courses that you know can handle these guys pounding

drivers 330 and two it just comes down to courses playing fast and firm or playing the way like Scotland golf to me and people listening to this podcast have heard me rave about it to a nauseating extent is like is golf like that The playing target and kind of throwing it in the air and stopping it in the next place is not Nearly nearly is fun, but kind of walk walk in the most Broadway take us through why like a PGA tour golf course is not gonna play fast and firm like that we that we would ideally want. Well, I think the tour sports entertainment. Yeah. It is entertaining yesterday. It's pretty entertaining. Oh my god. It was. And so, you know, they want these guys to look good. They are good. They're that

good. You know, they just hit it ball on a dime and far and straight now. And so they want them to shine. They want to be a pretty package on TV. So, you know, when you see Royal Liverpool that just brown or anything, you know, even Gullin when it was baked, people have a hard time looking at that, you know, in the States and just like where's the fairway? Where's the green and watching the ball roll out for her and feet. But, you know, what's interesting, a at Carnegie is that, I don't know if it's necessarily a good link's golf because the greens and the approaches were wet.

Very wet, yeah. And so it was, it was just hard because Conearnu C's hard and you gotta keep it in the fairway, but they were hitting at 400 yards and then throwing the wedges on and spinning the ball back. So I don't think it worked really well there, but it's compelling to watch. I don't know it worked really well there. But it's compelling to watch. I don't know. I just think it sports entertainment and it's watching pretty golf on TV. We see

it every April and it's like Dorothy coming out of the black and white to color. You watch Augusta. Well, it's just that you've worked on so many sites here and just looking at your resume of places that in the states that do it really well. And I guys have the most entertaining golf I played as in Scotland. All those links courses essentially kind of played in some way play the same way. They're all designed for just the ball to be rolling on the ground. And going out, you know, I went to band in for the first time five years ago. First link golf experience ever played it.

And I just kind of wondered like, all right, is that Link's golf or is that American Link's golf went and played in Scotland and went back to band in this past year, band and holds up? Maybe even better. It is Link's Link's golf. Ken Nys is that good, that superintendent out there and he really gets it. And honestly, it is that feeling of hitting an iron off that turf and the sound of the ball makes when it hits the green or the two things that trigger to me like that is kind of just that's golf like that is totally golf. So how I guess I don't really have a question related to it, it's just that trying to highlight what are the best places in the states that do that style of golf and you've worked on the very most of them.

You know, and it's just it's also that it's necessary for the design. We'd love that kind of golf, you know, because it's fun, if you have to land a ball, you know, 150 yards out, and you know, you have to land a 30-yard short and read the ground, what the ground feeded in, I think, you know, what they always say is like, in, I think it's American golf, you can breathe a sigh of relief on the ball hits the ground. And over in Scotland, you stop breathing when the ball hits the ground because you've got 10 more seconds of excitement. But you read the ground, you let the ground move the ball instead of the ball moving in the air.

Where professional golf is mostly moving the ball in the air and picking a target and hitting the perfect shot because I read it right and it is the perfect shot. But you know, Lynx Golf is creating the perfect shot in landing anywhere you want and reading the ground. You know, five different guys can take a different avenue to the same spot, you know, just by maneuvering the ball, the flight of the ball, using the ground on the left or the ground on right to feed it in. You know, we're pretty fortunate that we, you know, that's kind of how we love to play. And so it's Sandy-based soils. So Tom was on a pretty good run and getting some great sites.

So Pacific Dunes obviously was the first one. You know, the sand hills was the start one. That started all for Bill and Ben and got all realized we could build something cool like that. And then, you know, stream song works really well. Rusty Mercer, amazing that he, in the winter time, can get Bermuda to play that way, blows us all away. If you go play stream song and here in Florida,

in the middle of January, when Bermuda is a little dormant, you're putting from 100 yards out, and it works. And that's great. And that's the key you said at the Sandy soil. I mean, as much as we would love every golf course to kind of play fast and firm and interesting like that, but the key is the soil. You can't just build in the middle of Ohio like a link score. But you can do it on clay soil.

You can firm up clay. It's just as long as it drains well. You get the water off the clay. Clay obviously when it gets wet, it gets a little mushy, but firm clay soil can run ball pretty well too. But sandy soils are obviously the best because it's always going to be dry and drains really well. You mentioned stream song. What was in Florida is famous for being incredibly flat and uninteresting land for the most

part. What was your reaction when you guys saw the land that would do it? That was unbelievable. I said, you know, that was the last project I worked for Ron our for Tom on and I remember driving there the first time and you're going through flat mining fields basically and pretty flat territory and also you get through this you come over a hill and you think you're in Sandhills in Nebraska, you know, I remember when Early on in construction. I had Ron Whitton,

Greg Klein, had all the writers come by and I always love coming over the 10th hole of the the Red Course because our maintenance facility was there and hearing the gasps in the back seat just go oh my gosh, where are we? Because it was why I mean it was crazy. I'm not swamp but there was wildlife out there. It was wildlife. You know Florida reclaims things pretty fast, you know, because of the year round vegetation growth. So, you know, it was an old mining site and they just plopped the dirt everywhere

and had open pits and filled full of water. And Florida had gained, you know, Mother Nature reclaimed the land pretty fast. So what I always told people is like, you remind me, the early pictures of Pine Valley. like you remind me the early pictures of Pine Valley. If you look at the early picture of Pine Valley when there were no trees, it was lakes, vegetation, and sand. And that's what Streamtongue looked like when we got there. And Tom and Bill worked on the routing brilliantly together and separately and then back together again and

and then back together again and milk the most out of that, that landform, you know, manmade but unique landform and twisted into something that could be natural. And you don't feel like it's manmade when you're there, definitely not. No, because, you know, because wind and nature had taken it over, so it kind of softened the edges, and, you know, we utilize, you know, we move a bit of dirt on certain holes again. But we disguised it, but utilize, we move, we move a bit of dirt on certain holes again.

We disguised it, but for the most part, a lot of it was there and it's a pretty cool place. What, and then after that, you said that you mentioned that was the last project you worked on with Tom. You went out, what, what, what encouraged you to want to go out on your own and... Well, Tom, like a year before, Jim or Bina and Tom and part ways right after Old MacDonald and so I could kind of see the right hand of all a little bit. And the business was slowing down.

There wasn't a lot of new projects being done. And I'd always done probably the majority of the consulting work for Tom ever since. That was part of our deal when he hired me. I'm like, I still wanted to do consulting and restoration works. He was fine. So I always did that on the side while I was running 18 old projects where busy. So just before streams, I was pegged to run stream song and just before that, he kind of came to me, he goes, man, because I'm signing on

these contracts. I don't even get to see these golf courses, you ever think about going on your own. And I said, well, yeah, I could feel that comment and I go, this would be a great time. He goes, well, I was thinking at the end of the year I'm like how about right now just before I start stream song and then I'm still your rep. I get a contract with stream song and we're going directly for them. They're funding my company for a while and I get to do all the consulting work. So it works out perfect for both of us. Cutters pay roll.

I still ran project forums so dear good friends with them and see all the guys in a crew are still my best friends. But I also got to start my company with the basis of work and then I took all the, you know, he says, take all your consulting with you. So I took all my clients with me. And so one stream song was done, even while I was being built, I was doing some bunker projects and rebuilding greens at clubs. So I already had a built-in business.

So I've been happily and luckily greens at clubs. So I already had a built-in business. So I've been happily and luckily busy ever since. I'm booked through like 2020 now. So I'm just have steady. I'm just a one-man crew and I do my own shaping and I just take on enough work where it keeps you busy and kind of projects I like to work on. Awesome. Well I won't take up any more your time because I know you've got an important project here at Tim Aquana that you're up here for. Okay. Appreciate you taking an hour out of your day to inform us on your background about some

great stories and the chances of you talking to us. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you've talked to us. That was a lot of fun. Cheers, thanks. Give it a big club. Be the right club today. Yes.

Yeah. That is better than most. How about you? That is better than most. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most.

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