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…
How much do lakes and other large bodies of water influence our perception of golf holes? Do we tend to overvalue holes, or courses, if they have big water backdrops, or does water make golf better or at least more exciting? How does one separate scenery from a hole’s intrinsic merits? This is a philosophical…
One of the most inspirational views in American golf is off the deck of Ben’s Porch at Sand Hills Golf Club after you’ve taken the mile or so cart ride up from the clubhouse. The entire Sand Hills panoramic opens before you, a diorama of green ribboning across a whipped and weathered horizon with players marching…
Rod Whitman has been one of golf’s masters of construction for nearly 40 years and has designed a number of courses on his own. In 2010 he got the call every architect dreams of — an offer to design and build a course on one of the world’s great new seaside properties, in this case…
One of the reasons Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s golf courses are held in such high regard—by architectural cognoscenti, by magazine ranking panels and international developers—is that they’re so often, so obviously, brilliant. The pretext is that they’ve been hired to construct courses on some of the greatest sites made available in the last 40 years. But when they get there, they…
Every architect’s ideal scenario is to be able string together unlimited variations of holes on a vast, moving, unencumbered property. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s boundless opportunity at Sand Hills comes to mind when we think of the ultimate example of man vs. wild golf design. In other situations, limitless freedom across a property can be anything but liberating. Few places…
Keith Rhebb is one of the leaders of a new generation of golf course architects who have learned the trade shaping courses for design-build luminaries like Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Tom Doak, and Gil Hanse. He’s worked for Coore and Crenshaw at places like Lost Farm at Barnbougle Dunes, Cabot Cliffs and Streamsong…
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…
It’s impossible to talk about Pinehurst No. 2 without talking about the big convex greens. And it’s hard to talk about the greens without recalling Pete Dye’s old yarn about how they got the way they are. Dye played the No. 2 course weekly while stationed at Fort Bragg in the 1940’s. The greens then were not particularly crowned…