Starting Wed., 10/28 - Get To Know Jason Topp

[jonathan_becker]

Jason,

Thanks for the thorough reply about Australia.  I enjoy all photos and info about the place.

My "#1 course that you want to play" question was a trick.  You're right, it's pretty much all of them! 

Good call on Southern Dunes and Vista Verde.

Thanks for playing!

[Jason Topp]

  Jason,

    How old are you?

43

  Do you have a speciality in law?

I work in house at Qwest and represent the company before state regulatory commissions.  Originally, I was a litigator at Faegre and Benson but strongly prefer regulatory proceedings - more time on my feet, less discovery.  I also really enjoy the telecommunications industry.  The industry is still in a transition from the old regulated monololies focused on voice service to a highly competitive industry in which voice service is one feature of internet protocal systems.  In order for our company to sucessfully make that transition we need to serve customers well, make the right technology investments, and free ourselves from unnecessary regulation.  I primarily work on the regulation part of the equation although my work touches on the other areas.  It is a tough challenge that involves interesting issues of technology, policy, personalities and transforming a business.

  Have you been to The Domincan Republic?

Not yet.  We were scheduled to go in 2009 but it fell through.  Our family sponsors two children in the D.R. at a wonderful organization (Nuestros Puquenos Hermanos) that takes orphaned and abandoned children and gives them a home, educates them and empowers them to break the cycle of poverty.  My wife and I are passionate supporters of the organization, with my wife serving on the national board of the US Supporting organization - Friends of the Orphans.

When choosing a country to sponsor children, I must admit that the location of certain golf courses ocurred to me.  I see no reason why good deeds cannot also contain a dose of self interest.  I cannot wait to see our children and Teeth of the Dog soon.

  Tell us your education background.

I went to St. Olaf in Minnesota for my first year of college.  I really enjoyed my time there and was able to play on our golf team.  Unfortunately, about in March I realized I was out of money.  My parents had moved to Arizona in the meantime so I transferred to Arizona State, thereby cutting a zero off my tuition bill.  At ASU, I couldn't even make a good intermural golf team and I played surprisingly little golf during the school year.  Most of it was twilight golf at Papago which took about 3 hours to play nine holes. 

I went to law school at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1992.  I met my wife Claire in law school (she is from Lexington, MA and we have lived in the Twin Cities since that time.

  Have you played with Bill McBride?

I don't think so, unless we played at the 2008 BUDA.  I was hitting the ball so wildly towards the end of that event that I got to visit a lot of other groups during the rounds so my memory is not crystal clear on that point.

  Anthony

[Jason Topp]

  Jason,

 What is your favorite genre?

I categorize movies as "good" or "bad."  I prefer "good." 

  I love Little Miss Sunshine, What did you think about it?

It concerns me a bit that you would love a girl that young.  I enjoyed the movie.
  Your favorite Stallone movie. 

  Have you played with Kelly Blake Moran?

No.  I would love to meet him some day.

  Does Minnesota really have gophers and vikings?

We do have gophers and many decendants of Vikings.  This state has always been nuts about the purple.  Half the state needs therapy after any loss.  No other sports team comes close to the passion generated by the Vikings.

Gopher basketball is the best spectator sport in the state.  Williams Arena is the ultimate in "quirk" and "classic" when it comes to basketball arenas.  It would be nice if they could have a good team without cheating.
  Anthony

 

[George Pazin]

Please share about the film festivals.

Very cool that you sponsor two kids from the DR. Here is a link to the organization, if anyone else is interested: http://www.nph.org/

[Jason Topp]

Howdy Jason
Where have you traveled that you felt least safe?

El Salvador.  A retired CIA agent travels with our group and gives level headed advice about safety in each country.  In El Salvador it was "In the hotel safe.  Out of the hotel not safe."  There was a lot of razor wire everywhere.

What is the local drink in Nicaragua?

I had this beer, which was nothing amazing but tasted good in the heat :



Favorite course in Texarkana?

Texarkana Country Club is a very nice Langford course and Michael Wharton Palmer is a terrific host. 

Hank Haney's Texarkana Golf Ranch might be the best no frills golf value on earth.  Fun, difficult course in adequate condition with almost no customers.  I think we paid about $30 a day for unlimited play with cart.   

What kind of player are you: Fun or Challenge or Beauty?

I really liked your piece on that issue.  It helped me to understand why people talk past each other so often.  I think I am 1.  Fun, 2. Challenge, 3. Beauty although there is some subtelty to those categories. 

For example, I rate beauty last, but the truly inspiring courses I have played are all beautiful.  What I don't think I pay much attention to are bunker styles or much detail related to feature shaping. 

I think of golf primarily as a competitive challenge, but I get worn out if a course is a relentless test.  I am just not that good at the game and do not need my weaknesses pounded home to me.  I need hope.  Thus, I place challenge second.

I put fun first.  I love holes like the Dell or the Pit.  That view is not limitless.  For example I reallly enjoy Bandon Dunes in contrast to Pacific Dunes or Bandon Trails because the greens are more tame.  If I hit a fairway and a green that is a pretty good accomplishment for me.  It was a relief to know that I had a good chance of making par on those holes.  I had been worn out by five rounds of "fun" consisting of lag putts that could make me look silly.


Have you ever talked movies with The Emperor (Tommy N.)?

I have not.  I spent a fair amount of time with him at the 2006 Kings Putter but I do not recall discussing movies

Do you wish we could trace everyones old posts like the old days so things would make more sense in the Treehouse!! 
Have you ever told Ran or Ben to put them back?

I did use that feature a lot when I couldn't figure out the perspective of someone.  I have a faint recollection that some reporter dug up a bunch of old Doak quotes.  If eliminating the trace function is the cost of keeping people like that around, I think it is worth the cost.

In stead of true/false do you think the bar exam should be guilty/not guilty?
That would eliminate too many lawyers. 

Cheers

[Ian Andrew]

Jason,

What's your favourite non-famous course that people should not miss when in the area?

Thanks,

Ian

[Jason Topp]

Why do you travel each President's day to central america?  I was in Managua in 1989 for the 10th anniversary of the revolution.  I would like to hear some of your thoughts and memories about Managua and/or Nicaragua in general.

I am sorry I am a bit slow on these.  Real life keeps intervening.

We travel to a different Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos home for an annual meeting and fundraiser.  In 2009 we visited Nicaragua.  I did not spend much time in Managua but instead spent time at our hotel along the coast and at the NPH homes that are scattered right now because of volcanic activity on the island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua.

My memories of the country are more personal in nature.  I did not have enough time there to get much in the way of context regarding the country.  It did not feel nearly as dangerous as El Salvador so I assume fewer weapons remain in the country.

Some memories include:

A wonderful lively nun that takes care of babies, vegatable gardens and animals at Finca San Marcos. 

My 13 year old son being surrounded by teenage girls at the new home that is being build near Jinotepe, about one hour outside of Managua.  They loved his eyes and he was really embarassed and only was able to blurt out about three words in spanish.  I doubt he would have done better in English.

My daughter complimented an eight year old girl on some rubber bracelets she was wearing.  The girl insisted on giving them to my daughter, her friend and her friends mother.  Those bracelets were most likely her only individual posessions.

Nicaragua seemed to have more of its natural vegetation than some of the other countries.  Most likely that was due to extremely rugged terrain.

The watern was very dirty, both at Lake Nicaragua and on the beach.

The kids used the slang word "Tawny" which I roughly understood to mean "cool" 

 

[Jason Topp]

Bumping for Jason - he had told me he was unavailable Mon and Tues, so he wasn't able to answer much.

Standard questions apply:

What brought you to golf?

I was introduced by my parents but I really caught the bug because a close friend and I decided on our own we wanted to play at age 11.  At the time we lived in Newton, Iowa and the municipal course provided an incredibly welcoming atmosphere for kids.  The pro, Larry Stewart, always seemed thrilled to have us there.  We were given free reign to play the course for $40 per year and I do not ever remember an adult customer of the course expressing anything other than pleasure at seeing a pack of kids around the place.  As you might guess, Newton had very good high school golf teams when I was a kid.

Jack Burke Jr's book, It's Only a Game, includes a discussion about how a healthy club should have a bunch of kids around.  I agree.

At the time, we did not think it was unusual how welcome we felt.  After I moved to other towns and played other courses, I recognized how rare such an attitude is.  The industry needs to recognize how important it is to foster kids who love the game, even if they are not grinding away to make the pro tour some day.

Architecture/design?

Although I have always had a natural interest as someone who plays the game, my passion for the subject really arose out of my passion for reading.  Winters are long in Minnesota, instruction books only screw up my golf game, and there are a limited number of biographies and essay compliations that exist. 

Magazines have historically only provided banalaties about the subject of golf course quality.  I really appreciated the early editions of Golf Digest - Places to Play because I thought the reviews in the early editions were pretty unbiased and unvarnished - even if the tastes of the readers tended to favor difficult, heavily mounded courses.

Eventually, I discovered that Golf Architecture books are much better written, more entertaining, and more interesting for me.  I always have had a copy of A World Golf Atlas around the house, but my first book I purchased was Hurzdan's text.  From there I discovered Shackelford, Doak, Hunter, Thomas, Mackenzie and many others. 

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This site?

I stumbled upon it when doing a google search for Lahinch before an Ireland trip in 2004.  It probably took me six months before I discovered there was a discussion portion of this site.  I spent all of my time reading the course profiles. 

At this point, I understand the basic concepts behind course design but understand very little about the "how" portion of building a golf course.  I doubt I will ever want to cross that bridge, but there is not a better source in the world for discovering interesting courses and interesting people that love the game than this web site. 

[Doug Wright]

Jason,

OT Which Minneapolis law firm is better--Dorsey & Whitney or Faegre & Benson?

What do you do in the winters there--ice fishing? Snowmobiling?

What do you think of Hazeltine?

PS I agree with you re Golden Valley and Minneapolis GC, two very fine courses. I think Minikahda is slightly better than both since its restoration.

[Jason Topp]

Jason,

What's your favourite non-famous course that people should not miss when in the area?

Thanks,

Ian

Ian: 

Even though it is my home course, I joined it in large part because I think it is a very special layout.  Come visit me at Oak Ridge.   

Here is my profile of the course.  We have been chopping trees since the time of these pictures but still need to take out more - http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/oak-ridge-country-club

[Jason Topp]

Please share about the film festivals.

Very cool that you sponsor two kids from the DR. Here is a link to the organization, if anyone else is interested: http://www.nph.org/

Thanks for the NPH Plug.  The supporting organization in the US is Friends of the Orphans.  http://www.friendsoftheorphans.org/s/769/start.aspx

Film Festivals:

After traveling to Scotland in 2000, I followed that up with a trip to the Telluride film festival with my wife.  It was a terrific strategy because we had such a terrific time she forgot all about the hassle of a week of single parenting.  The Telluride festival is fantastic because it is so small and you get the chance to be very close to the actors and directors that appear.  Swingers made its US debut at the festival in 1999 and Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon premiered when we went.

In 2006, I had a thrilling experience at the Sundance Film Festival.  My wife's brother, John Harkrider, wrote, financed, directed and starred in a movie, Mitchelville, that was a part of the festival.  John is an amazingly talented and driven individual who did all of this while being one of the primary partners at one of the powerhouse antitrust botique law firms in Manhatten (Axtin, Veltrop and Harkrider).  One thing that surprised me was that the actors had never seen the film before the festival.  I had seen a couple of versions of it, but the tension of sitting in a packed room of knowledgeable people sitting to see work that John poured his heart into was really fascinating. 

The business end of the process is pretty interesting as well.  Film festivals are a bit like shopping malls for studios.  The studios purchase a very small percentage of the films that show at Sundance.  My sense of the films that will sell carries no relationship to the evaluations of the studios.

I found the question "what did you think of the film" to impose the same sort of tension as "what did you think of the course" imposes when you are in a discussion with GCA people.  You want to be independent, sound intelligent, not pander to the creator but also not needlessly insult someone about work that is at the core of their identity.  I try to be honest and humble in both arenas.  I can't worry about the intelligent part.  People usually think you are intelligent when you agree with them and think you are dumb when you disagree.

[Jason Topp]

Jason,

OT Which Minneapolis law firm is better--Dorsey & Whitney or Faegre & Benson?

Faegre and Benson of course - although my wife is a partner at Dorsey so I probably should change loyalties

What do you do in the winters there--ice fishing? Snowmobiling?

I travel to warm places and plan future trips to warm places. 

I really do not like winter.  I ski a little bit but really only like to ski in mountains.  Cross country skiing is more difficult than walking in my experience.  Ice fishing is only entertaining to those that drink a lot.  Snowmobiling is fun, but I have not done it much. 

If I had grown up here, I would likely have played hockey and would continue to play today.  Hockey is like golf in that a very large percentage of fans actually play the game.  The hockey culture is really a positive in my experience (there are always exceptions) and transfers from generation to generation.  A lot of fathers spend a ton of time with their sons and daughters on ice in Minnesota.  In 10-15 years, I bet a lot of mothers will be doing the same thing.  I really felt let down when I found out my son no longer wanted to play.

In my view, the primary upside to winter is that it refreshes my enthusiasm for getting outside in the summer.


What do you think of Hazeltine?

Better than some give it credit for, but a brute when set up for a major tournament.  The last time I played there was exactly a year before the PGA.  We played from about 7200 yards and it beat me to a pulp.

From 6600 yards with reasonable rough, I find it to be a real fun challenge.  At that length some of the par fives become reachable, the stretch from 3-8 is outstanding and I can actually play ok.


PS I agree with you re Golden Valley and Minneapolis GC, two very fine courses. I think Minikahda is slightly better than both since its restoration.

Both Golden Valley and Minneapolis have dones some renovation in the last couple of years.   You could be right about Minikahda - it is a close call.

[Dan Kelly]

Jason,

What's your favourite non-famous course that people should not miss when in the area?

Thanks,

Ian

Ian:  

Even though it is my home course, I joined it in large part because I think it is a very special layout.  Come visit me at Oak Ridge.    

Here is my profile of the course.  We have been chopping trees since the time of these pictures but still need to take out more - http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/oak-ridge-country-club

Ian -- Be sure to accept Jason's offer, if you can.

Jason -- What's are your five favorite non-famous non-Oak Ridge courses in the TC? Don't worry about the order. As you know, I'm opposed to ranking!

[Jason Topp]

Jason -- What's are your five favorite non-famous non-Oak Ridge courses in the TC? Don't worry about the order. As you know, I'm opposed to ranking!

The definition of "non-famous" is tricky.  I will interpret the term as meaning "not Interlachen, Minikahda or Hazeltine"

Golden Valley - great angles, terrific bunkering, wonderful greens, interesting feature shapes

Somerset - terrific standard Raynor course with all the templates and a new superintendant firming up the course

Minneapolis - new bunkers make this course a challenge tee to green.  Every thoughtless shot I hit now winds up in a bunker.

Woodhill (when dry) - quirk, history from Nicklaus winning the Trans-Mississippi and a course that has not been screwed up by committees, presumably because the members are so old money they forget they are members.  It feels like you are playing in someone's yard.  The when dry modifier is because the course is on very low lying ground and has a history of being very bog- like.

Stoneridge - not a charming course - it sits right next to a freeway and is constructed out of a gravel pit.  Nonetheless, a wonderful collection of golf holes that impose a wide variety of challenges and terrific short game opportunities.  The only public course on my list

[Jason Topp]

Pardon the indulgence, but I did discuss my affiliation with Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH) on this thread.  NPH runs a hospital in Haiti close to the epicenter of the earthquake.  It was not the hospital that collapsed but they have been forced to treat patients outside due to structural damage. 

There are some touching stories:

- Father Rick (priest and doctor in charge of our hospital) made a decision to leave his dying mother to return to his hospital.  He has performed 18 funerals and is treating patients around the clock.

- Father Rick and other NPH workers traveled into Haiti using the Helicopter of the President of the Dominican Republic.

- Pictures - a few are unpleasant. 
http://picasaweb.google.com/MonicaGery/11410HaitiEarthquakePhotos?feat=directlink

Fortunately - the children are ok but several volunteers and staff members have passed away and several homes have collapsed.

Link for donating  http://www.friendsoftheorphans.org/s/769/start.aspx

Feel free to forward this information as you feel is appropriate.

[Bill_McBride]

Jason, it's really heartbreaking down there, thanks for the information on donating.  I sent along something I hope helps.

[Jason Topp]

Jason, it's really heartbreaking down there, thanks for the information on donating.  I sent along something I hope helps.

Thanks Bill.  It helps.

[Philip Gawith]

Jason, good to see you honouring our long, strange, hot day together in Australia all those years ago! Come and visit in the UK!