Golf designer Dana Fry began his career learning the business as an associate for Tom Fazio, and later forged a prominent partnership with Dr. Michael Hurdzan. With Hurdzan he created such top U.S. courses as Erin Hills, site of the 2017 U.S. Open, and Calusa Pines in Florida. Today he runs his business with partner…
It’s not unreasonable to suggest the path of golf architecture in the second half of the 20th century can be traced through Ron Kirby. His career has been a remarkable Zelig-like whirlwind placing him in the immediate proximity of Dick Wilson, Robert Trent Jones, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and many others. His name is on…
Rees Jones‘ design work has touched public, resort, club golf and major championship golf as much as any architect of the modern era. He enters the Salon to talk with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan about balancing the many voices that weigh in on projects in the “remodeling era,” constructing on technically challenging sites vs…
From the original course at Bandon Dunes to The Castle Course at St. Andrews, to Gamble Sands in Washington and then to Mammoth Dunes in Wisconsin, David McLay Kidd has been one of the most innovative and courageous course designers of this generation. He joins Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina in the Salon to discuss…
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…
Peter Kessler — the Voice of Golf, historian and one of the most outspoken commentators in the game — returns to the podcast to talk to Derek about his recent social media dustups with Brandel Chamblee and the fans of No Laying Up, about being provocative on Twitter, the skills required to be great on…
P.B. Dye began working on his father Pete Dye’s construction sites when he was a boy. Along with his brother, Perry, he’s had the closest and longest view of how Dye conceived of and built golf courses and was a primary assistant during several of his father’s touchstone courses, including Long Cove on Hilton Head…