No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 249: Jim Wagner from Hanse Golf Design LIVE from Pinehurst

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

Jim Wagner has been the lead associate with the Hanse Golf Design company for decades, and he joined us live from the Pinehurst Brewery to discuss his career, trends in golf course design, renovation vs. restoration, their work at Pinehurst, and a lot more. Jim is a great story teller and entertainer, and there are many, many laughs in this one. Thanks a ton to Jim for making the trip down, and to Pinehurst for helping us host a terrific event.  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! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up Podcast. Got another live episode for you today. Sully here, sorry, I always forget to introduce ourselves. A quarter of this is past weekend at Pinehurst with Jim Wagner.

Jim's a long time associate of Gil Hans with the Hans Design Company. And Jim is an entertainer. He was a blast to play with. We really appreciated him coming down. A lot of laughs in this one. He was a, he owned the room and entertained everyone. And Roast did me pretty good. It was actually a lot of fun.

We didn't get a chance to talk about it, but he wanted us to mention as well the caveman scholarship. We talk a bit about the caveman design, or the caveman group that is kind of their group of shapers and whatnot and their scholarship that exists to provide financial support to deserving individuals to expand educational goals. If you're interested in golf course design or working in golf in some capacity,

I suggest you check out the outpostfoundation.org as well as if you're interested in making donation there. It's really cool what the Hans Design Group is doing with this caveman scholarship. And we had a ton of fun, great weekend, about 20. I think it was 21, maybe 20 people from our message board and from Twitter came out to Pinehurst to play number two, play number four, play the cradle.

We did a wild roll of golf filming. I'm a record of this live podcast and it was a very busy weekend. And I'm still a little hungover as I am reading this here on a Sunday evening, which is usually never a good sign, but usually the sign of a very good weekend. Last thing here, before we get rolling here, you've seen how often Calloway is winning again

and again all over the world. They added yet another one, a big one today with Danny Willett at the BMW PGA Championship, the European Tours Flagship event. He drove it on a string and made every putty looked at with his Odyssey Stroke Lab, Tuttle Putter. This week alone, Calaway was number one driver

at the BMW PGA Championship, the number one driver in Japan, number one driver on the Champions Tour. You've heard this story a weekend and a week out. There's a reason why everyone is using this club. A lot of people at Pioneer's had Epic flashes in the bag this past weekend, which was great to see. All of this success with their Epic Flash driver

and the incredible bull speed created by Flashface. That's why it's the number one selling driver model and number one driver across the major worldwide tours by far in 2019. If you haven't tried it at this point, I don't know why. I don't know why you're wasting your time. You really need to try at CalawayGolf.com today to experience Epic Flash.

And without any further delay, here is our live podcast with Jim Wagner from Hans Golf Design. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second ever live No-Lang-Up podcast here at The Pinehurst Brewery. First one was a great success. We got a slightly smaller audience this time around, but it is a louder audience, I believe.

Can we verify that? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We are here at Pinehurst with Jim Wagner, who is no stranger to the Pinehurst family. We're going to get to the fun stuff really quickly,

but first, can we get a little introduction, tell us what you do, who you work with, and some of the things you've worked on. Geez. Well, I work with Gill Hance. Gill and I have been working together for 23 years. So, I think Hanskopf design has been a business for 25. So, shortly thereafter, I join Gill.

And I've worked on pretty much everything that we've done. He's done since. So I mean that's a long list of projects which we can go through at any point in time. That's what yeah. But wrap this up so we can list all the other single ones. Yeah, right now I'll take us to the end. But you know we're a small company. We're a small company. Well you know it company. Well, you know, it started.

It was, it was Gil myself and Rodney. Rodney, high and left and went on to be the superintendent Boston golf club, which is, you know, you guys have played there. It's great. And then it was just Gil and I for the longest time. We have an office manager who works with us part-time. And over the past, maybe four or five years,

we've had Kevin Murphy join us who basically does all of our plan work now. And then Ben Hillard joined us probably right after the Brazil Olympics. So what's it been three years now? And he runs our project, does some planning with us. And so there's really four of us, you know, do all the work. We all do work.

So all the work, like once you get to the golf course. All the work, yeah. But we also have a side company. It's called Caveman Construction. That's where all of our shapers. Is there a story behind that name? Yeah, there is, yeah, we can get to that. Yeah, so Caveman Construction, that's just, we just set it up separately for business purposes,

but that's really where all our shapers work for. So, all of our shapers work for caveman construction. How many shapers are we talking? Well, at times we go up to 13. Some of those guys are subs that are, you know, looking to do their own thing. Like Kyle Frons, for instance, I mean, everybody knows Kyle. Kyle's great, extremely talented. Kyle worked for us for about five or six years.

Those guys tend to do this sub thing because they need the flexibility and freedom to be able to run off and chase the own projects and do stuff like that. So it all depends on the individual and what they want to do. Because we never want to hold anybody back. Right. This business is hard enough, so any freedom they can have is great.

What is your role specifically? So what are you in charge of? It's, well, we're so loosely organized. So there's no real, like, for better for worse. For better for worse, exactly. You know, if working every day is your thing, because every day I will work. Right, there's no doubt about it.

I'm sure every day, Gil's working. You know, that's just the nature of the business, right? Especially when you're doing projects from Thailand to France, it almost never stops. So it's like that. But from a corporate structure, which everybody's probably a little more familiar with, I'd probably say I'm more along the lines of the CLL.

So it's basically operations. I still handle and help with a lot of design work. I'm still shaping regularly. like last year at Marion, along with Ben Hill, by pretty much shaped majority of the bunkers at Marion. So there's still a lot of that going on. We never want to be to the situation where we're not hands on.

We just feel that being hands on is the only way to- And guilt the same way. And guilt the same way. I mean, Gil moves to the jobs. Like Gilles, when he was here doing four, he lived in the Dona-Ross house, right? So, you know, that was great, but we have to be there.

There's no other way to do it, and our guys are as well. Anybody that works for it, moves and lives at the jobs for ever how long it is, six months, eight months a year. It just doesn't matter, that's it. So what, if I go to the hands-design website

and I go and look at the renovations and I look at the restorations, the restoration list is about double in size. What's the difference between the two? And is that term used a little bit loosely? You want the truth? Yes. It's all bullshit.

Right. Right. Seriously. Right. Now everybody in this room understands that, right? Renovation, restoration, it's loosely used on either side, right? I mean, there can be some stuff, you know, restoration, but a restoration can also be a renovation.

Not just look at Marion, for instance, right? Because we just finished Marion. But we tried to restore Marion to the best we could. So in essence, it is a restoration, right? We went back to what was there, you know, from all the old photographs, things that changed over the years, bunker style change, greens change, everything changes, right?

So it was a restoration, but it also had a huge component of a renovation, right? We renovated all the greens. The greens are no longer what they were. They're no longer, you know, push up greens, we turned them into USDA. Sure,'re no longer, you know, push up greens. We turned them into USDA. Sure, we did use, you know, scan technology to put them back, you know, almost, you know, replicate what they were prior.

So you can say, yeah, there is a restoration portion to that, but we renovated all the greens, right? We renovated all the bunkers. We put them back, but we renovated them. So it's kind of a, you know a BS term that's kind of used freely, but a renovation can be a restoration at the exact same time. Now, if you don't do any of going back and you're saying, listen, another architect

changed something that was built in 1920, and they kind of put their own stamp on it, and you went in and you just modified what was there, and you didn't go back, I could be considered a renovation. But I mean, it is. It's all kind of more like a renovation. But it's almost like people are afraid of the renovation word, and they feel like they're really doing something, you know, restoring it kind of is a, there's an air to it. I guess you can say. It's probably a lot of marketing people. I play with a marketing guy today

over there with Rob, but yeah, I mean, there's a marketing aspect, right? Of course. There has to be. You're restoring something. That's great. That sounds great. But in S&GA, you may be restoring, but you're renovating. But where in a restoration, where do you take liberties?

Because the game is extremely different then. If you're restoring a 1923 golf course, the game has just changed a ton since then. So if you want to put a bunker back in the same place, it might be completely irrelevant with today's technology. So what kind of liberties do you take when you are, you know what the goal is to attempt to kind of restore the bones of a golf course, but where do you see the most changes?

Well, the first thing that happens, when you do a so-called restoration or renovation, the teas are going back. So if you take the teas back, right? Then the game is changing from that point forward. The game has changed so much that, you know, so you're taking liberties and moving the teas back, you're taking liberties and maybe taking the same bunker style,

same bunker configuration, we'll say it was three bunkers in 1923 from a tea that was a little further up. You move the tea back, you may move the bunker complex, you know, 50 yards down range, but you're going to put that same up, you move the T back, you may move the bunker complex, you know, 50 yards down range, but you're going to put that same three, you know, configuration back in. So you take liberties in that location of that,

and the green's complex is right, you know, you have to take a little bit of liberties, especially like old Ross stuff, you hear it all the time. The defense of XYZ hole on this course that Ross built was, that you didn't want to be above the pin. Right? And if you're above the pin, that's a defense of the hole. That's a defense that is an architect. You try to put in, right?

We have to do as much as we possibly can to defend the golf course without really tricking it up. So you go ahead and you make the green pitch severe from back to front, which Ross did, but that's when green speeds were five or seven or something. So if you want to still keep that, you can't possibly even hold a ball on a green. So you may have to go ahead and just drop the back of that green zone instead of it running, you know, 5% you know, forward, you may have to drop it to three and a half. The thing is, as you get into, and then when you have turn events,

they were opening up another whole kind of worms, right, with the PGA tour, right? You know, we got Robin Quivers back there behind us, running the soundboard. It's DJ Pie for those that are not in the room. He knows because he's worked for the tour and nothing bad about those guys or whatever, for a couple of weeks. But there's nothing wrong with that. But we're OK with greens and pinnable locations up to 3, three and a quarter, three and a half percent.

Some guys aren't, some guys say the max you could be is two and a half, two and a quarter. That's, that to us just takes away the defense and some of the interest of the greens. So I get, it would be greens and bunkering and teas. I mean, fairway wits, you know. Well speaking of, you know, tournament golf and the tour, one of the, it's an interesting topic.

I bring this up whenever I can because what you guys did with the 12th hole at TBC Boston and putting the center line bunker in and watching the tour pros freak out and hit balls into other fairways and then demand and the tour coming in and removing that. It's walking through this whole process, right?

Because the way I understand it is, you have to figure out ways to combat how far they hit the golf ball. And you gotta make them think about where they wanna hit it. And then you do that and then they cry and then it goes away. But you just said the keyword, think. Yeah, right? Yeah.

That is the keyword which a lot of professional golfers, no offense, they don't really wanna have to think their way around the golf course. I've said this before and when we redid the Ralph or Trump, I don't wanna say the golfers in the end, because you can probably find them on another podcast. Billy Horsill. That's here, so sure.

And it was at a, maybe like a polo thing at the in-approach out the evening before the event, and they had played a couple practice rounds, right? Now mind you, we're going into a World Golf Championship, right? Zero cut, right? Limited field, everybody's guaranteed, what, 75 grand, or whatever? Free money, yeah.

Free money, okay. What do you think of the golf course? Well, you know, Jim, I get up to that seventh hole, and the problem we have is that every hole we have to think. There's no let up holes, there's no holes that we can just get up there and hit the ball. And I'm kind of looking at them thinking to myself, I'm like, seriously, I said, most people come Thursday and they're a normal job of a week or a worn out. That's why Thursday is the biggest party in the week.

Because everybody's beat up after four days of work. And here you're complaining, you know, because after four days, you're gonna work for four days and make 75 grand. That's what most people make. That's the average income of most people for an entire year. So, like comments like that, but I mean you have to understand who you're playing with, who you're working for and with is that, and we all know this is that, and nothing can be their fault. And there's a lot of, no, it's here, is it, right?

There's a lot of professions out there that once you start to bring doubt into your own mind that you're no longer gonna be successful. Right, because as soon as you start doubting and worrying about whatever, we go through this, right? If we're working on a golf hall or working on a golf course, we're shaping a bunker.

And I'm worried about what Gil's gonna think or what he would do in that situation. Or if I'm worried about what the members are gonna think, or if I'm worried about, you know, the tour players or something like that, I'm never gonna do what I think is right, okay? So if you start downing yourself, you're gonna change, and now you're not gonna do what should be done, okay? And that's the same thing with the tour player, right? At least in my mind again, I can barely play you know

I got a two today on a part three and I got a stroke You know, it's great Is that a net, too? You got that coin? Yeah, I did that. Yeah, you got the two? Yeah Yeah, wherever that these coin is There was a long slippery like, deuce that I dropped. Right? Right? I don't know.

You're the only ones all they got to do, right? Yeah. Maybe I'll have a deuce today. Yeah. His was an upper decker that I'm using. Oh, I don't know. You made it from that, and the middle of the fairway, right? Yeah, we'll call that an upper decker deuce.

I bladed it if we're being honest. For people that don't know what that is, for the three or four that aren't here in this room that actually listen to the podcast, I think you can find an upper decker in the Urban Dictionary. I don't know. But anyhow, so that's what really goes into play with the tour play,

at least I think, is because they can't be wrong about what's going on, right? And because of that, that enters into their mind, then that becomes internally a problem for them. So it's easy for them to yell at their caddy. It's easy for them to blame the Gotham. It's easy for them to blame the superintendent. The same person I mentioned about the rail

was the same person that was on TV at Chambers Bay, making all the wiggles worth their arm because of missus moves. Yeah, so it's all part of it. And, you know, yet we have to take with the green assault. Well, that's, I think, I think, Gill even referenced it when, during that first year after the renovation at D'Aral, or restoration, in which you call it.

But JB Holmes hit a ball in the center of the green and ended up rolling off into the water. But he was coming, I forget what hole was, but he was coming in and Gills Point was like, yeah, you came from the wrong side of the fairway. He was the first hole throughout. Yeah. And it's a 0.5, it's like 550 yards.

And he's hitting his big, big, old, high, like, fade into a green that's sloped from left to right with a water on the right. And he wonders why his ball hits the green and goes into the water. Well, I can tell you why, you know. It's not really that hard to figure out. But the thing that most people don't understand is the PGA tour, the setup that's done every day, is done by a separate group of individuals that are not, I don't think they think they work for the PGA tour.

I could be wrong about that, but they have control of setting up the golf course. And when you explain to them what you're trying to do, and I'm sitting with the guys when this is, you know, some of these shots are going on and they're kind of laughing, right? Because we've given them plenty of room on that particular hole, they can hit the ball

out to the right and then have a much better angle into the green because the green is still up like that so they can play into it. So the fact that they're attempting that and hitting the ball into the water, quite frankly, is their own fault, right? They didn't read the golf hall and try to understand what was going on. So, you know, when you look at it, you know, Trump's there, he was kind of laughing because it's, you know, one that's a show, and obviously nobody's a showman.

But, too, it's just, you know, these guys are not thinking the way around the golf course. What's it like working with Trump? I thought it was great. Now mine, seriously. Now mine was before he became present, and he was running for getting ready to run for president. But you have to get comfortable with him. A lot of people don't. And it becomes about more of what their decision-making or answering his questions is more about what they think he wants as opposed to what you should say.

At least my experience with him was, you just tell him what you thought or what you wanted to do. And he would listen to it and you know, usually accept, you know, what you were going to do. A lot of it's money-based, you know, he's in business for it. But, you know, every time he came out once I got comfortable with him, it was great. I mean, we talked, I mean, at a cell phone number, he called me three times a week and just talked about all sorts of stuff.

So I had zero issues with him, you know. Did, and you, you talked about this some when we were talking about how you were shaping the bunkers and thinking about what players are going to think, what members are going to think, and you're kind of saying you have to trust yourself in it. So like, what is your design philosophy? And I think it's become almost a cliche for people to say, well, we want to make it accessible for the mid-handy

capers, challenging for the low-handy capers, and fun all around. But what, that seems to be the movement in golf, I don't know if I took the words right out of your mouth. Well, if you're shaping a bunker, it's not fun for anybody. Yeah. I mean, it's overall philosophies, right? Like, bunker-wise, I go back to because I grew up

in Philadelphia. And I was just talking to one of the guys here that was just moved to Philadelphia. And he lives near Marion. You know, he drives by Marion, and you know, it's great, right? When I was a kid, that was the big thing, you know, where I grew up, you know, I wasn't going to be a member at Marion. But I love golf.

A lot of friends cadded at Marion, so I would just drive by the East Course just to go ahead and see everything that drive by the East Course just to go ahead and see everything that was on the East Course. Now, I became a fence member of the West Course because it was all, you know, caddies and my buddies caddies, so we go play there. And there was a heck of a lot more architecture on Marion West than there is on the East, really, because of what's in the ground. It's a shorter golf course, there's much more interest there.

But, you know, my whole thing is that, you know, Marion, to me, is one of the greatest golf courses, but Marion has everything. So no matter what goes on and what you want to do design-wise, it's at Marion, and if it's not at Marion, it's sure as hell is at Pine Valley, right? So when you start asking your questions, you know, and people are like, well, I don't know, I don't think Rowling should cross over. Well, look at Marion. 13, you walk over the entry road, you're walking front of 1-T and you get to 14. Well, I don't want two-parfIs.

There's no-parfIs on the back. Marion's last-parfIs is number four, right? So, all those short-holes, well, I don't want to hit a high-brit off every hole. Well, Marion, you know, those six or seven holes in the middle of the golf course, I mean, what's the longest part for? You know, 350 yards or something, you know? So everything with Marion is great.

So if you think about that in the way it goes, I choose it a philosophy I always go off of. It's pretty simple really. When did it become, I don't know what happened with golf courses, but it came very much like there were certain rules, quote unquote rules that people felt like they had to follow being 7,000 yards, par 72, two par fives, two par threes on both sides. Do you feel like you're still fighting that? If you go in to talk to a Greens Committee somewhere, do you feel like you're still fighting

people on the concept of these quote unquote rules that I'm not really sure where they came from? Well, yeah, I do agree with that. I mean, it's the same marketers that are trying to sell restoration versus renovations, right? And especially in club situations. So it's all bullshit. It kind of is, you know, really it is.

You know, I think that it's all bullshit. And again, I just used two examples of what were really, you know, good golf courses that you could go all over the place. You played Boston Golf Club, 18 is a part three. But like, we're trying to not convince the club, but we're trying to work with the club in Florida that have plenty of, they've got three, we'll call them championship, 18 holes, you know, golf.

We're trying to take one of their 18 holes, which is the shorter of the bunch, and we're talking about turning it into a shorter, more interesting, you know, let's just say, it could be part 68, you know, 5,500 yards, you know, maybe from the back tees, it gets up to 6,000 and a little bit more, you know, part three courses, part of that,

and expand their practice facilities, part of it. And, you know, there's members there to kind of question that thought process. And it's like, well, why you question it? That's what, well, some of us in a room grew up playing as kids. Right? We weren't playing 6,000 or 7,000, you know, 7,200 yard golf courses. We were playing, you know, Marion back before they expanded for the open. And still to this day, it's probably from the real back to Jesus, probably 6600 yards.

I mean, you got the scorecard there. You're trying to share everybody how cool you are that you played Marion. Seriously, you guys got to understand. This thing was wobbly here, right? So he pulls out a lot of scorecards and he's got a Marion scorecard. You asked what's the flowcard?

And I had it in here. And a Pine Valley scorecard. He's like, can I run the show? No, I'm not running the show. Oh, like accidentally. Oh, no, no, no.? I'm gonna show people. Oh, like accidentally, like, I fell out of my pocket. Oh, you played Marion? Oh, yeah.

It's a conversation piece. Put it in the middle of room. Well, I don't know, he was the question. I don't remember, but I've always thought, like, 18 holes never feels like enough to me. And 36 usually feels like too many. But if you have somewhere here, where it pine hers, if you play 18 holes, I would love to hit a bunch

of more approach shots. And that leads us to the cradle, which opened here a couple years ago, which you guys built. And I was really interested to say, big cradle fans in here. But we've got to thank the pine hers folks for that. Tom Pashley and Bob Farron and all those guys Bob Deadman.

I mean, because they're the ones that, you know, either visualize doing something there or allowed it to happen. And we're just the fortunate ones that today take these, you know, two holes and let's turn them into something cool. Yeah. Because it feels like today we played two and I was in the shit all day.

And I felt like I missed out on hitting a bunch of really interesting approach shots. It's like, oh, we can walk over here to the cradle and hit a bunch of really interesting approach. It just eliminates the driving part. And I think a lot of people feel like they have to hit a bunch of drivers when they go play golf.

But this sets up so well. And I was interested in your Gil. When we asked him, he was on the pod. He said, I asked, what are you most proud of of everything you've done? And he said the cradle. So why was that, I don't know if you would say the same thing, but why was that such a rewarding experience for you guys?

Well, the rewarding part of that is drive down the road that parallels the cradle on any given day, right? And it's usually filled with people. It's a group of guys like we have here in this room. It's a husband and wife. It's a grandfather and his grandkids. It's about going out and playing golf. The thing that I think gets lost in golf is

it's no different than a pickup game of basketball, right? Where you grab a couple of buddies and, hey, let's go play some basketball. You see little kids at the playground, shooting hoops and stuff like that. That's what golf needs to be. It's intimidating, first of all, right? You know, a lot of us suck.

We're talking to people suck. Seriously, right? He's pandering now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and it's an intimidating game. But if you can go out there and not be intimidated, have fun and play and enjoy. So I think that's the biggest thing about the cradle is it's just that. You can go out there and have fun and play and enjoy. So I think that's the biggest thing about the cradle

is it's just that. You can go out there and have fun. 45 minutes. But then again, if you're a better player, and like you just said, Saul, if you want to go out and you wanted to practice some shouts, you can go out to the cradle and use it as a practice mechanism. And that's kind of what we're doing at this course

in Florida, and we want it to be. It's the same thing. It's like, you can go play 18. It may not take you four and a half hours. That's, you know, a little bit long for a lot of people, especially in the staying age. If you can finish in three, three and a half hours, still hit your driver.

You may not hit it on every hole, but still hit your driver, and enjoy your, you know, around the golf course, and then go ahead and maybe do what we're doing here. Go grab lunch, have a couple beers, go out and play a part three course. You know, that's what it should be all about. There's plenty of options to go.

And depending upon how many scorecards you have there, you probably got them all listed. But there's plenty of courses to go where you can do that whenever you want to do, but we don't have enough options of the cradle or a classic older style golf course that's kind of fun and interesting and like everybody loves number 10 at Riviera, right? So when is too many, number 10's at Riviera

too much for an 18 whole golf course, right? Is it six of them? Or eight of them? Or nine of them? You know, add a couple, a really cool par threes. Everybody loves a short par threes. You know, how many short par threes is too many? Is a wedge, a nine iron, and a nine iron par three?

Is that too many short par threes? Maybe give one long, one. But it can easily be done, and I think it's something that needs to be done, and that's the interest. Let people go out there and play and have fun. It's everything really seems to be trending that way. From Band-In, San Valley here. I can't even name all the places that are now popping up.

We were just at Valley Bunyan in Ireland this spring, and they had the Caching course, the second 18-hole course, which is even harder than the old course. We were playing it. This place would be so perfect for just cool green sites and just a par three course. Just make a part, don't have to make. A lot of people don't want to play 36 holes in a day. Now it's like putting courses too, with what this will do, and things like that popping up. But I want to talk about number four. Interestingly enough, I think it's listed at both as an original design and a renovation project.

Oh my god, they got everything right there. They were right down the list. It's buying renovation too, right? So what was here at Pinehurst at number four, and what was the process of building this golf course? At some point, I don't know really the whole history of it, but I think it was maybe the late 80s, I think Fazio, where his group came in and redid number four.

And it was done in that style. It was nothing wrong with it. It was just a style that it was done in. And I think that the brain trust behind Pinehurst realized that they had maybe a lot of that in all the courses that they had. And course two was something interesting and different, and they wanted to expand off of that.

And the kind of funny thing is I travel a lot, right? And I live at these resorts. I lived at the rail. I lived at Stream Song. I go to all these places. So I talked a lot of people, I ate dinner in a bar almost every night. And you talked to groups of guys that come in.

And I doubt once during, say, a three-year span that I was traveling around in these different places, anybody ever mentioned Pynhurst. Like, nobody would come in to, hey, where do you guys go on a buddy's trip? Nobody was saying Pynhurst, right? It was Bandon. it was all these other places that Pynast was never in the equation.

I never really even thought about it either. I mean, everybody knows it's great because of course, too, and you see it on TV, but it was never in our vocabulary the people that are sitting in this room. So I think when the brain trust decided to go that route, I think course four made the best option because if they wanted to go to the flavor or the look or the spirit of Course Two, that need to tie into that part of the property. Right?

Because when you look at Course Two and Four right next to one another, now the cradle and this will do, it's all got that expos in, wispy looking. So that made the most sense. It's more dramatic. So I think that's really what led them to looking at course two and what led us to kind of following that spirit. Well, is it difficult, you know, this natural terrain

like you were discussing? And then obviously, Piner's two went through this a few years ago, but what was once a naturally sandy area then became very, very green. And now you have to go backwards and do more work to make it try to look quote unquote natural. Was that extremely challenging? Or once you kind of strip the grass out,

was that easy to see the expose saying, how does that work? It's challenging. Design standpoint, it's fairly easy. The challenge is from a construction standpoint. I don't want to get into a long boring bunch of bullshit or any kind of like background on soils and stuff like that, but all sands are not created equal, right? People be like, hey, it's sand, so it's range.

You know, you put some sand out there, you know, you take a pee and it goes away, right? And that's sand, but that's not really true. So sands are different. The sands it say out on a coast of Oregon or in Florida or at, you know, stream song, are much, much different sands than are here. So, it's more of a sildy base

and different things of that nature. So, it becomes a very hard thing to do. Now, fortunately, during this process, we were trying to figure out what we were gonna do. And, original thought was, we were gonna go in and we were gonna take all the old turf and we were gonna grind it up and we were going to do. And the original thought was we were going to go in and we were going to take all the old turf and we were going to grind it up and we were going to bury it in the out of players.

And in the out of players we were going to take all that sand out and we were going to use that to build everything and cap all the fairways and do that. And luckily Bob Farrin, who's the head of a ground and I was exactly, exactly, totally pretty much heads all the golf courses, he said, I think we should just go ahead and strip and flip all the grass. And thank God we did that because it's not really

a true sand where you'd think, hey, let's open this up and the water's gonna hit and go away, it runs. When it rains, the sand moves and it moves quickly. So the fact that we did the strip and flip from a construction standpoint helped us out tremendously. Now that's what allowed the golf course to get open in what they closed in October. And they were playing golf in September

for the following year. Can you define strip and flip for us? Yeah, yeah. That's it. It depends on which version you want. You want the urban dictionary version? Or the golf version? Now strip and flip just means that basically,

the first two golf holes you work on, you go ahead and you take that turf and you just basically get rid of it. Then you build those first two golf holes, irrigate it, then you go to the third golf hole and the fourth golf hole you're going to work on, cut that sod and bring it over and lay it back on holes one and two that you did. And then you work your way through the golf course. That way, it's not an equal, you know, proportionally, it's not equal. So at the end, you buy the last two or three holes worth of sod and you sod, everything. And then everything is buttoned up and ready to go.

And that's really, that was the best way to do it. Is that, you have experience doing that before? Is that something that's pretty commonly done? We've done it a little bit, but not in this scale. But it works because really, it's not a huge financial savings because sod is like you can buy in LASO for like $0.33, $0.40 a square foot. And to have somebody get the machines to cut it and flip it, they're going to charge you $0.10 or $0.12 a square foot. So you're not gaining a whole hell of a lot in the end. But

in this case it was a speed thing to get it open. And the fact that these sands would have just slid and we may not be playing on this golf course today. You know, because it just takes so long to grow in. I think people are, a lot of people are familiar with too either by having played it or watch on TV. What's the difference between numbers two and number four? The similarities and the differences? Hold on a second, before I answer that, I gotta get one of these flights of beer here. Eat a flight of beer. Just some people know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we're at the Pinehurst Brewery, which I think just opened up recently. And if I got to set the stage here, I don't know if this stuff was still on TV when you guys were old enough to watch TV. But I feel like it's in like an episode of the, was it the man show? Right? And that would have been. It was like,

Did you chase back there to make a suit show? Yeah, it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, yeah, no, no, that's what we need. We need women on the trampolines, pants, and all that. But what wasn't the guy on the show? Like a really short guy? Did you get him on? Well, it was Seth Rogan.

They had a little person, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, chewy or something like that, his name was. We need a chewy. What was the question? What was the question? But now I wanted to get into the brewery thing here and see what this one is. What tour was this here?

It's the wall. The bull in there. Going in there. Oh, now is any good? Yeah. Yeah, cool. It's good. For those couple of people listening, when you come down the

pioneers, you definitely need to come to the brewery and hang out and have some drinks. But the question was similarities and differences between two and four. Now, it's kind of interesting I was asked this question before, is that we really didn't. At least I didn't spend a lot of time on two when we were building four.

And that's done by design. We didn't do at least I didn't spend a lot of time on two when we were building four. And that's done by design. We didn't do it at stream song. We hardly ever do it when we work side by side with another club from a new design standpoint. It's just because it's like trying to write a song when you're listening to music in the background. You can't do it, right? So, you don't want to go over because you don't want that to be your total influence. But we're trying to put the comparisons side by side and has to have some of it. So there is a

little bit of that that you have to keep in your mind, but it was more looking at Ross outside of course number two, but looking at it now, playing it and studying it a little bit more as we go around today, you know, the differences are going to be in the green's complexes, right? Today, and I heard it, you know, from a lot of different people after they played. Two, it's unforgiving a lot when you hit your approach shots into the green, right? I mean, I don't know how many times that, you know, I said, you know, one more yard, I would have been in a perfect spot, you know, maybe within 10 feet of the pin, and then you're rejected, you know, and you're back and now you've got a six foot elevation change up onto the green, which is great.

I mean, it's a lot of fun, but it's very exacting. You're not going to find that so much on course four. The greens are from an approach shot into the green. Yeah. One day of that is enough. So it's not going to be a lot. There are elements of that is enough. Yeah, yeah. So it's not going to be a lot of, there are elements of that. There's a lot of elements of Ross

and rolling off of the sides of the greens and things like that. But I just, I think that our greens on four are a little bit more receiving from that standpoint. Not that there's anything right or wrong with one or the other. There's still both very good and a very strong architecturally. But similarities are going to be in, you know, around the greens. You're still going to have the option. Like, I didn't feel any option because, you know, my

chipping is not that good. You know, I wasn't bringing it out. Shout out to you, see. Yeah. Unfortunately, one of the guys I play with today, Mark, you know, did play a lot. There was a lot of free to name names. And he'll say it too. I heard him say there's a lot of ping ponging going on, because the greens, they are tough. When you're trying to chip and things like that, but the greens surrounds it for are going to play the same.

You're going to be able to have an option on the side of the greens. You can try to hit a lot of high breads and kind of run them up on the greens. You'll be able to use your putter. You want to hit eight irons, or your wedge, whatever. You're still going to be able to do that. Those similarities are there. Both golf courses, I think, you have to think your way

around the golf course, certainly on four, and certainly today. If you're on the wrong side of the fairway, or the wrong side of the hole, or the green complex today, on two, you have trouble. And you're going to have that a little bit on for as well. So you're going to have to just think about that. But if you're missing the right spot, you're much better off.

It's just not as exact and is what we saw today on to. I ask Gil for some questions to ask you, hoping to get some juicy stuff. And he did not come with the juicy stuff. But he wanted me to ask you about what it's like working with superintendents. What ones drive you nuts? Which ones do you enjoy working with?

I think maybe he knows that you're going to name names, so that might be why, but what's a role in a superintendents in what you do and what are some good experiences and bad experiences? Well, superintendents in general. Billy Horseshoe. Billy Horses general. Billy Horses. Billy Horses, Billy Horses, Billy Horses. Superintendents are great. And like, when a daily basis, superintendents

are basically striling the guillotine, right? And the times have changed in the superintendant world. Before it was, you're a superintendant. Somebody on the committee or a member doesn't like what you do. They stop by the office. They stick a little post it up on your door, hey, you know, so and so is here, give me a call. You know, you call them on a Tuesday and you know, they kind of forgot what was going

on. Now, superintendents are expected to be on the phone or expected to be, they can be text, you know. So, you know, some guy, you know, number nine was my favorite holder today because I made it too, right? Somebody else made it 10, they hate that whole. And it's always somebody else's fault, like we're talking about, so superintendents are always strailing the guillotine.

Working with them is like, we like hands-on guys. We weren't guys that are there making decisions. We want people to be a part of that process, OK? So like the Russ Meyers of the world, who was an LA country club in his now Southern Hills, Steve Rabito who's at, you know, Wingfoot, and Gosling at Aronement and Paul at Mary, I know Paul for a while, we're first father.

These guys are great because they want to be a part of the decision-making process. And what I'm saying is no different than what anybody here does in their work world, right? You want people that will make decisions, and you live by that decision, and you go with it. The worst thing you can do is not make a decision, right? So the superintendents, like those guys,

are making a decision, and are confident about the decision, even if the decision's wrong, they're going to work to make it right in the end. But the worst guys are the ones that don't want to make a decision. And usually those guys end the ones that don't want to make a decision. And usually those guys end up losing their job because it becomes apparent. And the reason that a lot of golf courses

are in the condition that they need to be renovated is because they've been mainly a superintendent, or the members, you know, quite frankly, have been too complacent and things have deteriorated over time. Every day you go into your house, you look at your house, there's nothing wrong. One day you're like, Jesus Christ, I got a paint displace, it looks like shit. Well, that just didn't happen overnight, right?

That happened over a long period of time. And it's the same thing happens at clubs that they deteriorate over a long period of time. And it's up to the superintendent to keep it fresh and to make sure that doesn't happen. So the good guys are on top of it. They work, the bad guys are not. They're complacent.

They don't want to work hard. Not that they're anything against them, but they're not at the right place at the right time when a club goes in and does a renovation. We've talked a lot about domestic golf courses that you've worked on. You guys are busy in almost every time zone across the world.

What's it like working international? How do you balance it to? Is it easier, harder? What's that like? It's a lot harder. International work is very hard. When we were working at Brazil, we were working in Rio. At the same time we were working in Dubai. You're talking about two huge economic centers of the world. And it was impossible to get anything. Talking equipment. You couldn't get equipment. You couldn't get competent contractors.

You know what I mean? It's a different way of life. And it's just the understanding of what's going on makes it extremely hard. The time zone makes it hard. Part of my job is operations of everything. So I got to hear all the complaints from all of our guys working everywhere. There's no downtime, especially when we're working in Dubai, because

Dubai's weekend, you know, starts on Thursday, right? Their weekend is Friday, Saturday, and then they go back from Sunday. Sunday to Thursday, they work. And when in Thailand, you know, Thailand's, you know, the time zone. So in Dubai, Sunday morning, you're waking up. It's their Monday morning, right? Actually, it's their Monday afternoon. And they're all over you about, you know, problems and concerns. It's not so bad now in Thailand, but it's like every day when you wake up, there is something to go. It's something going on. In Thailand, we've been there for two and a half years, working, and we've got a little more than nine holes left to go.

And generally, it's not so much. It's the construction that we talked about. I'm not being able to equipment in a manpower. And no idea what a golf course is, right? They think they can be, you know, we have them dig a bunker. They think they can be digging a basement of a house or something. They got no idea what the hell it is. So that adds to it.

But a lot of times it's the ownership as well. Golf has viewed differently all the way around the world. In some of those places places it's much different and their thought process and their decision making is extremely slow. And the thing that'll kill a project and people complain about budgets and stuff like that, the thing that'll kill a project

is not making a decision. As soon as you're delayed decision, you're done. But it's no different than anybody else does in this room on a daily basis, just the way it is. What is the project in Thailand? I don't know what the name of it is. Two and a half years at Yale. No, it's called Valley Sheer.

Valley Sheer, I think, was the name of what's from a call's house, Rainer's House. What is in this house? Then it was the name for it, wasn't it Valley Sheer? I think that's where the name comes from, but it's Lido inspired Lido inspired what is it's a Japanese owner it was Yokohama Country Club I think he did with Bill and Ben in just for our listeners what is when you say Lido inspired what does that mean well we could spend the rest of the you know this program talking about the Lido but Lido is is basically a template whole golf course, and we could run through the template halls, you know, Riddain, you know, Cape Hall, etc.,

etc., but that gets into a bunch of like boring architectural stuff that, you know, nobody really needs to get into, but it's basically a template whole golf course is really kind of what it is. It's a Japanese owner and, you know, it it's Thailand and it's the site is three meters below sea level. It was an old rice paddy. Thailand I think is a huge playground right for a lot of reasons you know for the Japanese you know that's the summer. I think if you're urban dictionary sheboys, I think you all can't. Upgrade. I think she's timing it.

What's the time you spend on urban dictionary? Actually none. Actually none. But I think like the urban dictionary people. But anyhow, that's kind of the Thailand deal. Let's go. I'm getting ready to transition to what you were most proud of, but you let it with sheboys. I don't really know where to go with that. But if you were to think

of back on all the things you worked on, what would you say is you're most proud of? Well, that's tough. It's two, maybe two and a half. And I say half because one of these jobs is we're trying to get going. Okay. Most proud I, is Castle Stewart. For a lot of reasons is that it was nothing when we got there. It was a farm sitting on top of a cliff and went down to a small little area before it hit the Firth. And through, you know, Mark Parsons' vision, you know, Gopas' market just passed away as well. But through Mark's vision, we flipped that whole place upside down. We took all the top soil and everything that was on top of that property and buried it

all and all the gorse and everything into the dunes that you see on the property and brought up a shitload of sand and capped the whole place and sand. So basically built the entire dunes system and everything that that got sits on. It was a huge construction, you know, a marvel in the way it turned out. I think it was great for golf. It's a fun place to play. I think if anybody went there, they would enjoy it. It's a matter of fact, your next trip should be over there.

I went last summer. How'd you go play? Yeah, we did. I didn't see the scorecard. It's our video. It's our video. We got a whole video on it. Randy shot like 34 or something like that.

Nice. It's a awesome place, isn't it? A chicken. Yeah. Could you please elaborate on whipping the chicken? Yeah. You call it the chicken mix. I got a real skinny legs. Because they say I'm riding the chicken.

Oh. Oh. Oh. That wasn't on every dictionary. That was an every dictionary. It was something else. Yeah. Wipping the chicken.

But it seems like a lot of people have a ton of pride. A lot of architects have a lot of pride in not moving dirt. But one of your most proud thing here is the dirt you did move. Yeah, yeah, it is. Because it was a big undertaking and it turned out great. I mean, it's a beautiful spot. And it just shows that not moving dirt is great. And we do that, and we love doing that.

And it's just one project that we did that we moved a lot of dirt that in the long run in 20 years or maybe even today doesn't look like we moved a lot of dirt. You know, it looks like it kind of belongs where it belongs. So it was a huge undertaking and there was a there's a lot of great people and I say them, you know, golf course wise, but it's the people you work with. It's like we've all been since the little kids probably played on a championship team in some form of fashion, right? And you make a lot of relationships from those teams. That job, there's relationships still going on today that, you know, that we all cherish. And that's part of when you go work around the world and do what we do is you meet a lot of really cool, interesting people.

You meet a lot of assholes. But you meet a lot of cool, interesting people. And it's those relationships that go on and on and on. And when we went to Marksman Royal Service, like a month ago, these people were there, and it was those relationships that go on and on and on and when we went to Mark's Memorial Service like a month ago these people were there and it was great to see. So I think that's a huge part of it and the golf courses are huge part of it. The other project I'm proud of is a golf course that you know I grew up playing golf course outside of Philadelphia called Paxenau. It's a 55-5700-yard golf course it's great. It's got some of the700-yard golf course.

It's great. It's got some of the best par threes. It was a cool spot. I went back there and did a bunch of renovation or restoration work, whatever you guys call it. That was rewarding. It's probably deteriorated a little bit over time, but that's the nature of it. The other one, which is the half portion, is Cobb's Creek.

I don't know if any people follow Cobb's and fill it out for you. So huge golf course when it opened up. I'm by Hugh Wilson. The other course I mean, Hugh did was obviously marrying. But Flynn was a big contributor to it. And you know Flynn did a bunch of shit at marrying instead of Joe Valentine. And that's another whole podcast there. But we're in the middle of going through a renovation, restoration, and just basically, it hopefully, it'll end up changing the whole neighborhood that it sits in. And we thought this course would be done in time for the open at Marion in 13. We made a construction by 21.

But it would be a huge thing because I grew up playing golf and Phil, high school golf played there and to bring that back, because it has probably six or seven of what would be the best creek holes. Take 11, yeah, take 11 at Marin. Everybody knows 11 at Marin and add six more holes to that that play along the creek. And if we can control the flooding, which the plan is in place, and we holes to that, that play along the creek. And if we can control the flooding,

which the plan is in place, and we can rebuild that, it'll be phenomenal. Awesome. What, whenever you do any kind of job, you're gonna have an owner or somebody involved that is gonna give you an idea of what they're looking for. What would you say is the blankest slate you guys have ever had, the most freedom to be artistic and kind of do something

that you would love to do on your own. Barring the owner, who was a bit of a jackass, it would probably be Rustican. I mean, you guys have been out to Rustican. Unfortunately, the two guys I played with today went out there. I mean, who plays Rustican in February, the week of the Riviera? Fortunately, the two guys I played with today went out there. I mean, who plays Rustic Canyon in February,

the week of the Riviera? You know, it rains every year. That's the one-week at range. I think like five-mested. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just giving it a hard time. But that was probably the best canvas in that sense.

And we worked with Jeff Schach, and Jeff's great. And he was out there because he lived there and was able to walk that ground. It didn't look like much. in that sense, and we worked at Jeff Shackford and Jeff's great. And he was out there because he lived there and was able to walk that ground. It didn't look like much. Other developers and architects went in and they pulled down that front entrance and they're like, I'm not building a golf here, golf course here. And they went down the Seamy Valley and they built Tierra Rajaado on the side of the fucking mountain side.

What were they looking at? So that was probably the best because the ground was great. It's sandy soil. We could do whatever we wanted to do basically anywhere. And it turned out great. And nobody realizes how much that canyon falls and the difference in elevation. And it's about a 13, 14 story building. If you put a 14 story building on 13, you you wouldn't actually would be on four but the difference in elevation from 13 to four is

130 feet you would never realize that when you stood out that you think it's damn there flat But I mean rusted canning is a great place and it's public and it's like super cheap Yeah, it's obnoxious to cheap. I think we played that's why light rate in late January early February And I think it was like 20 bucks a person. There's not much. Yeah, you got ripped off. It was not the right time of the year to be there. So, you guys have done a lot of really cool and interesting and new stuff, and I want to kind of touch on O'Hoopie

and stream songs black as well, but what's next? What haven't you guys done that you would love to do? I actually take a couple of years off and just do nothing but play golf. That would actually be really cool. I don't know. We've been very fortunate, which is great. A lot of luck has been attributed to that.

The timing and stuff. We still do a lot of renovation and work. And we enjoy that, which is really kept as busy when you look at things, kind of the business of hands-coff design and different things, which is another whole podcast. But, I mean, one of the things which we're working on right now, and we're getting ready to close it up because of the winter time is out in Nebraska. Okay, it's, I was telling the guys I was playing with today that it's

probably 2002. We went out, Cleve Trimble had, you know, a couple thousand acres an hour and a half north of Sandhills. Sand chopped roll that Sandhills golf club is built on just south of Valentine by like 20 minutes or something. And we looked at this property and we did a whole master plan for the golf for the property. We did 36 holes, large, et cetera, on cleaves property. The difference between this property and sandhills is we have a canyon, drops down 200 feet, if not more in places.

It kind of runs along the edge of the chop. So you've got the sandhills and combined sandhills with Tory pines or something like that. You're not looking at the water, you're looking down at a beautiful river that runs through it. So we did that fast forward. Cleave's all part of his ground to another developer.

They built the Prairie Club on part of what was our original master plan, and then that owner purchased some ground adjacent, and then that's where the Prairie Club sits today. Cleave, 15 years later after he sold the pall, finally found an owner. They come in and build what we're calling a ranch. Originally it was called the Old School because on the corner of his properties, an old schoolhouse, one room schoolhouse that goes back into maybe the 1800s or something, but the owner didn't

want to call it Old School because you go online, you search old school, and it's like, Will Farrell running down the road making, you know what I mean? So he's like, you know, we may need to come up with a different name. So he's calling it the ranch. I think that may stick or it may not. And we're finally basically back building something that we had programmed and thought would be one of our best golf courses. But really what's happened is waiting all these years, and again, we've been fortunate to keep ourselves busy. The ground that Cleve released and

what we're going to build is going to be much, much better than what we thought was going to be great when we did it 20 years ago, whatever that was. What do you guys consider, and I have a couple that I just mentioned there, but what do you consider to be some of your more interesting works? for example a whoopee kind of explaining the philosophy there how that ended up happening and how you design a golf course to be a match play golf course Well, get we'll get to the marketing aspect of that But your big marketing guy But now a whoopee is very interesting because just in general the property, right, it's in just outside of Vidalia, Georgia and Cobtown, Georgia.

Okay, if there ever been a Cobtown, you were probably lost or there's something really wrong with you. It's kind of the middle of nowhere, Georgia. It's a Jason to Vidalia. Okay, the reason that Vidalia, onions are so sweet is because they're grown on pure sand. There's something called the Hoopy River that runs from a biogusta down towards Savannah. Actually, Pygo's down more towards Jacksonville than anything else. And there's a dune ridge called the Hoopy Dune Ridge. And that's what Vidal, you sit on. That's what Cobb Town, Georgia sits on.

In 2006, we were contacted by Davis Loves Group. Davis was looking to work with somebody to, I guess, do a kind of core and crenshaw type model design firm. So we were willing to listen and see what they had to say. And Davis actually is a really nice guy. So there was this crazy guy that really wanted to turn what is now the 2,000 acres of the Hoopie Match Club into a road racing track community. I guess there's these bunch of serious.

And I hear Robin back there last year. At least it's not Fred with like fart sounds and stuff coming on here. But it was a road racing track community. I guess there's a bunch of people that take their fancy cars and they like road racing and they spin around a road racing track community. I guess there's a bunch of people that take their fancy cars and they like road racing and they spin around a road racing track, but the key about a road racing track needs to be on pure sand for drainage purposes, right? So this guy came in and he was going to build homes

around it and all that kind of stuff. So he actually laid out the track. He wanted to build the golf courses and amenity in homes. Thank God what's from it called hit, the financial crisis, in this case, on this property hit, because he ended up without the finances to build it, because he was gonna take the best ground. Fast forward and there's a whole story about,

Michael getting in touch with us about the golf course and wanting to find a place to build a golf course. And looked at a place in Long Island, didn't work out. And he mentioned to Gil, I'm interested in Georgia. He's like, well, he was looking at some place, maybe, by Atlanta. And Gil's like, well, we got this property, which ended up in this road racing course property.

Now, when we laid out the road racing course, just because it was an amenity and it was all sand and it was kind of a little bit more wide open is we had this concept, or this concept that come up with called sport golf, right? You'd have your main 18 holes, but we also wanted to have a set of tees that played differently like we were talking a lot about shorter golf courses. So we wanted a morning round to be championship golf course or afternoon to matter, but an alternative that you could play from different sensitivities, different angles, because we had the width, we had the ground, we had the sand, you weren't worried about

USG greens and all that bullshit that comes with construction costs. So that was kind of the philosophy of that golf course. That went away, so fast forward back, Michael and we decide and we lay out what's a Hoopie match club. And then we brought up that concept and it was like that sounds great. So we wanted to put a couple practice holes in to make it an afternoon, you know, routing. We had some options, it really didn't work and what ended up being there today was just something that happened by us being there every day and I was kind of shaping and working on the 12th green. And I could kind of see some excavators

and that led to what is this 18-hole plus four more greens, which comes through a 22-hole rally. I've heard other guys talk about the concept, right? I actually listened to one of your podcasts on the Buck Club, and that was kind of like one of the concepts that came up there. Now, that's a great concept, right? But our course was open and built.

You know. Oh! Hey. I'm just laying down the gauntlet. But now, so it is great. It's fun. But it's part of the concept. So anyhow, that's what became the group message board.

That's going to send our message board into a spiral bunch of things. That's good. That's good. Because now I was listening to it. I'm like, how long was this? This was October of 2018. I'm like, well, we were open in 2018.

Which means we started construction in late 16. I'm like, huh, interesting. And not only enough, Zach and Gil won, like, a tournament there, right? You guys got it? Yeah. We weren't there. Yeah, they won some tournament there guys got it? Yeah, we weren't there. Yeah, they won some tournament there.

So I'm like, interesting. But anyhow, that's all in good fun. So that became the Hoopie Match Club and what's there? And it was part of it, so it was great. This is admittedly a bit of a half-baked question, but let's just take the United States start with with and then we can expand from the world. But is there a ton of land and properties and sites out there that you know would be great for a golf course that you know? You haven't quite figured out how to do yet or is our people out there still trying to find these great sites?

Basically I'm saying are we reaching a capacity of like all the great sites are taken and you got a settle on the next best sites. So there's still a ton of great sites out there? No, no, no. What I think is, that's here, what I think is there's a couple things, well you can get into the whole land thing, but I don't think all the great land is gone. I think all the great owners are gone. It takes very few people like a Mike Kaiser or a Michael Wall or Ether to a Whoopie, where people like that that have a vision and have the ability to say, I'm going to do something my own way, which is really going back to what got fused to be, right? And that's going to these sand places for starters or whatever.

It might be. But there's a lot of golf out there. There's a lot of land out there. We look at land, you know. I'm sure other guests you've had on the looking at land every single day or a lot of times it is beautiful pieces of ground. They don't take those jobs because maybe the owners are not right. So I think the ground is still there. It's not as abundant as it once was and there's

restrictions on a lot of ground. I think that we are over it regulated. I don't like a political thing on you know we got something now called emerging wetlands. What the hell is an emerging wetland? I got so little in the man show, one day. Yeah, yeah, well, that's like the third date thing, right? You know what I mean? It's like, hey, it's the third date. So, anyhow, but it's part of it.

So, there is a small aspect of that, but I think a lot of the great owners are gone. And if you had all these great golf courses we're talking about today, Pine Valley, Mary and LA Country Club, you can go on and on and on. Everything was because there was a great group of people that wanted to do something really good and they said, we're going to do it no matter what and they did it. And I think that's more than anything else. If you were to point to somewhere geographically

where the most underdeveloped area, like I say, in the United States is, I don't know if you want to give away your sights, but. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of great golf here in the southeast, is the room for more probably. I mean, Texas, you know, is there

a lot of great golf and Texas? You know, there's some good stuff in Texas, right? But is there anything great? So you got an opportunity there. You got what's going on? What's the latest with the piece? I'm starting to see why there's no great golf and Texas when you look at the ground. But, yeah, there's places. I was your project going in Texas. What's it? It's going good. It's going good. It's the PGA is your project going in Texas? What's it? It's going good. It's the PGA of America golf course right there moving their headquarters from Palm Beach Gardens or a portion of their headquarters from Palm Beach Gardens to Frisco, Texas.

It's where their headquarters will be. There's going to be a big hotel complex that Omni hotel is going to build and manage. And in 36 holes, we're doing 18 holes on the championship course, bow-welling, and his guys who are great, by the way. I mean, bow and his team, and Scott Benson, and Shane, these guys are awesome. They're doing the second golf course. We're moving dirt right now, but I'm excited

to go work there just because of the camaraderie that's been built. It's the tough piece of ground. There's a lot of earth moving. It's going to be interesting to be able to create something. But we'll try our best. All right, we're going to wrap with one final question. All the golf courses you've seen and places you've worked.

If you could be transported anywhere you want tomorrow for a round of golf, you get to choose anywhere in the world. Where are you playing? Royal Melbourne. That was quick answer. You've been in enjoy, I've never been. I enjoyed it, I thought it's great. You know, plus it's been in the news every day, right? You know, because of the President's cup. But I think, you know, Royal Melbourne, I think would be an

awesome spot to go. What particular about Melbourne? I just like to create the creativity of the place. I think it's an awesome golf course, two golf courses. I mean, it's just, everything that we aspire for, right? It's fun, it's interesting, it's got, you know, short holes, you got to put yourself in the right spot, you got to hit good shots, you got to think your way around the golf course. I know when we were out there visiting and stuff,

there was, there was a World Cup type of golf event going on and it was like, it was four players from every country that were there and their mainly amateurs, were their all amateurs. But watching them play these golf holes, and we're with Mike Clayton, and everybody knows Clayton and all the guy, he's nuts, right? But watching him and watching these guys play these golf holes and like hit shots and you're like,

there's no way they're gonna get it close. Because they're bound in a ball as far as they can, and leave themselves a 40-yard pitch, and in a ball well is off the back. It's not. So just being in a proper location, so that would definitely be a part. I believe I got a long list of places I like to go.

Man, because I wouldn't actually have to fly there. You're like, boom, I'm there. Awesome. Well, we got to get to the cradle. We're going to take some of these beers with us, I think. So thank you so much for joining us. And after you.

Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you to Pinehurst as well and for all the work you've done here and we'll have to do this again sometime. Definitely. We'll have some stories on the table. That's cool. I definitely want to thank the Pinehurst folks, right? You know, like Matt and his staff at the pro shop, you know Bob Farr and Bob Deadman Tom Pashley, and those guys are all great. Everything about Pinehurst is great. And again, for those three or four people that are listening to it aren't here, come on down. Come on down, it's a great shot.

That's the last roasting we're going to take. Mr. Jim Wagner, thank you very much. Cheers. Thank you. Give it a big club. Be the right club today. Yes. Yes.

Be the club. That's better than most. be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? Anything different?