381: Restoring Cobbs Creek: Jim Wagner on the Olde Course

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1:00The impact of myasthenia-grab as symptoms can pile up. Plans getting rescheduled. Hobbies being left behind. Everyday tasks going unfinished. If MG keeps disrupting your life, the burden may be bigger than you realize. Learn how to assess and track the impact of your symptoms so you can talk about it with your healthcare team. Take the next step to better understand how MG symptoms may be impacting your life. Visit mgsymptmimpact.com. The show is about to begin. Are you ready? That smiley coffin for 61. Wow. Featurey smiley coffin. If you're on a local out hop in a PGA Tour Van, you might see Hideki Matsu. Yeah. Clear up and stand. Strengthen the grip. His co-host, Charlie Hume, he's not picked five of the last eight winners on the PGA Tour.

2:03Oh, he's going to hold. He's going to hold. He's going to hold. Yes. And the biggest names in golf. That's a great question. Can I talk about it? I don't think I'm ready. I'm going to get SK. Why not? Today, live from the Pine Crest Inn. It's the smiley show. It's a long everybody. This is the smiley show. Guys, happy to welcome in Jim Wagner. Jim, I'd say you at Marion for the US Amener. We spoke on that 13th green. One of the coolest places I have ever been to an incredible golf course. And so that now the US Am is done. You've got to see how it played out for the best ameneres in the world. What were your takeaways of how Marion played? I know you guys completed that restoration. Marion, 2019. So seeing these guys go play the golf course. What were your impressions of how it fared? Well, I have to stop by saying. I personally feel that Marion's probably one of the best golf courses in the US. If not the best in the US.

3:05Definitely one of the tops in the world. And I think we had that conversation when we were on 13. Right? Smiley, but it was great to see. And it was great to watch that golf course with that event. Because from a fan perspective, you can get around the golf course much closer to the action. Right? You can really see what's going on. I mean, we spent a lot of time hanging up on top of the hillside to the left of five green just above the creek. And being able to watch the action, the shots and guys trying to figure out how to play that golf hole. It's pretty extreme pitch from right to left. And where to land the ball and how to play it. And all that good stuff. I mean, it was awesome to see. But I mean, I personally couldn't have been more happier with the event the way the course was presented. As you know, Smiley Paul Achaul is a good friend of mine. And when we ran into you, 113, I mean, it means the world to me to see Paul and the work that him and his staff were able to do. Talking to some of the members,

4:06since I think that they felt it was one of the best. I don't know. You guys tell me about right? Smiley, it was the best attendance the most. What's up? I mean, I promise you from an attendance standpoint of all the fans out there just being on the grounds in Marion. And it was fun too. For me, watching all of these spectators walk the golf course before the groups would start on the weekend. They would all go and take pictures of some of the famous holes out there. They'd go down at the bottom of the hill at 11 where Bobby Jones won his grand slam. They'd go take pictures at the top of the fairway at the 18th hole. And then when they finished taking their picture, Charlie, guess what they did? They went right to that pro shop and they got them some merch. That's the key to it. That's, that is, it's a great place to get some merch. And I'm going to connect that whole section, both literally and figuratively to the next piece of this interview, Jim, because the logo on your shirt, all my hat, Cobb's Creek, I believe it's what is at the 11th hole there at Marion, where that creek runs right out there and connects to the project

5:09in Philadelphia that Smiley and I had the pleasure of visiting during PGA Championship. The one that you and Giller working on, this sort of renovation restoration of the old course. We did the Gator Tour. We got to play the Q school course there. We got to see the Tiger Learning Lab. This is such a cool project, Jim. And I think maybe the best place to start before you can get into the golf course and what you're working on is your ties to Philadelphia. Why this means so much to you and to Gill and why you wanted to take this project on. Okay, yeah, so yeah, Charlie, you're right. It's the same creek that connects Marion to Cobb's Creek, golf proper, right? And there are two different worlds in general, right, between Marion and Cobb's Creek. And there's a lot to that, which maybe we'll get into a little bit. But I grew up not too far from Marion Golf Club, right? And I was a fence member, as I like to say, at all the great clubs in Philadelphia, whether it's Marion, mainly Marion West, Lanark, Rolling Green.

6:11That was kind of my introduction into architecture. But Cobb's Creek golf course, right, is where we played most of our matches. There was a lot of junior matches at Cobb's Creek, our high school matches, hence the Cardinal Harrah Hat that I'm wearing. There we go. Right now, right? I have to get back into good graces because our rival's school bonner, those guys have been out a couple times. I like to get the high school kids out and show them what we're doing. Oh, cool. Right? They've been out a couple times. Yeah, they've been out a couple times and they wear the hat and they put it on social media. So I take a lot of heat for that. So I want to make sure that we get this link to the Harrah people. But yeah, so we played a lot of our high school matches here and growing up playing golf here. So it's kind of an introduction into architecture. And it's great. So being able to come back and turn Cobb's Creek into really what it was supposed to become when it was first designed, whatever it was, 1913 or whatever year it was completed in, it means a lot. It means a lot to myself where we are in our careers.

7:12It means a lot to me being able to give back to the city of Philadelphia. But I think more so, it's not just the golf standpoint, but there's this entire community aspect. Right? When you guys were here, you got to see it. I mean, I'm in the Tiger, the Tiger Woods Learning Center right now. It's a smiley show studio there. That's it. That's a most smiley show studio as seen on the show. This is it. You know, and Aaron Cook is great, you know, part of the foundation. Then Aaron's awesome. You know, she did tell me those smiley, she's waiting for you to check for the use of this I don't tell her to be a little bit out there. So yeah, but the community aspect I think is the huge thing here. And there's a lot to that. There's a lot to the community of the golf course, the community of golf and Philadelphia, etc. So it's huge. It's huge for the city of Philadelphia. Would you tell me about Cobb's Creek when you played it as a junior? Of course, Charlie mentioned that we had a chance to ride around. What'd you call it? A Gator Charlie? Is that what the vehicle we were in?

8:13A Gator 2. I mean, I don't know if that's the brand name of a vehicle. I just know it's a very robust multi-seater that navigates that terrain very well. Changing gears like something that you wouldn't trust me to drive is the best way to describe it. We would not want to spy the wheel of that. Well, you guys are right. You need a similar type vehicle to get around the property. Yeah, it's got some elevation change to it. There's some extremeness to the property. But when I played it, the conditions were pretty... A city of Philadelphia golf course, not a lot of care given to the golf course itself. You'd need to take a hammer, put a hammer as your 15th club in the bag just to get the 10. So it was... I had a lot going on with it back then. And even when it's shuttered, and I think it probably shuttered around like 15 or 16. Due to the flops, etc. Not too long ago. Not too long ago. I think the conditions were the same. You still needed to bring that hammer.

9:14I don't think much had changed in all that time. Now since the initial golf course was designed in an open, the routing had changed fairly significantly. With the addition of a driving range on the back part of the property. Some people say there were some missile silos that were put in doing the Cold War. There's no evidence of that. We're over there working now on you figure. If it was the US government filling in missile silos, they would have just put a piece of plywood over top of them. And we'd still have the holes in the ground. But there's no evidence over there. But that changed everything... You can't be confirmed. That changed everything with the golf course. And then through some of the great research by the Friends of Cobb's Creek, Joe and Mike, they brought back what the original design was. And they started chopping that around Philadelphia in general. Some of the better players in Philadelphia got made by the name of Chris Lang, in particular. He kind of latched on to this and he helped guide these guys to what became the Cobb's Creek

10:16Foundation. And believe it or not, right? We were contacted or I was contacted in 2011. And the hopes that this project would be done in time for the Open at Marion in 2013. And we just broke ground last year. So we're hoping to make the Open at Marion in 30. And we should because I think we're going to open up the main golf course next year. That's terrific. You know, it's been fantastic for not only myself, but Charlie who was up at the PGA Championship at Aronna Mekes past year. But I've been in this area. It seems like over the last couple of years, getting to see Marion, see Aronna Mekes, but also seeing Philadelphia Country Club, Philly Cricket Club, the PGA Tour event. And one of my main takeaways is that the terrain in the Philadelphia area is some of the best terrain that I've ever seen. I love the rolling hills and just all the architects that have been there the past quarter century give or take. And what we've seen on these golf courses and how incredible these holes really are.

11:22And when you walk around and I should say drive around Cobb's Creek, it might have some of the best terrain that you might see in all of Philadelphia. It hits it's high. You have the Philadelphia skyline in the background. Can you just talk about this piece of property and how it fits in just the overall golf landscape of Philadelphia? Yeah, no, that's a great point, Smiley. When you look at all the great golf and Phil and Alphia, it ties in. I mean, most people think of Marion and Pine Valley when you think of Phil and Alphia. And you just hit on it with Aronna Mekes in the Cricket Club and places like Rolling Green, golf mills, et cetera. There's a fantastic fraternity of awesome golf in the city of Philadelphia. And then Cobb's Creek is part of that conversation, obviously. I mean, Cobb's Creek was designed by Hugh Wilson who did Marion. Marion's five miles away up the creek as a crow flies. Hugh Wilson did what three golf courses total, East and West at Marion and Cobb's Creek.

12:25Right? And the property is fantastic that we sit on. It is extreme in a couple spots. But some of the photos that you guys are putting up now, it is the same creek that runs through 11, like you guys started off by saying Marion and makes its way down. The big difference between Cobb's Creek and Marion from an architectural or topography or ground standpoint is that at Cobb's Creek, we've got three, four, five, maybe six and a half holes that sit on Cobb's Creek, whereas Marion has 11, part of 12 and a tributary that runs into Cobb's, that runs in front of two and four in front of nine at Marion. But we're in a huge, big significant way. Cobb's Creek impacts the golf course here at Cobb's Creek. And then the rest of it is similar to ground that you would see in some aspects of Marion or more so or a place like Rolling Green. So the ground is unbelievable. It's hard to, in some cases, to make your way around the property here and there. But it also becomes very challenging, right? You've got a lot of cool

13:28drop shots here at Cobb's Creek. You've got drop shots at Marion. You've got them all over the Philadelphia area. So I think what Cobb's Creek has here tying into all those great clubs, which is why Cobb's Creek has got the great bones for golf course is because of the ground smile. Like you mentioned in this city of Philadelphia, right? It just, it just fits and suits the game of golf, you know, from a challenge and fun aspect. While we're talking about all these great golf courses, Jim, and we're all, while we're also shouting out local high schools, I got to give a big thanks to Catasakua High School for supporting my wife's illustrious career because the two times I played Marion, I played it once and I'm playing again about a month were connected to her high school Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. So shout out to Catasakua High School where you get that one of the notes as well here too. Okay. And we got to do it all. We got to shout out all the local schools. And I just, I think it's so interesting when you're talking about just the fabric of all these architects, you know, you're talking about this, this amazing history. And then we're thinking about the future of the PGA tour and what we're hearing from Brian Rolab and talking about, you

14:33know, we're looking for sites for particularly this championship series, venues matter, histories matter, history matters. And so when you're, when you're looking at this design and the way it's coming together and we're looking at this new reformatted PGA tour in 2028 and we're looking at going to big cities, how do you feel like this whole thing aligns? It feels like it needs to be a very enticing host, you know, venue for the PGA tour, especially when you stack the other thing that Brian Rolab has said is a priority, the charitable aspect impacting community. I mean, Cobbs Creek seems to have all the things. It seems like a perfect ideal place for the tour to go over. Once you check all the boxes, it says that it wants to check. Yep. But you just said it right there, Charlie, community, right? I think that's the biggest thing here at Cobbs Creek. And when you look at the property, Cobbs Creek is kind of linear, right? And it's a decent way from one end of the property to the other, right? And there's the original 18 holes that Hugh Wilson designed, right? That were in the midst and this will be ready for play next year. Then there's another nine

15:35holes that is going to make up a composite course for if there's a chance to have a big event here, which is cool. That's a, that's the one that's kind of across the street, right? If you look at it across the Hugh School course, right? Okay. Correct. Correct. Yeah. We just started breaking ground there. So when you guys were here back in the spring, that was just, you know, whatever overgrown grass, you know, from when it used to be a golf course. But, but when you stretch the golf course out like that, and you guys saw on some of the pictures shown that you guys just had up on the screen from the drone images, that the community is butts up right against to the golf course, right? I mean, you can see it off in the distance there. That was number seven. Yeah, you can see it right there. That's through the that's our fourth green and fifth tea right there. And then that community, the UC behind there, that was Upper Garby, right? And then off to the other side of the seventh hole. And on the left side of that photo, you're showing air is the left of 16. You know, that's the overbrook section of Philadelphia. Right? So there's there's a lot of

16:35these different communities that butt up against the golf course and being able to have an event like that and welcome the community. Let them come in from basically their backyard, right? That would be incredible for for the city of Philadelphia, you know, you guys rather around and make which is an awesome venue. But everybody's being bust into around and make right? You're being bust, you drop off. I mean, I personally, you know, when I go to the event, some fortunate to be able to have tickets, but like I'm not worried. I buy the tickets to go in, but I want to have be dropped off in front of the club. Me and you both. Jim, me and you both. I don't like getting on buses. We're big antichoules. We're antichoules on the show. We were out on shuttles on this show. There couldn't be anything worse than having to take a shower to any kind of event, right? So but the thing about Cobb's Creek is because the communities are right there, right? You know, people can walk right across the street or down, down through their backyard through a gate and be out onto the golf course for an event, right? And you have that in several places.

17:36Then take into account the fact that you have septent of the Philadelphia train station, right? Runs right past our 16, right? 13. You saw it. It's awesome. So kind of gives you that feel, right? It's cool. So it gives you that feel that you are in, you know, over in Scotland, the UK, you know, Ireland, wherever the trains are always close. So just imagine that, you know, there's a train station right by our 13th green. That is all points west. So you can hop on a train at Marion, right? And you can come on down half a dozen stops and you can be at Cobb's Creek, whether it's to play golf or see an event. And then all points east, north and south is 69th Street, which is really back by our first green. And that's kind of one of the major hubs for everybody coming in to Philadelphia from from the east. So it's got a huge community aspect, again, not only from the use of the golf course, but from, you know, event standpoint. So I think it'll be awesome. Could you can do could you can do for Marion to Cobb's Creek? I really want to know this. We've

18:36seen, we've seen Smiley and a kayak at, I guess it's no longer a PJ tour of it, but out of the Sony at while I could you can do from from Marion to Cobb's Creek if you wanted to? You could. Yeah, yeah, I actually think we should we should have them do that. That's a helpful project on his head, right? That's a hell of a project. Let's do that. Yeah, send on now, especially after a big rain. That would be good. There we go. It's like whitewater rafting. You can really get going there. You could end up right there, Smiley, right to the right. It's like our own like ribbon cutting ceremony that we can maybe do is like when Cobb's opens, start me at Marion and then just have me come down and everybody cheers me on as I make it make my way over here down to the 15th, the fourth hole. I mean, that's what a what better way to to ring in a golf course than a canoe ride. I'm gonna get it back on track here in just a second as we just double confirm that we're out on shuttles in on trains very and on that. I think we can all agree. But the other thing I want to ask you Jim from a golf architecture standpoint and

19:40trying to potentially put together 18 holes that challenge the best players in the world, but also has a flow to it for just a general play of anybody that wants to go play Cobb's Creek. From what Aaron had told us that the 18 hole championship routing will also include some of the holes that are across the road that are going to be the other nine holes that will be in that routing of the championship golf course. Was that in mind when you guys put together the map of what the 18 holes would look like for a championship routing, but also of how you can make just the general Cobb's Creek 18 holes into what would be the best flow for the public play? Yeah, so there's kind of a lot to that, right guys, is the fact that you know, really the original, you know, idea, the criteria was to bring back the original 18 back to what it it was and would have become, right? So with Cobb's Creek, similar to some of the stuff at Marion when he

20:43Wilson finished the design is a lot of changes will implemented thereafter as play took over. And that got stopped here. Cobb's Creek somewhere along the line. I don't know, it's like doing the depression is probably the start of it and things just just ended. So the old aerial photography that we have which goes back to, you know, kind of the beginning of the golf course, there's only a handful of golf holes that were finished, right? And you can see that on the those old aerial. So it was our job to then take that and use those different golf course architectural features and implement them around the golf course, right? And then what we did is we took the hue Wilson that we were fortunate enough to be able to, you know, restore Marion Golf Club, you know, six or seven years ago and everything we learned from that restoration process, we were able to bring that to Cobb's Creek in the effort to be able to kind of, you know, bring everything together, you know, since it wasn't finished. Now the cool part about Cobb's Creek is the original

21:4618 holes, each one of those holes could be on any golf course pretty much anywhere in the city of Philadelphia, right? And they are because really when you look at Cobb's Creek, it's just you can take any whole Cobb's Creek and say that is the ninth hole at Marion. Well, that's the fifth hole at Marion, right? They're there and hue Wilson, basically some people claim he had template holes and did his own version of them. So you can see it here at Cobb's Creek in a lot of different ways. That's cool. Biggest problem. Yeah, it is cool. It's awesome and that allowed us to use our creativity. Yeah, well, at least my demand to creativity, but because I'm from Philadelphia, so but as part of it is, is that that golf course, the original 18 holes is not big enough to host a bigger tournament, yardage wise, it's not big enough from an infrastructure standpoint to be able to host a what's you're going to call it a bigger event. So we have the nine holes that are cost of street that of those nine holes we need to have some sort of component of composite holes. Now we're not going to

22:49dictate what that composite course is going to be. Our whole thing has been we need flexibility, right? Because when I go through my mind and I say, let's play this golf hole, like I'm always giving up or having to keep a golf hole out on the original 18. That's a really good golf hole and you say to yourself, well, damn, that doesn't really work as well. So what we're doing over on the nine holes is we're setting it up. So anywhere from three to five golf holes on that property can be used in conjunction with any of those 18 holes. And then let's figure it out from there. That's the goal. The yardage is, you know, the whole thing and where to start, you know, blah, blah, blah. So that's that's really what we're doing. On the topic of specific holes, Jim, when we were sitting in that gator that we've shown this image a couple of times now, the first hole that just drew the green complex really at that point that my eyes were drawn attention to was this green right here. Is the fourth and the fifth here. And if you could just explain here, because when this thing gets finished, the first place I want to go to and see how this is going to play, just explain what's

23:52happening in this piece of the property and how these holes are going to be played. Because it's such a cool green. Charlie, the other thing too, like before you answer this, Jim, is that that's where that cops creek comes in right there. You mentioned at the very beginning that there was tons of flooding. Is this kind of the area that was a big issue with the erosion and the creek that you guys were having to restore to be able to make this green? I see that stone wall as well. I imagine that has a big influence of just a general flooding that you might get in this bottle. Because like when you get to the top of that hill and you look down at that little section of the golf course, it sits in a little bucket. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually a great point, right, Charlie? I mean, uh, uh, smiley, uh, is that, uh, what gets missed all as we talked a little bit about this in the beginning is the, you know, the community aspect. So the entire, well, 90% of the stretch of the property of cops creek, uh, the creek itself has been altered and adjusted to be able to control flooding. And it's not so much flooding for the golf course itself, right? It also controls the

24:54flooding that happens down in the city of Philadelphia, right? So us being able to hold the water back up on the cops creek, golf proper is keeping some homes and streets and, you know, other important infrastructure down in the city of Philadelphia, you know, free from flooding waters. And that's a huge aspect. So a lot of what we're looking at has been, you know, wide and deepened in order to control the flood waters and the way it zigzags the property you can see, if you look up in the upper right hand corner, you can see that creek making a left hand turn coming back down towards us. Then when it gets past that little, uh, you know, puddle of water we're looking at there, then it makes another turn and heads on down to the third green. Uh, the third green is, you know, kind of an island green over top of the, uh, the creek similar to say, uh, 12 or 13 of the guster, right? Then you come up here and what you're looking at is that's four green, which kind of plays down from the lower left portion of the, uh, of this picture. Uh, you don't see the tea, the tea is

25:56probably anywhere from 10 to, you know, 30 feet above the elevation of that green. How far it's kind of, it plays from maybe 150 from the, uh, forward everyday tea pie to about 185, 190. Pitch a little this way too towards the water like from the, the high side on the left. Yeah, uh, so the, uh, yeah, back left to right front is kind of how it's back left to right. Man, that's, yeah, can't wait to be in that left rough. For that left, right whole location is looking like a nice little sucker pin right there. And it's hard to tell here, but the elevation difference coming off of that green up to that first bunker is probably what three or four feet, then it's five, five or six feet up to that second bunker. It's going to swirl down there too, man. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Of all of it in the air with elevated tee shot. Yeah. So then this, this five plate is that the, the T box adjacent to the fourth green, this five plate back up across the creek. Yeah. So five would be what you call your kind of,

26:56your traditional k-pole, right? Uh, because you got to kind of pick off as much as you want to chew and then a green kind of sits with the creek on the left and behind the green. So the, from the, to the, well, the whole entire whole does is just the T's difference. So we talked, we talked about this in the beginning about marion. Think about five at marion. Yeah. And you know, that fairway that you're hitting to is basically the fifth fairway at marion, right? Everything pitches hard for right to left. Yeah. The green, yeah, the green cobplex pitches hard from right to left. We've got a little bit of a different situation because we have a higher hillside that we have to tie into, but the T's different, right? The T in the cob's creek case is playing on the left side of the foregreen, obviously. So you've got that diagonal carry over the creek, which is an added element with the T shot, whereas marion, you know, the, the creek basically runs down the left hand side of the hole. And you, you guys saw it. I saw it at the amateur. Everybody was just leaving the ball in the right rough, right? You couldn't hit that fairway. Yeah. And then they're coming in from the right rough to a green that's sloping hard to their left. You know, they didn't know what to

27:58help to do. Uh, so it's great, but this is a little bit different, albeit kind of the same concept of a golf hole, but uh, and, and yeah, so this is, uh, this is a stretch of holes again. Like you saw it marion. You've got some of the stuff on five, some of the stuff on 11, but what you have here pictured here, that's on the third hole. That's on the fourth hole. That's on the fifth hole. That's off the 16. That's behind 12. You know, that's behind over 13. Uh, and it's constant throughout the theme of Cobbs Creek. When my mom got sick, she felt powerless. Insurance denied her meds. Her doctors talked over her and they couldn't agree on anything. She kept getting worse. And then you found solace for me. They gave me my own health care advocate. My advocate found better doctors, scheduled my appointments, and got my medications approved. For the first time, my whole care team was listening to each other and to me. I was going to pay for it all out of pocket, but then we learned that solace advocates are covered by Medicare and insurance nationwide. I used to feel helpless too. Now I know my mom has an advocate. Solace advocates are health care experts with an

29:02average of 16 years of experience. Studies show 92% of patients say their advocate made a positive impact on their care. That means better health outcomes, less stress, and finally, feeling hurt. See a few qualify at solacehealth.com or call 888-7 solace. That's 888-7 solace. Eligibility varies by plan. Must be 18 or older. Advocates to not provide medical or legal advice or services. Don't face the healthcare system alone. Find solace. Visit solacehealth.com today. This is Rick Burgess from the Rick Burgess Show. I want to talk to you for a second about something most of us put on autopilot, car insurance. If you're just letting your policy auto-renue year after year without shopping around, I'm telling you, you are probably throwing money away. Race change all the time and staying loyal to one company can end up costing you big time. That's why you need to go check out and verify. I went to insurify.com to test it out myself and I was blown away by how easy it is. In about two minutes, totally free, you can compare actual real-time quotes from over 100 top insurance companies all side by side in one place. No endless phone calls, no pushy sales pitches. Here's what I really love. Insurify doesn't just

30:06help you once and walk away. They actually keep monitoring your rates in the background and alert you whenever prices drop so you never miss out on a better deal down the road. Millions of drivers have already used insurify to stop overpaying and there's no reason you shouldn't too. Do yourself and your wallet a favor. Go see what you could say right now at insurify.com. That's insurify.com. Kind of a coincidence too that both fifth holds, right? It's kind of bizarre that they just the way that the golf course lays out how it could be very, very similar in the way it looks, the way it plays, but also I have to ask you, did you happen to see the chip shot that Jay Lang Jr. hit on the fifth hole? He hit it just short of the green and he chipped up all the way up to the right at Marion and hit it up into the fringe and it came back about 40 feet and almost went into the hole. I thought that was one of the coolest shots that we saw all week but it spoke to the imagination and creativity that you have to have around Marion. As an architect, you had to be pumped to see just the way these kids kind of leaned into how Marion could play. Yeah, that was

31:12awesome. I actually think I saw that shot. It was sick. And I saw a couple of other guys hit similar type shots because that was the day the pin was back right, wasn't it? It was definitely on the right side. It wasn't on the left because he was, I don't know how far back right it was, but it was definitely on the middle to the right side. Yep, yep. No, that was the same day I was there and I think I did see that shot. But really what was more important or more interesting to me again because I have that demented creativity sense of humor is that watching the folks not think enough about where to hit the ball. And they would end up behind the pin or left it like they just couldn't figure out what they needed to do as far as that. So it was kind of interesting. It's so as we go back to Cobb's Creek and a couple holes that definitely stood out to me. Charlie talked about the fourth hole, the bottom of that hill. I think it was maybe the first aerial that we looked at in this entire sheet, Charlie. It's this one. These bunkers, when you guys saw

32:16the original aerials of this piece of the property and what this golf call could be, can you describe first off how this hole is set to be played, how long it plays, but just the beauty in this hillside with all these green side and maybe even fairway bunkers that protect the front of this green. Yeah, so actually those bunkers were not there in any version of any aerial that we looked at. So this is a Jim Wagner Gilehands special here. Yes, for the most part. Yes. So what we needed to do is it kind of goes all along that whole entire ridge that you're looking at. That's kind of the top flat part of the ridge. Then it falls down where those bunkers stagger the way down the hillside. But then that goes across the entire property and playing it when I was younger, the carry from what would be the eighth tee, which you see Jason to those bunkers right over to eight fairway was it was pretty dramatic and it was a long carry and it was running it from left to right. So you sliced the ball a little bit, valued down the hillside in front of eight or 11 tea. It was kind of a mess. So

33:22we end up having to do is depress both the beginning of eight fairway and the beginning of 11 fairway into the ground. And then as part of that, we were saying to ourselves, well, what do we need to do going across this ridge to make it interesting? What would have happened at Cobb's Creek if things transpired differently and Hugh Wilson and or his team William Flynn, Joe Valentine, etc. Came in. What would they have done to Cobb's Creek on those holes? And thinking about it, what's the tie in between this hole, which is number seven at Cobb's Creek and Marion? What's similar about any hole at Marion and our take on it was your 16th at Marion, which is the quarry hole. Oh, yep. So yeah. So the quarry bunkering, yeah. Now 16 is obviously different because you carry the quarry on your second shot. But here we use this particular area is what would be the quarry of Cobb's Creek, right? And then the difference is as you kind of see up above to the right and Ben

34:23Hillard, who works with, you know, Gillenite Hans-Coff design was part of setting everything up here. You can see the approach. So it's this whole mix between a tour event, the better players, the everyday better player and the average golfer who's going to come to Cobb's Creek. How do we make it challenging and fun and interesting for all different levels? And our goal here was with that bunkering was just that is that the whole play is probably from the back to a tour, to where we'll put on the other side of the probable spot. Yeah, where's the tee box here? Where am I shifting my eyes? Is it from the sand? Was it back to the right? It's back to the right. So it's fairly straight away except for that last we'll call it 50 yards of the approach and then into the green that's slightly angled. And you're going to drive your ball down see where that shadow comes across and fling there. Yeah, in between those pine trees there and that shadow is kind of the landing area. And then from there you're obviously going to play in. Right hand side there's bunkering between the right of the seventh fairway and the right of

35:27sixteenth hole. We combine those bunkers together a kind of a little bit of a chain that then ties into the bunkers on. Sixteen which is similar to eleven and twelve at Marion. So again, we're back to like what did Marion do? How did that stuff come together architecturally and putting it into this? So you hit your drive into about that zone there by the pine trees you see on the right. The better player is going to carry all the bunkering especially to up by the left front of the green to get to the green. The average player can then continue to kind of let's say bun it on down the right hand side or avoid the bunkers as need be in order to be able to play the golf hole safe. And that's kind of like the essence of the architecture there and even at Marion in some cases is to you know be able to think about how you're playing the golf course and tick-tack your way around these individual holes and think about it a little bit. You know we talked a little bit about the amateur and the interest of watching guys play the golf holes and you think about it or not think about it or not. Maybe it's not as apparent the first or second or

36:31third time you play it. You need to play it for years in order to figure a lot of this stuff out and that's kind of the essence of the architecture not only at Cobb's Creek at Marion filled out in general but really what what is great architecture. So it's beautiful and the last place I'm going to take you to which I don't remember if we have an aerial for this hole but it's it's the 17th when you're hitting over the big ravine. It's a t-shot that I'm not sure how downhill it will play but it's going to be probably very exposed to the wind. I'm not sure which direction to go to come from at 17 but if it's back into the breeze on that par three it looks like it could play maybe around that 200 number. That 17th is I think going to be a premier golf hole at Cobb's Creek. Would you kind of agree with just standing in that in that little area there at the top of the hill? Yeah because it is I mean there's a lot of cool stuff that just transpires right in that area right because you have the proximity of in that case it's six green right is right next to it you know

37:32sitting up on that kind of that bluff that everything falls down. 16 green is adjacent to that as well you're sitting on 17t and you're looking down at that picture of four green. Yeah back down the creek the other way. It's gorgeous right it's unbelievable. Well that's cool you brought that up because that hillside the way all that stuff sits in there right you can sit there at 17 off the side of 17t you can stand up you can watch people play into six you can look to the left you can watch people play into 16 you look down the hill you can see 17 obviously you look off to your right you can see four right so all that whole area there's there's literally three or four spots you can sit on that hillside and you can watch so much golf you know and not have to worry about following around groups and just kind of hang out and enjoy it but that golf hole in particular right with the creek in front kind of sits there the bunkers plays up to about 200 yards for a minute and the wind will swirl but really the cool part about it is you sit up there and now you're looking at

38:33downtown Philadelphia that's that's my favorite it's it's the coolest visual ever yeah and there's so much that even when you play down 16 you know 16 is because the angles different 16 angles this way and 17 the angles that way when you're up on 16 and you look across in the distance you see more of the skyline but it's it's a skewed angle it's more of the University of Penn you can see Lincoln Financial Field right which is where the Eagles play you know they snuck one out last night you know and you know citizens bang park and the sports arenas in downtown Philadelphia right and that's you know kind of this is you know it's golf and then you're you're seeing the venues off in the distance and then you turn around you get to 17 now you're looking right at the skyline of Philadelphia right and then you got the two big buildings that are you know in center city to take up the skyline you know the two Comcast you know center buildings you know what better than to have you know Comcast sponsor you know an event here in Philadelphia looking at the skyline with their two big prominent buildings that I just saw the other night

39:35because you know here in Philadelphia and being 9-11 you know they had the you know the buildings all lit up and red and blue and then yes it was for the Eagles game so it was really cool to see but you know that brings in like what we started you know chatting about here is the community right the city of Philadelphia you know what makes Philadelphia you know what makes golf and Philadelphia great but it's everything coming together it's the golf courses it's the history of the golf courses it's the architects involved it's the people that make it so great it's the communities it's the city itself and everybody there together you know finishing up an event you know turning the corner on 16 looking at you know the skyline of Philadelphia 17 back down to the 18th green with the Tiger Woods Learning Center off in the distance right the Charlie Siford tie into you know what makes cops create great and just everything there to me would be you know a home run and you know anything agenda Charlie can we can we agree on something here can we not put corporate hospitality left of 17 uh to can we have this for the everyday man to be able to see everything

40:38here can we agree on that we we go there I I I would love for that to happen and I think the there's two things but the cool part about cops create great it just it needs to be thought about differently right and and again we chat a lot about the amateur uh and the amateur is different right there's not a lot of big corporate hospitality at the amateur you can get around the property like you mentioned Charlie and how great that is to watch people I mean smiley watch people move around the property it's awesome okay cops create needs to be thought about differently needs to be thought about like when the opens it marry in and what they do hospitality wise and like let's limit that you know we got plenty of room to the left of 18 as it goes down the hill or maybe we move 18 maybe 18's not 18 but my point is is like keep that hospitality in certain places to to you know limited uh you can still definitely generate the revenue from that allow the community to enter and access this property at different points as opposed to one big gate that is based on social right smile no show no no no yes we're trained people we're gonna walk to the golf course

41:40yeah and let's not have it so we're trying to send 10,000 or 20 or 30,000 people a day food little tent that has hats and merchandise right let's send them through what makes sense to the community yeah and then you know what let's go back to having little stands out in the golf course we have hats and shirts you know a couple of them were on the golf course that we have to try to sell you know every last thing we possibly can't let's grab a hot dog throw some catch upon it you know let's let's enjoy the day well so it's funny you say that so real quick when I grew up playing golf here right you saw that community section to the left of 15 and 16 defense you know again in the entrepreneurial you know thought process of the Philadelphia people like there was one house that they actually cut a hole in the fence they had a shed and that that lady was selling hot dogs and beer at the back of the shed so I'm not promoting this but you know at underage drinking was happening on the golf course you know a dollar a dollar would get hot dog and a seven-ounce rolling rock through the fence you know so it's just it's fun stuff

42:45the little things I love I love how much of this I love the way you brought this to life Jim because there's so many reference points here that get me and I'm sure our audience excited I mean five and 16 are probably my two favorite holes at Marianne and just the inspiration you're taking you know with this old course and placing that there I think the description you make of some of my favorite golf course are most memorable golf courses are the ones where you can look amongst the entire property and see groups moving around like you can at Marianne or like an old town with some Salem not so far away from me here I think that we talked a lot about what does this course look like for a big event whether it's PJ tour otherwise where I think I want to end is what does this look like for you I know you're the architect of the course itself maybe not the project at large but as someone who's invested in this community what does this look like what does this look like for you on an everyday basis at Cobbs Creek because like being down to one of your other projects in Florida the park and just being there on a Friday night with kids running around and next to this elite golf course what in your mind what's the best case scenario when it's

43:47not hosting a high profile PJ tour event Jim it's it's exactly that right Charlie it's it's it's the use right and the cool part about the park in West Palm Beach is seeing how it's utilized by all sits different age groups and walks of life right they're enjoying it and it's meant to be the park right that's what it's supposed to be it's supposed to be a community involvement and here you can see it already right is that you know you have the the Tiger Woods you know learning lab which is great you know the use here and then outside the back I guess they call it the Q school right the part three every day when I go home or when I'm crossing the road I look over and there's always people playing the Q school the part three course right so they've already started to embrace that and if you think about an event right let's just touch on this for a second the pro am and somebody brought this up you know from the PJ tour actually you know thinking outside the box you know one you know to check mark in the column how about a pro am being one pro with four kids playing nine

44:49holes on the part three golf course right and let's have a winner right that that would be incredible right and so I'm seeing it already there and part of what we're trying to do here is introduce people to the game of golf right and let them be successful along the way you know it's the intimidation factor golf that really I think stifles the growth because you go out and right away you're trying to play Marion or you're trying to play the big golf course here and you get discouraged you know just think about those holes over the water I mean there's not enough golf balls for a beginner to be able to handle that so if you think about you go to the driving or range you'll learn how to swing right move to the part three you get out on the golf course you're having success then from there you're going to move over to the nine hole golf course you're going to learn to play the nine hole golf course understand the game of golf and hone your skills on the nine hole golf course and we're going to set it up so that can also be played as 18 from different teams then when you kind of master that now then you make your way over to the big course like so if we can get that through you know the process here and and the overall operations

45:55of this golf course and people understand that and see all aspects of that crowded every single day and people enjoying it then coming inside and kind of sitting around laughing and meeting people and I say this all the time people ask is that you know golf is such a social game and the people you meet playing golf you know you can go as a single anywhere around the world meet up with three other folks as you're playing with their friends or not and you've pretty much become lifelong friends right you know maybe have a drink afterwards grab something eat but you can always stay in touch especially today with texting an email makes it a lot easier and they continue that so to see friendships being built to see people out using the golf course to see all walks of life and ages go out and play together and we've all seen it over in the UK you know wherever it might be and you see the grandparents you know with two grandkids going out six o'clock or seven o'clock at night right there's nothing better than seeing that there's nothing better than seeing the Q school crowded you know there's nothing better than seeing the park crowded to me that's that's

46:58the essence of it all and I think if we achieve that which the foundation is here then I think it's going to be a home run for everybody well it's incredible Jim this has been a great look into one of the really impressive piece of property I've ever stood on at Cobb's Creek can't wait to see it still come to life only thing that I'll add and mention is that you said that they get the PGA twerp two or players playing with these kids and the potential program I think there's a good chance we could have Charlie Hume playing in that program you know why this guy's got the course record at the Q school were you aware of that no I wasn't I have to go down say sort of plaque Charlie I'm sure there's a plaque out there there's there might be a plaque where I I caught a little bit of hazel I think it was the fifth hill the fifth hole uh we hit we let let me tell you this this is this is a good immersion into what we did that week because we we went to like a local market down there and got one of the most high powered cold brew coffees I've ever had a mind-tie highlight so smiley got out there on that first and we were jittery we had a blast

47:59out there it was it was we had so much fun but man there was there was some bad golf in there but we you know what we left we had a great time and I think that's a testament to what this place is but yeah then when I don't know in which order our audience is going to view the highlights from that in this interview but this is a tease for that just get ready it's it's kind of my trademark on the show yeah it's cute but I catch the homie's lead Charlie yeah the carnival style music and non top ten that that's honestly what we need yeah during that cue school session but I know a lot of people are gonna watch that a lot of people of course gonna get this great commentary from Jim so we really appreciate your time and of course can't wait to be back at Cobb's Creek awesome awesome thank you guys thank you we'll see you next week on the golf channel this has been the smiley show you know listen to this talk ad is really cool and all of our love ads and subscribers but make sure you like it subscribe it's cool see what you guys are doing I know golf fans appreciate it but we do too so please keep it up for all the good people of YouTube

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