No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 560: Jim Wagner and Gil Hanse

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Soly sits down with Jim Wagner on the front half of the pod to recap the PGA Championship from Jim's perspective on how Southern Hills played last week as a member of Gil Hanse's team that renovated the course. Wagner also provides some great insight on future projects, having some unusual or quirky features to their courses and more. Then in part two we sit down with Gil Hanse for a chat about his work at Colonial ahead of this week's PGA Tour event as well as what we can expect at Brookline for the upcoming US Open.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast. Sully here going to be a quick run of show for today's episode. This episode features Jim Wagner and Gil Hans, both from Hans Golf Design. The first part of this is going to be a conversation I just had with Jim Wagner.

Reaction to what we just saw at Southern Hills this past week. We've been working really hard to try to get these two together at some point, you know, as part of the Schwab Golf Challenger series, you can see that at Schwab Golf dot com. It is very difficult to get these two men in the same room at the same time. So we have this interview, which is, which is quite recent. In the back half of this episode is going to be conversation we have a gill hands a couple of weeks ago about a lot of other stuff he's got going on to the future that both of them have going on into the future which is colonial

which is this week as well as Brookline coming up and majors into the future. So enjoy putting this little little episode together with both reaction to what just happened and what we're going to see out of Hans Golf Design in the coming weeks, months, and years. So thank you to the friends at Schwab Golf and Schwab Golf dot com to see more on their challengers series. This is actually a holdover from last year. No, Langup is also brought to you by our friends at precision pro golf, the official range finder of NLU precision pro wants to make sure every swing you make is a confident when

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precision pro golf.com and save $20 with code no laying up. Dial in your distances and take guessing yarges out of your game with precision pro golf. Alright, one of two of the that I know, where do we f Wagner? Actually, I'm ini we actually don't have an a plane with our laptop or seminal, so which is gre

about five minutes from my house, so it's a little bit of a home game. So, what are you doing out at Seminole? Well, you know, as things get older, like we all do, you know, a little nip and tucker needed. So we're doing a little bit of bunker work and some other stuff,

and, you know, we'll see what happens over time. Thank you. I think your guys goal might be to get so, your portfolio gets so big that you just have a constant loop that by the time you finish going through all of your courses, it's time to redo your own work. Is that fair? Actually, so really what we want to have happen at some point, right? All the golf courses, right?

We're setting them up for, you know, the distance issues and all that kind of stuff. At some point, we need them to roll the ball back so we can go back up all the clubs and move everything back again. And that happens and then we're set. So I didn't even think about that. So we're coming off the PGA championship, which was just held at Southern Hills. Of course, that you and Gil did a lot of work at and restoring prior to this championship. First of all, you guys did the work prior to knowing that the championship was coming there. one, if I remember that correctly. And two, how much of the golf were you able to catch this past week? Actually, I caught a decent amount of golf, caught a bunch on the flight back on Friday

night. We're working out in Palm Springs, so it's a nice five hour flight back to Florida. So watch the bunch on a plane. Thank God the internet's pretty good now on a plane and you know, some of these streaming servers. So that actually great to watch on Friday just a little bit on Saturday, but watch the almost all Sunday. So it was great. How essential is it for you to watch the pro golf on the courses you've done work on? Is that a learning experience for you? How has that worked out in the past and what were some of your takeaways from this tournament? Actually, it's great, Sally. Yeah, because watching on TV is really the best way, you know, going to the events, it's tough, because you can park yourself at one hole, which is great, you know, if you want to park yourself at 17 at Southern hills and watch how the shot selection goes, you know, that helps, but being able to see it on TV and see some of the reactions, I think it works out much better. But it's important, right?

Because a lot of things that we talk about in the field, you have to be able to watch and see how balls react. I mean, sure, you get a good idea of what you think's going to happen, but until people play it, you really don't know what's going to happen, right? And unfortunately, Dirk Off really doesn't work because you get no reaction what's going on in the ball. So I mean, one of the things that happened

at Southern Hills and you saw it in the event, guilt spent a lot of time on 18. Second part of the fairway, the landing area, getting that drop off down to the creek once we reinstated the creek. A lot of time getting that right, or at least thought we thought we had it right. So it wasn't until we were able to watch on TV

that we realized the drama and excitement of watching the balls move down the hillside was unbelievable. So yeah, I think you have to watch it. I think that's the only way for sure. What was was there any kind of reaction, you know, internally with yourself or within your team when on the 72nd hole, Mito Pereira's drive goes into a creek that was not there when you guys got there and decided the golf tournament. Well, you know, you never want to say it was a good thing, but it was definitely interesting. And that's really what we were trying to do is we're trying to create some interest. Interest in that tee shot, what needs to happen, what goes through the player's mind.

And I've got that question a couple times over the past few days. And if you watch the telecast, right, when you saw Justin Thomas get the 18 on his 72nd whole, how much time it took him to play that shot? Exactly. He was thinking about him, sure he discussed it with bones beforehand. You know, he was just rehearsing his swing and he made sure that he did what he needed to do to accomplish that shot. He did the exact same thing on the 18th hole in the playoffs.

So like to me, that's important and that's the good part about it. I don't mean the outcome was a good part about it, but is that you're you're you're establishing interest. They have to think about what they're going to do. They have to play the shot. They have to visualize it, right? Because it's kind of it's blind up over the top of that hill and how far it runs out. And maybe you didn't see that in Mito on, you know, his his hole that he played, but, you know, it's all about adding interest. And I think a lot of stuff we did there had an interest. Look at a lemon. That creek to the left of 11 green that goes into the lake. That wasn't there when we got there. Reestablished that part of it was just to make it look natural. The second was there is on the other side of the carpath there from 11 to 12.

That's where the water enters the property. Naturally, there would be, you know, some sort of a creek there. And that came into play a couple of times doing the course of the carpets there from 11 to 12, that's where the water enters the property, naturally there would be some sort of a creek there. And that came into play a couple times doing a course of the round. So it's things like that that add interest, I think, of the important part of putting that interest back into a golf course that made it great for what we watched over the weekend. I know a huge challenge of your job is not only, you know, there is a goal would be to limit the disconnect between how a course is maintained and how you only, you know, there is a goal would be to limit the disconnect between how it courses maintained and how you guys, you know, leave it once you go and, and, and, you know, leave a property. What is, you know, what did you see out of how it was maintained, how it was set up compared to like what you guys were responsible for?

I know people probably, that Gil was on TV talking about how, you know, once he, once he leaves, this isn't a hands of carry, right? It's not no longer a reflection of you guys. I'm wondering how you thought it was maintained and set up compared to how you guys intended for it to be. Well, you know, I mean, we're very fortunate, right? The clubs we work at, we work with some of the best superintendents in the country, whether it's, you know, Paul, Mary and Steve at Wingfoot, you know, can great down, right the line. You know Dave Cauders, she got the Burning Tree shirt on, you know, all those guys are great. And Russ Meyers, you know Russ, right? I mean, we're at the Darwin Cup together.

Yeah. And did you hear? Did you hear the news? What's that? Russ and I won our match. Oh god. I forgot about that. How did you work that in? I set you up for that too.

I've been trying to figure out where to work that in, but no, press is great. I mean, you, I mean, you got to meet him. You know, his personality, he's great, but he's also extremely talented. This goes back to the beginning, right? It went back to when we were doing the work. And we talked about how we're going to build the teas. We're going to put him in the ground low profile. We want that, you know, that tight mo from the teas straight back into the fairway, right? And what are the T's going to look like? And how we're going to construct the T's. And Russ was a big part of it. So those conversations went

back way back to when we were doing the restoration process, right? And then that bled into the construction and then it melded into the maintenance end of things. So, you know, I thought it was presented awesome. I thought the bunkers looked incredible. You know, the mowing patterns, you know, the up and back that we saw, I think that looked great onto you. I think it plays great, right? I mean, the amount of comments that I got people texting talking about the mowing pattern and the look of the golf course. And I think people were blown away even when you're looking at some of those shots of, you know, unfortunately, you got 12 hours of listening to the golf channel talk about, you know, basically, you know, the golf course and the players, you know, leading up to it. But, you know,

from their vantage point where you were looking back at the golf course several times, I mean, I think people were enthralled with the look. I think that says a lot to the maintenance of the golf course. And what was presented by Russ and his team, you know, I think I thought it was great. Tell us about what was there when you got his team? You know, I think I thought it was great. Tell us about what was there when you got there in terms of the shapes around the greens, both the contours of the edge of the green and the grass type or the thickness of the grass around the greens compared to how it was when you guys left as well as how that factored into the championship from what you were able to see.

Yeah, I think a lot of it was in general, right? So the whole place was just kind of old and tired, right? And who knows what they were chasing over time? You know, where they chasing the Augusta luck and trying to go with the simplified bunkers, you know, and things like that that you saw on the other championships and the highlights leading up to what we had. But it was really about kind of going back and adding some interest, like we've been talking about,

interest in the bunker shapes, you know, putting the interest back in the greens. You know, the greens have, you know, all the tilts and the slopes and the greens, but quite frankly, someone went a little bit too quick for the modern day, right? So some of that had to be simplified a little bit, but it was taking those old thoughts and that were there when the golf course was built. And maybe that got dummy down over time, just because of the game maybe passed by, maintenance maybe passed by a little bit. And now until we got into the restoration,

we were able to highlight some of those slopes or soften some of those slopes, bring the bunkers back and open up the creeks that it became an entire project. But it's the same grass. 419 was there when we were there. And that was for us, you know, for us it was like, listen, it's 419. I'm not getting rid of it all. So let's just go 419 stick with it. But it becomes down to maintenance and the desire and the to prioritize what we have and to make it that way, right. It just it takes time and it takes a dedication to do it in the club and Russ and everybody had it. And obviously the PGA in America, they embraced it

and they allowed Russ to do his job. And I think Kerry Egg highlighted everything with the setup. You know, so I think it all placed together. I don't think there's one thing that you can say or not say that the made it what it was. I just think it's a combination of everything. A lot was made out of the green speeds. We saw tour players getting, I think,

visibly frustrated at certain times. I know there was no mowing done on Friday considering the high level of wins. Gil talked about this on TV as well as in terms of just keeping the balance of some of the shapes of these greens. But you know, also how do you how do you how do you do that with modern green speeds and the only way to really find that balance is to slow them down a little bit. I'm curious what you think of of the mental challenge that goes into that for for tour players to maybe play greens for this one week that are a little slower than what they're used to because I was kind of blown away by how much you know frustration they showed at times. Well, I thought it was great, right? And the reason why I say that

is because we only have so much to fence is golf course architects, right? Yes. And they just can't. Those guys are the best players in the world, all great, right? They can all go out there, and at any given day, they can shoot a 63, right? So the only thing we have, and it's not that it's done on purpose, but when they start making a big deal about it, then it becomes something

that kind of helps the psyche of the game. Whether it's the green spears or the bunker conversation, right, the bunker saying conversation. You know, there's two items there that kind of came up, but yeah, if it's the green speeds or the bunker conversation, right? The bunker saying conversation. You know, there's two items there that kind of came up, but yeah, if it's in the back of their head and there's a concern, then it weighs in on how they're going to play a shoulder of their thought process, right? If everything is totally predictable, then that's easy. The last thing the better players want is unpredictability.

We have it everywhere. Whether it's through some of the clubs that we work at and some of the really good players at those clubs. A common theme is they don't like unpredictability. And if we deliver a little bit of unpredictability, in this case, the green speeds maybe dictated some of that, the bunker surely dictated some of that because it became a big bone of contention

and a conversation point. Go and I were chatting about this this morning. What is it? 49 point, burning contention and conversation point. You know, going out and chatting about this this morning, you know, what is it? 49 point, what seven percent will say is what the tour average is on San saves. It was 44 points something. I think it was 47. Jeff Shacklford, I don't know, 47.

It was a two percent difference. It ended at 47, right? So two percentage points for a major championship. After they won, I think the stats I gave were after day one, right? It's 5%. Right? In a major championship. You know, after day one, I think the stats I gave were after day one, right? It's 5%. Right? In a major championship, it should be 5%.

Now, whether that's the bunker sand was inconsistent or too gravely or too fast, or the green speeds were off, or a combination of both, it just had them thinking too much. And a little bit unsure about the bunker shot that we're going to hit. The everyday player, we deal with that crap every single day when we go play, right? Sometimes a rake sometimes or not, you know, they don't wait. It's just it becomes too much inconsistency and it's hard, right?

So yeah, I mean, they didn't enter into it. I kind of think it's a good thing that it gives them something to worry about. One thing I didn't hear discussed was how much this was going to put an emphasis on ball striking, right? It's not necessarily about the ability to scramble. It's like, hey, probably whoever ends up in the least amount of bunkers in some capacity is going to benefit from that more so that I know the guys don't think of it that way. But if I was a better player, I would say make the bunkers even harder because I'm going

to be in less of them than the middle guy and it's become less of a short game competition. But. Oh, no, you're right. That's become less of a short game competition. But oh no you're right that's a great that's a great point you're right. And if you're confident in your ball striking and you're not worried about the bunkers, then that's great because yeah you should be rewarded for that. And you know what if put yourself in a bad position off the tee and you decide that you know your best place to hit in the bunker because you know you can get up and down and then that's that's you know that defeats the purpose of the bunker.

I think this this week in particular was a mental test in a lot of ways, both with the conditions and some of the variables that we've discussed to this point. This irony is kind of just now dawning on me in terms of Justin Thomas was one of the guys or the guy that complained maybe the most about the centerline bunker that was put in the 12th hole at TPC Boston. And it seems like to me, he's had a maturation in terms of his ability to take variables thrown at him, kind of culminating in him winning this championship. Had you made that connection at all? I just now thought

that you made that connection at all to this point. Yeah, well, I kind of thought about it as is, I'm like, you know, he's won on our golf courses, right? But he took a variable, he did not like in the 12th hole at TPC at Boston, he hit over in the 13th fairway. So he figured out a way to work his way around it. You know, all we have to do is put a bunker in a middle of 13th fairway now, right? He did it there. But yeah, you know, it's, it was interesting, definitely thought about it. I don't really didn't put any correlation from one to the other, what it means. Then, you know, he's a great player and, you know, he did the job this past weekend.

Is there anything from watching pros play it, you know, other events prior to this, pretty prior to you doing work on a course like Southern Hills or any of the other courses you have coming up, anything in particular that you would say you've learned having, you know, done renovation, restoration work, original design work, seeing the pros play it that now you can feel yourself or see yourself incorporating into current and future work that you're doing. Well, I think it's everything, right? There's little items that come from each of that right down the line, right? That as you make those field decisions and you talk about it and implement them is like, okay, it's being able to think through all that stuff. I mean, we did some

stuff at the RAL where we had a bump in the middle of the green where we went off an old Dick Wilson plan and it was too severe, right? So guys were playing shots into there if they didn't play the correct shot shape, but you know, it hit that side slope and kicked into the water. So those things stick with you and as you work your way through, you make those changes as you go. But the biggest thing to all this stuff, Sully, that you have to learn and we learned a long time ago is don't be afraid to be criticized. If we're afraid to be criticized, we're never going to get the most out of our work. We're never going to do the best for the golf course, we're never going to do best for these events that are held at the

golf course. We're never going to do the best for the everyday player. So you have to take that out of the equation, if they're gonna criticize, they're gonna criticize, whether it's the, you know, 30 handicap, the owner, right? The superintendent or whatever it is. And you just have to block that out, because if you worry about all those criticisms, you're never gonna reach your potential,

and you're never gonna do anything fun and interesting. Anything you would have done differently at Southern Hills after having seen it? I don't know. You know, I have to think about that a little bit more, but no, I mean, there's some stuff that we did that, you know, it kind of made you wonder when we were doing it, but I think it turned out great in the end.

Is there anything you would have done? No, you know, no. I think a takeaway from this also, though, is the a little bit of added quirk in terms of 13 T T T off over 12 green, 7 T being right by six green felt to the viewer like it worked fine. I didn't hear a lot of guys really having too much complain about. No, there were some pace of play concerns and worries. It didn't seem like it leaked to, you know, you know, too much through the field. I don't know if that was a takeaway to say like we can get away with a little bit of quirk in some ways. the field and I don't know if that was a takeaway to say like we can get away with a little bit of quirk in some ways.

Well, no, that's actually very good takeaway, right? And it's not only that, I think, you know, from a tournament standpoint, right? You're right. I think it was managed awesome. They're able to make that flow happen. And yeah, there was a little concern in the beginning, but, you know, it ended up not being, you know, a big deal in the end or which wasn't made a big deal. I don't think that the, I don't think the time it took to play around

increased dramatically because of that. I think it was probably even less than in some of the other golf courses that I played at. And I think the important thing is, is that the people that are watching golf, right? The fanatics, the everyday fans of golf, that look at that and see that and maybe embrace that as being something good

for their golf course, something fun, something different, that this is allowed to happen. It's not bad design because you have a tea that's off the side of a green that you have to play off the back corner of the green. Rockaway Hunt Club in New York, if you've ever played there right on the bay, you know, you tee off short little part three, fifth hole plays over the back of the fourth green. It's a small piece of property that happens several times through the round of the go. And when we build that and create that nowadays people like oh my god what are you doing? But land is scarce and if you want to do something fun and interesting and walking should be a big part of the game. There's nothing better than walking off one tee right to the one green right to the next tee. It doesn't matter if it's the back corner, it should be totally irrelevant.

It's quite frankly that other groups shouldn't be coming through by the time you T back off. They may have hit their shot and walking to the green, but I think it has a social aspect. You're watching your friends play in front and you love to see them hit a crappy shot. You know what I mean? So I think it's great.

So hopefully that's what's taken away to everyday people realize that that's something cool and fun and interesting and Asian embrace instead of just turning their heads away from. And if you're worried about hitting it onto that green right in front of your plan too far back anyway. So and Bally Bunyan and Nairn and a lot of other places around the world have have long since incorporated some stuff like that and To see it work at the highest level championship golf with all the infrastructure considerations that go into it. I'm wondering if that opens up golf courses that maybe would not have been or have not been considered for major championships in the past because of limitations as to where they put T-boxes and distance and things like that.

That's just a thought that I'm currently thinking about. Well, hey, wait, no, hopefully, hopefully it does. Hopefully it allows people to start thinking outside the box, right? And say, hey, we can do this. It doesn't have to be standard on. All the great golf courses architecturally that we're talking about, and we all love. They all have quirks to them.

Anytime anybody, any project we ever work on and somebody says something to me about you can't do this, right, you can't do that, I bring up Mary. Mary embrates every single architectural ruler is and it's one of the best golf courses in the country. Why is that? Because it breaks every architectural rule, it follows every architectural rule. No, they created fun interesting golf throughout and it just so happens that that's the way it fell on the piece of ground and that's what's fun and interesting. What rules are broken in Mary and I'm curious to

what's fun and interesting. What rules are broken and marrying? I'm curious to what you're going to be. Let's start, right? Nine's don't return. Everybody says, well, the ninth hole has to return. No, the driving range is half a mile away up the top of the hill. It's not a full length driving range for anybody. Really, you cross the road twice.

You have out of bounds with the road. It's part of the golf course. Okay, you play 13 back to the clubhouse and then you walk in front of one tee, you know, back across and then you play the last six holes. Your last part five is the fourth hole. So you can keep, you can go right down the line with everything.

So there's not a whole lot that's normal and typical for Mary. You know, and it's one of the best there is. What else do you have currently going on that maybe has you the most excited? I know you got a lot to choose from, but either currently going on or you guys have upcoming that we'll be seeing on TV.

I think it, we've been trying to emphasize the point as much as we can. How much you guys work is going to be featured in professional golf in the coming years. But what has you, has you most excited right now? Well, some of the most exciting stuff we have, we have happening isn't happening yet, but we'll all get to that in a second. But the golf course that we're doing out in the desert and Coachella is, I think, is turning out awesome. You know, golf course hasn't been built there

since, like, a late or something. You know, in the fact that we're building something, we're trying to build a golf club in Palm Springs, right? Everything in Palm Springs is a typical housing development, you know, flowers, you know, based on selling real estate, and then golf and around it, but we're actually trying to build a golf club, right? So we're trying to do something different, you know, for the desert, and you know, kind of change some minds out there as what golf can be. The work we're doing up at, like Merced, which we're pretty close to finishing, you know, putting back some of the, you know, Mackenzie stuff that was originally there, I think has turned out awesome. And yeah, we're fortunate we have some great project, you know, Olympic is coming up at the end of this year. Next year, we'll be doing colonial, right?

After the tournaments over next year, we've got about 100 days to do it, took us six months at ball of shawl or Marion or Oakland Hills and get done. So that'll be an interesting project and kind of all hands on deck. But you know the work that we're going to eventually do in Philadelphia, Cobb's Creek, Cobb's Creek project, you know the you know the other Hugh Wilson design at the Cityones. If we can do what we want to do there, if people can get out of our way, you know get the politics out out of golf from a city level there, and let us do and bring back that golf course and create something really good for the community.

When a golf course floods, the community floods. When you have a foundation that's willing to spend a lot of money to minimize, if not eliminate, not only the flooding on the golf course, but for the communities and invest a lot of money into something in a community that needs some help and investments, hopefully that's personal and other people kind of diving into that area.

And maybe it's an opportunity not only of changing and putting back one of the historic golf courses in the Philadelphia area, right? But also changing a community that was vibrant and thriving when that golf course opened up and thereafter I think it's a huge and incredible undertaking and I just that's the most exciting to me. I just I hope it happens you know when we first started that project we thought it would be done for the 2013 open at Murray. Wow. So

when's the next open 30? 30. That's coming. We may be hard pressed to met to meet that day. The 20 30 open at at Mary and also has me hopeful for a ball roll back. If they're if they're willing to say this far into the future, we're going to have a US open there that has to be hoping that that something's going to change on that front. Let's see. All right. Well, thank you, Jim. They really appreciate your input here.

So it's great. And we are excited to see a lot of your guys working in the coming months and years Yeah. We'll see. All right. Well, thank you, Jim. I really appreciate your input here. So it's great. And we are excited to see a lot of you guys working in the coming months and years on the professional circuit. And hopefully get out and play a little golf myself too on some of some of what you guys have touched. So thanks for your time. Really appreciate it.

Yeah. All right. Thank you to Jim. As noted, we're going to turn it over to Gil Hans here shortly, but first want to give a shout out to our friends at Woop, the personalized digital fitness and health coach and official fitness wearable, the PGA and LPGA tours. You can monitor your recovery, sleep, training and health with personalized recommendations and coaching feedback from Woop. If I used this function, it would have told me, hey, Sally, two old-fashioned last night,

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And it's good to gamify things a little bit. It helps you, helps you have monitored what you're actually putting into your body. So without any further delay, let's get to our discussion with Gil Hans. Colonial. Tell us about the challenges that come with renovating a golf course that has a PGA Torivan in May.

And why it's something that not a lot of people maybe think about, but what are the challenges that come with that? You know, people frequently ask if we lose a lot of sleep, you know, over being entrusted with these great old golf courses. And the answer is no. I mean, we get excited and a little bit nervous about when you're working on these things,

but you know, we feel pretty good about the research that's gone into it and how we're going to develop and alter the golf course, but Colonial makes me lose sleep because that's just so tough. Why is that? Because you're looking at people say, oh, you've got a year. Well, actually, we don't, because you finish, let's say June 1st, you get started. You can only grow grass in Texas until Thanksgiving. So you really only have between May and Thanksgiving to grow grass.

And some of the grass that we're planting isn't really going to grow in October and November. So then you need to get all the greens redone and seeded by end of August. So yes, we have a calendar year, but the project and it's 18 holes obviously. And it's everything needs to be done in such a tight window and if we get a really wet or bad summer, it's not too risky that the club won't do it or we shouldn't do it, but it's just, we need a lot to go right. So what is the plan for how the colonial is going to unfold over the coming years? We're going to get in there and we've got a really good contract that we're going to work with and we're just going to go right into the greens. It's just green complex after green complex and it's

kind of tear that one up, start draining it, tear up the next one and so there'll be a variety of greens in different steps and then as soon as we get one ready we're going to see it. So it's not, you know, a lot of times, superintendant will ask inappropriately so that you seed them in groups so that he's got three greens or six greens at the same level of maturity. So, but here it's just as soon as we can put grass on the ground, we've got to put grass on the ground. So we're going to be primarily focused on green complexes first and then we can move into fairway bunkers, teas, fairways, all the things that go along with it. And then, you know, there's infrastructural changes, drainage, pulling some of the walls out. There'll be things that we can do over the winter months that aren't dependent on the

growing of grass, but it's a tight window for everything that we need to grow. How would you describe working at Colonial specifically? We talked some about, you some about restoring classic golf courses. What do you see there that needs to be maintained out of the original design? And where do you see some opportunities for some redesigns or some true modernization of it? And do you feel differently about that golf course than maybe you do some of the ones from different areas?

Yeah, I think we feel different on that, especially as it relates to tree removal. I mean, I think one of the things that identifies colonial every year on the tour, on tour, is that it's a shorter course. But it's one that requires a lot of precision. You've got to place your ball around there. And I think if we were to look at it as sort of our track record, we'd probably take down more trees

just because we're trying to get back to that original, but there we're actually going to plant trees. I had an amazing opportunity to sit with Dan Jenkins before he passed, and we talked about that, and Marty Marvin Leonard's daughter, and Dan as he was, he said it was a dark golf course. He said, what do you mean by that? He said, there were so many trees overhanging everything that you were just hitting into these dark spaces and he said,

that's why Hogan loved it so much because he knew where his ball was going and he could work his way through that golf course. So I think it's a golf course that we want to retain its identity of being a ball striker's golf course. So I think it's a golf course that we want to retain its identity of being a ball striker as golf course. So I think we're gonna look at, you know, how do we maybe even make it more dense from a turf standpoint. We're gonna make it a lot more rustic.

You know, you look at the photographs from the 41 US Open and you look at the work right after Maxwell was involved there. I think you're gonna start to see a little bit more of those rustic features restoring some of the barankas on the property, bunker and get a little more rustic greens go down in the landscape, because what had happened over time, and it was really an interesting study trying to figure out this evolution, is that everybody says it's a peri-maxwell golf course. It's not even close. Right.

I mean, it was breathable. Originally, the Maxwell came in and changed some of the greens for the US open and then did the three, you know, changed the three hole, the horrible horseshoe loop. But then you had Ralph Plummer. You had Ben Hogan in there. You had Morris. You had Keith Foster. I mean, there's probably three or four others that I'm missing.

And the golf course had changed and evolved over a long period of time. And so, and I'm not saying all of it was bad, but it had changed. And so now you've got a much more formal presentation, you've got a lot of formal walls, you've got flower beds, you've got sort of these white oval scalpel-edge debunkers, you've got greens that were elevated in order to add a level of difficulty to the golf course. So I think there was all these different things that over time had changed the character of the golf course.

And our goal is to try and get the character back to what it originally was and present a golf course more in that fashion. And that'll include some pretty dramatic changes. The par threes in particular, trying to get the aethyl or mirror image of it. Because the original design also, the biggest change to the overall property was in the early 60s when they did all the changes for the flooding along the Trinity River, because the Trinity would constantly flood and they'd have all these issues.

So they straightened the Trinity and then they built all these levees through the golf course and chopped up and really disfigured the landscape from a golf perspective, because they weren't interested in care about golf. They wanted to make sure the water didn't go that way. Well, now based on a lot of different things that have happened, the flood control measures aren't necessary. So it's going to give us an opportunity

to restore some of the landscape there and try and get some of it back. So it's a golf course that has had an incredible evolution. And our hope is that we're still going to keep it relevant for the way it's played by the best players in the world right now, but restore an awful lot of the character of the course that had been lost.

What do you see when you walk a golf course that you're getting ready to do work on in some way? And you and I got to play together at Rowling Green last year and you just pointed out a couple of things that like my eyes were just what I've never seen, right? And I, Sam, which is with the comment that when I play something that you've worked on, I don't feel like I've seen your specific footprint on it

in that you do work to it, but you're not trying to say, love that, looks like a hand screen, or that looks like a hand's fix of some kind. So I'm curious how you survey, you see something, you see, let's just take colonial, for example. What do you see, you gave some examples there, but what are some maybe, in detail things

that people wouldn't think about that you're like, all right, we need to change this, this, and this for this exact reason. What comes to mind is the example you gave it rolling green of slopes going around bunkers instead of going into bunkers which they probably showed architecturally. Yeah I think a lot of what we point out and what we talk about our construction related or decisions that architects have asked contractors to make as it relates to sort of the relationship between features greens and bunkers, teas and surrounds and our approach has always been just to sort of the relationship between features, greens and bunkers, teas and surrounds.

And our approach has always been just to kind of get things back in the ground the way they originally were and make those tie-ins seamless so that you really just can't ascertain that. We have this conversation with a lot of committees who don't even go out on courses and say, OK, you're ready because you're never going to look at your golf course the same way again

and you start pointing this stuff out. I mean, I feel bad about it because, like, I'm pointing out flaws on something that they obviously love, but also I'm pointing out flaws that somebody else had worked on. And so I think it's a difficult balancing act, but it's one, I think, that's important for people to look at and to see. And I think that there's a lot of it is in the finish work. It's the details. All right, if you're trying to replicate what Ross did,

it's going to feel this way. If you're trying to replicate what Tilling Has did, at that specific place. I think that's why hopefully you don't see our fingerprints aren't heavy. It's that we've done a really good job of researching and figuring stuff out and trying to be very specific about that particular golf course versus any sort of typical, hey, we're going to rust typically did this and that. You know, I've got one of those, I didn't always want to be a golf course architect and so I've got one of those useless but wonderful degrees in political science and history. So the history part has actually served me very well because I love doing the research.

I love finding this stuff out and I'm really fascinated by club histories. So I think it's one of those things where if you do your research and you do your, you really get everything detail oriented right, then you feel comfortable going into the project and then ultimately all the guys that work with us and you know get, they feel comfortable getting the work right. And having the 1941 US Open program, it's invaluable. You know, if it had been a place that had never had hosted a major championship, you don't have those resources.

So I guess part of it, we're really fortunate in a lot of the places we're working have that archival information, but also have that track record. The thing is, I don't want to say never really thought of it this way until now, but golf courses have to evolve in some way. It's either, and I don't want to say it's automatic, that it's going to deteriorate, but over time, you know, mowing lines change, trees grow, and without some, you know, a little bit of knife work going in there, it's going to evolve in some way.

It's never going to, in 2018, it's not going to play like it did in 2020. It's just, I'm, we're seeing in our municipal course, it was just redone, like it just plays different every winter a little bit now. And so, I imagine that's a challenge, though, with some historic clubs, too, of convincing members sometimes that work needs to be done, should be done or this tree needs to go or things like that. Yeah, and a lot of times, you're a victim of the success of a really great superintendent. It's like, well, why do we need to change anything because it's in great shape.

And they don't think about the architectural aspects of it or they don't see the flaws in it. I just think it's one of those things where you're always working to present the best possible picture. I think the thing that Jim and I talk about is when we leave, if we've done as good a job as we can at painting the original picture of what the architect wanted, then we've done our job. But you don't want to laugh,

but when people say, oh, we've got a pure set of Donald Ross greens. Well, every time you airify that green, you change the contour in it. So it's not, you know, you do that for a hundred years. And that's, if Donald Ross came back, he would recognize it, but he wouldn't say, yeah, that's exactly the way we laid it out. And so that evolution is constant, is primarily through maintenance.

I mean, if a tree falls on a green, somebody's going to dig it. So there's just so many things that can happen that that ultimately are going to impact those surfaces or those features that are just just evolution. Mother Nature's a beast. It really is. I like I clean off our porch in a week later. There's pollen everywhere. I'm like, gosh, think about maintaining a golf course. She's undefeated. Yeah, undefeated, that's right. I think this episode might be three to four hours

if we went, you know, whole by whole on all the stuff that you're currently working on. But this is a big year in the Hans Golf design, you know, with the major championships, not only Southern Hills, but also the country club in Brookline. We got a chance to see it actually this past week as we're recording this. But what was that Brookline when you got there and what's there now?

You know, I think one of the biggest things, so this whole restoration period that we talk about and that we're really proud to be part of, I think you can trace it, start back to Brookline. You know, Reese Jones, when he did the restoration of Brookline in preparation for the 88 US open, I think it was the very first time that phrase had been used and that there was a lot of conversation about it and Reese really tried to get the historic context of the golf course into the design. So in a way Brookline is where all of this restoration stuff started, which is great.

Then it had been handed off to Bill and Ben for a few years after the Ryder Cup. They obviously do an amazing job with great old golf courses and have a very light touch. And then they handed it off to us in 2007. And I think the biggest part of what we did there was in the hardest part, which it is that most courses was tree removal.

It was a golf course when you look at early photographs of it and when you look at that unique landscape. I mean, it is an incredible landscape. There's nowhere else that I can think of that has that combination of rolling, tumbling ground and sharp rock outcroppings and abrupt edges and golf holes that play over the landscape instead of through the landscape. I mean, they literally just, because you couldn't cut the landscape because it's rock underneath it.

The rock outcroppings shocked me first time, go over there, and seeing some of the shapes of the fairways, you're like, why is it a shape like that? It's like, oh, it's because you're between rocks. Rocks. You really can't, I mean, talk about trying to install an irrigation system or do drainage it, that has its own headaches.

But really, the key thing was that the landscape had been covered and it happens. You know, as if somebody set out with this nefarious plan, we're going to put trees everywhere, they just evolve. And so it was a lot of conversation about why it was important to take those away, again, historic based information. And then it was when the 2013 US Amateur was awarded to the Country Club, it became more about architecturally what do we need to do to update the golf course? And where do we need to focus on people hitting it in these days? How do we move things into place?

And then after the 13 Amateur, it started to focus on, okay, how do we expand greens? How do we get these tiny greens, which are still tiny, and actually recoup and restore some of the character and some of the lost hole locations? So it was a slow step-by-step process of uncovering and unveiling a lot of things that have been lost over a period of time. So I think it was one of those, it's not a bad place to go to.

And if every fall they called and said, hey, we want to look at doing a whole or two or look at these things. And then when the US Open was awarded, it became a little bit faster paste in trying to rebuild all the bunkers, upgrade this, look at fairway lines. And that was one where we did work closely, really more in grasping lines with the USGA to try and get all of that established. But I mean, I am the biggest golf geek and I love, I mean, I still get ting, I mean, I'm the idiot who still waves to the cardboard cutout guy when I drive into the place because it's just, it's so cool to be there. And every time I drive into that property, it's just, you know, you pinch yourself at

how lucky we are at a place that architecture is interesting and unique, but in the history of American golf, it's arguably had the most important golfing event with Francis Wehmetz victory and then continues to have great events there, you know, up until modern day. I don't know what my comparison would be for Brooklyn, again I just saw for the first time, but when you come in directly through the 15th hole, what will be the 15th hole for the US open? That might be a little bit of shinnokok,

but other than the golf course just plays around this whole clubhouse, I don't even call it clubhouse area. There's like a town square. Yeah, the campus, yeah. I campus right in the middle that it just looks so unlike anything else I've seen in golf and the way that routing works, that huge bowl from holes three through six that

are all played in, I think it's going to be a great viewing spot for the US Open and just yeah, some golf holes, you know, the kind of explain into it, the routing, grab this one from the Primrose, things like that. There's enough, like just straight up challenge to it. There's enough also a little quirk to it that I'm curious to see how some of the guys handle one of this, the huge slope on the eighth hole. What will be the eighth hole, the par five, in front of that green, how you can hit the front

of that green, it comes back 50 yards. The T-Shot on nine is very interesting. Can you describe that one for us? Yeah, I mean, you're downhill and you've got a pond and then a really steep slope feeding into it and anything that gets over to that right hand side that's hit far enough is gonna go down in and then an interesting green set up there.

So, Jack Nicholas always talked about when he would walk into the locker room of a major championship and he could look around the room and he'd figure out who he had to compete with because a lot of the guys were either complaining or they didn't have the nerve to compete in a major championship and he could look around the room and he'd figure out who he had to compete with because a lot of the guys were either complaining or they didn't have the nerve to compete in a major championship. I think Brookline is going to have some of that. I think there are going to be some guys that are just going to lose their minds.

They're not going to have ever seen a golf course like that. Ben Crenshaw talks about that was sort of his epiphany. I think he was 14 years old. He was playing in the US junior and he had never played golf in the Northeast and he went and played at the country company. So blind shots and rock outcroppings. And it was just an awakening. He didn't realize that courses like that existed.

And I think you're going to find some players who are just not going to be able to cope with the small greens. And they're going to get bad bounces. And they're going to wind up with blind shots. It'll be, I'm really interested to see not only how the golf course challenges them play wise, but I think mentally it's going to be a heck of a test. Yeah, and there's the 3, 4, 10, and 13 come to mind on t-shirts you cannot see your landing area.

All right, and that, I know the guys are really good at adjusting and it's only blind the first time you see it, et cetera. But there's something, I would imagine there's something about contending in a major and not knowing where your ball's gonna land. It would be a little unnerving. Yeah, and it has, I mean, it's not Lynxy by definition, but it has some of those characteristics

where your ball's gonna get some weird bounces. It's gonna get some kicks in. You can't see it land. And if in your mind you're thinking, okay, I hit that right down the middle. I'm going to walk over the crest of this rock outcropping and the ball's going to be sitting in the middle and you all, where is it? And it's now in the right rough because it just got a bad bounce. How do you react to that?

And I think that's going to be a really interesting part of the challenge there. My reaction to that course as well was in how it differs I guess from wing foot being, you know, pretty narrow fairways at wing foot, thick rough, but it had very big greens with open fronts. So it helped to miss on the right side of the fairway, but it was, distance was very heavily emphasized yet. It broke, it felt like there is a right side of the fairway to miss on if there is one. But holding those greens from the rough from where these guys are going to be coming in from It broke, and it felt like there is a right side of the fairway to miss on if there is one.

But holding those greens from the rough, and where these guys are going to be coming in from, based on where those teas are, looks to be a steeper challenge, perhaps less bomb and gougy if you will, compared to Wingfoot. Is that a fair? I agree. I think going into the open at Wingfoot, I didn't think Bryce and strategy had a chance of succeeding, and it did. Obviously it did, and he knew that. It wasn't like he was lucky, he figured that out. But because Wing

foot is uniquely set up for that wide open front, Green's severely slowed from back to front so they're going to absorb the energy of a shot coming out of the rough. Brookline you've got Green's tilted this way, you've got Green's tilted this way, you know, they're not all running back at you and they're tiny. I think they average like 4,300 square feet. And the other part of the presentation of the country called the Wingfoot didn't have is you've got Fesk, I mean, if you really miss, you're in stuff this high, you know, you're not in stuff that high.

And so trying to get it out of that is going to have its own problems, but forget about trying to get on the green, it's just getting back into play. So I think there'll be an interesting test. I think this is a golf course that is really going the challenge or the scoring is going to be predicated on the weather. I mean, it doesn't dry out quickly. So if they get a lot of rain and they have soft greens, it's obviously going to be a big benefit for the guys. Because it doesn't matter that the fairways are soft soft those guys, you know, your length isn't the isn't the issue, it's firmness in those sloping greens and so if we get a really good week and it plays firm and fast I think it's going to be a heck of a challenge.

And it's just going to be a test in precision with ball control on repeat and that's it. I was tested on that yesterday and I failed that test I can confirm. It was an ass-wooping man. I mean, it just felt like I got in the boxing ring, got punched, and I just never recovered. I mean, it just puts you on your heels and they got a high praise for a golf course. You're going to find your golf ball. It's not like lost ball, and there's not many places to hit in the water out there, but you're just going to keep getting challenged all the way to 84, whatever I shot.

That is humbling, man. I'm super excited for the US Open. Yeah, I think it's a great year for majors, right? I mean, you've got, obviously, Augusto always starts up. I think it's Southern Hills Country Club in the old course. It's about as good a lineup as you're going to get. And so, and it'll be fun to see Southern Hills in the Country Club because they haven't been in this position since 2007 at Southern Hills and the Country Club because they haven't been in this position since 2007 at Southern Hills and you know 88 for a major championship, 99 for the Ryder Cup at the

Country Club. So it's going to be a job of talking to some guys at both venues, you know, how many guys in the field will have played and either in the Ryder Cup or in there's not a lot. You have very few guys who have had experience there. So it'll be a new lesson for them in architecture and two very distinctly different golf courses. I know this isn't one of your courses that you've worked on. You may have, you've worked on all of them. Yeah, I would just, Jim and I just tell, if somebody says you're working there, we say yes.

Because everybody thinks we're working everywhere. It would be the old course. I will have curious what your thoughts are on the old course, kind of what your relationship is like with that place and what kind of influence it may or may not have had on you. It is, in my mind, the most special place in golf. It's my favorite place to play. I just, I love it.

I had the good fortune to be there in the beginning of April. I got to play two rounds and then walked it in the evenings and I think I put up a post which I'm starting, I don't do much anymore, but it almost is purified my soul. It was just such a cathartic, you know, just a wonderful journey because it's so enjoyable and so much fun to play. You can play golf any way you want to on that golf course, which I think is the magic about it. You can be

aggressive or you can play safe or you can, you know, like a midhandy cap like me, you can hit it wherever and still find it and go play it again. So I think it's one of those places that has all the history and everything attached to it and you're walking back and seeing the town. But it's just, it's hallowed ground for golf. And it's always been my favorite place. And it has had an amazing impact on Gemini and what we believe in golf architecture and the recovery game and the creativity required to recover. And that the best architecture doesn't dictate to you how to play it.

There are ways to play it, but you dictate how you want to play the golf course. And I think the old course does that better than any other place on the planet. It's choose your own adventure. And whatever play you made on Monday might not be the play on Tuesday, depending on the wind or the pin and all that stuff. It's just an enormous chess match. And I'm getting unconcerned. You guys were just there.

We were just there. Yeah. And people too. And it's just exactly how you, I know you struggled for words of describing it. And I felt the same way. It was just kind of like, I think I came home. It was like, honey, I love you.

I love my wife. But there's quite literally nothing I'd rather do in the world than walk those fairways. Like that's probably it. A dear friend of mine, and you know, head of the P.J. of America, Seth Waw. And he has the best ranking system for any golf courses. He says, happy place, not happy place.

That's really how he looks at places. It's that simple. And that's got to be the happiest place in golf. It's very special. I'm so excited for the open this year. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about Jim. I know we were planning to have that.

Jim's been on the podcast, I know you've talked about him here. We were planning to have him on the two of you together here to do this kind of challenge or episode with our friends from Charles Schwab. But we got to spend some time with the two of you together at O'Hoopie last December for your event. And you kind of made the point that you guys are not spending that much time in the same room, in the same cities, in the same place.

And I found that interesting kind of, for people that maybe aren't familiar with how your business works, why is that, and how do you two work together? It's just because we're busy. And I think it's, you know, it's the transition that I think, well, if you're lucky and you're successful, you kind of have to always walk that fine line

of being hands on which we are, but how do you grow your business to a point where, you know, you've got other projects and so, Jim's a place one week and then I come the next week. If there's something really critical we've got to talk or decide about, then we'll try to get there at the same time. And I think we are now, while we're still creating

and we're still very involved in the shaping, we're also editing. So we've got this talented group of cavemen that work with us and they're just phenomenal. So we don't both need to be standing there editing or talking about what we're proposing. So I think it's a better approach to what we do and how we do things if we can kind of come in and out, separate of each other. And I think that's just the reality. And I think ultimately,

you know, why we've had such a long-lasting partnership in the way things have worked, and we touched on it that night at Ohoopie, is we just let each other do our own thing. You know, I always know that if somebody's got to get to somewhere, Jim will get there. You know, I don't have to ask him, I don't have to call him twice a month and say, hey, what's your schedule look like this month? I just know he's going to get there and he's going to dedicate the amount of time. And I think the other part of it is that we just trust each other. We just have, I know he's going to make good decisions, he knows I'm going to make good decisions, but they're not going to be the same decisions. We wouldn't, you know, and if we question each

other's decisions, we both have enough respect for each other that we're willing to yield to an opinion. But if one of us feel strongly about something, and I think Bill Kors mentioned that he and Ben have a very similar dynamic, is if somebody feels strong about it, the other guy just goes, OK, great. I'm 100% fine with that. And I think Jim is much better at planning and organizing

and getting budgets and schedules. And I think he enjoys that sort of chess match, that tactical aspect of it. And I just want to show up and get in a bulldozer and build stuff. So it's good from that perspective that, and Jim's, again, I understand how to do those things, but he's better at it.

And I think the sort of public relations and the going to the cocktail parties Jim's again, I understand how to do those things, but he's better at it. And I think the sort of public relations and the going to the cocktail parties and going to the memberships and talking about what we're proposing to do. I'm more comfortable doing it. Jim could certainly do it, but I think he'd prefer not to, and I don't mind doing those sorts of things. So, whether it was just, you know, serendipity, divine intervention, whatever it was, the 27 years we've been together have been amazing.

And we're different personalities. And our guys joke about this as well because they talk about it. And Jim and I are now almost to the point where we're trying to fool our guys, like trick them, because they'll come on and be like, oh, Gil must have shaped that green. Or Jim must have done that one. So I guess we have tendencies that we tend to go to. But I think the combination of Ian Andrew, who's a really good friend, he's a golf course architect in Canada, he said this, and I never really thought about it, but it's true.

He said, my go-to move is to go down. I always want everything in the ground. I want stuff to hug the ground and be more linksy kind of. And he said, Jim's go-to move is to go up. Jim always wants, would prefer to build stuff up higher and have more dramatic falloffs, etc. So I think within the context of 18 holes, if we have equal input, then we've got a really nice nice bit of a variety. If we stay with our tendencies, like I said, we're trying to maybe mix that up a little bit. Twenty-seven years, that seems like an exception. That is pretty remarkable for any business partnership to go.

It's weird to say it this way. I don't know if you would agree with this or not, but in a way you definitely work in the arts business. But I mean by that is the answers to questions are subjective. And when you are, there is no right answer to whether or not that tree should come down. And when you stretch that out between all the different stakeholders in the work that you do, and within your own team of deciding on what to do, that has to be difficult at times,

but to tie those two together to make that relationship work for that long in a business where there's not always a right answer. I see it on the contents. I think there's just challenges to like there's no right answer, whether or not we should do this project or not, and that's a testament to your guys' ability to work together. Well thanks, he's super easy to get along with, and I'd like to think I'm the same. I think that's the thing, is we really work hard to take stress out of the equation, right? And we're right now at a point where we are so busy

that it could get incredibly stressful. How are we gonna do this? Where are we gonna go here? Who's gonna go there at that? But we just kind of trust that it's gonna work out. And we're gonna make sure that everybody gets the attention they need and we'll figure it out as opposed to, you know, we don't spend a lot of time worrying. What is the role of a consulting architect?

If you go to your website, your listed as the consulting architect on a lot of projects, is that every three months, every year, every two years, you're visiting the club, are you in on meetings? What is that process like? It's really up to the club. At the end of the day, it comes down to if they want to see us every year, we'll set up an agreement where they see us every year. If they feel like things are great and we're only going to call you if there's a problem or if there's something that we would like you to consider, then that's a great

relationship as well. I think that's one of the wonderful things that we've been able to accomplish is that we've lost very few clients. I mean, we've got relationships that go back to 1995. And so I think we tend to have those long term relationships because we let the club, I'm not going to call a club and say, oh, I haven't seen you in five years. So I'm coming and you're going to pay me to show up.

It's like, okay, they must be happy or things must be going pretty well. So again, it's one of those things where we don't, we just let the clients dictate what they think that relationship should look like, but we try to be as attentive as possible. And I think one of the things that we're going to have to deal with in the next couple of years is, you know, I'm almost 60. We've got grandkids now.

I can't keep this pace up. And you know, we've got Kevin Murphy and Ben Hill Art too of our associates. And Jim and I are going to have to start to think about, okay, how do we delegate more of those responsibilities? And then we're going to have to be honest and go to the clubs and say, listen, Jim and I are going to have to be honest and go to the clubs and say, listen, Jim and I are going to start to slow down just because that's what life is. And we trust these guys that they're going to come in and give you the right advice. And by the way, because we've been so hands-on through the years, we know your golf course intimately.

So if they're talking about, hey, moving the second T, we actually know what the second T looks like. We don't have to get on Google Maps to figure out where it is. So I think it's a relationship that will be able to continue with clubs, but we also realize that some clubs may say, yeah, you know what, if you're not going to show up, we're probably going to move on. And that's going to be okay. What is the COVID Gulf boom done to the Gulf Course

Design Business? God's crazy. The good thing it has done is that, the COVID Gulf boom done to the Gulf course design business. That's crazy. The good thing it has done is that there was a long period from 2007 until 2019, where there were a ton of these really talented, shaper architects. And they were having difficulty finding jobs of their own.

A lot of them worked with us with Tom Doke, with Bill Kour, and Crenshaw, and we're kind of in that vein. Now there are tons of opportunities for those guys. Like a guy like Kyle Franz, when work comes our way, we, although most people don't think we say now, we say no to 99% of the stuff that comes our way, but we are happy to turn it over to somebody like Kyle. And now Kyle's going to have those opportunities. And there's all these

younger guys who just couldn't get a break because there was no works. And now you've got a lot of, you know, everybody wants to talk about the Oak Mons and the country clubs and the winged foots, but there are so many really good golf courses that maybe their clubs weren't full during that time, that decade. Well now they're full and they've got waiting lists and now they've got money and so they want to do things to their golf course. So I think you're starting to see a ton of opportunities for younger guys. There was for a while there were people talking about where does the next time don't come from, where does the next bill come from because there's just

no opportunities. Well, now there are opportunities, and hopefully those guys will be able to prove themselves. The other thing is it's done is it's made getting contractors, it's hard, and even for us, we're at a point where we're trying to find and slot guys in, people that we trust and we know do quality work. And they're either all booked, some of them on our projects, but a lot of these other opportunities they're taking as well.

So it's been an amazing boom for the design careers of I think what will turn out to be a really good generation of golf architects. But it's also put us all in a little bit of a bind because there's just not enough quality contractors out there to do all this work. And it seems like not even just the restoration work, but the new projects, I mean,

in Southeast Florida, how many new projects are going on? You have one going on down there in West Palm, can you tell us a bit about that one and what else is going on? Yeah, I mean, there are right now seven new golf courses under consideration on Bridge road and home sound. I mean, it's just, it's amazing the growth, but there's nowhere, I mean, all these people who are either buying secondary homes

or primary homes and moving to Florida are, well, not California because of Texas, but Texas and Arizona and places where the climate's better. And, you know, COVID's made a lot of people sort of rethink their values or priorities, how they want to live their lives. And so these areas, now there's just, you can't join anywhere.

There's nowhere to play golf. So there's now people starting to again look at, you know, developing golf courses for the need versus the want. You know, there was, again, that sort of decade, there were people who wanted to develop golf courses for the need versus the want. There was, again, that sort of decade, there were people who wanted to develop golf courses. The Mike Kizer's the world because they knew that if you build quality, people will come

and they'll seek it out. But there were not a lot of people who felt they were building a golf course to fill a need. We're back in that window. And hopefully, we don't go too crazy like we did in the 80s and 90s in early 2000s. From spending time a couple of resorts over the last you know however many years there's room for more. I mean it's bandin is totally booked up stream song we can get in a three o'clock

tea time maybe one day and it's saying valleys booked up it's it's kind of crazy. Yeah I'm not a big business guru but I think it's John Lasseter, the guy that, what did he think, not Disney, the Pixar. It just, it's said, you know, quality is the best business plan. Like people say, the room for more golf courses, yeah, there's room for more good golf courses. There's not much room for mediocre product,

but if somebody's willing to do something of high quality, there's always room for that. Well, as always, pleasure having you on for a chat. We could talk off architecture with you for many, many hours, and we'll probably continue to do so over the years if we're so lucky. So thanks, Gil, for spending some time with us. I'll look forward to that. Thanks.

You always make it easy in front. Cheers. Get it right, club. Be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most.

Better than most. That is better than most. Better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most.

That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most. That is better than most. Expect anything different.