Feature Interview with Mike Nuzzo is posted

[Ran Morrissett]

The Carthage Club, as described in the Courses by Country section, is my ideal of a course/club. I wrote the profile in 2001 but not much has happened since to make it into a reality with the exception that I did move from Australia to the Sand Hills of North Carolina where I always figured The Carthage Club would be formed.

The more I am away from Australia, and the less I have been to England, the more The Carthage Club grows in appeal. By that, I mean The Carthage Club is back to a bare-knuckles kind of golf, much simpler in form than all the clutter/expense that is choking the game today. Perhaps picture The Carthage Club as a cross between Wild Horse and Royal Worlington & Newmarket (neither of which –tragically   - I’ve seen!).

Total land/construction/clubhouse cost will be  ~ $6,000,000 , supporting an initiation fee of $20,000 for the 250 members plus a round table group of 10 club founders.

Anyway, with plenty of non-golf distractions including adding another baby to the Morrissett household, the only time I ever really talk about The Carthage Club has been with golf architect Mike Nuzzo at each of the last three annual GolfClubAtlas.com gatherings. As we scripted out the questions for his Feature Interview at Casa de Campo in March this year, Mike asked if The Carthage Club was still a hope of mine. I said yes, absolutely, and he then asked for the general area where I had taken the pics in the course profile.

I provided that (about three miles further south of The Legacy Golf Club) and you should see what Mike came back with in this month’s Feature Interview!

Cheers,  

[THuckaby2]

May I be the first to say....

WOW!

Come on Ran, make it happen...

As for Mr. Nuzzo, I can attest that he is a great guy.  Very witty, very nice and as you can see from this, well it seems to me very talented.  Even if he was a geek at one point.

 

Oh would that I were a developer and/or had a few extra million lying around.. I'd hire Mike in a heartbeat to build Huckaby Hills.

 

[HamiltonBHearst]

How many guys can we get to commit to the ~$20,000 initiation fee?  

[THuckaby2]

Put it in CA and I'm there.

NC?  Unfortunately that's a no way.  I can see selling my wife on a cool club and hocking enough to get $20K to make it happen HERE.  Across the country?  She'd castrate me first.

 

[HamiltonBHearst]

c'mon Huckaby, I have seen your travel schedule.  I would give yourself  more credit than that.  

If guys from this site aren't interested in joining, where would the members come from?

[THuckaby2]

Hammy, the thing is, my annual travel occurs like this:

one or two trips to famous places
one or two work trips
one or two big family trips

That's it.  And everything outside of the family trips is bitterly fought for.

Oh, if I were made of money, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  Unfortunately $20K is beyond my means.... only doable here at home, and at the sacrifice of everything else.

Oh well....

In any case hell yes, it's from this group that the members will come... this group plus their non-posting and/or lurking contacts, that is....

TH

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Having met Mike in Banff last summer and getting to know him better in Casa, I have to say that he is a world-class guy.

It is great to see the Carthage Club resurface again, and Mike's layout is certainly inspired.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Yeah. That's a very interesting looking routing plan for the Carthage Club.

But I think 6,200 yards is a bit much for Morrissett and his hickories

[Ken_Cotner]

Put it in CA and I'm there.

NC?  Unfortunately that's a no way.  I can see selling my wife on a cool club and hocking enough to get $20K to make it happen HERE.  Across the country?  She'd castrate me first.

 

Huck,

You're married, right?  So what difference is castration going to make?  

Ken

[THuckaby2]

Ken:

VERY good point.
EXCELLENT point.

So change that to "she'd think of some way to truly hurt me."

 

[Kelly Blake Moran]

I just recently read that they discovered a food that reduces a woman's sex drive by 90%:











Wedding Cake.

Oops!  Congratulations on the interview Mike.  You know you're going to make it in the architectural world when you are granted an interview and endorsement by Ran.  best of luck, see you Monday.

[Lou_Duran]

Excellent interview with an impressive young man, though I object to a couple of the interviewer's leading questions.  I now understand why Black Mesa reminded me of a lunar landscape.

I am also a bit bothered that the aspiring architect helped his mentor renovate Las Colinas CC near my backyard and never once herd a word from them.  Perhaps my computer and phones were on the blitz on those days.

As to the Carthage Club, Nuzzo is perfect for the job.  However, the youngster does need some guidance so that he doesn't build it to suit his game.  At only 6,200 and with Mike's love for slopped greens and the chain saw, I could see Seve making it his home club.  To keep things on the right path, I hereby vounteer to fill the Roberts role in the Jones (Morrissett), McKenzie (Nuzzo) troika.

It is heart warming to witness someone like Mike living his dream.  Here is for building momentum on the road to a long, productive career in golf design.  I can see Mike with his plans in hand and daughter patiently waiting in the 4-wheel drive as he makes field adjustments.  Who knows, maybe she'll enjoy playing in the dirt.  Just like Mike.    

[Michael Moore]

Mr. Nuzzo -

What did you make of Mr. Morrissett's insistence on a certain and quite specific array of hole lengths?

[NAF]

Ran-

IF YOU BUILD IT, WE WILL COME!

[Mike Nuzzo]

Thank you Ran, I feel very fortunate to have played with you in a few different countries.

Tom - unfortunately the land for Huckaby Hills might be a tad more than $6MM - otherwise I'm game.

Hamilton - I'll commit.

Ben and Jeff - you helped put a good image back on Canada, ever since my dealings with Spar Aerospace (leading Canadian aerospace company) [Just kidding - they were a treat also]

Lou - oops.... I'll see you soon.  I did have good intentions - but the trips wound up last minute usually - waiting for good weather and the contractor.  Sorry.  
Yesterday after I came in from planing some herbs, Isabelle, 3,  said my hands were disgusting - go wash them.

M. Moore - I think he meant them with a grain of salt, but I try to be accomodating when it will still work.  It would probably help to visit the site..

As for the all the ball jokes.... it is a good thing I didn't use this image in the interview:



The converted Russian ICBM that launched that satellite might have elicited a few more phallic jokes.  

Cheers

[Dan Kelly]

Ran-

IF YOU BUILD IT, WE WILL COME!

Sure, we will -- except for Huckaby. Apparently he won't have what it takes.

(Sorry, NAF. Temptation too strong.)

[T_MacWood]

Mike (and Ran)
Very cool. How difficult was it to lay out the Carthage golf course...did the site's natural features (or lack of features) dictate what you did? I love the logo...did you come up with that as well?

[THuckaby2]

Dan Kelly:

Please.  You underestimate me and forget my role in life and golf.  You really think that if I don't pony up $20K to become a member, I still won't find a way to play the course every year or so?

 

[Dan Kelly]

Tom IV --

I do believe you've missed my "point"!  

Dan Kelly

[THuckaby2]

Dan I:

AHA!!!!

Oh man, that is a good one.  And my humble apologies for prior density.

Well done.

 

[RJ_Daley]

Mike asked if The Carthage Club was still a hope of mine. I said yes, absolutely, and he then asked for the general area where I had taken the pics in the course profile. I provided that (about three miles further south of The Legacy Golf Club) and you should see what Mike came back with in this month’s Feature Interview!

Yes indeed we did see it.  That Mike is a resourceful guy.  His concept drawings from the aerial may just be the rocket science comparative, he shuns.

I certainly look back at the couple of times I have had the pleasure to accompany the Nuzz (nootz) around a few courses at KP gatherings in CA, and really could observe that he has a quietly intelligent personality, who appears to have his analytical wheels turning throughout the golf rounds and discussions.  As the rest of us are blathering away, he often sits there with his devilishly wry Sicilian grin, then the sottovoce comment that gets right to the heart of a matter.

Here is a typical Nootz scene.  While Stettner squeels like a school girl at the exciting round at Rustic Canyon we had played, and Benham listens on attentively; Nootz finally gets up to ask Huckaby if we are keeping him awake with all the technical GCA commentary.

[THuckaby2]

Oh my.  While I do love that shirt and it makes me
smile to see it (look out Mucci, it will appear next month),
well... see that bottle sitting in front of me?  We consumed
a LOT of the contents of its brothers that evening.  A lot.  Did I say a lot?  I mean a LOT.  

That was at Lynn's course... hell of a night.  Hell of a LONG
night.

But your right re Nootz anyway.  Quiet quiet quiet than zinger out of nowhere.  

 

[Craig Van Egmond]

I too have had the pleasure of hanging with the Nootz.     He and I will be forever linked with one of my greatest golf trips ever!

Great guy, I'm expecting big things from him.  Excellent interview.

[A_Clay_Man]

The future of GCA, is in good hands with gentlemen like Mike and Baxter, pushing envelopes.

Since I'm the guy who always says it will be up to the archie to solve the dilema of distance and relative length, Mike sure has the credentials to do it.

Great Interview.

Mike, that 15-17 stretch looks awefully intimate. Well Done

And, using a par three course as the buffer, that is rocket science. WTG

[THuckaby2]

Hey that reminds me....

Mike, I've always thought that if I were in your previous line of work... or if I were a brain surgeon... I would spend all day telling my colleagues:

"what do you expect?  This IS[/b] rocket science (brain surgery)!!!"

Please tell me you said that, at least once.