No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 367: Bobby Weed
Episode Date: October 21, 2020Long time golf course architect Bobby Weed joins to discuss learning from Pete Dye, drainage, building golf courses for modern players, the TPC network, working for the PGA Tour, renovations, and a lo...t more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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I'm going to be the right club today.
Yeah. That is better than most.
I'm not in.
That is better than most.
Better than most!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. A fun episode today with Bobby Weed, long-time golf course architect worked for Pete Dye for many, many years.
We talk a lot about what he learned from Pete Dye.
We nerd out a little bit on the specifics of building golf courses, but also talk about
how things are trending in the industry, how things are trending in the game, what he's been working on lately, what it's like to renovate courses meeting, he needed to get to or else we would have gone for a lot longer,
but that usually means somebody's coming back for a part two.
So if you're listening to this episode,
that means that episode three of season six of Taurus sauce,
our Oregon season is live on our YouTube channel.
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Now let's get to Bobbi Wheat.
All right, speaking to all different kinds of golf fans here,
what, how would you describe where you fit in in the, in the golf
architecture landscape currently?
I know that at least our listeners are very familiar
with Tom Doak, Gil Hans, Bill Koran, Ben Crenshaw.
They've all been guests on this podcast
before Dave and the Clay Kid.
How would you describe how you fit in into the landscape?
Well, you got a good group of guys that you just named
and I'm certainly a number of my contemporaries.
So I've been in the business a long time.
I guess I'm getting to be one of the older guys
in the business. How old are you? I'm 65, so I've been in the business a long time. I guess I'm getting to be one of the older guys in the business.
How old are you?
I'm 65, so I'm working on about 40 plus years of playing in the dirt.
So how would you, I guess, either compare and contrast your golf courses, your style with
some of those guys?
How would you describe how you fit into that?
I probably fall out of the Pete Diatry without question. Pete was my mentor. I was just really,
really fortunate to gain so much experience with Pete, kind of taking me under his wing.
Really the greatest modern day architect, most creative, learned so much from him, starting with a great work ethic,
a tremendous work ethic, and not ever afraid to make changes and told me a long
time ago that you showed me a golf course built by a set of plans, I'll show you a
bag golf course. It happens in the field. In fact, all of those guys you mentioned,
I think probably spend a lot of time in the field as well.
So, I've kind of patterned my career and my business similar to what Pete did.
I spent a lot of time on site, I limit my project base, I kind of build it in the field.
While we do a routing plan and we have a general concept and idea, so much of it happens in the field.
Who else is on the tree?
Who did you kind of work with during your time with Pete?
It's a very big tree.
I know he has such, and I think a lot of people don't fully
understand the reach Pete has into modern golf architecture.
Not even the courses that he touched,
but all the people that came from him and learned from him
and learned the principles from him.
So could you kind of set the scene for listeners
as to what that tree and that influence looks like?
Well, his youngest son, Peabie and I are the same age.
So we kind of came along at the same time.
Lee Schmidt, actually, Tom, I gave Tom his first job
up in Hilton Head at Long Cove,
Brian Curly worked with Pete a little bit
when he was with Landmark
Land.
You know, the list just goes on and on and on, but as great an architect as Pete was, I
think to his legacy will also be all the folks that he influenced.
Not only architects, but golf course superintendents, construction personnel, there's so many
other folks that are part of our business. Pete influenced so many people until I
think an equal component of his legacy will be all of those folks that he
touched and brought into this business along with his great golf courses. I kind of
want to do a little exercise with you
in that I don't think I would be a very good golf course
architect.
I have an appreciation for it.
I think I understand it pretty well.
I know what I like, what I don't like,
but I don't think I could do it.
So like if I went out tomorrow,
playing in the dirt, let's say somewhere in Pontavigia,
look at where the old Oak Bridge was or some grass there,
that's still there, that I think is going to be some houses.
But if I was to design a golf hole or a couple golf holes, what mistakes would somebody
off the street make?
Like I couldn't tell you how to drain water, how to do any of that.
So I kind of want to set the scene for like the just the things that people don't think about
when it comes to golf course management and building.
I think everybody is a bit of an armchair architect first and foremost and they all have ideas
and typically they all stem from their own particular game
more than anything else.
Some of the pitfalls probably would be
not paying attention to any drainage.
And drainage is probably the foremost most important item
to begin with and end with.
And it's something that people don't think about when they're playing the golf course.
Yeah, it starts with drainage.
Bottom line Pete told me that early on and taught me that early on that is drainage, drainage,
drainage.
If it doesn't drain, it doesn't work.
It doesn't matter if the turf is eighth of an inch underwater or eight feet underwater,
it doesn't matter.
Wet is wet.
Drainage is always going gonna be a key component.
You know, wet of the golf holes,
I think I've always felt like the water corridor you have,
the better off you are,
people tend to wanna leave a lot of trees in there.
You'd probably go out and fall in love
with a couple of trees and leave the trees in,
but you don't really build a golf hole around trees.
They're going to check out just like everyone else.
So you'd probably fall into that trap as well.
And then you'd probably design the golf hole to fit your game.
If you hit it, if you hit it left or right, you're going to favor strategy.
That's going to help you in that respect.
You probably build a green with either way too much contour, crazy contours, that nobody
else could play or finish or build something really flat.
But I mean every hole fits somebody's eye and every golf hole, you know, somebody's
going to like.
There's a lot of strategy that goes into it
from start to finish.
And the routing is always gonna be one
of the most important things.
I mean, what you just explain, you're actually renovating,
you're taking an existing piece of ground
that had some golf holes on it
and refashioning another golf hole.
So that's renovation, which is completely different
from new construction in so many ways, because
on renovations you have the beauty and the benefit of by seeing what's wrong, what doesn't
work, what you don't like, and making all of that good on a blank canvas.
You're starting from scratch, so you get to route the golf course and space it out. And it's a lot different, a lot of considerations to take into play when you're considering a brand new golf course versus a renovation.
So when it comes to a renovation, I'm going to ask this, besides the obvious, we know with a renovation, there's a golf course there,
and you're updating it in a lot of ways versus original design, you're starting from scratch. What, comparing contrast, what those jobs are like
in a way of, how am I asking this?
Besides the obvious things that are different
between the two, what are some things do you have to consider?
On a renovation, you certainly want to be,
you certainly want to be a good listener,
you want to understand the attributes
and the items that are really issues
that are creating a renovation job.
And typically that's, you know,
renovation golf course typically is one
that is falling out of favor.
It's not competitive in the marketplace.
It needs to be updated from a drain-in standpoint,
from an irrigation and more often than not, grassing.
So those are some of the key components
that you will consider on a renovation.
And also, there probably been a lot of trees
planted on a golf course,
depends on how old it is.
So a lot of factors go in,
but it's fairly easy to go around and see,
and maybe even play a renovation golf course
and get a feel for it, and then be a good listener as to who your client is, what they're looking for and how they want to change.
But as opposed to a new golf course, I think on a new golf course, one of the very first questions you want to ask your client is who's playing the golf course?
Who am I building the golf course for and who's going to be playing the golf course? I think that's a fundamental question that you have to fully understand
on the very front end. And then what are you trying to build? You know, is it a public
golf course, private, is it an upturn of my golf course? All those factors have to weigh
in. And then you kind of just go from there and you know, determine your access points
and understand the topography
and one of the first questions I always want to know
and ask is where's the outfall,
how's the water getting off the property,
where is our outfall,
and then understand all the constraints as far as maybe wetlands.
Obviously here in Florida,
we would be concerned with low lying areas or wetlands
and any other psych and strengths that you have.
Well, let's go through one of these that you've done somewhat recently, which is the
Grove 23 Michael Jordan's golf course.
First of all, what's it like working with Michael Jordan?
How do you guys get put in touch?
How did he land on you to build the golf course and then kind of like to get into some of
the specifics about that golf course?
He interviewed a number of folks and he was a member of Metalist and we redid Metalist
a few years ago and that's where I got to know first introduced to MJ and just a great guy just
very passionate about the game. A good day for him is 36 and be done by 330 and he didn't wait
for people to understand's what I understand.
And they typically have a posse of players out there playing and nobody has more fun, nobody
enjoys it more.
And for him to build his own golf course, I saw him a month ago and he was on number 9 and
he just came over and said, you know, there's no place in the world
under the bed and right here.
Wow.
And that's coming from somebody that could be anybody
in the world that he wants to be.
That's got to be a cool feeling.
No, it's very cool.
We had a great relationship.
He said, early on, I want to, I want the best off course
you can build.
Secondly, I want the best practice facilities.
And thirdly, I want to monitor clubhouse.
And there's no development on property.
And it's strictly golf, golf, golf, golf.
And he was very involved.
But you know what?
I found he was even a better listener.
He was absorbing everything.
And I invited him to come out as often as he wanted to.
Because I wanted him to come out as often as he wanted to, because I wanted him to see the fact that 70%, 80% of what he was spending
was going to be underneath his golf shoes that he really wouldn't see.
To see all the lakes being excavated and the field being spread out over the golf course,
the irrigation system going in, the drainage going in, a lot of big ticket items.
It was a great education process for him
to see it from start to finish.
I remember when he first went out there,
we got on a big piece of equipment
and put it up in the air as high as it would go.
And we were like, well, this is kind of
going to be the elevation of the clubhouse.
And so we started early on showing him everything
that we were thinking about and
kept him in the loop the whole time and he was really a sponge along the way.
Like I said was a great listener, really enjoyed coming out, seeing the
progress, you know, was a gung ho coaching, coach like almost like, you know,
hey team, let's go, let's go, let's go. It was just a really, really fun experience for not only myself, but the entire team that
we had down there.
Well, I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, that that's about not just because he is
who he is, but it's about a dream job for you, right?
Because to the point you're asking about, you know, asking who's going to be playing the golf
course and who you're building the golf course for.
It seems to me that oftentimes architects
are tied to,
slash answering to the owner or the client
or somebody comes to you and says,
I want this kind of thing on this piece of property.
And I would guess in a lot of ways
that limits what you would do.
If you owned the land and you were building a golf course
that could be designed for anyone,
you would probably do things differently than a client
will sometimes dictate to you.
Is that fair to say?
But then MJ seems to be on the end of the spectrum
of trusting you more so to build something great
more so than telling you what to do.
What's an interesting question.
I think in looking back, some of the best, most fun golf courses we've been involved in
is working for a client that is very involved, educated and very involved throughout the
process.
I don't think that's a bad thing.
I tend to like that.
Obviously, the better, the site, the better, the golf course.
But at the same time, working for an owner that is informed and knowledgeable ultimately
helps the end product turn out even better.
I guess where I was going with that wasn't as much as involvement being a bad thing, more
so than, I guess, maybe that's a better way of asking is how often is it kind of dictated to you like
Hey, I want a par 72. Hey, I would like this. Hey, I kind of want this and how often do you do you feel like you have much more freedom?
Where does it where does your usual work fall in that spectrum?
Most, most clients that we have basically turn it over to us, they entrust us, they basically say, you're the expert,
I'm trusting you, that's why we hired and retained you.
I've had some clients before that said, we have to have a par 72 and almost demanding
a par 72 and I never really fully understood that, but we try to let the land speak to us and the holes shake out with the topo.
But more often than not, they give us a free reign, and at the same time, they may have
some caveats that they want to include that we'll talk through and discuss, but at the end
of the day, we'll always come to terms and come to agreement.
I'll put my foot down where I need to, but at the same time, I need to be a good listener
as well.
Where I'm going with that also is it sounds like from what I understand from the grove
getting into some of the specifics of those golf holes, it sounds like you were able to
do some fun stuff with some of the holes, some blind-ish part, threes, and things that,
I think that there is a stigma around some of that stuff with some work you holes, some blindish part threes and things that, you know, I think that
there is a stigma around some of that stuff with some work you do and correct me if I'm
wrong in some places that that necessarily wouldn't fly. Whereas somewhere like the
grove where you have a lot more, maybe a lot more freedom that you're able to do some
fun things that somewhat break the mold from what you typically see in a golf course.
Well, I know early on MJ was going to have a lot of tour pros as members and he
wanted the golf course to stand up and test those tour pros. So knowing that on the front end,
we had some good data and some good information as far as our features go and where we wanted to
place bunkers and hazards and the length of golf holes. We think it's a great match play golf course because we have a lot of half-par golf holes,
which I think are probably the best golf holes in golf.
We have a lot of flexibility.
We built some really big par 3s, but we have a lot of variety, so we have some par 5.
We have par 3s that are down.
We've got one that's probably 155 and then we've got a couple that are up in the 270 to 285 range. We've got a couple drivable par fours and then we certainly
have par fours that are 525.30.
So that's an interesting wrinkle for the growth that I don't think I really thought of.
But I imagine a golf course is very different to layout holes if you know pros are going
to be playing it and if you know pros aren't going to necessarily be playing it. So what are the differences there? How much of a
challenge is that introduced to what to what you have ahead of you? Well, I will tell you the range
of golfers continues to get lighter and lighter, broader, so to speak. I mean, the beginner starts
at the basement, the expert golfer and the tour pro that's sealing just keeps getting higher and higher and higher. So therefore the challenge is even greater today to build a golf course to accommodate such a range
of golfers. Knowing that on the front end we had plenty of room. Our site was about 227 acres
somewhat rectangular. So we had plenty of room in space and basically know basically a treeless site. We had wide
corridors, we had plenty of space in between golf holes. So we built a big wide
golf course knowing that the win would be the course's biggest ally probably.
In that respect the features are fairly big overall but we have a lot of nuances
where we tighten things up out there in that
350 yard range, which is where a lot of these tour players are today.
It's crazy.
Well out in front of me, and most everybody else, understanding the tour players as much
as I was exposed to them at the PGA tour and building some being involved in
tournament player club courses and also being
involved with Pete who was constantly trying to stay a step ahead of the tour pros.
I think gave us a bit of an angle and understanding on how to challenge the tour pros.
But at the same time, accommodate the average player.
Another way we did that down there is we kept most of the greens down on the ground to
promote a running game.
Ninety percent of the people that play the game play a game on the ground and need that run-up shot,
whereas tour player is in the air and they don't see bunkers that are front left and front right.
And I think that's a pitfall for so many golf courses where bunkers are placed front left
and front right and they really lack the strategic value that really encourages some better shot making from the better player. But as long as you
can run the ball up on the green you're going to accommodate everybody. At the
same time you want to create pen placements and greens that fall away and have
a lean left or lean right and it it's all about buck or and strategic value from from really
T to green. So we just have an understanding of that because we've been around so many
tour pros for so long and understanding their game and their habits. I think really
really helped us down there at the Grove.
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Now let's get back to Bobby Wheat.
Well, I definitely want to unpack a lot of that TPC stuff.
Specifically, I want to just talk about how that challenge and how that gap between the
pros and the amers has changed over the course of your career.
But not to get too caught up in distance-related stuff off the bat.
But I'm curious as to, I hear a lot of people say, as a, I'm very pro bifurcation. Just I think the tour pro ball and equipment
should not go nearly as far as it does.
And for a lot of reasons, one of them being,
I think a lot of people point to that and say,
why care about the 0.01% of golfers?
Like who cares what they're doing?
Let me just focus on, let's just focus
on what 99.9% of people are doing, blah, blah, blah.
But do you see an effect of the top level guys
with how far they're hitting it?
What kind of a trickle-down effect does that have
in anything related to your job,
anything related to amateur golf
that has nothing to do with competition?
And where I'm kind of going with that is like,
people, the ball goes a little further now
for amateur golfers, but that gap is different
than it is for the professional golfers, but it makes people play further backties and
people want more yardage in their golf courses a little bit.
Do you kind of see where I'm going with that?
Yes.
The game has been bifurcated forever.
I mean, going back when we had the two-piece ball out of ball, that's what the tour players
played.
The amateurs played out of ball. That's what the tour players played. The Ammoners played a hard ball. It wasn't until the hard ball became so good that everybody
went to a hard ball. What other game or what other sport do you know as you age
you can continue to play at a high level or hit the ball longer. It's only now
that my swing speed is not increasing that I'm really not hitting the ball any
longer but for the you know all through my 50s, I would gain distance.
I would hit the ball longer with new clubs, new technology, new balls, etc.
The pros play different clubs than we do.
They play different shafts than we do.
We're all playing the same balls now because we're playing a hard ball.
But if you just look back in the early 90s, you know, before we started hitting metal woods, we were playing with soft balls and hard putters. Now we're
playing with hard balls and soft putters. The 460cc driver compared to the
Persemin woods that I played growing up where the sweet spot was a dime, you know,
now it's bigger than a quarter. There's been so much change, but the change in the technological advances today seemed
to certainly cater to the swing speed of these guys that are swinging the club so much
faster.
They're getting the full benefit of all the technological advancements.
I remember 20 plus years ago, 25 years ago when I was working
at the PJ Tour. I was on the golf channel with Wally U-Line and who was head of titleist foot
joy, etc. And I made a point that to Wally that the most disposable item the game has ever known
has been the golf ball. It's changed more than anything. The game was
Bifurcated back then when they were playing the softball. We were playing the hard ball and the you know
They've always played different clubs and we played different shouts and so forth
So this has been an age age-old debate
Going back, you know since the feathering gutter got a perch ball. Yeah
And it's going to continue.
But I think there, I think at some point,
people are going to have to realize the governing bodies
are going to have to realize that we're going to have
to make some changes.
You know, you can see what Bryson is doing to the golf course
just today and where he's hitting the ball.
It'll be really interesting next month at Augusta
to see where he plow he plays and how he's hitting the ball to be really interesting next month at Augusta to see
where he plow he plays and how he hits it there at Augusta.
We're all anxious to see that.
Yeah, and where I kind of come back to on this is there's just, there's just no reason
for it to go this far.
We don't have the land for it.
I mean, you're somebody that works in this specific business and you understand what land costs are and what it costs to build new teas and all this stuff.
It just doesn't seem to make sense to have a ball that goes that far and covers and bypasses
so much about golf course that you're setting up hazards along the way, but there's no point
in setting up hazards within the first 300 yards for some of these guys. It's just crazy.
Yes, you're right. As crazy as it is, I think it's an incredibly exciting time to be a golf course
architect because I think we have as much to do with changing the game as anybody, challenging the
players of today and tomorrow. I think it's an incredible, fascinating time today and I really set challenge to continue changing our design strategies
and creating new strategies and how we play the golf hole, how we play the golf course
and how we get around.
You saw it at the US open, how they tried to grow the rough up and the greens were really
rock hard.
I'm not a big fan of massive rough.
I understand why they do it.
I think there are a lot of other ways
that we're gonna develop in the future
to challenge players at the highest level.
But at the same time, you say that's less than 1%
and as well under 1%.
Yeah.
We can't get caught up in building golf courses
for these tour pros. I mean, we need to grow the get caught up in building golf courses for these tour pros.
I mean, we need to grow the game.
We need more golf courses that we can play in three hours.
We need more golf courses that we're not losing more than a sleeve, two sleeve the balls.
We need golf courses that you can play, maybe loops of three or six or nine at a time. The two things that society today,
golfers have today that we like today,
would be we have less disposable income
for some of these activities
and we have less disposable time
because there's so many other family activities.
So to be able to get out and play a couple loops
of three or six or nine holes,
I think it's something we need to focus on a little bit more and trying to speed the game up,
taking four and five hours to play around the golf is sometimes a little too much.
And we need to be conscious of that. The other good thing is that
Costa golf has come down in a lot of areas from municipal golf and public golf
access. And during this COVID pandemic,
I think golf's become a real shining star.
You see more families out,
you see more people out walking and playing
and golf rounds are up significantly.
I think that's good for the game.
Well, I'm curious to unpack some of that
as to you kind of lit up there for a little bit
when talking about how exciting of a time it was for.
So what are the ways you would challenge these guys? If, you know, how would you
challenge the pros? What are some of the creative ways that you think without any
changes of equipment? Ways you would try to get in the way of what Bryson's doing
right now, basically. Well, I think players aren't turning the ball quite as
much. I think you can introduce a little more left or right and right to
left, golf holes, dog legs, I think can be introduced a little bit more.
I think you can take the angle turns.
Obviously the angle turns are going out.
When I first came into business, I was on the tail end of 750 feet or 250 yards.
Pete Dio was the first one to go to 800 feet, 267, and to 850, 283.
And then obviously 900 feet at 300 and then beyond to the point where
bunkers are showing up now at 325 and all the way out to 350. Managing and
adjusting those bunkers as an architect I don't think any of us really want to
take the driver out of their hand but I think it can be the fairways can be
set up to where it can be a little more demanding off the tea and
tighten up those areas down in that 325, 350 range.
And who's to say you won't find things other than deep rough, could also be putting some
deeper bunkers out there in those areas to make them much more penal in an area that only
a few people are going to be for the most part.
But you got to be careful there because, like Pete always said,
once you leave the tee, it's all in play.
That's the beauty of part three.
You know where everybody's starting on a part three.
Whereas on part four and part five,
it's truly when you leave the tee, it's all in play
because players are everywhere.
So, and then I think, you know, as far as greens go, the speeds today are so much faster.
We've had to slow some of the greens down as far as slopes to accommodate all the speed,
but I think you can really have, you can still have some faults front, you can have some
greens that go away from you, some greens that tilt one way or the other up at wingfoot
most of those greens are from back to front. So when
they're hitting it out of that thick rough you know they know they could either
run the ball up till out of those greens or they could they'd have a bit of a
backstop in those greens. It'll be interesting to see these guys at a
gust see these guys play something like Pinehurst where they're a little
more turtleback. Oh yeah.
So I think there's great opportunities and also green around approaches, green surrounds.
I think there's a lot of opportunity to improve upon those areas.
And you know, a couple of the tools that we have deception and illusions aren't quite
as in play seems like because everybody has range finders now, but
they're still deception and illusions that can be created, you know, with bunkers
and dips and lows and and hollows and hills and whatnot. So it's just a
combination of things and understanding that, you know, we've become too
physical with the game. I think the more we can bring back some of that mental agility
in our design of golf holes,
I think it's gonna be good too.
So we need a better balance of the physical ability
and the mental agility.
So if we can find a little better balance in there,
I think that's gonna help us.
I think, to one point, you got me with a deception on that second hole at the new ocean course
at Pond of Eadruff.
If you're in the left side of that fairway, I told you that a couple weeks ago.
There is even with a range fighter, it got me a little bit, but I think the answer to
a lot of that question, you mentioned Pinehurst, and immediately I'm like, yeah, it's not
a golf course where bombing it is going to give you that much of an advantage because you're always trying to make the ball stop there, especially around
the greens.
And if you could do that everywhere, I think the challenges, the different ways you could
challenge pros is relatively simple.
I mean, guys want to know when their football is going to stop.
That's their thing that they fear the most more so than anything else.
But it's just not that possible in, you know, in summer in Detroit to have greens that are, you know, running at a, that are, you know,
the ball is thudding off them and rolling and making the angles matter and all that stuff.
It's, it, it just, and to your point, I agree with a lot of the, uh, the challenges that
you would put up against the pros, but it also, it seems that it is easier addressed
with rolling back equipment so that we don't have to build all new golf courses or renovate
all the golf courses to adhere to this 1% or we could have this, you know, the kind of rules
put in place that just limit how far the 1% hit it and the game all gets very close, a lot closer
together. And I know there's a million more complications with that from a liability standpoint and legal
standpoint and all of these things and it's never as simple as
I'm making it out to be. But it seems like that you actually can't
come out with this distance report and then stand by and do
nothing anymore. No, I think that's right. I think the I mean,
there's a busload of players right behind Bryson that are either
playing the corn fairy tour or coming
out of the college ranks.
I saw Matthew Wolf playing in college and saw the distances he was hitting the ball.
And you know, there's just a busload of those young guys coming out.
And frankly, their playing is much more competitive golf than the tour players.
They've got a pencil in their back pocket almost every week
that they're playing.
They're really sharp.
It's just amazing how good these players are now.
And they've grown up with this equipment
and that's how they've learned the game, you know?
Yeah.
And now they're working out.
They're being more physical, bigger, they're stronger.
And then on the tour side, you know,
when I was at the PGA tour, you know, they were tucking on the tour side, you know, when I was at the PGA tour,
you know, they were tucking pins and they were, you know, four and five paces in
off the edges and now they're, they can be down as little as three
paces in. And we were cupping greens at three and four percent
and now we're cupping greens at two and three percent, significant difference.
All that said, I really am excited about the future
and continuing to grow the game,
but also continuing to challenge the best players.
I mean, I think that's what really gets our juices
going as designers.
Can you talk to me about, I guess, as we go back now
to how you ended up with the PGA tour? What that role was, was someone there before you
or kind of how the genesis of that role
and how it evolved over the course of your time there?
That was a front end of the tournament player clubs.
And I was working for Pete in Hilton Head.
We had just done a little work at Harbor Town,
and I was building a long-cove club,
a private club on Hilton Head with Pete.
Really my first big job, back in the 80-81. Pete was finishing up the Tournament Players Club at
Sawgrass, and he would work there and then drive all night and come in to Hilton Head, and
we'd be on the job site the next day, and he'd be back and forth, and then they opened the
Players Club at Sawgrass, and they played the first event
there and Cherry Pate won and threw everybody in the water and all that good stuff.
But shortly thereafter we were in the condo one night.
I could only hear one side of the conversation but Dean Beeman called Pete and said, I have
a near mutiny on my hand, we've got to make some changes to this golf course.
The golf course was ahead of us time.
There was no question about it.
Nobody had ever seen anything like it.
It embarrassed some of the tour pros,
and that's what they don't like.
Right.
Tour pros don't want to be embarrassed.
And they're the best players in the world,
and comments, and the feedback was very mixed.
Pete basically said, we're finishing up here
in Hilton Head. I've got a young
man that I'll sit down there and we'll start making those changes. So I came down at the
end of 82, prepared the golf course for the 83 event, which I think house-sut in one. And
then after that we started making changes to the golf course and boy they didn't stop.
They just kept going.
What kind of changes? What needed to be done? to the golf course and boy they didn't stop. They just kept going.
What kind of changes, what needed to be done?
We soften the greens.
Initially in concept, the greens were built
for four specific pen placements, almost in four quadrants.
And the greens were too small, I think,
to accommodate those four quadrants
because we had a lot of slope in each of those quadrants.
So in large and softening those quadrants really eased up the greens.
And the lines and the angles of the golf holes really haven't changed.
The routing has never changed.
And the angles and the lines have not changed that much.
They were just softened.
They were just softened.
And by softening you mean from a contour perspective,, not a soft, like not a firmness slash softness perspective.
No, not from a firmness standpoint, but from a view,
looking down the line, players like to have things they can aim at and hit up and turn the ball off of
and our lines were so straight that we had to alter some of those.
We altered some bunkers.
We altered some of the, obviously, all the greens were rebuilt more than once or twice.
You got to the point where Pete once made a comment that we should have 90 holes there, not 18,
because we built a rebuilt the golf course so much. But, you know what, Jack did the same thing,
has done the same thing at Mirfield. Mirfield is a great golf course so much. But you know what, Jack did the same thing,
has done the same thing at Mirfield.
Mirfield's a great golf course today.
Donald Ross did the same thing at Pinehurst number two.
It's one of the great golf courses today.
And the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass
with all the changes while I didn't approve,
I didn't care for some of the changes I was doing,
I was told, and I think the golf course
has evolved into a really
great golf course today.
I always say this about stadium course and I don't even know if it's technically accurate
but that it's classic Pete die visual intimidation as far as the fairways come because you stand
those fairways and you're like this is actually pretty wide up here but from the T-boxes it
feels a little uncomfortable.
Is there anything that you learned from Pete, I guess, in terms of visual intimidation and
how that plays a role, even with the rangefinder era and whatnot, as to how to visually kind
of confuse players, even at the top level?
That's a good comment, visual intimidation.
Looks harder, plays a little bit easier.
And I think the fairways are a little rounded
in terms of kind of folded over
where you can't see the true edges of the fairway
from the tease and it makes you feel like it's more narrow.
And I just was, I always say that to people,
I'm like, yeah, take a look here at how this works
and now that I think about it,
I don't know if that is actually technically a peat diasum.
Well, it's a flat golf course.
We obviously have basins to pick up drainage
because the site was not a very good quality type
of material that the golf course was built on.
So it does have some subtle movement,
but that's only to get the water off.
But the visual intimidation, there's so much I candy
out there, and in particular, in the very beginning,
because it was a single row irrigation system
when the golf course opened.
So the fringes became pretty rough.
It was rustic looking, somewhat unkempt.
You missed the fairways, and you were going to pay the price.
Whereas today, it's a little more of a parkland feel today
with more irrigated turf little more of a parkland feel today with more irrigated
turf, more water areas.
So that has changed over the years as well.
The edges are a little softer, but there is plenty of visual intimidation.
I mean, you kind of have to keep both hands on the wheel throughout the round.
And what I really have always liked about the golf course is it didn't favor one particular
player hitting it left or right or right to left.
I mean, you're going to get exposed at some point during the round if you only hit it
left or right or right to left because the golf course demands that you're going to have
to turn the ball both directions. And the golf course has great variety.
And we've added some length over the years.
And frankly, there's probably a few more holes that could have a little more length added
yet today that I'm sure the tour will be looking at into the future.
I think it's a great test of golf.
I really, really enjoy playing.
I know some high handicapers don't necessarily enjoy playing it. I've been told it's my low handicap privilege that I really like that
golf course, but I think it's a fascinating place to play. What would I hate to ask
this question such in such a basic way is we could spend 10 hours probably talking about
what you learned from Pete Die. But I was just curious as to, you know, you've touched on a couple of them already.
Where's the water going off the golf course?
How to drain a golf course and stuff.
But I'm wondering is to what you think
the most interesting things that kind of made you
when you learned them go, huh,
that you learned from Pete Die along the years?
He was never totally satisfied.
He thought that every time he made a change to a feature that it
was making the golf hole better. And more often than not, he was absolutely correct.
So he was never afraid of getting a hole almost ready to grasp, or even if it was
grasped, he was not opposed to coming back in and changing. He was such a perfectionist that he was constantly shaping and molding in the field,
drawing with his bulldozer, and sketching in the dirt and the sand of what he was trying to do,
and creating these angles, is really what he was so focused on. He was so driven and focused by the angles of each and every golf hole and
the stadium courses a beautiful example of that. And I think it was that relentless pursuit
of changing it, of reshaping and molding until he got it just to fit his eye.
And that was one of the great takeaways for me.
And then, you know, the fact that we would be working
12 and 14 hour days, every day,
not just four or five days, every day,
working 12 and 14 hours, and he would make it fun.
I mean, you were enjoying being out there
doing physical labor, driving equipment,
operating equipment and whether it be raking
and shoveling or down in a trench with drain pipe,
it didn't really matter.
He was so driven until he just motivated everybody on
site and guess what? Along the way we all had fun. We had fun doing it. And I've
never really run across anybody that quite had those those traits that could
invigorate you know a crew and all the crews that you know you have 40, 50, 60
people working on a golf course.
You have irrigation crews, you have drainage crews, you have shaping, you have guys that are shaping,
you've got laborers, you've got people that lay inside. And I mean, it's just, you know,
there's just so much going on and he's the conductor out there, you know, with the orchestra and just,
you know, just making it all happen and enjoying it and working just as hard as anybody else.
Did you work with him, Akira?
I was not at Kioa. Jason McCoy was working up at Kioa with Pete on the Ocean Course.
I went up and visited a number of times with him at Kioa.
A lot of that project occurred and was rebuilt along the way during and after Hurricane
Hugo.
Right.
Just a great, great golf course, great piece of property, very challenging obviously with
the wind up there.
I was up there for the 91 rider cup and also was up there for the PGA when McAroy just
drove the ball better than anybody I've ever seen hit it off the tee.
I teased this and I forgot to come back to it, I guess, with your work with the PGA tour after
the after-sol grass kind of, can you talk a little bit about some of the following projects
in the initiative of the TPC network? Yeah, so I'm sorry I kind of got off on a tangent there as well.
Dean Beaman was really the creator of the Tournament Players Club Network as the commissioner.
And I was also-
Sorry to stop you there, but what is the
Tournament Players Club Network?
You know, I know it's evolved some over the years,
but what was the mission, I guess?
I think the mission early on was to build golf courses
that had to host an event, a PJ Tour event.
Initially, it was a PJ Tour event, Initially, it was a PJ Tour event,
and then it evolved into a Champions Tour event, if need be.
But it was a set of clubs that would create and generate revenue for the PJ Tour.
I think it was a for-profit aspect of the overall PJ Tour umbrella.
It's been wildly successful
from a financial standpoint.
But early on, the mission was to build
tournament related golf courses that were wired
for television early on, had all the right plumbing
to host an event, it had television pads,
it had hospitality areas built and designed into the concept
along with the golf course and to move spectators around and to be spectator friendly.
And the term of player-club at Saga S was obviously the first one and then we were involved
in growing that network and that concept.
And we made our share of mistakes because there's a new concept,
but it was quite innovative. You know, it was all initiated by Commissioner Beaman, who just had
a fantastic business mind and took the tour to new heights that no one had ever seen or dreamed of.
The Tournament Player Clubs today, I'm not sure how many they are. The couple of them have been sold and I've been out of there for a number of years. But I was involved
early on with the concept. It was very exciting. And then we started using other architects
and we engaged PJ tour players as player consultants to be involved as well, so they would have a
say.
And some were more involved than others.
I think I probably worked with about 17 or 18 tour pros over the course of my tenure
there, which is really great.
It allowed me to rub elbows with some of the greatest players in the game, both modern
day and from another era.
That was excellent experience for me.
I've got Sam Sneed, Gene Sares, and Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicholas Raymond Floyd, and Cheach
Yvoud Riga's is all players you worked with.
Just a few to go.
Pretty good.
Span in some generations too.
No question.
And I tell you, they all were just great in so many respects.
I mean, you know, somebody said describe Sam's need and my immediate comment was,
he's the oldest teenager I ever had.
And it was great being around Jack.
It's a great being around Arnold and Gary Player and Raymond Floyd and Jerry Pay, Chi Chi, Fuzzy Zeller, just so many great,
great players that just had shared so many common interest about the game and some were
more involved than others from a design standpoint and input.
Two of the guys that were player consultants that I worked with at River Highlands included
Roger Malpby and Howard
Twitty, and they were very involved. They were really into it. They wanted to know everything
that we were doing, and they were involved in a lot of the strategy of some of the golf
holes and some of the bunkering, and they had good input, very good input.
I guess I find it somewhat tying in a lot of things we're talking about is here we're
talking about tournament specific golf courses that were really built, most of them built
in an era before the distance, real boom of the early 2000s.
I just find it a little bit ironic of, you know, we're talking about building these new golf
courses for Torpros when I feel like this was kind of the initiative of this in the
beginning several decades ago.
Well, a lot of those golf courses have been renovated and remodeled and upgraded and
greatly lengthened. Grasses have changed. Grasstypes have changed. We've gone from bent grass to
brimutigrass on a couple of golf courses. We've changed them out and we've added links to a lot of
those golf courses. You know, the tour has a shot link data which is incredibly valuable. So,
you can use a lot of that information to help upgrade some of these golf courses.
And, you know, rethinking the bunker strategy, not only in the fairways, but around the greens.
I mean, they have such stats today that, you know, a lot of times they can get out of
the bunker.
They have a higher up and down percentage getting out of the bunkers than they do from
around the greens on short cut.
Obviously, when you're going to the bunker, typically, you know, if it's a normal bunker
shot, they're hitting up 58 or 62 degree wedge.
Whereas, you miss the green and you're down in a hollow, then
you may have three or four choices on getting it up and down.
And if you don't make the right decision, then you don't get it up and down, there's that
mental aspect that I think has been missing a little bit.
And we've taken out bunkers sometimes, in instances around greens as well, just to add a little
little more variety as far as players, you know, trying to get it up and down around greens instead of
just flanking greens with bunkers. That's not necessarily good strategy. Well, it's, you know,
one thing I hear sometimes on the PGA tour that I never ever ever ever hear during the British Open is after a player hits a shot
getting the bunker. No one ever says that and I'm always I'm just amazed and I'm sure you've got
a million reasons as to why this is the case. Why it seems like you do everything in links golf,
you do everything you possibly can to avoid these these traps and in a lot of US golf and PGA tour golf,
you aren't necessarily trying to avoid the bunkers.
You know, a lot of it has to do with the aerial aspect
of the game and the running aspect of links golf,
but they don't.
Mirafield Village is the one place I think of,
where they've really deepened the bunkers
to make it very, very difficult to get up and down.
But otherwise, it just doesn't seem like I see pros with really,
really difficult bunker shots very often.
You know, I'll, you're right. Bunkers have evolved tremendously. And I hear superintendents
talk sometimes that they spend more man hours maintaining bunkers than they do their greens.
Find that's a little, I have a problem with that. Clubs want their bunkers to be all consistent.
How do we get our bunkers 100% consistent?
I'm like, well, that's really impossible because you have north-facing bunkers, south-facing
bunkers, bunkers that have more play than others, and more often they have more sand
than others.
But there's a level of consistency that has Americanized our bunkers to the point where that's not
the case when you go to the British Isles. They don't maintain them to the same standard,
but they're still hazards. At the end of the day, they're hazards and they play as hazards.
While over here for a tour event, they may break the bunkers toward the pin and not toward
you. The grain coming into you is going with you,
which obviously makes a bunker shot a little different to play.
There's a lot of factors that go in to the bunkers versus some of the bunkers
that you get into in so many other parts of the world.
You certainly don't hear them saying that very often in sent Andrews
and some of the other British open rotation
courses that they played during the open.
But over here, you hear that comment quite often about getting the bunker, getting the
bunker.
And it may be because there's too much rough or a rough.
And if you've got a lot of rough around a green and around a bunker, then obviously more
predictable to be in the bunker than in the rough.
Well, I want to talk to you a bit about a couple of renovations that you've done.
The first one being metalist. I'm wondering if you can take us kind of through the timeline
of metalists, what you did there initially, what, like the initial structure of metalists,
when you did work there and kind of tell the story of that place.
Pete, the golf course in 95.
Greg Norman was a founder and ultimately became
a on the architect team co-architect.
But Pete routed and designed the golf course and built the golf course.
And Greg kind of cut his teeth, I think there.
I wasn't there. I was down there some during construction.
The golf course went through a lot of changes from 95
until I got there in 2015.
It had a little different look.
The membership wanted it to maybe go back a little more towards Pete.
I had a couple of discussions and meetings with Pete.
Pete said, you go up there and make the changes.
He said, I'll check in and stay in touch with you on it.
I had all the shell matches that Greg and Nick Price had played when the courts first
opened in 95.
So Alison Pete had copies of those and they gave them to me.
And I lived on site during the job and I was just poor over those, those old shell match
on every hole that had great aer areas and showed all the golf holes.
And the original golf course had all sidewalk bunkers,
natural sidewalk bunkers.
Over the years, most of the greens that were down on the ground
had been renovated and somewhere up in the air,
the bunkers that were on the inside of the dog leg
had been altered.
A lot of changes to the golf holes.
So I was able to go back and restore the golf course
to a greater degree than most and take it back
to what they really started with.
And then obviously added some yardage
and made some other additions to the golf course.
And it was including the Tiger Tees.
Yeah, we put in some Tiger Tees.
Who'd you work with on that?
That was fun.
Yeah.
We added a number of Tiger T's with Tiger's
assistance and I think there's probably 25 plus or minus two pros that are
members there in that Jupiter area and they all played it medallists because
it's just a great club, great membership, houses only on one or two
golf holes and they're set back,
you don't really see them. So a lot of wildlife, plenty of room, players can really
drive their ball out there and golf course. We had quite a bit of yardage and I think
we're stretched out to probably 7,600 plus yards. All the greens are pretty much
down and just a very, very playable golf course,
very little rough, pretty much just step cut and just macular conditioned Jason Jobsons
is superintendent. And on a day-to-day basis, they're just a touch away from hosting an
event at any time. And so players really like that when they come home and live in that area to come out
and be able to play a golf course, that highly condition and well condition on a day-to-day
basis and to be able to go out and practice and put on those greens with that kind of speed.
They don't miss a beat when they go out on tour and play the tour courses. So it sets up great for the tour players.
That's where I first met MJ and the membership,
very discerning membership.
They give those tour pros the same treatment
as each other.
Everybody's treated pretty equally there.
I think it goes about their business.
It's just a great club.
Did that in 2016, I believe.
We didn't replace the bunkers with the natural side.
We used the new EcoBunker Artificial Surface, and it just has an amazing, amazing look to
it, and we'll stand up so much better and longer.
So that really added a nice element to the golf course along the way.
I was surprised.
I didn't know what to expect before I played it, but I thought it'd be a lot more penal.
I didn't know it was going to be that wide, and there was that much
kind of nuance to the, like the 10th hole is the one I come back on as, you know, I played
way up the left on that par four and had a terrible angle into the hole, and the risk is
play down the right closer to the hazard, and you'll have a good look at the pin and everything.
And that kind of charting exercises, something that I thought was really fantastic.
Another one I want to talk about, maybe this one's a little bit selfish because I've
been looking at the construction in my backyard of our condo for the last year, but Pond
and Vigia are in the club, but the reason I want to ask about that is you recently just
redid the ocean course.
A course that you have renovated before in the past.
What's it like to renovate a course that you have already renovated? And I'm coming at that as in terms of how you evolve over the years as an architect,
what you learn, what you come back at and see differently, you know, several years later.
Everybody likes to mulligan. So it was a little bit of a mulligan from me because I read Did the
Golf Course in 98. It was originally a 1928 Herbert Strong Englishman who did a number
of other fine courses on his own here in the States, Engineers Club in New York comes
to mind.
The golf course was written up as one of the three hardest in the United States back in
the day, was actually slated to host the 1939
Ryder Cup that was ultimately canceled due to World War II.
And then Trent Jones came in 50s, I believe mid 50s,
and renovated the golf course and made a lot of changes.
The golf course has a north-south routing
hard up against the Atlantic Ocean.
The wind is certainly the biggest ally of the golf course.
And I renovated it in 96.
Stepped on the gas pretty good.
It had quite a bit, the greens had a lot of movement.
And the features were big and bold.
A lot of the greens that Jones had elevated, I left and tack maybe
some more than others. In this past year, 2020 here that we're in, we just finished and
just reopened the course. What, 22 years later, I took the liberty of softening some of
the grains, taking some of the contour out mainly because the speed or so much faster today.
I just couldn't accommodate those speeds in the past. And we lowered a number of the contour out mainly because the speed or so much faster today. You just couldn't accommodate those speeds in the past.
And we lowered a number of the green complex.
We lowered them down a little bit to bring in the surrounds
to make them a little more playable.
And hard up against the ocean, we did some turf reduction
and put in some shell screenings for contrast
and for ease of playability I think and we really don't
have much rough on the golf course. It's really big wide spacious fairways and step cut
and I think the opening weekend we had a big nor Eastern in the wind move for like six
days in a row and it was unbelievable. It was brutal I'm sure everybody struggled but
it was blown in the direction of our place which is right off the tee, or not off the tee,
but where the left ball is gonna hit off 10-T's.
So, you may have had a little action on that.
We experienced a little bit of that.
But the golf course had been very well received,
and we changed out all the grasses,
introduced some new grasses,
some new advanced varieties of turf grass, great
visual sight lines. I planted a lot of oak trees throughout the property to
mimic an old maritime forest because that's what was here before some of the
mining back in the 20s tells you how old I'm getting because those are pretty
big trees today. I tell my kids that I have three daughters and I take them out there and I'm like,
yeah, your dad planted all these trees.
I know all they can think about is wow, dad,
you're pretty old.
I know we gotta let you go here shortly,
but there's no chance,
maybe we'll have to do this again in the future.
There's no chance we can get to all these golf courses,
but I know you've done a lot of Donald Ross work
or restoration work on Donald Ross courses. Maybe I don't even have the full list on here. Palatka, Palmasea,
Tim Aquana. What is it like to do to work on a, you know, Donald Ross golf course? I imagine
across that spectrum there's varying amounts of information you had about the original golf
courses in those projects. Yeah, by the time I, by the time I saw these golf courses, there wasn't, there was not much
Ross left in any of them. They've been renovated three to five times over the years. So I was
able to go back and historically look for old files and records and like at Tim McQuana,
it's set right beside a naval air station and I was able to find some old 1940s,
areas from the Navy, and they'd overshot
some of the properties, and it showed the golf course
I was able to enlarge and see what struck me early on
was the lack of trees.
It was basically a treeless site with a few big clusters
of oak trees, and then when I saw the golf course,
it was absolutely treeline, and one of the most unique aspects of that particular golf course was I
found three sets of 150 yard markers. I found some juniper trees that were 40
feet tall that were 30 yards back in the woods and then I found some photocarpis and some legustrum 150 yard markers
and that just showed you the evolution of how the golf course just kept tightening up as more
and more trees were planted because back in the 40s even then there were very few trees on that
golf course and that just shows you how golf courses evolve over time.
But we were able to go back and really rebuild that golf course. And you know,
one item that you don't see much today is quirky. I think quirky has fallen out of favor. And
I think quirky is still good. I think we should have more quirky features
out on golf courses and quirky can be good.
What's kind of just be hard,
going back to what we talked about
in the very beginning about convincing owners or whatnot,
it seems like quirky back in the day
was just kind of the way of,
there wasn't any template of how a golf course should look.
And so you could do quirky
and you didn't really know it was quirky at the time.
But now, how hard is it to get away
with doing something quirky?
Because I feel like a lot of today's golfers
condition to not like blind shots,
to not like, you know, a 240 yard par four,
or something like that, or, you know,
how hard is, do you find that challenge?
Well, I just keep going back over
and seeing a lot of great courses in the British Isles,
and there's still a lot of great golf courses here in America that have a
lot of corkiness and blindness and up and down and funky features and around
greens and bunkers that are not normal to most players, even your artigers of golf
holes. We had a lot of fun shaping and molding at golf course in the field and same thing
at Palm of Sia down in Tampa and South Tampa. That golf course had been changed so many
times and it's on a very small piece of property and a lot of trees have been planted over
the years. You really can't play that golf course without having to play out of oak, out from underneath the oak tree or around a tree at some point. Again,
you know, it's not a really overly long golf course and the corridors are pretty tight,
but it works. It works. It's a great country club and it's a fantastic
membership. And then you got a Palaka and it was a 20s raw style golf course, and the greens are about as big as your table right here,
and they just slope off,
but it's a most fun playing golf course.
I think from the tips, it may be 6,000 yards,
par 70, and they have a couple of amateur events there.
They play the Azealia, amateur there.
The Florida Azealia.
They give a lot of walker cut points.
So you get all these college kids coming in there.
And they just lick their chops and they're just gonna blister it
and shoot 59, 58.
Well, golf course just eats them up because you got a lot of hard pan around the greens.
A lot of rubber the green.
I played in this year's event.
Yeah, these kids don't play off-hard pan very often.
And to hit these little bump and run,
see these elevated greens is very difficult.
But the locals play the golf course in three hours.
You don't really lose any golf balls.
You may lose one ball or two.
But for the most part, you can keep the ball in play.
It's very short.
And then they have a great senior event.
And they get the best field,
they get one of the best fields in the country for the senior event. So these old golf courses
to restore, renovate these old golf courses and to bring back some of those quirky features
is something we need to continue to to make sure that we don't lose.
I know after after playing that event this year, I immediately came back to the guys and
look, all right, we got to go down there and shoot a video because I I didn't get even close to lose. I know after playing that event this year, I immediately came back to the guys and looked,
all right, we got to go down there and shoot a video.
Cause I didn't get even close to enough of that course
playing it over the course of an entire week.
I wanted more of it.
I thought it was so close to cracking it
and I never got to crack it.
Yeah, and you can hit, you can hit every club in your back.
Oh yeah.
And they have a game down there like if you can hit all,
I think they have part threes and the bet is, you
know, you get a win of a dozen balls if you hit all par three, all of the par three greens,
which is not easy to do because they're very small and they've only gotten smaller.
Right. And that 10th hole is one of the wildest golf holes. It's a true throwback golf hole in terms
of distance of balls used to go and how much that used to make sense versus now it's,
you snap hook a three-wood or that ball is going out of bounds kind of crazy.
So all right well I got to let you go we will have to do this again sometime
because there's still plenty of love to unpack with you but thanks for coming
coming over to the house and doing this and look for doing again sometime.
Sure anytime love it.
Cheers. 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.
Expect anything different.