Prolific Michigan-based architect Ray Hearn was kind enough to join me on a call to answer some of my questions about several of his ongoing renovations at a few smaller clubs and public courses in Michigan, clubs that are in his words, taking “baby steps” to enhance their courses and embrace some of the design philosophies of Golden Age golf architects.

In this episode:

– Ray’s diverse portfolio, and why he takes on projects at smaller clubs

– Tree removal, tree trimming, and restoring greens at Washtenaw GC

– Disrupting the cohesion of a course and selling the overall vision

– Uncovering natural sand at White Lake Golf Club

As a note, the audio quality is not that of your standard podcast, as this was a call that I recorded for the purposes of transcribing for an article on the same topics. I intend on following up with a written article further exploring these topics and the visuals from courses that Hearn is working on.

Ray provided a lot of thoughts during the call, though, and is a very polished speaker on golf topics, so I thought it might be most beneficial to provide the audio and let you all hear from him directly, which Ray has kindly agreed to. The audio has been lightly edited to remove some small talk at the beginning and end to focus strictly on the topics at hand.

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