No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 780: Beau Welling

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Golf course architect Beau Welling joins the pod to talk through his design career which began under Tom Fazio and how his business made it through the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Plus, we detail his views on the current golf boom and how much of a role the pandemic played in the rise in golf participation. We also cover his work at the new Omni Frisco PGA Resort, working with Tiger Woods on some of his design projects, designing short courses, his thoughts as an architect on the distance debate and a ton 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. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Got a great episode coming here shortly with golf course designer and architect Bo Welling. You may know Bo for his work at the West course at the new Omni Fields Ranch PGA Frisco course, complicated name.

The new course in Frisco, Texas, the non-champion chip course, Gail Hansen, the championship course, but well into the other course there. We talked about his relationship with Tiger Woods. If you're familiar, he has done a lot of design work with Tiger Woods for Tiger's Design firm. We talk about a lot of their projects around the globe. And state of the golf industry, the COVID boom,

all the things that are kind of going on in golf, and just had a really fun time nerding out a little bit with a fellow golf nerd. I think you guys will enjoy this episode. Just one add this week, shout out to our friend, Brandel, and shout out to our friends at rowback. You guys know, rowback best fit, best feel. They are fresh off new restocks of our favorite polos, hoodies and QZips. They got a lot of great new styles.

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Lastly, the performance Q-Zips are back. They're great. We love them. Great for a night out on the town or playing golf as well. If you haven't, it is time to load up on some rowback for yourself or for others. Use code NLU at rowback.com for 20% off your first order through the end of this week. That's R H O B A C K dot com 20% off bottoms QZips hoodies and more with code NLU. Get ready for the golf season with rowback. Don't you feel the delay? Here is bow welling. What are you working on currently? Here is Bo Welling. What are you working on, Carly? What's currently on your docket?

You know, I mean, like many people, it's busy in the golf world, the golf design world, and some of my younger teammates, you know, keep saying, gee, what's going on? Why are we doing all this work? And like, I can remember when it was, the phone didn't ring at all. We just sat around looking at each other. And that wasn't a lot of fun because we're not very attractive. So, it's a very fun, exciting time. So, to answer your question specifically, we're under construction and a couple of places

on the bow-wailing design side. So, we're doing a big project in the Scottish Highlands for Discovery Land Company called Taymouth Castle. We have four or five holes grasped and should get the rest grasped this year. We're doing a big renovation of the Peninsular Club and outside of Charlotte, North Carolina on Lake Norman So that's super exciting and help them tiger woods with two or three projects Which includes trout national southern New Jersey with Mike trout baseball player as well as the Marseille Club in

Park City, Utah just sort of part of the expansion of Dear Valley and then doing a couple of tiger second golf course at at D. Mante in Cobbockston, Lucas, Mexico. So that's what's under construction. We've got new starts happening next year in Austin, Texas, Greenville, South Carolina, in my hometown, as well as Keioa, for the Keio Island Club, also in South Carolina. So as a native South Carolinium, I'm super excited about this year is getting to work in my home state. I will be self-of-the-super special and excited about it. So that's it. That's all you got going on. That's it. That's pretty calm. Yeah. And then my spare time, my spare time, I helped run the World Curling Federation. So I will get to that. I did not see that one when I was

getting ready for this one. But honestly, I want to go back to a part of that answer you just said was time periods, when you just sit around and look at each other. What was that like here? What is that time period? I know we'll get into some of your background as well and you kind of breaking off in that weird time period post 2008 where the golf industry and the whole financial industry changed. What was it like kind of getting started?

Yeah, I mean, I just, I left Tom Pazio in late 2006, early 2007. And that first year, 2007, things were great. I had a lot of business on the golf design side as well as sort of consulting side of some things we were working on. And then the world started to kind of come apart. But we were still fortunate. We had projects that we were working on in an 08 and 09. And it was 2010 that was the year that really hit us

where it was like holy smokes. Like there's nothing going on. And it was scary. And just some degree, the fact that we had kind of, we're a little bit of a different firm and that we do traditional golf course design, what I call green steas and muckers, but we're also planners as well. So we do stuff outside our traditional golf architecture and I think that ultimately

behooved us in that part of the business sort of came back first for us. But yeah, it was a weird time like it was like, I'm going to build golf courses again and it wasn't fun you know at all but you know I feel proud that you never laid anybody off never kind of anybody salary or anything like that so we persevered and I'm just very thankful that we have the opportunity to do what we're doing now with it being so busy not just of economics, but like you get involved in design because you wanna do stuff, you wanna build stuff, you wanna make stuff.

And so it's just a very exciting time right now with the focus on golf and the capital that's available to be able to go and do our craft. I'm just excited about what we're doing is compared to any time in the history of my career in golf course design. what we're doing is compared to any time in the history of my career and golf course design. And if I read this, right,

there was a rather dramatic stop to business that happened, I think in 2010, right? You guys had, is it six holes that were grasped in Dubai when the bulldozer stopped in 2010? Is that right? That's right. Yeah, that was probably late 2009, but yes. So we had the Dubai project, six holes or gassed,

I just approved three, we just approved three for we had just approved three for irrigation and I remember been on the plane leaving Dubai and They were having the grand opening of Whatever Mr. Kursin's resort was as John Blank and they know it the fireworks are going off and and I remember just thinking This is so surreal because the world was really in financial sort of implosion at that point and you know, sure enough, everything ceased there. And so, yeah, strange time for sure. Yeah, much prefer this time than that time. Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about kind of the evolution of the golf course industry,

I guess, just kind of correlates. I would imagine just with recreational golf industry as a whole. I mean, I've watched a bunch of interviews you've done just talking about, you know, older interviews, pre-2020 interviews are talking about the decline of the industry. The time it takes to play, all the concerns that were there in golf, which if I'm reading the situation, look, golf got a, you know, the world was hit by this COVID thing in a lot of different ways, but golf is one of the few success stories that came out of COVID. And I'm just curious to your perspective on the works that were there on golf and the reasons for its decline in the 2010s.

Are they still there? No, they covered up by this boom or did the boom, do you think, you know, remind people of how great golf is? And do you see this kind of growth being really sustainable and something that, you know, it keeps building on itself going forward? So I do feel like it's sustainable

or this COVID effect is sticky. And I think that if you look at it, I think there's some things afoot prior to COVID that were started to make an impact on golf in a positive way that I think COVID phenomenon sort of accelerated. And so if you really go and feel back, you know, what, like statistically, like where is this sort of COVID boom come from, it's sort of two camps really. If you look at the data, one, it is people have never played golf, traditional golf before, found Greenfield golf, but they had discovered

golf through off course golf, so-called off course golf. So the top golfs and other things like that. And I think those like top golf, to pick on top golf for a second, you know, I think when it first emerged, I was people that asked me all the time, it's good for golf, bad for golf,

or indifferent to golf. And my initial reaction was, it's indifferent to golf, it's not golf, it's something else. But I think reaction was it's in different to golf. It's not golf. It's something else. But I think I was totally wrong. And I think what it's been hugely positive for golf because it's been able to introduce this idea of taking a golf club in your hands and not being intimidated by it. And so so many people have discovered golf and I've got stepchildren that have found

golf through top golf. And now they're fanatic about Greenfield golf. So I think the sort of idea of big golf becoming more accessible. I think that had already sort of started a little bit pre-COVID and then COVID helped to accelerate that, helped drive you know millennial types from top golf to Greenfield golf. So that first year of COVID, three million people tried golf for the first time ever. At the same time the last golfer came back and that's probably, you know, I probably fit more into that category myself. So, you know, people had a lot of time on their hands, golf with something that you

could go do. And it's amazing now, four years, it's later, three and a half years later, I still run into people that'll say something along the lines of, you know, I grew up playing golf, I used to play all the time. I got married, work, life sort of getting the way. I kind of stopped playing golf, and all of a sudden, COVID happened, and I picked it back up, and now I'm playing two or three times a week.

I literally run into somebody that says that almost every week. And so if, again, if you look at the data, all these laps go offers came back. And so I think all of that is not going to change. And I think that the other thing I think the COVID sort of taught everybody is like us as a species, we'd like to be around other people. And so being cooped up and stuck in your home,

like that's not super fun for a long period of time. And so I think golf is a natural driver of human activity and connection and community. And so I think that all of that is positive, and I think all of that's going to stay. And I think on top of that, you kind of look at how the population in the United States, at least, is moving around and tends to be moving from places that are

moving into places where golf is more part of the culture, if you will, more southern places, whether it be West or East. And so I think that's fueling a lot of activity of both new golf as well as reinvestment in existing assets. So I'm remained pretty bullish on golf, and I think it makes it as a design person, it makes it very exciting because one, there's business, there's activity, but then two, I think there also is a reckoning that sort of happened in the industry of we need to deliver better products, better value to the consumer, whether that be a member or someone that's purchasing around the golf. And so, you know now seeing more innovative type things in Greenfield Goff, whether it be short

courses or experiential practice or technology, or what have you. But I think all of that is a sort of fueling, very exciting time right now and gop and I'm excited to be a small part of it. If I look around, I live in Jacksonville, Florida, and there's plenty of courses both in Jacksonville and in the Florida area in general that were built at a, you know, a time frame that golf was booming and real estate developments were booming, and we can just put a golf hole right between this water and these houses right here. And not a lot of them are great golf courses. There's a fair amount that, you know, yet at the same time, you know, they're routed pretty far away from club houses and take a while to come back.

And it's not simple to just say, hey, let's turn this into a short course. Hey, let's do this. Yet there is a course here in Jacksonville. It's called the Yards. It used to be called Oak Mar, or no, I forget what it used to be called, Oak Bridge. I think it was.

And it was terrible. Terrible 18 hole course, but they took nine. They redid one of the nine's, it's great. And they took the back nine and made it a six hole part three course and got rid of several of the parts of it. And it was like eye opening to me just to say, like, hey, this went from a terrible 18 hole course to now a fun nine and some bonus holes.

And there's a community that's been built around this golf course now. And I've lost track of how many different short courses you've worked on, because I think you've, you know, you've been a part of helping us all see the light of the benefit of short courses for all the people you just talked about that are intimidated by the game, newer to the game. Personally, I would love a place to go play golf with my wife that is not have 440 yard par four. So there's just no need to do that, right? It's a totally different scale of the game. And I'm just, this is a really long-winded way of saying,

we have a lot of green space that is being used by golf courses, not all of it is the best use. How much of this can be repurposed into something that is way more functional for the golf population as a whole, because I see way too many hard golf courses and not enough entry-level stuff in the game. Yeah, I mean, I think that obviously every site, every place is unique in terms of what constraints constraints are. I mean I tend to believe

that all got all golf is good to some extent it's open space because people have turned to God and played the game. Having said that I think that some of the stuff that we're doing now is more responsive to what is great about golf and what the market people want compared to sort of the real-state line, you know single holes, real-state from the 80s and whatnot. And so I'm a big believer that there needs to be an entry point in the golf like this is a super not intimidating thing, as I alluded top golf sort of done that to some degree, but like we're I grew up and in here in Greenville, South Carolina, the Greenville Country Club, we had a part three course that was sort of the domain of the juniors.

And then we got good enough that we could go out on the big course, which was old and very open, like not a lot of lost ball stuff. But then we had a separate satellite course, Channick Lear, which was at the time, a top hundred golf course that was very difficult and hard. And so it was almost like there was this ladder that you could go through. And to me, it's not surprising that Green and Cuchacob produced a lot of people that are either really good golfers or in the golf business or just a fun app called golf,

because there was this entry point into the whole thing. It's one of the reasons I got super excited about the opportunity to get involved at PGA Frisco, because I saw the same dynamic there of literally, you know, North Texas PGA Frisco because I saw the same dynamic there of literally, you know, North Texas PGA section, the running golf part, you know, literally introducing kids to golf on artificial turf to driving range, to short course, to these two big chambers of golf courses. And so going back to short courses, and just practice, and what I would call experiential practice in general, like those are logical places to be entry points into a golf.

But on top of that, if you go look at recreational activity in the United States prior to COVID, the things that have really exploded were things that were unstructured in time, meaning you could go do them for a short amount of time, you could do them for a long amount of time, you could do them with people, you could do them for a short amount of time. You could do them for a long amount of time. You could do them with people. You could do them by yourself. And so those things were like hiking, biking, walking, those kinds of things.

Golf has always tended to be very structured in time. So if you and I decide we want to go play golf, like we've got two other guys, we don't have to coordinate four people who show up at 10, 10 a.m. at a certain place on the earth. And we're going to go march out before the phone hours. Whereas practice and short courses, that's really what has been unstructured in time in golf, or certainly practice. But I think short course to me starts to be this more

experiential practice or this experiential thing. It might still be structured in time, so I'm agree, but it's much shorter in time. And so all of that to me is like a super, super positive as being a way to onboard people in the golf. And I'm a big believer that call these things not for our three golf courses, but call them short courses, because one, I think they really need to be short

to be super accessible. But two, as soon as it, to me, like they're not golf, per se. And so there, you know, are a lot of ones we've done are activated by food and beverage, they have music playing, people might even be barefoot, whatever it is, the decor on the rules, not the rules, the feel, the vibe is very different and sort of traditional golf.

And all that to me is very positive. Traditionalists might not agree with that, but to me, it is. And I think even me, maybe it's a more serious golf or at least historically, sometimes I want to, the golf experience that's way more relaxed or I've only got X amount of time. And so to me, all of that sort of hits on multiple levels.

That's super positive. Super positive for novices or non-goffers, but all the way up to people that are very accomplished. So I think that's super great. I think they work best alongside more traditional golf, just from a cost standpoint, in terms of like leveraging maintenance systems and costs. Like as soon as you start saying, let us go to a short course, stand alone, like you still have to have somebody take care of it, you're going to get mowers, you have a maintenance building, all that kind of stuff,

and just fix costs into all that. But like as an add-on to what's already fixed in terms of cost, to me the short-garts stuff is awesome. And so going back, sorry, this is long-winded, but going back to your question about existing assets, yes, I think the idea of repurposing things in a different way makes tons and tons of sense. And that gets into constraints of what the land is, what the rules are, and all that kind of stuff.

But I think that makes a lot of sense. And it's partly what I'm trying to communicate with why it's sort of exciting right now, because you're able to think that way, whereas for so long, like nobody would think that way, it was very much, you know, we're going 18 holes and golf, and this is what that is. So it's an exciting time right now.

Well, and I think it, you know, I'm not, this is nothing that's news to you or really many people in the golf industry at all to say like, I'm on near scratch player. I, you know, I should be hard for me to seek out hard golf courses, right? That should be a challenge. They should be, you know, that should, I'm in the minority in the top whatever percentile of players, whereas yet at the same time, I still have a blast playing these short slash quote easy courses, right? I mean, the cradle, I've not played, I don have a blast playing these short slash quote easy courses, right? I mean, the cradle, I've not played, I don't think I've played any of the short courses

that you've done, but, you know, if I go to what's it called at the loop up in Northern Michigan, I forgot the name of that one right now, but all of those are engaging. And the big thing for me is when you're playing with somebody that's a 20 or 30 handicap, what 14 of the 18 holes maybe are, you know, of the of the non-part three holes, maybe say 12 of the 14 holes in some way, they're going to play their way out of the hole before they get the chance to hit an approach shot, like the thrill of the approach. They're going to lose a ball, they're going to, you know, be in a bunker or whatnot and not get to enjoy the most fun part of golf, which is approach shots, right? And there's a way to make them welcoming

and challenging at the same time for higher handicappers, get also engaged in the lower handicap player. And it takes way less space. It's just all these things that we've been talking about for many years now. And I'm just wondering, do you see, you know, do you really see progress in this area? Do you see like, do you see this as a future part of the game of golf if green grass golf is going to continue to grow? Absolutely.

I mean, I think it's gonna almost have to be because I think that's what the people want. Like when I started in this 27 years ago, I was like the youngest guy in the golf industry. And now look at myself on your screen, you know, I've got gray here, and like, I was sitting on the old guy, but you know, some of the things that have changed

in the course of my career, it's like when I first started practice, practice range is traditional standard practice range. It was like really hard to get a developer to spend a lot of money on that or allocate a lot of land to that. But at some point that started to tip. And I can distinctly remember,

a real estate developer at Hiltonhead, South Carolina and coming to us that we'd work with in the past. And it's very first question was like, oh, how do we have the best practice range? Whereas 10 years before, it was like, oh, I don't want to have any amount of land that I can practice. So that started to change because there was a market demand

for more better practice facilities. And so now, fast forward to current, I would say, almost all of the new golf courses that we're working on, some of the ones I mentioned, some of the ones we're planning right now that I didn't mention, almost all of them are starting out saying, I won 18 goals a golf, I wanna practice range and I wanna short course.

And so I just think it's going to stay as part of the deal is people want more options in terms of how they recreate and what they do. I joke a little bit about, I'm part of this to me as human nature. I grew up, you're probably too young, but I grew up. There were three stations on the television, right? Like that was it. We didn't have cable.

And so now, fast forward, there are thousands of television stations, and I look at my stepchildren, they don't even watch television or television. So, you know, so many things have evolved to meet what people want. And I think golf is sort of in the space right now where we are evolving golf into different forms. I think it's German mode, it's like what people want. That could be short courses practice,

hunting courses, top golf, technology, simulator, whatever it all is. Like it's all very, feels very evolutionary to me. And again, that makes it a exciting time. Yeah, and you just look at, you know, we have a municipal course here that's nearby, they redid recently and it's a great success story and that's not the example I want to use

other than to say, like I've watched the, the entire community of Jacksonville Beach rally around that golf course, especially during COVID. I mean, 280 rounds a day. I mean, it just it was not like that prior to redoing it. So what we're talking about here with a short course, again, if it's city related, it takes less land and it is serving a wider part of the community than just golf nuts, right? And that's that's kind of where I'm getting at. It just feels like things are progressing that way, but you have a much better view,

overview of the whole, you know, what people are asking for when they go to build stuff now and that's why I wanted to ask them. Yeah, to me, like the short course is like one of the most accessible, but a punting course is probably the most accessible version and then right after that would be a short course. And when I say accessible, what I mean is,

it's something that someone that's not really a golfer can go and do and not feel intimidated to do. And I think that's super positive in the long run for golf. It's a way to bring more people into golf, but at the same time, like you as a good player, like it's still something that you can enjoy. So like to me, it sort of hits on all these sort of, sort of different levels.

And I think all that's super exciting. And I think the other thing got to get more of the stats. But the other thing that's super exciting is about sort of diversity in general about what's happening in the Gospels. And the stat I like to quote is if you look at the juniors and compare girls to what participation was 20 years ago, that number is over 2X, you know, it's increased more than double.

And if you look at non-calcations, that number is like 5 and a half X. And so that too is another exciting thing that there's demographics coming into the golf space that haven't been there in the scale that the peps has been. And so I think everything is, you know, going back to maybe one of the original questions, I think all of this is going to last for a while. Obviously, it's very cyclical and economic dependent, but I think there is a fundamental shift that is happening off over the last several years and it's again super exciting to me. You mentioned Frisco in there and I wanted to, that was definitely top of the list to talk

about there. And I, you, you talk a lot about your, your overall kind of planning and building that you do on top of just golf course design. I want to know, you know, we got a chance to see that property. I think it's the only one of your, your design works that I've actually got a chance to play. But that, that, that place is wild. It is two-chap two championship golf courses, biggest putting green in the world, a short course, an unbelievable practice facility, some major

master planning. I guess went into that one on top of hosting major championships, hosting rider cups, hosting conferences, all the things that went into that with when did you get involved in that project? Kind of what was your overall role on top of building and designing the the West course? Yeah. I mean, so my role actually goes back to like 2013 or something in that the North Texas P.J. section, which has arguably, you know, the best junior golf program in the country. Mark Harrison, the executive director there, you know, I got connected and he had this idea of doing what he would call an urban golf park, which was the idea of building a

short course like in an existing city park. And as we helped do some schematics, like how that could work, and Mark kind of used that to go around to different municipalities around Dallas, sort of pushing that idea. And when he got to Frisco, Frisco's guys said, well, that's really interesting, but we wanted to do big golf too.

And so out of this little spark, this sort of bigger idea of what became PJ Frisco happened and so because we were involved in some of the genesis of that we got asked to be on the list of architects to come you know present thoughts on it, sort of a selection process thing and again I was super excited about it from the get-go going back to the screenable country club experience because the program that we're talking about doing was cutting course short course, a more family friendly 18 hope course and this championship golf course. And I just saw the opportunity that with PGA of America's expertise, experience and systems, that organization, wrapping all that together like it could be very significant

like on the game. And so we did this sort of crazy, crazy presentation that we colored outside the lines and started saying here's what's not a part of the program. It should be a part of the program, which included a big resort hotel. And so any of that fast forward, we got to get selected to do part of the project, Gil got selected to do the other part of the project,

but we got asked to be the master planters for the whole thing. And so it ended up being a great experience. So that competition thing, selection thing, I think was 2017. So it was a long process to get it all figured out. The site was super complicated. There was a lot of floodplain going through it and wanting to do a lot. And so what PGA Frisco is now is 500 rooms of omnihospitality, omnipresort, which is the key funding mechanism behind the whole effort. But then you've got the 2GAM chip golf courses, the swing, which is the short course, which

you reference, the dance floor, which is the putting course, which you reference. But a whole bunch of golf-oriented retail, as well as PGA of America's headquarters, as well as North Texas PGA's sections, headquarters, as well as North Texas PGA sections, headquarters, as well as some facilities for the Prisco Independent School District. And so getting all of those uses and all those stakeholders aligned and programmed on the same site was a big part of the effort. And in many ways, what PGA Frisco is to me,

is it's very much modern goffersort, but it also is almost like urban public much modern Goffersort, but it also is almost like, you know, urban public space meets Goffersort. And so it is active, it is busy, and there are people running into people everywhere, but that's somewhat by design. I mean, we want the human side of all this to come out. And when I'm, I'm unfortunately able to get invited back

and have done several events there. And one of the things I think is just so neat is that you literally see people from different parts of the country, meaning each other on the driving range, because they're getting ready at once and you can play the West, so it's going to get to the East. And then later that afternoon, you see them hanging out

with the lobby bar at the Omni Hotel. And it's like, you know, they become friends. And I just think that's super, super awesome. And then you've got North Texas literally introducing Gamma Golf to really young people all the way up to competing on Gills Golf Course for these awesome PGA championships. So it's a really super special place and then you take it on top of that PGA America's headquarters there, all their education, you know, 29,000 members can all get from around the country to this Dallas much easier they could have to Palm Beach Gardens.

And so I think the facility's impact on the game is going to be quite significant because it's going to be things learned and innovative at PGA Frisco that's going to go back out through the PGA network out to courses and clubs around the country. So super exciting place. I highly recommend anybody that hadn't been there to go check it out. I would agree. It's one of the few places I've ever been

where the golf courses first there. There's a lot going on around it. I walked off and said, you know what? This would actually look really good with houses around it, right? Because it's just out in this field as of now. Now there's all the development of all the housing

that's gonna go around it, but it's all removed from the course and all the golf is all gonna play within the same kind of grass development area and you're not uninterrupted by houses, all that to say. Yeah, I think so when we started, you take people to the site and say, oh, this is such a great pastoral sort of feeling

and knowing Frisco's the fastest developing city in the country. And so what's going to happen is Frisco continues to develop around PJ Frisco. It's going to be more like the fact you get when you go to Central Park in New York. It's like going to be this oasis in the midst of this sort of urbanity, sort of a vanity kind of around it. And I think that also will also be sort of a special thing. And we created all these wetlands and it's a sort of vanity kind of around it. And I think that also, we also be sort of a special thing. And we created all these wetlands and it's a part of the engineering of the site,

you know, to take those soils to lift golf holes out of the flood plain. But the resulting field is like, there's always habitat that got created in, you know, in 15, 20 years, like, it's gonna be really special because it's gonna be so much development all around it. I'm a big Gill Hans fan,

and I hope he doesn't listen to this next part, but we had an event there at Frisco And we hosted a bunch of almost a hundred people there and it was the West course was I don't want to say unanimous But almost unanimously favored and turn over the East course and I'm wondering kind of how that collaboration Worked between you and Gil because he's obviously tasked with something very different than you are tasked the you know the PGH Championship is going to be held on the East course. It's a hard golf course. It was a big challenge. The West, it was challenging, but we all had fun playing that one and did not get our

teeth kicked in, but I'm just wondering what the mission was in that and how you guys work together on the same kind of land creating two different golf experiences. We really had to work together a lot, and especially prior to construction. So in terms of the planning, because again, our role is not just doing the West course, it was also planning like how does all this work? And so, you know, our firms, the two firms worked very, very closely together

and one of the huge positives for us, P.J. Frisco, who is the relationship that our firm developed with GIL and GIL in their firm, and how that relationship remains to this day. And so, really, super, special group of people that we're very fortunate to call friends. So there was a lot of collaboration in terms of the land plan itself, but working to get the spaces figured out, and where East golf course holes would be. Obviously, they were tasked with needing to host a championship golf. And so if you were to take an aerial and look at PJ Frisco, the East course to occupy so much more land than the West

Coast, of course, because it's driven by needing to host heavy spectator, you know, patron driven events. I think once we started construction, they would be busy on their side. We would be busy on our side. So it wouldn't like we ran over and said, hey, what are you doing? You know, they ran over us. Every blue moon, there might be something, but it would be more about like what happened along the edge. But going back to the planning side, the beginning part, you know, there's a lot of talk about how do we want these two golf courses to complement each other? And, you know, there's a lot of talk about how do we want these two golf courses to complement each other. And, you know, and it even got down to like the look, like we want to look the same, we want to look different. And it was like one of these debate club things, you could say, hey, maybe the best they look totally different, or

you could say, hey, maybe they look like they were related. And we also only decided, the group decided not just a design team, but the ownership stakeholder group decided we wanted to feel related. And then there was a big debate of like, was that siblings or cousins? I think we also landed more on cousins. But the idea, we really wanted that, Hey, if you had your group and you came and you played three days, you were going to, we wanted you to play the East, wanted you to play the tape, you had your group and you came and you played three days, you wanted to play the East, wanted to play the West, and we wanted to get to where you didn't really care where you played on the third day.

And I think we did that. And I think Gilles has, again, got to test the best players in the world, but I think it's still very, very playable. It's just, it's difficult. It's maybe a little bit different than the difficulty of the West, but I think there are two kind of wonderful golf experiences. And I feel like we've been successful and haven't experienced where the two big golf courses

come to each other. And then one of the other fun things that happened is that we ended up truly collaborating on the short course. And that was kind of a funny back story in that with my background with Mark Harris and going back to 2012, 2013 of the Urban Golf Park, like I really wanted to do the short course. Like that's what it got me there. Gil had just finished not too long before we started talking about all this, the cradle, and so he was very passionate about doing the short course. And so somebody's an ultimate camera idea, why don't you guys do it together. And so we've said, yeah, that's true, that sounds great.

And then we never talked about it again, that's true, that sounds great. And then we never talked about it again, as to like, what does that mean? Like, how does that actually work? And with COVID, the practice range and the short course actually got delayed past courses. So finally, circle back around of, you know, hey, it's time to do the short course,

like, how is this collaboration going to work? And I really didn't know. I mean, like, I, you know, I think we're collaborators by nature, but at the end of the day, somebody's going to make a decision, right? And so Jim Wagner to his credit, he came with the idea of, hey, if we're really going to do this, let's truly collaborate. And so we sort of split holes up, sort of five and five,

but we put caveman, the Gill and Jim Shaper is on, quote unquote, our holes. We took our shaping team, put them on Gill and Jim's holes, as well as like big walkthroughs, we kind of everybody. So this collaboration goes down deep into the DNA of how it was built in terms of the people that are actually shaping it. We're working with people they weren't normally used

to working with. And I think the end result is fabulous. I think it's fun. I can tell you we had a lot of fun designing it and building it. And I hope that shows the people that go and play it. But from what I hear, it gets a lot to play and lots of laughs and fun times happen there. Yeah, we couldn't get a tea time out there when we were there. It was so busy, which is always a good sign, especially in the early infancy, infancy phase of it.

But I don't know how often you get 30 minutes plus minutes into an interview before somebody asks you about Tiger Woods, but I, you know, I held off as long as I could here. But when did your relationship with Tiger Woods start? And for those that aren't familiar with how your relationship has worked? How does that work? Yeah, so I was going back to my, I used to work for Tom Fasio and I ended up while working for Tom Fasio getting to know Greg McLaughlin who at the time was head of the Tiger Woods Foundation. And when the foundation decided to build the Tiger Woods Learning Center, they wanted to go off to be a part of it.

And so Greg emotionally reached out to me and make a long story a little bit shorter. We ended up helping build the, with the golf elements to the Tiger Woods learning center, which is basically a range and some putting. And kind of through that, I got to know Tiger and I got to know Earl, and in many ways the foundation was Earl sort of baby. And Earl and I would always joke about what happens with Tiger decides to do golf courses.

And that ultimately when years later, Tiger started contemplating doing a project, he reached out to me to get my opinion about how we should do it. And he just kind of all more from there and I think we got to know we knew each other a little bit not much, then I also helped him think through this of how to get involved and go, of course, design. And it just so happened to be about the same time that I've decided it was time for me to kind of give it a go myself.

So Tiger was one of my first client and he remains somebody I try to help him out. However, he needs help on the golf design side. And as I mentioned going in, we have to be fortunate to have two or three projects under construction with him right now. If I were to say, I'd say a fair amount of your job or the golf course design and build business is more boring than maybe people would like to imagine, right? I mean, it seems like so much fun playing in the dirt, designing golf courses, all, you know, designing challenges, hazards, all that stuff.

But there's a lot of stuff that goes with it that I imagine is not fun. So do you see kind of professionals that roll off of a playing career that want to design golf courses? What's the learning curve like for them? What are things that they don't really, you know, know firsthand when they go to design or to do so? Like, how do you help Tigerwood design a golf course? Well, I first sat down with him to talk serious about all this. I was blown away by his knowledge of golf architecture.

Like, I wasn't expecting it. And when I say knowledge, where he's putting quotes, it's not like, oh, that's Donald Ross or that's Seth Rainer, not that, but rather his appreciation as a player of what the golf architecture was telling him to do. So sort of the analyzing of risk award or what have you. And he was so attuned to all that and then I felt stupid like of course he would be like his greatest player in the

world like of course he would know all that and so I've always viewed my my role with him is helping him to do what his his craft of like he's got definite opinions about golf architecture and like what he wants to see and how he wants golf holds to play and I just feel my role is helping that to come out. And so going back more generally to ask the question like, you know, the fun, the stuff is not super fun, it's, you know, drainage and irrigation and all these sort of functional things that are very, very important. You know, the fun part is shaping and golf holes and shot values and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, Tiger Woods has got that on through the roof. And he's got very definite opinions about how he wants his golf courses to play. He's a real student of Lynx golf that's his favorite version of golf. And I think it's sort of his mind too. My mother's half Irish. And so I've lived in Ireland for a while

and I've played in a criminal not Lynx golf in my life. And so I think we kind of bonded on that, this idea of it's fun to play the golf ball on the ground sometimes. And the way Tiger talks about it is that, let's allow the ground to be your friend. And so if you go look at his golf courses that he's done today, he has to see a lot of

bunkering in front of greens and those kinds of things because he wants people to be able to put play them all around, but almost more importantly, use their brains to be creative and to think they're way around a golf. And I think that's what he really is so has such an incredible ability to do that has proven, I think, very well.

Of course, his career, he's very, very smart individual that is constantly sort of calculating risk and opportunity and those kind of things when he's on the golf course. So I laugh when there's a data center community of people on Twitter that will tell you that angles don't matter in golf. And it's like, well, I mean, listen to Tiger Woods talk

about golf holes. And I think that what's your theory on that? Well, so what I would say now, Bar E, was some of those people, I would say that, Barine, was some of those people. I would say that Anglesdale Supermatter went as soft. So it's soft. But as soon as it gets firm,

it's a totally different story. One of the projects we just finished was the sort of refash, refresh, reimagination of Ocean Forest and Seattle and Georgia. So just north of you, and they just had the Jones Cup there this past weekend, which is, you know, top 50, some lot of Amders around the world. And, you know, part of our

work there made it substantially more lancy. And the weather was tough, it was windy, super farm greens. I guarantee you, angles matter this past weekend, an ocean forest, give them conditions. And so I think to me, again, firm conditions, make that be that way. But then that makes golf to me so much more interesting. So, golf is sort of being more like chess and less like darts or archery or whatever, that becomes to me where golf is really operating on humming all cylinders, so to speak.

And so, I remain a big proponent of we need firm golf because I think that's the most interesting version of golf. And I think there's a huge market for that. My trillion dollar question is how do you make it more link see? Right? What did you do to ocean forest to make it more link see right? I mean, we hear about the cost that come with sand capping places and not all soil types can be, you know, you can't just replicate links golf anywhere you want to in the golf

world. What are some of the challenges to go with that? What are some success stories? Well, I mean, we're of course, I know so far. So then we have very sandy soils. And so a big part that was just stripping material down to that sandy soil and then shaping guffles to be appropriate for those type shots.

So the guff bursts out sort of perched up small greens surrounded by sand. And we remove a incredible amount of sand and lower greens, big greens much more large, and then have much more internal contours. But so the natural conditions there are firm. But yeah, I mean, there's certainly costs to try to make firm conditions

where you don't have firm soils. And you could say, well, then don't go build golf, where you have softer conditions. But a lot of this renovation work that we're doing, we're taking the old greens mix, and using that to plate approaches into new greens, so at least we'll have some firmer type conditions around greens. I think that's where it really becomes the most important to me.

There's the linksy long shot, but I think almost more important to me is the close recovery linksy shot. But I think almost more important to me is like the close recovery makes you shot So you know, when I we get down the golf course and see somebody headed up to the ball, you know off the green I love it when they're carrying something other than just a sandwich and a putter So if they're carrying like you know a nine iron or five iron Hybrid like and sandwich the part like to me like we've got something successful working there because now they're thinking again they're using their brain how do I play the shot what's the best way to play the shot as opposed to just all be a V&O it's just sandwich back home to the green.

There was an event held at El Cardinal Diamante in Cabo this past year a PGA tour a fall series event and I actually didn't get to watch a lot of the event so if my question sounds silly please feel free to tell me that. But from what I'd gather about the golf course, it is meant to be designed as a resort course, meant to be a pay for play golf course that's designed for recreational golfers. I don't think you guys built that with the plans

that it's going to host PGA Tour events, right? So with that in mind, what was it like, some players were critical of the golf course in some ways? Did you have any reaction to that at all? Or is just a bad match for a PGA tour course. Yeah not really. I mean the I mean you've nailed it. There was already existing golf course there. It was built down along the ocean in Danes. It was Davis-Lock golf course. It's fabulous spectacular. It was very hard. Very difficult. It was very windy in that part of the

Mahapunizala. And so our director from the Gica was, we needed a very friendly playable kind of resort course. So that's what we built. The idea of having tour players is never in the language discussion about what we talked about. So like there's no rough. So like all the PGA tour statistics and accuracy, like went through the roof because like there is no rough, it's all one high to cut.

So I think we all knew the scores would be low. And I don't think anybody's super plus to buy that. I mean, it is what it is. We have another golf course under construction there and I think the intent would be that the event will move to this new golf course. And so now that we know that, like we'll do some things a little bit differently in terms of how we put that into newer golf course together at Legacy Club. But I can't even remember who it was. There's one guy that was complaining a lot about the golf course and I went and looked

like, he has barely made me cut. So like, he had a big payday and like, geez, like, why the word you complaining, man, I got really happy. So it's some variety too, man. I mean, it's, and I don't know, where do you, I guess, stand? I don't, you don't do a ton of work necessarily with the professional golf game in mind as I understand it, right? You, I mean, in terms of, if I was to ask you about the distance debate at the highest

levels of golf, how much is that creep into, you know, what your day to day work is like? I mean, so I think what we, we worked on a handful of places that have hosted Tora Vest. I mean, that that world is not far into us at all, but like the majority of playing the game of golf has nothing to do with that. I mean, we'll go look at the data. I mean, like the amount of rounds that that is compared to everything else is like miniscule. And if you go even look at just the distribution of golfers in the United States, you know, it's not like a bell curve. It's very much skewed towards higher handicampers. So we're talking about the elite of the elite.

And to me, that just doesn't move the needle that much in terms of what we do. Like, yes, if we have a client that wants to host a PGA Tour event, we'll get a factor all that in for sure. But, you know, to me, the distance thing is, you know, what do we really try to solve for, you know, it's a handful of very historic off-worses that are important off-worses, and I get that, but even like the action that's been taken, like it just doesn't, it doesn't really feel like

anything, like when the, when it finally became official, it's not like the next day, we wouldn't say, oh, we're not gonna, we're gonna build shorter off-worses, like that, that's not like the next day we went and said, oh, we're not going to build shorter golf courses. That's not at all what I think. I'm actually surprised what people might ask me about this, because I think maybe the only golf course, or one of the few golf courses I know is that actually has a three in physics. And so to me, the whole ball thing is, the whole distance thing is a multi variable equation.

And so people are focusing on the ball, and the dynamics of the ball, which is one part of the variable. But I think by the time the rollback comes effective, it won't be the 15 yards, it'll be some lesser percentage of that, because the species is just gonna continue to innovate and evolve and get stronger and better and match stuff, and work with other variables and this kind of stuff.

Stat that I sometimes use is, when you talk about, I'm not saying that technology hadn't made an impact. Obviously it has, but it's not the only thing that's made an impact. When I first started, people didn't look like Tiger Woods, they weren't working out and doing a lot of stuff. They were hanging out. They look more like me, right? And so now they're athletes, you know, they change their bodies, they change their workout,

their routines, all this kind of stuff. And it happens elsewhere. And so the stat I like to talk about sometimes is if you look at field goals in the NFL, in 1960, there were five field goals made in 1960 over 50 yards. Now yes, they've been a little minor modification with kicking balls, and we've gone indoors more. But like on a given week in the NFL, they're more than five, 50 plus yard,

the eel goals made. So to me, it's a natural evolution of the species. You're just gonna continue to get better. And I think that this rollback is not super gonna change much. And I certainly for us rollback is not super gonna change much. And I certainly for us, we're not, we're gonna grab length, we're re-can-grab length, but almost more importantly, we're almost focused on making golf courses shorter,

because one of the things that's happening is more or more people are playing golf longer and longer because of health and wellness. But as they do so, their swing speeds go down. And so the ball that goes far, and it doesn't go as high, so there's a lot of low trajectory. So how the dynamics of trajectories affect us, it's actually more on the shorter side

in that, if you have somebody that can only hit 150 yards, like how do you have a green, does someone's hitting a driver from 150 yards? Like how do you design that green? That probably affects my thinking more so than, you know, whoever, the latest guy, the PGA tour, the HISTVAL 350 yards. Like, that's probably more concerned about that, because it's just a bigger, to me, it's a much bigger phenomenon.

Does any of that make sense at all when I'm trying to say that? It does. No, it all does. It all does. And I think it, I'm doing something about about the distance. And I think this exactly to your point, this rollback does something. It doesn't change the big input to me, which is that you can wail on a golf ball. And it's not going to go that far off line these days, right? And golfers look more like Tiger Woods. People say so now because they're. Yeah.

People first like golf ball, but like, you know, hitting this big metal thing. I grew up hitting a small looking persimmon thing. And so to me, it's like a bigger, a bigger question about like, what are we trying to do? What are we trying to solve for it? And for me, for most part, technology to me has been additive to golf. It's brought more people into golf.

It's made off more accessible, those kind of stuff. And so I just, I get a leery of like, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water and know the powers to be think they're not doing that and I don't say they are, I just don't think it's doing that much. So I, you know, the government of I was trying to regulate distance since the 70s.

So, and here we are. So I just, I don't know if the genie can be put back in the bottles. So to speak. Yeah, I guess the, a point of asking that question to me was the challenge that comes to you, we were talking about people that had hidden drivers from 150 yet all like stretching out the limits of where the game has played has to be so challenging for somebody in your shoes.

How do you design a golf hole? Potentially if they want a host to our event that it'd be 480, which is a mid-length par four for them now and also play for somebody that needs to play from 150. I think the game is healthier in a better place when that margin is closer together. I know getting there is not easy, but I think everyone should. Yeah, I mean, so part of the things we,

and others of the industry are dealing with it. And P.J. Fresco, I've been a good example. Like Gil's golf course thinks 7,800 yards or can't tip out almost that. I think ours is 7,400, but less or par. But any met, Susie Waley was head of P.J. of America at the time and Susie wanted what she would call senior women's T's.

Her argument would be, hey, we as women learn on a T, we get good on a T, and we also put the game, because we're still playing from the same T, and we can't keep playing And I would argue with her like it has nothing to do with gender. It's just swings me. It's just physics Just swings me but the point her point would be like we need to have the ability to have 4200 yard Gospel earth so that somebody gets them all 150 yards of driver has a means of playing So now if you think about 7800 yards

4200 yards for the about 7,800 yards, 4,200 yards. Well, the 7,800 yard T-shot is landing pretty close to where the 4,200 T needs to be. So you can't just keep having T's everywhere. So a lot of us, what a lot of us are doing now, is doing more of these long T's or ribbon T's or whatever you want to call them, like non-formalized T boxes.

And so the ability to sort of set up the game in sort of lots of many, many different ways. And I personally think I'm not super technology guy, but I personally don't see why we shouldn't be able to start having not even having team markers. And like you put a peg in the ground wherever you want and your phone or something calculates, course ratings, handicap and like all this kind of stuff. And it's almost like continuous kind of team. You're right. It's hard to try to, people want it longer,

longer, people want it shorter and shorter, and it gets difficult. And so what we're doing is just sort of make everything look more like fairway than formalized fees. Yeah, that's some of my wife plays. She just picks us up in the fairway and tees it up. And there is a rule that says such need to fight a team area, but when you play recreational golf, there's no real rule in it. But a couple of different

various questions here before we, before we let you go here. But what is the latest with the South Shore Jackson Park course? You know, I have a really, much about that in a while. So I, you know, unfortunately, I hadn't either. I hadn't even thought about it until I saw my profiles. I call my guys. You know, it's a challenging situation. You know, unfortunately, I hadn't either. I hadn't even thought about it till I saw him. Yeah. And I thought, oh my gosh. You know, it's a challenging situation. You know, lots of different opinions, lots of passionate opinions. You know, Jackson Park's very short place,

where Wolfs Fair was in 1894. And so, you know, the politics of all that is truly kind of above my pay grade, I guess. But I was super excited about it. And I, you know, truly being something that could be truly impactful with golf. But I just don't know if there's a political route kind of through all that.

I would certainly love the opportunity to kind of finish what we, what we, at least it contemplated. But I don't, I'm not sure that's happening in the near term. What was kind of some of the highlight projects you did when you were talking with Tom Fosu, and what had the most impact on you? I know there was Eagle Point in Wilmington,

there was Sage Valley, Elotion, Waterville, Pinehurst, I believe, what sticks out to you? Yeah, I mean, I talk about Eagle Point a lot because it was really early in my career. And he had these four owners that were awesome guys. And, you know, I got to spend a lot of time with them and the helpful site selection and went through the whole process and was complicated permitting. Got hit by two class three hurricanes during construction and got he audience to get to the end in the opening day to see how excited those guys were.

Like, it was like, man, this is awesome. And the golf course is awesome, but like the experience of doing it was just so impactful to me, again early in my career. So that will always be sort of a special place. Sage was one, the course is special. I'm a member there, it's a place I get back to, and so that's always great to think about all that stuff. I was fortunate to help Tom with a lot of the scurvy land, golf courses, and I think that's where, if you read me talking about sometimes about how I got involved because of green's tees, bunkers, like the test of the game, that's what got me into golf design as a golfer, but it was being around some of these golf courses that really were helping

the foster community, and kind of like this friendship thing I was trying to explain about PJ Frisco, like I first started observing that around some of these discovery land projects and I thought that was just totally fascinating. And I think that's what started to kind of beer meat in towards kind of more human, the human part of golf and something that remains very important to me like golf as a means of fostering community. So like that all goes back to the Fazio days. And then, because I mentioned my mother's half Irish,

so the water bill experience was, truly unique and special. I happen to be with some of my family on vacation, on a place called the Lynch Island, which is not far from Waterville, but it was an island off the coast of County Carrierrier and Mr. Fasier called me, said, I'm sorry to bother you on vacation, but these guys that own a golf course over there, are interested in taking a look at it.

I doubt you can go see this, but just giving it to you in the country, is there any way I can get you to do this? I thought, you know, I mean, there's no way, I mean, like I'm in the middle of North Atlantic. I mean, this isn't going to work. And I'm like, what's the name of it? And it's like, well, it's water, something. And I'm like, water building. It's like, yeah, that's a little, actually, play golf there this morning. It's like, the only answer of a place you could have said that would allow me to be able

to go visit. So I did. And so that then, to get, you know, sort of, ultimately, sort of a three-year project there and make great friendships there and you know really with the whole town because the golf course drives the economy of the town and you know we would be there during the off season working on the golf course and of course everyone knew who we were and it just was really super special and I think our work there was impactful and

it had some place I loved to get back. So these are one of these questions I can also end up talking like 40, 50 places by the time I'm done. There's a one point. What else are podcasts for? It's a wonderful experience to get to work for Tom and kind of learn under him and be afforded such incredible opportunities to work with so many special people and special places. I want to get through all the golf stuff, but I cannot let you leave without explaining to me your relationship with curling and

and the Roll you play in the US and curling. It's bizarre, so I'm not like the forest gump of curling So curling is an ancient Scottish game just like golf. They both started in Scotland about the same time. And to this day, it's very obvious to me that both come out of the same sort of Scottish ether like angles are important in both of them. They both have weird terms in jargon.

They both are value-based sports. Where integrity and honor mean something. And arguably both are sort of excuses to drink scotch. But I got fascinated watching on television when it first became a demonstration sport at the Calgary Winter Olympics, which was 1988. And at first I thought this was like the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

And I kind of forgot about it. But then 14 years later, the Salt Lake Games came on and I found myself watching it. The more I learned about it, the more fascinated I got. And that ultimately led me to go visit a US national championship in a place called Bemidji, Minnesota in 2006 right after the Trino Winter Olympics. And they were so shocked with some redneck from South Carolina. We come do this. They kind of took me in. And this kind of where the forest gump part starts. It's ultimately got asked to be the first independent director for USA curling and that led to me serving on the board,

kind of retooled how some of the championships work that then led the USOPC to ask me to be part of the delegation of Vancouver in 2010. I also got super involved in the World Curling Federation. Came the US representative of the World Curling Federation, which I did from 2010 to 2018, and it took me to Pyongyang, South Korea, so she rushed out for those winter Olympics. And then ultimately in 2018, I got elected on the board of the World Curling Federation. And then in September of 2022, I was elected to become the president of the World Curling Federation. So it's totally not story. The long version takes about three beers to tell.

So people don't want to turn it into a movie, but it's been an incredible experience. And I think one of the things that, I joke about how golf and curling are these similarities. But I honestly believe that if the world had more curlers and if the world had more golflers, if the world had more golfers, the world would be a better place because I think it's just fundamental grounding in both games that say a lot about life and how you can port

yourself to yourself as well as to other people. And so I just feel very special how the opportunity to be involved in these two special community people. And I need to get you out of the ice. You might be a natural. It's a golf thing. You've been wasted your time. You need to get you out of the ice. You might be a natural. You mean this golf thing. You maybe wasted your time. You need to get you out of the ice. Close the locks. As I was going to say, I know what podcast two is going to be. It's going to be where to put three beers down and you're going to tell the whole curling story of that because that is that's fascinating. So, uh, well, but we appreciate your time. Uh, greatly, uh, I'm excited we're going to be checking out the hay here in a couple of weeks. I know I want to get a chance to talk

about that, but I'm excited to see that one. But we appreciate you telling some stories and sharing your perspective and I hope to do this again sometime. Sounds good. Thank you. Be the right club. Be the right club today. Yes.

Be the right club. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most.