Bob Crosby -
Thx for your words, they mean a lot to me. I still have remarkable footage that is only hinted at in the film. For example, I asked Tom if there were any things he wanted to do or make sure were in the film, and he said he thought it would be useful if he showed how he came up the routing. He got a topo and his markers, and then we went to the conference room on the first floor of the Lodge at Bandon, and for 30 minutes Tom gave a remarkable dissertation on how he routed Old Macdonald. He gave credit to Jim Urbina for his contributions, including his solves of the placement of the Alps, and relived his discussion with Mike about how they could put the 7th green up on the bluff, thus solving where to put the Biarittz, which up to that time didn't fit right in the plan. Brad Klein was sitting on the floor listening and I looked back at him and we both shook our heads at how historic it felt to watch this Master Architect demonstrate his craft. When it came time to put this in the film, I knew it wouldn't hold up for the viewer in the long form, so I used some compression techniques to basically summarize what Tom said, but I still have the 30 minute version. I tried to put it into the DVD extras, but with the full length version I ran out of bit room on the disc, which would have meant going to a second DVD, so I left it out of the final product. Still trying to figure out what to do with this footage for the ages.
Another stunning moment occurred after we were at the Redan at North Berwick. I had been pestering Tom and Jim about sitting down for a formal interview on a bunch of topics. I had been working by using a "Fly on the wall" technique up to then where I would give my subjects a rough starting point in terms of topic, put them at a certain location(Road hole, Hell Bunker, etc...) and then let them go and I would record whatever came out of their mouths. But, I had a huge list of questions ready that I needed answers for. Tom plopped down on one of the long ancient benches that border the Children's Course while we waited for the crew to pack up their gear and he just started talking. Jim walked over and sat down at the other end of the bench and they started riffing about how remarkable North Berwick was. I told them to both stop talking while I ran over with Mike Weiss, one of my Producers, and we helped our crew get cameras in place to do my big interview. We set up in about two minutes and started asking questions and what followed was a stunning, organic discussion that was about their profession, the project, Macdonald and their personal lives. We shot for about 75 minutes straight, alternating cameras to re-load so they would just keep going. At some point, an elderly lady came and sat with her daily newspaper and encroached on our shots. The cameramen looked at me and I said keep shooting! She was organically there, and helped make that moment even more cool and authentic. Organic and authentic were big themes in the approach to doing the piece. The proceeds of that 75 minutes feel absolutely historic. The footage is sprinkled throughout the doc. Somehow the full version needs to live on as well. Mr. Crosby, if you have any ideas, I'm all ears!