INSTANT CLASSIC
"The Lost MacKenzie"
by Thomas Dunne
Travel + Leisure Golf
November/December, 2007
pp. 106-115
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RECOMMENDED READING
The Golf Life
"Better With Age, Atlanta Athletic Club"
by Bradley S. Klein
Golf Week, August 5, 2011 pp. 37-39
PGA Preview
"The South's Gonna Rise Again"
by Ron Whitten
Golf Digest, August 2011, pp. 106-110
British Open Preview
"Ancient and Modern"
by John Barton
Golf Digest, July 2011, pp. 123-130
U.S. Open Preview
"Is The Doctor Done?"
by John Garrity
Golf, June 2011, pp. 108-112
U.S. Open Preview
"Congressional Acts"
by Ron Whitten
Golf Digest, June 2011, pp. 130-136
FLASH:
JUST RETURNED FROM PINEHURST WHERE A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE HAS BEEN TAKING PLACE SINCE FEBRUARY. BEN CRENSHAW AND BILL COORE ARE WORKING ON PINEHURST #2 TO REMOVE THE BERMUDA GRASS, ADDING MORE OF THE ORIGINAL WIREGRASS AND MODIFYING THE IRRAGATION SYSTEM. VERY EXCITING STUFF WHICH WILL BE DONE WELL AHEAD OF THE COURSE HOSTING ITS THIRD U.S. OPEN IN 2014. ALSO, CHECK OUT THE EXCELLENT ARTICLE IN THE FEBRUARY 2010 ISSUE OF GOLF MAGAZINE ON THE CURRENT STATE OF GOLF ARCHITECTURE
RECENT ARTICLES
"GOLF DIGEST DECEMBER 2010"
Editors Note: McDonald's Comeback, p. 14, by Jerry Trade
In Digest: One Reader's Fantasy Hole, pp. 42-45, by Ron Whitten
see golfdigest.com/go/armchairarchitect
Travel: Melbourne Shuffle, pp. 73-75, by Matt Ginella
see golfdigest.com/courses/blogs/mattg
READING THE GREENS
Books on Golf from the Arthur W. Schultz Collection
An Exhibition in the Department of Special Collections
The University of Chicago Library: May 4, 1998 - August 7, 1998
www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/greensint.html
For purists, the only true setting for golf is the land of the links, the sandy stretches of property considered useless for agriculture that were left unoccupied along the Scottish seacoast. It was here that the earliest golf courses were laid out, taking advantage of the natural swales of the undulating landscape, rough patches of sea grass, small dunes and sandy burrows exposed by foraging sheep, and twisting streams and tidal ponds. Remade over many years into the fairways, bunkers, roughs, water hazards, and greens of St. Andrews and other classic Scottish courses, the links remained for many the model of what a golf course should be. Transported from Scotland to England and then across the Atlantic to America, golf course design at first relied on the accumulated personal experience of Scottish golfers like Old Tom Morris, William Park, Jr., and Willie Dunn, who were given the responsibility of shaping new courses. The rapid growth of the game and increasing sophistication of players, however, argued for a more systematic understanding of the structure of the game and the ideal course. Charles Blair Macdonald of Chicago was among the first to abandon the so-called "penal" course that punishes the player who strays from an established ideal path and to conceive instead a "strategic" course that requires the golfer to choose one of several alternative routes to the green. Dr. Alister Mackenzie, a British physician and passionate golfer, expanded on these developments in his pioneering and influential text, Golf Architecture (1920). Among the key features of Mackenzie's ideal course were that it require little walking between a green and the next tee, that every hole should have its own distinct character, and that the golfer should be required to use a variety of strokes and clubs to achieve a successful round. In recent decades, the once casual craft of golf architecture has become an ever more highly sophisticated business. Pete Dye, Tom Fazio, and Robert Trent Jones, Jr., are widely recognized as being among the most successful contemporary golf architects. New strains of grass are being developed for different climatic zones. Desert courses are being built in areas that would once have been thought inhospitable to golf. Lavish new golf clubs and entire golfing communities are becoming a common feature of America's leisure-oriented culture. Books by and about the latest golf architecture trace the imaginative reshaping of the natural landscape and the ways in which it is being transformed into the distinctive fairways, roughs, bunkers, greens of thousands of individual new golf courses.
ITEMS EXHIBITED
Doak, Tom. The Anatomy of a Golf Course:
The Art of Golf Architecture. New York:
Lyons & Burford, c1992. Signed by author.
Fazio, Tom. Golf Course Designs by Fazio.
[Jupiter, Florida: Golf Course Designers, Inc.], 1984.
Hunter, Wiles Robert. The Links. New York; London:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926.
Jones, Robert Trent. Golf by Design:
How to Lower Your Score by Reading the Features of a Course.
Foreword by Tom Watson.
Boston; New York; Toronto; London: Little, Brown and Co., 1993.
Lumb, Nick. A Beginner's Guide to Golf.
New York: Gallery Books, 1987.
Mackenzie, Alexander. Golf Architecture:
Economy in Course Construction and Green-Keeping.
London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd., 1920.
Ex libris Metropolitan Club Library.
Thomas, George Clifford. Golf Architecture in America:
Its Strategy and Construction. Los Angeles: Times-Mirror Press, 1927.
GOLF COURSE DESIGN SHOWS ON THE GOLF CHANNEL
PLANET JACK
A rare glimpse of the man (Jack Nicklaus) behind the legend (70 PGA Tour Victories including 18 Majors). A behind-the-scenes look at Jack designing golf courses during a 12 day trip to 8 countries (Korea, Japan, China, India, Seychelles Islands, Mauritius, South Africa & the United States). Eighty percent of his golf design business is overseas underlying the enormous growth of the game into new markets,venues and cultures.
GOLF IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST
Recently The Golf Channel aired an extremely interesting show Golf In The Great Northwest about Golf Course Design. It featured Tom Doak, a prominent modern day golf architect and spotlighted two courses which he designed, Pacific Dunes in Bandon, Oregon and Rock Creek Cattle Company. It yielded many insights into how a course takes shape from the unique viewpoint of the architect. Tom was actually interviewed while he played the courses he designed. Try to catch this fascinating and revealing show as I'm pretty
sure it will be shown again!
NEWS
It couldn't be a better time for golf architecture fans everywhere. Look at what we have been treated to on the PGA Tour so far this year regardless of the winners.
From the Mercedes Championship Kick-Off PGA Event at Kapalua on the Island of Maui to the Bay Hill Club to Augusta National to Harbour Town to Quail Hollow to Bethpage Black to Turnberry to Hazeltine and finally to "The FedEx Cup" at East Lake. We have so much more to look forward to culminating in the U.S.Open here at Pebble Beach Golf Links in 2010. My hope is that this will heighten appreciation and awareness of golf course architecture! "OUR SOCIETY" will be celebrating its "Tenth Anniversary"
CHEERS, FORE and THANKS!
August,2009
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RECOMMENDED READING
"The New Yorker Magazine"
April 20, 2009; pp.36-43
The Ghost Course
Links to the past on a Scottish Island
by Dave Owen
On the island of South Uist, a sparsely populated island in the Outer Hebrides, Gordon Irwin, a Scottish golf course superintendent, discovered Askernish, a more-than-a-century old original Tom Morris designed golf course. It had been ignored and neglected for over one hundred years and lay fallow. It was decided to attempt to uncover the original layout and reopen it for play. In Old Tom Morris's era, a designer's main function was not to recontour the ground in order to conform to golfer's expectations but to direct play over existing terrain in thought-provoking ways and to capitalize on lucky topological accidents. After a pain-staking effort involving no mechanized tools and strong local resident support, the restored Askernish 18-hole golf course reopened on August 22, 2008!
BOOKS
"World Atlas of Golf:
The Greatest Courses and How They Are Played"
by Mark Rowlinson (Editor) and Contributors
2008
"Secrets of the Great Golf Course Architects"
by Michael Patrick Shiels
2008
"Pete Dye Golf Courses: Fifty Years of Visionary Design"
by Joel Zuckerman
2008
"Golf By Design: How To Lower Your Score By Reading the Features of A Course"
by Robert Trent Jones, Jr.
2005
"The Anatomy of A Golf Course"
by Tom Doak
"A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of A Country, A Pint, and the Next Tee"
by Tom Coyne
"Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective, Volumes I-IV"
by Paul Daley
"Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die"
by Chris Santella
"Ancestral Links"
by John Garrity
"Golf Courses of the U.S.Open"
by David Barrett
"Golf Resorts of the World:
The Best Places to Stay and Play"
by Brian McCallen
"Nicklaus By Design"
by Jack Nicklaus
Golf Architecture Articles:
Golf+De-Sign:The Shape of the Game:
What Golf Looks Like and Where It's Headed
November, 2008 Golf Digest
pages 111-146
Tribute William P. & William F. Bell
by Jason Kerkmans
"1953"
Extolling the Bells: The First Family
of California Golf Course Architects
page 64
Guest Columist: Forrest Richardson
When Backwards Is Forwards
Playing The Old Course In Reverse
page 14
Volume 1, Number 3
October/December, 2008
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ISSUE FROM THE TILLINGHAST ASSOCIATION:
http://www.tillinghast.net/issue3post.pdf
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Some Fascinating Golf Architecture Firm Web Sites:
arthurhills.com; golfplan.com; calolson.com;
faziogolf.com; medallist.com.au; rtj2.com
robinsongolf.com; landmarkgolf.com;
thompsongolf.com; golfpropertiesdesign.com
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"THE LOST MACKENZIE"
by Thomas Dunne
"SWING TIME IN THE HAMMOCK"
by John Dunne
"THE 101 BEST NEW COURSES OF 2007"
Travel and Leisure Golf
November/December, 2007
"RIP VAN GOLFER"
by John McPhee
The New Yorker
August 6, 2007
"GOLF CAMELOT"
"NCGA Golf 's TOP CLASSIC ARCHITECTS"
"RENOVATIONS ON THE MONTEREY PENINSULA"
NCGA Golf
Summer, 2007
"CHAMPION OF DESIGN"-JAMES BRAID
"BY SCOTTISH DESIGN"-BENDELOW,MACKENZIE,ROSS
"FROM SCOTLAND WITH LOVE"- REID,ANDERSON, ARMOUR AND THE SMITHS
"HOLE-BY-HOLE A PROFESSIONAL APPROACH"
(TO CARNOUSTIE)
The Open Championship Official Magazine
Summer, 2007
"BLAST FROM THE PAST"
Virginia's Historic Triangle
by Martin Kaufmann
"EYE ON ARCHITECURE"
"RIBBON CUTTINGS"
Golfweek
Summer, 2007
"COME AND GET IT!"
by Marino Parascenzo
The Official U.S.Open Championship Program
Summer, 2007
"THE NEXT 10 YEARS: ARCHITECTURE"
by Vic Williams
Fairways & Greens
Spring, 2007
"MASTERS PLAN"
Several Young Course Architects Provide Their Suggestions
for Future Changes to Augusta National
by Geoff Shackelford
Links, The Best of Golf
April, 2007
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[ Golf ] is a science - the study of a lifetime, in which you may exhaust yourself but never your subject. It is a contest, a duel or a mellee, calling for courage, skill, strategy and self control. It is a test of temper, a trail of honor, a revealer of character. It affords the chance to play the man and act the gentleman. It means going into God's out-of-doors, getting close to nature, fresh air, exercise, a sweeping away of mental cobwebs, general recreation of the tired tissues. It is a cure for care - an antidote for worry. It includes companionship with friends, social intercourse, opportunity for courtesy, kindliness and generosity to an opponent. It promotes not only physical health but mental force.
David S. Forgan, Scottish golfer and clubmaker (ca. 1890)
[ Golf ] consists of putting a little white ball in a little hole with instruments very ill-adapted for the purpose.
Winston Churchill
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| Visualize the course design! |
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| Be the ball!! |
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