Welcome to Howl 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 Hance, one of the world's most sought-after golf architects. In fact, if you watched 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 visionary 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 Hance. You know, Gil, 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 it was back in January, you had your first official hole in one. You got to tell us the story. Yeah, 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 even though I know I teeted up and it 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 an eddy cue. And we were out there playing the opening round of golf. We had a good group. About 12 of us were 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 in timelines. And we got to head lunch and then seven of us decided we're going to go back out and play the last five holes. So we get on the eighth hole, which was our second to last hole with 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 A's off who's the best golfer in the group. He hits, doesn't make a hole in one. So eddy cue goes, all right, now it's 10,000 a man since Jeffrey didn't make a hole in 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. 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 and the opening round of golf on a 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 seem to go, wait a second. Did we just say $10,000 a man? And so we're walking down the hole and I'm saying, I don't want your money guys . This is the experience of this has been amazing. Yeah, 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 sort of think, well, I don't really have anything to do with Notre Dame, but okay. And then it 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 needed who 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. So good for you, great hole in 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 led 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. You know, you always get to a place in your life and your career when you're not the person that people think you are, right? Before you become David Novak leader, you know, you're David Novak employee, working hard, trying to work your way up. And so same with me. I was, you know, Gil Hance, the golf course architect that not a lot of people had heard of. And we went into the meeting at Los Angeles Country Club, Jim Wagner, my partner, Jeff Schackleford and I. And we talked a lot about George Thomas. We didn't talk a lot about Gil Hance. And we talked about the original golf course architect, George Thomas, who was brilliant in design, not only LACC, but Riviera and Belair. And why it was important to restore his work in his golf course. And so we were able to convince them that was the most important part of it. 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 went, we were scheduled to start the project in 2008. And right as we were getting ready to go, the financial collapse happened. And a lot of the leadership at LACC was very involved in the financial sector. And 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. 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. Or 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 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 we also had a change of superintendent right about that time. And Russ Myers, who's one of the best in the world, came from Southern Hills. He's now back at Southern Hills, 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 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. 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? I think the thing we're most proud of is the Barranca system that runs through the front line and just the beauty of it and how natural it feels. We did a lot of work to restore native vegetation in there, taking out a lot of non-indigenous plant species, putting sycamores and oaks back in the place where they should be. And Thomas used that Barranca 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 not only were we restoring his design thought, but we restored the character of a Southern California landscape to 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 super intense, going to do a great job. And the USGA is really excited about showcasing that Southern California beauty , which was part and parcel of what George Thomas did. You really believe in looking at history and the original designer. That really inspires a lot of what you do. Talk about that. You know, interestingly, as an undergrad, I was a political science and history major. And I'm fascinated by both of those things. 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 what we like to say specific, right? We could talk about AW Tillinghouse typically did this or Donald Russ typically did that or Seth Rainer, et cetera. 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 Tillinghouse do at Wingfoot. 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So I've always been a believer of 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 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 time. We don't usually have a lot of big problems happening on site. You know, you have more work these days than 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 for these days? In the industry, I think it's a fallacy to think that we say yes to everything because we're so busy and we've got so many high profile projects we're working on. We say no to probably 95% of the stuff that comes our way. And that's a great position to be in. You know, I'm not bragging. I just will you 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 going to have fun doing it, then it becomes how do we fit it into the schedule? Not only our schedule, but the clients have schedules too. At the end of the day, we're building a golf course for them, and if their schedule doesn't match our schedule, then we have to say no. Or we have to move our schedule or they have to be accommodating to ours. So, that's generally how we go about selecting projects. Makes a lot of sense. And earlier you talked about how history played a big role in your thought process when you looked at opportunities. And you do look back in history, but one of the things that I know about you is that you're so successful as you're able to see a future too, and what could be better than most. What's your process for envisioning? What could this be? 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 look at with the topographical map in hand. All right, do we see good natural features because both Jim and I are committed to we believe we'd rather find golf holes than create them. But we're perfectly comfortable creating them if we feel like the project requires that, but I think 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 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 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 Eddie. We walked on that site and it was basically off the toe of a mountain lemon or chard and it was about a hundred 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. It just came to me that, hey, if we dig out the center of the site, we elevate the low side. So you're sitting up there, you're looking into golf, the mountains are the backdrop, the whole thing. And it just popped into my head. We couldn't see enough in the ground. And that's basically what we built. So there's sometimes where it just happens and I don't understand how it does. And earlier you said that your political science background really helped you deal with the politics and 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 a lot of the stuff you do, you see maybe that others don't. When it comes to existing restoration projects, I think it becomes basically an explanation of what we think from a historic standpoint. It came to me probably 10 years ago that people might look at work that we've done at Wingfoot or a Baltis roll or Sleepy Hollow and go, "Yeah, I'm not so sure Gil Hance is that good in architect." But because we're doing Tillinghast or Rainer, it's hard for somebody to say, " Well, Gil Hance is not great," but neither was Tillinghast because we're putting back Tillinghast. So I think 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. So the only thing that we've done at Wingfoot is to try to bring back the vision that Tillinghast or Rainer or Mackenzie had for that property and so that when we finish, this membership will see the golf course in as close a state as the way it was left, more so than any other generation of members since the original generation of members. I think there's a sense of stewardship, there's a sense of pride, 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 going to be like, "Ugh, that's a terrible tie-in or that doesn't work. Oh, how'd that happen?" And they went on that journey with us whole by whole and by the end of it they were like, "Wow, we thought we had a great golf course and now we see all the w arts and we see everything that's wrong with it." So 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 you just move on. And so I think all of those things combined help us to get where we need to. You talked earlier about your grandfather having such a huge impact on you when you were a kid. But I also understand that you would doodle golf holes as a teenager. And if you could go back and give some advice to that teenage version of Gill, what would you tell him? Well, probably just go right into landscape architecture. It 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 that was the most incredible part of being at DU. But I think it was, I didn't really understand there was a pathway. I mean, no university has a golf course architecture program because it's such a small field. There's so few people doing it 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 DU, I, again, political science history, you either go to law school or you go to grad school. So I went to grad school and was studying city and regional planning at Cornell . My first semester, I was taking a landscape architecture class and I met a guy named Tom Griswald who was studying in landscape architecture to be a golf course architect. And Tom Doke had been there just several years prior to Tom Griswald. Tom Griswald went on to work for Tom Fazio for decades. And I went home and said to Tracy, "Wow, you can actually do this." But I may have to stay in extra year Cornell because I don't have an undergrad degree in design. So I've been, it's a three year program, instead of the two year program I'm signed up for now. And she has, she always has been, and is incredibly supportive and said, "Yeah ." And so that's how it happened. It was by no means a straight path or linear. But I think 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. But we don't know what we're going to be back then. That's a pretty tough question. Right. And David, the crazy thing is I worked, in my senior year at the UIN turned for a congressman, Dan Schafer in Denver. And he didn't have a position for me. And so 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. 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. You know, there's so many chat rooms and so many people online that have thoughts about strategy and, okay, well, you know, that bunker is too big because it cuts the line of play off and know 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, you know, how do you gauge a slope to say, all right, I want balls to land here and kick onto the green when you can't replicate that, right, because it's dirt. So you can't hit a golf shot and see if the ball is going to land in the 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 it, you just get this sense in your body when you're sitting on a piece of equipment. Okay, this, I'm at like 2%. I'm at 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 are 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, talked 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. 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 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 you also know that, you know, early on, your philosophy was that you need to 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? 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, you know, 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 good to work with, but not many people outside of the golf industry understood that. So that philosophy of keeping our heads down and doing good work, but when we were selected for the course in Rio, right on the heels of that, we're also selected to do Doral for Donald Trump. And so now we've got all the sun, all this attention on us, and it became one of those things where, okay, now people are finally paying it, you know, 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, we were selected for the course in Rio was because we didn't change anything. Jim and I were staunchly opposed to coming in and trying some experimental design or something that would, you know, 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 in that we 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 whole mentality of being there, being present, keeping our heads down and trying to do good work. And so you've had a lot of remarkable opportunities and you just mentioned one that stands out to be 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 being selected for that. That had to be a speaking of politics. I would assume there might have been a little there. I'm sure there 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 draw attention to ourselves. 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, were well known names, etc. And the story that I still chuckle telling is, you know, 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. And I kind of at one point go into the fetal position. I'm like, all right, this is Tracy as, you know, she's wanting to do come in as like goes right into problem solving mode. It's like, okay, we got to figure out so I cancel my flight. I change it to the next day. I got to get a passport wake up in Philadelphia wake up get drive to New York City like 430 in the morning and next morning get in line. 830, I've got a new passport but I need to get a visa to go to Brazil. So I've got our assistant at the time, Andrea, is up in line in the Brazilian Consulate so I jumped in line, get my visa. So all this has taken care of is now 1230. So now my feet is in the hands of American Airlines and so I drive to JFK. Get the flight down. I land at about 830, we're 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, maybe 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 to say a lot of, I don't like to 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 in my name tag on in front of me on the placard and it says, "Gill Hansen." I'm kind of looking around and I slip it out of there and I, because I don't want somebody to get in trouble so I kind of put it in my briefcase and my wife and kids had her framed and says, hanging in my office and they always say, listen, you know, if your head ever gets too big, they didn't even know you're in name when you were going for that job. That's a great story. Yeah, it really was a fitting ending to it and so then we went into like a bit of a runoff and I think it was Tom Doke and myself 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 you nailed this presentation. What did you learn about that presentation that you've carried over to others that you've done since? Be prepared. Know your subject matter. Be comfortable. You know, 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. It's 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 and enough information on the slide and enough, you know, good imagery that I could remember what I was supposed to talk about but not so much information that people were just reading it instead and 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's 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, 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 important. Yeah, you get a much better outcome by doing what you're talking about. And you know, you had some hurdles in Brazil, I mean, getting your passport, getting your visas, 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 ? Yeah, I remember, you know, I spent the first three or four months of construction pulling, I was in a bulldoze of trying to shape and the trucks kept getting stuck. And we kept, we were like pulling them out, we had to stop and take the bulldoze over, hook up a chain because they didn't have off-road trucks they were giving us. So the equipment was just not set up for what we were doing. 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, you know, 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 is 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 for a while it was pretty rough. I heard your guys actually had to cut the sod with knives. Okay, I don't know if that's true or not, you know. That is true. That seems crazy, you know, but what advice would you give to people who aren't given the tools to be successful? How do you as a leader work through that type of situation? Well, if to improvise first and foremost is just try to figure out what tools are available and how can you get things done? Even using knives, I take it. Yeah, we did use that. That's 100% correct to cut the sod around the edges. So yeah, it was there were some very archaic methods that we had to use and employ with the machinery down there. Getting sod from, 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. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Gail Hance 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 Mah oney, the chairman and CEO of Peter Millar. So one of our early employees is a guy by named Allen Rowe and it was December 23rd. 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 so what Allen Rowe did was he went and 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. It's obvious some pretty incredible things happen when you go the distance for quality. Catch 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? Well, first and foremost, all the guys on our team love golf. Every single one of them. Yeah, exactly. They're all keen golfers. Some of them are really accomplished golfers. Some are mid handicap, some are, you know, actually I'm probably the probably the highest handicap on the whole team, which they let me know every once in a while. But it's one of those things where, yeah, I think they're passionate and they're loved 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 got a shovel and rake, but you look up at the hill up the hill and there's the clubhouse at Oakmont, you know, you got to pinch yourself and go, wow, how do we get these opportunities and how lucky are we that 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 around. Look, you know, we're touching hallowed ground here, but it's hallowed ground for a game. Right? 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 Marianne or a wing foot or LACC or Oakmont and start ripping up grass and nervous, excited, nervous, not nervous, scared, nervous. Yes, 100% nervous, excited, but we've thought our way through the process. We're confident in 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. You mentioned the pinch yourself idea, which is a great one. So you think Gil about all the things you've done. What's been your biggest pinch me moment? You know, the 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 and the energy that the superintendents had 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, you know, you love golf. 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 and to have been entrusted with those and to have the outcome turn out well and to see all the people who he stuck up for us and 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 Marion. Having lived in Philadelphia for 30 years, having had such an amazing mentorship with Bill Kittleman and understanding how much Marion means to him, I think, you know, probably working on the 16th hole, working on the quarry at Marion was one where, you know, I've said this before, where, you know, when you shut the machines off at the end of the day and it's quiet because generally where the last guy's 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 16 at Marion 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, you know, that touched me deeply to be involved in that. So I'd say that was probably my biggest pinch me. That's great. And now here, you know, you had two majors last year. Now you got LA Country Club coming up. What hole should we pay particular attention to that you would say, wow, 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 four 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 really going to come up short or you're going to bounce through the back and those greens will be firm. So I think it will be an amazing examination of not only how thoughtful they are off the tee and how creative they are, right? I mean, we love blind shots. 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, but 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 going to go for it. And then when they come over that hill, they've got to accept the result, right ? Because you're not, you don't know where it winds up. So, you know, there's a lot of mental and from an architect standpoint, you know, we can't challenge those guys that they hit it so far. It doesn't, you know, we can't make golf courses long enough for them. But if we can challenge them mentally and that golf hole 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. It's got to be special, Gil, because you absolutely light up when you talk about it. So, I know it's paying attention to number six at LACC. Gil, this has 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 you could be one person for a day beside yourself , who would it be and why? Bill Murray. I watched this documentary on him, which is great. And I know him. And he is, he's a lovely, lovely guy. And, but when he walks into a room, it changes everything. It would be, it would 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 would be pretty cool to have. Your biggest pet peeve. My kids are going to laugh about this traffic. I cannot stand traffic. Somebody once described me as the most kind, thoughtful, impatient person in the world. I just traffic drives me nuts. And people, I mean, people on their phones when they're driving, not paying attention, drives me crazy. If I got in your bulldozer and I turned on the radio, what would I hear? If it's the radio, it would be 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. Number of Grateful Dead shows you've been to. It's north of 40, but I don't, I 'm not a counter. That's a team. That might be my next question. What's something about you that few people would know? I might be the answer, but is there anything else? My wife always says that I'm actually pretty silly. I mean, people think I'm fairly serious and, but I like to goof around and have a good time. So probably that I can be pretty silly. Your dream force them, dead or alive? Well, my grandfather would have to be part of that because of his impact in my life. Can I tell you a real quick story, which you'll 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?" And because Jimmy and I grew up in the same town, and although I don't sound like Jimmy Dunn, somehow I got rid of my accent, but he said, he was a terrible golfer. And I looked at him and he goes, "But he was the nic est man I ever caddy 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 SOBs would say, "Jimmy, go get a Coke ." But your grandfather always said, "Jimmy, go get a hot dog and a Coke at the turn." So that was great to know. So my grandfather, Alister McKenzie, because I think I could just learn so much from him and how he did things. And then Teddy Roosevelt, my favorite historical character. There you go. Now you get to play three rounds of golf anywhere in the world. Which courses are you traveling to? The old course, National Golf Links and Cypress Point. Look at fantastic places to go for sure. You know, that's the end of the lightning round. So we're moving on here about ready to wrap this up. Just a few more questions. At the start of the conversation, we talked about the K-Man and you've got this scholarship foundation. How's that going right now? And what's the impact? It's modest. 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, you know, cut things off for a little while there. But it's something that we feel strongly about. We've also, you know, K-Man construction gear is our little shop. We've got, I think, one of the coolest logos in golf. You know, the K-Man holding a rake. And it's an amazing thing. So we sell some merchandise and all the proceeds from that merchandise go to the K-Man scholarship foundation. And then, you know, 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. You're doing a lot of great things, Gill. And I want to congratulate you on the course you just built, built in West Palm Beach called the Park. You know, and I know you did it, Grotus. Can you just give us a little snapshot of that project? 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, you know, I think it's the model for public-private partnerships as it relates to golf, municipal golf in this country. It's amazing how, you know, Seth Waugh, Dirk Z iff, 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 were 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 some 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 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 like, I'm good trying to get emotional, but as an 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 an amazing thing for her. The emotion that she showed, the feeling of relief. You know, these are things that you and I will never experience. But it's real and it's impactful for people and to have a safe place for kids to go. Like I said, we're happy the golf course is there, but that's just the smallest part of the story. That place has got to change lives. You created a fantastic place and it's a tough part of town and it's already making an impact. And you will change a lot of lives through the work that you did there. And I'm going to 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? Listen, I think you need to listen to the people around you, understand that they're meaningful thoughts. They're meaningful approaches. They're people who are incredibly talented, but also very well intentioned at what they're doing. And I think, you know, ultimately, we have to be the final arbiters of where the leaders for what's the right decision, but just have an open year and listen. You know, Gil, anybody that listens to this conversation we had is going to pick up a lot of great leadership insights . And it's very obvious as to why you are the leader in your field. And I want to thank you so much because I know you can you'd rather be out there on a bulldozer right now than the material in 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 T off at hole number six at L.A.C. C. 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 that 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. Ask what 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. If you can't handle the truth or can accept the truth in 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 not me, it's someone else. Once you look yourself in the mirror and accept being told the truth all the time, you'll get better all the time. 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 make it 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. . . . . [BLANK_AUDIO]