Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Redesigning Golf-- Teeing Up a Discussion on Golf Course Communities with Golf Course Architect Erik Larsen
Ready to reevaluate your perceptions of golf course communities and their design? In this episode, host Donna DiMaggio Berger takes you behind the scenes with Erik Larsen, Golf Course Architect and former Vice President of the Arnold Palmer Design Company, as he reveals the intricacies of transforming landscapes into world-class golf courses. Erik has overseen golf course projects in 26 US States and 14 countries. He has designed courses used in tournament play, such as the US Open, the Bob Hope Classic, the Champions Tour, and more.
Tracing golf's roots in 15th-century Scotland and discussing the surprising statistic that only 25-30% of residents in golf course communities play golf, you'll gain a newfound appreciation for the sport's scenic allure and its broader community impact. Donna and Erik dive into the delicate balance of aesthetic beauty and functional safety in golf course design, especially within residential areas. Discover the evolution of design philosophies over the decades and the challenges of ensuring safety while maintaining visual appeal. They also delve into the emerging trends like par-three courses and 'fun golf' that make the sport more accessible to beginners and families, highlighting how these innovations are reshaping the golfing experience.
Lastly, they tackle the business side of golf, focusing on strategies to revive failing courses through creative residential development. Learn about the infill model and how repurposing empty spaces can breathe new life into struggling golf communities. With personal anecdotes and expert insights, this episode is rich with historical context, design strategies, and business acumen—making it a must-listen for anyone interested in the multifaceted world of golf course development.
Conversation Highlights Include:
- Designing golf courses in residential communities or HOAs
- How to ensure a golf course is mutually beneficial for residents, including those who do not play golf
- Noise and privacy concerns for residents living near the golf course
- Environmentally friendly golf course design
- Protecting and relocating wildlife
- How to revive failing golf course communities
- American courses vs. international courses
- Advice for developers or associations considering adding or renovating a golf course
- BONUS: Find out what it was like to work with Arnold Palmer!
Hi everyone, I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Berger and this is Take it to the Board, where we speak condo and HOA. Today, on the Take it to the Board podcast, we're trading the boardroom for the fairway. Whether you're a scratch golfer or the kind who scratches their head wondering why that little white ball won't cooperate. Our conversation today with golf course designer Eric Larson should be illuminating. Eric and I are going to be talking about a game that's been driving people to both the height of excitement and the depths of frustration for centuries. Speaking of centuries, golf is considered to be over 500 years old, with its origins dating back to Scotland during the 15th century. While similar games involving a ball and a stick existed in ancient times, it was in Scotland where the game began to take on its contemporary form, including the concept of 18 holes and specific rules. The earliest recorded mention of golf was in 1457, when King James II of Scotland banned the game because it was distracting his soldiers from their archery practice. We're so drawn to the sport of golf today, which is why I am so happy to be able to discuss the topic with Eric Larson.
Speaker 1:Eric is an accomplished and experienced golf course architect, having designed and overseen construction of nearly 100 golf courses around the world. He designed 95 Arnold Palmer signature courses as the project architect for the Arnold Palmer Design Company from 1983 until 2011. Eric became Vice President of the Arnold Palmer Design Company in 2003. Eric was also the President of the Acclaimed American Society of Golf Course Architects. Eric has overseen golf course projects in 26 US states and 14 countries. He has designed courses that are used in tournament play, such as the US Open 14 countries. He has designed courses that are used in tournament play, such as the US Open, the Bob Hope Classic, the Champions Tour and more. So we are really excited to have him on the podcast today. Eric, welcome to Take it to the Board.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Donna.
Speaker 1:So let's dig into it. First of all I want to say right off the bat I'm not a golfer. So I know the basics of the game and I've lived on a golf course for many years. I even like to go to the driving range from time to time, but I never feel confident enough to go out on my 18 hole golf course. I do okay on a par three, I will do that, but my dad was a big golfer. I have friends and law partners who have a love hate relationship with the game, so I am semi-fluent in golf.
Speaker 2:Well, you cut across a broad spectrum right now, then, actually, of all the inhabitants of golf course communities, really only 25 to 30% do play golf. The others do not. And you also mentioned that you like a par three tournament. Maybe we'll get into this at some point, or a par three tournament. Maybe we'll get into this at some point, or some par three golf, and maybe we can get into that. But that is a it's not even really an emerging trend anymore. It is, it's now almost a necessity in a golf course community, and particularly if there's renovation and improvements being made.
Speaker 1:Well, that's. That's a great statistic to know, eric, that many of my neighbors are probably like me, that they like the openness and the beauty of living on a golf course, but they're not necessarily golfers. So we will talk about that. But I first wanted to ask you what inspired you to pursue a career in golf design.
Speaker 2:Well, it's actually a long story, I guess. To start is I have worked on golf courses and played golf since I was seven, eight years old, in fact, my first job, you know, I got thinking about it. I've been working on golf courses since I was nine. I'm 70. So do the math, do the math on that, we'll just, we'll just get my age out there, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:Nine years old, there's child labor laws, eric.
Speaker 2:Well, wait, wait, wait, nine years old, there's child labor laws, eric. Well, I did it willingly, I'll tell you. I don't even remember what I was making, but it wasn't more than it was. Not more than three or four dollars an hour, I can tell you that. And but it was. I was hooked from the start to be out on the green grass and the big open spaces and this beautiful playing field. You know dynamic, because it changes, and so I stayed in basically agronomy, golf course maintenance through college, even took turf grass and agronomy in college and got a little. I wanted to play, but I was not really patient enough to make a good player and my father got me interested in design and I got into landscape architecture, fell in love with the design. Design is a process, by the way, maybe we can touch on that at some point. Then learned the design process. I'm not great. I am not great graphically, I don't draw well, but design process is basically problem solving and that was a skill set that I found out that I had.
Speaker 2:So you know, I got into landscape architecture. I had a landscape company but it was mostly geared toward the residential landscape and smaller scale design work and I really wanted to do large scale planning and at the time this would have been in the early. This would have been in the early, this would have been in the uh, the uh, early 80s, late 70s, early 80s and the large the. The growth of golf course communities was robust and it was really in that area where large, there, where there was a lot of opportunity in large-scale planning. So yeah, you know it's the little guy with the hammer hit me in the back of the head and said you know golf course architecture, you've got you married. The little guy with the hammer hit me in the back of the head and said you know golf course architecture, You've got the experience.
Speaker 1:You married the two experiences. But did you grow up somewhere where year-round golf was an option, Eric?
Speaker 2:I was fortunate. I grew up in a little town in Iowa, newton Iowa. The Maytag family was in my hometown and had built the Maytag washer and dryer plants. My father was an executive with the Maytag company and we were able to join the local country club, and so that's where I started working as a kid and playing the nine hole golf course, as there are many of those in the Midwest, particularly Iowa. And so, yes, I was exposed to golf and it was a you know, it was. Get up in the morning, go to the golf course, work, play golf, go swimming in the afternoon and play baseball and eat. Get up, you know, and then repeat.
Speaker 1:And sounds ideal, but there were months you couldn't play in Iowa, so it's not like Florida or any of our Sunbelt states.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we could play golf, but we sure did a lot of sledding on the golf course. So yeah, so you know, I got a degree in landscape architecture, I started the business and then I called. I eventually said it came upon me golf course architecture. I got actually kind of thrilled watching the tournament players championship right here across the street from me. I'm in Ponte Vedra Beach, florida, for the first time in the stadium course that a colleague and mentor rest in peace. Pete Dye designed and remember I was on the couch in Iowa and said wait a minute, what am I looking at? You can do that sort of thing, that art. You know those dramatic, you know those dramatic slopes and targets on the golf course in those vast bunkering.
Speaker 1:I said I'm in, I'm going, I'm in you were fascinated Is it possible, in your opinion, to be a golf course designer without having that knowledge of landscape and plant material?
Speaker 2:The answer is yes, you can. You don't need to know landscape and plant material. There's always somebody that can tell you what trees to plant, and it's primarily trees. It's not a landscape like shrubbery and bushes and stuff. Those are really too small scale. You're going to do more of mass planting of trees.
Speaker 2:But yes, you can which you can't be a golf course architect. You cannot be a golf course architect and not have the understanding of engineering, particularly drainage and grade work, and then the, the artistry that goes on top of that, both these, the strategy of play and the beauty, overall beauty, of a golf course. But those are all secondary to safety, which we, which is going to be very relevant to this, to this audience, and how a golf course relates to and is adjacent to communities. You know an hoa property safety is first. Safety is always first and it's paramount and the work we do is we lay on the very front end of it. As we lay out a golf course, then, with the function of it, the drainage, irrigation, feature, construction, that's all underground. People don't really even understand that or need to, but those two have to be in place before you get to the call it the icing on the cake of the real beauty, the strategy bunker placement, shapes of greens, those sorts of things that bring out the real playability and fun in the golf course.
Speaker 1:Sure, Well, let's talk about designing golf courses that are part of a residential community homeowners association. I think I just mentioned that I've lived in a golf course community for years. The golf course is not part of the HOA common areas, it's a separate country club. But many of our neighbors do support the club and our members, whether it's social or tennis or golf. I live on the fourth hole. I will tell you, Eric, that over time I've seen more and more errant golf balls. I mean, if there's a golf ball on my patio, I know somebody is not a great golfer. If it's in my front, on my front doorstep, it's even worse.
Speaker 1:So how do you go about approaching design of golf courses that are ringed or that are located inside a community association?
Speaker 2:Well, first. Well, as I said, it's safety first and there are industry standards for setbacks, for the distance from the center line of the golf hole to the back of the property line, and they're not regulated. It's not law, but there are industry standards which you would understand.
Speaker 2:So and that is typically from center line and we work from like on a par four, three different spots, which would have a spot for a T, a spot for the angle turn or landing area in the middle of the fairway and a spot in the middle of the green and you connect the line to those three spots and then going laterally from there at the T angle turning green it's 150 feet, basically 175 feet if you can get it each direction. So a corridor width of basically 350 feet wide is the corridor within the area for the golf course. The T's fairways and greens themselves are much smaller than that. They fit inside that. So there's a buffer area for safety outside that. And then the setback of the buildings out within the property is something we don't have any bearing on. We don't have any say in that. The developer, the owners, will determine that amount. So we have to create a safety setback that the back of the property line is safe.
Speaker 2:Now let me say that you can't make them 100% safe. It's not possible. You can put somewhere. There's going to be a guy or a girl that's strong and can hit a ball a long ways, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that. The longer a ball goes offline, the farther it's going to go offline. That may mean your backyard or your front step or your rooftop or whatever.
Speaker 1:And you know when that typically happens is when you've got somebody playing on a golf course for the first time. I remember being out in Cordillera and my husband had a caddy and he wasn't listening. It was the first time he played the course and he, as the ball was flying, said no, he hit it way too hard and way too hard. So do you agree that sometimes it's just people who don't know the course also?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no question that that would have bearing on errant shots, there's no doubt about that or just trying to do early in the round. You know, on the fourth hole they may not be warmed up yet. Typically, gray shots are to the right. Most people hit the ball left to right. So we're more cognizant of safety factors to be put in place to the right of the golf hole, particularly the right, immediately right of the tee shot, to keep homes and property safe.
Speaker 2:But, donna, it's the key question for residential, for HOA, condominium, whatever unit it is that is adjacent to or runs parallel to the golf course. That that's first and it comes very early on in the planning and it's the gospel you make those lines. There is another teammate that's always involved the civil engineer who's in charge of getting it approved, that he basically plats those lots and they become legal documents. So that's an item that any qualified golf course architect and I encourage anybody that's listening if they're going to hire one, go to the ASTCA, the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Everybody in our society has met a stringent set of qualifications for the work we can do and have done and that's how we're allowed. So it gives you a comfort. You know confidence and a comfort level of any hire from within the ASGCA.
Speaker 1:Have you ever said put on a course, eric, where you said, oh no, this is not safe, this was not set up with the correct setbacks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can, I can tell it immediately and it would usually, you know, be almost always done by a non-professional and even I'd say that carefully, because there are professional golfers that have laid out golf courses but they are not professional architects and they at times could, without knowledge and experience, could create unsafe situations is it fair to say that it's sometimes going to sacrifice playability for safety?
Speaker 2:It's very fair to say you do it often. You also sacrifice beauty, and I will tell you that. What is the age of your, what's the age of your community? Donna?
Speaker 1:It was. Let's see my golf course community early 80s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're of the vintage. That was the very typical in that you have probably have. Do you look across your fairway and there's homes on the other side?
Speaker 1:No, actually. So I was going to talk to you about my community because my community, the golf course, was redesigned, eric, by the Florida, by DOT for water drainage, so I had a different view before that redesign. Yes, I had a different view before that redesign. Yes, I looked across Afterwards. It was completely different where there's coverage with trees and it was much prettier after the redesign.
Speaker 2:Well, that's good, great, good work, good work. What I was getting at is that in that vintage of 70s, 80s, 90s, even into just the early 2000s, even into just the early 2000s, the land plan model of preference was to what we call a double load, or load the fairways with houses along both sides of the fairways so that you could maximize the frontage for the real estate, because there's a premium for being on the golf course versus not on that amenity. Water tends to get more of a premium, but golf always had provided a premium for developers, so they maximized the amount of homes on golf. What that did was, if you fly you mentioned Cordillera well, keep going west and fly over Palm Springs or Arizona and look down and you see it in South Florida and a lot of larger communities in Florida as well. If you look down, you see these green sausages that are linked together. Those are golf holes and then the house, house, house, house along each side is so successful.
Speaker 2:It actually fueled the boom in golf course communities through the, like you say, 80s and 90s, and golf would not be where it is without that type of development. But that type of development became redundant. They tend to look alike and you have to work within the corridors an architect and an artist to come up with different look and feel. Well, you only have that, so much space to do that, and particularly in Florida, where it's flat, it's, you know, it's a challenge to try to create anything of real, unique beauty.
Speaker 1:No for sure. Well, I wanted to talk to you about aesthetics, because when you're dealing with golf courses inside homeowners associations, it must be very difficult to keep everyone happy. The players want to have a course that challenges them. The people living in the homes want a beautiful view. Those two things don't always go hand in hand.
Speaker 2:Well, they can, though, and you? Those two things don't always go hand in hand. Well they can, though, and you're right, they don't.
Speaker 1:But they certainly can, and that's what you strive for. My view on the fourth hole was much improved after DOT came in and redesigned it. We had more water Because before it was a narrow canal then they opened it up and it was almost a lake and beautiful trees and some hills and some sand in the distance. I mean, it really was night and day, eric, in terms of the design, but I imagine sometimes it's the reverse you may actually go from having a beautiful view to one that's less so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they got compromised. Yeah, In fact, yours would be kind of unique. Actually that doesn't usually happen by the DOT and I hope they're not listening but the importance of a view to the layman, particularly to the 75% of you all that don't play golf but live on the golf course. It does not have anything to do with design, to tell you the truth. It does not have anything to do with design, to tell you the truth. It does have everything to do with beauty, which comes from primarily the condition of the golf course.
Speaker 2:If the grass is healthy and uniform and green and bright and vibrant and you have well-manicured bunkers that are clean and white, with nice edges and create that nice contrast, that's the beauty and most people don't pass that. They still have the big view, they have the vista. But if the vista is unsightly because the golf course is not in good shape, that's going to be an issue. It could be unsightly and be as good a golf course as Augusta National, but if it's not well kept, most people will not like that. And look, I'm the architect, I'm the designer, saying the design is what's all important. It actually is not. It's the condition of the golf course that not only brings people the average person to the golf course. It's what provides the value to the real estate and HOA communities around the outside of it. So the importance of maintenance cannot be overlooked for communities, for HOAs that own the golf course, whoever does, or in their relationship with the clubs that do own it.
Speaker 1:That's a great point. I mean our golf course. I will tell you it's pristine. Sometimes I'm up super early, eric and I see them out there at 4.35 in the morning with the machinery they're grooming the fairway. It's amazing. But for those of us who live along there, should we be concerned about all the pesticides spraying and everything else that goes into maintenance?
Speaker 2:I don't think you need to be overly concerned. No, and I've been in this business for 40 years now I mean 60, if you count when I started when I was seven. If there is overspray, it's all specific, it's site-specific, Donna, and it's also specific to the applicator, the superintendents these days. And if you're living on a pristine golf course, you've got a good guy, there's no question. And not only is he good at what he's applying, he's good at how he applies it. That's regulated, that's licensed. You can't just go out and spray stuff. You have to have the approval to do that and you have to have the approval to buy certain chemicals.
Speaker 2:The FDA is very conscious of what goes on a golf course. So that's one thing and that would come primarily for you would run into problem basically just from two ways. One is going to get wind. It's going to be windborne particulates which, if you watch the sprayers now, they're only about a foot off the ground, so they really there isn't any spray, outward spray. The other would be runoff, stormwater runoff. It's very seldom that stormwater runoff goes off the golf course. It has to be contained in the golf course, go into a drainage, major drainage system that ties in with the major drainage system of the community.
Speaker 1:Listen, if I see them out there spraying, I'm not going to be sitting out reading a book while they're doing this. So I tend to go inside, but I've always wondered is there any potential negative impacts to the adjacent homes? You know, with regard to the pesticides? Certainly, you may not have any pests in your trees and bushes in your yard either, but you know, but if you leave your animals outside, if you leave your pets outside, things like that.
Speaker 2:You know. I think it's also a factor of how you feel about that personally. It depends on your sensitivity to that issue. Certainly, they're spraying yes, they're spraying, and they're spraying pesticides and herbicides that are limited in damage to animal life they just have to be now. But they're also extremely skilled in how they apply stuff and in my experience I haven't seen any issues. I have not seen an issue, a single issue actually where there's been a problem with overspray or runoff from chemical into a real estate piece surrounding a golf course.
Speaker 1:That's great to know. I did want to ask you, when you're designing your golf courses, eric, what steps do you take to make sure they're environmentally friendly and sustainable, for instance, if you're designing a course like in a drought prone area, or if you're designing a course you know located near saltwater? I assume that there's different factors you take into account for those differences in geography.
Speaker 2:Yes, there are. They both fall into the design process, though, and, which is the first, you develop a program of what do you have, what does the property offer, what do you need, what do you want and how do you get there. And in the program development of what do you have as with you know, what do you want and how do you get there, and then the program development of what do you have as with you know, what are the components of this facility going to be, how much real estate do you need? Is there a hotel? Is there? What are the natural water, what is the natural drainage system and what are the native elements that are critical to maintain, to avoid, to minimize impact and actually to enhance.
Speaker 2:And those go into the hopper. To start with. Those go on the map, they get circled in red. They are either no touch or how do we help make them better? And you have. Usually, there is there again the civil engineer, and someone within his, usually within his company is going to give you regulation on what you can and cannot do with the sensitive entire environmental areas.
Speaker 1:Is the goal to work around, Eric, what you have, for instance, if you have old growth trees- yeah, donna, it's actually regulated.
Speaker 2:It depends on what the feature is. If it's wetlands, you cannot touch it. Like you mentioned, saltwater, you can't touch it, you can't drain anything into it. All water, everything has to move away from that. In fact you create a buffer usually 50 to 100 foot buffer of vegetation along that edge that's delineated by an environmental specialist or a civil engineer and approved by, say in your case, south Florida Water Management. They stamp everything and that's a no-touch zone.
Speaker 2:Now, in some cases they're unsightly and you just play around them. In some cases they're beautiful and you want them to be a part of the golf course as a feature for strategy and beauty and you can play close to them and over them and it really creates, as I said earlier, the native element, creates the character of your golf course. So you want to use those. The desert situation, drought areas are different. They're generally not regulated.
Speaker 2:What is regulated is the amount of water you can use. So you try to create kind of what we call an out-of-play area or big areas where there really aren't going to be many golf shots, say behind tees, you know, along the sides of tees and back behind tees, and you take them out of turf. They're not in irrigated turf, they would be in a. You know, here we use coquina, a lot or concrete screenings, and out west you're going to use native desert basically or caliche they call it and create these big areas that are there's no vegetation. But the main issue is you don't irrigate it so that you're paying attention to the amount of water use.
Speaker 1:Are there any areas where you just you have to say no, we cannot put a golf course here, no matter how badly you want it, we can't make it happen geographically.
Speaker 2:There are, and it's. That would be. Yes, you mentioned saltwater. That would be. There's some fantastic. You know, I'm up here in Jacksonville. There's some beautiful dunes north of the St John's river. Just be like, oh my gosh, but you can't. You know it's, it's a, it's a federal preserve and it's on the ocean and it's you can't. You can't go there, you can't do that. You can't build on cliffs in areas for safety, for one but for their unstable condition of falling off or sloughing off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't want that to happen, no matter how good a golfer?
Speaker 2:you are no, but you do want to. As an architect, you do look at these sites just with well you know, with desire to, to be able to lay some golf holes out there when you know it really isn't going to impact anything, particularly in our minds. Any environmentalist would argue differently. So you just respect that and move on. It's different. It used to be double loading fairways with homes to maximize real estate. The golf boom was primarily underwritten by the real estate piece. There's a boom going on right now, unlike anything I've ever seen. It's down there, close to you, out from Hope Sound and other places in Florida, where they're building terrific golf courses, but they're building them as what we would call four golf courses, where you have a block of golf or you have a block of golf picture a frying pan on an oven and the golf course is the frying pan and all the real estate or residential is around the outside of it.
Speaker 2:You're not lining the fairways with homes and what that does is create a better opportunity for making really cool golf course. Golf course, you don't have to worry about views from homeowners or or runoff and stuff, and can move dirt up, and they can. You can lift dirt, so you so that you're creating uphill shots when you're not blocking views from homes, because you struggle, as I mentioned, you struggle to create the third dimension here in florida, and so it lets you take the components of your development, of your community and kind of place them where they really kind of want to be, rather than mesh them all together in a in a real uniform model of land plan.
Speaker 2:that was done before so that you create the value of the, of the address of the of the community, rather than the individual address of each home along the fairway. So the whole place goes up in value as the golf course is better, your recreational amenities are better, you've created neighborhoods more neighborhood-like, rather than long runs of homes and stuff along roads, and that has gained traction as a favorable model for design and land planning.
Speaker 1:Well, and it sounds like you're spreading out the enhanced real property value amongst all the homes, not just the ones sitting on the golf course.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. Yeah, well said.
Speaker 1:And it also sounds like you have as a golf course designer in that type of concept, you have more freedom when it comes to designing the course.
Speaker 2:That's exactly correct.
Speaker 1:I assume you like this trend, Eric.
Speaker 2:The trend is good is because it makes the quality of each component better and more unique. It makes each development its own character and I believe I think that's very important just for the golf course itself. There are a lot of designers that do a certain style and it's been very successful for them, and there are our group. When I was with Arnold, with Palmer, we didn't have a certain style. We did a lot of different types of things, and you know. So there's just there's a different way to go about that.
Speaker 2:I believe that the golf course should have the character. Go about that. I believe that the golf course should have the character it shouldn't be of the character of the architect, so that it is a reflection of the community of which the golf course resides. That applies also to the entire amenity package Is there green space, you have walking trails, pickleball is a huge new thing growing flash pools, et cetera. As those things come together by the portfolio of what those items are, along with where you place them and how you interact in that community, gives the place its character. And that's, I mean, let's face it, golf is just, at its basis, a social gathering, form of recreation. That's what it's about. It happens to be well underwritten with infrastructure of maintaining golf courses and an entire you know a handicap system in the PGA where you can have events and drive action together, interaction events, et cetera, all creating this terrific venue and very important venue for communities, as it turns out, and it's even being exposed even more as being a very valuable amenity and recreational activity for humans.
Speaker 1:In this new venue concept Eric, what would be the driving factor for the character of the community? Would it be the golf course or is it all? Would it be the homes? Would it be the other recreational amenities, or do you believe the golf course is still the driving factor in terms of establishing the character for that community?
Speaker 2:This is a really good question and I hope there's some. I wish there would be a developer that could call in and echo what I'm about to say in that in the past it used to be the golf course. Golf was king and it was the character driver oh, I'm at, you know wherever. Oh, yeah, the golf course is great and that's still important. Golf is still important, but it is only important now as a piece of the amenity package, which must include family-oriented activity besides golf, where you can go in. Again, it's all about social interaction, and that interaction now has transcended from just golf to the other forms of recreation and activity or even business centers within the clubhouse sort of thing. Golf is all I mean. You see it in golf itself. If I let me get let me not get over my skis here and stick with my own, my own skillset Golf itself has changed in that, like you were saying, you like to play the par three, par three holes.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of people so much so that it's the number one added activity to. I call it real golf. There's off-course golf and there's on-course golf now, with off-course golf, the phenomenon that top golf has created is actually the fastest-growing sport. It's the fastest-growing sport and it's a much faster growing segment of golf than on-course golf. The fastest growing segment of on-course golf is this I call it fun golf, small golf, and it may just a space for um for, for, for less than regulation, whole golf in close to the clubhouse, close to food and beverage, and there's probably an entertainment piece to it. You've got a, you know, a a little food court or or, or a banner or an extension of the clubhouse that services that area where you're playing golf. You're out there by the amount of time you have. You can go out there for 15 minutes, you can go out there for two hours, whatever amount of time you had, which, which is a very important thing, issue in golf is the amount of time it takes.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you that what's driving this trend? Because I'm listening to you lay this out and I'm thinking two things. One, I'm thinking our shortened detention span. So I assume it's much shorter game of golf when you call the fun golf as opposed to the 18 holes. But secondly, the family oriented activity. Is that a reflection, Eric, of the fact that some golf courses in communities have had to close over the years because there've been fewer golfers and this maybe brings out this new trend, brings out the whole family. So grandma and grandpa are doing one thing, Parents are doing another thing. You know teen kids are doing something else. Is that what we're seeing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's two or three things in what you said and I'll go to the time issue first. It was shown that pre-COVID golf was suffering in its participation and the primary factor was the amount of time it took. So certainly this small golf is a solution to that. You can go play by the amount of time you have, rather than you can hit, stand on the first tee and four hours later, plus, you're going to finish on 18 and you have to, or two if you only play nine. So it's a solution to that. One. Two is it's very hard for a beginner. We've discovered it as you alluded to it at the top of the call. Golf's a hard game and it's hard for a person who doesn't play the game to go stand on the first tee and play a regulation golf course. It's hard. Two or three holes into it, they're going holy cow. I've got 15 more holes of this, so it can be. You know, it's the moral.
Speaker 1:Eric, I have news for you. I have friends and partners who've been playing the same course for 15 years and by the second hole they're already saying I've got.
Speaker 2:X number of holes.
Speaker 1:It's hard for them too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're saying uncle, uncle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2:Well, so the small golf, fun golf, is an interim step between not playing and playing regulation golf. You can go out there and practice. You can get good instruction now that's another key part to this via simulators or just pros on the ground helping you with your, with your short game, so that you learned how to make get the ball in the hole and you don't have to, you know, take full swings and hit the ball and chase it down out of your backyard, you know. So it's an interim step between not playing and being a, say, a core golfer. That's two and then three.
Speaker 2:I mean I can go out there on that putting green or on that short course with my grandchild, with my buddies, you know, with a beer, with a group of us, and play as a social venue. You know an after round thing or an event type thing. Yeah, you can do all that. It opens up a whole new opportunity as a revenue producer as well as satisfaction for members and community. You know, people, residents in the community. It's a new, it's a, it's an incremental revenue source and it's an incremental activity that was never used, never discovered. You know it's what is incremental, it's it's found and it's consistent. Well, that's happening with this, this small golf component. I'm I'm thrilled about it. It's a it's a blast. If you've never done it, you can go to a big putting green in Puttergrain, go to a short game area and just goof around for a while with your friends. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to keep my eyes open. Listen, I've been to Topgolf. That's a lot of fun. So what you're describing, I'm going to keep my eyes open in my area to see if that's you know, something that's going to start cropping up more and more often.
Speaker 2:And it's real golf too. It's not hitting off a mat necessarily and into a net. You're still out there in the open space and real grass and you have the real feeling of connection of hitting a golf ball, you know. So it's a real deal, it's fun, it's a lot of fun. It's kind of has become the snowboard, you know, the snowboard of golfing.
Speaker 1:Okay, now you go too far, because I'm a seer.
Speaker 2:Well, you don't like snowboarders, Gotcha Okay. No, all right you don't have a snowboarding resurrected scheme right, that's true, snowboarding really helped that. The what it's keen right Snowboarding really helped that. I'm not sure I know what industry you'd call that, but this is what this small golf is doing for golf too.
Speaker 1:Well, you're right. I mean, I think you're right, I think innovation is always going to drive attention to the underlying industry, right? Or maybe it's become a little stale over time, but I wanted to go back to. We were talking about designing the course from scratch. I imagine you've got a parcel of land. You've got a lot of wildlife living on that land. What do you do? Do you even get involved as a designer, Eric, in terms of what you do with the wildlife, relocating it, the impact the course will have on that wildlife?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, we do. We probably are not the primary consultant in that regard, but we are initially into the property and the land plan. So, as I said before earlier, you identify those areas. If habitat is a key part, identify it and designate it and stay away from it. The terms are avoid, minimize and enhance. So you try to do those things.
Speaker 2:I happen to love birds, I love our Florida birds, particularly the big birds, and Audubon Sanctuary has a program that you can apply for and they bring you guidelines and regulation of how that are tried and true for how to protect wildlife particularly, and the course can get that distinction and award for that type of work. There's a number of different environmental awards. You know that all go hand toto-hand with environmental and wildlife. They go together right. So you identify those places, protect them If there's a lot of. You know if you've got stuff that needs to be removed tortoises, go for tortoises. You know that's problematic and probably is more costly. They tend now to be, tends to be too costly to remove and mitigate those animals than it is to build the golf course and sell real estate whatever it is. So they get saved and the government has done a good job of protecting them in that regard.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about the pesky gopher in the movie.
Speaker 2:Caddyshack's a buried animal.
Speaker 1:He should not be on the golf course well, he was on that golf course in that movie yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:By the way, that's a classic in our office back when there was 10 of us and 12 of us in the palmer office. Just a funny story. We somebody would start a line in that movie and and an hour later it would finish and we had all gone through different parts. Everybody knew every line in that movie along the way.
Speaker 1:Hey, even in my law firm we all mostly know every line in that movie. But it's funny you talk. I mean listen, when it comes to wildlife you've got courses. I'm sure where people are hitting near some dangerous animals like alligators. On my course we seem to be inundated with noisy Egyptian geese. They're everywhere and I don't think anybody imported these animals. I think they just found the golf course and they like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're problematic and they're aggressive too. Too, as you know, as you probably know, they're aggressive. Don't, uh, don't get, don't get too close. They can be controlled with a dog. It usually is kind of the best way is to. You know, border collies are really good at that, and maybe two where they're, so they don't just chase them from one end to the other of the golf course. Um, but that you know, rather than eliminating them.
Speaker 2:That's than eliminating them. That's a biological way to control them. But in the wildlife, with the habitat and how to help protect that, you want to save them and keep the places intact, but try to keep green corridors connecting them too, that go off property so that they have a corridor in which to travel. They live a whole different. You know they live in a different place than we do. Some of them tend to like the golf course, as those geese do, but the others are going to want to stay. They want to stay in their native habitat. So, rather than isolating them, give them access at either end of of their of their home so that they can travel off property and out into the native areas, if there are any around.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. So I have to ask you you worked for the Arnold Palmer Company for so long. Was Arnold Palmer really involved? What was it like working with him?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, I did. I worked for him for 29 years and he was very involved. He was not involved in design of bunker right, bunker left, or what are you doing on this golf hole. He was not. He was completely involved in every project we had. Who was the client, where was the site? What are they like? He really wanted to know what the people were like more than anything, and he gave us mandates for design. They were general but they were fundamental and I've used them still to this day. A couple of them. Well, very, very early on, it was look, eric, you're spending somebody else's money. Do it with integrity, be careful, do it, do it right, do it right and do it once. Don't make you know, don't make mistakes, don't check and double check. He was very conscious of that. He that we were working for other people and we were. We were to satisfy that piece first. Um, as far as the golf design it's and that was the way we were with the company Everything it was fair, do it fair, and that's just typical of Arnold Palmer.
Speaker 1:He was that. Yeah, that's great advice for any industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and he lived it. He was that. Everything you hear about Arnold is basically true. He was of his goodness, his gentleman-ness, his character. He was that way every day. Every gentleman-ness, his character. He was that way every day, every moment that I was around him.
Speaker 2:He was just a kind, very wise, very wise and practical guy that came out in the golf course design. That, he would tell us, is that look, don't hide any features, make it fun for everybody first. Don't make these things hard. Make it fun for everybody first. Don't make these things hard, make them fun for everybody, but set it up so that if they want to have a tournament on Sunday, there's some pins we can get tucked to make it challenging or you've got a hazard in a place. That can be a good strategy, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:But he was concerned primarily with it being friendly first before challenging. And he and it was also make them beautiful. Make them beautiful, not just, not just, okay, make them beautiful. He said if, if people get done with the golf course and they go, they don't say much, you don't have much. But if they say, man, I hate that golf course or I love that golf course, which you're going to get both, then you've probably done something to provoke emotion and you're going to have fun with it. But he was just a very common sense guy. He was a you know. I could go on for a long time of stories about him and just the evidence, one day after the other, of his character is caring for other people. You didn't hear him say I he was.
Speaker 1:It was golf did this for me, or you know well you were with him for 29 years, so that's quite a testament to the partnership you created. What, what would you say, are some of the most memorable courses you designed and and what made them so special?
Speaker 2:well, he never really looked at plans much and that's all we did, really, unless we were out in the dirt getting them built. We're working on plans and here he comes I think it was a yellow cardigan sweater that day and he comes walking into the office with this roll of plans under his arm. I'm going oh, this is going to be good, I haven't seen this one yet. And he comes rolling back a little grin. What do you look? You know, doesn't take him out from under his arm. And everybody's just going oh man, I'm following around like a puppy right now, going what it? Just come on, quit teasing, roll the plans out. Well, it's pebble beach. And, um, he was on the board and we got to basically touch up every golf hole a little bit at Pebble Beach Golf Links and those changes are still out there and they're still good. It was primarily for all of you that know that golf course, certainly have seen it on television.
Speaker 2:He, which was a little bit unlike Arnold, which a little atypical of Mr Palmer was. He pinched the features from number six on six through ten, closer to the ocean, closer to the cliff, to make the tee shots more narrow, to make them a little bit tougher, and it really did create a little bit more challenge in the golf course. That it was okay. He wanted to do it a long time and we did it, Moved some tees back, but that was obviously a big deal.
Speaker 1:What about international? What about one of your most memorable international courses?
Speaker 2:Well, my good friend and colleague at Palmer for many years I was not project architect but Harrison Minchu was designed the K golf course for for Jefferson Smurfett and they played a Ryder cup over there and we all went over and enjoyed that. So that was, you know, feather in our cap and a feather in our cap as well. But you know, we there's 200, there's 250, some Palmer courses to pick from Donna and we lived every one of them. We'd lived every golf hole, you know, and did the best we could on all of them. I designed the golf course with another colleague, thad Layton, in Kazakhstan for President Nazarbayev at the time in his yard, I think they played In his yard.
Speaker 1:How many holes was that, golf course.
Speaker 2:His yard was basically Kazakhstan, I think. So anyway, they played a tournament. They did play a tournament there, but I think on that day there was probably the only time there were more. You know, there were probably 140 players, whatever it was.
Speaker 1:That was an 18 hole course in his front yard.
Speaker 2:Ma'am, yes, it was, but he never nobody played it.
Speaker 1:I mean was he at least a good golfer? What was his handicap?
Speaker 2:You know, honestly, I didn't meet him. I'm not sure he even played it. It was for diplomats and dignitaries. You know it was. That's a different. You know I fell. I fell off of that bus a long time ago. They're in a different, that's a different category. But I will tell you about Kazakhstan, which was interesting. I went to lunch, we went up the mountain. We could see the mountains there and I went up to and we were at 12,000 feet and it was like being on the plains and I'm looking and there's another 14,000 feet above us of mountain. Mountains were 24,000 feet high compared to the Rockies or 14. It was just, it was like mind-boggling of how big those tall, those mountains were.
Speaker 2:Back then we did a golf course in Jackson Hole, wyoming. You'd think, oh my gosh, the mountains. It was right underneath Howling Wolf and the Grand Tetons. It was the flattest golf course I've ever worked on. It was dead flat. There was one foot of fall from one end of the golf course to the other. It's because the Snake River had. It was in the Snake River, not even the floodplain, more like it's a wash.
Speaker 1:Have you played Eric on every course you designed?
Speaker 2:No, I haven't played, not while they were open, not while they were open. I played them all before they got open and we'd call it dirt golf.
Speaker 1:Why did you call? It dirt golf.
Speaker 2:Because they hadn't been grassed yet.
Speaker 1:Oh, they hadn't.
Speaker 2:And they were dirt or sand or whatever. But I have done that and I played a lot of them that are open and I'm a member of a couple of them that are that are open and and really, really enjoy all that how's your golf game these days? Well, um, I'm okay, I'm a, I'm a two handicap I'm working at. I'm trying to shoot my age I'm 70, as I said, Did you say you're a two.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you if it was appropriate for me to inquire about your handicap. Did you say you're a two handicap?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am, but I'm quite a pigeon at two, so any other two handicappers are going to be licking his chops when I'm on the tee with them.
Speaker 1:I know some people are going to be very jealous hearing your handicap. So, eric, we've been talking about golf courses when everything goes right. Can we take a moment to talk about golf courses where things start going wrong and the course may be failing due to aging members, lack of new members, climbing expenses, whatever it may be In your opinion, climbing expenses, whatever it may be in your opinion, what is the best case scenario to pull a failing golf course out of that path, that downward spiral, and what's the worst case scenario that might occur?
Speaker 2:yeah, donna, this is a terrific question because in the last decade or so up until just recently, when golf has turned back around, kind of just right around, started covid through. Now, as we've talked about, it's gotten to be robust. Before that it was not in fact the entire golf development, let's say our new golf course business, renovation business, was in a spiral, downward spiral, for many reasons. One you know, one is, as we talked, it just takes a lot of time to play golf, it's expensive, et cetera. So there there were a lot of those cases. We closed more golf courses than we opened by five, seven times for 10, 15 years in a row. And it was a real issue.
Speaker 2:They closed for a number of reasons, but primarily clubs are in the dues, private clubs are in the dues business and public municipal facilities are in the greens feed business. So you need players, you need, you need to get people there and all the clubs are complete, competing with the same, with the same basket of new players. So how do you? How players? So how do you grab them? How do you capture them If the club has not escrowed money for capital improvements to continue to improve their place and keep it up in competition competitively with conditionings, or it's going to struggle and it's going to continue to decline. They go into the spiral and eventually may close. That would be worst case scenario and past that then a large developer who was able to carry the burden of holding that land until he can get it permitted for development very likely may convert the whole thing into a real estate piece, and there's a tough one because of all the homeowners that bought in the community have lost that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Do you think some of it is oversaturation in the market, Eric? So you may have some areas where you just have way too many golf courses, both private and municipal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's the case. I think that certainly contributed to the issue. We built so many. Look, golf was driven through the early 2010 by the real estate component and it was kind of build it and they will come, and by housing. Well, that did not prove to be true. So what do we do with these facilities that are struggling like this? How do we help them? How do we resurrect them?
Speaker 2:And I've got a lot of experience in a model that's not not well known and it can be. It can be completely a rejuvenation of the place and I've done it a couple times that I can share. But it's an infill model of real estate, basically, where you look carefully at the layout of the golf course and you'll find that there are empty spaces, and not everywhere. And this doesn't fit everywhere. In fact, it only fits in a few places, and not everywhere. And this doesn't fit everywhere. In fact it only fits in a few places. But if a golf course is of size enough that it has empty spaces between golf holes, there are methods. There are land planning methods, golf course routing methods where you can move golf holes closer together and kind of push all the extra space into one bundle or two bundles, provided access, and then develop it um as as a uh. Generally typically they work as single family home neighborhoods within the golf course. Now you can't um change the use behind any of the existing homes because you'll get pushback from those homeowners.
Speaker 2:But developers, who would be the ones that bring the capital to the table, and let's talk about what this provides is that a developer would come, you do a land plan, you free up some space that is a developable type pod, let's say, within the facility. Developer likes that because there is infrastructure in place, generally there's already utilities brought to the facility, there's critical mass and that it's already an area where there are home. You know there is a neighborhood or community or town and there is a vibrancy. There's a pent up vibrancy in the, in the club or in the community. So he'll bring capital by the land here Club, sell me this land.
Speaker 2:I like your plan. I may tweak it a little bit, but but we'll, we'll work on that. Here is capital for your plan and what for the land. And what I'm going to do then is I will mandate membership on the new homes, on the new residences, not with the buyer but with the residents, so that if the buyer, the homeowner, moves out, the membership resides in that property. So the next buyer is a member as well. So you generate capital from the land sale and incremental, which is found in recurring revenue through dues for the sale of that property.
Speaker 1:So that's what I wanted to. I wanted to jump in and say that because it can't just be a band-aid. You'll certainly get the influx of cash when you develop the property, like you're saying. By the way, my own golf course, where I live in my home community, the equity members were contemplating this infill model before. Ultimately, they sold to two individuals who took over the course and they've done a great job. But this was on the plate, this was on the table, this exact model which there was property that they could carve out from the golf course. They were going to develop a series of townhomes. Of course, in our community it would have required a completely different road to get into that community and we're an existing HOA. There were issues with having those heavy trucks come down the main road. All of that could have been overcome, but this was the exact model they were considering before they took a different path.
Speaker 1:There are some interesting challenges when it comes to mandating memberships, particularly something as significant as golf membership. Right, we're not talking about just a social membership where you have to go eat some you know food at the club once a month or once a quarter. Golf membership is a little bit more of an investment of time and money. So you know, you have to look at the documents. You have to see whether or not the golf course is part of common area for that HOA or it's separate. It was a private club, but it is an interesting model and it is certainly available. Having the new community set up from inception with membership being mandatory is much different than a community trying to force mandatory membership later on. It's a change of development scheme.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no question about it. Change is hard to accept and at your place, where the white knights came in and bought it and kept it in place and build it up, there's your ultimate, you know best, scenario. But if the white knight does not show up, this is a method that can be done. Where I've done it the most successful was here in Atlantic Beach, florida. Up here it's a beach community of Jacksonville. We had a 180-acre golf course. It was in the death spiral for memberships and shareholders and we reconfigured the golf course and freed up 175 single-family high-end residential lots right in the middle of the golf course. And another point to the neighborhood is they all wind up with golf frontage as well, so a developer buys the land and helps subsidize the fix-up of a new clubhouse. And then the mandate of membership was social only. They did not mandate full golf membership. It was a minimal mandate of a social membership which consequently they have. 90% of them have all upgraded to full golf membership.
Speaker 1:That's always the hope, isn't it? But in our situation, there wasn't going to be enough available space to build enough homes to really make a difference in terms of running the club. So that's another thing to think about is how many members are going to be carrying, how many new members are going to be carrying those expenses. And I still think you need to look at the underlying causes of why the club started dying in the first place, don't you think?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely. And in this case at Atlantic Beach, it was because the conditions had gotten so bad because of a poor water quality of irrigation. It had to really redo the entire irrigation system and it needed a large influx of cash for capital to rebuild the place. So it was much larger scale, yes, than what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 2:I am doing another project here close by. We're doing basically the same thing, only it's much smaller scale. Took a golf hole. That was not a good hole golf hole. It had a sharp dog leg to the right, causing a liability issue on the inside of the landing area for the homeowner, causing a liability issue on the inside of the landing area for the homeowner. Straightened that hole out and created just a little.
Speaker 2:It's a seven-acre parcel that Slough has decided okay, great, you fixed a bad golf hole. We have this in our pocket now. Should we want to develop the 15 lots that could come out of this later, but it did provide, could come out of this later, but it did provide minimally. They've got a liability issue. That went away. But they now also have. As, hopefully, prices escalate, land value goes up, they'll have a little nest egg of a property piece they could sell down the road for capital improvements. It doesn't fit everywhere and the scale of it they're all different in scale and in concept and in layout, but it is an alternative to closure. That should be, or it's something that should be, considered prior to closure and it should be considered prior to a sale of the entire facility?
Speaker 1:Yeah, something for sure that should be investigated. I do want to add that in a lot of instances there may be a restrictive covenant on the golf course property and if that covenant is still effective, that covenant may prohibit any sort of development on the property. The land which requires that real property to remain open space for recreational use such as a golf course, doesn't mean you can't overcome it, but I agree with you, eric. I think that when you've got a failing golf course you have to investigate all possible avenues to success.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is simply an option to pursue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you've been listen. You've been so great with your time today. This has been such an interesting topic. I'm excited to see the new trends. You talk about the fun golf or short golf venue. Where can people find you? And please tell us what you're doing these days in terms of design. Who's your target client?
Speaker 2:Well, my target client is anybody that's going to build a golf course or renovate their golf course, and I can help with that. I have a lot of experience in a lot of different types and tend to keep an eye more so on it from a business aspect, particularly as a part of a community than as a standalone type golf course. I will say that with envy to the others that have had this opportunity. I really haven't had the opportunity of a world-class site where I can go do a fantastic Sandhills or Band and Dudes type facility and those are happening around here and I would love to have that opportunity. My skill set tends to be more in the, you know, in the satisfaction as the golf as part of a community. Just to just our audience here, look, my phone number, if anybody cares, is 904-631-7480, 904-631-7480. And you can email me and I will respond equally and look forward to hearing from anybody. Eric is with a K-E-R-I-K at Larson L-A-R-S-E-N golf, like the game of golf dot net Eric at LarsonGolfnet. Donna, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks, eric. Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform, or visit TakeItToTheBoardcom for more ways to connect.