Designer Bill Coore comes into the salon to discuss greens and putting surfaces with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan. Topics include the importance of shaping greens and surrounds in relation to single holes or the entire golf course, the 14th and 2nd greens at Sand Hills, building “floating” greens and finding natural landforms, looking vs.…
For almost 25 years, Jeff Bradley has been known as the preeminent builder of golf course bunkers in the U.S. Working primarily for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, his artistic bunkering has helped define the strategies and style of places like Cuscowilla, Bandon Trails and Friars Head. In doing so, Bradley has influenced a generation…
Drew Rogers hung out his own design shingle in 2010 after working 18 years with the firm of (Arthur ) Hills & (Steve) Forrest. While working for Hills he gained extensive expertise building new golf courses, albeit it to the specifications of Hills and his clients. Today, Rogers’ own architectural point of view is evident…
Tom Dunne founded the independent golf journal McKellar in 2017. Featuring alluring artwork with a playful point of view and stories from the best writers in the business, McKellar has become one of the brightest stars of a much welcomed revival of boutique publishing. In the course of traveling extensively to explore different courses and…
Eric Iverson has worked with Tom Doak at Renaissance Golf Design since 2001. He’s widely viewed by his peers as one of the business’s most skilled and creative shapers and construction specialists. He helped craft such instant classics like Ballyneal, Cape Kidnappers, Barnbougle Dunes and Streamsong Blue. He also ran the Stone Eagle, Rock Creek…
Richard Mandell’s golf design practice has taken off over the last 10 years. He entered the business in the early 1990’s and paid his dues for over a decade working singular jobs while learning how to build and renovate courses with a minimal amount of of unnecessary inputs or accessorization. As a result he gained a…
Expectations can be a hell of a thing. No architect on earth would have turned down the chance to build the fourth course at Bandon Dunes. But whomever did get the job knew they were accepting near heart-attack levels of expectation. It was obvious there would be extreme pressure to match the brilliance that already existed…
Once when I couldn’t sleep I tried to mentally run through the holes at Pacific Dunes. I normally have strong recall when it comes to golf holes and I could visualize each one at Pacific Dunes, placing the major features, the elevations, the sweep of the fairways plus prominent bunkers and green movements. What I couldn’t…
The book on Bandon Trails has always read something like this: developer Mike Kaiser wanted Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to build the third course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, but after the original Bandon Dunes course and then Pacific Dunes grabbed all the most prestigious property, all he could offer them was a piece of land set back from the coast with no opportunity for the dramatic…
In this episode of Feed the Ball, Derek Duncan speaks to Bill Coore, who along with design partner Ben Crenshaw and their team of shapers has built a collection of what are considered to be some of the greatest golf courses of the last 60 or 70 years. Bill shares his thoughts on life and…