A Worldwide Perspective Volume One

A WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVE VOLUME ONE What 1s golf architecture? Tom Doak Great golf architects have come from every design is no more complicated than deciding ing would be an ideal career for me. Had I OPPOSITE: Thirteenth hole, Pacific Dunes, Oregon, background imaginable. James Braid and how one wants a golf hole to play. Others, taken a wrong turn somewhere? USA. (Photo by Wood Jack Nicklaus were professional golfers, and describing it in the same terms as drawing or Certainly, golf course design is not without Sabold © Bandon Dunes Resort.I Alister Mackenzie was famously a medical sculpture, must never have seen my own its engineering applications: civil engineering doctor. Charles Blair Macdonald was a stock pathetic attempts at freehand sketching. for the grading of the course and hydraulic broker, Pete Dye an insurance salesman, In high school, I was a mathematics whiz, engineering for the planning of the irrigation George Crump a hotel owner, and William and so I spent my first year of college at system. Pete Dye once told me that ninety Flynn, a greenkeeper. All had a love for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology learn five per cent of the job is making drainage game of golf, but many of them managed to ing that I did not have a burning desire to be look good, and there's a lot of truth to that. design and construct their first masterworks an engineer. Advised that landscape architec Yet I had never really thought of routing holes with almost no formal training for their new ture was the best academic background for and shaping them as a form of engineering. avocation. How did they do it? And what is at golf architecture, I transferred to Cornell The classic definition of engineering is the root of golf design? University and learned what I could from the application of a system to a specific situa I have many friends and acquaintances drawing planting plans and grading parking tion. In golf architecture, this would be the who envy the career I chose, though few seem lots. Years later, I was asked to take a person application of the game of golf, with all its to understand what I do. Some clearly believe ality test, which pegged me to a tee, except for complexities and varying appeals, to each indi they could do it themselves: that golf course the baffling recommendation that engineer- vidual piece of land. TOM DOAK 1 Another view of the magnificent golfing terrain and scenery at Pacific Dunes. Tenth hole facing north-west. (Photo by Wood Sabold © Bandon Dunes Resort.I 2 GOLF ARCHITECTURE: A WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVE This is precisely what the golf architect would that have affected the holes around it? design, a 200-acre property is so complex, and FOLLOWING PAGES: (left) Fifth hole Pacific Dunes, must do. One tries to fit golf shots and strate Unfortunately, many modern architects have the rules of golf design so free-form that it is facing south-east. gies to the contours of the land. Green sites simplified things for themselves by rationalis impossible to consider every solution. In fact, (right) Thirteenth hole facing north. (Photos by and fairway landing areas should be put in ing that golf carts reduce the need for easily few golf course critics seem able to separate Wood Sabold © Bandon spots with an appropriate amount of elbow connected holes. This is one of the reasons we the art from the canvas-a sad truth, which Dunes Resort.) room and surrounding difficulty. Tees are have less variety of golf holes today, and is the makes it more difficultfor young designers to located where the important features will be main reason golf takes longer to play. A great achieve recognition for their efforts with in view, while affording an easy transition example of golf course routing is Mackenzie's lesser properties and modest budgets. from the previous hole. Fairway contours plan for the third through sixth holes at Royal At the dawn of golf architecture, the field affect the golfer's stance and the action of the Melbourne, at what later became the West was dominated by golf professionals and ball after it lands. In the larger picture, we are Course. If the same holes were built today, greenkeepers, only few of whom had any real putting together a three-dimensional puzzle many golfers would criticise the fourth hole talent for solving puzzles. In the boom of the with an eighteen-piece ( or perhaps, a seventy for its blind tee shot, which even Mackenzie twenties, bright minds from a variety of back two piece) solution. would have admitted was less than ideal. But grounds were captivated by the game of golf, Two aspects make the job especially appeal the routing of the fourth up over the hill made and a rush of outstanding golf courses was ing to the engineering mind. The first is that the third, fifth and sixth holes possible, and his born. I believe the new generation of archi changing one piece of the puzzle will have addition of bold, carry bunkers at the top of tects has similar promise. Just as Tiger Woods ramifications forat least one other piece, a fact the hill made the fourth both dramatic and hits golf shots which Old Tom Morris could lost on many critics of golf courses. The critic unique. Indeed, the fourth may well be the best not imagine, tomorrow's golf architects will might believe, for instance, that the fourth hole of the lot, although Mackenzie himself create original and exciting golf holes, as hole would have made a better par-3 than a probably did not visualise that it would turn unique as the land they are built upon. par-4. Perhaps so, but would the third hole out so. have been as good if the green were extended The other interesting aspect of golf design further on? If we didn't want fiveor six par-3 to the engineering mind is that each puzzle is holes on the course, which of the others would different, and none offers a definitive solu have had to be extended into a par-4, and how tion. Apart from the subjective nature of TOM DOAK 3 .

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