Golf Smarter number four hundred and forty eight.

But first, I want to share this phone call with you that I made this morning.

Okay, I'm going to call it Tim Kilkenny, longtime Golf Smarter listener.

Hi, it is Tim, Hey, Tim Fred Green.

Hey, Cred.

How are you doing.

I'm fine?

How are you?

I'm doing great?

Thanks.

I'm playing golf better than that forever.

And I was emailing you because I was so excited.

I made my first hole in one.

Congratulations, Thank you very much.

On Friday, August first, I was playing at my home course and I aced number fourteen.

It was sweet.

How long have you been playing at that club?

About six years?

And a couple of my friends have had hole in ones.

I've seen a couple, but I've never had one.

And why do you think this was the time for you to get a hole in one?

It's probably just coincidental.

But I really liked your interview.

I think I listened to it on Wednesday.

But your most recent episode.

Darren g from Hawaii, Yeah right, be Frustrated Golfer's Handbook.

He was talking about how you can make a hole in one and his philosophy of picking a part of the green where the flag was dividing it up and saying, you know, this is the area that I'm going for.

And I made a very confident swing right where I wanted to hit it, and for the first time ever, it went in the hole.

As soon as you struck the ball, you felt.

What it was pure.

I mean, it was one of the best purest shots I've ever hit.

It was a one hundred and sixty four yard back right pin over water.

Wow, I had a kick iron right.

At the pin.

It went right at it the whole way.

And so did it bounce, bounce, drop or did it roll for a while?

Did it back up?

What did the ball do when it landed?

It bounced once in front and pass the pin and spun right back into the pin.

And did everyone go nuts?

There was jumping and dancing.

And what happened after the round?

So, yeah, I got to go in and tell everybody about the hole in one.

And there were several hundred people at the club.

And how many of those people did you tell about golf smarter and that that's why you got your hole in one?

Now, see, that's what I could have done better.

Right out, I got all.

So you you're not sure.

You you're too scientific about this, You don't you think it's just coincidence, And I'm saying no, no, it's actually because Darren told you you can get a hole in one if you have the right mindset.

Just think about getting this hole in one.

Just I can do this.

Yeah, And you know, we all know.

Confidence there is a huge part of it, you know.

And having the confidence to make a part, Having the confidence to hit a shot that you need to hit to a scary pin.

You know, that's always a tough part.

But you're right, you can't make it, and you can't.

You can't make a whole online like that, having that confidence to go for it.

Well, I am so excited for you.

Thanks so much for sharing this and congratulations again.

Thanks Chret.

Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the Golf Smarter podcast Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old.

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App Pasa champles of a standalone golf course.

When you start looking at the likes of Pinehurst and Whistling Streets and Bandon Dunes and Double Beach who has Spyglass and eldl Monti in Spanish Bay.

I mean that's a destination where you're going there to play golf and oh, by the way, we're going to go play Spanish bass.

For here, you need to be coming here on your way to Pebble, on your way back from Pebble, or you're coming here strictly to play golf, versus just running into the golf course at another round you're going to play that week.

People associate Posit Tampa with being private, which I think is something that I've fought the last ten years of people and you know, golf professionals will call me and say, hey, Ken, this is so and so from XYZ Country Club.

My members would love to come play your golf course.

Is there any possible way you can play?

And then of course I say yeah, And we're a semi private, we're semi public, and we're open to come on out and play and we can work something out for you and get you on the golf course.

So I think that's still a mis number and who kind of fought that reputation for the last several years.

Then we're trying to change that.

The history and a t tour of legendary posit Tippo golf Course.

This is Golf Smarter.

Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.

Ken, Hello, Fred, How are you.

I'm doing great?

How are you?

I'm doing really well.

How is the weather in beautiful Santa Cruz today, Well, we had just.

Came out a little bit of a hot spell and we're about seventy two today and get a nice clear view across the bay towards Pebble Beach and Cypress Point and it's pretty during good today.

So you are in your northern California.

We're trying to set this up for people who aren't familiar with the area who live all over the world.

And it is in the hills of Santa Cruz, which is north of Monterey.

Lots of people have heard of Monterey.

Correct, and you're looking down on the Monterey Bay.

You have a view of the Monterey Bay from where you.

Are, that is correct.

Yeah, Santa Cruz is on the other side of the Monterey Bay, which is basically shaped like a horseshoe.

We are just outside of Santa Cruz in the Santa Cruz Mountains right at the base of the mountains.

Our view looks basically across from our pro shop and the first tee looks across and you can see you can't see the golf courses obviously, but you can see the tip of Cypress Point and Pebble Beach area.

But it's yeah, right on the other side and just outside of San Cruz.

It's a beautiful spot.

It's an amazing spot.

I'm very excited.

I'm coming out there next week.

I get to play for the first time, so I'm really excited to come.

I'm nervous about it, to be honest with you.

Well, it's one of those golf courses that if you haven't played it, I mean, this is one where when you walk off the golf course and you think to yourself, you know, what if I had have played this, you know, one or two times prior, I probably would have done things a little bit differently, just strictly based on where you miss it and where you don't want to miss it.

Holds you want to tack holes, you don't want to tack it in the center of the green, that type of thing, because if you short side yourself when he's Mackenzie Green's boy.

It doesn't matter how great a chip you had, you're gonna you're gonna end up.

You know, quite a way to below the hole.

So this is why I called you get to get some local knowledge before I come down, so I don't embarrass.

Myself, I understand.

But before we get into the playability of possible tempo, let's talk about its incredible history and any insights beyond what we can read on the website, and any stories that you know of I would love to hear.

Well.

Probably my favorite story and the one I've probably told the most.

I did a piece for the Golf Channel.

God probably five six years ago never heard of.

One of my favorite stories is really how positive Tampa came to be.

It was back in nineteen twenty nine when the course was built and Bobby Jones had gone down to Pebble Beast to play in the United States Amateur Championship and strangely enough lost in the first round, and Marion Hollins, who obviously was the owner of the golf course and the property, and who had hired Alistrom McKenzie to build the golf course, she invited Bobby Jones to join the foursome to play on opening day, which was September nineteen twenty nine.

So legend has it, and story has it and documented is that after playing the golf course, he loved it so much that he had owned this little piece of property back in Augusta, Georgia we now call Augusta National, and that's when he hired doctor Arlister Mackenzie to design Augusta National.

So that so then Passa Tempo is the parent of Augusta National, of the where the Masters is playing.

Yeah, the combination of his time a Cyprus Point and then his time at Pasa Tiempo kind of just threw him over the edge and says, you know, there's not another designer I want for this golf course.

And he went ahead and hired Mackenzie too to make that happen.

Amazing.

So how is it that that Marion Hollins got to own the piece of property that is now Passa Tempo.

I think really, I mean it was just basically it was a piece of property she had from New York and she was obviously extremely wealthy for those times, and this was a place that she had purchased.

It was more so for not only championship golf, but for equestrian there was you know, at the time when the golf course opened, I mean there were the likes of Clark Gable and and other people who had come to this area and to basically not only play golf, but to just relax.

I mean there was beach homes and stables and equestrian centers which was are just north of us in Scott's Valley, and she had quite a handle on the property and really just trying to create a type of a lifestyle for people, but really just kind of saw the property as as an opportunity and made the purchase.

I don't know exactly at the time what she paid, but I know that she did acquire it back and some tough times and then obviously got tougher with the depression right around the corner.

Yeah, which so wait, the course opened up nineteen twenty nine, and wasn't the crash just around.

Then, Yes, exactly?

Wow.

Wow.

And I understand that Marion Hollins was quite an accomplished golfer, let alone equestrian and many other things.

Yes, yes she was.

She was an amateur champ herself.

I mean, she competed at the highest level in amateur competition, and you know, I think at the time where we had opening Day, I mean Cyril Talley, which was another British amateur that was a great player in Glenna Collette also who was a was a champion her own.

Right, we're playing and competing during kind of the same the same time frame.

Unbelievable.

So what exactly is it that you do there?

Explain to us what your your position is at Pasa Tiempo.

How long you been there?

My position is the head golf professional.

I basically manage and run the golf operations, which obviously the merchandise, the outside staff, the inside staff, all of the locker room facilities.

Obviously do quite a bit of teaching to the membership, mostly my assistants teach a lot to the general public, and I take care of mostly member lessons.

But it's your prototypical golf professional job duties.

I get to play a little bit.

When I played yesterday and putting the skins game and not by th I wasn't trying to do it, but I ended up weighing six skins out of ten off the members, which sometimes is good and sometimes if you do too often, you might take a little bit of heat.

Yeah, you might lose your invitations.

But I enjoy the playing aspect of it.

I don't get to play as much as I as I like to.

Most of my golf these days is club golf.

I'll play, you know.

I just took a trip with twenty members to court Alaine, Idaho, and spent a week there and played.

And we've been up to Abandon and Versada Ranch up in Oregon.

Had a great time up there, obviously, all great facilities and wonderful people up there, and the members like to bounce around and I like doing that.

For him, that sounds like a lot of fun.

Of all the instructors that I've ever had on the program, and we're talking about hundreds at this point, nobody gets to play as much golf as they'd like to anymore.

That's true.

They think they get into you know, oh, I'm going to become a you know, they grow up being great players and they think they're going to be a golf professional so they can play a lot of golf, and you find out that that's not really the case.

It's true.

I just yeah, your your job evolved and your responsibilities change, and next thing, you know, you're you know, you're busy, and it's for me, it's if I go out and play golf right now, and I'll you spend four hours or four and a half hours on the golf course, I'll walk back into you know, twenty voicemails and fifty emails that I probably could have tackled if I was you know, still you know, on the job, working in my office.

So yeah, it's a it's a give and take.

I mean, you just have to balance the two.

And I think we all want to play more of it, and we understand that that's not this big job anymore.

We've got some other stuff we got to take care of.

But Posit Tampo is a public course.

Yes, yes, we have you.

We're a semi private club, semi okay or semi public, whatever you want to call it.

We have a we have a membership of roughly five hundred and fifty members.

We have just over four hundred shares of stock, so it's an equity membership and you can you can purchase a share of stock and then that doesn't give you necessarily the right to play golf, but it does get you gives you the ability to purchase your annual membership, so we have stockholders and we also have stockholder members so again it's an investment possibly or you can utilize that ownership of your stock and buy your annual for the year.

I get it, okay, And it is because it's you know, it's such a high profile location, you know, near Monterey, and you have amazing courses that are known around the world.

Pasa Tiempo is not as famous as those, probably because it's not been on the tour as much or why do you think that it's not as high profile as the other courses in Monterey.

I think.

We kind of have this conversation at the board level as well as you know, amongst staff that you know, Pasita Tampa is a standalone golf course when you start looking at the likes of Pinehurst and Whistling Streets and Bandon Dunes and Pebble Beach, who has Spyglass and Eldlmanti in Spanish Bay, I mean that's it's a destination where you're going there to play golf and oh, by the way, we're going to go play Spanish basins.

We're here.

Posit Tampo is that it's your you need to be coming here on your way to Pebble, on your way back from Pebble, or you're coming here strictly to play golf versus just running into the golf course as another round you're going to play that week.

I still think, you know, people associate Pasita Tampa would be in private, which I think is something that I've fought the last ten years with people.

And you know, golf professionals will call me and say, hey, again, this is so and so from X y Z Country Club and you know my members would love to come play your golf course.

Is there any possible way you can play?

And then of course I say yeah, and we're SENDI private, We're SENDI public again, what however you want to call it, and we're open to come on out and play and we can work something out for you and get you on the golf course.

So I think that's still a mis number, and we've kind of fought that that reputation for the last several years.

Then we're obviously trying to change that.

For people who are considering flying to the San Francisco Bay area, you can fly into San Francisco, or if you fly if you're headed down to Monterey, you may even just fly into San Jose.

But the drive that you're going to take, either from San Francisco or San Jose, you have to go over the Santa Cruz Mountains and as you're driving there, all of a sudden you go, Pasa Tiempo.

Right right, it's right there on the way.

And yes, exactly right.

So it's it's a nice little side stop at least for a meal and for the views.

But you might want to consider putting it on your plans to play around there.

So you don't really see it as a destination course though like the other ones there.

Right, No, that's true, that's true.

Like I say, I mean, it's it's its own zone golf course.

I mean it's the only Alistair McKinsey golf course in our area that you're able to play and and and play as a daily fee golf course.

I mean, we're number three in the state of California, of course, as you can play next to Tubble Beach and Spyglass And not too long ago, Matchanel from the Golf Channel put us number one, and we have that link on our website where he said Pasta Tempo's the number one golf course to play head of spy glass and pebble and you know, which is obviously a huge thing for us.

And even just be in the top three, obviously it's a it's a great honor.

But to be you know, thrown in there at number one by mat Janelle, who is a friend of mine and obviously who I respect, even more so since he gave us number one.

But it was, it's very very nice and it feels good awesome.

Let's, uh, let's talk about the playability of the course.

Let's get some tips on some hole and your features things like that.

So let's let's uh, let's start with the features of the course and what it means to be an Alistair mackenzie course.

Well, you obviously look at the green complexes in the in the bunkering is number one.

I mean, that's those are the things that truly make the Alistair mckennay golf courses.

When you look at when you watch the Masters, or you see the President's Cup a year or two ago at at the Royal Melbourne, Pictures of Cyprus point, I mean the bunkering of of how strategic they're placed, you know, the design of them, A lot of the different fingers the greens obviously have pretty severe undulations, and some of them with a lot of false fronts where balls can't either even off the back of the green, off the front of the green can roll off and into maybe into a bunker or into a transition area.

So it's it's really, you know, McKenzie was really a boy risk reward.

He was also obviously about making the golf course fair.

But it's one of those things where if you're if you're testing the golf course and testing a certain hole location at a McKinsey course, especially Aposta Tampo, is that if you, like I say, if you go too long or you short side yourself, you're you're going to pay dearly.

So is it not a good idea to be laying up on some of the holes just to get yourself in position, or is it smarter to go for it?

Yeah, well again, that's that's kind of that thing I said when we first got on the air today, was looking at those certain holes where you really feel like you can take advantage of as a risk reward and possibly even being able to play the golf course once or twice before we're getting here.

But for first timers, I mean I have a hole by whole description on our website.

They kind of take everybody through the hole of what club to hit and what club not to hit.

But you can see on certain holes out of here that if you look at a particular whole location, I mean, you're going to know.

I mean, if you're a if you're a fairly knowledgeable golfer, that you're going to look at that thing and say, well, if I miss this thing right, I don't think I'm going to be able to get this up them down.

So yeah, going for it.

I mean, this is why the golf course was built.

It was built as a match to play golf course, and it's a perfect situation for that.

Because if you're down one or two down and you want to take a risk of throwing a ball up towards a flag that's way up in the right corner of the green to try to make birdie to win that hole, then go for it.

But if not, you might end up being three down.

And are the greens really large or they traditionally in the old you know, in the twenties and stuff, the greens were a lot smaller.

Well, that might be another conversation that we'll have today, But the greens were smaller until Tom Doak came in and did his redesign back in five and oh seven, and a lot of the fingers of the greens came back, a lot of the expansion from the front and the back on the sides came back into play, which got closer to a lot of those green side bunkers that had kind of gotten away from those bunkers through the years of just maybe imperfections or just mowing patterns or maybe lack of staff on the golf course back in the maybe the forties or fifties, sixties.

But the greens are fairly big, especially for an older style golf course, and again have gotten bigger over the last several years after the restoration.

Interesting, did you get a lot of pushback from the traditionalists the purest when that then they redesigned was complete.

No, I mean, I think I think, really, when you look back at it, it's really trying to take it back to the way it was as much as we could.

I think I think there were certain affection of the membership that just wanted to leave it alone.

They thought it was good the way it was.

But again that's just the people resisting change.

But I think once the golf course was done, once the redesign was was completed, that everybody was just completely blown away, you know, including a lot of Golf Digest, Golf Week, Golf magatting raiders were just coming and going, oh my god, this is fantastic.

So Tom Dook is probably I mean in his staff, I mean, Jim Orbina obviously did a lot of the shaping, a lot of the work himself.

Are just complete gurs when it comes to redesigning mckensey golf courses.

Unbelievable, unbelievable.

All right, So now here I'm going to put you to task.

You said that you have description on the website, and I'm going to study it a lot before I go down there.

But I'm going to ask you about a couple of specific holes.

And I'm not going to tell you which one.

I'm going to let you choose, but let's pick your favorite.

I don't know if you should say favorite or most challenging.

Par three?

Which one and tell us how to play it?

Number three without a doubt, And I'll give you just a quick snippet of another hole that it's probably the shortest of them, that gives them the most, gives me the most trouble.

Number three from the back tees is a two hundred and forty five yard up till par three surrounded by bunkers.

So for the most part, for the guy who's playing the back t's it's a driver.

I mean it's a driver, and it's again through the redesign the golf course out of the entire left side of it.

For most people who maybe think they can't get there, they'll basically hit a shot that's just kind of up in the neck of the green and then be able to try to bump the ball up onto the green to try to get it up and down for par and that's the worst they make a four.

I mean, you can go for it, but again the risk reward side of it is that if you get on the right side and the bunkers, I mean, your head is probably about three feet below the bunker lip as you're trying to hit your second shot up to the green.

So again you can go for it, but I would suggest if you can't get there, lay it up there in the neck, try to bump a ball.

It's tied enough grass where you can roll the ball up onto the green and even putt if the pins in the front, So that'll kind of keep you away from making a big number.

Okay, what are you going to say something about a different part three too?

Yeah?

Yeah, number three, number fifteen on the back nine.

I mean, I think I played yesterday and after I hit my shot, I think I told my force and I said, I don't think I hit this green the last ten times I've played it.

It's one hundred.

It's one hundred, and I think it was playing one hundred and thirty yards yesterday, I hit a fifty degree gap wedge and hitting the right bunker.

I think the three times before that, I hit it over the green.

But again it's just one of those holes where you're looking at it.

It's short, but again surrounded by bunkers.

There's a creek that runs in front of the green, and I think visually it's just very intimidating.

Even though it's a even though it's a short hole, you're still looking at it going and plus me not feeling very confident on it, it still can bite you.

And that's the thing what you'll see with mckinna golf courses that at any hole, at any time regardless of the yardage, can come up and bite you good.

And bite you hard.

I'm I'm not trying to I'm not trying to steer people away from the golf.

Course, but well, you're scared the crap out of me.

I'm reconsidering.

I just want to just be very realistic when it comes to this design and it is so unique and you walk away from every single hole going wow, and you remember instead of saying, did we just play this hole or we just played hole just like this, Every hole has its own character, every hole has its own uniqueness.

That's awesome.

What about the terrain you said you were in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Pebble Beach and the rest are well, Pebble Beach is right there on the ocean.

Is there a similarity between the types of terrain or is pas tempo so unique that it's more like playing up at the Olympic Club or Harding Park in San Francisco with that kind of trees and things.

I'd probably say it's probably a combination of both.

I mean, we're not as close obviously to the ocean as Pebble Beaches, but we have many vistas in the golf course where you can get a glimpse of the ocean, where a tree lined golf course majority or pine cypress trees and oaks, But it's the golf course from the back.

There's only sixty five hundred yards, so it's not along golf course, but it plays as if it could be, you know, seven thousand yards.

But again it's a it's a somewhat hilly terrain McKenzie.

Obviously, being an older style golf course, there's not a lot of space between teas and greens.

So for those who want to walk, it's very walkable.

I'd say probably you know, sixty sixty five percent of our members walk the golf course, have motorized trolleys, they have push carts, they carry their bags.

And again, you walk off the first green and you're you're walking probably forty to fifty steps to the to the second t So again it's a it's a very walkable golf course.

But again it's a test.

I mean, you're going to get some some pretty decent hills on the back nine, But if you're used to walking, I'd walk it for sure.

Yeah, well I definitely will.

I play up in Marin County where there are very few level courses out here, and so and I prefer walking.

I love what you know, especially in a course that I've never played.

I found that I find that when I'm in a golf cart, all I see is my ball, and I hit the ball, drive to the ball, hit the drop ball, drive the ball, and I really don't even remember the golf course.

But when I walk it, I walk it.

I can see not only the terrain, but the wildlife and the vistas, and I can absorb so much more of it and get into a better rhythm of playing.

For sure.

So I can bring my own push card.

I have to use yours.

You can use yes, either one we have him for rent, or you can bring your own.

Now I'm going to put you on to a par five again, either your favorite or the most challenging.

And why and how should we play it?

There's three questions and ones.

I'd probably say number thirteen.

Number thirteen is a par five dog leg left the again.

With the restoration project, the thirteenth tea was extended and the bunkering around the greens, especially a bunker that plays about sixty seventy yards in front of the green, was restored again.

It's a good hole green.

The fairway slopes from from right to left, so drive up the right side of the farewell kind of trickle and kind of move back to the left of the fairway.

All of the trouble really on the left side is where you want to avoid.

There's out of bounds on the right, but it's quite a ways away, so you can really kind of get up that right side and let it just kind of come back to the fairway.

The second shot, you just got to take into consideration in that bunker that's about seventy yards ahead and just lay it up there short, which would give you a nice and nice little short wedge onto the green.

The big hitters can get there in two you know, probably with a long iron or a hybrid or a fairway wood.

There's a couple whole locations on that green that are just nasty.

There's a back right location which is probably one of the hardest locations on the entire golf course that it's hard to get to because the green you move from right to left, but the pin is tucked over to the right.

So typically if you're playing in the skins game and you make a birdie there, you're usually gonna win a skin.

But it's a fantastic hole.

The greenish shaped kind of like Mickey Mouse would call it, you know, ear one or ear two.

Uh.

The head the head basically is the center of the green and there's two big ears that go on either side, and it's a it's a fantastic hole.

And do you move the flag to all the ears and AND's face?

I mean you all over the place without a doubt.

Oh wow.

So you know the name of this program is Golf Smarter, and it's it's not just the name, it's the way I choose to play golf.

I mean, I'm not really high on the risk reward element because I find that the that the risk when you're you know, the quality of player that I am, and I think that most golfers are risk is really not worth it that much.

I Mean it seems like, you know, yeah, I'll go for it, but then I'm gonna be double bogging as supposed to, you know, as opposed to setting myself up for a shot that I'm more confident with and then walk away with a bogie at worst.

Right, So is that par five something that again, strategically speaking, you should inch your way up to it as opposed to going for it.

You know, I think it's probably I mean, it really depends on your game.

If you feel like you're a fairly decent, fairly decent bunker player, I'd say go for it, because again, the bunkers are very much around the edges of the greens.

And if you go for it and too, I think it's a fairly easy out and it's not going to be one of those bunkers like he describe a number three.

You can get the ball into the green.

A lot of stuff funnels to the middle, especially the flags in the center, but I wouldn't necessarily creep up on that.

I think, you know, the par fives are some of the holes where you can really kind of make up a few shots.

Typically that's where people kind of look to say, if they make a bogie and a par five, they feel like they kind of lost one maybe to the field.

But I think the par fives are more so the holes you take advantage of versus kind of inching up on it.

And what about the bunker conditions, what kind of I mean, the photographs look like it's pure white sand.

Yes, the beautiful sands.

It's very playable some people.

It's it's dense, so that's a little bit more of the heaviness to it.

So a digger in a bunker versus somebody who can just kind of splash it out and slide that face underneath is more so the shot versus than trying to just kind of dig it out with a shallower sand like some people have on some courses.

And are most of the bunkers just around the greens or do you have a lot of fairway bunkers as well?

They create some problems in your head.

Yeah, there's a few.

There's a few.

On a I'd say probably half the holes have bunkers.

Some bunkers are in the fairies strictly as aiming points or to kind of help shape the hole, which was a McKinsey characteristic as well.

So there's some balls that definitely come into play or some bunkers have come into play, But as far as the actual difficulty of the ones in the fairway, not really.

Kay, I'm really getting nervous.

Yeah, I've definitely played courses where I walked away going okay, I want to play that again right now, you know, And this sounds like exactly what it's going to be not that it's going to be easy to do that, all right.

So let's take a couple, now, a couple of part fours that you like and admire and are challenged by.

Uh, let's pick let's pick something on the front nine.

First front nine.

Part four probably would be number two.

Actually know what, I take that back.

I'm going to go with number one.

Oh great, number.

One, Number one, two and three out of the gate are handicapped, four, eight and two.

WHOA, So right out of the gate, if you can, if you can maneuver your way through the first three holes, you're you're okay, you know, hitting a number four.

But it doesn't start off easy.

It starts off with a good challenge.

Number one is a it's a four hundred and six the yard par four right out of the gate, got the Monterey Bay in the background.

It's a fairly straight hole.

No fairway bunkers, but there is a little there's there's a little fairway bunker.

That's something near the green again about seventy yards that will catch those second shots for those people that are, you know, maybe trying to go for it and maybe just don't get all of it and catch that bunker right there in the middle.

Again a very long green, probably about thirty eight paces long from front to back, and with a couple of fairly large bunkers that guard the right side of the right side of the green.

But again another great hole out of the gate and actually back in the original design was a par five with a t being back a little bit farther up on the hillside, which is one of the things that I know our board and some of our board members and our even our general manager are looking forward to possibly restoring one day.

It's not something that's in the plans, but just something that if we can restore another piece of Apasta tampo, we'd like to do it.

And go ahead.

Tell me about number two, a dragon tarbardy hole this point.

Yeah, Number two, I'd say probably is a fair way.

It's probably my favorite driving hole.

I hit the ball right to left and it's a ferry to slopes from right to left, so I can kind of get it up that right side and let it come down.

It's a little bit of a downhill.

Part four.

Again you can see a nice little view from the tee towards the Monterey Bay and the saddle of the trees.

And again, very one of our few greens that slope from front to back.

Most of the greens being push up greens, they're sloping from from back to front.

Again, probably you're going to give leave you about a mid iron into this green.

Probably you'd say, you know, for a drive that you hit two hundred and forty two hundred and fifty yards, you'll probably have one hundred and sixty sixty five left on your second shot.

Everything plays from right to left.

There's a bunker that kind of guards the left side of the green, but if you can get it up on the right hand side, everything funnels down onto the green and it releases down towards the hole.

And what about the speed of the greens and also the undulation overall?

In general, our role is basically running at ten to five with the undulations.

I mean, obviously a downhelp I can get as going as quick as fifteen just simply based on severity from back to front.

But if you're just basically if we're doing looking at a stip meter reading, our goal is to get him at ten to five daily.

Erry.

That's very competitive, yeah, to say the least.

All right, let's pick a couple hole, a couple par fours in the back nine that's easy.

Eleven and sixteen.

Eleven and sixteen are or sixteen is probably McKenzie's most famous hole.

It was his number one favorite hole of all the golf golf holes he designed in the United States.

It's our number three handicap hole.

Sixteen is four tiers on the green, slipping from back to front.

There's probably again another green that's probably forty paces long and probably has roughly seven to eight whole locations, one being middle left, which is just a diabolical position because if you go for it and you go into the road.

I was there yesterday and just happened to make a birdy myself, so that got me a skin wow.

And then again the hole is when you look at it and you come over the hill from off the tee and you stand at the top and you look at that green, it's just amazing.

It's just crazy.

I mean you're standing at the bottom of the green or from the top of the green.

It's probably it's got to be twenty feet from height from front to back.

Is there anything about number sixteen that ended up in Atlanta?

Sorry, in Augusta, I think probably just simply the false fronts.

I mean, I think there again one of those things that if your ball doesn't get all the way up or up to the top of the tier and it starts trickling back at all, roll all the way off the front of the green, and just some of the severity of the er the bunker in there.

But yeah, when you want, if you look at Augusta and you one and you come play pasta Tampa, you can see the similarities pretty much right away.

That's so cool that that you can't do that on on either either side of the country.

You are alluding to number eleven as well.

Number eleven is the number one handicap pole.

It's an uphill part four.

It's not super long, but it is demanding.

On the second shot, the drive is relatively benign.

Got a pretty straightaway fairway.

There's a little hazard on the left hand side that if you hook it and get it going left, you can you can roll into the hazard.

But once you're once you're in the fairway.

The second shot is the key.

The green kind of slopes a little bit, kind of kitty corner to the side and kind of away from you, so you're actually trying to carry the fairway bunker or excuse me, you're trying to carry the hazard and the green side bunkers onto the green and then the green itself is is again one of those Mackenzie greens where if you get it, don't get it all the way up that rolls off the front, or a nice bridge that goes across the canyon once you hit your second shot to drive up to the green and again a great vista standing on that eleventh green and then to the next t, the twelfth t that kind of looks back towards the Lottery Bay and even up towards half of them bay.

Thanks for the t tour on those.

When you talk about getting giving lessons to the members, do you also get visitors who come in saying, I need a lesson before I start playing to understand how to play this course.

Do you get a lot at the end of that.

Yeah, I mean we get some quite a bit of a request for plane lessons.

It's not something that we typically do on the golf course, but I've had people come in and just want to sit for a half hour or forty five minutes and take that much time and try to pay me to give them the description of how to play the golf course, where for me it's you know, it's something that I just do.

As far as you know, people coming out to play the golf course and enjoy themselves are given as a bunch of information I can at no charge.

But there's you know, there are people that want to be able to kind of know before they go out there because this might be the only time we're able to play it.

So instead of you know, experiencing those oh I should have done it this way this time, they understand that, you know, we're not to miss the miss the ball.

And I'm more than happy to share that information with them.

And that's why you put a lot of that information on the website.

You can just tell them just yeah, read the website.

I already gave that information out.

Yes, And we do also have you know, golf lessons here and like I said, I I give public lessons and member lessons and my staff is also here.

I have three golf professionals other than myself that they give golf lessons as well.

So we're we're definitely open to open to the public for lessons.

Yeah, it's a good size staff for for of course that that's a good size teaching staff generally.

Yes, yeah, yes, Let's talk about.

The rating and slope of the different t boxes so I can get a sense of because I'm not I'll tell you now, I'm not playing from the back teas.

I hear you.

Yeah, So what what kind of rating slope and where should you know?

We'll get to that next question, but let's talk about the rating and.

Slope back teaser.

It's rated over seventy two, so it's seventy two point four and one forty three slope.

So again one description.

Yeah, the description I've had with everybody on the on the air to day is pretty accurate.

And the slope reflect it as well as the course rating.

And I think most people that I would tell that come out here and they look at that sixty five twenty one yardage.

Like I said earlier, they all want to play the back teas and by the time they get to the back of the fourth hole, they say, hey, guys, just play the whites, so.

They don't look at the one forty three.

That makes me nuts.

Why people look at the yardage and not the rating.

Or slope correct if it's under seven thousand yards, is kind of the barometer and what I've scene.

If it's under seven thousand yards, they're going to play the back tees and sometimes it's just a mistake and they probably would have had a better time playing the middle teest.

Sure, okay, so that's the how many sets of tees do you have?

Three?

Okay?

So then your middle teas are what the uh, the blue.

The middle ties are the white teas.

So the championship for the gold and the middle tees are the white.

At seventy point eight.

One is still not a walk in the park.

No, no, no, no, it's it's still a test, trust me.

It's it's a test from the green teas.

I mean the green teas, which are our forward tees, are sixty eight point nine one thirty for the men.

So it's it's still it's still a good test.

Well, I'm going to see if I can convince you know, I've been invited to come down with a friend in some of his colleagues, and I'm going to see if these guys will swallow and say, come on, let's play the green and see how they go about.

It's like I'm not playing the ladies teas.

It's like, oh, really you.

Know, well, you know what a good A good alternative is to play the combo teas, which is a we have both a white gold tea combo and we also have a white green tea combo.

Okay, So and those and those courses are a little bit more subtle than what we're talking about.

Okay, Yeah.

I mean it's when guys give me this this argument of like, I'm not going to play the fronties you kidding?

It's like, oh, excuse me, could you shoot par if you play in the fronties exactly?

And they're like no, let's say then, why are you being such a jerk about it?

Yeah?

Exactly?

Oh man, So uh there you mentioned you know that when the course was open nineteen twenty nine, the country was going through bad times and it made it difficult for the course.

At that point here in California, we're having a difficult time right now with water.

Yes, And how is that impacting a destination course, a member course in the mountains near the ocean.

What kind of impact is that having and what are you doing about it?

Well, it's impacting us pretty severely.

I mean at this at this point where we've been we've been cut fifty percent by the City of Santa Cruz.

We are we're obviously are greens tees, approaches, surrounds are receiving one hundred percent of their water needs.

Are fairies and roughs are receiving pretty much about the other forty percent.

So the golf courses is playing firm and fast.

We're obviously doing our part where we're using every every drop that's allotted to us.

We're not saving anything for financial purposes.

We're putting all the water that we can on the golf course just to maintain playability.

And and like I said, it's it's firm and fast.

They played yesterday.

I played the ball down and it was fine.

I mean there's there's some firm wise, I mean it's not wash and wet, but it's I think for me personally, it's a lot closer to the way that it should be playing anyway.

I always I think people get a little bit too concerned about perfect playing conditions.

And you look at the British Open, you look at golf courses in Britain, or in Ireland, or in Scotland or New Zealand.

When I went back and played there that you know, the fairwayes are green when the rains that they turn green.

When they don't, when it doesn't rain, they turn brown.

But the green complexes and the teas are always good.

And that's kind of where we are right now.

The golf course again is true McKinsey design, and we're just trying to make do and getting through this period.

What is the conversation in the industry in northern California.

I don't know how Southern California they're throwing their nose up at it, I don't know.

But what is the water conversation as opposed to conservation, the conversation going on among golf courses about what to do and how to deal with this crisis?

Well, I think you know, most most people now are looking at water alternatives.

I mean, we're right now in the talks for the City of Scotts Valley to to get tertiary treated to water to the golf course if you want to call it second water gray water, and have a treatment plant here on property or the pump station to get into our irrigation system.

And then we're researching wells.

You know, there's so many issues with wells right now, and and just for people that have farm landing crops and you know, they're pretty tied up, so us trying to track down a well digger to get over here to do it.

And we're pretty low in the tunnel pol when it comes to when it comes to golf courses when people are trying to save their crops and their livelihood.

So those are probably the two biggest thing is instead of getting you know, fresh water, it's going to be secondary treated water and well water.

And that's really where we are right now.

And we're you know, we're hoping to have a solution within the next couple of months, and we should be, we should be in full force with our new solution by next spring.

Today, I know that they're dying to know when we're gonna when we're going to have this done, and when it's going to be done, and we're going to know within the next couple of months.

When you say they want to know when we're going to be done, who's the.

They, I'd say the members, Uh huh.

And what about the management company?

Uh?

Well, the members are the man of the company.

The members own the corporation that's an equity membership, that's a far stock and they own the place.

Yeah, Okay, so yeah, it's their call.

Well, luckily they're local.

It's not as if it's an ownership company that's based in in Georgia or Texas, who you know, or Florida that just doesn't necessarily get what's going on water wise here.

Correct, that's exactly right.

Yeah, it's really I mean you start looking at localized problems.

It's really something that is not affecting the entire entire nation.

On the water shortage obviously.

I mean we were in like I said, we were in Courtley in Idaho and played golf and there's no lack of water and I and I'll tell you that.

I mean the guys got their hand watering.

I mean the golf courses was squishy, and it was probably ninety five degrees and it was so wet.

The humidity was just stifling.

So there's certain areas that are water flesh, no pun intended.

I got it.

I got the joke.

Yeah.

Well, it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out in northern California for the golf courses because I know that there are a lot of very nervous managers course managers, right, no doubt.

Yeah, and a lot of frustrated golfers too, who are winding and they're whining about the conditions.

That's like, oh my god, this course.

Look at how brown it is, Like, are you kidding your commenting on it being brown?

Yes, come, yes, Well, we also are very sensitive to the fact of what's going on and the amount of money that people are playing to pay golf, play golf.

So we've you know, we've instituted a program where we're giving out the beginning August first, we're giving out fifty dollars vouchers to people to use for a future round.

So they come on and play between August first and September thirtieth, they give them a fifty dollars voucher.

They can use that for a future around.

Let's get through December of twenty fifteen.

So we want to do it's a good will gesture in our part to say we appreciate you coming out.

Here's fifty bucks off, come back and see us again.

Okay, well, I'm glad I'm coming after August first, Yes, sir, and you don't have to answer this because I know these things fluctuate.

But what is a green fee?

Green fees are two hundred and thirty dollars walking and to sixty two to ride.

Once in a while, we'll look at the t sheet, probably sometimes forty eight hours seventy two hours in advance, and see if we have a block between say one and three o'clock that's open.

We'll throw up a special on our website for one sixty five and you can go right to our website, which is Pasta Tampo dot com.

Right in the middle of the page, there's a book Ta Times page and you can bring it up and check out specials and our rates twenty four to seven.

I love the name Pasa tiempo.

It is so Spanish and it is so perfect for golf.

Right, yes it is pastime, Yes, yes it is.

And our logo, which is I'm not sure if you've seen it.

It's probably one of the most recognizable logos and obviously was voted one of the top fifty by Golf Guy just several years ago.

It's it's really cool.

So you got to get yourself a shirt.

Well, I'll be definitely checking this ail rack when I get there, because after paying two thirty to walker, of course, I'm gonna my wife's like, oh, and you bought a shirt too.

Really, really you bought oh yeah shirt, here's the shorts and look at my jacket.

She's right, you're out of here, all right.

Well, ken Woods head professional at PASA Tempo.

I really appreciate your time and your tea tour and the tips and the insights and the history lesson that was phenomenal.

Thank you so much.

Well, thank you fair.

I appreciate you having me and we'll look forward to seeing you next week.