Bruce Hepner and Jim Urbina both began working for Tom Doak at Renaissance Design in the early 1990s, spending many days and hours together on the road for well over a decade. Hepner opened his own business in 2012 and is now one of the most admired renovation and restoration specialists in the business. He…
Few people in the golf design business knew Pete Dye better than Bobby Weed, who first interned for his mentor in the 1970s. Weed comes into the Salon with Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina to share his thoughts on how Dye continues to influence him, the overriding consideration of drainage, being courted by Jack Nicklaus,…
In this volume of the Salon, architect Gil Hanse sits with Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina to discuss how he and design partner Jim Wagner build golf courses. They talk about the sanctity of being on machinery, if routing is more vital to a good course than shaping, the importance of “cooling off,” the importance…
Architect Mike DeVries steps into the Salon with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan to discuss arguably the granddaddy of all design topics, routing. The long and winding conversation touches on the exposures of Cape Wickham, sacrificing extraordinary holes for the sake of rhythm and continuity, routing around natural greensites, if routing is a skill that…
Thad Layton, principal at Arnold Palmer Design Company, enters the Salon to talk to Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina about Palmer and the rules of architecture. Specifically the discussion revolves around fundamental rules, when it’s advisable to break them, whether it’s ever permissible to design crossing holes, working within the constraints of conservative developers, straight…
Golf course designer and renovation specialist Jeff Mingay enters the Salon to talk about St. Andrews with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan. The central theme is, if The Old Course is so great, why aren’t there more courses that are like it? Topics include the importance of boundaries to traditional golf expectations, blind tee shots,…
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.…
Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan discuss George Thomas, Pete Dye’s par-5 holes, Riviera, the Ghost Tree at Old Macdonald, whether bunkers have become too sanitized, “reasonable” green speeds, Stimpmeter readings from the 1970s. Powered bycowin app download Then Don Mahaffey enters the salon to talk about the beautiful simplicity of Mike Nuzzo’s Wolf Point, the…
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…
George Waters began his design career after spending a summer living and doing course maintenance in Dornoch, then getting an internship with Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design. He worked construction projects for a variety of designers, including Doak, then wrote the seminal book on sand based courses, Sand and Golf: How Terrain Shapes the Game.…