Perhaps wanting to avert the mass gagging that commenced the last time he built a PGA TOUR TPC course in a Southern swamp, Pete Dye kept the spice in this particular gumbo relatively mild. Or perhaps it just seems that way since the pros — and all of us too — are much more acclimated to Dye’s cooking…
I’d like to ask Jerry Pate someday why he routed Kiva Dunes the way it is. I’m sure there’s a good reason all the holes run east-west, I’d just like to know what it is. Lack of acreage could have something to do with it. The site is on a narrow isthmus on the coastal edge of Alabama between Bon…
South Carolina native Beau Welling played college golf at Brown University and earned a landscape architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. After exploring career opportunities in several diverse fields, he committed to golf course architecture joining Tom Fazio’s staff in the late 1990’s. In 2007 he opened his own firm in Greenville, and became…
Trying to describe the essentials of good golf course routing calls to mind Justice Potter Stewart’s old brief about classifying porn — I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. Bad golf course routings can be spotted miles away but truly great ones can be sublime. You often don’t realize they’re…
The first project Kyle Franz ever worked on was Tom Doak’s masterpiece, Pacific Dunes, a course now recognized as one of the best in the world. That fortuitous turn launched his design/build career where he amassed one of the business’s strongest pedigrees shaping courses for Bill Coore, Tim Liddy, Gil Hanse and others. His big solo break came…
Golf courses built on sloping terrain usually feature distinct sections or acts, as the land transitions from high to low ground and back. Depending on the topography and architecture, some holes may fit better on the ground and offer highlights other areas can’t match. But the key on such sites is to unify all of it and make…
Let’s get one thing out of the way — the greater Atlanta area in one of the weakest golf markets of all major American cities. Which is ironic because, for many people, Georgia represents a very specific type of American golf ideal. Most of that feeling, of course, is tethered to the fantasy of Augusta National. It isn’t so…
Debates regarding the best golf in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia typically revolve around tier 2 and 3 courses, as general consensus exists about the clubs there that are truly elite. Not so Atlanta. Once past Peachtree Golf Club, widely considered no. 1 by knowledgable players and panels (including me), the conversation about what’s good in Atlanta quickly devolves…
Sweetens Cove has captured the hearts and minds of the architecture world. Rob Collins and design partner Tad King began building the 9-hole course, 30 minutes west of Chattanooga, in 2012 and have watched it become an impassioned touchstone for a vocal, hardcore group of golf course fanatics as it marches steadily up the golf…
A favorite debate among golf architecture students and historians is about what courses constitute the most influential in the evolution of golf design. Most groupings would include St. Andrews, National Golf Links of America, Pine Valley, Augusta National, and Sand Hills. The PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is often cited as another construction and cultural landmark. For better or worse (depending to…