Pete talks Casa, his bunkering styles, technology, Doak's courses at Bandon, his legacy, and more:) Ally makes a few cameo appearances and steal every scene she's in.
http://jayflemma.thegolfspace.com/?p=4742From the interview:
JF: Those bunkers cut into the green, the little pot bunkers…are those from 10 at Pine Valley?
PD: No, no. When Alice and I went to Scotland in ’63 we saw such a variety of bunkers. Now with all respect to Trent Jones and Seth Raynor, who’s one of my favorites if not my favorite, they all had a style, and that’s fine. So every hole on that course would be the same style bunkers. But that’s not what I saw in England and Scotland and Ireland. While every course had its own individual style and character, each course also had a lot more variety in the style bunkers. They’d have waste bunkers here, pot bunkers there, strip bunkers here, big bunkers, little bunkers, so that’s what I try to do too. But I try to put the most severe bunkers where the better golfer would hit the ball! ....
JF: You called Five your best since Teeth. Why?
PD: It’s on coral. And I did some things at Five that I never did before anywhere else. I built some different green surrounds so that they really drop off!
Alice: I never saw him build a green with a 20-30 foot drop off. You have to chip back up the hill and the green is narrow…
PD: I think it’s a pretty good course and here’s why:
The game has changed dramatically from the good player’s point of view – so drastically in the last few years you can barely recognize the game. Jack Nicklaus hit it 265 and now they hit it 310 – that’s forty five yards. Nicklaus hit a 7-iron 150 yards, now its 190. So there’s 40 more yards. And don’t tell me the kids out there are stronger than Nicklaus and Palmer because they aren’t. Jack and Arnie were as strong as the kids out there now. But now the U.S.G.A. has let them hit it 40-60 sixty yards further per hole. Now if your course isn’t 8,000 yards its not gonna be competitive. They carry it 305-310!
So when you build a new golf course, you know kids will hit it a mile. So I want those guys at the back tees to have to work the ball. I did that at Five, but I still made it playable for 18 handicappers too.
The whole game has changed…I can’t say it’s for the better, but it’s better for ordinary golfers who want to drive it 300 yards, but cant putt or chip or score.
But you have to build a course so people play it and wanna come back. You can’t have it too long like the pros want it. The other day I went to Doak’s course in Oregon, and they had four par-3s in nine holes. I never saw that before, and I think that’s great!
And as always, link works.