The year before we hosted the Open at Olympia, I was playing the course with Meeks and a couple other guys. As of that time, the entire course had been rebuilt, regressed, rebunkered, etc. Let's say 700 trees had been removed. We get to the 14th hole, which is the signature hole at Olympia, a grand-scale long par-4 with a creek that traversed in front of the fairway about 100 yards off the elevated tee, then took a left turn, went in a relatively straight line parallel to the fairway, only to cut to the left across the fairway about 100 yards before the elevated green. In any event, he turns to me and says, "let me tell you my idea about what to do to improve this hole." I spit out my vodka lemonade or choked on my cigar or something and told him that most of the membership was ready to excommunicate me for letting the USGA ruin their chapel and now he wants me to change the signature hole.
He then proceeded to tell me that the creek to the right of the fairway should be more in play and it was hard to even see at that time because of the overplanting of about 20 trees. He said, "cut all of those trees down, maybe leave one, then move the fairway to the right and toward the creek and you have some angle in the hole and you'll have a better signature hole." I instantly knew he was right and I persuaded the Grounds Committee and took the plan to the Board. I suggested that we go to the hole one morning and start cutting down trees as we voted, tree-by-tree whether to cut or spare a tree. As soon as we cut the third tree down, the Board saw the hole for the first time and we cut all but two down and then moved the fairway. It is a much better hole, one that accents the natural hazard and one that is only in this condition because he had the balls to sell me on something that even the consulting architect would never have been able to sell the club on. For a while, we were calling the hole "Meeks' Creek", but then he ordered the rough cut, the pros killed the course for a couple days and the fickle members forgot all about Tom Meeks. Not me.