M golf is the say anything in golf that doesn't change, anything that changes the best implying does this man a one time winner on the PGA Tour. The point Alan is he didn't go Hollywood. You need a fourth Hello? This is Alan Chifnuck back for another Need a Fourth podcast, in which myself, Michael Bamberger, and Jeff Ogilvie take turns surprising each other with a mystery guest. The other two co hosts usually have no idea who this person is until we start taping, but on this occasion, the guest himself surprised us by jumping into our virtual hangout sooner than expected. Um Strangely it was Ben Crunch. I was no technical ability whatsoever, normally doesn't even have a cell phone, but somehow he got into our our zoom hang out before we could get there. So there's there's no preamble. But before we get to a fascinating and life affirming conversation with a gentle bed, we do need to thank our our sponsors Echo Golf, who make this podcast possible. Michael, do you have something to say? Well? I think you know this about me on because you've known me well for a long time UM marketing. Resistant, like you can't tell what kind of sweater I'm wearing today because it's been blacked out, much like Tiger with the pin Man, you know he's black that. But Echo I can speak about authentically and naturally. And I want to ask you a question Echo, because I think you'll know where I'm going with this. Have you noticed with this Echo shoe you put it on and there's no quote breaking in period? Have you had that right out of the box. They are very crushy, very comfy, no blisters, The leather is supple, it just it just molds around your foot in an almost sensual way. So yes, I know you're speaking of Yeah. In fact, I had an experience with one of our other guests, Mike Mills, where he went to a golf course. I had forgotten one of issues. He had to go to the pro shop buy shoes. He didn't buy Echo. At the end of the day he had terrible blisters. And we have never forgotten about that. But I don't think it ever happens with an Echo shut not my experience. No, No, it's a great product. We're happy to wear them, and we were pleased they're sponsoring this podcast. So without further ado, let's get to Nita fourth. How are you been? Where are you? Jeff? I am sitting uh next to the full length hall on the West Coast at Row Melbourne. Oh you lucky dog you. Oh my gosh. That's still one of my favorite courses in the world. I really I tuned in a couple of weeks ago to watch Kingston Heath and Victoria. Uh I happened to be. You know, as we have talked, I'm a bashed fan of of the Australian courses, especially in the sand Belt. There's nothing like the sand Belt anywhere in the world. I still reckon that they're the most handsome bunkers I've ever seen in my life. At at Royal Melbourne Kingston Heath, there's simply because there's no sand like it anywhere on the face of the earth. But I just really enjoyed I watched I watch people play it. Having been there, it's really fun for me to watch and I know they're they're coming up with another one here pretty soon. What do they play? Jeff was in a week or two we play h said, there's a sand Belt Invitational tournament. We play um Kingston heath Role, Melbourne West, Yara Yarra and Penitzia Kingswood North. Of course I've seen Yarra Yarra, which is wonderful too, but god, they're just respectacular. They're spectacular. Jeff was talking about the sand in the sand belt is very angular and therefore it can compact in a unique way and that's how they can cut those sharp edges of the bunkers, which kind of blew my mind. Like I always I never thought about the different parties of sand. I would like to hear you guys talk for thirty minutes about different sands and how it's affected your lives as designers, because that's incredible to me. Well, I could just tell you the first time I saw Royal Melbourne, Um, I've never seen anything like it. Uh and uh. Actually the first courts that I played in Australia was Metropolitan Metro, which was wonderful, just wonderful golf course. But I went over to Royal Melbourne and I they size and the scope and uh, I just say, they're magnificent bunkers. They're meaningful, they they're bold. But yes, I don't think there's any sand like it on the face of the earth one of the very few places, like you mentioned that there's no collars on the greens. They just rolling. They just edge right into the buckers, which is a unbelievable contrast. And when you're standing out there trying to hit an approach shot to any of those greens, it's very vivid, uh, And it's a it's a uh it does mark where are you trying to go? But I think the size and the proportion and the different ways that uh, that really Mackenzie and Alex Russell. Alex Russell to me is Webby one of the unsung heroes of golf architecture anywhere in the world. What a what a craftsman he was, Uh, And I really do count myself very lucky to have spent a couple of hours with Claude Crockford to who was the old green keeper at Royal Melbourne. And I'll never forget a couple of things that he said. He he stunned me with this one. He said, you said, you know, you in America try to grow grass. He said, we try to keep it from growing over here. And that just it has uh sort of an insight as to his expertise at a craftsman. You know, he grew up bowling, He grew up building bowling greens in in Melbourne, and uh it was but the way that they keep golf courses and the way that there are agronomy standards are as high as anywhere in the world. Uh. He described the process of how you know, every three or four years they re turf the grass. And he definitely believed that compacion was the bane of all diseases. Uh. I just don't think that I was ever around anyone who was that learned. And uh, he was so avid and his principles. I'll never forget this too. One day I played with Greg Norman Melbourne. Uh. It was a very very hot day and the wind was blowing hot from the north. It was about a hundred degrees, about a ten percent in humidity. I got through and I went, god, I always want to see what the crew does. How did the place looked like it was gonna be on fire? And a small crew went out with a handheld hose and spent about two minutes on each grin and then they laughed, and I said, well that that's unbelievable. Uh, but it's when you talk about firm conditions anywhere in the world. I mean, you know Lynks in the UK when you've had a drought. But to me, I was treated so many times in Melbourne to to play firm firm services, so healthy, so healthy. Think about that a lot, but there's no no other place that you can do it, though, Jeff, have you ever had a chance to play Ben's course, Sandhills in Nebraska? I haven't been to Sound Hills No, Unfortunately, it's been on the wish list for a while. But it's so hard to get to um when you do what we do like and I'm sure Ben can relate to this in the playing days. When you do what we do and you love golf courses, all you want to do is play the great ones. But when you play an average one Tuesday through Sunday every week, it's just hard to sort of roll out on Monday and go somewhere special because you're going to go play the next six days, somewhere that you don't really probably love, you know, I mean, if you get a bit jaded and you never really the two. It doesn't go to fun places. You know. We don't go to Westchester County very often anymore, and I mean, we do go to Carmel just pretty good. Um, we don't go to Nebraska, you know. Um. Yeah, So I haven't been to Soundhills, no, but I've played. I've been been. Give me a little tour of his place, Austin Golf Club, which was really cool. And I've always loved his because him and him and Bill's courses have just such a like he was talking about role Melvin, they have. It's a subtle, it's a nuance. It's it's quite Uh, you have to go find the golf course, you know, you have to find where the intelligence isn't it. And I think it's one of those They're always courses that you want to play again. And I think, which is probably the ultimate compliment of an architect me if if anyone had ever played any of our courses, if they just say, if they finished their team, they just want to go out and play again. And I think, well, we've done a decent job here, you know, because my favorite courses I don't know. I mean, you read Golf magazine or Golf Digest and they have this list of how they rank course is and its shot values and all that, you know, the juncts that they just talked about. I don't understand, but to me it's um. If I want to go play again, and the one that's pulling me to the first to the hardest is my favorite, you know. UM. And I think that's sometimes indescribable, but I think Bill and Ben's course is generally do that to me. Well, Jeff, you're you're right at right at the peak where where you are. I can tell you this. You know, I have to tell you all the story. Uh. You know, I've been lucky enough to win tournaments and I've had pressure putts. Jeff will appreciate this. We played the World Cup at Roal Melbourne and Mark mccomber was my partner. We're coming down the last few holes and we were very almost tied with the Ozaki brothers from Japan and Julie we had just had our first child, who was in Hawaii, and we were gonna finish, finished tournament, go back over to Hawaii. Ka Tron was two months old. We come down to the last hole and I have to make this eight foot or downhill for us to win. And Julie told me before that punch, she said, look, I've been away from that baby for two weeks. You better make that put before we've got this, you know, eight feet down on the ice, and somehow I got it in. But that's one of the pressure pots I ever had, and I was so proud to want it real Melbourne. But god, I'll never forget that. Julie and I laugh at that, and I said, Julie, you were really tough on me. That's God. You don't know how difficult that pot was. But you know, as an aside, I love to talk to anybody who can handle wing foot in the US Open. How about that, Jail. I'll never watch, never forget watching Jeff playing there. He played beautifully, played bold when he had to. That's you know, anybody who has been around wingfoot and played it in competition, it is difficult, very difficult, and he handled them. And I'm very proud of him for doing that. He carry it off in great fashion. Yeah, wingfoot stuff. I'm glad I don't play it every week. I'm not sure i'd still play golf if I played it every week. But it's such a treat. Um. I was back there this summer actually for the first time for a few years, and every single time the Greens blow me away. You could have no rough around there in the place would be really difficult. Um, there's not too many places like I mean, I grew up around role Melbourne and the Sound Belt that the greens are so important and where you are around the greens wingfoot. If you're in the wrong spot around the greens, I don't care who you said. He's not getting it up and down, you know. Um. But if you're in the right spot, it's relatively sort of doable. But it's finding the right spots really hard. It's just incredible. And I don't know about you've been, but I feel like if if we built wing foot greens now, they'd run us out of the business and they never give us another jump again. Yet they might be they might be my favorite greens I know. With were those contours, they'd be unmanageable, especially green speeds these days. Uh, superintendents you know have and they don't have contests between each other, but they're very proud of of what they can do. Uh. But you're right. You you study the formations and the swings and the borrows on those greens. Uh, Wow, they're they're pretty fierce. They don't need to get up when their tournament. Oh gosh, it's it magnifies your errors a lot. How do you guys feel about the new back to all three of you, how do you feel about We have seen it yet, but just the idea of a new back t on on thirteen out Augusta National. This is the way golf's gone, and it's it's Augustin National has tried very hard to stay ahead of of things. Uh, I can't. I think there were what maybe two players in the last three years who could carry the ball over those trees across the corner, which is unfathomable in itself. But you know, I've just seen a picture of it. I haven't seen it in person. But you can't get out of there. You've got to go. You've got to go straight and then and then maybe hopefully a little turn. But it's I'm gonna get back there, I guess in April and and look at it and say, I'm very happy I don't have to look at that. But it's the club has tried very hard two uh challenge players these days. That's very difficult to do. Ah. I never thought that I'd see a day where well over half the field can carry the ball three hundred yards, ah and it and it. I know they've tried very hard to keep in the situation where your approach shots. People play the same clubs that they did a long time ago. I don't I know, I'm not sure if that's possible these days. But especially if you have dry conditions, the ball is gonna keep running, but will it will be interesting to see. But then again, Jeff knows, you've got to get up and tackle those greens, get into the greens and position yourself. It's very difficult. Uh. You have shots there, especially the little shots. I don't know about you, Jeff, the little shots that Augusta are. It always seemed to me that you could practice all the little practice shots you wanted to, But in the tournament itself, you get up to your ball and you say, God, I've never had this shot before, so you have to have to imagine it and have to feel it. It's a little bit like Royal Melbourne, you know, you just you can practice there as long as you want, but you never seem to have the same shots, imagination and touch. Ben, when you played your first Masters in two, what club would you have been hitting in the can you remember? Oh? Yeah, I hit many many drive and three and four woods. You know, if you hit a good one off the tee uh, with a little bit of turn, a little bit of dangerous turn them to the left, that's what you were trying to do, no question, But uh, you think about that whole so many momentous decisions that were made there. H Uh. You know it comes in the in the round where if you do try it and you and you fail, it comes early enough and your round it sticks with you to the end of the day and you say to yourself, well should I have tried that? Or if you bring it off, it gives you extra confidence as well. But then you have to try to two part number fourteen, which is hard enough. Uh. But no, thirteen and fifteen have always been a great part of that place, always will be. Uh. So many exciting things have happened. Uh. But no, it played longer in those days, no question. But you know you with a persimmon club and a blot of ball, you could only drive so far. Jeff is a as a golf course architect, yourself, how would if you were presented with the question of what do we do on thirteen? What do you think you might have said? I don't know. Like Benn says, it's kind of it's what offs thatt um. In one sense, it's a shame, I think, because there's something nice about, well, there's two sides that there's something nice about. We still play the same game that Jones did, but we don't you know, um, we're still playing the same course. Is that the beauty of the Masters as we go to this beautiful place every single year almost indefinitely, it's been and you just you get to see every generation play these same holes. It's it's nice that we do that, and it's a little bit of a shame that we have to change it. But we do have to change it, and you want to see you don't want to see if there's two or three going over the trees now from the what's been the current tea, there's going to be going over the trees in a few years time, and that's taking all the fun away from that hole because the fun has been said. I mean, it's a relatively simple hole. If you hit two great shots. It's just really difficult to hit those two great shots, you know, and you've got to really got to risk your tournament a little bit to make three there, you've got to take the war are on on the left, and you've got off the team and you've gotta take the water on the right off the second shot. It's almost the perfect hole. Um, and it's unbelievably far back that picture I've seen where that tea is like pen says, I'm pretty glad I don't have to play it right now. Um, But you know what, every time, at least in my era, Augusta was the change era, the big change here. I know it's always evolving, it's always been changing, but it gained a lot of length in the last twenty years. Um. Every time we'd get there and it's like, oh, this is too long, like seven everyone when they put the tea back onto everyone was complaining and moaning, we can't hit three irons into this green. This is ridiculous. Everyone's hitting wedge in again, like they got it right. We all thought they were wrong, but they were right. They were ahead of the curve almost every time. So, um, it'll be interesting to see. I'm sure it'll play really long, and there'll be a bit, a little bit of moaning. I mean, players are very careful about moaning at the Master's because they want to come back, um, But in a few years time, I'm sure it'll be right. They haven't really missed the mark very often there, um, and it kind of needs to happen. It's great. It would be great to see the whole field having to hit three iron or five wood or something from with the ball way above their feet and take that shot on. It's a much more difficult decision than it is with a sixth iron or even a nine on or some of these kids hit in there now. So, as I said, it's it's a it's a slight shame, but it's where golf is, and it's such a great hole that it'll be it'll be fine, and it will still be one of the best holes in the world. And the boys are just going to have to work it out in Monday Thursday. They're just going to have to work out what they want to do and how much they want to take on and and someday hopefully we get the two leaders standing there with a three iron and a five wood in their hand like Faldo did in ninety six and deciding which one do I hit, which one the way hit and standing there for three minutes, because that's really why the masters. I think it's so compelling to watch just because it makes players make decisions they don't want to make, but you have to make them. You know. It forces you to go for thirteen when you really don't want to. That's every really hot shot when you've got a long club, but you have to go because you can just tell that cost us or someone's up in the talent. It go goes you into taking a chance, you know, and it's yeah, you know, the targets are wide enough and it's inviting. You know that shot is downhill and you have to figure that and well, you know you're going the ball is going to travel a little further downhill. It's very difficult, of course, But you know, I knew things were changing a good while ago when the new seventeen te at St. Andrew's was back over thrown and onto the new course, I said, wow, that things are changing. So you know, it's holes like that, like you say, yeah, yes, change, but you had to uh in the hands of these great, great players. I'm having the best time watching so many great players these days. It's the quality of golf. Yes, it's a power game, but it's it's it's It's wonderful to see the skills come out at different times with all these guys, all these young guys who are trying to climb the ladder. Uh they you can see where they A lot of it sometimes is where people have come from. I always reckoned that people from Australia and people from South Africa could really play the game because of where they grew up. Uh. You can handle breezy conditions, uh, hot conditions and very adaptable. So I enjoyed meeting different people from across the world and where they grew up and how they played Alan. How about for you, as someone who has written a lot of memorable game stories from a what what would you if you if Fred Ridley called you and said what should we do on third chain? What would you tell him? I'm not expecting that phone call, but um, I would enjoy it. Um. It's funny you mentioned that that Fouledo three iron, Jeff, because I've I've been lucky to witness a lot of amazing shots and pressure situations the majors, And I was standing right there on that rope line when Fouldo was standing out there in that fairway and framed by the trees and the beautiful afternoon light. And you know, people always talk about the sound of of a strike and impact and it can be a little mythologized, but I can still hear that strike and the way that ball just rifled through the air before you even land on the green. I was like Greg's cooked. I mean, it was probably the most pure gold shot I've ever seen my own two eyes. And um so that that's just a funny memory I have, And um yeah, I would, I would tell Fred I understand why they pushed it so far back. They don't want to have to go back again in five years like they obviously tipped it out. I hopefully they will. They will bring the tea forward. You just you want almost every player in the field have to make that decision, and if if they put it too far back, and and how it's an automatic layup for half for two thirds of the field. It takes a lot of the romance out of that hole. And um so finding the right mix, testing the longest players, but also letting the Zach Johnson's or someone like that at least think about it. Zac's about example, because he laid up every time. But you know them it would be. I think it'd be a shame if if it's just if it becomes a thoughtless hole where um, so many guys just don't even they hit it. They know they're not gonna go for it, so they hit a three wood or a five wood off the tea just to make sure they put in the fairway. They hit another they knock it up there with a five iron, and then it just becomes, you know, basically a hundred yard part three. Like none of us want that, so um air on the side of of of keeping the drama and the the excitement. But I think they know that instinctively. It's just difficult, you know. I know that Jeff uh, when he thinks about building the course, you want to try to reach everybody that you can. You would it brings variety. We always tried to get at part five that you could reach and then one that you couldn't, just for variety's sake. Sometimes it doesn't always work out that way. Uh. The nature of the par five's at Augusta are such that on certain days you can get there on all of all the eight's a little difficult going uphill, but uh, the the temptation with the with the water on the back nine and the way it starts to climax is it just doesn't happen that often in such a beautiful place. And it's Uh. I've always said the acoustics of playing that golf course in the tournament have a lot to do with it. If there's no place that sound means quite a lot. You always know where you are, You always know who did what by the decibels of yells. Uh just makes you excited. Uh. Just doesn't happen that in the world of golf that often. Um. You know, both of you guys are obviously golf romantics, Michael as well, but for for for Jeff and Ben, when you go to a course that in your playing days that you just don't love it, It doesn't stir the soul. It's probably has the initials TPC and it maybe not. But it's just not a a wondrous piece of architecture. It's just a golf course. And like you, like you said, Jeff, you got to slog through the practice rounds, the pro am, the tournament rounds. How do you set aside your own tastes, in your own mental health so you can focus on the job at Ham, which just make a lot of birdies, like when you're essentially offended by the architecture, like how challenging is for the two of you. In particular, I didn't struggle too much. There's enough to worry about when you play golf, you know, like how am I hitting it one? Am my? What am my swinging it like this week? As my partning, as my chipping, um working on something here and there. So I think most of a progolf I don't know how ben most of the progolfs golfers headspaces filled up with how am I going to hit it better tomorrow? Or how am I going to hold more puts tomorrow. I think it's a bonus when you get to play an inspiring golf course. I think, um, and you're just used to it. The PG two is, I guess, I mean, to its benefit and its detriment, is very good at setting up stuff very similarly every week. Um, so you kind of know what you're going to get before you get there, and it's about how do I shoot the lower score around this course that I can a minutes a lot more fun obviously at Augusta or the Old Course or Riviera or raw Melbourne or um, because there's a more and more depth and more nuance to the sport rather than just hit it straight and go find it and hit it straight again. Um, But I don't know. I think it's the job. I mean, I fell in gold with love with golf courses slowly over time, great architecture, I think. I mean, I grew up on the sand belt, so I didn't believe everybody when they said, well, your courses are the sum of the best in the world, Like until I went away. I thought, what do you mean they're just over this, it's just around the court. What do you mean that they all golf courses are like this? You know? And it was just gradually over time that I realized, Wow, it took me a long time to work out that I've grown up around such incredible golf courses. Um that most of the time I was just focused on how do I hit the ball better or further? Or I can't fade it at the moment, what am I doing? Um? It was more game focused and course focused, and I think the golf course stuff came gradually, I mean right now. And then there was the offensive setups. There was this period early in my career, and it's probably been it's come and gone over the years. It seems to have gone for now, which is nice. Just the hack out rough when you hit it off the tea and you knew you just pulled sander On out. As soon as you hit in the roff, you'd walk up with fairway with your sund on because there's the only club you're ever going to hit for your second shot, because you were in the rough. That really drove me nuts. And I had trouble going seventy two holes giving my head in a good space when that was happening, because I think recovery is the some of the beauty of golf is that eggs getting yourself out of the problem you get yourself into. UM. And if the best courses and the best our favorite golfers ever have been masters at doing that, UM. It frustrated me a lot when it was just you hit it the roff and you just have to hack it out and try to get it up and down. For part of that was boring to me, and that annoyed me. But most of the time, the challenge of actually playing the game was enough, you know, and it was just cream on type of what was a great cause. I agree with Jeff. I mean, the hardest circumstances to play, at least in my career, was playing the US Open, where it seemed like thirty years in a row, you knew exactly what the setup was going to be. It's very ironclad, uh thirty six thirty seven yards wide or approaching forty and certain servistances. But the rough was brutal on both sides, and you just it was very penal, but you knew what was gonna happen, and it was very frustrating. Like Jeff said that, you you know, you hit the ball the rough, there's only one thing to do is hack it out and try to get it up and down somehow. But that's the way. It was brutally tough, uh uh fearsome because you knew what was the whole week was going to be that way, so put the no question if us on the straight drivers. Uh, It's very tough to do a lot of golf courses, but it was very consistent. I think our uh P J boat right from the U s g A set up the courses many many years. You knew exactly what you were going to get. Uh. Things change a little bit later, probably for the better, but it was you knew what was gonna happen. A lot of other major tournaments went that way. To the p G A of American went many years. Was uh, same setups, uh, but a little bit like Jeffson, sometimes it's not the true revealer of a golf course and it's makeup. Uh. I was lucky to when I started traveling as an amateur through college, I would go seek out a golf course that I had heard about, and I'd go visit it, look at it, and it really kind of Uh. That was my thesis uh in architecture, started seeing different places, see how things work, to see what people were talking about. They said, way, do you see this green way? Do you see this whole? You know, things like that. So uh, you know, in Jeff's case, you grew up right right next to some of the best courses in the world. I have to chuckle with that. It must be unbelievable you grew up around there and everything else doesn't come down. H. I've never said anything like it, though. When I went through the first time, I said, God, this is completely fantastic. Now it's unbelievable. I because you don't believe it when everybody tells you you live next to the best course of the world, on the one next door that's that's one as well, and then the one just kept two balls down the road is as well. It's like, there's no way we didn't have the best stuff in this right, And it's not until you go somewhere else to realize that. You must have to go away. So the alchemists that that great book, you have to go away to realize that it's all right in front of you. You know, Um, it was incredible, so spoiled, amazing. So most people start at some local communiti that they haven't ranked the bunkers since, and um there's there's not much going on there and it's pretty poor. And they go up and they fantasize about playing at these great golf courses, and eventually, one day, after thirty years of golf, they get to go play somewhere fantastic. I was the other way around, um, which is an interesting way to do it. Now people people can see it on television, but unless you're there, you just you can't comprehend how how the wonders it is. And like I said, in the hands of great architects and people who take care of them and know what they're doing. It's just it's very neat. Then you may you may know that Jeff is doing work at Madonna. Uh, Jeff, you are too young to remember. But I am not how well Ben played at the nineteen seventy five US Open at Madonna. Who was a shot out of the uh Lou Graham, John mahaffey playoff? Do I have that right? You're you're exactly right? And I blew it, blew what happened? What happened the seventeenth hole there, and and the way that the exactly the thirteenth hole. Now it's seventeen very long, part three over the water, and I hit this two iron and I hit it in the toe and and and rinched it before the green. That was my double bogie, and that I've lost, I've got. I missed the playoff by one, but it was right there before me. But I didn't execute painful painful to iron. Uh that was my best open finish, US Open finish. But uh, yeah, Lou Graham, Lou Graham and John mahaffy. But I'm glad you're working at Madonnah. It's a that spectacular place. It's so wonderful holes there, stately trees, uh and some good strong holes, my gosh, lots of good holes. And you know in Chicago in summer, you have to deal with the breeze. You have to play the wind in Chicago. Probably Jeff's case will probably cut down a few trees and make the wind, make the winds sing through those trees. But he's got a wonderful place to work with. Madonna has been one of our great courses and great membership, very proud memberships there. Yeah, it's very exciting for us. It's uh, as you said, it's an incredible property, very grand. Just driving in you feel it feels very big and special and like you said, proud membership, very engaged in the club. And yeah, way privileged to get a chance. So yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's a great place. The story it's had, so there's not many courses it's in. It's in that short list of clubs that have had all the biggest tournaments in the US. You know, it's had US Opens and Roadic Cups and p g I Tour events and um for for and a really interesting there's a reason for that and then jeh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, it's it's got a scale and a feel that's just yeah, it's pretty special place. So it's gonna be it's gonna be fun. Hopefully we hopefully we do a nice job. I mean, in job like that of Jeff, how how much latitude you have can can You're probably not going to reroute it. But is it just just to take what's there and make a little spiffier or do you have the freedom to really reimagine some of the holes and and you know, because this place does have a history and a pedigree, so how does that constrain you? Um, well, it's interesting. Um, sometimes when we work in Australia, um, we have to go through seven different committees and boards and twelve different member meetings to be able to move a bunker, you know. Um. But in the US we've found generally that very often it's like, well, you guys are the experts. You tell us, you know, and if we sort of if we suggest something bold, they'll think about it and go, yeah, that's great to it, and if um, we don't, they'll be disappointed that we didn't suggest something bold, you know. So, I mean it's not Madonna is so great, the bones of it are so great, and the land is so great, um that there's going to be some mostly just polishing the diamond really and sort of I mean courses chat, I mean trees grow, and greens deteriorate, and bunkers deterior eight and cutting lines move, you know, like you take photos of fantastic and my data has got this great sort of archives of photos over the years, and you can see how much golf courses move without them trying to make them move over time and minutes an organism, um. And the guy cutting the greens cut the greens in seven but then a new guy cut them and he sort of cut them in a little bit of a different place. And the bunker is the sound splash out of the bunkers that buy some of the bunkers get bigger and smaller, and it moves, so a lot of it is sort of going picking through all of that and sort of where were the best versions of these holes over the years, and um trying to sort of have some historical sort of a nod to history and when the second or the third, or the eighth or the twelveth, or when it was at its best state, you know, having a look at that and can we sort of find that again, um, and just get back to the best version of the golf course that it can be. And sometimes that might be moving green or moving a hole, and sometimes the holes in the perfect place and you might just have to rebuild the bunkers for function. Um. So we're a little bold on the plan in spots, but where generally sort of pretty. As I said, sympathetic to that. The history, it's got really interesting history. It was really hard to find which architects had ever been there. It's a really sort of checking history. They've had a lot of people come to do what we're doing in the last hundred years at madna UM. So combing through the boys, Michael and actually are fantastic at finding that they found pictures and evidence of architects going there. The club didn't even know, which was kind of fun. Yeah, yeah, really really cool. If you can have access to get arcads and you really see what has happened through the years, it's such a help. As you know, uh, like you say, bunker edge changes, putting green sizes changed through the years with the gronomy and this and that. But like you said, if you have a good set of our caves. You just know when you talk to the older members and this and that and you rely on them, it's fun. It's fun. Yeah, we've loved it. If I if you had any advice, I think you'd probably agreed. Ben of anyone who had a golf course. You just take photos all the time and put them in the archives, you know, and get testimonials for members, and just just record everything because over the years, um, the clubs where you go to where they don't have any evidence of what was there before. It's kind of disappointing and you have to decipher it, which is kind of fun. But it's fantastic when you've got the records, especially of such an old place like Madonna, because um, it's it's just interesting anyway, if you're into golf courses, it's just fantastic to read about how people they used to play the tea from over there. Can you believe that? I mean there might be a standard hundred foot trees there, but the tea used to be over there, you know, and you go stand there, it's like, wow, it would have been a better hole from here, but we can't move seventeen hundred foot oak trees, so we better go back to the time this. I just find that stuff really really interesting. Um, it's like an archaeological dig in a way, sort of digging through the history of a course, especially of course like Madonna that's had so many sort of so many hands touch it. You know. It's really a combination of a lot of people over the years sort of putting their touch on it and changes here and then changing it back because we didn't like that. Twenty years later and um, we had a really interesting I think it's shady ocause I'm sure they'd be they'd be fine about telling us there was at one point the eighteenth that Shady sort of goes over a hill and at one point Mr Hogan had put a bunker in I think on the right hand side of the fairway. Ben might even remember the bunker. I don't know when it was there, but um, and it was over the hill. It was a bunker that was sort of blind, you couldn't see it. Um, and it turned out to be an awful bunker. I don't know how long it was there for. And they filled it in and I think they were telling that someone mentioned Mr Hogan, remember that bunker that you put down on the right hand side of the eighteenth there was never a bunker on the right hand side of the end. He'd erased it from the whole, and he erased it from history just by denying that he'd ever put one there. So those sort of things I just fanty. I just love that stuff about golf and golf courses. And yeah, the arcrafts are brilliant. God, that guy, he can't believe this. Uh. Thinking the other night that in two successive nights in Fort Worth I had dinner with Mr Hogan and his wife and Byron Nelson and his wife were two successive nights, which was I'll never forget that as long as I lived. And they were two different people and a lot of big for each other. Oddly enough, they grew up in the same town, the same candy yard. But I was lucky enough to have known them both. Cherished my friendships with both. And uh, I don't know how many people would would have ever had dinner two successive nights when with those two. Uh. God, I think about what they accomplished in the game and how how much that people looked up to them both. That's quite remarkable. So I'm very lucky. What's your best boging story? He he came out. I played. This was really funny. I played around at Colonial in the morning. It was very hot day, and I went out to Shady Oaks. I was going to hit some balls in the afternoon, and um, I was. I was not playing well, and so I went out and h the Little nine is what they call it over that's where Mr Hogan practice. So I went out there and was hiting balls and he came over here. He comes over in his cart and he said, all right, let me see you've hit a few. So I did, and I wasn't hitting them well at all, left, right, every which way. And he looked at me, said, well, what did you shoot today? And I said I shot sixty five And he did not want to hear anything like that, and he said he watched me a couple more shots, and he just took off. He said, well, good luck to you, fella, and he just drove off. He always kind of teased me because I knew Jackie Burke and Jimmy de Merritt very well. He loved talking about those two. But now I had some clubs made, and he always teased. But Barron was a very It's like a grandfather, you know, very very different. Uh. He'd always try to help, but to no avail in both both camps, but I know them both. Uh cherish those times. I'm terribly sorry to break into this episode of You to Fourth because it's it's so much fun to listen to to bank crunch opine on so many things. But we do want to tip our cap to our very generous corporate sponsors, Link Soul. I'm a huge fan of the clothing they make. I've been wearing it for a super long time. Definitely predates their alignment with this podcast is an authentic testimonial. I do love their clothes. Um, and we're doing kind of a fun little giveaway. If you go to the fire Pits Instagram handle, you have to follow us and you have to comment on this episode. Shouldn't be hard. There's been a lot of thought provoking topics and that will make you eligible for this gift card, which we will reveal in a very splashy public way and you could gets cool clothing on us. So thanks for supporting Links Soul, Thanks for listening to Need a Fourth. Now back to Mr Ben Crenshaw. Then this is a nutty question. This is for all three of you, guys. Um, then you've played courses that don't have well, Jeff made a funny reference earlier to uh municipal courses that hadn't had bunkers rakes since the late eighties. How would you feel been about golf courses not having uh rakes and bunkers. Well, you know, it's it's some places cannot possess the tools to keep courses like that, so it's what they have to do. But you finally say, well, this is a golf course, and and people this is a place where it's not possible, so you play it. That's how people learn uh uh uh. It's a it's something that's not always possibly. It's influence and as much as I love Augusta National, it's only place in the world where you're going to get uh agronomy like that, and people are enamored with it. Yes, the people at home always have got to wonder why why we can't do that? Well, it's not possible, you know. So when you when you grow up in certain circumstances, and Jeff and I have known players that have come from let's say, unkempt golf courses, they learned how to play, and they they're very adaptive. Uh, their experiences are different, but you you come to admire those those guys and gals who have done that uh part of as part of your learning process. So, uh, it can't be graceful all the time. It just can't be. It's not not possible. Nature doesn't work that way. I like the idea of the Peter Thomas always the easter yellists like, don't rape bunkers, it's a hazard. I just don't hit it in there, you guys, don't. I don't know what a tough bunker shot is. Um. I think if we play, it's a symptom of seventy two whole stroke play becoming the only form of the game, don't you think. I think if we played match play all the time and Goldford gone the match play route like tennis, say, um, you could not rate because it would be fine because it's just you against your opponent in that group and the better player would generally win and you don't have to protect the field. And um, but you play seven, You've got a hundred and fifty six guys playing the same course. It's currently and we're playing for so much money, and it's so important. You really have to give everyone the same playing field as much as you can, I think, um, But I love the idea of the adventure. And when you're a kid, it's funny. I remember, being the younger I was, I would grab it. I just wanted to hit the hardest shot possible, Like I would go to the bad line the bunker before. I wouldn't tee it up. Now, all I want to do is put it on a good lie to make myself look good, you know, and hit a good shot. But when I was a kid, all I wanted to do was a hard shot, And that's the the adventure that sort of maybe has been lost a little bit of golf because we're all too enamored with a perfect golf shot that we forgot that the whole point of this is just going out into the backyard and having an adventure, you know, creating your own stuff. And I think not raking bunkers, that's part of that. So I think I'm on both sides of you can't really do it in practical terms in place. If you don't rake bunkers, ever, then they don't work very well, you know, they you need to rank them to keep them operating properly and being good bunkers. But I like the idea of bad lies in bunkers. I just think it's not practically fair. Definitely reminds me of a story that I read, you know, when they furrowed the bookers at oak Mark, and that those those both fearsome bunkers ever and and you know you just couldn't hit the ball out of him. And I'll never forget that. I was reading where Jimmy Demarritt was in a bunker on the thirteenth hole. It came kind of close to the clubhouse and Omont. These sportswriters came out and they said, well, what do you think about these bunkers, Jimmy, he said, Well, if we'd had these rakes in the Second World War, he said, Romil never would have made it past Casa Blanca. So much it kind of gives you an interesting about Jimmy de Merritt. But not thinking charlat McDonald's book, he's he wasn't above running horses through buckers. So I really meant for you to stay out of bunker somehow. So those those are pretty wild, but that's that's people have mentioned that, but you're right, and Jeff, I mean a lot of tournaments that we have played for so many years, you have perfect lives and bunkers, and these guys become really adept at scoring because they have wonderful sand with which to play. So yeah, it was different a long time ago, a little more natural, let's say in yesteryear. But remember Jack maybe seven years ago with the memorial for the bunkers, and the players hated it. It was miserable. It was impossible because he would do it. I mean, the furrows are bad enough, but he would do it sort of perpendicular to the line of play, not parallel, so you you just had zero chance, right, um, which I don't like either, because if you don't want to, it's like the bat, it's like the hack out. Rough. Golf is more interesting when you've got hope when you hit it into a bunker off the te and you're like, oh, I hope, I hope I can get it on the grain. I hope I can get on the grain. There's a chance, right, it's gonna be there's gonna be a bit on both sides. If it's guaranteed to be dead, it's a miserable experience. It's just so, it's just frustrating and annoying. Um. But if you're walking out if you don't get a good lie, or you don't get a good lie. But sometimes if if half the time you get well, I can hit this one. This is fun. You know, you've got that little moment of joy in around you know, I don't know, there's somewhere in the middle of this, right, that's right. I believe in Jeff two you had to provide hope and optimism somehow. Then I'm sure you get this all the time. You know, people have their quirky little favorites. I'm sure all three of us would like to ask you about some of our quirky little favorites. So I'll get started here with uh, really near St. Andrew's. Have you ever been there? And what do you think of it? I have? I can understand why James Braid enjoyed his golf there. I thought it was fun, a lot of a lot of shorter holes, It was a lot of character, but I thought very interesting piece of property. I didn't know it that well, but I knew that he he grew up air. Uh. But yeah, I have seen it, but I thought it was pretty interesting collection to hold, at least the periscope of course, right, yeah, yeah, fantastic. Yeah. Uh. Michael and I had a great match there this um this last summer. We sneaked over during the open at the old Course. I'm afraid he closed me out like on the seventeenth hold, but it was it was so much fun like that, that, to me is the perfect kind of golf course. The Cruden Bay, the North Barracks. It's just funky and weird and unforgettable. But it's kind of like you were saying earlier, Jeff, about you know, built trying to build wingfoot greens today. How do you both bring some some whimsy and some some fun into your designs but not get to the point where people are gonna throw up their hands and say, oh, it's too gimmicky, like it's such a fine line. But how do you do that with the modern golf courses, Jeff, I, you know, my first trip to the British Aisles, I just kind of came away with the notion that there are some odd shapes on a lot of things that you see, and they they just this, the planters just said, well, we're gonna make this part of this golf hole. I don't care what it looks like, you know, a giant hill in front of you or some some something that appears out of place on the first glance. They said, this is this is the situation, and we're gonna make a golf hole out of this. And that's why I'm it's so unusual that you see so many different things, you know. I was disappointed. I love Presleick the second I saw it. But the Himalayas whole, uh, not the ALP's hole, but the himalays Hold a long part three blind over the hill and I thought, playing the hole, it went over across the hill and it was a dead flat green, kind of a nothing green. I thought, well, god, maybe it should have been a punch bowl or something. But there was nothing to aid the golfer. You just you drive it over this hill. That was just that's the whole. Uh. You saw so many different things on that course. I think the stage in your memory, you never you never forget the ousehold, uh, but you you never see something like the pal burn on number three. You say, well, it's how that's placed. But that's that's where they made a whole out of it. So it's very interesting. Uh, they didn't force it, they used odd situations to their advantage. It gives it gives a personality to a golf hol Yeah, I agree. I I agree. It's it's a shame golf has become so formulaic. Back then, they just they had to start in town and finishing town and they had to go that way and come back, and they just used what they had, little stone walls and the going over hills. I mean that path. It's incredible, right, North Berry is just amazing, and it's so because every whole, especially the first time you've ever been there, when you go over the stone wall is it on about the third I think? And then you're like, well there's a wall, what like do I hit a shore of the wall past the wall and maybe you walk through the middle of it and there's people having a picnic on the side of the fairway, and you're just excited for the next cool thing that you're going to see really quickly because it's variety. It's not eighteen of the same sort of thing. It's it's like, what am I going to find next? And I think there's something really cool about that you can't do it now because people would yell at you because you can't how to be rape the course for the wall across and like the slope rating is all wrong, and like it's just there's too much formula. It's it's nice that they still exist and we can get to go play them because we can sort of, I don't know. They set the game off in such a great direction. It's probably why the game is such a good game, because it got set off in such a good direction to begin with. You know, but it's very hard to do to replicate. You can't replicate it because you can't replicate nature. You know, that's thousands of years of farming and townspeople keeping the wrong people out building a wall across the third fairway, and then they just thought all the golf course has to go that way, so they just went that way. You know, we can't move the wall that's been there for a thousand years. Um, it's that stuff is fantastic. Some of the greens are amazing, like beer ITTs and um. Stuff is. People keep trying to replicate it, but the original is just it's absurd, but it's so good. It's so fun. Um. I don't even know how you would build it and actually make it work. But um, yeah, it's a fantastic press Wick to the best part about that Part three, the blind path three over the thing. There's probably there's hundreds and hundreds of people in the world who think they've had a hole in one there. They haven't because the the caddies and people they're all quite often see a bill come down on the grain and they'll put the bull in the hall and they'll go play the next holl you know, come around the corner and go, oh the poles in the hall. Um incredible, fantastic. But that's hoving nice? Is that? That's uh yeah, press Way Scotland is just brilliant. Yeah, Jeff, have you had a chance to play, Friar said, ever, I haven't been to fries Head yet. No, that's that's up with. Have you been there on Sandhills and my Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's got a blind part three. It's got no yardage markers. You know, it took some nerve to do it, but it shows what you can do if you're willing to get away from the group. Think of this is the way it has to be. What wouldn't that be about right then? Yeah, that's right. It's h Kennedy. Bax is very persuasive and he has strong opinions. But he's done a great job. It was a great piece of property to work with. But yeah, there's some unusual shapes there that we left alone and didn't try to transfigure it. In a lot of cases, can you you let the land speak for itself and you try to bring out its attributes and let the personality stand um and try not to you try to try to avoid sameness, a redundancy. Um. You want to give a little of this, a little of that. Uh. Things, you know, Jeff and I'm played enough of golf around the world that you remember so many different things, and you question yourself, well, why does that work? Why did why did that? Why do people enjoy that? You know, you question yourself wherever you're building. Uh, if you have to operate with a little restraint and saying why this is what this land gives us, let's stick with that and make it part of the same that you're trying to do. I have to. I have to share this story for for Jeff and Michael and those were listening. I was lucky to play golf with Mike Kaiser, and we wound up talking about Ben uh and his design partner, Bill Core, and Kaiser was telling he was so excited to go out in the field with them, you know, kind of early in in um the collaboration. He was just expecting to be dazzled by this really high level conversations about the design features and all these allusions to the great architects and the great holes, he said, And he said, Bill and Ben they kind of stand there and they stroked their chin and what says you think, Yeah, yeah, I like that. Okay, yeah, okay. They go on to the next hole, and it was like the whole thing. They're like communicating without words, and Kaiser, they was so boring. I quit going out there with them because they're on. They can communicate and they can collaborate in a way that the other two humans can and it's so subtle, and you know that subtlety informs those designs. But anyway, that imagine you looking at at those those great sand dunes at Fryar said, I'm just picturing you and you and Bill just standing there kind of weaking and nodding and moving on to the next one. There's a lot to look at there. It was unbelievable when we first saw and there's a lot to look at. We went wow. I knew it was gonna be one of our very best opportunities. Um, you know I must I'm so lucky in my life that h thirty seven years ago formed a partnership with Bill Corp. Thirty seven years ago I married Julie. I made two really good decisions. Uh. But Bill is remarkable, the most patient man I've ever met. And he can assess a property as good as anyone. He can look at it very quickly and understand what its properties might be. Uh. It's really good at that. And he's an excellent router. In other words, he discovered the directions of the holes and how they fit together. He's really really good at that. So I've been very fortunate uh in that regard. Well, this is another I just feel compelled to add this bit. So you know, Ben, you're you're a master's champion. You're looking for looking for design partner. Clearly you're gonna be the selling point to a lot of people. But when it comes time to name the company, Ben's let's just name it Court cranch like put the other guy's name first, which to me, he says a lot about about who you are and why that collaboration has been so fruitful because clearly are equals out in the field, and and you defer to to him as much as he does to you, and that that's I think what a collaboration is. Well, he's he's the ideal partner. I'm just as lucky as I could be. He's He's provided me with a lot of enjoyment uh and a lot of learning. Um. And uh if I could be as patient as he was, I'd be a better man. Uh. He's Uh, it's meant quite a lot in my life. We've enjoined uh prospecting about the uh possibilities that we've been given, and we've we're trying to bring out the best in the piece of land that we're working with. That's that's all you try to do. Uh. Uh it's process of learning. Uh. You learn every day and yeah, and there's no question. You know, you look back and say, well, maybe we should have done this back there. And you always you're gonna question yourself wherever you go, and you you say to yourself sometimes you know, you try so hard. Sometimes things turn out better than you ever thought. Uh while you're doing it, you know, maybe a subtle move across a green, or you know the size of a green or size of a bunker or something. You always you always think about proportion and balance and this and that. Sometimes it doesn't come off quite like you want. But sometimes sometimes the mistakes happen, you know, in the in the plus column. So it's fascinating that way to to the very point you just made. Right before um we all came on, Ben was talking about how you needed Elliott's help. Elliotts an assistant pro I think at at at Austin where Ben is today, or or Julius helped again on a on a computer. He doesn't have a computer, he doesn't have a cell phone. And uh, you know, of course it's a little bit of a joke. But I mean it's not a joke because because it's true, but in this day and age, it kind of sounds like one. But really I think it's the essence of Ben as a person and as a as an architect um and I think to really be an an artist on the golf course or in golf course architecture, and I think Jeff is is similarly built. I know this is a cliche, even the phrase, but you really have to be in that moment, and in our modern lives that is so much harder to do than it's ever been before, because we're bombarded with these messages all the time. And uh, you know, if I think about a hero of mine, like like Herb Winn writing about Ben Crenshaw, I could imagine Herb and Ben just talking and Ben trying excuse me, Herb trying to absorb Ben's life and then explaining it and show it to readers, and um, it's just a treat for us, I think, Allen, I'm sure I'm speaking for you, and I imagine something for Jeff two, just to be able to hear someone who's so thoughtful about the game. This year, at at the Memorial Tournament, Ben was honored by Big Jack as the uh I'm not sure the exact term, but the Memorial Honoree of the Year. And Ben didn't have notes. He just talked about the game without notes because it's so deep within him. He doesn't need any notes, and he doesn't need any promising, doesn't need any anything. He doesn't need to look up anything, it's in him. Uh and um, you know that this conversation could go on probably until tomorrow and would never get tired. We haven't even had Jeff had a chance that asked Ben about fidly little Eelie type courses in Australia that he knows that Ben probably knows two. But anyway, I just thought I might share. I just want to ask, uh, how do I hold more parts? Honestly? When when you clearly well one of the best putterers we've ever seen, Um, when but you know obviously had some bad times. How did you what went wrong when you weren't making putts? And how did you fix it? Did you? I mean, because all we see now is mirrors and lines and circles around the hole and stuff. And I'm pretty sure that that wasn't you when you when yours wasn't going well? Um on the putting grain, what did you do? Yeah? I know this that when I putted my best, I was thinking of absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, But I focused in on how hard I was going to hit it and where the where the line was most often times, how hard I was going to hit it. So I was trying to rely on imagination and where I just pictured the ball, just I made it, the vivid picture of how that was going to roll. And the times I got in trouble every time a mechanical thought crept in there, I was worried about the path of my stroke or whether whether my grip pressure was just right. In other words, when I putted my best, I have blank mine. And that might sound really strange, but I always remember a line that Bobby Jones wrote, and uh Bobby Jones on Golf, which I still think the most brilliant book about instruction. But he wrote he said, if anyone uh reduces putting to mechanical or uh precise thoughts in that way, he said, you are doomed for disappointment. And he said the whole the ability to gauge a slow or the the speed of a pot, you're much better. But I thought, well, God, if it was good enough for the most cerebral golfer that ever lived, worth worth looking after. So it's it's weird. When I've made potts, I just picture it and it comes off, and I didn't have any sort of thought about length of back swing or anything. It was very strange that way. I love that. I mean Okay, work on that, Ben Well and also Ben, I mean I remember talking um to Luke Donald. He was also obviously a great putter, and he was talking about your stroke and he said, you know, I'm not sure you would teach people to put like Ben Crenshaw because it wasn't the same stroke every time. Sometimes looked like on the fast down hill, he's gonna and slice a little bit, and and sometimes he would take a long back swing and sometimes it was short like he was not that he did not have the same stroke repeate over and over. It was very situational. And is that part of what you're saying? It just just off the toad to dead and just yeah, Jeff, and I'll try anything. And Mike Putt, you know that. And it's a it's a let's face it, you know. I forgot who said into the clothes. The closer you get to the whole, the more difficult the game becomes. When when you think of it's a strange putting is completely That's why Mr Hogan really didn't regard part of the game. He loved hitting balls and he could do it, but he just he didn't disregard putting. But he he thought it was a part of the game that was that should have left less attention. Let's say, then, isn't there sort of a shift as you get closer to the whole where when you're far from the hall, there's a lot of good things that can happen, and then when you get closer to the whole, there's only bad things that can happen. Yeah, more more mental it becomes. And you know, the you try real hard to say to yourself, well, look it's you gotta hit the ball solid and you've got to stay down and you've picked the right line at the right pace. That's all you can do. That's all you can do. Michael's remember the first time you ever saw Ben Crunchhaw on a golf course? Well, I do for sure, and uh, I mean definitely on TV. That's certainly that that US Open stands out. And then Ben mentioned eighty five earlier about a cat in quite a few p J tournaments and five remember the cat He's saying, you know when when Ben puts, well, it's like, well, how does this guy not win every week? And the answer was, well he can't play, of course, Well, but he doesn't like That's what that was. The Catty Art joke back there. No, I'll tell you one of the most comforting you know, I'm not kiddy. I felt like I've always had the best caddy at Augusta for all my years in Carl Jackson, I mean, he was We worked together so well. But we saw saw things in unison something. We'd look at the pot and he'd say, what are you like and I said, you know, right out here and he would look at me and he'd say, we're together, And I said, man, I'm on the right track. So he gave me a lot of confidence before I hit the ball. But we had so much fun, uh, working out putts and watching other people put when we were in playing, we'd we'd read their potts. It's really but man, I mean that guy helped me so much. It was unbelievable, so much. Okay, he grew up, he grew up caddying there, and he had his first heat caddying in the tournament when he was four years old, which is unbelievable. And it was Billy Burke, the guy who won the one US Open. Uh, and he played said he played in a startch white shirt and a tie every day. But that was his first job at Augusta. That's amazing. Well, I mean it's one of those themes that runs through your golfing life been is these uh, these friendships you've had, whether it's Carl Jackson, or it's Billy Core or it's Buyer Nelson. And I think now a lot of people know you're you're the host of the Tuesday night Champions dinner at Augusta National. And I mean, you tell me one time, you get more nervous about that than any golf shop you have to hit. And but you never know what the hell I'm in the saite. You're standing there in front of all these guys you admire, and you know it's a dinner that we've all, you've all won, and it's just I just I started. I try to just started off and let him have fun. That's the best way. We're all we're all lucky to be there, really lucky to be there. Then. I know this would be hard to articulate, um, but it's such a one of the great moving moments in the history of golf, certainly for for you know of our generation. Was Carl comforting you when you when you won that Master's shortly after bearing baring Harvey. Can is there any way you can express the humanity he showed to you, Carl showed to you at that moment, because it's such it's such a rich moment of you know, I don't even know how to describe it, but maybe you can take over for me. We were together so long, um and and that had happened on that occasion is still I still daydream about it these these days. I can't it's hard to believe that it happened in the way that it did. But I, you know, after being exhausted and I got through it, I felt these big arms around me and uh, he said, buddy, you are you okay? And I went no, I was just overcome. But it was a friend helping me at that at that moment I needed help, I really did. But it was part and parcel of the things that we we learned to play that course together. We had some great times and we had some near misses, but I felt like I had a guy who really helped me considerably. He made me learn the golf course. But it was at that moment it was it was a friend to a friend. Uh. He'll always be my friend and very very kind man. Well, people ask me sometimes, what's you know, what's your favorite story you've ever done? And I often mentioned, you know, for the anniversary of that victory, I went to Austin and Ben and Julie very gracefully welcome into their home and we cued up the videotape of the final round and we've watched it together and uh, you know, Julie's crying, Ben's crying. I'm crying, and uh, the how you found that? You guys haven't watched it in a long time, And it's just it's like I thinking in the story you called it like a fairy tale. Like it's just amazing that it all played out the way it did. And that's the magic of sports and Augusta National. It just it's it's somehow these stories come together and they're they're so cinematic, but it actually happened. You actually did it, and it's one of the great moments ever in golf. Uh. Well, it's uh. I've met luckier and most and I'm I'm very very much as softie and I've told many people and said, look, I cried supermarket openings. It was also when when when Ben won, there was an amazing three year period for the Masters with Ben's win and then Falders win and then Tigers win all three in a row there, and uh, you know for a whole generation. Jeff would have been part of that generation just coming of age and catching those. It would be like me catching that sent US Open or the seventy four US Open up at Wingfoot, just the magical period to fall in love with the game. I'll tell you what, I'm gonna tune in and I think it's next week to watch father son. Can't waite to watch Charlie Tiger's son. And I'm you know, last year I was watching that not only he could play, but he had it's luck. He had a single minded purpose. The way that he held those pots, you know, under pressure, it was like it was nothing. And I'm going, well, this this is pretty good. He's got a pretty good teacher and his father, but he was just doing it and I'm going, wow, this is I can't wait to watch it. Uh. And I think a lot of people are gonna watch it, but uh it Uh. You know, you really to look back at Tiger's career and yeah, he's unbelievable, but the mental toughness that he displayed it for decades. You know, there was no uh more competitive person a winner, and every time he had the lead, he won. H But I think his mind. You know, there are very very few people who accomplished things in the game, and you think about their mental capacities, and you look at Bobby Jones and Jack Nicholas uh and all these great players. They have a they have a very competitive side, but they have a mental side that a lot of people don't approach. Ah, he had it, My god, tigers had it. Well. I mean you're you're, what sixty years older than than than Charlie Woods, but you're linked by that same quest just to make more puts than just the magic of the game. I mean, it transcends it all. So that's good. Swing dude is gonna grow hit that ball put Fascinated by that. Well, I've been You've been incredibly generous with your time. I feel like we should let you go because Michael's right, we could do this deep into the night. I don't think anyone would mind, except for our kids and wives and dogs were um waiting for us to end this podcast. But um, any Michael or Jeff in any last thoughts or questions for for Ben before we let them go. No, it's always good to chat Ben. Your you view golf in a y that I really enjoy Um. So yeah, been a pleasure. It's a bit of pleasure talking to you, Jeff. And I've always thought that you. I've always enjoyed how you, uh, depict things about the game, and not only as a player, but how people look at the game and how they look at courses and you're you're doing it, you're building courses, and I've always admired you. Like I said earlier, anybody you can handle wing foot is a tough customer. And uh, it's been a pleasure, always enjoy watching you and listening to you. And you two guys, Alan and Michael. Great to talk to you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you both. And uh, y'all had great holidays. We're coming around to part of the year where families get together. We enjoyed, we're we're lucky to be alive. Pick you both very much. All right, Thank you, Ben, Thank you, Thanks Ben. Mm hmmmm h oh my god. It's a dangerous group here. M