Episode 92: Robert Trent Jones Jr.

In this conversation, Robert Trent Jones Jr. discusses his work on Corica Park, emphasizing the importance of sustainability and playability in golf course design. He shares insights from his career, including his family's influence and the collaborative nature of golf architecture. The conversation highlights the need for courses to engage players of all skill levels and the role of environmental considerations in modern golf course design. In this conversation, RTJ Jr. discusses the cultural differences in golf between the East and West, emphasizing the community value of public golf courses. He shares insights on the challenges faced during the restoration of Chambers Bay, a former quarry-turned golf course, and reflects on the evolution of golf course design. RTJ Jr. also imagines the possibility of building a golf course in Antarctica, highlighting the environmental concerns associated with the region.

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Transcript

Sean
Want to welcome in Robert Trent Jones Jr. He is in Hawaii. is has directed me that in Hawaii he is Bobby. So Bobby, thank you so much for joining amateur golf.com's podcast today.

Tali (04:38.673)
Happy to be with you, Sean.

Sean (04:43.094)
It's an honor to chat with you. You are, I'm jealous here in Hawaii. It feels balmy here and it's 48 degrees in Boston. In Hawaii, what are you up to in Hawaii? What are you working on? What projects do you have going on right now, just as far as how do you fill your day?

Tali (04:49.532)
Yeah.

Tali (05:01.681)
Well, we have a beach house here for 50 years. Fortunately, when we built the Prince Course many, many years ago, they ran out of money, but they had this consultant house, an old beach house that was for the Princeville Ranch manager. They had cattle ranch that was managed by them and say, hey, can you, would you like to, we pay your family debt, which was then $55,000 with this house. I said, I don't have any money to maintain it. Two young children.

And they said, well, it's really worth 110. And I said, I don't have that. Forget it. He said, well, if you can get Dan Jenkins to come out and write a story in Sports Illustrated, he can have the other half of the house. So that's how we ended up with this house. Best bad debt I ever had. Spent a lot of time here with family and friends and you should come and join us sometime, Sean.

Sean (05:50.83)
I would love to. And you do a little work in Hawaii and you've got, so what projects are kind of on your list right now? What are you working on?

Tali (06:02.034)
Well, we just remodeled, renovated the Mauna Kea golf course and the Big Island. I worked on it for my father in the sixties when it was his design. It was altered by my brother Reese in 2008, I think. And the Japanese ownership now, and the original ownership was Lawrence Rockefeller. Well, it's been taken over, owned by Japanese interest in the, somebody once asked me, how many golf architects are there? I said, how many owners are there?

They all have an idea of how the course should be made, harder to be better. And he persuaded my brother and his team to put in 16 bunkers, very deep and hard to play. It was not popular. So the current ownership decided to have us try to restore it, which we did. And that just opened two weeks ago. Jim Nance came for the opening and he stood on the famous third tee across the ocean and I stood on the green and people were surprised to see us there.

So we had a good time. then I went to Oahu Country Club. Oahu is an old classic private club, and they're talking about updating their course. I'm now in Kauai, where we have been giving some advice to the Prince course, which is now called North Shore Preserve. It had been out of play for 10 years for complicated ownership reasons. And I played it last weekend.

You people say, do you play golf? I said, does a chef eat? After you do all this work, you're going to enjoy the meal you created, right? And I played yesterday at the Princeville course, which is going through its own changes of ownership and interest. So I'm pretty busy having fun. It's not bad. I'm happy my daughter's here. My granddaughter's birthday is tomorrow. She'll be 15. So we're going to have a little family celebration.

Sean (07:53.698)
That's lovely. You mentioned your dad. I think there are some kids and some people who go completely divergent of the family business, of what the parents do. They want nothing to do with it. You obviously are on the other end of that spectrum, went into golf course design. As you kind of look back and when you made that decision or just what pulled you into wanting to be

a golf could kind of follow in your father's footsteps in whatever way that means to you as well.

Tali (08:28.38)
So like you Sean, I'm an East Coast person. grew up in New Jersey. Went through public high school, Montclair High School. And I played the sports that all kids played. Too short for basketball, not big enough for football. Okay, and soccer, which was then a new sport. But my dad said, when I dropped the fly ball in baseball, said, Bobby, you're on your own in golf. You don't have to be embarrassed. You win or lose on your own. That kind of intrigued me, the individualism of it.

And so I hit a lot of golf balls in the backyard, in the bushel baskets and chipped and putted. And of course he was going a lot on work, but he helped me. then I caddied, worked on a green screw, the bulldozer in Wilmington, Delaware. And so I was in his business, even though it was a family business, he was training me without me realizing he was inspiring. Now my mother, on the other hand, she was an academic, went to Wells College, Phi Beta Kappa.

in philosophy and English and she wanted my brother and I to be good in academics. So the main thing in our family was whatever you choose to do, be the best at it. So we tried to do that. So initially I went to Yale on to graduate, encouraged by my mother and she had no, I played first man for Yale my senior year, played, we were Eastern champions one year or so. It's a way back, great golf course, hard golf course. It's part of the reasons I went, was able to, I wanted to go to Yale and they let me matriculate. So,

She said, well, now what are you going to do, Bobby? And those days in the late early sixties, you know, you just kept going in academics. You went into a family business. And so I said, I don't know, but I want to get out of New England. I want to try something else. So I ended up at Stanford, went to law school for a year. Figured those guys argue all the time. Didn't want to do that. said, dad, can I work for you? And he said, okay, we have work we're doing in Spyglass Hill, Monika. That sounds a lot better than writing briefs in a law library. So I was.

hooked and i prentice him for about ten years for started my own business

Sean (10:33.366)
I have my own memories of Yale golf course. went to Holy Cross, played many, you know, a couple of years of college golf and just got my butt kicked in cold April's out at Yale golf course, trying to hit long shots over that into the ninth green while waiting for, you know, three or four groups on the tee box. That place is outstanding. I'm excited to see what it looks like when it's all said and done next year.

Tali (11:01.285)
Yeah, we did, we, Pro Bono sent them a plan of some of our thoughts to extend the T's, lengthen the course somewhat. But the actual bones of the course are great as they are. It was C.B. MacDonald, Rayner was his superintendent. But it's really a C.B. MacDonald's use of the civil engineering designs of the famous holes in Scotland where he mimicked them at the National, Yale, Chicago Golf, and so on.

So it's, and it's extremely well executed. The difference is as you played it in April, I also played it sometimes in March and sometimes with snow in a match and the other team wanted to quit and said, no, no, no, I'm three up. We're going to finish. Anyway, it's a hard test of golf, but if you, if you know it, you know where to play. that's what, you know, you got to play that golf course more than once. Like if you really want to know the character of a.

Sean (11:41.71)
Man.

Tali (11:58.659)
beautiful lady you better dance with her more than once.

Sean (12:04.834)
You are, I've noticed you love the analogies. You talk about art and poetry while you're, know, kind of blending in your, and obviously you mentioned being a chef and eating and that kind of, that side of things. I think the, for me, the, what stands out or what your kind of common thread is, and you mentioned it before we hit record here, is kind of that idea of sustainability and playability. And you have been kind of,

working on reopening or opening the back nine of Corrica Park in Alameda, California, a place I have never been. I am in Boston, like you said, a East coaster over here. Could you just kind of give us a little, some thoughts about how Corrica Park fits into that sustainability playability for to someone who has only seen it on the internet?

Tali (13:03.426)
Well, first of all, at this point in my career, I get to kind of pick and choose what interests me. I have a great team. Bruce Charlton is my partner. My son Trent's working and running the business. Mike Gorman and others assist us. Golf architecture is a collaborative effort. And then you work with the shapers, the contractors, and of course the owner and his team. So it's an endless, it's a long process to get from

creative thinking to implementing the course to finally playing it. It's a natural game, takes time for grass to grow, so you have to be patient. In terms of Carica, it was a relatively flat public golf course from well-respected. It's a windy site near Alameda in the southeast bay of this great San Francisco bay, but a lot of people would play in tournaments there.

was a wonderful teacher from Mississippi, Lucius Bateman, who taught young people for nothing. He was black and he found his way in California, where was much more open to where he was from in Mississippi. And he stayed there and it was an excellent player and a great teacher. taught Tony Lima, others. So it's got a great history of interesting people attracted to the course. Now fast forward to a few years ago and

course needed renovation and remodeling much like some of the courses I mentioned in Hawaii needed. A golf course is no different from a house. You've got to keep painting it or it's going to crumble a little bit and you have to update it. In the case of golf course, there's technical issues, subterranean you don't see like irrigation and drainage. But then when you do that, you can also change the shot values, the actual golf, the way in which the philosophy of the defense. If you're an attacker, Sean, I'm on defense. I'm in the goal. If you're playing

hockey, you're trying to get the puck past me. Now Pete Dye might go left, I might go right, Jack Nichols might go straight at you, Jack plays both ways. We have tendencies. In fact, if you really want to think about how to improve your game, you might want to read my book called Golf by Design, published by Little Brown in the 90s, it reached that, which I'm telling you how to think on a golf course. So what we did at Carica is add the element of thinking. Thinking is strategic golf. When you first see the hole,

Tali (15:28.748)
and this is a public golf, so maybe you won't have played it ever, your golfer's eye might see two or three different ways to play it, options. And that's what we tried to do as we updated the North course. So anyway, that's kind of what we were doing is to add the element of choice thinking, which means strategic golf.

Sean (15:54.858)
As I was looking at the overhead of the golf course, tons of water kind of blended in and there's kind of what's your favorite, you mentioned deep playing defense. What are your kind of favorite types of defense? You've got, know, there's zone defense in basketball, there's man to man. Which ones for you do you find you like to utilize the most or that you kind of use the most?

Tali (16:22.124)
Well, the classic definition of the defenses is in links golf, that's penal. You make a mistake. You're either in the Gorse, the Heather, or in a revetted bunker and you have to, you lose a stroke. You have to play out of it. You can't advance the ball. Strategic golf or the American style of golf is parkland, generally speaking, because as a game migrated around the world with the British empire, when it got to Canada and the United States, there are lots of trees. And so we carved out.

our predecessor golf architects and golf owners carved out 18 holes in the woods, in Boston. And so occasionally you might be in the cave or someplace of that more sandy, links-like site. So the main thing you do, and you asked me this question earlier, what do you do when you, what is your first thing you do? My taught by my father, always follow the land. If you've got links land, such as in the cave, or if you have park land, such as,

in Maine and inland and Massachusetts, you use what's there. And there are different styles. So we try to do just that. And the Cureca is kind of an open, flat land with lots of water. It's on the San Francisco Bay. There's marshes. Drainage is important. And having the channels of drainage go to those lakes is natural. So we're following the land and its character. But from a playing point of view,

A is a much more severe punishment for a misplaced shot than, a bunker or behind a tree. At least in a bunker, you might be able to save a shot. As Bobby Jones once said, the difference between a bunker and a lake, he was speaking about Augusta, is the difference between a car crash and an airplane crash. You can recover from the former, but not the latter.

Sean (18:19.224)
Sustainability wise, what about Corica stands out as you were working on it and kind of developing or bringing to life that back nine of the North course?

Tali (18:34.058)
Yeah, as you may know, there are two kareekas. My brother remodeled one and his elements that he and his team used were bunkers. They're very dramatic, nicely, beautifully shaped, and that's an aerial game. You have to play to avoid them, play over them, around them, but don't play into them. Where we have less bunkers, our style here was to take the landscape, add a third dimension, and have the fairways or the position on the fairly wide fairways challenge you.

to be a kind of a, if you're on the wrong side of fairway, the approach shot will be much more difficult. The fairways are the hazard. In terms of environmental aspects, therefore we use Bermuda grass. Bermuda grass is unusual in Northern California. It can be okay, but it's not always the case. But it'll turn brown in the winter. It'll be hard, firm, and fast. Your ball will bounce lot.

and it'll be like a Lynx characteristic with the ball running. So it's more like paying pass your pull. You can use the slopes to bank a shot off toward a green. So you have to really play there more than once to understand the nature of the defenses and opportunities. So using that environmental issue, avoid the water, which is naturally there. You can see it. Use the bump and run style of the ground.

And that's basically mixing the environmental aspect of it with a selection of Bermuda grass with the playability of the course.

Sean (20:12.362)
There's that aspect of just wanting people to return, right? Giving them options that when they finish the hole, they look back and think, I could have tried it this way. Next time I'm here, I'm not hitting driver off his tee. Or next time I'm here, if I'm 20 yards off the green, I might actually putt it because my wedge did not do what I wanted to do. And it looks like, as hearing you talk and seeing images of the golf course, there are golf holes and greens that are half

no bunkers on the north on that back nine of the north course. Or there's just maybe one cross bunker, you know, 100 yards out, I think. So yeah, that's another aspect of I think golf. It's so intriguing when you can play a golf course that draws you back, because you have to think on the tee box. I love holes that make you have a conversation with your foursome on the tee box and people have like a stack of clubs.

Tali (21:06.494)
with your head and maybe have a conversation with yourself. You might have three or four options and you got to think about it. Now you have to pick one, then you have to commit, then you hit the shot. And that's strategic golf. And that's what we tried to do to distinguish the two courses. One is a aerial game and ours is, I would describe more as a ground game. Bump and run, use your putter.

Sean (21:12.938)
Yes.

Tali (21:34.431)
different kinds of shots are available to Texas wedge whatever comes to your mind, whatever you feel good you can play. But it's true the short game here is a carica that we did is much more fascinating and I would say it presents more challenge than just hitting the ball into the green and it stops somewhere and two puts and you're on, you're off again.

Sean (21:58.446)
It also feels like that attracts just different levels of golf too, right? It can spark the imagination of a single digit handicap who wants to be creative and maybe hit a shot with a wedge or a seven iron versus someone else who might be completely brand new to the game. There are a lot of those people right now. I don't know if you knew that golf has exploded in the last five years. And giving them the option to just, I can just.

advance the ball and roll it and feel good about what I'm doing and maybe down the road I'll hit it be able to hit a different shot but for now I want to feel good about just getting the ball in the green and getting the ball in the hole.

Tali (22:37.45)
Yeah, I think that's true, Sean. This is a golf course which is wide fairways, therefore you can miss hit a shot and still be in play. But when as it narrows toward the green and finally the hole itself, you better put on your thinking cap and you better go get some lessons from the local pro about various ways to chip and putt. And on the other hand, for a beginner, there's plenty of room to miss the shot and still be in the game. And therefore.

You're right, the game has grown rapidly, especially due to the pandemic when families went out and played because that's all they could do during that period of time. And they got intrigued to play together. So it's a playable golf course for all sorts of skill levels and different kinds of fun times for each other, with each other.

Sean (23:30.03)
Maybe not, could, you can talk specifically about Karika here or just your kind of experiences in general, just public golf and working on public golf courses, whether it's from scratch or what you, know, kind of coming in and helping a golf course renovate, remodel, redesign or whatever the new reword is that people use these days. What does,

kind of how does that work kind of impact you and what do you love about just like that side of the job you've had for many years?

Tali (24:10.665)
Well, first of all, I'm an Easterner. And so as you know, in New England, good fences make good neighbors. In the West, they had range wars about any fences at all. Don't fence me in. So the idea of public lands and the idea of public accessibility is a definite Western concept in all, basically anybody who's lived in the West wants to get access. Some of the greatest courses in the West like Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill.

are open to the public. In the East, they're usually private clubs. So the openness, the availability, the invi... And you're not turned away if you're a public golfer. That's what Carica Park is a part of that tradition. And I think that's a very different attraction for those who are... Want to just come play, not worry about the sociability or where they stand in that line at, let's say...

The Country Club near Boston, which is I played when I played for Yale, but you had to be invited.

Sean (25:21.066)
And, and I think the other thing, even, even in the last four or five years, just the idea, Corica and public golf being also just like community spaces, right? Maybe, maybe you're not even a golfer, but there's something on in the area. I Corica has 45 holes total. think there's a nine hole short course there. And, Pete Lodkowski who runs amateur golf was saying like there's a restaurants and there's kind of ways to get people just around the game.

Tali (25:42.226)
Okay, see ya.

Sean (25:50.242)
that might pique their interest in the game too, which I think when I was growing up, that was not necessarily the case. You went to a place to play golf and then you left to go do something else. And now it feels like Kareega Park and those types of places are encouraging just like come here and be part of this community space. There happens to be golf here, but there's also other things.

Tali (26:12.264)
Well, that's true. The restaurant is open to the public. They have a fire training station. And by the way, golf courses in the West are fundamental to safety. When we have wildfires, and we do quite often, oftentimes the golf course is a fire break. Silverado, that happened right after the senior tournament there a few years ago. There was a fire that came down, they turned on the sprinkler system. It happened at Riviera.

recently in the tragic fires there. The embers landed on the Riviera Golf Course and of course they went out. so the Riviera Golf Course itself saved homes, not necessarily where the fire emanated from. In fact, not at all. So golf courses have a community value, not only as an open space, playable, but they also produce oxygen. In a car culture like California, there's a lot of gases in the air and the freeways. And if you're near a golf course,

the photosynthesis process in the trees are returning it to oxygen. There are social benefits that have nothing to do with the actual game itself that are beneficial to the community. So Westerners understand that better.

Sean (27:26.382)
Yeah, I feel like there's, what you just argued is very different than I think what a lot of like the popular, or not even popular, just the arguments about like golf courses maybe taking up space and there's golf courses that are now closing to be developed for something else. I'm seeing it a lot here in Massachusetts, places that are just kind of in flux. Are they golf courses? Are they gonna become a solar field? Are they gonna become?

nine holes with a senior development on it. But the way you put it, I guess I've never heard that argument that you just made for golf courses to be in a space as it's kind of a protection. That's interesting.

Tali (28:09.585)
Well, ironically, to pick up on that point, the modern idea of a master plan community, which includes parks and therefore golf courses, which in fact is a park upon which you play a sport, started at Harvard. Harvard School of Design, Professor Sasaki started the idea of master planning. Master planning is supposed to develop it, which you talk about, there's an open space.

I want to go develop it, make some money, and I'll just extend the irrigation, the streets, the electrical, and on to the next open space. That idea kind of went out of fashion. And he said, look, it's a master plan. All the data has to interrelate in your body. You can't just think about the heart alone or the mind alone or the lungs alone. It has to all work for the body to work. So a master plan community, the golf course is obviously a game in which you play, but it also acts as a drainage field.

in the tragic rains of North Carolina or even Augusta recently. acts as a place for the air to be restored as we said, fire breaks and where there are fires. But it also acts as a place for the community to have its children go out and hang out, walk the course. They don't have to play. They can do other things. And I see little kids riding around.

faster than I would be allowed 10 or 12 on their little electric bikes. it has multiple uses and it's a community asset and it brings value to the houses that are there, therefore worth protecting. There have been studies on this published in Businessweek that the courses in 10 different sections of the United States, not necessarily major cities, but outside them in Tacoma rather than Seattle, for example, the value of the homes from a tax point of view

went up if it was on a golf course rather than not over time.

Sean (30:15.694)
I think wanna shift gears here and kind of still stay on maybe some public golf. You, before we hit record, you had done your homework and looked through my bevy of questions that I kinda sent over. And one of them was just challenges or a very challenging project. And in your list, I think you just kind of ran off five before we got going. And Chambers Bay was one of them. Another public golf course, very different from

And that was kind of one of those projects. So I'd love to jump in and talk a little bit about Chambers. We're about to hit the 10 year anniversary of it hosting US Open. It's hosted at US Women's Am. Looks like another amazing place. I have friends who have played it who rave about it. So I'd love to hear a little bit about Chambers Bay. What made that project one of the five that you kind of said these were tough projects to do? And then maybe talk about some of the other ones as well.

Tali (31:07.461)
Well,

Tali (31:13.571)
Yeah, I'm trained at a very high level at University of Stanford to think and to be patient and to put aside pleasures for greater success in something else. To a point, because I want to party too, occasionally. However, Chambers Bay was unique in that it was a restoration project. It had been a mined out quarry.

for a century and what they mined for was little stones and pebbles in this natural geological place and they left the sand as tailings. didn't want the sand. Well, golf architects were killed for sand. The game was vented in sand, the links courses of the British Isles and so on. Why? Because sand drains. The whole idea of water coming on the course is to get it off the course so that

all sits up on a firm surface and you can play it. I mean that's from the beginnings of the game 500 years ago. By the way, the word golf is a Dutch word and it means club. And they used clubs in ice hockey, field hockey, and when they came to Scotland and traded with the Scots, the Scots said, well let's play this cross country game with your clubs and they called it golf. So the point being, it's very natural, the sheep with the mowers.

The grass was fescue and it was very dry and barren, but most of all it drained on sand. So Chambers Bay had sand and we moved a million cubic yards of sand around and recreated a dunescape on this barren degraded property, industrial property. So we had a great man, John Lattenberg, who was then the chief executive who was a sportsman.

He and his eight brothers played baseball on one team. They all had the net, Latin Bergs written on their shirts in the back. Nobody knew who was joining the suit. They played softball on a national level. They were sports guys and he loved golf. And so they put out a bid to restore this project and they asked for 27 holes. And we said, we can give you 27 holes. We did, we did a plan. But how about 18 great holes? And he said, well, why would you do that? Because we think this property has the option for other reasons besides if it's done right, to host the US Open.

Tali (33:36.66)
And, and, he said, I'll go for that. And now that was a big ass in 2004 when we did, but, he being a sportsman followed all the rules and eventually the USDA said we want to be in the Pacific Northwest. had a US Amateur in 2010, revised the course based on some of the shot making for, for the best players in the world and had a, what I considered a great US Open in 2015. because they got upset. I love to hear.

when they get upset. When the pros get upset, we had tees that were uneven, they were like ribbons, and they were trying to figure out how to stand. They thought the grass was too burned out and was a little bumpy, they were right. That was a maintenance issue at the time. But if I've got them talking about it, I'm in their backswing. And that's defense too, because I'm making them adjust as great athletes at the highest levels of the game. And that's what

Sean (34:07.553)
I agree.

Tali (34:36.036)
actually they won. In the end of the day there were six players standing on the 10th tee of the fourth round and I was walking with them. Any one of them could have won the tournament. And the lead changed among them, among three of them. And then you know what happened at the end. Dustin Johnson missed a short putt and Jordan won. So the game was exciting. And by the way, you have to be up close to great athletes when they're really in the game. They're not thinking about the money. They're in the game.

Sean (34:51.808)
Yep. Three putts. Yep.

Tali (35:04.866)
and I could see it their face. had game face and I was right next to them. And was, that's great, that's a great US Open. They'll even tell you so. So we were proud of that. But it was a lot of thinking, a lot of adjusting. Mike Davis was instrumental for the USJ. Most of all, was the USJ itself taking a chance with John Lattenberg, the county chairman leading the way for the community. it was, it all worked out. And they're having, continuing to have other championships there as well.

in terms of 

Sean (35:34.904)
to BethPage in

Tali (35:39.62)
No, Beth Page, ahead. No, no, I'm okay.

Sean (35:40.302)
Sorry, I'll let you go ahead. You keep rolling. You're good. I was just gonna, well, I was gonna ask is Beth, is Beth Page, was Beth Page in 2002, did that kind of spark the idea to say there's a public, like this public golf can host, like municipal public golf can host to US Open? Did that kind of spark some of the idea?

Tali (36:03.883)
I think was definitely on the minds. think Beth Page and the fact that was a municipal course designed by the great Tillinghast in the 20s and 30s was a worthy challenge. The first thing the USJ is looking for is a true shot making challenge to test the skill level of the best players in the world, just like in the Olympic games and their sports. So it had to be that. The fact that it was a municipal course, therefore open to the public, inspired the USJ who was the United States Golf Association.

They're a club of member clubs, but they're not all private. I mean, they're an association of member clubs. And I think it definitely had an impact on the idea of going to other courses than the traditional ones, such as this year it'll be at Oakmont, Wingfoot, know, great courses at Pebble Beach that are well known over and over again. So they wanted to play in different sections and on different kinds of venues.

So definitely I think Bethpage had an influence on why they were willing to go first to a new section of the country, a wealthy section. got Microsoft there and a great port, lots of money. Several hundred thousand people came out to watch it. Some flew in from Japan, just to Asia because they on the Pacific. And at the same time, it was a municipal course. So it's accessible to you. You can go play a US Open course. And the fees are not high.

Pebble, I guess they take your historical hint from St. Andrews itself. That's the municipal golfers, owned by the town of St. Andrews, where my granddaughter is currently at school, in the university there, and I gave her some money to go get some pudding last time she was there.

Sean (37:54.286)
How about the other challenges you you I interrupted you as you were launching into your next one?

Tali (38:00.418)
Well, if you're asking me about challenges to my career, every course is interesting, just as when you finally tee it up, you're in the game itself if you're a golfer. You talk about playing at Yale and you're in the ninth hole. That's your memory because you're in the game. When I'm designing, I'm walking the land and it's raw, it's open. I'm designing through the soles of my feet. Sometimes I take course back, sometimes we might ride around in a Jeep, but basically I'm...

Feeling the land literally as a golfer would feel it then get a topographic map and then mark it out We have in our business what we call? Affixes certain things we avoid we avoid Drainage areas if you don't put a tee green or where the net water runs naturally you let it flow freely Through you might play over it or around it or beside it, but you don't play into it That's a fix other things that may be in

easements that might be there that have to be respected. So we sort of mark up the plan like a surgeon mark up a body before he starts to alter them, do a surgery. And then we build the T-screens, bunkers, and other features, each hole hopefully being different. So to do that work, that's the hard work. Then you add the political dimension. And probably the most difficult experience I ever had was working in the Soviet Union from

going over there with my father in the 1970s with Dr. Hammer. And then we had a long break when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. There was no sports exchanges for the United States until 1986. And then finally signed the contract in 1988 to do the work that we got it built. And the Soviet Union collapsed in Russia. And we had to help maintain it for a year, kind of gratis. And our Finnish friend, Antti Peltanenmi, was very helpful.

because he could speak Russian and because we'd worked with him. The Russians knew nothing about golf. And so finally it opened. That was a challenge. That challenged all kinds of aspects of me that I had no idea. For example, there was a censor, and a censor for the Soviets was saying, we can't have golf. It's an English capitalist game. And so I was speaking with Alastair Cook, who was an English historian and a good golfer.

Tali (40:21.184)
and he said Bobby maybe I can help you did you know that both Karl Marx and Adam Smith played golf? I said Karl Marx played golf? said we know he did he wrote his famous tea to Stosskopf and tell at the University of London and on Sunday there's records of him going out and having a hit in Hyde Park we're not sure about Adam Smith but he was a Scot so I can attest that he had played golf I said would you write that down? He did he wrote it down I then got it to the ambassador who got it to the censor and two months later

We said, okay, the sensor has relented. Golf is no longer an English capitalist game. It's a Scottish agrarian game. could play. could do it. It's okay. Scottish. So that's challenge. They weren't even going let us build it at all because it was an English capitalist game. So the challenge is not always how to design it. It's how to get it approved by the owner.

Sean (41:06.99)
That's amazing.

Tali (41:15.169)
In terms of championships, we'd have five World Cups in Asia Pacific, which at that time was a growing challenge. Bangkok in 1975, Princeville here in Hawaii, where I am now, 1978, believe. Indonesia in 1981, Malaysia in 1990s, and New Zealand in 1988. So the World Cup is team play. Two people come from every country and play.

Sean (41:16.632)
You've.

Tali (41:43.808)
team match sponsored by, in those days, Time Incorporated and American Express and others. And we had in 1980, know, right where I'm sitting right now, a party outdoors with the all-girl band, and we had the Israelis and the Egyptians. Neither one were very good players, but they'd certainly like listening to the all-girl band. That was their style of fun. And they were here together. So the idea was through golf to get some diplomacy going through the World Cup. That was interesting and challenging.

to work in these new places where golf is expanding.

Sean (42:23.202)
feel like over the years in any industry, there are cycles and things kind of cycle through and then sometimes they cycle back. What right now is you're working on golf courses and just kind of experiencing what cycle are, are there things that you're seeing that are coming back or things that you're seeing maybe looking three, four, five years down the road that are maybe going to be.

a next cycle in design and how people are talking about golf course design or golf, maybe even in general. Is there anything in your mind that you're seeing kind of coming back?

Tali (43:02.976)
That's a big question and I've already talked too long but I can give you the last day answer or try not to. I don't see it as a cycle, I see it as a romantic throwback to an earlier era that people talk about, oh I want to design the course of what was designed in the 1920s by the great architects like Donald Ross or Tillinghass or McKenzie. And the game has changed radically. They were playing with wooden staffed clubs, balls that didn't go very far.

World War II was yet to happen. And fast forward to even the 50s and 60s, the golf world was now more American than it was English or Scottish or British Isles. And then all of a sudden, we were building, my father was building very clean, large parkland courses, very thought out, such as Spighless Hill, from a shop making point of view. They were difficult. And the pros,

and didn't always like them because it was actually challenging them where they were not challenged on their courses of the 20s. In terms of romantic vision, people keep saying, I wanted my course to look like it was in the 1920s or 30s. I said, well, then you should get a Moo Moo, which is sort of a smock rather than a bikini. And it'll look old. it won't fit that old lady very well, in my opinion, but it'll cover up a few things. So I think that's a sales technique.

What I think is actually happening now is a variety of things. You're getting a lot of golf courses photographed by television from about 70 feet or photographs from above ground. You don't play those shots. I've never played a golf hole from 70 feet in the air. I'd be on a big stepladder and I'd fall off it. You play it on the ground. So I think that you're seeing lots of stylish courses in beautiful areas like near oceans.

near mountains, but those are the frame of the course. Playing the game is in the course. And there's so many ways to do that. Each course is different. Each composer is different. I I love the Eagles and their great riffs in Hotel California. But, you know, what we're talking about looking back, we're talking about Mozart or Beethoven. And that's classical, but it's a different genre of music. And the same is true in golf. I mean, you really want look back. You go to St.

Tali (45:28.158)
which has been there for five centuries. And you do, and it's great in some way, but you don't want all your courses to be low, flat, and kind of mystery courses, because the terrain is different, and the attitudes of the game and the technique is different. For example, in pole vaulting, pole vaulters are jumping higher and higher because the pole itself is made from titanium or some other material that allows the pole to bend, and the vaulter, being a great athlete, takes advantage of that and goes higher.

in golf the same thing. The clubs are big headed like Prince Rackets in tennis. You can miss a shot and it'll still go straight. And finally, the ball itself has dimple patterns which are aerodynamic. And so what's happening with these great athletes, these young limberbacks as I call them, is they're just swinging as hard as they can for home runs and baseball since. And it just doesn't go offline. They don't worry about the trees or the rough. They just hit it as far as they can, go find it, hit it again.

Sean (46:16.782)
you

Tali (46:25.95)
That's a different kind of game from the one that most people play and can play. And I like to give them some thinking as we did at Carica Park. And I think most of our courses are strategic in nature.

Sean (46:40.586)
Last question for you. Maybe a kind of fun imaginary one. You've built golf courses on six continents. You mentioned building one in Russia, taking years to do. Is there still like a bucket list place? Is there somewhere that you would love to build a golf course as my dog is barking in the background?

Tali (47:04.349)
Well, your dog is barking, but I designed dog legs, so that's okay.

Sean (47:12.471)
You

Tali (47:14.653)
Well, ironically, I'm an environmental person. write poetry about our on Earth Day. friend Kurt Elling, who won two Grammys. I wrote a poem here in 2021 and basically sent it to him. went back yard in Chicago, read it with real birdsong behind and sent it back 24 hours. And it was a tough poem. It was about preserving the planet and what, you know, and for the health of all of ourselves.

But I think the place that the place maybe that is sort of romantic in my mind is Antarctica. I've never been there. I've worked in Argentina nearby. But, you know, if there's enough land, I don't want the ice to melt, but it seems to be melting. I'm also concerned about Antarctica, seriously, because it's, they talk about fighting over minerals. You got the Chinese, Americans, the Russians all have their ships around there.

waiting for the chance to go exploit it. And ironically, there are some things we don't know. There are diseases that are frozen in permafrost, viruses that may be released, so the scientists tell us as the ice melts in both poles, and so there's dangers there. So I'm fascinated by the science of what's happening there and whether or not there would be enough land for the penguins to have a game.

Sean (48:40.174)
That's an amazing answer. I didn't even think you would actually pick Antarctica when I asked that question. Maybe there's a world where there's a two-hole golf course down there somewhere in the next few years.

Tali (48:53.181)
That might be the place. it could be a very slippery game. Play on ice.

Sean (48:58.2)
Yep.

Sean (49:02.056)
Firm and fast for sure. For sure. Well, Bobby, I appreciate your time talking to us about golf and Karika Park. We'd to have you on anytime and enjoy Hawaii. I'm very jealous.

Tali (49:15.431)
Well, thank you. And please come play with us in Carica Park. think it's, you know, if I had a foursome I would love to play with it, it would be myself, Tony Lima, Lucia Spateman, the great teacher, and you would be our fourth. So let's come play Carica Park.

Sean (49:33.368)
That's I'm honored to be in that list. Thank you very much. Yeah, we'll we'll we'll try to get that done. Thanks, Bobby.

Tali (49:38.011)
Okay, Sean, thank you.

Sean (49:41.408)
Thank you.