Oregon native Dan Hixson began his golf career as a tour pro and later became a club professional, but his real desire was to be a golf course architect. Despite no formal training, he slowly learned the profession and soon was hired to build Bandon Crossings, a public course just south of Bandon Dunes. That…
Ron Whitten has been one of the most prominent and influential voices in golf course architecture since the mid-1980’s when he became Golf Digest’s architecture editor. He created the current criteria for the magazine’s popular (or, depending, notorious) Top 100 U.S & World Courses lists, has written various books including the essential compendium, “The Architects of…
Architect Jeff Mingay broke into golf course architecture working projects for his mentor and fellow Canadian Rod Whitman. In 2009, after completing a trio of Canada’s most exceptional modern golf courses — Blackhawk, Sagebrush and Cabot Links — he opened his own design business and found immediate success renovating and restoring courses in British Columbia…
Mike Young has seen the golf course design business from all sides, starting as a rep for maintenance and turf companies before establishing himself as one of the state of Georgia’s most prominent and prolific architects. Young builds his courses the old fashioned way — himself — and his years as designer, builder and…
Keith Cutten is an integral player in golf design’s next generation who has worked alongside a variety of architects including Bill Coore, Jeff Mingay, Doug Carrick and, most importantly, his mentor Rod Whitman shaping features, drafting plans, developing budgets and running job sites. He’s also one of the leading young historians on golf course design and…
Dr. Michael Hurdzan was on golf’s center stage the summer of 2017 during the U.S. Open, contested at Erin Hills, the giant, rambling meadow course he designed with then partner Dana Fry and Ron Whitten. It was a well-deserved moment for the architect known as much for building some of the most artistically voluptuous courses…
Nobody’s roots stretch deeper into the field of golf architecture than Robert Trent Jones II’s. Oldest son of Robert Trent Jones and now in his sixth decade of design, he’s been literally almost everywhere, seen everything and been a prominent voice the industry his entire life. After some light banter about fatalism and nuclear bombs,…
Certain elements of the Ridge Course at Oxmoor Valley in southeast Birmingham are fairly outrageous. I think of the 1st and 2nd holes (formerly the 10th and 11th, a par-4 followed by a par-5, one going uphill, the other downhill) that are so steep they play like a life size Q-bert pyramid where the only place a ball can come to rest…
The Valley Course at Oxmoor Valley makes a dramatic entrance with a tee shot that drops nearly 200 feet to a fairway bracketed by large clover bunkers. The rest of the routing covers the tamer flats on the western side of Little Shades Mountain with none of the big up and down movements of the Ridge Course, at…
Many people, and many rankings, consider the Lake Course at Grand National the best stop on Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Trail. I’m not sure I agree (Ross Bridge) but I wouldn’t waste time arguing with them. Other locations have their strong points, but if you want to know what the Trail is all about visit here…