David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learnings so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Gil HanSe, one of the world's most sought after golf architects. In fact, if you watch the United States open this weekend, you're going to see the gorgeous renovation he did on the north course of Los Angeles Country Club. But even if you're not a golf fan, you can learn a lot when you really dig into the creative process behind these golf course designs. It takes a big bold vision, but to make that vision a reality. It takes an incredible attention to detail as well. And listen, whether you're trying to build a golf course, or build a business, the vision and the details matter. When you listen to this conversation with Gil, you're going to learn how to prioritize details and quality execution. So you can see your big plans turn into reality too. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Gil HanSe.

You know, Gail, I've had a lot of fun playing golf with you at National Golf Links the past few years. But I want to congratulate you because I understand recently I think was back in January. You had your first official hole in one. You got to tell us the story.

Gil Hanse 1:37 

Yeah, we have. We have a little inside joke on that. I've had a few on par three holes, but my partner Jim Wagner says those don't count. So I even though I know I teed it up and I went in the hole and I bought drinks, but the real the first legit one was at our new club we designed out in the desert called ladera golf club for Irving A's off and Eddy Cue. And we were out there playing the opening round of golf, we had a good group, about 12 of us are out there and 13 of the holes were like in mint condition, Max, the superintendent did a great job and the other five were playable, but not great. So we played the first 13 And this is all just because of growing and timelines. And we got to head lunch and then seven of us decided we're gonna go back out and play the last five holes. So we get on the eighth hole, which was our second last hole par three. And you know, Jimmy done very well. Jimmy likes a little bit of action. So he said, Hey, okay, $20, a man closest to the pin $1,000 for a hole in one. So Jeffrey is off who's the best golfer in the group he hits. Doesn't make a hole in one. So Eddie Q goes all right now it's 10,000 a man since Jeffrey didn't make a hole in one. So Jimmy hits and he's closest to the pin. And you know, he's pretty good at telling everybody. He's closest to the pin. And I go last. And David, you've seen me play golf, it can be sporadically good, bad, ugly, it can be all of the above. I hit this right where I wanted to. And it was like the perfect shot and we watched it roll in like a putt. And we went nuts, the opening round of golf on a new brand new golf course that we had designed. The two founders being there a bunch of great other guys. And so you know, the celebrations going on, then all of a sudden one by one you started to see him go wait a second, did we just say $10,000? And so we're walking down the hall and I'm saying I don't want your money guys, this the experience of this has been amazing. I don't want your money. And so Jimmy eventually says well, I'll give $10,000 to Notre Dame and your name. And I started to think well, I don't really have anything to do with Notre Dame but okay. And then I clicks I said, Well, actually, we have a foundation, the caveman Scholarship Foundation, where we, Jim Wagner myself, and my wife Tracy runs it. And we all we give scholarships for kids who need it, who whose parents work or the kids themselves work at clubs where we consult. And so it's a great little foundation. And so every guy said, you know, okay, 10 grand, we'll give it to the foundation. So we raised we raised a lot of money on that day for the caveman Foundation, good

David Novak 4:07 

for you. Great Hold on one story and a great outcome for a lot of good people. You know, I want to get into how you become one of the world's best if not the best golf architect and how you lead but first, you lead the redesign of La Country Club where the US Open is being played this week. Tell us about the biggest leadership challenge you had on that project.

Gil Hanse 4:31 

You always get to a place in your life and your career when when you're not the person that people think you are right before you become David Novak leader. You know your David Novak employee working hard trying to work your way up and so same with with me I was Gil Hansen golf course architect that now a lot of people had heard of, and we went into the meeting at Los Angeles Country Club, Jim Wagner, my partner Jeff Shackleford. And I and we talked a lot about George Thomas. We didn't talk about I'd like your hands. And we talked about the original golf course architect, George Thomas, who was brilliant in design, not only la CC, but Riviera and Bel Air, and why it was important to restore his work and his golf course. And so we were able to convince him, that was the most important part of it, that they already had a name architect, they didn't need one, they just needed somebody who was willing to work hard to make sure that we restored faithfully his work. And as timing when we were scheduled to start the project in 2008. And right as we were getting ready to go, the financial collapse happened. And you know, a lot of the leadership at lac was very involved in the financial sector. And, you know, obviously, all of us were nervous. And it turned out that there was a lot of conversation about stopping the project. And so from a leadership standpoint, it was a suggestion that I made but ultimately it was the club leadership who followed through on it was, listen, we've got contractors who are ready to work, we're ready to work. You know, this is an important project for all of us. What if we do a part of it first. And so from the standpoint of the club leadership, they said, Okay, let's work and we just did the fairway bunkers. And honestly, it turned out to be the best thing possible because it showed the membership, what we were capable of doing. They fell in love with the look the style, the beauty of the bunkering. It turned out to be a turning point where then we were able to go back and ask for some things that we didn't ask for, you know, can we put the second hole back the way it was? Can we put the sixth hole back the way it was the eighth hole? A lot of these sort of big picture things, I think we we instilled enough confidence in the membership that they were able to say, Yes, let's go forward with that. And then the other thing that occurred is, you know, we also had a change of Superintendent right about that time, and Russ Meyers, who's one of the best in the world, came from Southern hills. He's now back at Southern hills, but but he came into it. And I think it made the final product that much better when we presented it to the world. So it was, you know, it was it was a terrible thing to have, obviously, have happened from a financial standpoint for everybody. But from that project standpoint, it actually turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.

David Novak 7:14 

So people will be glued to the tube watching the US Open, what are you most proud of when you look at the course that is going to be played and be testing the best players in the world this week?

Gil Hanse 7:24 

I think the thing we're most proud of is the Branka system that runs through the front nine and just the beauty of it and how natural it feels. We do a lot of work to restore native vegetation in there taking out a lot of non Indigenous plant species, you know, putting sycamores and oaks back in the place where they should be. And Thomas use that Branca brilliantly from a strategic standpoint and varied and how it comes into play on all of these golf holes. But I think what we're most proud of is you know, not only were we restoring his design thought but we restored the character of a Southern California landscape to those those areas. So I think LA North feels so incredibly natural. And I think the presentation of it and fully expect and Chris Wilson the golf course superintendents gonna do a great job in the USGA is really excited about showcasing that Southern California beauty, which was part and parcel of what George Thomas did.

David Novak 8:19 

You know, you really believe in looking at history in the original designer, and that really inspires a lot of of what you do. Talk about that.

Gil Hanse 8:29 

You know, interestingly, I was as an undergrad, I was a political science and history major. And I'm fascinated by both of those things. And people go Well, that didn't really help you out very much. But it did. Because we work so hard at researching the history and I love the history of golf course architecture and studying the designs. And it's become so incredibly important to us to be well we like to say specific, right? We we could talk about aw Tillinghast typically did this, or Donald Ross typically did that or Seth Raynor, etc. But that, to me is a lazy word. It means that you haven't done your full amount of research. And so we really love to get into the weeds. So many of these clubs have great archivists where they've got this information and just figure out specifically, what did Tillinghast do at Wingfoot, even though what he did at Bridgewater Baltusrol may be informative or helpful. It's not what he did there. What did Reiner do at Sleepy Hollow versus what did he do at the creek? So I think those sorts of things lend a high degree of authenticity to what we do on these projects. And I love getting in finding these things. I mean, now with iPads and iPhones, you know, you're we're constantly people think we're probably texting or looking, but we're always looking at photos. You kinda have to compare different angles. And it's been incredibly, incredibly helpful. And then the political science thing is, you know, club politics can be incredibly difficult to navigate. So I think, you know, while it wasn't the desired outcome, from a career standpoint, or at least I didn't know This was where it was going to wind up. Both of those have been incredibly helpful.

David Novak 10:03 

You know, there's nobody building a golf course or redesigning one today that doesn't have your name on the shortlist of people that they at least like to talk to you about doing the doing the job. Give us the Cliff Notes version of how you built your business skill.

Gil Hanse 10:18 

It's always been small. I mean, one of the things that has been a focus for myself and Jim Wagner has been with me since 1995. So we're, you know, we're joined at the hip for a long time, is that we want to stay small, because we think it's important to give that personal attention so that people see myself or they see Jim, they, you know, it's not like an army of associates that show up. And so from that, groundwork, we really started to lay the foundation of okay, we're going to have to limit the amount of work we take, we're going to have to really work hard, as I just said in detailing that type of work. And then over the years, we've added two associates, Kevin Murphy and Ben Hilliard, who are very capable golf course designers who do some of the office work but also are on site. And Ben's a very capable shaper as well. And then Debbie McLaughlin runs the office for us. So we are really a very small, I always think our website says we're intentionally small. And we are and we really don't want to get any bigger than that. And then when we get into construction, we've got shapers out there that work with us. But I think it's it's always been a focus on attention to detail. I think, you know, I'm not I'm not a big business guy. But But I always remember this and it's one of the only pieces of business advice in my office is John Lasseter from Pixar. He He's, it's simple. It says quality is the best business plan. There's a lot of truth to that. And so I think we've always tried to focus on quality first and foremost, and that attention to detail.

David Novak 11:57 

Now, how do you and Jim and your partners come to be known as cavemen?

Gil Hanse 12:03 

So, Bill Kittleman, who was the longtime golf professional American from like, 1971 to 1996. He has had the biggest influence on Jim and I, from a design standpoint, he he studied architecture at Yale, he played golf at Yale, he played on the tour for a little while, was an assistant program and you know, various clubs and eventually, as I said, took over at Marion, but he always loved architecture. I mean, just loved it. And so when we started doing work in the Philadelphia area, we asked him to come and give us a hand on certain projects, and, you know, help us along. And so we were working at a club in the Philadelphia area, you know, mid 90s, we were just young kids in the superintendent there really disliked us. He was like, kind of older and like, What do you mean, you want to put fescue on the bunkers, I don't want to take care of fescue, and kind of everything we tried to do. He was not real happy about. And so every day at 330, he would take all the tools and go home and all the manpower would leave. And so we were out there probably around 430 or five. And Bill said, you know, Hey, guys, give me a shovel. You said Pro and have a shovel. How about a rake? Nope, no rake Pro. Sorry, they took all the tools and went in. And so he's looking around, he grabs a stick, and he starts chopping in the dirt with a stick to try and create this bunker edge that you know is he wanted to change. And so he looks at us he smoked cigars at the time, he takes a big drag on a cigar and he goes look at us bunch of f and caveman out here digging bunkers with sticks. And that's where caveman came from. So when Jim and I decided we would make sense from a business standpoint, to kind of get all of our shapers under one umbrella because it's easier for the client, we get them all insured, et cetera, et cetera, Caveman construction was without a doubt the name we had to give it.

David Novak 13:44 

Love it, you know, you know, there, you've already talked about the importance of staying small and being involved and given the attention that you know, your clients are really looking for. There are a lot of leaders Gil, who stay at 30,000 feet, but I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, but your your favorite part of the job is actually working the bulldozer. Now why is that? Is that true? Or why is that?

Gil Hanse 14:09 

That is 100% true. It's you know, it's my quiet space. It's a place where I can listen to music and just focus and build and be creative and I love it. David, it's it really is something I learned from Tom doke. Tom doke learn from Pete Dye, you know, this whole school of golf architecture where it's designed in the field and you you physically build and I think that that there's something about that there's the design window gets extended further out, you don't you know, a lot of traditional golf architects would do a very detailed set of plans and turn them over to somebody else to build the golf course. And then they'd make site visits and kind of check up on everything we've flipped that on its head based on the way P diag taught you know, as I said, Tom doke Bill core all all the guys who I think are doing the best work learned This way is that you need to be in the field to make decisions. And you need to either if you're not there, then you have to have somebody who's empowered to make those decisions. Because every day something will happen on a golf course, in construction, I mean, you'd literally put a bulldozer over the top of something and it disappears. Every day, the sun is going to the angles in the shadows in the wind, and there's always something to be observed and learned on site. And so if I'm there, I'm always taking stock of all that same with Jim. But even if it's our guys are shapers, we've empowered them to go ahead and make those types of decisions that maximize the site over maximizing something that's on a piece of paper. Now, it's a funny story. I was working recently at a very famous club, and I was out there shoveling and raking alongside our guys. And some members came along and they're like, oh, where's Where's Gil? And like, they didn't even I had no clue that it would be me. And finally somebody said, Well, he's right there. And they looked at me dead eyed and said, Why are you doing that? Like I said, because that's all I know. That's how I know how to do golf course work. And it's, it's, again, the little details, it's getting every single aspect of it, right. And if, if I'm not willing to do it, then my guys are gonna go, why am I doing this? You know, let's pass it down the ladder. So, you know, one of the things Jim Wagner always talks about which, which I greatly appreciate, you know, because we're, I'm a huge fan of his as well. But he says, Listen, gilsdorf, often the first guy here and the last guy to leave, and he's the guy who gets dirty, and he gets the rakes and shovels it. So if he's doing that, how can any of you on our team feel entitled to say, I don't want to do that, or I don't feel like it. And it's again, it gets back to how I learned I learned from Tom doke. Raking, shoveling, doing digging ditches. Eventually, he put me on a bulldozer, and then I got comfortable with that. And you know, so here we are.

David Novak 17:04 

Now, you listen to this podcast, so you know how much I love learning about leadership from some of the world's greatest leaders, we make it a priority to break down the insights from our guests into practical steps. So you can apply what you learn from our episodes into your own leadership style. A lot of times though, it can be easy to listen to an episode and forget what you learned. That is exactly why I created the weekly leadership plan. Every Sunday, I send out a weekly leadership plan that lays out in three simple steps, the key learnings from that week's podcast, it only takes about five minutes to read. And it gives you practical steps you can apply to your leadership process for that week, like everything we do at how leaders lead. It's completely free. And you can sign up for it at how leaders lead.com Right now, this weekly leadership plan is a great way to prepare for your week, each Sunday evening. And I hope you'll sign up today at how leaders lead.com/plan.

You're obviously very, you know, focused on getting things right, you know, and a lot of times things go wrong. And when people aren't doing things the right way, the way how you think they should be done. How do you handle those situations, Gil? And, and yeah, can you give us a an example. In any successful

Gil Hanse 18:34 

partnership, generally speaking, there's very, you know, two different personalities or people like to delegate different ways I am very comfortable with public speaking or going to meetings or doing those sorts of things, Jim is great at it, but he really would rather not. I'm more just show up getting a bulldozer and want to go work and be creative and build stuff. Jim loves the nitty gritty, the details, the planning, the you know, where we're going to be how we're going to get from here to here, how, where this contractor needs to be, et cetera, et cetera. And so it works out great that, you know, I know, I don't remember which half of the brain is which but you know, one's creative, one's practical. And we've we work great in those instances. And so Jim frequently has to deal with things not going right. Or when they don't, they don't go right. It's generally Jim and he's very good at that. We always joke, you know, he's playing chess, and everybody else is playing checkers. But what we tend to find is, Jim keeps me in reserve, because nobody expects me to get upset. Nobody expects me to be the guy delivering the heavy message when it needs to be delivered. And so I think there's something within that that is helpful, from our team perspective, is that Jim can take a lot of that stress off of my plate, but when it's really, really important, then he brought Seems to me and sort of to handle those types of things. So that it all, it all works out quite well from that standpoint. But I've always been a believer. I was asked to speak at a bank of america event probably 10 years ago. And I thought, all right, they want to talk about golf architecture. And they said, No, actually, we want to talk about your business philosophy. I'm thinking I don't have a business philosophy, I don't know. But the more I thought about it, and I obviously had to prepare something. My grandfather was the guy who introduced me the game of golf, and he hung the moon, I just I idolized him. And he was the mayor of the village we grew up in for 28 years, he was a politician, but also just the nicest man I've ever been around. And I always observed him being nice to everybody. And so I, I, my approach is always default to nice, like, I'm going to try to be nice, I'm going to try and work through this thing, I'm going to try the best I can to to deal with you on a human level, not yelling, not screaming, not sort of demanding, this is the way it is. And I'd rather escalate to that point if I had to, rather than start at that point, because it's very difficult. And people don't, some people don't like to be treated poorly or to the to be yelled at. So I've always been a believer of let's let's try to work this out as best we possibly can. But I also understand that at some point in time, you know, the buck stops here, and we've got to get what we need to and most of the time, it's practical stuff, it's it's attention to detail. It's levels of quality, that we have an expectation from others on site, and they don't quite match that where we go wrong, because generally, Jim has done such an amazing job of organizing everything that we don't usually have a lot of big problems happening on site.

David Novak 21:49 

You know, you have more work these days that you can say yes to I know this, and what's your criteria as a leader in terms of selecting both your projects and the clients that you're working? You're working for these days.

Gil Hanse 22:05 

In the industry, I think it's a fallacy to think that we say yes to everything we, because we're so busy, and we've got so many high profile projects we're working on, but we say no to probably 95% of the stuff that comes our way. And that's, that's a great position to be in, you know, I'm not bragging, I just fully understand that. We've worked hard to get to this place, and we can't if we're going to stay true to our philosophy of staying small and staying involved, then it's impossible to take on everything that comes our way. So I mean, Jim and I are it's fairly simple, David, I mean, it starts with Can we do something exceptional? Right? That's always first and foremost, if it's a new golf course, can we build something exceptional? If it's a restoration, can we make it enough of a change that it will be exceptional when we're finished? And then if the answer to that is yes, then are we going to have fun doing it? Are we going to like working with the people that we're going to work with? Because we're going to spend a lot of time with them? Are we going to like going to the place where we're working? Is it difficult to get to? Is it a place where we're not really going to want to spend a lot of time? So I think that those are the factors that go into the so if we say yes, it can be exceptional? Yes, we think we're gonna have fun doing it, then it becomes how do we fit it into the schedule? Not only our schedule, but a lot of the clients have schedules to, you know, at the end of the day, we're building a building a golf course for them. And if their schedule doesn't match our schedule, then we have to say no. Or, you know, we have to move our schedule or they have to be accommodating to our so that's just generally how we go about selecting projects

David Novak 23:46 

makes a lot of sense. And you know, earlier, you talked about how history played a big role in your thought process, when you looked at looked at opportunities, and you do look back at history, but one of the things that I know about you is that you're so successful is you're able to see a future to and what could be better than most, you know, what's your process for envisioning? What could this be?

Gil Hanse 24:13 

A lot of it involves what we call cataloging I mean the practical side of it is we catalog a site we will walk around and and look at with a with a topographical map in hand. Alright, do we see good natural features because both Jim and I are committed to we believe we'd rather find golf balls than create them. But we're perfectly comfortable creating them if we feel like the project requires that but I think it's it's we look at the site, we look at the characteristics. We look at the positives that exist out there, are there trees are there stone walls, are there is there a creek whatever those elements are? And then we start to visualize how can we incorporate those into the design and into what we're being asked to create? So I think that if information gathering is really important. There are other times where sometimes it just comes to you. And I don't know how to describe it. I don't I don't understand where it comes from. I don't understand how I see it. And I guess I'm just fortunate in that regard. But we're working at ladera. For Irving and Edie. We walked on that site, and it was basically off the toe of a mountain, lemon orchard. And it was about 100 feet of elevation change. But it was just a steady grade, there were very little variation in it, it was just basically a percentage slope all the way across the property. And we drove around and we looked at it again, it was all covered in trees. And we said, for some reason, that property resonated and so they just set out to get it. And that night, I had gone back to Los Angeles Country Club. And I just took out a little piece of note paper that they have by the side of your bed, and I sketched out the land plan, what it just came to me that, hey, if we dig out the center of the site, we elevate one the low side. So you're sitting up there, you're looking into golf, the mountains, or the backdrop, the whole thing. And it just popped into my head, it was you know, we couldn't see enough in the ground. And that's, you know, that's basically what we built. So there's some times where it just, it just happens, and I don't understand how it does.

David Novak 26:25 

And earlier you you said that your political science background, it really helps you deal with the politics of clubs, because we all know that there can be a lot of politics. What's your process for taking people with you, on your designs? Because you know, a lot of the stuff you do you see maybe that others don't? When it

Gil Hanse 26:47 

comes to existing, like restoration projects, I think it becomes a basically an explanation of what we think from a historic standpoint. You know, it came to me probably 10 years ago that people might look at work that we've done at Wingfoot, or a Baltus role or Sleepy Hollow, and go, I'm not so sure Gil HanSe is that good an architect, but because we're doing Tillinghast or Reiner, it's hard for somebody to say, well, Gil HanSe isn't that great, but neither was telling us because we're putting back tilling. So I think there's, there's part of that whole process of convincing the membership. And it's not convincing them because we're trying to sell something. It's because what we believe that the club has this amazing history, and the club has this amazing design. And our job is to try to bring back the vision that Tillinghast are Rainer or Mackenzie head for that property. And so that when we finish, this membership will see the golf course, in as closest state as the way it was left. More so than any other generation of members since the original generation of members. And I think there's a sense of stewardship, there's a sense of pride, you know, people who are fortunate enough to be members of clubs, they love their clubs. And if you can convince them that not only am I here to do make your golf course better, I'm here to utilize the great history to help us do that, then generally you get a lot of buy in, and you get a lot of people saying okay, and then you take them out on the golf course. And I remember doing this at a club, which I don't want to name it, but taking the committee out and saying Listen, are you sure you want to do this because I'm going to point stuff out and you will never look at your golf course again, the same way. Every time you play out here, you're gonna be like, Oh, that's a terrible tie in or that doesn't work. Oh, how that happened. And they went on that journey with us hole by hole. And by the end of it, they're like, Wow, we thought we had a great golf course. And now we see all the warts and we see everything that's, that's wrong with it. So you I think it's difficult to do it standing in front of a screen. If you can bring people out there and show them and walk and talk them through it. I think that helps. And then I've been told that in a public speaking setting, I have a very non confrontational demeanor. So even if you come to this thing loaded for bear to be against it, or to poke holes in whatever we're doing, I generally don't take the bait, I generally just sort of nod and say, Okay, thank you for your opinion. Thank you for your thoughts, and, and you just move on. And so I think all of those things combined help us to get where we need to,

David Novak 29:28 

you know, you talked earlier about your grandfather having such a huge impact on you, and you were a kid. But I also understand that you would do to golf holes as a teenager. And and if you could go back and give some advice to that teenage version of of Gil, what would you tell them?

Gil Hanse 29:47 

Well probably just go right into landscape architecture. Don't take four years, although I loved the four years at the University of Denver were great. And the most important outcome of that was that I met Tracy and we've been married for 37 years. So it was that That was the most incredible part of being at DCU. But I think it was, I didn't really understand there was a pathway right I mean, no university has a golf course architecture program because such a small field there's so few people doing it, that that you just couldn't have a program dedicated to it. So I never really searched how do you do this? And so I doodled golf holes, I love the golf landscape. And then after graduating from TCU, I, you know, again political science history either go to law school, you go to grad school, so I went to grad school and was studying City and Regional Planning at Cornell. In my first semester, I was taking a landscape architecture class and I met a guy named Tom Griswold who was studying in landscape architecture to be a golf course architect, and Tom doke had been there proof just several years prior to Tom Griswold. Tom Grizzle went on to work for Tom Fazio for decades. And I went home and said to Tracy, wow, you can actually do this and but I'm gonna have to stay an extra year Cornell because I don't have an undergrad degree in design. So I've got a three year program. So the two year program I'm signed up for now. And she as she always has been, it was incredibly supportive and said, Yeah, and so that's, that's how it happened. It was by no means a straight path or linear. But I think if, if I could go back, probably should have done a little bit harder research on trying to figure out how to be a golf course architect,

David Novak 31:26 

but we don't know what we're gonna be back then. Yeah, that's a pretty tough question. You know, right.

Gil Hanse 31:30 

David, the crazy thing is, I worked in my senior year at the UI intern for a congressman, Dan Schafer in Denver. And he didn't have a position for me. So hence, I went on to grad school, within two weeks of making this decision to switch into landscape architecture. He called and said, I've got a spot for you in Washington, if you want it now. It just opened up and thank God, I said, No.

David Novak 31:56 

You know, I've also heard you say that you got to learn how to build a golf hole. Before you can design one. Explain what you mean by that.

Gil Hanse 32:06 

You know, there's so many chat rooms, and so many people on online that have, you know, thoughts about strategy, and okay, well, you know, that bunker is too big, because it cuts the line of play off. And no, if you angle here, all of that stuff is important. But none of it can work if the golf course can function. I mean, this is a living, growing, breathing thing that needs to drain, need to take care of soil need to understand how the shaping impacts play. One of the things that's the most difficult thing to learn is, how do you gauge a slope, to say, Alright, I want balls to land here and kick on to the green, when you can't replicate that, right? Because it's dirt. So you can hit a golf shot and see if the ball is going to land in the in and run onto the green exactly the way you want it to. So you've got to have an intimate knowledge or thought or at least experience of how does this grade going to impact when balls run onto a green, you know, anybody who spends a lot of time shaping, you just get this sense in your body, when you're sitting on a piece of equipment, okay, this, like 2% on a 3%, I understand the grades just because you've done it so much. And I think that all of those things are critically important to getting a golf course that functions. You know, we talked a little bit earlier about, you know, putting something on paper versus putting something in the dirt. And there any number of people in the world who can hypothesize and think about putting something on paper that is really a compelling and interesting golf hole. But if you don't know how to take it from paper into the dirt, it doesn't work. So it's one of those things you know, Pete died. Talk to Tom doke about that said, you can't learn how to design a course. So you know how to build one Tom passed it on to me, we've passed it on to our guys, it's some of the best advice we've ever got.

David Novak 33:59 

It's a great example of that you can have strategy, but without the execution, the strategy doesn't mean anything. And, you know, I think that's, that's something that works in every business. And, you know, you talked about, you know, you started out small and now your focus is to stay as small as you can, at least in terms of your business philosophy. But I also know that you know, early on your, your your philosophy was that you need just keep your head down, do good work, and hopefully somebody will notice, you know, has this changed in any way over the years as you've gotten more and more successful? And is that still how you and your team show up?

Gil Hanse 34:38 

Yes, it's changed and yes, that's still how we show up. We've always believed and I've said this around when we were selected to do the Olympic course in Rio was we'd always kept our heads down and did good work and people within the golf industry recognized that they knew that they said okay, you know, they're competent, capable and and good to work with but not many People outside of the golf industry understood that. And so that philosophy of keeping our heads down and doing good work well, when we were selected for the course in Rio, right on the heels of that we were also selected to do Dirrell for Donald Trump. And so now we've got all of a sudden, all this attention on us. And it became one of those things where, okay, now, people are finally paying, people are now paying attention. And they figured out who we are now, how do we handle that? Do we start to mail it in? Do we change the way that we do things and I think that was ultimately why we got the the we were selected for the course in Rio is because we didn't change anything, Jim and I were staunchly opposed to coming in and trying some experimental design or something that would draw attention to us. But wouldn't wouldn't be a true reflection of what we believe about golf architecture. Instead, we said, here's our opportunity to get in front of some important people and just tell them what we believe about golf architecture, you know, and Amy Alcott was part of our team. And that was, so it was that moment where we could have gone the other way. And I've said this, if I have to get off the bulldozer for any other reason than my health, then we've lost the battle. And we have, we've lost the code, we've flipped, and now we're doing it because we want money, or we want jobs or we want the recognition. So we still go to work every day with that. That whole mentality of being there being present, keeping our heads down and trying to do good work.

David Novak 36:33 

You know, you've had a lot of remarkable opportunities. And you just mentioned one that, you know, stands out to me was just the opportunity to build the golf course for the Olympics at in Rio. Tell me about the process of that went into you been selected for that that had to be speaking to politics, I would assume there might have been a little there.

Gil Hanse 36:56 

I'm sure there were. We were We were not at least as far as I know, not a big part of it. But we you know, I think we had some people rooting for us who are helpful in the overall process. So I'd be lying, it'd be disingenuous, if I didn't say we had some important people saying, hey, you know, these guys will be a great selection, they wouldn't be the selection that would, most people would think. But I think it got back to that whole process of building doing something that we believe was correct. As opposed to trying to do something gimmicky to to draw attention to ourselves. No, I mean, we were probably not probably we were most certainly the least well known of all the eight who are selected. Most of them were, you know, tour pros, others in golf architecture, you know, are well known names, etc. And the story that I still chuckle telling is we did put in all this work and time and energy and effort to get this thing done. And I went to go to the airport, and I couldn't find my passport. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? We've done all this and I can't. So you know, I'm looking through the Office turning stuff upside down, I kind of at one point go into the fetal position. I'm like, Alright, this is Tracy, as you know, she's wanting to do come in is like goes right into problem solving mode. It's like, okay, we got to figure out so I canceled my flight. Change it to the next day, I gotta get a passport, wake up, Philadelphia, wake up, get drive to New York City like 430 in the morning, the next morning, get in line. By 830. I've gotten new passport, but I need to get a visa to go to Brazil. So I go, I've got our assistant at the time, Andrea is up in line in in the Brazilian consulate. So I jumped in line, get my get my visa. So all of this is taken care of. It's now 1230. So now my fate is in the hands of American Airlines. And so I drive to JFK get the flight down, I land at about 830 It was supposed to present at one o'clock. You know, Rio traffic, I get to the hotel at like 1130 in the morning, I take a quick shower, I drink a coke made a quick sandwich. And then we go into the presentation and it turned out to be like the best thing ever. Because I didn't have one second to be nervous. All I'm trying to do is get there and get in the room. And you know, I don't like say a lot of like, speak myself in these terms. But I nailed it. I mean, it was just like the best presentation. It was everything Amy was spot on and Owen Larkin was our environmental consultant. And when we walked out of there, I said, Listen, we can't give a better presentation. We can't do a better job and if it doesn't go our way. You know what it just wasn't meant to be but I felt like we gave every single effort and as I'm leaving I looked down and my nametag on in front of me on the placard and it says Gil Hanson got my name right. And so I'm kind of looking around and so I sneak it I slip it out of there. And I because I don't want somebody to get in trouble so I can and I put it in my briefcase and my wife and kids had it framed. And so it's hanging in my office. And they always say, Listen, you know, if your head ever gets too big, they didn't even know your name when you were going for that job. That's great. Yeah, it really was, it was a fitting end into it. And so then we went into like a bit of a runoff. And I think it was Tom doke and myself, where were the last ones standing? There was a conversation about the two of us joining forces that didn't happen. And then ultimately, we got selected. You know, so

David Novak 40:31 

you nailed this presentation? What did you learn about that presentation that you've carried over to others that you've done since

Gil Hanse 40:39 

the prepared know your subject matter? Be comfortable? Yeah, one of my biggest pet peeves I really hate is when people do a PowerPoint presentation. And they've got bullet points up there. And they just read them to you is like, yeah, okay, I can read that too. And I've always set up presentations, where there's like, one word, whatever it is nature. And then I just talk about nature. And I just go on for however long, I feel like I've got the time to do it, as opposed to saying nature is this and just repeating what I've written up there. And I think that felt really good in the moment down there, there was just sort of okay, enough information on the slide and enough good imagery, that I could remember what I was supposed to talk about, but not so much information that people were just reading it. And then they were actually listening to me because there was nothing to read. And I think those are the best presentations, because it's clear that whoever is delivering it is comfortable with the knowledge and comfortable in their beliefs and comfortable in their thought process versus, you know, having to put something up there just so they can remember exactly every single point of it. And occasionally you I'm sure you do the same thing. You kind of leave the room and you go, Oh, I forgot to talk about this. But generally speaking, it's nothing that that important. Yeah,

David Novak 42:00 

you get a much better outcome by doing what you're talking about. And you know, you had some hurdles in Brazil, I met getting your passport. Did your visa starting there? You know, you had to have, I would imagine in that project, a lot of just hurdles in terms of execution. Is there any interesting story you could tell us about that?

Gil Hanse 42:22 

Yeah, I remember, you know, I spent the first three or four months of construction pulling, I was in a bulldozer trying to shape and the trucks kept getting stuck. And we kept we were like pulling them out, we had to stop and go take the bulldozer over hook up the chain, because they didn't have offroad trucks they were giving us they were so the equipment was just not set up for what we were doing that the client who turned out to be the developer landowner of the property. They didn't understand golf, they, you know, obviously had a lot of development places in the city that were buildings, but they also owned farms. So they just looked at this as a big farming exercise. Well, when you're out there in the sand, it's very difficult. It's not the type of equipment they had wasn't suitable. So I think one of the things we learned is we probably tread water for nine months. And you know, if you're, if you do a job and you're hired to do a job, you know how to do it, and you understand the process, and you've outlined the process. And when somebody is basically telling you, nope, you can't do that. And we're not going to either, we're not going to allow you to do it. Number one, and then we're not going to give you the resources to do it. It's incredibly frustrating. And those months were probably the most stressful professional months of my life because we had, it's not like we had a moving target, we had to have the golf course ready for the Olympics, we knew the world was showing up. There was a lot of a lot riding on it. From a golf perspective, Golf was new to the Olympics, it was important that golf have a good showing that the venue for it showed well in a country where golf really isn't a big part of the sporting scene. So there was a ton of pressure. Eventually, we got to a place and I think it was a lot of political pressure, you know, applied from the mayor's office and the Olympic organizing committee to say, hey, we need to give this guy the resources that he needs to get this thing done. But it for a while. It was it was pretty, it was pretty rough.

David Novak 44:19 

I heard your guys actually had to cut the sod with knives. Again, I don't know if that's true or not, you know, but that is true. That seems crazy, you know, but what advice would you give to people who, who aren't given the tools to be successful? How do you as a leader work through that type of situation?

Gil Hanse 44:35 

Well, if to improvise. First and foremost is just trying to figure out what tools are available and how can you you get things done

David Novak 44:43 

even using knives. I take it Yeah,

Gil Hanse 44:45 

we did use the whole year. That's 100% Correct to cut the sod around the edges. Uh, yeah, it was. There was some very archaic methods that we had to use an employee to with the machinery down there. Getting sod from As you know, delivered was difficult because it came from up in the mountains and trying to navigate through Rio. You'd expect it in the morning. It wouldn't show up until late in the afternoon. So there were just a lot of logistical issues. Eventually, as I said that finally all got smoothed over because I think not only the golf venue, but every venue was plagued by delays. And I think the mayor's office finally saw, hey, we need to whatever pressure can be applied, we need to apply it to make sure that every venue not only golf, but every venue has what they need to get done.

David Novak 45:36 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Gil HanSe in just a moment. Now I love that quote he mentioned from the great John Lasseter of Pixar quality is the best business plan. Boy, isn't that the truth? And it's funny that same emphasis on quality comes up in my conversation with another leader in the golf world. Scott Mahoney, the Chairman and CEO of Peter malarkey.

Scott Mahoney 46:01 

So one of our early employees is a guy named Balan row and it was December 23. And a customer called him at five o'clock and said, Oh, I forgot I needed this sweater for my customer UPS and FedEx were all gone. And and so what Alan ro did was he went picked the sweater himself in the warehouse, drove it to the airport and got it on a FedEx plane going out somehow, however, he figured this out. So the customer could have it on Christmas Eve day for one sweater. That's what our service commitment is and that care for one unit. And that carries forward and forward.

David Novak 46:39 

It's obvious some pretty incredible things happen when you go the distance for quality. Cast my full conversation with Scott, Episode 59 here on how leaders lead.

I've heard that you tell your team don't ever lose sight that our job is a game. How do you instill that spirit?

Gil Hanse 47:05 

Well, first and foremost, all the guys on our team love golf. Every single one of them Yeah, exactly. They're all gene golfers. Some of them are really accomplished golfers some are mid handicap some are actually I'm probably the probably the highest handicap. Which they let me know every once in a while. But it's one of those things where Yeah, I think their passion and their love for the game of golf. And one of the things we also talk an awful lot about is just how fortunate we are right if you're going to work in the morning and it's 30 degrees and you know you're gonna shovel and rake but you look up the hill up the hill and there's the clubhouse at Oakmont. You got to pinch yourself and go, Wow, how do we get these opportunities? And how lucky are we that this this happens? So within the game of golf, there's just so many amazing places. And we're very fortunate that we get to work at so many of them. So I think we're always having to remind our guys look, look around. Look, you know, we're touching hallowed ground here. But it's hallowed ground for a game. Right? If we if we take it too seriously, and we allow the pressure people ask me all the time do you get nervous when you go into a Marian or Wingfoot or lac see or Oakmont and you start ripping up grass and nervous, excited, nervous, not nervous, scared, nervous, we're Yes. 100% Nervous, excited. But we've thought our way through the process. We're confident what we're doing. We understand we've got competent people working with us. So we don't ever really worry too much about that. But we need to keep that sort of sense of understanding. While yes, this is incredibly important, and people are spending millions of dollars to do this. At the end of the day, we're doing the playing field for a game and we need to keep that keep that in mind.

David Novak 48:57 

You mentioned the pinch yourself idea, which is a great win. So you think Gail about all the things you've done. What's been your biggest pinch me moment.

Gil Hanse 49:09 

Last year was Prop was certainly, you know, the biggest year for us from a major championship standpoint. You know, we had done the restoration in southern hills and we had done the restoration at the country club. And so I think to have those two championships back to back and to see our work at the forefront of golf and also to see all the efforts in the energy that the superintendents and put into the preparation of the golf course and to have all that come through. There was a lot of there were many pinch me moments during those two events. I think that you know, just the realization of how that we've been entrusted with these and you know, you love golf, you you understand the soul of the game you understand the special, almost sacred nature of some of these places where we play the game of golf tend to have been entrusted with those and to have the outcome turn out well and to, to see all the people who stuck up for us in trying to get the work done and all the people who executed the work with us enjoy that and get such a sense of pride and excitement from it. I think those are the most touching moments. The biggest pinch me moment was probably it had to be at Marian, having lived in Philadelphia for 30 years. Having had such an amazing mentorship with Bill Kittleman. And understanding how much Marian means to him. I think, you know, probably working on the 16th hole working on the quarry at Marion was was one where, you know, I've said this before, where you know, when when you shut the machines off at the end of the day. And it's quiet, because generally we're the last guys there, and it's peaceful and you get to look and see what you accomplished for that day. When you look at that quarry on 16th American and you see that green complex and although the wickers aren't out there because we're obviously under construction and you see the clubhouse and the flagpole. There are a few moments in my life where I've, you know, that touched me deeply to be involved in that. So I'd say that was probably my biggest pinch me.

David Novak 51:17 

That's great. And now here, you know, you had two majors last year. Now you got la Country Club coming up, what whole? Should we pay particular attention to that you would say, Wow,

Gil Hanse 51:31 

I love short par fours. So it's got to be six, I think six is just going to be incredible to watch these guys. It's a drivable for but the direct line to the green is blind over a ridge, the fairway is super wide. So you can lay up to different angles and different lengths. The green is a sliver, if you're not within two or three yards of your number, you're not staying on the green, you're gonna come up shorter, you're gonna bounce through the back and those greens will be firmed. So I think it will be an amazing examination of not only how they how thoughtful they are off the tee, and how creative they are, right? I mean, we love blind shots, we I love the thought of sort of having to understand pick your target and commit and go, right, the best golfers in the world. If they're standing in the middle of the fairway, or standing on a tee and they see their target. That doesn't take as much commitment to hit that shot. And I love it when you ask them questions that might make them feel slightly uncomfortable. So they've got to commit to that tee shot if they're gonna go for it. And then when they come over that hill, they've got to accept the result. Because you're not you don't know where it winds up. So there's a lot of mental. And from an architect's standpoint, we can't challenge those guys. They hit it so far it doesn't. We can't make golf courses long enough for them. But if we can challenge them mentally, and that golf ball will certainly do it. It's going to challenge them from an execution standpoint, it's going to challenge their brain and I think that makes it a special golf hole.

David Novak 53:07 

It's got to be special, Gil, because you absolutely light up when you talk about let's pay attention to number six at lac. See, Gil, there's been so much fun. And I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? I'm ready. Okay. What's one word? Others would use to describe you. Humble? What would you say is the one word that best describes you? Passionate? If he could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be and why?

Gil Hanse 53:38 

Bill Murray. I watched his documentary on him which is great. I know I'm and he is he's a lovely lovely guy. And, but when he walks into a room, it changes everything it would be, it'd be interesting to be able to have that power over people that you can walk into a room and it changes their day. Everybody makes people happy. They're laughing It's just that sort of charisma and energy will be pretty cool to have

David Novak 54:04 

your biggest pet peeve.

Gil Hanse 54:07 

My kids are gonna laugh about this. Traffic. I cannot stand traffic. Somebody wants to describe me as the most kind, thoughtful, impatient person in the world. I just traffic drives me nuts and people mad people on their phones when they're driving, not paying attention. Drives me crazy.

David Novak 54:27 

If I got in your bulldozer, and I turned on the radio, what would I hear?

Gil Hanse 54:33 

If it's the radio the classic rock so it could be anything you would hear if you just flipped on my headphones it would more than likely be the Grateful Dead

David Novak 54:43 

number of Grateful Dead shows you've been to.

Gil Hanse 54:47 

It's north of 40 but I don't I'm not a calendar but a mini

David Novak 54:50 

cricket that's a Basie that might be my next question is What's something about you that few people would know I might be the answer. But is there anything else

Gil Hanse 55:00 

My wife always says that I'm actually pretty silly. I mean, people think I'm fairly serious, and I like to goof around and have a good time. So probably that I can be pretty silly. Your dream

David Novak 55:11 

Foursome, dead or alive?

Gil Hanse 55:15 

Well, my grandfather would have to be part of that, because of his impact in my life. And, and I can I tell you a real quick story, which I love. So Jimmy Dunn, who we both love, he was at a dinner I was at and he came to me and he said, You know, I used to caddy for your grandfather. And I said, really, because Jimmy and I grew up in the same town. And I don't sound like Jimmy Dunn. I somehow I got rid of my accent. But he said, he said, he was a terrible golfer. And I looked at him, and he goes, but he was the nicest man I ever caddied for. And I still it still makes me tear up to this day to think about that. And then he said, the other thing is, you know, the cheap sob is would say, Jimmy, go get a coke. But your grandfather always said, you may go get a hot dog and a coke at the turn. So. So that was it was great to know. So my grandfather, Aleister McKinsey, because I think I could just learn so much from him in how he did things. And then Teddy Roosevelt, my favorite historical character.

David Novak 56:22 

There you go. You get to play three rounds of golf anywhere in the world. which courses are you traveling to?

Gil Hanse 56:30 

The old course, National Golf Links and Cypress Point.

David Novak 56:38 

Fantastic places to go for sure. That's the end of the lightning round. So we're moving on. We're about ready to wrap this up. Just a few more questions. At the start of the conversation, we talked about the caveman and you've got this scholarship foundation. How's that going right now? And what's the impact? It's modest.

Gil Hanse 56:58 

It's we're getting it off the ground. I think we've really started focusing on it in the last three or four years and obviously the pandemic. cut things off for a little while there. But it's something that we, we feel strongly about. We've We've also caveman construction gear is our little shop. We've got, I think one of the coolest logos in golf. And you know, the caveman holding a rake. And it's an amazing thing. So we sell some merchandise and all the proceeds from that merchandise, go to the caveman Scholarship Foundation. And then we have various friends and people donate to this along the way. But Jim Wagner and Tracy, who are the ones who really oversee it, it's amazing to me to watch how thorough they are and how much joy they get from the selection process. It's a lot of work. But there are some really wonderful people. And we're hopeful that, you know, we're making a good impact in their lives.

David Novak 57:55 

You're doing a lot of great things, Gil, and I want to congratulate you on the corner she just built built in West Palm Beach called the park. You know, and I know you did it gratis. Can you just give us a little snapshot of that project?

Gil Hanse 58:12 

Yeah. And David, thank you as well. I mean, there's an amazing group of people who have come together to raise money. And I think I think it's the model for public private partnerships. When as it relates to golf, municipal golf in this country. It's amazing how, you know, Seth was Dirks if Dan Stanton, Tommy Frankel, sort of the executive committee, how they worked to make this thing happen. And we're incredibly proud of our contributions and what we're able to do, we think we built a very thoughtful, meaningful golf course that people will enjoy playing. It's interesting, it's fun, but I just saw today, so a video and some photos of the classroom. And while we're proud of the golf course, and you know, it's what people will talk about, that the impact that the programming that the game of golf can have in people's lives, you and I believe that we live it, we know it, not a lot of people understand how meaningful golf can be in this regard. And so I think the the greatest impact that this project will have will be through that foundation and through mentoring these children and giving them a safe place to go after school and helping them not only with their schoolwork, but understanding the game of golf and all the wonderful things that can happen from it. I'm on the executive committee with all those guys and we were on a call this morning and the general manager Brian Connolly was crying and I'm gonna I'm gonna try not to get emotional but is that 80 year old grandmother brought her seven year old granddaughter to the park on Monday when it first opened up and she had lost her daughter. And putting this child in that setting was is amazing. thing thing for her, the emotion that she showed the feeling of relief. You know, these are things that you and I will never experience and but it's real, and it's impactful for people and to have a safe place for kids to go. Like you said, we're happy to golf courses there. But that's just the that's the smallest part of the story that that place is going to change lives,

David Novak 1:00:24 

you created a fantastic place. And it's a tough part of town, and it's already making an impact. And it's you will change a lot of lives through the work that you did there. And I'm gonna wrap this up with one last final question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?

Gil Hanse 1:00:42 

Listen, I think you need to listen to the people around you understand that they're meaningful thoughts. They're meaningful approaches. They're, they're people who are incredibly talented, but also very well intentioned, that what they're doing and I think, you know, ultimately, we have to be the final arbiters if we're the leaders for what, what's the right decision, but just to have an open here and listen,

David Novak 1:01:04 

you know, Gil, anybody that listens to this conversation, we had to pick up a lot of great leadership Insights is very obvious as to why you are the leader in your field. And I want to thank you so much, because I know you could, you'd rather be out there on a bulldozer right now the material here with me, and I appreciate you taking the time, thank you very much.

Well, I don't know about you, but I can't wait to watch the pros tee off and hold number six at lac see North this weekend, and see how they deal with that incredible blind shot. It's going to be fun to watch it all play out. As a leader and golfer. I love hearing about his process, how he draws from history and nature for his designs, and then how he gets out there on his bulldozer and turns it into reality, making literal on the ground decisions as he sees what the site really looks like up close. It's the perfect reminder, the big plans only work when we follow them up with quality execution. The details matter. Now, I'm not suggesting that you be a micromanager. But you do need to stay connected to whatever details drive quality and the work that you do. Those details are critical if you want to build a strong reputation and deliver on your big goals. So how can you apply this concept in your life as a leader? Well, here's an idea. I bet there's already someone on your team who absolutely loves details, pull them aside this week and pick their brain. Adequate details are getting overlooked and affecting quality. That's a great starting point to help make sure you're bringing quality execution to all your big ideas. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders understand the details matter. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Brad Richards destined to go into the National Hockey League Hall of Fame and a two time Stanley Cup champion.

Brad Richards 1:03:09 

If you can't handle the truth or can accept the truth and what you're doing and how you're performing, you're just not going to get better because you'll find excuses you'll find ways to ignore it or Oh, it's not not me, it's someone else or once you look yourself in the mirror and and accept being told the truth all the time. You'll you'll get better all the time.

David Novak 1:03:30 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I'm making a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be