Roger Null is a revered golf course superintendent ("Greenskeeper" as Roger still likes to call it) and architect, recognized as a legend in the St. Louis area. With decades of experience, Roger shares invaluable insights into the intricacies of maintaining and designing golf courses, shedding light on the challenges faced by superintendents today. His deep understanding of both the agronomy and architectural aspects of the game provides a unique perspective that resonates with golf enthusiasts and industry professionals alike.

During our conversation, we dive into Roger’s rich history in the golf world, exploring his journey from a small-town Iowa kid to becoming a respected figure in golf course management. We discuss the evolution of course design, the impact of technology on maintenance practices, and the importance of preserving the integrity of classic courses. Roger also reflects on the significance of passion and tenacity in his work, emphasizing that love for the game is at the heart of everything he does.

Join us as we explore the stories and experiences that have shaped Roger's career in golf, from managing the greens to understanding the art of course architecture. Whether you’re a golfer, a budding superintendent, or just curious about the behind-the-scenes of golf course management, this episode is packed with insights that will resonate with you.

Takeaways:

• Roger Null shares his incredible journey from a young golfer to a revered golf course superintendent.
• He emphasizes the importance of passion and tenacity in the demanding world of golf maintenance.
• Through his experiences, Roger discusses the evolution of golf course architecture and agronomy over the decades.
• The conversation highlights the balance between maintaining traditional course features and meeting modern player demands.
• Roger reflects on the challenges faced in the transitional climate of St. Louis and how it affects turf management.
• He shares insights on the unique history of Palmetto Golf Club and its significance in the world of golf.

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Different paths, different stories.

This game tells all.

Golf Don't Lie.

What's up, everybody, and welcome to Golf Don't Lie.

Justin Bryant.

What's going on, my man?

Jeff?

I'm feeling good.

Got a little case of the giggles today.

Hopefully we don't laugh during this episode, but we're going to have fun, so I might laugh a little bit.

Yeah, we got a little background noise going on in the gym.

It never fails.

You're just telling me a story about how you've had a similar situation recently.

Yeah, you know, you make the best of it, you know.

So here we are.

That's right.

Well, hey, man, we've got a really cool guest today.

We've got Roger Null, who is a legend here in St. Louis.

If you talk to any of the agronomists, greenskeepers, superintendents, golf architects in this area, pretty much everybody knows who Roger is, looks up to Roger, and really still calls and asks him questions or consults with him about any kind of course reconstructions, greens reconstructions.

So we get into talking to him about not just how he got into the game, but golf architecture in general, who he looks up to.

He actually was quite a player.

I didn't realize the pedigree of player that he was.

But we kind of go through a little rundown of his list there, and it's just a really fun episode talking to a guy that I've had a chance to play golf with but didn't really know that much about his history and story and.

And really cool.

Have you ever come across Roger or know anything about him?

I did a little research on Roger.

It was kind of one of those things, I feel like when you discover, like, someone tells you, hey, do you know this music writer?

And you're like, no, I don't.

And then you look him up and you're like, oh, I've heard that song.

This is kind of how I felt with Roger, is like, I played that course and.

Yeah, what?

Like a resume.

And I'm looking forward to kind of hearing the stories because I didn't really know Roger, and then kind of just looking up and it's like, wow.

Yeah.

I mean, he's been involved in a lot of.

A lot of cool golf in the St. Louis area, so I'm looking forward to hearing what the stories he has.

Yeah.

I'm sure there's plenty of mutual connections between you and many of the golf relationships you have in town.

We Have a little catching up to do, though, because we've both had some golf on our plates the last couple of weeks, and you played in a pretty big event out at Troon.

Tell me a little bit about it.

Yeah, so qualified for the US Mid Am, which is always, you know, one of the big events that you kind of circle on the calendar you want to play.

And it was out at Troon Country Club out in Scottsdale.

So, you know, they had 18 holes of qualifying at Troon Country Club, 18 at Troon north, and then it goes.

I think there's about 250 guys that make it to that.

And then it goes to 64.

Two rounds of stroke play, go to 64 for match play.

Unfortunately, I didn't.

I didn't play very well.

Didn't have it.

But it was.

It was a really cool experience.

And, you know, golf.

Golf is so hard.

I think it was just like a humbling week in a lot of ways where I hadn't, you know, it's just that season of life, you know, Jeff, I think the same thing is, like, I didn't prepare as well going into it as I would have liked, but it's just like school with the kids and things like that, and went in there not quite knowing where the ball was going.

And when you're playing.

When you're playing in desert golf, you don't have a whole lot of places to miss.

You know, you can't really hit it on other holes.

So, yeah, miss match play, but it's just such a cool event.

It kind of makes you.

Makes you hungrier.

And I try to use those weeks that are terrible in terms of, like, the.

The golf scores as one, just kind of motivation, you know, it kind of fuels you.

But two, it's.

It's kind of.

That's when you kind of learn the most.

But at the same time, you know, I. I look at it as.

Sometimes you just play bad.

You know, I think sometimes you can kind of overanalyze.

And I remember my golf coach growing up is, you know, you're hitting balls at the range and you're hitting it good, and all of a sudden you hook one.

That's not when you make a swing adjustment.

It's when you hook 7 out of 10 or 5 out of 10.

So I kind of look at this as, hey, we just didn't play well that week.

What can we learn, you know, from those experiences?

And hopefully we play better next time, but really cool experience.

Usga, you know, always kind of does those championships well, shout out to Kurt, who kind of runs our championships here.

I think he prepares us well for the national stage, even though kind of the St. Louis contingent didn't play our best.

Want to give Kurt a shout out because I feel like he prepares us well for those national events with the way he sets up the courses locally.

Well, USGA also did a little shout out on the Good Bogey, which we saw on Instagram, and Kurt sent it out to our group.

That was pretty cool.

Tell me how that all developed.

Yeah, it was really cool.

Very unexpected.

Just practicing out there.

Received a text from someone from the USGA if we could call on the phone and I was like, oh, what did I do?

And then they had stumbled across the Good Bogey account and wanted to highlight it.

So ended up in one of the practice rounds, was playing with one of my college teammates, Evan Beck, who had actually won the mid aim the year before.

So it kind of was full circle and they kind of did a little segment highlighting this swing signature series, but also kind of other things I've done.

So it was cool to kind of showcase that and tell stories and they were telling kind of other stories from.

From golfers.

So definitely unexpected.

But really appreciate kind of the coverage there.

So it was a cool experience.

That was cool.

Did.

Did your account Good Bogey get a little bump that week?

Yeah, we got a bump.

We got some people ordering some.

Some swings and hopefully got some more stuff coming up.

So awesome.

Everybody out there, make sure you go check out the Good Bogey on Instagram.

I don't think that people know quite as much about what you do over on that side of things, but your graphic design skills are top notch and you don't have a background in graphic design, right?

I don't have a background, no.

So it was.

Yeah, it just came about organically.

It was during COVID I actually ended up kind of like my kids were really young at the time and I like, didn't have like a golf book out really that really hit the spot.

So I kind of wrote a golf book at the time for them.

I think only our family seen it.

It's not something to really.

I wouldn't say it's a great golf book, but it was something to do during COVID and kind of share with them and.

And ended up kind of just illustrating stuff for that book.

And it kind of burned into this just kind of exercise for me.

And it's.

It's cool to see like what it's blossomed into.

You know the name the Good Bogey came From I'm somebody that hates making bogies more than I love making birdies.

But golf, as we know, is not a game of perfect.

So it's kind of, for me, kind of a just kind of thought exercise and actual like exercise in letting go of stuff that's not perfect and just kind of creating stuff.

And how do you bounce back when bad things happen?

And, you know, the golf course, you're gonna make bogeys, and you might as well make them.

How do you respond to that?

Is it gonna be good after that?

You know, you see Scotty Scheffler makes bogeys and doubles, and he bounces back with birdies a lot.

And, you know, so it's just kind of more of that kind of thought of, hey, you don't have to be perfect.

Let's create stuff.

Let's have fun with this.

And yeah, it's just.

It's kind of exploded in a way that was very unexpected and unattended.

But it's been cool.

It's been fun.

Yeah, very cool.

Fun designs.

I literally didn't plan this, but I have my good bogey shirt on as we're recording this.

So go check that out.

So we stumbled upon a pretty awesome place this past weekend where we played a Ryder cup called the Shangri La resort in Oklahoma, which I don't think you said you've ever played there or heard of.

I don't think so, no.

But I love the name.

Yeah.

Shangri La in Monkey Island, Oklahoma.

Everything there is fantastic.

But this place exceeded all of our expectations.

It had 27 holes.

We stayed right on the property.

They had a great hotel there.

Attached to the hotel was like a marina.

They had a pool.

They had like a sports bar that had all kinds of games inside, ping pong, all kinds of fire pit outside.

But outside, this was the greatest part.

They had a wiffle ball stadium outside.

Oh, yeah.

Then they had a basketball court.

So of course we had 23 guys.

We were short one guy.

Had 23 guys out there on Friday night playing wiffle ball games.

We had a little competition, east versus West.

We had a free throw shooting contest.

It was the best.

And then on top of that, they're nine hole or I'm sorry there.

27 holes were awesome.

One of them, particularly the Champions course, was really cool.

A lot of holes along the water, great views, just a really good layout.

But they have this par three course.

It's an 18 hole par three, which we talked about, I think, on the last episode a little bit.

It was incredible in Fact.

Good.

Good was just out there a couple of weeks ago.

I think they have some videos coming out about it pretty soon.

But it was ranked one of the top, I think three par three courses in the country.

And it had very much kind of like a Johnny Morris feel to this place.

It just been redone in the last, I think six years or so.

So everything about it.

If you guys, if any of you out there are looking to go on a guy's golf trip, this is a perfect spot.

The lodging, the food, the restaurant at the golf course.

We had steaks Thursday night.

They were incredible.

I mean everything was, couldn't have been better.

That's awesome.

Par three courses are so underrated too.

They're just, they're so much fun.

Like they're challenging at the same time.

Plus you got all these chances to make a hole in one.

Makes it, makes it a little bit more interesting.

Yeah, we didn't have any hole in ones, but they did.

I mean, you could spread it out as, as long as you want.

The one hole we played, I think it tipped out at like 255.

So we played one from, from that tee box and then we were just playing the, the middle range teas.

But yeah, just the greens were a lot of undulation, but nothing too crazy clownish.

The, the views were cool, some water holes, waterfalls, but everything was pretty natural landscape too.

So it wasn't totally manufactured as well.

So.

Yeah, it was just, it was just really neat.

And the amenities, the clubhouse, the golf shop had a big patio out back with a big pergola over the top and fire pit.

And yeah, it was, it was very cool.

How are you hitting it?

I hit, actually, I hit it.

Okay.

I did not get the, the three points that I was hoping to get.

Okay.

We, my buddy BD and I, we ended up having to scramble against my buddy Slick Rick, who is the best golfer of the group.

And he was lights out on fire, hitting everything to two feet.

We have our point.

We did two man scramble against him for nine holes.

We did a best ball match against him and we got waxed by him.

And then we played singles matches against another buddy of ours.

So played better in the, in the nine hole match at the end, the singles match.

And it was just gratifying to win that match after kind of getting our heads kicked in by Rick for a couple of days.

So.

Yeah, but it was so much fun.

Yeah.

The driver needs, needs work again.

I sent you that text message a couple weeks ago and that did not hold.

So we're still, still searching.

We've all been there.

I've, like my, my poor wife Kelly, who you know really well, like early in our marriage when I was playing, I would be like, oh, like I found it on the range.

I found it today.

And she'd get so excited and then she learned that that doesn't really mean what she thought it meant.

And so like now I tell her, like, oh, like I found it.

And she's like, okay, like she, she gets that.

Like, it's all fleeting, right?

Yes, it's all fleeting.

It's, it's all fleeting.

I tell her it's like it's your building blocks, right?

You found it and then you kind of lost it, but you're, you're still gaining all what you're trying to do.

Yeah, there' nothing permanent about I figured it out or I found it today.

So hard.

Golf's just so hard.

It's so hard.

One, one last thing that I want to mention before we get to Roger is, you know, we played a lot of golf these, these three days.

We showed up on Thursday, played 18, we did the 18 hole par three Friday morning, we played 18 Friday afternoon, which we ended up doing as a three man scramble because we all figured, like, hey, we got 27 holes tomorrow, let's not go out and grind, let's have a little more fun.

And then our 27 holes on Saturday ended up being car path only because it poured Saturday morning.

So it was, it was physically taxing to, to play these three days.

And it really made me realize that what we do here at 18 strong with, you know, helping guys get in better shape to play more golf or play better golf is important because watching some of my buddies that didn't, they didn't even play all three days.

But even just trying to get through the 27 holes cart path, only some of these guys sit at a desk, you know, are a good 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds heavier than they were when they were considered athletes back in college.

And it just shows.

It can creep up on you and you don't realize how out of shape you can get or how much you just aren't ready and prepared to do something like that.

And some of these guys were really having a hard time at the end.

So for all of those out there that are looking to go on a guy's golf trip, you're wondering about, you know, your fitness level, like just, just get started doing something and just start kind of moving in that right direction because it, it was kind of sad to, to watch A couple of these guys.

Yeah, it's, it's.

Golf is, you know, I think it's.

You think about it as this is a very leisure activity.

But I know, like, I don't have a whoop, but I know people that do that have whoops and like, after they play 18 holes, it's like some of the highest stress that they see on there.

And I'm sure you've seen that.

And it's.

Especially when you add up all those days and you want to be able.

You want to be ready for your guys trip.

Right?

Like, that's, that's.

Yeah, it's the best part of the year.

So you need to kind of prepare throughout the year for, for that fun.

So I'm sure you had an advantage when it comes to that.

That's probably why you kind of.

You kind of peek towards the end there.

Yeah, I mean, really, the last nine holes kind of had a second wind going and played better than I had before.

So that just kind of inspired me that we're going to start doing a little bit more content, especially on my personal Instagram page, of just what are some simple things you can do?

So 18 strong Jeff, over on Instagram.

That's my commitment to the 18 strong community, to just get some more content out there and just kind of hopefully help inspire a little more action from ourselves, our local crew, those of you that are listening and watching from.

From beyond.

And so, yeah, without further ado, let's get into our chat with Roger Null, golf course superintendent, or as he likes to say, I'm just a greenskeeper, also a golf architect, great guy, incredible, incredible golfer, incredible person, and tells the history of Palmetto Golf Club in there and some other cool stories.

So let's get to our chat with Roger and for those of you out there, if you are enjoying the show, we've gotten some great feedback about the show.

But if you are enjoying the show, we really would appreciate you guys sharing the show.

Going over to Instagram, follow 18strong, follow the good bogey, and follow Golf Don't Lie.

We're sharing some clips over there as well, so.

All right, jb, let's get into old Roger Null.

Looking forward to it.

Roger Null, welcome to Golf Don't Lie.

It's good to be here, Jeff.

Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's so fun to connect with you again.

We were just chatting that we haven't seen each other in a while, but we got to go play in.

That was a Symmetra Tour event.

Pro Am wasn't it.

Yeah, it was.

I forget the gal's name that Eddie Stifton was kind of sponsoring at the time.

Really good player.

Yeah, she was.

I can't remember her name either.

But where did we.

We went and played in Decatur, Illinois.

Do you remember?

I don't think it was Decatur.

It was somewhere around Springfield, wasn't it?

Oh, maybe.

Maybe that was fun, though, and kind of humbling to see.

Oh, it was Sarah.

I know her first name was Sarah.

That's right.

To see Sarah out, drive me all day long.

It was kind of fun.

And then you to out chip and put me all day long.

Well, Rog, it's.

It's really a pleasure to have you on.

We've done a little bit of an intro prior to people hearing us chat here, so they'll know a little bit about your history as kind of the godfather of superintendents here in St. Louis.

How did you originally get into the whole world of golf?

What drew you into superintendent, golf, architecture, agronomy, all of it.

Oh, goes way back, Jeff.

I grew up in a small town in Iowa.

My dad was a football coach.

My big brother was a football coach, went on to be a football coach.

But my brother, before he kind of got into coaching and went off to school, he was a pretty good junior player.

And that was when I was.

I think I started when I was 12 years old.

And, you know, I saw him playing, so I got into it and then went through high school.

The little school we had didn't have golf, but I would play in the summer amateur tournaments through high school.

And I started out to be a football coach, just like dad and brother.

I just thought that's what I was supposed to do.

The only.

I mean, we used to work on the nine hole golf course in Lamars, Iowa, where we grew up, which wasn't much.

You know, it's just a country course.

And we'd help change cups or whatever they needed us to do.

So I didn't know much about golf course maintenance or anything like that, but then I guess it was.

I went off to college on a football scholarship.

I think it must have been my second year.

My brother had gone to a college in Sioux City, Iowa, which is a little larger.

And he worked summers at Sioux City Country Club, which was very well to do golf club, golf course and country club.

So one of the summers I was working there, and I just got talking to the superintendent.

He said, you know, you.

You kind of like doing this stuff and love golf.

He said, you ought to go to Iowa State.

And get into turf management.

I was like, what the hell is that?

I mean, you know, growing up in a small country town in Iowa, you didn't have any idea of that, but sounded good.

So that's kind of what happened.

I switched schools, went to Iowa State, got my agronomy and horticulture and turf management.

I don't know, I wasn't quite finished with all my requirements, but I kind of ran out of money.

Talked to my advisor, I said I kind of need a job.

They were on a quarter system back in those days so I could come back during winter quarters to finish up my school.

So he got me an assistant job at the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Club in the Quad Cities and about halfway through the summer, the elderly greenskeeper there.

We were greenskeepers then, we weren't superintendents.

So it's different, different era.

But his wife passed away and he just went to the club and said, I don't want to do it anymore.

And they came to me and said, you're superintendent now.

I had.

So I learned the hard way.

I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

But maybe that's the best way to learn too.

Absolutely.

Kind of trial by fire.

So that was kind of the start.

And were you still playing football when you were in college once you switched school?

Not at Iowa State, that was.

I played football at a very small college in, in Lamars, Iowa, where we grew up.

No, Iowa State was a little, a little big for this guy.

But I didn't play because of the quarter system and because I had to get a job, you know, I didn't play college golf, but I played, played all the summer amateur tournaments all around Iowa.

Iowa had a great.

Every small town had a little nine hole golf course and they had what we called the barbecue circuit.

And they would have a 27 hole tournament on a Saturday and you would play in that.

And then Sunday you go to another small town and they would have a 27 hole tournament.

You'd play two tournaments a weekend and you'd do that all summer long.

And then they had their major tournaments, you know, Iowa Amateur, and there's several, several towns had some pretty good sized amateur golf tournaments.

So as you were, as you were now the new greenskeeper, head greenskeeper.

Were you still then playing in all these amateur tournaments throughout the year?

When I could, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it took me a while to get my feet on the ground, but because I was a pretty decent player, a lot of the members wanted to play with me and, and I had a Good relationship with the golf pro.

And, you know, that was the 60s, the early 60s, or well, the mid-60s, I should say.

67 is when that was my first job or when they first made me superintendent.

So it was a little different atmosphere then, like the golf professionals, one of my best friends.

And every Monday there'd be big money games and even during the week, it's kind of a different atmosphere than we have now.

Yeah, you alluded to the fact that you were, you're a decent player.

I'm going to argue that the records show that you were a little bit more than a decent player.

Raj, give me a little bit of the accolades from your amateur career because I know that you, you played a ton of amateur golf.

And then I need to get the updated hole in one count from you.

I never won the Iowa Amateur or the Missouri Amateur.

It always disappointed me.

But I won both the Metropolitan Senior Amateur, the Missouri Senior Amateur.

I played in qualified four US Amateurs, three US Mid Amateurs, two senior Amateurs.

I went over qualified and played in the British Senior Amateur.

I always wanted to do that just one time.

Get over there.

I always wanted to play in the British Amateur, but, you know, it was right in the middle of summer when I was.

Those days, I was working.

I couldn't do that.

I won our GCSA National Championship, the GCSA Golf Course Superintendents association of America, their National Championship, three times.

I played in the Crump Cup, I think 12 to 15 years.

I don't remember what the time was.

Up at Pine Valley.

At Pine Valley.

And then, you know, local tournaments around.

I won a few local tournaments.

They were one of the bigger amateur tournaments in Iowa, the Lake Creek Amateur.

I won two years back to back.

So I had a few days in the sun.

Not like some of the great amateurs, but I had my fun.

How did.

So obviously you got to go.

When you're playing, you got to go see a lot of amazing courses, too.

How did that impact the way that you went about your day to day job, you know, starting out where you were, but then as you grew and obviously became very good at your craft, what were some of the biggest influences on you from some of your golf travels as well?

Well, not just from the golf travel, but just from the playing standpoint, just for the love of the game.

You know, my being a super candidate in the golf business was more so I could be part of the game all the time.

It was, I mean, actually the superintendent end was secondary.

The game was primary.

And that's.

And I've tried to Preach that to all the young guys that have come under me that have gone on to be superintendent.

Said the main thing is you got to keep the game as the most important focus.

To me, there's three characteristics.

There's the game, there's the golf course, and there's the golfer.

And in America, what I first learned in my trips overseas was that Scotland, England, the priority is the game, the golf course is secondary, and the player is the third.

And it's kind of in reverse in the United States.

Not all, not everywhere, but the player always seems to come.

The golfer seems to be first in line and golf course second, and then the game.

But I've always tried to keep the game as the main focus.

And being a superintendent is just, you know, I guess you'd call it amenity to be being able to be around the game and around the golf course.

And I mean, it's been a tremendous life for me to just be outside all the time.

Do you feel like in order to be a great superintendent or even golf architect, designer, that you have to be a good golfer or you at least have to really, like you said, really have to understand the game and understand the.

Yeah.

The way that a course should lay out.

Yeah, you don't have to be a good golfer, but you.

You need to be appreciate the game the way it should be appreciated, particularly when it comes more so when it comes to the architectural end of it.

But, you know, there's exceptions to all the rules.

I mean, Seth Rayner, one of the greatest architects of all time, never played golf in his life.

He was an engineer, but he started under CB McDonald, which who did St. Louis Country Club, Chicago Golf Club, National Golf Links in Long island, some of the great golf courses.

Was a great player.

And Seth Rayner started out as his engineer.

So he obviously absorbed that golf culture, that golf aesthetics that you need for the architectural world.

And the same goes true for superintendents.

There's.

I know a lot of really good superintendents that don't play.

Most of them play a little bit, and most.

Most of them love the game.

Obviously, there's a lot of guys locally, but even, I would imagine, even nationally, that that have really looked up to you in their careers and learned from you and moved on to different places.

Did you have one person or a couple people that were really influential in your career to that you learned from.

From a superintendent standpoint?

Because I just started on my own, so I was kind of thrown out to the wolves.

Not really, but I developed a couple really close friends when I was in the Quad Cities that we kind of worked off each other.

Jack Litvay was at Crow Valley Golf Country Club, who later came to St. Louis as superintendent of St. Louis Country Club.

In fact, he's the one that told me about the opening at Old Worson, and the other one was Tom Vaniwal, who was at Short Hills Country Club.

Short Hills was in the Illinois side of the Quad Cities and Crow Valley and was on the Iowa side.

And we kind of fed off each other's.

You know, there was no iPhones or any.

Any of that stuff in those days.

So, you know, we would always get together either at their golf course, have to work for a beer and kind of hash things out.

So that was the main influence on that end of it.

And then from a mentor standpoint, when I was at the Quad Cities, I would play in the evenings, and there was a very good player called Dr. Paul Barton.

He was a dentist in town, that he would come out after his work of the day, and he'd run into me, and we would play a bunch of holes, and he kind of took me under his wing.

He.

He was the caddy for Jack Fleck when Jack Fleck beat Ben Hogan for the US Open at Olympic Club to keep Hogan from getting his fifth U.S. open title.

Wow.

Kind of a neat story.

But anyway, it was he and an old golf pro at Crow Valley where Jack Litvay worked.

Bob Fry was his name.

Great player.

Played a little bit on the tour, but not much.

Didn't like that life.

But, you know, with the.

With the winners in Iowa, you know, I'd go over there in the winter days and chew the fat with Jack, and we'd go up to the pro shop and chew the fat with Bob Fry.

And he would work on golf clubs.

And he and another golf pro in Cedar Rapids taught me how to work on golf clubs, the old golf clubs.

So I learned how to reshaft and refinish persimmon woods and all of the old clubs.

Yeah.

Got a lot of old history.

In fact, I got a.

If you want a few, I got a whole attic full of ones saved up.

For sure.

We'll hang a couple here in the office.

That'd be amazing.

So, obviously, times have changed a lot.

You mentioned you got.

You know, there was no iPhones back when you guys were working together.

You had to learn, you know, from somebody else.

You had to pick up a phone and call them or go see their club or talk to them.

What are some of the biggest changes that you've seen over the years and how guys are managing.

And would you say that some things are better, some things are worse because of technology?

I don't think anything's worse because of the technology.

I, I think a lot of things are worse because of the, of what the players demand today in the grooming.

I mean, like, bunkers are the main thing, and bunkers have to be perfect nowadays.

I mean, you look in the rule book, they're a hazard, but that's not how the golfing public looks at them.

But the biggest things that have changed, obviously, is equipment.

The biggest thing is social media, iPhones, just networking, the ability to get information at the tip of your fingers.

I mean, you got a problem.

I mean, like all the superintendents.

The St. Louis area is full of some of the best superintendents in the country.

And they all network.

They're all on a chain text.

And you know, they, they got a problem, they text it out.

They got 10 people feeding them information.

If they can't get that way, you know, you just, you can text the local professor, the right university or Google it or whatever.

So that's the biggest change.

And obviously equipment, I mean, we're, we're just days, weeks, months, maybe years away from robotic mowers.

I mean, they're already starting some places, but they're just getting more and more refined.

But to me, the grooming has gone a little too far.

But maybe that's just my age, you know?

When you say that, do you mean, like, people are so picky now?

They see, they want everything to be so perfect.

They want, you know, it's.

When it comes to greens, it's, my greens are faster than your greens.

You watch TV and oh, the step meter's reading 14.

And so the club wants stim meter readings.

So you've got some of the great, fabulous golden age architectural golf courses that have these slopes and undulations in them that won't.

That can't take care of speeds at that fast.

It'd just be unplayable.

So they bring in an architect.

Oh, we gotta change it because.

So they start flattening.

All these taking out of the.

Take away the beauty and the fun, in my opinion.

So I think that's.

Greens are way too fast definitely for members now.

PGA Tour wants to have them at that.

I mean, anybody that's done any architectural work on a PGA golf course, they demand nothing more than a 2% slope where the whole location should be.

That's not much and it's not.

So then you lose, you lose that fun factor.

What's your take on this whole situation of rolling the ball back?

And, you know, obviously, you know, these guys are kind of outgrowing a lot of these, you know, historic courses that we've been watching them play forever.

What do you think is a possible solution?

I mean, you know, there's a lot of people say the horses out of the barn already and it's too late.

I know that there's a lot of USGA people that really want to get things rolled back, but, you know, they're fighting a tough battle and they're fighting a lot of, a lot of corporate people that don't want to see it.

And I don't think the golf ball is going to be enough.

I think they can.

What is it, 20, 26 when it's supposed to be into effect?

I don't even know anything.

I don't know either.

Yeah, but I can tell you, the engineers, if they roll the ball back, engineers will figure out something on that golf ball.

And it's still, you know, what's the difference between 360 yard drive and a 345 yard drive?

That's not much.

But I mean, I watched quite a bit of the tournament this weekend and they were hitting wedges to practically every par four, you know, and they had a tournament before that.

They had a 530 yard par four.

I mean, I, I remember growing up where the USDA guideline was 475 has to be the cutoff for par four.

It needs to be par five.

But, and I'm not advocating, I would never advocate going back to, say, the persimmon days, but you know, if you could get the equipment, not just the ball, but the equipment rolled back to maybe the early 90s where, you know, I can remember when I was at Old Orson, I mean, old Larson would be irrelevant today for the PGA Tour.

But I remember when I was there in the 80s, Cale Irwin had his children's hospital tournament there, Monday event there he would bring Anthem pros.

And Emerson Electric had a big outing Monday outing with all the tour players.

And I remember going to the cocktail party afterwards and also watching them play.

And I mean, this was Greg Norman in his heyday, Kite.

I mean, all those guys of that era.

And it was definitely a relevant golf course.

I remember distinctly Jay Haas, after playing it, saying, up at the cocktail party, I was standing by and he said, man, you could play this in the US Open tomorrow.

So it was relevant.

And that had to be.

I mean, I left there in 87, so that had to be the late 80s when that was made mention.

So that's why I say probably early 90s when the Pro V really came out.

It was kind of right after the title is professional.

I want to say, I don't know, somebody.

Somebody else might know better, but somewhere in there, if you could get.

If you could get it back, just think of the golf courses that they could play that they're not playing now.

Or think of the golf courses that are getting rebuilt or renovated just to build new tees as far as they could move the bunkers so they're more in play, flatten the greens so they can play them so fast.

You know, that's a lot of money that's being spent by clubs for no good reason, in my opinion.

Yeah, it'd be kind of cool if they could almost have like a nostalgic tournament, right?

Even just to kind of like open that door a little bit.

Maybe one.

One of the tournaments, you have to go back and not necessarily play the persimmons or whatever.

But, yeah, dial it back to where it's that ball of that era, the 90s, and, you know, let those guys see how they really compete with those different pieces of equipment now.

Now, granted, a lot of the old golden age architectural golf courses probably couldn't host a PGA tournament because the, The.

All of the corporate, you know, they just don't have the facilities, they don't have the footprint to host all.

Everything that goes on today.

But it's not just the PGA Tour.

I mean, it's all the kids coming up.

I mean, you watch in what, three weeks?

Is it three weeks?

I think the Walker Cup's going to be at Cypress Point.

You watch where these guys hit the ball at Cypress Point, which is never.

Which hasn't been changed.

I mean, I hate to see what the clubs that they're going to hit into some of those holes.

Yeah, it's kind of amazing just seeing some of the.

The junior players around here, high school age, you know, not even kids that are gonna go play the tour or even give the tour a shot.

But the distance that they have, the.

The speed they have, it is really, it's.

It's kind of unbelievable.

So you.

You came here to St. Louis in.

In the 80s, is that right?

1980?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was at.

I went from the.

I think it was 67 to 74.

I was at the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Club.

And then I got the job at Cedar Rapids Country Club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

And I was there till 80 when I heard about the Bull Warson job.

At the time, Cedar Rapids Country Club was an old Donald Ross golf course.

At the time, I still wasn't into the architectural end of it.

I was more into this stuff, the playing of it and taking care of it end of it.

So I thought, you know, Cedar Rapids Country Club and at the time, Wakanda Country Club were really the only two big clubs in Iowa.

Des Moines Golf and Country Club was just starting to get a established.

Since then, they've got some really great courses.

But I thought, you know what, this is my chance to maybe go to the big time.

St. Louis, I've never been, never lived in a big city, you know, and it was a Robert Trent Jones golf course, which in the 80s that was.

He was the number one architect in the world.

So I sent my application in.

Was very fortunate to get the job.

Actually, Bob Golby helped me get the job.

Really?

I don't know.

Yeah, you're old enough to remember the Amana caps that Bob Govey and Gene Littler, all those guys wore back in the old days.

Well, Amana's headquarters was just outside of Cedar Rapids Country Club.

And Liu King was the head of Amana.

He was a member of Cedar Rapids Country Club.

And Bob Golby was kind of the main guy for this, wearing the Amana caps.

So he used to have Bob Golby over there to play every now and then.

And somehow word got to Bob Govey that I had applied at old Worson and he told them that, you know, you ought to hire this guy from Cedar Rapids.

His golf course was always in great shape.

So that's a pretty good reference.

Yeah, it was at the time, so it worked.

Anyway, I did get the job, so.

And we'll be right back.

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Okay, let's get back to the show.

So I know being a St. Louisian and playing some golf here, you know, us St. Louisians like to say that, and we say this without knowing anything about agronomy, but that St. Louis has to be one of the toughest places to keep a golf course, you know, green and pretty and perfect like all the members want or all the, all the golfers want.

Is that, I mean, is that a fairly accurate statement?

I mean, I'm sure every place has its own troubles, but is the Midwest a pretty challenging place for, for a superintendent?

Well, the, the transitional zone of the Midwest is where you're just right on the borderline of southern, Southern grasses.

It just gets a little bit too cold.

The cool season grasses from the north, the bentgrass, the poania bluegrasses, it's really tough.

And it's.

It's like these dog days that we've just been having for the last two weeks that are killers.

And it's not just the temperatures, but it's the soil.

So you got a combination of high humidity, high temperatures, and clay soil that doesn't drain very well.

So trying to keep everything alive during these dog day times, you know, the months of July and into the third week, August, you're trying to keep it as dry as possible, which is the key, but yet you still got to be putting that water on it.

Eventually the clay soil just isn't going to drain anymore.

So it becomes kind of a boiling pot, so to speak.

But I would say St. Louis is, if it isn't the toughest in the United States, it's in the top five.

I know there's a transitional zone that kind of runs from the St. Louis area all the way to Washington, D.C. area, just in that little border where you're not in the southern hemisphere, you're not in the northern hemisphere.

Are there any Particular seasons or situations that you ran into that you still think back on and you're like, man, I don't know.

I didn't know if I was ever going to get through that one or any big time challenges that you came across.

Absolutely.

The very first year I was here, very first year, I can remember the day I came to interview, I came out a little earlier, before the interview, I was to go up to the clubhouse and interview with.

With a couple of the officials of the club at the time.

And so I kind of took a drive on Trent Drive, you know, that runs around part of the golf course.

I jumped out on hole 10, I had my soil probe and I stuck it in the ground and went in about 6, 8 inches and just hit solid clay that was brick hard.

This was in the fall of the year.

And I mean, it was.

I couldn't get the probe into it.

It was like in the concrete.

And I thought, man, what am I doing here?

You know, because I'm used to that beautiful loamy soil of Iowa, pretty much grow any grass on.

So we got off to a good start, though.

And then summer hit.

And they had a very.

They still had the original irrigation system that Trent Jones company put in, in what was it, 55, I think is when they opened.

So 53 or 4 when they installed was a single row irrigation, just quick couplers.

So I'd be out there at night snapping in these heads to water the fairways and the greens.

They established what was a sod cup irrigation, which they ran the pipe to the middle of the green and there was a quick coupler in the middle of the green with a metal ring that had a sod, actual soil and bent grass on top of it.

And you'd put a little hook in there and you'd pull that cup out and underneath it would be the quick coupler.

And you would either put a big gun that would cover the whole grain, or you would have a hose with four different stations to water the grain.

Well, let's see, middle of July, I want to say, or August, I don't remember what it was.

It was actually a week before the district championship was to be at Old Larson.

And you know, the seventh green is the par three that goes up the hill.

And I was on the cart path up above the crane.

I look down and I thought, something's really funny.

It doesn't look right down there.

And so I drove down there.

I Walked out on the crane.

It was a complete bubble.

The pipe had busted underneath the grain.

Oh, no.

And it just ripped the root system, the entire grain.

It was like walking on a waterbed.

And like two o' clock in the afternoon, the green was completely dead.

Oh.

And so that was my inauguration into St. Louis.

But we did have a new irrigation system that next fall.

Or that fall.

That fall.

But was pretty embarrassed.

I can still remember watching Jerry Haas, who won the district tournament, that I still was watching him putt on the seventh grade.

It was like.

I mean, it was completely dead.

If you were up, if you were above the hole, you were lucky if you didn't putt off the green every time.

Yeah, yeah.

So they played it that way.

And I didn't get fired and didn't get fired.

You lived to see another year.

Yeah.

And how many years were you there and then did you move on to Norwood after that?

I was there through 87.

At the time, Orson was kind of in the period of where they were real happy with everything just the way it was.

And by then I was.

I had made several trips overseas.

I'd gone, I'd started researching.

I'd build up quite a library of books on golf history, architecture.

And in the fall, I would always take a trip.

Like one trip, I went out to Long island, played Shinnecock and National Golf Links and Maidstone, and started studying the architecture.

And I went over to Scotland.

I had made five trips over there.

Not all of them while I was at Old Washington, but a couple of them all over there.

And that's when I really got into the architecture and bug.

And, you know, at the time, Norwood was.

Norwood was the players club, all the good players.

So I knew most all of them through the tournaments.

We'd been paired together, got to be good friends.

So they were in pretty rough shape at that time.

Time all 36.

And they started talking to me, and particularly Skip Burtmire's father and Rocky Walther, they both started talking to me, seeing if I would have any thoughts of coming over there.

And, you know, after I researched it, you know, I knew it was an old club, had some old traditional good golf holes that if I could go over there and do a renovation, master plan, that I would do it.

So I put together kind of a master plan and a business plan to kind of turn the whole maintenance system around.

And fortunately, Roger Linson, who was the.

He was a member there, but he was kind of the acting godfather of the club.

He actually was there every day on a daily Basis in the office, as a general manager's office.

But he was more a godfather than a general manager, and he got on board with the whole thing.

And that's kind of how it all started, which was.

So that was my first big intro into construction.

I think I did a pretty good job.

I made some mistakes.

My nephew Mike, who's over there now, has corrected some of those mistakes, gone on to do some bigger and better things over there.

In fact, he's in the process of trying to bring back a lot of the old features of the east course, which fortunately has 15 of the original grains.

They've all shrunk over time, but he has found the old cinder layers which was under the greens.

He's found where the original cream shapes were found, some of the old pictures of the Poncare and that.

So he's kind of continuing the program.

How long has he been over there?

Off and on, 30 plus years.

He came over when he was going to Iowa State.

He came and lived with me at old Worson.

You know, Old Worson had a house off the 15th hole that went with the club for the superintendent.

He would stay with me and work summers there.

And then when I went over to Norwood, he had graduated and was.

I forget where he was working, but they had.

They had just hired two the year before to be an assistant to try to get things going, which wasn't working.

That's why they brought me others.

So I made Tim the superintendent of the west course, and I had Mike come over, the east course superintendent.

And then Mike left there for just a few years to help develop the date of the falls, the daily T course over in St. Charles County.

And then when Tim Burch went on to get the job as superintendent of St. Louis Country Club, then they brought Mike back to the superintendent.

He's been there ever since, so.

Been a lot of years he's been there.

He knows.

He knows the place, Every blade of grass on it.

Yeah, he.

I mean, everybody talks about what a great job he's done there for.

For so many years and obviously under.

Under your tutelage, much of it, but, you know, continues to just get rave reviews over there.

They now have the champions tour event over there and everything.

The amazing.

The amazing thing that Mike's done is, you know, he's known for some of the firmest and best greens and.

And he's done that with greens that were built in the 20s, greens that were built in the 60s, 70s, and then some greens I built in the 80s.

So he's got all different structures that he has to take care of all these differently, yet play exactly the same tough job.

He's done amazing work.

He's a good superintendent as well as the whole bunch in St. Louis.

You'd be amazed how good they are.

Well, so that's a question I have.

When you're looking at a great superintendent, obviously there's so much science that goes into the agronomy part of it, but I would imagine that it's also a bit of artistry.

Right.

Like I would assume that there is some touch, some feel, just kind of like, like the game of golf, you know, there's the physics of it, but there's also.

You have to have some intuition.

Yep.

It's the artistry comes in the presentation of the golf course.

You know, you can, you can mow grass at a certain height for the cranes, certain height for the, the tees, so on, and rake the bunkers and.

But it just, it's the presentation, how the golf course is set up from a day to day standpoint, how it plays, the firmness, the how the ball reacts on the greens, how they punt.

And that's all just a, you know, 99% of the golfers have no idea why they feel this way, but they know when they're playing a really good cool golf course.

And obviously the architecture has something to do with it.

It's harder to do when you're on a golf course that is not very interesting from a architectural or a playability standpoint.

Is it?

Oh, okay.

That's later than I would have thought.

Yeah.

Right in there.

So the Fallows were very influential in St. Louis for a long time.

They built it.

They built the original Belle Reeve golf course.

Golf course, yeah.

Actually, I think I'm wrong.

I think it might, I might have my numbers backwards.

It could have been.

Yeah, they were, they were right around the turn of the century.

And it's just a good feel when you play there, isn't it?

It is, it is.

I mean you feel, you, you feel the history of it.

You know, you see the, the signage that, you know, kind of alludes to the fact that this has been there forever.

And I mean it's a, it's an anchor in, in University City.

And I mean, as Much.

It is as it is an old municipal course.

There's not a whole lot to it.

It's just so much fun to play and there's so many different little nuances that now once you play it so many times, you kind of understand what's going on.

It's fun.

So much fun.

Who were some of your biggest influences when you started to get into the world of architecture?

Who did you really love learning from or, you know, reading about or going over to see their different courses and, and then what projects did you then do here around town and maybe outside of here?

Well, as far as.

I mean, the golden age architects that, that I went to see.

McKenzie is one of my favorite because he's such an artist.

His golf course is just.

They blend in.

All the good ones blend in with nature so well.

You can't distinguish what was, what's really nature and what was built.

But he was a genius at it.

And the National Golf links.

Charles Blair McDonald, Seth Rayner Golf course was fabulous.

Shinnecock I loved when I was over there.

San Francisco Golf Club, Tillinghast was great.

And then the ones that influenced me today, and it's mostly from Reading, is doe.

Tom Doak is amazing.

His knowledge.

To be honest, I've only played one of his golf courses.

But really I need to get.

I don't travel as much as I used to, but I need to.

When I travel, I always just want to go down to Palmetto and Aiken where I've been a member for a long time.

I don't know, it's.

It's like a.

It's like your, your comfort home, you know?

Yeah.

You just feel comfortable there.

But I do enjoy seeing all the old golf courses.

I took a trip Lankford.

I'll tell you what.

Lankford Moreau, tremendous architects.

If you ever want to go see a great Langford golf course, go up to Green Lake, Wisconsin, lasonia links.

There's two golf courses there.

One was built later in the 60s.

That is just a. I would say kind of a generic golf course.

But the Langford golf course was built.

I don't know the exact date.

I'm going to say that 20s.

It's unbelievable.

It is cool.

There's hardly a tree on the golf course.

And they've been restoring gradually over the years.

It's a daily fee golf course.

So you can.

I mean, when I first went there, I think I paid 20 some bucks for it.

An old superintendent in Milwaukee told me about it.

And so one year I just decided I was going to go up and see it and then it's got so much notoriety.

I don't know if you're familiar with Fried egg golf, of course.

Well Fried Hague has had an event there for a long time and so now the recognition is just so it's a little more expensive.

I think it's probably 100, 100 and some bucks to play it, but it's really worth it.

It's a great old golf course to see.

And there they were.

Langford is in a golden age of architects vintage.

But he wasn't quite.

He didn't quite get through the accolades that Tilling has and Ross, Donald Ross of course all his golf course is fabulous.

McKenzie, all of those guys.

Rayer, are there any guys that you know of that are kind of coming up that are.

That you think we'll be hearing about?

Obviously we hear of Doak, we hear of Gil Hans, we hear Rob Collins, any up and comers we.

We should look out for.

You know, I don't know him personally but just from stuff I've read.

But yeah, one of the.

You got one of the best in the country right here in St. Louis.

That's Kai Goby.

Kai Goby.

Kai is.

Kai's fabulous.

And I'm not saying that because we're good friends, which we are very been fortunate to become a good friend with Kai.

I was just with him this weekend but he's back up in Montana finishing a golf course up there and you know, he did the tree farm with Zach Blair, you know, obviously Blake Conant and Brian Snyder.

I'd say just from my knowledge, they're two of the best along with Kai up and coming.

I mean they're a little younger than Kai.

Kai's been around a long time and spent most of his time as a shaper but he's a tremendous architect too.

I think Kai kind of stays in the background more.

I mean, you know, if Doak needs somebody to finish out some green work, he's going to call Kai.

Gil Hantz.

Gil Hance got the Oakland Hills job to do the renovation.

Oakland Hills.

His crew was busy with a lot of his other jobs.

Who'd he called to do it?

Kai.

Kai did all the shaping at Oakland Hills and many more.

I could go on and on.

That's.

There's somebody you ought to have on here.

You talk about somebody that's full of golf knowledge.

Oh yeah, we'll definitely.

I need to reach out to Kai again, honestly.

Funny story.

Well, our good friend Matt Kobsky, we were playing sweetins Cove we went down several years ago.

First time I'd ever been to Sweetons Cove.

And Matt knows Kai very well, obviously, and.

And Kai was.

Was down that way and he stopped in and I got to play nine holes with Kai at Sweetens Cove and it was just so cool to be able to.

It's one of my favorite golf experiences of all time.

Just getting to pick his brain, being out there, seeing, just asking him, like, you know, when you come to a course, what are you looking at from the design standpoint, the drainage stand, you know, like he was just explaining all of these different things.

It was.

Was just so much fun.

So we'll definitely.

Yeah.

Bring Kai back on.

Yeah, yeah.

And just a really good person.

But, you know, I've met Blake Conant and Brian Snyder, seen.

I've seen their work.

Some of the other new ones.

Green's getting a lot of accolades.

I can't even say his first name.

Oh, there's three or four other ones that are starting to get a lot of work, but I really.

I'd hate to say they're really good, bad or indifferent.

Kai could.

Kai could probably give you a better evaluation of these guys because he's worked with them, knows them personally, you know, knows their abilities.

I want to hear a little bit more about Palmetto because I know that that holds a special place in your heart.

I know several guys from St. Louis that belong down there and just speak so highly of the place.

You don't hear of it a whole lot in the, you know, national press or, you know, as far as one of these big famous courses.

But everybody that's been down there just comes back and they're just like.

It's just, just something about it.

Well, it's a.

It's a pretty cool history.

Herbert Leeds, who was a noted architect of the days, I think I'll get my facts wrong, but he built like a three or four hole course first, then went on and built, I think just nine.

And they were all sand grains.

And I don't think they grasped them until they were building Augusta national, which, you know, happened during the Depression time.

And they were having a.

They were having a hard time getting members at Augusta national in the beginning.

And Aiken.

Aiken was the big horse community for the people up east New York, Connecticut, Rhode island, all the horse people, because the train went right through Aiken and so they would come down and they had these stables and built these unbelievable, beautiful homes.

It was kind of before Florida became The big horse capital for east coast people.

And Aiken still has a lot of really good stables.

In fact, I think they won a Preakness three or four years ago.

One of them came out of one of their stables.

But anyway, they were having a hard time getting members over at Augusta national, so they went over to Palmetto and said, you know, can we get some of your members to join over here?

And they said, well, we tell you what, we'll try to get some members to join if you'll send your architect over here to design as an 18 hole golf course with grass cranes.

And so Alistair McKenzie came over and did it.

He did the design.

The builder, I think their names was Miller, that built Augusta national and did a lot of work for McKenzie, did all the construction at Palmetto.

And so that's how the whole thing got started.

My association with it was again, back in the mid-80s, I ran into Jim Holtgreve.

Oh, I think it was at a pizza joint or something.

And we were shooting the breeze and I was telling him that I was going down to Augusta to see a practiceron.

I'd never been to Augusta.

And he says, oh really?

And you know, of course, Jim had already played in a couple of the Masters during his heyday and he had got, he'd become a friend of a member in Augusta that also was a member of Palmetto.

So he turned him on to Palmetto and Jim had joined there.

And during Masters week, Palmetto opens the doors to the public for a good, for a nice price.

In fact, they, you know, they make most of their capital expenditure money just on that one Masters week with.

So all the corporate people will bring their people over that are coming to the, to the tournament.

They'll bring them over one or two days and play golf.

So their book, all day long, all week long.

So anyway, Jim was doing that with his, a couple of his customers.

He said, I'll tell you what, I know you love these old golf courses.

He said, have you ever heard of Palmetto?

And I said, no, never heard of it.

He says, great old golf course, I've got two foursomes, but we're short one.

One person.

He said, come over the Tuesday after the practice round.

And so I did and I just fell in love with the golf course.

And I said, jesus, Jim, how'd you get to be a member here?

And he told me and I said, I said, what does it cost for a national membership?

Yeah, it costs 300 a year.

No way.

I'm like, sign me up.

So, yeah, I Mean, nobody had heard of it back in those days.

It was.

But they always had.

They had.

It's called the Devil Milburn Cup.

Devereaux Milburn was a great polo player, great golfer.

He was always a member.

He was from the east coast, but he was a member of Palmetto.

And they called it the Devil Millworth Cup.

And it was a Pro Am day.

And it was prior to the Augusta National.

And I mean, you go in the old clubhouse, which is an old Stanford White clubhouse that they only use locker room.

They don't.

There's no food service or anything.

They've got a snack bar in the pro shop, which is separate.

But they have all these plaques from the Deverel Milvern, see Hogan Snead, Byron Nelson, all the old greats had played in this Pro Am.

It was a big deal.

Bing Crosby played in it.

A lot of history, tremendous amount of history.

And back then it was.

Like I said, it was $300.

You'd have to.

When you came, you had to pay half grange fees to play.

Then eventually changed that to where national membership was just straight feet.

But it's.

Even for an old.

Old greenskeeper like me, it's still reasonable.

And when I worked, I used to just go down there once a year in the fall.

But now I try to get down there three or four times a year.

And is it still pretty much same, same bone, same structure, everything.

It is there.

There's.

Because of the notoriety.

In fact, I still remember the day I'm watching the Masters, and Jim Melnick, who was a US Amateur and British Amateur champion, used to do broadcast for the Masters for cbs, was a member there, used to come over and play and loved it right on national tv.

Talked about Palmetto, and I'm like, oh, shitty.

Blew it, you know, But.

And so there's a lot more national members now.

In fact, they're.

They don't even accept applications.

They're for membership or national membership.

It's really.

It's closed right now.

I mean, they don't even accept for a waiting list.

So it's a little busier in the.

Particularly in the spring when a lot of the northern people, national members come down.

But the summers aren't any worse than St. Louis, really.

And so, like, I'm gonna go down the week of Labor Day week and stay for a week and play, and it won't be too busy.

And I mean, the membership is just.

It's the most eclectic membership you'll ever see.

I mean, it's got.

I mean, it had members Were the Vanderbilts, Roosevelts.

They've got the wealthiest people from upstate east coast, all around the country.

They're members.

You've got members from overseas.

The town.

I'm sure the town barber is a member.

You know, they'll be out there with pull carts, carry bagging, carrying their own bags.

It's.

It's just a neat place.

Sounds like my kind of place.

Yeah, it is.

It's.

It's.

I say it's one of the very few true golf clubs left in the country.

You know, there's still, there's a lot of them that, you know, call themselves golf clubs, but, you know, they still have fine dining, you know, weight on your hand and foot.

It's not that way.

It's pretty laid back.

I love it.

How's.

How's the game these days?

Are you still.

It sounds like you're still getting out and playing a decent amount.

I am.

Like I said, until this heats fell, I kind of said, yeah, two reasons.

It was hot as hell and I haven't been playing very good.

So I'm ready to.

I think it was a good break for me.

I'm ready to get back out at it.

I've got all these new swing thoughts that I know are going to work, you know.

All right.

You never, you never told me the answer.

What's the hole in one count up to these days?

It's 17.

Oh my gosh, Roger, I think that's two more than the last time I talked to you.

That's amazing.

Probably is.

Probably is.

Yeah.

I haven't had one recently.

The part threes are all getting too long for me now.

Jeff, man, I'll tell you, I had some health issues last year that took a lot of strength out of me.

So I'm playing senior tees all the time now.

Well, it's great to hear that you're still out there swinging.

I'd love to.

I'd love to get out and tee it up with you one of these days.

Maybe you, me, Matt and absolutely another buddy get out there sometime soon.

Hey, two quick last questions.

First of all, one would be for anybody that is interested in kind of the.

The architectural side of the game.

What.

What's a book or two that you would recommend them checking out that you think would be good for somebody kind of just getting into it.

Tom Do's Anatomy of a Golf Course and boy, I've got so many.

That would be one that has a little more of the modern edge on it.

I mean, it was.

He wrote it quite a Few years back, but looks pretty good.

The other one is George Thomas's.

You know, George Thomas, who did Bel Air Riviera.

Some great golf courses in LA country club.

God, I'd have to run to my library and look.

No, that's all right.

We can't.

Can't think of the name of it, but it's.

I mean, everybody that's got into architecture has read that book.

Yeah, we can Google that one.

Yeah.

George C. Thomas.

Yeah, you can find that easy.

It's probably.

That one's probably pretty expensive.

It's.

It's rare.

I love it.

One.

One's a little more modern day, one's a little bit more historical.

That.

Exactly.

All right, my friend.

I know that obviously, golf has been a huge, huge part of your life, and really, that's kind of what this.

This whole show is about.

And so we like to ask every one of our guests that comes on, we call it our golf confessional.

What's something that.

That this game has taught you about yourself that you may not have ever discovered had it not been for it?

I'm just trying to think the right word for it, but just that tenacity to just not quit, just keep going, you know, I mean, I'll guarantee it.

Every superintendent at this time of year is just.

They're ready to hang it up.

You know, they're.

They're wore out, particularly in this area, and you just got to have that drive to keep going.

And the tenacity and the passion.

I think passion is the most important thing thing in any way of life.

You've got to love what you're doing.

It's really not worth doing.

Well said.

I would imagine being a greenskeeper superintendent, whatever term you want to use, keeper.

Of the greens, can.

Can be such a thankless job at times, you know, especially at a private club where the membership is never happy with.

With one part or the other.

So we, for the entire golf world, I thank you and all the other superintendents out there for all the hard work you guys put in.

And honestly, Roger, you literally are regarded as the godfather of superintendents around here.

Everyone speaks so highly of you from the greenskeeper standpoint, the architectural standpoint, and even just as a golfer in person.

So I'm honored to be able to call you a friend and be able to say that hopefully we're gonna go tee it up again as we have in the past.

But thank you so much for your time and coming on the show.

I appreciate it.

The Godfather just means I'm the oldest.

Guy that's all right, that's all right.

There's also a lot of respect in that term.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate you having me on.

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