Walking Stick features one of the most distinctive natural features in Colorado golf, a gaping, rocky arroyo, yawning wide in anticipation of errant shots. Too bad it’s an almost irrelevant golf feature. Maybe architect Arthur Hills was shy about having public players hit over the chasm, or there was no affordable way to get golfers…
Julington Creek Golf Club is the kind of course that’s hard to say much of anything about, good, bad or indifferent. Well, maybe indifferent. It’s basic, competent Jacksonville golf, which is to say it’s flat, roams enormously through a development, features a good bit of water and a few wetland crossings, and has little unique character.…
The short review of The King & Prince Golf Course (formerly known as The Hampton Club), out at the north tip of St. Simons Island and owned by The King & Prince Beach Resort, is 14 exercises in rather ordinary Lowcountry-style golf interrupted by an out-of-the-ordinary four-hole foray through a large Intracoastal marsh. The longer version is that…
To renovate or restore. That is the question many historic clubs must decide when their courses are in need of repair. Just as many would view it a tragedy to deface a pristine Colonial- or antebellum-era house with modern accoutrements, prominent golf voices believe the features of classic era courses, and the architectural intent behind…
I’ll be speaking soon to Ron Prichard, golf course architect and one of the most respected historic restoration specialists in the business (we’ll find out if he approves or disapproves of that term). I’m sure it will be a lively chat — check back in next week for the discussion.
In this episode, architect Bill Bergin and Derek Duncan catch up and discuss a wide array of subjects including Bill’s recent and upcoming re-workings of several historic clubs, WWSRD (what would Seth Raynor do?), keeping pace with Bob Tway and the northwest Atlanta high school golf scene, going low at St. Andrews, Bill’s top 3 Atlanta…
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…
Outside of his courses in New York, maybe, Rees Jones is probably better known for his work renovating and prepping courses for major championships than he is for his original designs. He earned the moniker “The Open Doctor” (his father, Robert Trent Jones, was the original Open Doctor) for his renovations of courses like The Country Club, Pinehurst No.2, Bethpage Black, Torrey Pines (South) and Congressional for…
The International Course at this 36-hole complex a few miles southwest of Disney World was conceived to emulate the look and characteristics of Scottish and Irish links (there’s also the National course, designed in an “American” style). I’m not sure which links courses exactly, because I can’t think of any off the top of my…
For years this club was an amenity to members and guests of the General Oglethorpe Hotel, one of the grand buildings of the East Coast (designed by the old firm of Schultze & Weaver, architects of New York’s Waldorf Astoria and The Breakers in Palm Beach) that stood, and still stands, imperiously along the…