Black Bear is located north of Orlando in a kind of rural badlands full of scrub, sand and pockets of wetlands preserves, though the site for this course is dry and fairly rugged. I call this “country golf” because there’s not much else around this slowly rolling property with scant trees and few people. The…
LPGA International provides a good lesson why resorts and clubs should hire different architects when building more than one course. First, why not offer variety? Second, it’s insurance against the one of the courses falling out of style, or out of favor, as it did here. It isn’t often in a golf lineup that an Arthur…
The Champions Course at LPGA International is Rees Jones in all his stereotypical glory with repeated perimeter bubble humps and cartoonish bunkers. The uniformly round and oval greens look like they were designed by computers programmed to calculate perfectly spaced 1 through 5 pin positions separated by linear shelves and tiers. The entire site is flat and rotten with…
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.…
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…
Noted golf course architect and past winner of Golf Digest’s Architect of the Year Award Jim Engh calls in to talk to Derek Duncan about the concept of image creation, pushing the envelop in his designs, the eureka moment that led him to pursue his bold style of golf holes, chasing an endorphine rush on…