Besides speed, pros are quite finicky about the
consistency of
greens now. They seem to get upset if all the greens are not at
exactly
the same speed and firmness. I guess they started that way with
the
sand in bunkers—they had to be uniform. Now they have tests so the
sand has the
same texture. Of course that has translated to the greens.
As far as I am
concerned, you would have the texture different in every
bunker and the greens
with different speeds.
Is it a
better test when players have to figure all
that
out? Sure it is. And it is amazing to me that the
professionals—God
bless all their hearts and souls because there are a
lot of fine young men out
there—but they go to Augusta with things
changing all the time and they will not
complain. They go to the
U.S. Open and have the rough so thick you cannot
play out of it, and
they do not complain about it. But if it’s a TPC or Tour
stop and
there’s one blade of grass that is out of place—my heavens that is just
not right!
I’m building another TPC in San Antonio and I’m
certainly going to
take into consideration what they are going to
complain about. But it’s very
difficult to get them all on the same
page. Vijay Singh wants all the holes
straight away. Jim Furyk wants
the holes offset a little. Jeff Sluman wants them
offset a lot. Then my
wife has her ideas. If I put a bunker in front of a green,
I don’t get
fed that night. But that’s the way golf is; it’s great that everyone
has their views.
Would designing a course in Scotland
interest
you? We have to see. I have had a couple of
close calls in Scotland but I’m
not sure I could build what I want to
there. I am not sure I could get
there enough to do it the way I
want.
When I look at TPC Sawgrass in
old photos,
it looks so rugged and eye-catching. Now it is very clean with
bright
white sand and defined rough. How do you feel when you compare it to the
original? The original has entirely changed. They took
out a lot of the
grasses and now they are starting to put them back in.
The gallery mounds were
rustic and they have smoothed them all out. The
amazing thing is that at
Whistling Straits, they have big galleries up
there trouncing around in this
rough stuff, but they still get around
fine.
Anything different you’d like to
see at
Sawgrass? ShotLink says the golf professional averages about
three-tenths of a stroke higher chipping out of grass than from a
bunker, so
bunkers are not hazards anymore.
I think the best thing that came up a
couple years ago was the
furrowed bunkers Jack [Nicklaus] did [at Muirfield
Village for the
Memorial Tournament]. Because you can do that for a tournament
and make
bunkers at least a hazard again. The day the pros leave, they could
smooth them over for John Q. Public. And it doesn’t cost
anything.
What
are your thoughts on drivable par
4s? I do not know what a drivable par 4
is anymore
because they can all drive short par 4s, it seems. At the new course
I’m doing at the French Lick resort, I’m trying something different. On
the long
par 4s, I have hazards out there at 300 yards so [if you lay
up] you have 210 to
250 yards to the green. I’ve decided if they are
going to have to make a
decision about a lay-up, it’s going to be on a
long par 4 rather than a short
one.
Is rough part of
your design palette? What I did at French Lick is
something that I have never done. I brought the fairways in to 85 feet
wide. I
have always had them at about 120 feet for the landing areas.
There’s a
relatively new grass that can be cut down to an inch and a
half, but also can be
grown higher.
Rough cut at an inch to an
inch and a half might even be
easier for some high handicappers than
hitting it out of the fairway. And the
course has the option to grow it
higher for a tournament.
I hate rough like
what the USGA did at
Oakmont, where it just might as well be out of bounds
lining the
fairways, but I do not disagree with having rough. There is nothing
wrong with asking players to get out of two or three inches of rough
near a
green. But I also like to see it run off into short grass in
other places to
give some variety.
Your early work was
vastly different from what others
were doing at the time, and today you
have inspired a new movement in
architecture with Bill Coore, Tom Doak
and other “minimalists.” What do you make
of that? I
think a lot of the newer guys are just going back to the way
many of
the old masters worked. There was a time right after the war when Mr.
[Robert Trent] Jones, who was a great friend of mine, faced such a
demand that
he was about the only one out there. So he figured out a
way to get courses
built and this country really needed it.
What influence did he have on your
style? At Harbour Town, I tried to do something different
from what the
norm had been. Of course it didn’t hurt that Arnold
Palmer won in the first
tournament there. But if you built that
kind of golf course today, they
would not pay
you.
Harbour Town? But it’s loved by pros and high handicappers
alike. When it was done it was so entirely different. But
that type of golf
course in today’s market where it has to look good in
magazines and where you
have to sell real estate...
You
mean Harbour Town is not flashy
enough? Absolutely.
Why is it that your
public and resort courses are so
popular even though they are so hard
to play? Every time I have ever worked
on a resort course
and tried to make it like the guys say you are supposed to
make
it—easy—it’s been a disaster. You go to Whistling Straits and they are
standing in line to play it. And look at Pine Valley. Have you ever
played Pine
Valley?
Yes, it’s tough. Sure
it is. It has some greens out there you
cannot just copy. It’s
unbelievably tough. And it is the ambiance in part
because of the sand.
Any time you have sand, you are way out front. The sand and
bushes give
it a look like no other course. Even as hard as it is, if you open
that
to the public, they would be standing in line to play
there.
