Zac, I've been an outside observer of you for many years - and not in a stalking way ha ha. I've been a huge BYU fan my entire life and always thought I would attend school there. However, I married my sweetheart 10 weeks after coming home from my mission and decided to attend Idaho State in my hometown as they offered me a full four year scholarship to stay home. I was 21 and my wife was 19, so free college sounded pretty good!
Anyway, as a BYU fan I've always watched with a close eye the athletes that have advanced to the professional ranks. In fact, I remember you coming to my home course (Highland in Pocatello, ID) while you were still in college and playing well in a couple of the big 2-man tournaments including a win five years ago. For those that don't know much about Zac, let me just offer a couple of quick statements.
The Blair's are on the Mount Rushmore of Utah golf. While some may scoff at Utah for their lack of "great golf" or simply because their only frame of reference to Utah is Mormons, Zac is no novice to the golf world. His father, Jimmy, was an accomplished player in his own right as he won state opens in various states out west and played college golf at BYU where his teammates included Mike "Radar" Reid and now famed architect John Fought. Jimmy went on to play professional golf and was recently enshrined in the Utah Golf Hall of Fame. After his professional playing days Jimmy spent most of his time managing various courses in Utah where Zac had a front row seat to the operations, dedication, and common pitfalls operating a course has.
Some of the best athletes, businessmen, and tradesmen are those that have been mentored in their craft by a parent (no, LaVar Ball isn't about to get mentioned again in this thread here). I'm not saying that Zac and The Buck Club will be a surefire success story, but I love the approach he is taking. Being a golf architecture nerd myself and coming from a family that donated the property for a golf course to be built in my home town years ago, it has been a ton of fun seeing his interest in architecture grow so strong over the past few years. In my opinion, his access to knowledgeable people, downtime on the road that allows for extra study, and deep passion for architecture and this project are a formula for success. When my family donated the property for the a golf course to be built it wasn't financially driven; it was because of our passion for the game and our community which is exactly what I see in Zac.
While places like Utah, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming are easy punchlines at the end of pompous jokes of golf's "elite," there are still some great people that are plenty passionate about golf that live in these areas. I've been extremely fortunate in my relatively young life to have played some spectacular golf courses. The more I've traveled, the more I've longed for there a be a course in the Rockies that paid homage to the great golden era of architecture. In the states I mentioned earlier, there isn't a single course designed by Donald Ross, Alister MacKenzie, Seth Raynor, C.B. MacDonald, A.W. Tillinghast, Colt & Allison, Walter Travis, Stanley Thompson, or other such legends. Even modern day architects like Tom Doak, Coore and Crenshaw, Gil Hanse, and David McLay Kidd have just brushed the area (Rock Creek Cattle Co. and Huntsman Springs). Utah doesn't have a single course designed by a golden era legend and nothing from Doak, C&C, Kidd, or Hanse in the modern day.
So begs the question, "What is a guy to do?" Sure it would be great to be part of the nearly 40% U.S. population that lives in a county bordered by a shoreline where many great golf clubs exist; but what if you have a passion to live in Utah, Idaho, or some other land locked state devoid of a storied golf pedigree? Well, if you have passion, drive, and a serious pair of stones, you create your own dream - and Zac's is The Buck Club. I wish nothing but great things for The Buck Club as it transitions from dream to reality and hope it will materialize to the kind of golf course this region deserves an opportunity to appreciate.