November 14, 2025 • 49 mins
GS#448 August 5, 2014 Pasatiempo Golf Course has an amazing history that includes being the course that Bobby Jones played just before deciding that Alister MacKenzie should be the architect of his property at Augusta, Georgia, which became home to The Masters. Our guest is Ken Woods, Head Professional at Pasatiempo in the Santa Cruz mountains, just north of the Monterey Peninsula in California. Ken shares the full story of how Pasatiempo came to be in the late 1920’s, Alister MacKenzie’s design features, and the difficulty of the course. We start the show with a short conversation with long time GOLF SMARTER member, Tim Kilkenny of Ohio, who made his first hole-in-one the previous week just after listening to the last episode where Darrin Gee explained how to sink one yourself!
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If you have a question about whether or not Fred is using any of the methods, equipment or apps we’ve discussed, or if you’d like to share a comment about what you’ve heard in this or any other episode, please write because Fred will get back to you. Either write to golfsmarterpodcast@gmail.com or click on the Hey Fred button, at golfsmarter.com
This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker with over 300+ locations to help you find your next pair of glasses. You can also head over to warbypaker.com/golfsmarter right now to try on any pair virtually!
This episode is sponsored by Indeed. Please visit indeed.com/GOLFSMARTER and get a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT. Terms and conditions apply.
This episode is sponsored by HIMS. Start your free online visit today HIMS.com/golfsmarter and received personalized ED treatment options.
This episode is also brought to you by Policygenius. Secure your family’s future with Policygenius. Head to policygenius.com to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save.
If you have a question about whether or not Fred is using any of the methods, equipment or apps we’ve discussed, or if you’d like to share a comment about what you’ve heard in this or any other episode, please write because Fred will get back to you. Either write to golfsmarterpodcast@gmail.com or click on the Hey Fred button, at golfsmarter.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey, Cred. How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm fine? How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Congratulations, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
On Friday, August first, I was playing at my home
course and I aced number fourteen. It was sweet.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
How long have you been playing at that club?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And why do you think this was the time for
you to get a hole in one?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's probably just coincidental. But I really liked your interview.
I think I listened to it on Wednesday. But your
most recent episode.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Darren g from Hawaii, Yeah right, be Frustrated Golfer's Handbook.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
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,
(01:27):
it went in the hole.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
As soon as you struck the ball, you felt.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Wow, I had a kick iron right.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
At the pin. It went right at it the whole way.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
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?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It bounced once in front and pass the pin and
spun right back into the pin.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And did everyone go nuts?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
There was jumping and dancing.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And what happened after the round?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So, yeah, I got to go in and tell everybody
about the hole in one. And there were several hundred
people at the club.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And how many of those people did you tell about
golf smarter and that that's why you got your hole
in one?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Now, see, that's what I could have done better. Right out,
I got all.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
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
(03:11):
for it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Well, I am so excited for you. Thanks so much
for sharing this and congratulations again.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Thanks Chret.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
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. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
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
(04:02):
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
(04:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
The history and a t tour of legendary posit Tippo
golf Course.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Ken, Hello, Fred, How are you.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
I'm doing great? How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I'm doing really well. How is the weather in beautiful
Santa Cruz today, Well, we had just.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
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
(05:32):
of the Monterey Bay from where you.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
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
(05:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
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.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
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
(06:37):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So this is why I called you get to get
some local knowledge before I come down, so I don't embarrass.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Myself, I understand.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
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.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
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
(07:37):
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
(07:59):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So that so then Passa Tempo is the parent of
Augusta National, of the where the Masters is playing.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Amazing. So how is it that that Marion Hollins got
to own the piece of property that is now Passa Tempo.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
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
(09:18):
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
(09:40):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, which so wait, the course opened up nineteen twenty nine,
and wasn't the crash just around.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Then, Yes, exactly? Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Wow. And I understand that Marion Hollins was quite an
accomplished golfer, let alone equestrian and many other things.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
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
(10:33):
same time frame.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
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?
Speaker 5 (10:43):
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,
(11:04):
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
(11:26):
little bit of heat.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, you might lose your invitations.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
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
(11:51):
great facilities and wonderful people up there, and the members
like to bounce around and I like doing that.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
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.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
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.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
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,
(12:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
But Posit Tampo is a public course.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
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
(13:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
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
(13:53):
do you think that it's not as high profile as
the other courses in Monterey.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I think.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
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,
(14:22):
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
(14:45):
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.
(15:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
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,
(15:39):
Pasa Tiempo. Right right, it's right there on the way.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
And yes, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
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.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
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
(16:24):
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
(16:45):
gave us number one. But it was, it's very very
nice and it feels good awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
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.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
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,
(17:35):
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.
(17:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
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?
Speaker 5 (18:21):
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
(18:42):
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.
(19:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
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.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
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
(19:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Interesting, did you get a lot of pushback from the
traditionalists the purest when that then they redesigned was complete.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
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,
(20:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
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
(21:25):
know if you should say favorite or most challenging. Par three?
Which one and tell us how to play it?
Speaker 5 (21:34):
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.
(21:58):
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
(22:19):
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
(22:39):
in the front, So that'll kind of keep you away
from making a big number.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Okay, what are you going to say something about a
different part three too?
Speaker 5 (22:47):
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
(23:09):
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
(23:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And bite you hard.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
I'm I'm not trying to I'm not trying to steer
people away from the golf.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Course, but well, you're scared the crap out of me.
I'm reconsidering.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
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
(24:29):
Francisco with that kind of trees and things.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
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
(24:53):
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
(25:14):
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,
(25:38):
But if you're used to walking, I'd walk it for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
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
(26:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So I can bring my own push card. I have
to use yours.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
You can use yes, either one we have him for rent,
or you can bring your own.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
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.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
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
(27:00):
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
(27:20):
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
(27:42):
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,
(28:02):
you know, ear one or ear two.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
And do you move the flag to all the ears
and AND's face?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I mean you all over the place without a doubt.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
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
(28:42):
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,
(29:05):
you should inch your way up to it as opposed
to going for it.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
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
(29:33):
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
(29:55):
fives are more so the holes you take advantage of
versus kind of inching up on it.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
And what about the bunker conditions, what kind of I mean,
the photographs look like it's pure white sand.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
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.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
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,
(30:57):
not really.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
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
(31:20):
you like and admire and are challenged by. Uh, let's
pick let's pick something on the front nine.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
First front nine.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
Part four probably would be number two. Actually know what,
I take that back. I'm going to go with number one.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Oh great, number.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
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
(32:00):
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
(32:21):
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
(32:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
And go ahead. Tell me about number two, a dragon
tarbardy hole this point.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
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,
(33:22):
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
(33:45):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
And what about the speed of the greens and also
the undulation overall?
Speaker 5 (34:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
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.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
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
(34:59):
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.
(35:21):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Is there anything about number sixteen that ended up in Atlanta?
Speaker 5 (35:43):
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,
(36:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
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.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
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
(36:41):
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,
(37:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
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.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
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
(37:55):
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,
(38:16):
we're not to miss the miss the ball. And I'm
more than happy to share that information with them.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
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.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, it's a good size staff for for of course
that that's a good size teaching staff generally.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yes, yeah, yes, Let's talk about.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I hear you.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
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.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
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
(39:38):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
They don't look at the one forty three. That makes
me nuts. Why people look at the yardage and not
the rating.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Sure, okay, so that's the how many sets of tees
do you have?
Speaker 5 (40:11):
Three?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Okay? So then your middle teas are what the uh,
the blue.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
The middle ties are the white teas. So the championship
for the gold and the middle tees are the white.
At seventy point eight.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
One is still not a walk in the park.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
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.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
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?
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Yeah? Exactly?
Speaker 1 (41:39):
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
(42:00):
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?
Speaker 5 (42:11):
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
(42:33):
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,
(42:55):
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
(43:18):
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
(43:38):
course again is true McKinsey design, and we're just trying
to make do and getting through this period.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
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?
Speaker 5 (44:07):
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
(44:29):
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
(44:49):
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
(45:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
When you say they want to know when we're going
to be done, who's the.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
They, I'd say the members, Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
And what about the management company?
Speaker 5 (45:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
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.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
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
(46:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
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
(46:51):
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?
Speaker 5 (46:59):
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
(47:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
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?
Speaker 5 (47:47):
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,
(48:08):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
I love the name Pasa tiempo. It is so Spanish
and it is so perfect for golf.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Right, yes it is pastime, Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
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
(49:03):
tea tour and the tips and the insights and the
history lesson that was phenomenal. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (49:10):
Well, thank you fair. I appreciate you having me and
we'll look forward to seeing you next week.
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.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey, Cred. How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm fine? How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Congratulations, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
On Friday, August first, I was playing at my home
course and I aced number fourteen. It was sweet.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
How long have you been playing at that club?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And why do you think this was the time for
you to get a hole in one?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's probably just coincidental. But I really liked your interview.
I think I listened to it on Wednesday. But your
most recent episode.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Darren g from Hawaii, Yeah right, be Frustrated Golfer's Handbook.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
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,
(01:27):
it went in the hole.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
As soon as you struck the ball, you felt.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Wow, I had a kick iron right.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
At the pin. It went right at it the whole way.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
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?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It bounced once in front and pass the pin and
spun right back into the pin.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And did everyone go nuts?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
There was jumping and dancing.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And what happened after the round?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So, yeah, I got to go in and tell everybody
about the hole in one. And there were several hundred
people at the club.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And how many of those people did you tell about
golf smarter and that that's why you got your hole
in one?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Now, see, that's what I could have done better. Right out,
I got all.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
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
(03:11):
for it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Well, I am so excited for you. Thanks so much
for sharing this and congratulations again.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Thanks Chret.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
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. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
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
(04:02):
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
(04:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
The history and a t tour of legendary posit Tippo
golf Course.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Ken, Hello, Fred, How are you.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
I'm doing great? How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I'm doing really well. How is the weather in beautiful
Santa Cruz today, Well, we had just.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
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
(05:32):
of the Monterey Bay from where you.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
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
(05:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
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.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
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
(06:37):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So this is why I called you get to get
some local knowledge before I come down, so I don't embarrass.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Myself, I understand.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
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.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
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
(07:37):
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
(07:59):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So that so then Passa Tempo is the parent of
Augusta National, of the where the Masters is playing.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Amazing. So how is it that that Marion Hollins got
to own the piece of property that is now Passa Tempo.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
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
(09:18):
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
(09:40):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, which so wait, the course opened up nineteen twenty nine,
and wasn't the crash just around.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Then, Yes, exactly? Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Wow. And I understand that Marion Hollins was quite an
accomplished golfer, let alone equestrian and many other things.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
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
(10:33):
same time frame.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
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?
Speaker 5 (10:43):
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,
(11:04):
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
(11:26):
little bit of heat.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, you might lose your invitations.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
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
(11:51):
great facilities and wonderful people up there, and the members
like to bounce around and I like doing that.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
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.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
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.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
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,
(12:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
But Posit Tampo is a public course.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
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
(13:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
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
(13:53):
do you think that it's not as high profile as
the other courses in Monterey.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I think.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
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,
(14:22):
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
(14:45):
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.
(15:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
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,
(15:39):
Pasa Tiempo. Right right, it's right there on the way.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
And yes, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
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.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
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
(16:24):
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
(16:45):
gave us number one. But it was, it's very very
nice and it feels good awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
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.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
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,
(17:35):
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.
(17:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
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?
Speaker 5 (18:21):
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
(18:42):
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.
(19:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
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.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
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
(19:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Interesting, did you get a lot of pushback from the
traditionalists the purest when that then they redesigned was complete.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
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,
(20:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
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
(21:25):
know if you should say favorite or most challenging. Par three?
Which one and tell us how to play it?
Speaker 5 (21:34):
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.
(21:58):
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
(22:19):
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
(22:39):
in the front, So that'll kind of keep you away
from making a big number.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Okay, what are you going to say something about a
different part three too?
Speaker 5 (22:47):
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
(23:09):
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
(23:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And bite you hard.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
I'm I'm not trying to I'm not trying to steer
people away from the golf.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Course, but well, you're scared the crap out of me.
I'm reconsidering.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
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
(24:29):
Francisco with that kind of trees and things.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
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
(24:53):
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
(25:14):
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,
(25:38):
But if you're used to walking, I'd walk it for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
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
(26:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So I can bring my own push card. I have
to use yours.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
You can use yes, either one we have him for rent,
or you can bring your own.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
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.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
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
(27:00):
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
(27:20):
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
(27:42):
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,
(28:02):
you know, ear one or ear two.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
And do you move the flag to all the ears
and AND's face?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I mean you all over the place without a doubt.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
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
(28:42):
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,
(29:05):
you should inch your way up to it as opposed
to going for it.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
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
(29:33):
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
(29:55):
fives are more so the holes you take advantage of
versus kind of inching up on it.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
And what about the bunker conditions, what kind of I mean,
the photographs look like it's pure white sand.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
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.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
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,
(30:57):
not really.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
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
(31:20):
you like and admire and are challenged by. Uh, let's
pick let's pick something on the front nine.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
First front nine.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
Part four probably would be number two. Actually know what,
I take that back. I'm going to go with number one.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Oh great, number.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
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
(32:00):
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
(32:21):
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
(32:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
And go ahead. Tell me about number two, a dragon
tarbardy hole this point.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
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,
(33:22):
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
(33:45):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
And what about the speed of the greens and also
the undulation overall?
Speaker 5 (34:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
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.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
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
(34:59):
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.
(35:21):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Is there anything about number sixteen that ended up in Atlanta?
Speaker 5 (35:43):
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,
(36:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
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.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
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
(36:41):
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,
(37:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
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.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
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
(37:55):
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,
(38:16):
we're not to miss the miss the ball. And I'm
more than happy to share that information with them.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
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.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, it's a good size staff for for of course
that that's a good size teaching staff generally.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yes, yeah, yes, Let's talk about.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I hear you.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
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.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
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
(39:38):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
They don't look at the one forty three. That makes
me nuts. Why people look at the yardage and not
the rating.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Sure, okay, so that's the how many sets of tees
do you have?
Speaker 5 (40:11):
Three?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Okay? So then your middle teas are what the uh,
the blue.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
The middle ties are the white teas. So the championship
for the gold and the middle tees are the white.
At seventy point eight.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
One is still not a walk in the park.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
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.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
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?
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Yeah? Exactly?
Speaker 1 (41:39):
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
(42:00):
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?
Speaker 5 (42:11):
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
(42:33):
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,
(42:55):
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
(43:18):
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
(43:38):
course again is true McKinsey design, and we're just trying
to make do and getting through this period.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
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?
Speaker 5 (44:07):
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
(44:29):
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
(44:49):
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
(45:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
When you say they want to know when we're going
to be done, who's the.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
They, I'd say the members, Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
And what about the management company?
Speaker 5 (45:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
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.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
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
(46:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
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
(46:51):
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?
Speaker 5 (46:59):
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
(47:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
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?
Speaker 5 (47:47):
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,
(48:08):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
I love the name Pasa tiempo. It is so Spanish
and it is so perfect for golf.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Right, yes it is pastime, Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
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
(49:03):
tea tour and the tips and the insights and the
history lesson that was phenomenal. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (49:10):
Well, thank you fair. I appreciate you having me and
we'll look forward to seeing you next week.
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