No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 753: Zac Blair

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

As he competes this week in Las Vegas we hear from a longtime friend of the pod, PGA Tour pro Zac Blair. Soly and ZB catch up on the latest with Zac's golf course in South Carolina - The Tree Farm - and the path from his initial work on a site in Utah for The Buck Club to what was ultimately built outside of Aiken, South Carolina. We also get into his road back from a shoulder injury that led to surgery, playing on tour under a major medical exemption and a lot more. 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. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No. Langa podcast, Sally here, got an interview coming shortly with old friend of the pod, Zach Blair. This interview is part of the Schwab Challenger series.

We've talked a lot about you can go to Schwab golf.com and check out the profiles. They do want a bunch of different challengers in the game of golf. They did a profile, of course, on Zach and his golf course project, the tree farm, which we are going to talk in great detail about on this podcast episode. Schwab does a bunch of awesome stuff around the game golf, promoting things like Zach and people that think outside the box and do things outside the box.

And as the official investment firm of the PGA tour, it is obviously at both a passion for golf and investing that it's of course Schwab. And now through October 31st, when you make a qualifying net deposit of cash or securities into a Schwab taxable brokerage account, you can get up to six rounds of golf at top courses of titles. T.S. Our driver doesn't probably want golf balls. We love it when the partner's overlap like this one does.

You can tee off it over 100 participating courses nationwide including some of our favorites, Ben Dune, San Valley, Geerheart, Cordelene, TPC Sawgrass. For more details on Schwab's golf promotion and terms and conditions, please visit SchwabGolf.com without any further delay. Here's our interview with Zach Blair. So are you a professional golfer or are you a golf course developer? If you have to pick one, which one are you picking? Golfer for sure. What's, I mean, again, a question I feel like I can ask you once a month and still not fully understand

the answer to this is like, how is this, how is this, this side project affecting your career in any way? I don't think it affects me at all, you know, it's kind of something that obviously took up a lot of time when I was out, which, you know, overlapped perfectly for that time. And now it's, you know, something cool to do on my time off. And, you know, there's a lot of time to kill out on the road. And, you know, it gives me something to look forward to for sure. I'm just always in pride every time I open up Instagram, I'm like, he's got kids, he's got wife and all, he's got a full-time job, they travel for sure. I'm just always in pride every time I open up Instagram, I'm like, he's got kids, he's got wife and all, he's got a full-time job, they travel for a hell. How does he get to the tree farm as much as he does?

What is the travel? What do you need to do when you're out there on site or how often are you getting there? And what's your role now in this going forward? Nothing crazy anymore. You know, they've obviously got most of the golf course, you know, done, and they're kind of tying up the edges and making it look good now. I think crazy anymore. They've obviously got most of the golf course done and they're kind of tying up the edges

and making it look good now. And then the verticals are happening like the lodges and the clubhouse. So sometimes it's just looking at random things that are going on, whether it's the buildings or they were putting in some paths, like maintenance paths throughout the summer and grasping a few areas and ditches and stuff like that.

So I mean, it's really just loose end type stuff at this point, but I'm still kind of the person that does all the membership stuff. So sometimes I'm out there playing with prospective members. And my role is president of the club. President of the club. So I do a lot and do nothing. I guess I should have started with this, but I mean,

if in case you're a listener that has no idea what we're talking about, where is this? What did you do and take us through kind of how your injury played a role in that and allowed, gave you the time to kind of tackle it. Yeah, so this is, you know, the tree farm, which is just outside of Aiken, South Carolina. You know, we built this golf course, this golf club, you know, started it in 2020 is when we bought the property.

So I tore my labor on, I Think it was fall of 2019. I had played like maybe two or three events that fall season on tour and I was actually I was in Augusta at Augusta Country Club getting ready to go to Bermuda, I think and You know my shoulder was just like It just didn't feel right. And so, I ended up withdrawing and heading home and getting, you know, getting it checked out and, you know, sure enough, there were a couple of tears in my right shoulder. So, it was basically like, hey, you can keep golfing, but it's going to become, you know, more of a problem.

Or you can kind of bite the bullet and, you know, get surgery and you're probably going to become more of a problem or you can bite the bullet and get surgery and you're probably going to be out a year until you're playing professional golf again. We had just bought the property. Maybe I've got the time. Maybe I've got the year one off. Who could say the last few years are a blur, man? Exactly. I think I'm actually right. I'm not. Who could say the last few years are a blur, man? Exactly. Yeah. I think I'm actually right.

I think that's right. So got surgery kind of towards the end of that end of the year in 2019. And really was kind of not golfing, obviously. Couldn't play for six or seven months, I guess it was. So I was really just kind of like stuck at home, just doing nothing. It was all it was art, uh, COVID year as well around that time too. So it was like this kind of crazy time where nothing was really going on and, um, I had the shoulder surgery

and everything. And I was gonna say, I got, I got you at 23 starts in 2020 and four in 21s. This would have been fall of 20 that you, that you went under with the surgery, right? Okay, there it is. Yeah, yeah. So had just bought the property that August, I actually bought it on my birthday in 2020. So then I had, you know, had my card that year, had played three events in the fall of 2020 maybe,

and four events in the fall of 2020, and tore my shoulder. So had to go get surgery and everything like that. And it was kind of crazy, because obviously wasn't golfing, so needed to find kind of something to do. And it kind of aligned perfectly. And it was really kind of like a blessing and disguise for me because it was obviously I knew it was going to be a lot of work. I wasn't thinking that it was going to be like, oh, this is just kind of take care of itself, but you know, not having to travel, you know, 30 weeks that next year, you know, that fall in the next year, at least let me kind of

pay more attention to the whole development of the place and be pretty involved in the design and the membership and all of that stuff. So it's been a wild ride for sure, but it's been cool to see people out there playing now. Again, I feel a little silly kind of doing any explainer on this because you've been on the show a bunch of times and I'm sure a lot of people are really are quite aware of it. But if you're not aware of it, like you, this was a dream of yours going back many, many years and there was a club you created called the Buck Club, which was a club before it was even a golf course, the best golf club I've ever been a part of that didn't have a golf

course. That's for sure, which was your plan was to build this course in Utah. You had land kind of in process, and that project ended up falling apart for a variety of reasons. And then this land kind of, you stumble upon this land and end up developing this golf course,

which it's come with rave reviews and we'll get to some of that. But I'm curious how does this compare to the dream? Your dream was to create a really great golf club. How does what you've built here compared to how you dreamt it? Yeah, I mean, like obviously, way cooler than I could have ever thought. Kind of, the big curveball was, you know, it's in South Carolina, not Utah now. Just down the road.

Yeah, other than that, though, you know, it ended up being a, you know, way cooler property. I think we've ended up getting, you know, an unbelievable kind of membership involved. I think that's been a lot of a smoother process with the location being kind of a little more east coast biased and, you know, not being kind of so remote in Utah. It's definitely been surpassed the dream for sure, and it's only going to continue to get better. That's the cool part. Take me through what the process looked like. You don't buy the property and then build maintenance paths, which I think are two of the

things that there's a few things that happen in between here of in between here of you know permitting and what goes into building getting a construction crew and you end up getting some help with the routing and all this. I know it's a story you've told a bunch of times, but kind of take us through what that process looks like. Yeah, you know, it definitely was pretty wild. You had mentioned, was trying to do TBC out in Utah, obviously pretty well documented that King Collins was very involved in that whole process with me. So when that kind of got put on hold, and then we bought the South Carolina property, it was kind of this weird dynamic of like, is this TBC? Is this something different? There was definitely a period where it was kind of unknown and you know, Robin

Tad had been out to that site after we might have had it under contract or something. So then, you know, that was really the start of trying to figure out like, what is this? Is this something different? So once the group of people that was involved at that point in buying the property, me and a couple of friends, it was kind of like, okay, this is something different. This isn't going to be TBC. So is it going to be Robin Tad doing the golf course or is it going to be someone else? And that was really kind of where it got kind of, you know, a little bit weird of a lot of people on the outside for sure. This was kind of before Robin Tad had done anything besides sweetens was like, how are you going to raise, you know,

millions and millions and millions of dollars to do this project with someone, a group that had only done a nine-hole golf course that maybe a lot of people in the space we were looking haven't even heard of or something like that. So that's when I had the really tough conversation with them of being like, hey, we're going to go a different direction and at least talk to a few other people about helping out with the whole construction process and everything like that. So that was a pretty tough moment for sure, especially because I felt like me and Rob were

really close and talked basically like every day. And so after that conversation, it was kind of like, OK, who are we going to get to do this? And that's when I had right around the time I had been introduced and met Kai Golby, who's worked for Tom and worked for Gilhance and been involved and helped shape kind of like a lot of the best golf courses around the world. So he was kind of the person that I kind of keyed in on and was like, okay, this is this kind of makes sense, you know, he's done this before, been around the block,

and we brought him on board to kind of help out. And he the one who was kind of like, hey, we should have Tom dope, at least look at the routing and tell us what he thinks. He's the best in the world at that and he loves this stuff and I think he would certainly be interested in helping out at that point in that phase. So that's when I called Tom and I had never met Tom or anything like that, but you know, reached out to him and was just like, hey, any interest in this and he was kind of like, you know, what do you want me to do? And I was like, well, what are the options basically again? I've never done any of this. And he kind of laid it out pretty

simple. Like, I can, you know, look at the routing that you guys have kind of put together and give you some pointers and I could put a few holes on paper or I could just like do the whole thing. And for me, it was kind of a pretty easy choice of having arguably the greatest golf course router that's, to the routing, you know, that made a lot of sense to me. And that was really when, you know, the whole idea and the whole development of the place kind of picked up a lot of steam, you know, having his name, you know, in our corner, kind of helping out with that, you know, meant a lot. So that was a, that was a really cool moment for us, for sure. And then, um, yeah, you know, I don't even know where I'm going with any of this, I guess. Let's stop on that then because what is, what is, so Tom Doak does the routing? You had done a previous routing, how do the two compare?

What, what did you end up going with? What did you learn from him in that process? Kind of take me through like, you call them the best router that's alive. Why is that for somebody that doesn't work in the golf architecture business? that's alive. Why is that for some of the doesn't work in the golf architecture business? I think just, you know, it's pretty well noted. Like that's a very strong characteristic of his, credentials, I guess. You know, he's been involved and you can kind of go down the list of, you know, some of the best modern courses that have been built in the last, however many, 20 years or something, and he's probably involved in a big percentage of those.

And he talks about it a lot. He's come out with a book in the last handful of years and getting to 18 or whatever about routing golf courses. And, you know, if you talk to Bill Korr and, you know, Gil Hans and all those people, I'm sure that they would, you know, at least kind of tip the hat to him in saying that, you know, he's really good at that part of the process. So, I had done a few rowdings, a few a lot actually, you know, and again, I've seen your very way. Yeah, you know, I had never built a golf course before, but had been trying. And so I definitely knew that I didn't know everything, but I felt like I knew a little

bit. So when we brought him on board, he didn't want to see kind of anything that I had done, because you know, he didn't want any kind of preconceived ideas going in that you know would lead him certain ways that he thought I might want to go. And I just kind of gave him you know complete freedom to just do whatever whether it was super quirky or you know there's no rules basically. I just want it to be as best as you know the best kind of version It could be. And definitely learned a lot just from the snapshots he would

send me and the ways he was going. And I always would do the routing based on some of the topography. And I wouldn't really think about the green as I would just be like, oh, we could build something cool there. That's how I thought it kind of went. I really learned from him and Kai that it's kind of the opposite, right? You're kind of finding cool green sites and then working back from there, how do we get

to this green site? So it was just cool to see that. There were definitely some similarities in some green sites and kind of my final routing and the one we ended up going with. And I think those were like pretty obvious places that if you knew how to read a Topo map, you know, it's like, oh, this could be a cool green site. So that was where the similarities kind of started and stopped. He went about it, you know, obviously a much better way with somebody that's more experienced

and mine was going straight up and over like big elevation changes. I think it would have been really, really cool, but it would have been a pretty taxing journey from one to eighteen, where his is a lot more mellow, but you still get the really cool visuals of the elevation changes and the topography out on the site. So yeah, really cool to kind of be a part of that whole process and just help out in the little ways that I did. Well, what is, how would you describe kind of the style of the course, right? I mean, you've traveled far and wide.

You've seen a million different golf courses. You've noted a bunch of different things that've watched you geek out in person over certain quirks and fun things you find. And I think you are, you were kind of in the same way that a lot of us are, like really engaged by quirks of golf courses and stuff that breaks them old and not just two fairway bunkers on the left and one fairway bunker on the right with a little dog leg designed.

And that's not what I've not been to the tree farm on that's not what we're gonna find there. So what how would you describe kind of the philosophy behind the course? The only thing like we tried to accomplish building the place was to build a fun golf course. So, you know, it's not crazy hard. You know, it's pretty generous off the tee,

pretty big fairways and there's not a lot of fairway bunkers. We really leaned into, hey, let's let the topography and the site itself be the hazards, not so much trying to over-bunker the place. And that was one thing that Kai, because Tom's job was to route the course, and then it was going to be me and Kai building it. So, Tom stick routed the place and really wasn't like, hey, let's put a bunker here and put a bunker here. It was just like, here's where one's going to be, here's where two's going to be,

type thing. So I really kind of leaned on Kai a bunch with that part of the design of, you know, hey, this place needs to be fun. A lot of different levels of players you're going to play here, and we want it to be really interesting for good players, but also, like, let a high handicap or at least come out and enjoy it. So, I think there are a ton of characteristics from a bunch of different styles of golf courses, and just different aesthetics and feels kind of all over the place. But you know, anytime you get kind of comparing places, people are going to kind of take

it out of context. But you know, it certainly has areas out there that feel like Pine Valley and Augusta National and you know, some cool places out in the like London, Heathland That's the type of property that it is and that's the type of scale that it has So it was obviously neat kind of having that canvas to you know work with wow Zach Blair calls it better than Augusta National better than Pine Valley and better than all of the Heathland golf courses combined That's that's cool and cool and cool How far is it from Augusta National better than all of the Heathland golf courses combined. That's, that's quote, end quote, end quote. And that.

How far is it from Augusta National? 30 minutes, 30 minutes, just kind of just straight east on I 20. So it's not, I mean, to your point, it's not an exaggeration to say, like the setting is, is quite similar. And the, the trees and the topography and the, and the soil, I assume, I mean, you've got a, the soil is, I imagine, a very important thing. If I recall, that was an issue that, at least one issue that came with not developing

the buck club out in Utah was getting the soil to match the ground game and the kind of golf that you'd like to promote. What is the kind of soil that you needed to find and was that what kind of convinced you that this site was the site? Yeah, definitely like you described, you know, in Utah, what I had to just sandcap the whole thing and bring in a bunch of material.

And, you know, this site definitely has some sandy spots up on the ridges, you know, which kind of lends itself to just, you know, being a lot more practical to build a good golf course without having to manipulate a lot of stuff. It's not as sandy as, you know, certain places. You know, it's not just like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of feet of sand, but it's good enough and, you know, was the type of place that it worked well to build golf, which you know, that was the whole goal. And like you said, you know, it's in the same kind of geological region as those courses, you know, the, I don't know if it's like the, you know, Caroline is like sand belt, you know, that goes down and you see like a lot of really cool places, you know, along that strip.

And you know, that just, I don't know why or the rhyme or reason of, you know, why it is like that, but it was, it was a cool, unique property that, you know, that was the whole reason we decided to build there. A quick break here to check in with our friends at Ro back. You guys know rowback. You see us wearing in pretty much every video or every podcast that we do. Only one way to describe them.

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And of course, the performance hoodies, the stretchiest softness hoodies in golf, cannot go anywhere without seeing these hoodies. And I think I have 12 different variations of them now. It's still not enough because I'm wearing them every single day. So you can use code NLU at rowback.com for generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week, rhoback.com 20% off polo's quzips hoodies and more with code NLU. Let's get back to Zach player. The golf course get built faster than you thought it would initially. I mean,

that to me, it's kind of like, wow, there are already playing golf out there. And I know there's a lot of other things you guys are trying to get up and running and humming and construction and all that is still going on on the kind of stuff that surrounds the golf. But golf is up and running, huh? Yeah. So we bought the property, like I said, in August, 2020, kind of had all the permitting and everything, taking place over the next eight to 10 months, kind of did the clearing in the summer of 2021.

And then I think it was like the day before Halloween in 2021 that the first dose or kind of came onto property for Kai to start pushing dirt around. So we were mostly done with all the shaping and like grasping it the next summer, in summer of 2022, and had it all kind of grasped and seeded and everything like that.

And we were playing golf the next year, you know, in 2022 in the fall, which, yeah, it was pretty crazy. But that's like, you know, summer, like hot weather, Bermuda grass is like a little different than, when you have a whole 12 month, like, growing cycle realistically for like some sorts of grasses to be growing, you know, it definitely helps.

How does, are you, like, are you the construction manager? Well, it's all going on. Like, who manages the building of the course? I got the fundraising part. I still want to get an understanding of, but like, who is, who is the onsite? Like, you know, what all happens before that first dozer hits the ground? Yeah. So we have like a project manager that, you manager that was responsible for doing a lot of the permitting

and lining things up from a contracting standpoint for getting the trees cleared and you hire a timber company to come in and basically they clear the trees, take them away and cut you a check for, you know, what they're worth or whatever. So he's, you know, kind of the person responsible for all of those sort of things. And then, you know, Kai's kind of in charge of the golf, right? So he's, I don't know, who falls under kind of what umbrella, but definitely not, definitely not me. You know, it's kind of way over my head. But are you the, are you in charge of fundraising? Like how do you, how did you go about getting the money? Well, how much money did you get to kind of get the project running?

And how does it compare? I mean, for some of you that's not done this, how do you know what it's going to cost? On these things in my experience, which is almost none, but from listening to stories, it sounds like they never are cheaper than you would expect them to be. Almost everything goes up over time. But what was that like? Yeah, so we had a handful of people that had in some form or fashion kind of been involved in golf development, previous golf development. So really you're doing your best gas

of what certain things are going to cost. And the golf course, the maintenance facility, the clubhouse, the cabins, the irrigation pond, the roads, all of that stuff, you're going line by line of, this is how much we think this is going to be. And like you said, it's hardly ever cheaper than you expect. And we were kind of doing this at a very weird time.

You obviously kind of had like hyperinflation from COVID, but you also had like the golf boom from COVID. So it was like, you had a ton of people very interested in being involved in a new development because there wasn't a lot of new stuff going on around that time, but then you also saw the negative side of it of like holy shit, like everything is doubled, right? Like, we thought gas was gonna be this for the machines and it's

double. We thought trucking and, you know, delivery prices, you know, for shipping stuff was going to be this doubled. Anything, I think, like the irrigation, like the pump station, it was like we got the last one in the country at one point and then they were going to have to like, they were going to be eight months, you know, back order or something. So it was just a really, really weird time of, you know, trying to figure all that stuff out. So, you know, me and a handful of people were kind of on the development team of all of, you know, what you just kind of said, of fundraising, you know, trying to, you know, get the budgets in place and everything like that. It was kind of wild. Definitely learned on the budgets in place and everything like that. It was wild.

Definitely learned on the fly and definitely some things kind of wish I had a little bit of a do over on, but the golf course turned out awesome. That was kind of the crown jewel of the whole project. Well, the important thing I imagine to you is the golf course and getting that right and all that. But then there's also, like, like you said, there's the tell me tell us about it. The clubhouse is currently under construction. Kind of how do you get a hospitality operation up and running?

How do you? I assume there's a caddy program there. How do you find like, you know, people to run the caddy program and to find the caddies? And it's a seasonal club if I understand right. So talking about some of those challenges. and it's a seasonal, a qualifying understand, right? So talking about some of those challenges. Yeah, so again, kind of getting some professional people

in place, whether it's your GM or your head pro, Nick Roth was our superintendent. He was kind of our first hire and he was around from all of construction of the golf course, basically, still there now. And big shout out to him. He granted his butt off and continues to grant his butt off to get the golf course where it is. And that's been really cool. And then Drew King is our head golf professional. He was kind of the next hire and he was certainly involved in kind of getting a caddy master and

getting the golf operation in a place to where we could kind of at least have people out there playing golf and doing that whole sort of thing. And then Eric Deats, our general manager, you know, was I think it was about last year around this time that we've kind of brought him on board. And he's obviously been, you know, the kind of man behind the curtain kind of pulling all the strings of getting the rest of the operation kind of dialed in, you know, kind of overseeing a lot of the vertical construction and, you know, getting the place, trying to get the permits lined up for the food and beverage. And there's a lot of things that people just don't really think is going on, because you just kind of usually show up when the whole place is done

and the clubhouse is built. And you know, we're playing golf and having lunch, but there's a lot of blocks that have to be kind of laid out, you laid out prior to that actually going on. Yeah, that's what... How do you go about hiring people again? Do you have founding members? Is that the way of filling up the initial coffers to be able to pay people to do this? What is the upfront cost of doing something like this? Yeah, so we got a group of founding members, initial like very early kind of couple of group of friends to buy the land.

And then there was, you know, then you're like, oh, we have a, you know, 500 acre piece of property that has trees on it. Like this is what it could be, right? And then, you know, you get the plan in place of, okay, this is kind of what our plans are for developing the golf course and the club are and you kind of take that plan out

and you know, went to a group of people and found the group of, you know, founding members and we have 70 of those. And that was a super interesting process and really cool to meet a bunch of people that were willing to kind of put their money where their mouth is and get involved in something that is nothing, right? Something that, hey, Zach Blair has this dream of building this really cool golf course

in rural South Carolina. And I'm going to go ride around on a UTV and he's going to tell me where the 17th hole is going to be built through this forest. So it was thankful for that whole group of people that believed in the vision enough to get on board at that point. And that money was used to build the golf course. Like you said, make those initial hires and take care of the golf course to that point.

And then the whole club, as a whole, is pretty unique in a sense of every single person is involved, I think, in such a different capacity than a normal club because there's not a billionaire that's building the place. There's not a real estate aspect that is really kind of the gas to fund everything. It's basically been getting members to buy in and knowing that their money is being used to build a golf course and a cabin and a clubhouse and take care of the golf course and everything like that.

That was always the idea from day one was to do it like super old school. I remember reading this letter that CB McDonald wrote somebody about like when they were gonna build national golf links of America and like saying, hey, we're gonna go find 150 people to all put in, a thousand dollars or 750 dollars or whatever it was and we're gonna go build this place. And it was like, oh wow, we should try that.

And I will tell you, there is definitely a reason why most more people don't try it, you know, in today's day and age, but you know, we've done an awesome job of making it work and, you know, got to this point, which has been really cool. Well, what is what what is membership like now? I mean, what's the what's the goal for a number of members where you at? Is it what's the interest level like? We kind of where do our most people kind of traveling from? Is it, you know, is it a remote kind of wear our most people kind of traveling from. Is it, you know, is it a remote kind of a national club

or a travel place? Or do you have a lot of local members? And that's a lot of questions. Phil would have hated that. It's too many questions at once. But I'm so curious about it all. Yeah, so right now we have, you know, right around 300 members, you know, the ideas to be maybe just north of 350, right around 350,

sometime next summer, the interest level has been awesome throughout the whole from the start till now. And it's really just been like a very grassroots effort of finding, it was initially one level of separation, right? It was like me talking to my friends or the other handful of people that were on the development team talking to their friends and getting that group

to buy in and be a part of it. And then two levels of separation, that next group has a couple of people that they think, oh man, so and so, I think would love something like this. Can I put him in touch with you? And it's really just snowballed from there. And people see it on Instagram

or people see it on the No-Lang-Up podcast or people see it on the Schwab commercial that they did. So it's definitely out there in a lot of different spaces. But really, it has just kind of been this super grassroots effort of me and a bunch of friends kind of been this super grassroots effort of me and a bunch of friends kind of getting other people that love golf, to join the place.

This is maybe my favorite part to ask about, because again, like I said, I've seen you do it in person. I've watched you sketch it in person, kind of taking all these influences and watch kind of your brain work when you go somewhere to see cool things and kind of have it contribute towards your dream of building something what something specific that you've taken from a certain hole or a certain place you've seen that you're like, I want to emulate this on this t box or this shot from this fairway or this green this little slope here reminds me a blah blah blah. There's got to be something that's like that has driven a specific image or something that has played out in this dream that you've built. Yeah, I mean a lot of them. I mean, I would say the easiest one,

you know, to pinpoint would probably be, you know, the 18th hole kind of loosely modeled after North Barric, the 18th hole, was that was the only kind of thing that I gave Tom like any sort of direction to, like hey, the 18th hole has to be drivable. You know, I want it to, you know, that's one of my favorite things ever is getting up to the 18th tea at North Barric and every single person getting on the tea,

like realistically thinking like, man, I could make a two and make an eagle here to finish my round. So that was something that I was super keen on doing. And I think in his first variation, like the 18th hole was like 345 down the hill. And I was like, Tom, like, who do you think is driving? Like, I want it like 240. So, you know, from the normal tease, it plays like 265 right now.

So a lot, 90% of the people step up to that T and they're like, oh, I can make it too. We've had two hole in ones on it actually. Since we've been open, which is crazy to think and so awesome. And hopefully that trend kind of continues. So it's been cool. But there's like the 15th hole is like a redan.

So you obviously see the similarities in that. But there's the team markers. You're like modeled after Pine Valley's. I thought that was something that I always thought was cool. But there's a ton of little, little things that can kind of be loosely traced back to things that I always thought was cool. But there's a ton of little, little things that can kindly be loosely traced back to things that I've liked, you know, because I've got a very long list of, oh, yeah, that's what I did for like three or four or five years,

was just go to places and see what makes them great. And I think maybe the most, the one that I'm maybe most proud of has nothing to do with golf. And everything to do with just the experience itself is just the whole atmosphere and the whole vibe that the staff brings day in and day out. That kind of starts with I think a little bit of me, how I wanted it, but certainly drew in his whole staff and, you know, everyone kind of involved on that side of it, you know, does a really good job, I think, of making people feel like, you know, trying to make it special and making it a cool place and somewhere that they want to be hanging out.

I've got some of TC's notes about some of the holes here, so I'm going to grow you on a couple of these, but he mentioned the fifth hole, a short two shot par four. It's got these bricks that prevent you from putting short right of the green. That's an ode to Rye, I believe he said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's a good one. See, yeah, that, yeah.

Okay. That's a really good one. I should have thought about that one. Yeah. So right before we started construction, me and Kai and a handful of people on the team went over to England to play some golf. And it was really specifically for me to go see a bunch of these Heathland courses because I thought that the property reminded me of that. But we did make our way out to the East

Coast and played Rye. And they have those things there called the Rye Brows. And I think they're wood there. They're not bricks, but our property has kind of ties back to, you know, the Maryland brick, you know, brick company and stuff like that. So we thought it would be a cool touch, but we call them Kybrows because, because Ky built him. I love that. And then the fourth hole, par three similar to number five at Pine Valley. Is that right? Okay. Yeah. Another good. Yeah. Yeah. That's another good. He's if you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's good. Yeah. He picked up on those. Those are nice. Yeah. So another cool kind of story, you of story in the whole process was before Tom got involved, he

kind of asked if I would write him a letter of what I was looking for, what the goals were, some places, some courses that I liked, some holes that I thought really stood out as great holes. I had mentioned the fifth hole at Pine Valley, which I think is such a unique par three, I think, because of the kind of do or die nature of it, you know, you don't typically see 230 yard hole that is that like specific on like, no, there's no bailout left, there's really not like a bailout anywhere on the whole because if you come up short It's gonna roll 20 yards back. It's kind of like hey can you hit this wood or driver whatever and knock it on this

You know 5,000 square foot green basically So I had mentioned like that was one of my favorite part threes and In the first kind of like snippet of holes. He was kind of like hey I've got a I've got a spot that you could build kind of your own five at Pine Valley if you want. So I thought that was pretty cool. And you know, we didn't try and copy it. I think from Kai's perspective, he was really, he didn't want to go into a lot of the template stuff, even though we did build the redan. He just didn't want to go and like, you know, make a complete copy of Five at Pine Valley. Even though we could have done a pretty

good job, I think, you know, if we would have moved a bunch of earth and, you know, we could have built the exact same hole, but we wanted to make our own kind of variation of it. And I thought it turned out really cool. You didn't make one, you want to make a a Tor 18 or a Rendition's turned out really cool. You didn't make one you want to make a a Tor 18 or a rendition's imitation course? That's next. Yeah. What else? So 16 par five with a punchball green. Can you describe that one for us? Yeah. So that was one that in the kind of routing, the initial routing of the course, it was going to be a long par four that played down to this, you know, I thought it was a okay kind of green site, Tom liked it a lot, but I had spent a

lot of time out there and we were kind of doing some of the clearing. And like, you know, a hundred or two, you know, maybe 150 yards up into the left of where we had the green site kind of planned out. There was this, you bowl. And I kind of thought, oh man, it would be cool. If we made that whole go up there. I don't think he was a super big fan of it. You know, or he was kind of like, if I thought that was a better hole, I would have, you know, made,

I would have put it there myself or something like, you know, something along those lines. But we thought it was really cool. And, you know, I know, I know Kai is very, very proud of that green and I'm as proud of that green as any other green out there because it's so much fun. And the whole goal of that, you know, punch bowl or double punch bowl, whatever it is, it's kind of a two tiered punch bowl. But the clear directive to Kai was basically like, I want to build a punchball

where you could literally use the bowl on any shot, any chip, whether it was a four-footer from above the pin or below it or a chip from off the green. And he, a thousand percent, accomplished that. And I'm sure some people have seen some of my chips and videos from that hole, but it's definitely a hole that people, you know, immediately call me after the round. If, you know, if they took advantage of doing something really crazy and fun there that, you know, really sticks with people and, you know, again, that was the whole goal. How do you, is drainage on a punch bowl green a challenge? I know, Kai's got the experience. How do you get drainage to work properly on a punch bowl green challenge? I know, I know, guys got, guys got the experience. How do you get drainage

proper to work properly on a punch bowl green? Yeah, so this one, there's a, there's kind of like an opening in the front left where, you know, stuff kind of drains out that way. Um, and, you know, we have a, there's kind of like a ditch, like way up to the top left that, you know, catches water before it gets onto the green. And there's kind of a, you know, some's some stuff to the back and the right that does the same. But it's a cool one because you can tell that it was just there.

You know what I mean? It wasn't one of these ones where you see people kind of move in heaven and earth to make a punchball. And that's why I liked it. And that's why I initially had asked Kai and Tom and Tom and hey what if we just went like up that way this would be a pretty unique call that hole in itself is pretty special and unique in general because it's a hole that you hit uphill twice and downhill once but like big you know you hit up to fairway, like 20-ish feet up the hill. And then you're approach, it's kind of like this double dog leg. And then your approach, if you're laying up, you know, you hit like down to the bottom of

the valley where Tom originally wanted the green. And then you kind of turn up to the left and go up, you know, another 10 or 15 feet up the hill. So I can't think of a ton of golf holes where you, you know, dramatically go uphill twice and downhill once. So it's a cool one. Do you learn a lot about drainage in the process of building this place? Yeah, for sure. I mean, that was like, along with the routing process of like, hey, where are we going to build, you know, where are the cool green sites? It was definitely like when you're shaping the greens, it's like

how are we moving water around, especially on a site like this, because when a property is just dead flat, there's a lot more things you can do and kind of get away with because when it rains, you know, the water just goes down, right, or you know, you catch it somewhere in a basin and you move it somewhere, but it's not really volatile because it doesn't move. It spreads out evenly in jail. On this property, there's huge valleys

and huge, there's a lot of movement and cool topography. And it doesn't matter how sandy soil is. If you have a 75-degree slope or 75% slope or like whatever, the water gets moving pretty fast. So you definitely had to pay attention on a lot of places of just, hey, the water is coming from up here, how are we going to make sure it doesn't get in this bunker or go around this, you know, we got to get it around this green. So it was just pretty cool, you know, learning that stuff from Kai. And he was, you know, I'll forever be thankful to him for just letting me be involved in the whole process and educating me and like trying to help me understand,

hey, you know, I know you have this really cool idea to build this here, but we can't, and it wasn't, we can't do it. We can't do that because this. This is going to happen, and if we do that, it won't work right. And it was like, okay, that never even crossed my mind. And now I'm maybe a little smarter because of it. So he was great in the whole process. Understanding that the buck club design was designed for a specific property, with specific ravines and green sites and all that, it's not something you can pick up and

place somewhere else. Any holes or anything in particular that was a part of that original design that made it into the tree farm in any way. Well, like the redan and a punch bull and stuff like that, I was, I'm obviously a big CB McDonald's Seth Reiner fan and when we were doing that whole thing out in Utah with Rob and Ted, they kind of knew that and understood that too. And I don't know if we just hadn't got to that point out there, but it was like, I feel like their kind of whole design philosophy was just like,

oh yeah, like we can build whatever you want, like we can build cool stuff out of nothing, where, you know, Tom and Kai and that whole school of design is like, hey, let's go find cool stuff, because there's, you know, it's way easier and just way better and way more natural to do it. You know, I don't think either is right or wrong, they're both, you know, it's way easier and just way better and way more natural to do it. And, you know, I don't think either is right or wrong. They're both, you know, have their pros and cons. But, you know, there are, there are little things like that that, you know, made, made their way to, you know, both places, but, um, yeah. Any, any do overs you wish you had or something that you wish somebody would have told you

going in or something that did, somebody did tell you and you didn't listen anything like that. Like be a billionaire would be a big one like that would have been I mean it would have been nice to just be able to like do it all myself. You know that would have made things a lot easier and you kind of mentioned it earlier, it's like things never are as cheap as you think they are, right, if you're basing it off of something else. So, I think just whatever we thought it was, like, hey, it's gonna be way more than that. Instead of, I think there were certain times where we went into something with a very clear,

hey, this is what we're building, this is how big it's going to be, you know, maybe the builder was the same person and, you know, it was the timeline wasn't something that you would see like crazy inflation to make it more expensive. So we thought like very, you know, for sure that this is not going to be more than this much money. And then it was, you know, so, you know, I think that was definitely something kind of I would take going forward. I definitely feel like I got to do this again, ever, you know, I would, I would do it a lot, you know, cleaner and maybe not make as many

mistakes along the way. That was my next question. Is there going to be more of these? Is this something that you want to continue to do? Yeah, I mean, I hope I can do one in Utah. That's the whole goal. I don't think you would be like a private club in this capacity. I think it would be more on the sweetens cove, style, public radar, just because that just works better out in Utah. So I hope so. Are there are there any plans for any kind of public access for people to the tree farm? Yeah, yeah. So masters week, you know, that was I think a big reason why we chose

that spot was, you know, I knew that the love for golf, the interesting golf, and just the sea of golf sickos that kind of, you know, flocked to that area of the world, you know, that that 10-day period in April was you know, a huge bonus basically. So hopefully in the next handful of weeks, you know, we'll have the plan in place. And I think we're kind of gonna unveil it towards the end of this year and early January. But, um, you know, definitely definitely some stuff going on, Masters week for people to come out and check it out. It's pretty amazing that we can go 40 plus. You have a lot going on in your life. We can go 40 plus minutes talking and not talking about you finishing runner up in a designated event this summer. Like, it all seems like such a blur.

It's so funny to watch like, oh, it's exit tree fireman. Oh my gosh, on the leaderboard, the travelers right now. One more thing on the public side of it that I can that I can throw in there. So, you know, I've always been a fan of kind of like the lottery system or the ballot at the old course and that's obviously a completely different animal. But I kind of tried it out this year, maybe like last month sometime. I saw that there was a day that I don't know if we had like a big cancellation of a member that was kind of bringing a bunch of people, but we had like a big opening that was like, oh, I would be interested to see if, you know,

I sent something out on Instagram about like a handful of, you know, slots opening up. And I tried it and it was pretty crazy to see. So I definitely think that is something that I would like to try and implement, you know, every couple of months, you know, for someone, you know, to have the ability to do that. And then I've definitely always liked the San Hills, Terry Edie, kind of write a letter thing once, you know, once in your life type of, hey,

I love golf, you know, here's why I want to come out and see it. And, you know, that's why we built a place. And I've mentioned that and been on the record saying that. It's like, I totally understand we built this private club. And it's for the membership. And they were the people that have put their money where their mouth is and wanted to be involved. But we also built the place for people to see it and for people to play golf and for people that love golf.

So we do want to try and figure out a balance of that and getting the opportunities for people to come see it that love golf. It's a massive, massive challenge, man. It's like you've outlined all how expensive this all is to do and how much money you guys raised to get it done and all that. It's really, really hard to pass that along

at an affordable cost to the general public. Like it just, it really is. It's, you gotta have a benefactor of some kind. So I would, if I was you, I would go through that with that billionaire plan and power forward with that. So you can try and, yeah, it's good. More public spaces, but no, I hear the Terry Anything

and say until thing is pretty darn special. more public spaces, but no, I hear the Terry anything in St. Hill's thing is pretty darn special. And it's, yeah, that goes all the way back five, six years, I think to talk about that with the club of making sure people have an opportunity to see it if they if they wanted to, but talked about getting your golf game back in shape after a shoulder surgery. I mean, if I go a week without playing, I'm like, oh, okay, I'll never play good golf again. Like, how do you go?

How do you go nine months or whatever it was away from professional golf? And do you wonder if it comes back? Do you wonder if it's still going to be there when you get fire back up? Yeah, yeah, definitely. That was always kind of the scary kind of unknown of the whole thing, especially, you know, weighing whether I should get surgery or shun it, because I could definitely still golf and play. It was just more like it was bothering me. So, after the surgery and then when you come back, not playing for six or seven months from a person that plays multiple

rounds of golf every single day of my life, was pretty insane. I think my first round back, I actually went and played Augusta National. And it was a pretty cool welcome back. And I played okay, but it was definitely like man you kind of sucked though like you know like it was kind of scary for sure and I thought I was going to be out like a year like I thought I would kind of start back up in the fall of the following season and kind of do those corn fairy finals and then head right back into Napa and it was just like, I mean the game wasn't even like close to where it should

be to be playing against the best players in the world. More notably like on a, like I could do it playing Kart Golf at my home course know, home course for a day. But it was like, hey, I'm gonna have to do this for four days in a row in a tournament, plus the practice rounds, plus traveling and doing this multiple weeks in a row. And that was kind of the part where it was like, man, am I ever gonna get back to where it, you know, my shoulder doesn't hurt or isn't sore after like five or six days consecutive of playing. And you know, eventually it got to the point where, you know, I felt good about it. You know, was able to come back and it's still been kind of a, you know, process though.

Well, how do it feel like to get back in contention, especially in an event featuring the best players in the world with, you had to be thinking about the money at some point on that, back to, I think we had you on the show that night, I think you admitted it. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. That event was crazy, you know, it was funny because I think it's pretty well like documented that I've, you know, used to travel around and play a lot of cool places or try to. And I was fortunate to be able to do that kind of like prior to tournament starting. And that week at Travelers was kind of the first time I had done that in a long time.

And we went and played a bunch of cool places. And I remember kind of being on the phone with one of my friends and kind of saying like, I'm pretty pumped to like go play the tournament, you know what I mean? Like I've had a really cool like five or four or five day stretch, but like I'm pretty pumped to go to TPC River Highlands and like play golf tomorrow. You know, I'm not saying I'm gonna play good for sure, but like I kind of think I might play pretty good.

And you know, went out and shot like 65, 65, and was like, oh wow, you know, that was pretty awesome. Yeah, so and then I played, you know, fine on Sunday or Saturday and obviously caught the heater on the back nine on Sunday and you know, was definitely thinking about the money. You know, kind of, you know, at least for sure the last like four holes. And I think I told you guys on, you know, that night on the podcast or on the show, I was like telling the Russian, I was like, these are basically like million dollar putts, the last like three holes. Like if we can find a way to make one, you know, we're gonna have like a pretty nice

week. And we didn't make any, but you know, crazy, you know, crazy stuff was happening for the groups behind me. And there was definitely like when Keegan hit the like fat iron on 16, I was kind of like, oh gosh, just like, we might have to actually go warm up. Because 17 is for me at least, is a sneaky hard tee shot. So I was like, you never know, he could hit one in the water. He didn't obviously. Then he pulled one on 18 and hopped over the bunker and whatever. But it was a wild week for sure. What is so what is your you were playing on medical last year is your medical done. I've lost track of this medical done and you have full status back through your play in the last year update us on that. Yeah so the whole medical

process major medical extension is like crazy. I've had my crazy stories about that this year. So I, how it all works is they basically take, you know, your average from like your last five seasons playing on tour. And then they compare that to that average amount of tournaments played for the rest of your category. So, I was in the top 125 the year that I got hurt. So, it ended up being like 20-8 events is what the average was. And I had already played four that my points were counting for that year that I got hurt. So, they basically gave me, hey, you have 24 starts to go make enough points to be in the top 125 of the year that you got hurt for the next year.

However, you can make that make sense in your mind. So it was like, I got hurt in the year that it was a super season type thing. So there was two masters, two US opens, and there was like 58 tournaments. So it was like 357 points or something like that was what I needed to make to reach my major medical. So in my mind, I thought that I have 24 events to go make 354 points, because I had like two points from the four events that I had played. So I was like, that was all that I was really focused on.

And I thought it was from Napa to Napa. So I didn't realize that this part of the fall also counted towards it. So I was doing my whole schedule, like for those 24 events, to get me to Windom. And then like halfway through the season or a little pass halfway through the season, I was down in San Antonio and the tour, one of the ladies from the tour, hey, how's your medical going? Like, you got, you got, you know, how many events, this many events left to get you to RSM. And I was like, what?

To get me to RSM, I was like, I thought it was to get me to WINDO. And so I was pretty nervous at that point because I wouldn't have played like Zurich and I wouldn't have played. There were a ton of events that it was like, well, I only have this many, I got to play 24 times. So that was pretty crazy. But then, you know, obviously I had a couple good weeks and, you know, the week

at Travelers was, you know, the one that really kind of opened the door for everything. But then on top of that, I also thought that it was like, hey, if you get to that many points, if I get 357, I have a card for next year. But that's not it either. You just get to play out the remainder of the season, which was through RSM out of the major medical. You still have to finish top 125 in the current season. So it's like everything is really kind of like stacked against you in that sense, but it's also like, you know, there's no other professional sport where they're just like, hey, you know, you know, here's a chance to at least do it. So that's nice that they do that. But it was it's all been super confusing and, you know, a lot of moving parts, but I, you know, I got past the major medical and just, you know, got to finish out the rest of the season strong.

So you're 93rd in the FedEx right now. So you got to finish top 125 in that through the end of the fall series. That's what's like. So it's like five events left. You'll play them all then. I'm going to play this week and play Japan and then kind of figure it out. Is it what what does it look like mathematically for you just being in that 93rd? Have you had they run any scenarios with you to say here's what you got to earn or you looking pretty safe mathematically for it got to make some cuts what's what's your situation. I had asked at windum kind of like what the you know because they always have the projections and what they think is kind of the fail safe number. But this year was obviously a super unknown because the fall is completely

different than it's ever been. So you have a lot of people, like 20 or 30 people, I would say a week that typically play, but they're not going to this year because they don't count towards next year. So those kind of like higher ranked people are not playing. So I think it's a kind of a bit of a crapshoot. But when I talked to them at Wyndham, they were kind of saying like 575 to 580 was kind of their failsafe number. So who knows?

This last week was the first time, because I love looking at all the numbers and keeping track of it because I have been a person that's finished 126 by like a half a point So I like know how big you know the swings can be and everything like that and this this last week was the first time that it had moved like a significant amount, you know like 125 was like amount, you know, like 125 was like 299 points. And then now it's like 336. And usually it moves like seven or 10 points a week. But this this last week it was like 35. Who made the whole one that cost you the 125? Was it Fabian Gomez? Do I remember that right? No, it was Martin Flores. Martin Flores made a whole different thing. Not to go out of a tour card.

Yeah, I mean, that's not it now, right? I mean, come on. Yeah, that was a crazy, you know, that was the, you know, that week of anything shows you how like, it's not only your play, but it's also like what everyone else is doing that week affecting everyone around you. And you know, that was crazy. But yeah, we're past that. We're past that. So, well, consider this my my open letter to request a one-time appearance at the tree farm. I would love to come, love to come see it, but I wanted to congratulate you.

One, first of all, thank you for your time. Tell us about it, but congratulate you. I know it's a years, many years long dream has come to come to fruition. And I'm excited, I'm definitely excited to see it. And I've heard great things about it. So we appreciate your time and thanks for sharing your perspective. Yeah, thank you guys. Anytime, cheers. Give it a big blow up. Be the right club today.

Yes. Beat. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different.