Category: Podcasts

Episode 81: Jim Nagle

Episode 81: Jim Nagle

Jim Nagle began working with golf course renovation and historical restoration legend Ron Forse in 1998, in what might be considered the field’s pioneering days. Golf course restoration is an attempt to reestablish a course’s first principles–placing it back in a specific point in time, usually in accordance with the way the original architect designed…

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Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 23, ft. Jason Straka

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 23, ft. Jason Straka

Jason Straka has been a principle in Fry/Straka Global Golf Design since joining with partner Dana Fry in 2012. Previously he was the senior architect for Hurdzan-Fry Golf Design, helping that company build landmark courses like Calusa Pines, Erin Hills and Shelter Harbor. Fry/Straka is one of the hottest design firms in the world right…

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Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 22, ft. Andy Staples

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 22, ft. Andy Staples

Andy Staples positioned himself as one of the profession’s most creative architects with his throwback renovation of Meadowbrook Country Club near Detroit with its Willie Park, Jr. inspired early-1900s shaping. He moved into the 1920s with his green designs and shot strategies at The Match Course at PGA National Resort, opened in 2021, that pull…

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Feed the Ball Salon Volume 21, ft. Chris Cochran

Feed the Ball Salon Volume 21, ft. Chris Cochran

Chris Cochran began his career building golf courses for Jack Nicklaus in the mid-1980s. With over 100 international projects completed, he is Nicklaus Design’s longest tenured senior design associate, and since the early 90s has arguably been the most significant mover behind Nicklaus Design’s global operation. Cochran sits down with Golf Digest architecture editor Derek…

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Episode 80: Joe Jemsek on Dick Wilson

Episode 80: Joe Jemsek on Dick Wilson

Joe Jemsek grew up with Dick Wilson. At least figuratively. In the early 1960s, Wilson, one of golf architecture’s most interesting and possibly misunderstood figures, designed the former America’s 100 Greatest Course Cog Hill No. 4 in Chicago, known as Dubsdread, for Jemsek’s grandfather. Few people knew Wilson or his former partner Joe Lee as…

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Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 20, ft. Dave Axland and Tim Liddy

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 20, ft. Dave Axland and Tim Liddy

Tim Liddy and Dave Axland have worked together on a number of projects including, most recently, Harrison Lake in Indiana, a remodel that included the addition of several new holes and a re-routing of the course. Liddy, the primary designer, was a longtime collaborator with the late Pete Dye and knows his mentor’s work and…

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Episode 79: Andrew Green

Episode 79: Andrew Green

In just the last several years, designer Andrew Green has played a prominent role in guiding back to their founding architectural spirit a number of prominent major championship courses, including America’s 100 Greatest Courses fixtures Inverness Club, Oak Hill East and Congressional Blue. He’s also brought back to life the most interesting features that had…

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Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 19: Bunkers ft. Ron Whitten

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 19: Bunkers ft. Ron Whitten

The topic is bunkers: should they be placed scientifically or randomly? Should there be more or less, or any at all? Has the naturalistic look become ubiquitous and overused? What about proper bunker depth? Are liners a waste of money? And are bunker still the hazards they once were, have they lost their importance, and…

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Episode 78: Steve Smyers and Rethinking Strategy

Episode 78: Steve Smyers and Rethinking Strategy

Like most architects, Steve Smyers has a deep reverence for the classical era and the strategic brilliance of Harry Colt, Alister MacKenzie, George Thomas and others. However, as an elite player as well as a veteran designer, he realized the basic strategic precepts that have existed since the early 1900s and have guided much of…

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Episode 77: Craig Haltom

Episode 77: Craig Haltom

In this Feed the Ball podcast, we get deep into some Wisconsin golf talk with golf course architect Craig Haltom. Haltom joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan to discuss recreating C.B. Macdonald’s The Lido at Sand Valley, how GPS technology has the potential to change the way courses are preserved and finished, how he…

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